I started doing improvs as a way of keeping myself writing, despite having very little actual time or inclination much of the time. I seem to be best at short things, too, and improvs are a way of trying out fandoms I don't normally write. Some have expanded into stories. Potential WIPs are labelled as such.
The following snippets may contain slash (m/m and f/f), het, violence, death, swearing, excessive warm-fuzziness, and obscurity. I don't feel like warning, but there's nothing higher than R (maybe not even higher than PG-13). They are of extremely varied quality; some improvs are more inspiring than others.
#1 (Adri): daroga, mask, persian carpet. The Phantom of the Opera. Gen.
#2 (Adri): Christine, Erika, sneakers, book, bloody nose. POTO modernes. f/f slash, although since they're technically OFCs, it's not really slash. WIP
#3 (Adri): Merlin, silver, crucifix, ocean, eyes. Arthurian legend. m/m UST. WIP
#4 (Adri): Lana, Halloween, day of the dead, moon. Smallville. Gen.
#5 (Adri): Silent Bob, asphalt, rain, "words, words, words!" Askewniverse. m/m UST.
#6 (Adri): Jay, plaster, quiet. Askewniverse. Gen.
#7 (Adri): Erika, Jay, mud, rain, Manhunt. POTO modernes. Gen. WIP
#8 (afrai): Amidala, lightsabre, fuzzy, dear. Star Wars Prequels. Gen/het.
#9 (Me, as an experiment, afrai's half of which which be found here): Aziraphale, sushi, brown, duck. Good Omens. Gen.
#10 (Adri): Chloe, Lana, Pete, couch, Dogma [the movie]. Smallville. Bring-Your-Own-Subtext.
#11 (Adri): Viola, Olivia, autumn, bare. Twelfth Night. f/f slash.
#12 (Carina): Han, Leia, tense, glinted, chill. Star Wars Trilogy. Gen/Het.
#13 (Carina): Anakin, blue, empty, scar. Star Wars Prequels. Gen/het.
#14 (Carina): Desire, Delirium, coax, pink, melt, teeth. Sandman. Gen.
#15 (Adri): Shakespeare, Marlowe, ink, lamp, glass. Dead playwright RPS. m/m slash.
#16 (Adri): kiss, shadow, dust, bare, British, filth, sky, empty, endless. Lawrence of Arabia. m/m slash. Complete Story
#17 (Adri): Auda aby Tayi, observe, stretch, hide, pain, bearing, sword, politician. Lawrence of Arabia. Gen.
#18 (Adri): Gwen, sweat, arms, pavement, wind, clouds, shirt, silver. Arthurian modernes. f/f UST. WIP
#19 (Meredith): Mama Morton/Velma Kelly, crumpled five-dollar bill, echo, suffocate, razor, garter. Chicago. f/f UST. WIP
#20 (Adri): James, Alec, bruise, gravel, glare, bright, teeth, strain. James Bond movies (GoldenEye). m/m UST or gen, beats me.
#21 (Adri): Lawrence, Ali, scars, pallid, glint, heat, night, tongue. Lawrence of Arabia. m/m slash (PWP). (also written for dailyporn)
#22 (Adri): Lawrence, Ali, (alternate Damascus conversation scene), kiss, catch, relief, sleeve. Lawrence of Arabia. m/m UST. WIP
#23 (Adri): Buri, Thayet, hair, calluses, skin, [sultry/lazy mood]. Tamora Pierce's Tortall novels. f/f UST (unrequited). Complete Story
At first the daroga thought it was blood on the carpet in the shadows, a darker blotch against the figured Persian carpet. A frission of fear seized him. The state Erik had been in--there was no predicting what he would do.
He could do anything. Had done, in the past.
He stepped forward cautiously, peering at the corner, and as he came nearer, he saw that it was not blood at all, but a black silk mask. Strange, how insubstantial and fragile it looked, for such a powerful thing.
He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. The Opera Ghost was gone, then. Did that mean Erik remained or--
Well.
If Erik wanted to reveal himself again, he would.
The daroga set the mask carefully on an inlaid writing desk and left, closing the door behind him.
Erika is curled up in the windowseat of Christine's apartment. Late afternoon sunlight surrounds her, and her hair flames so brightly Christine wants to look away. Sometimes it hurts to look at Erika, because she's so beautiful, so intense, and she can't see what Christine can.
Sometimes Christine thinks that will doom them, but she just holds Erika tighter and sings for her and tries not to think too hard about the future. True love is for opera, after all, and has a tendency to lead to death.
Maybe it's better this way.
Erika is wearing jeans and battered old sneakers, her feet pressed tight against the wall. Her tee-shirt is from Into the Woods (they went for their six month anniversary, and Erika cried in the bathroom afterwards. Erika still thought Christine didn't know), and Christine has a sudden sharp vision of Erika as she could have been, onstage, commanding and beautiful in red tatters:
Children will listen....
Christine stands in the doorway, watching, her groceries forgotten in her arms. Erika is still caught up in her book, her head bent over the page and her glorious hair hanging over her cheek.
Christine suddenly wants to see Erika's eyes again, to reassure herself that they're still the same, that nothing's changed, because it all feels unreal: the sunlit room, Erika in her windowseat, the mundanity of grocery-shopping is too far removed from their strange courtship in smoky nightclubs and theatres and subway tunnels. For a moment she wishes they were back in Red Bank with Jay and Bob, like they had been that summer before everything blew up.
Erika suddenly drops the book and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Fuck!" she mutters, her voice muffled. "Kleenex?"
The moment shattered, Christine quickly sets down the groceries on a side table. She digs in her pocket for a packet of tissues and hands one to Erika. "Nosebleed?"
"Yeah," Erika says, pressing the tissue to her nose and leaning over her knees. She laughs, a little shakily. "I hate it when this happens."
Christine nods, not trusting herself to find words. She wants to tell Erika how much she loves her, but it's just too weird right now. Everything's different today, and she's not sure why.
Erika's hair is all colors of flame in the fading light.
Myrddin had liked the ocean before, the storm-greys and deep blues and rich greens, its moods and shifts with the weather. That was before he had met Arthur's lady, and seen the hatred in her ocean-grey eyes grow and swell like the waves against the white cliffs.
She had not always hated him--at first she was a timid girl, taken from her home to be wife to Arthur, dux bellorum of the Britons. Then she was Arthur's wife, at least a little in love with him and wide-eyed at her new responsibilities and her new womanhood. Myrddin thought Arthur had been in love with her then, or at least with the idea of her. Gwenhwyfar the White, to inspire men to death and glory.
But she changed with the arrival of the priests, with their crucifixes and their dead God, and Arthur changed with her. He wore the Virgin on his shield and he listened more to Gwenhwyfar than to his friends.
His moods grew black and quicksilver, and he drank too much now, while his lady trysted with his most trusted warrior.
Myrddin watched Gwenhwyfar destroy the man he loved, and knew too well how love could turn to hated.
Lana had never been a big fan of Halloween. All the costumes and candy, the scary movies and teenage pranks, just made her uncomfortable. It should be a day of the dead, a day for remembering those gone, not a day for egging people's cars or eating enough candy to make you sick.
Every Halloween she stopped by her parents' grave after school to leave flowers. Chrysanthemums, usually, since not much else was in season, and she'd always associated them with funerals, anyway. Then she'd go home and carve a jack o'lantern, because Nell expected it of her. The first year she had suggested not making a jack o'lantern, Nell had looked at her disapprovingly and asked if she was going to be morbid again.
So Lana carved the jack o'lantern, and dug out an old black lace dress and a pair of ankle boots from the back of her closet, painted her face with gold eyeshadow and black lipstick, the same paltry attempt at a witch costume that she made every year, and went and sat by the door with a book, ready to hand out candy to this year's endless parades of bedsheet ghosts and wizard schoolchildren.
This year she was reading Much Ado About Nothing for English class; the previous year it had been a trashy paperback romance novel, her secret vice along with whipped cream straight from the can and scarlet lipstick that she never wore in public. Well, hardly ever.
She smiled blankly at Nell and buried herself in her book so she wouldn't see the moon.
Silent Bob kicked at a crushed beer can and watched it skitter over the asphalt, the clatter echoing off the buildings like Jay's words still echoed in his head. Fuckin' fag, bet you want a piece of me, huh? Well, you're not gonna get it, you fuckin' tubby bitch. Jesus, don't look so hurt. It's just the truth, ain't it? Fuckin' crybaby.
He knew Jay didn't mean it - most of it - after all, he'd lived with Jay for longer than he wanted to think about. But sometimes he just got tired of Jay's incessant patter. Words, words, words.
He needed to get out of town for a week, find some quiet little hotel in the middle of nowhere to crash. Read a book, sleep late, get stoned, get Jay's voice out of his head.
The first drizzles of rain began to spot his trenchcoat, and he hitched it up a bit in a vain attempt to cover his head. Got to get out of town, out of town, just for the weekend, the litany as relentless as the rain.
Silent Bob didn't talk because he liked to hear his own thoughts, but he couldn't hear them with Jay's taunts echoing through his brain. Maybe he'd just go get drunk somewhere, forget about Jay for a while, jaded boy with the pretty hair and the vicious mouth.
The worst part was that Jay was right.
Jay stared up at the ceiling. There was a stain on the plaster in one corner that looked rather like a nun if he squinted. A lop-sided nun, maybe with a five o'clock shadow. A transvestite nun. Jay shuddered. Where the fuck did his mind come up with these thoughts, anyway?
Boredom.
He turned over, reached under the bed without looking, and came up with a dog-eared comic book. He flipped through it. Boring. Boring boring boring.
He rolled over again and stared at the ceiling. It was too quiet without Bob around.
Right, so the tubby bitch wasn't very talkative, but his presence made the silence a bit less crazy. Where the fuck was he, anyway? He couldn't have been offended, could he? Jay was just talking shit. Bob knew that. He had to.
Jay thought about getting up, finding something to eat, or a joint, or a beer. Too much work.
The quiet screamed in his ears.
Where the fuck was Bob?
"Jay," Erika said, raising one eyebrow. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"
Jay glanced down at himself. Long black shorts with more pockets than any clothing had a right to, black sweatshirt, stocking cap, bits of duct tape all over his shirt for easy reach, combat boots. "What? I'm fuckin' ready to play Manhunt!" As an afterthought, "Snoogans."
"You have mud. All over your face."
"Camo, bitch!"
Silent Bob glanced at Erika and shrugged.
"Whatever." Erika shook her head. She was also wearing black, but her jeans and sneakers were a bit less paramilitary chic than Jay's getup, and she'd passed on the mud.
After Jay had warned her off three targets, she gave in and smeared the exposed parts of her face with mud.
After Jay tagged the last of Christine's nieces and nephews, leaving only Erika and Bob as Hiders, Erika leapt up on top of the picnic table, duct tape firmly in hand, and crowed, "You're going down, bizzatch!"
It started to rain, and she laughed and headed for the bushes. She could get to the lawn flamingo flock before Jay, if she played her cards right.
Anakin had left his lightsabre behind.
He had left Naboo three days previous, and Amidala was pretty sure she wouldn't see him again, or if she did, he wouldn't be the same.
It had been years since she had cried for her own pain, but even now, as she sat curled on her bed, the cool handle of her husband's deactivated lightsabre in her hand, the tears wouldn't come.
Thinking of him was too hard; it made the space behind her eyes prick, and her head hurt. She felt like her thoughts were wrapped in cotton, fuzzy and indistinct. In the clear moments after she woke up in the morning, or just before she fell asleep, she wondered if he -- or someone else -- was clouding her mind, trying to keep her from thinking too hard. She couldn't find the energy to care.
The only reasons she had to live now were the twins, dear Luke, already the near-image of his father, and fiery Leia, who looked nothing like Amidala had at that age. Even the politics she had been trained for, the diplomacy that had been her life since she was a child, had lost their glow.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, behind the rising darkness, she knew she would have to leave soon. For the twins' sake, if not her own.
It had been sometime during the Tokugawa period, in late autumn. The wind over the mountains was cold, and brought the first driftings of snow.
The streets of Osaka were nearly deserted; one man stood out in the crowd simply by his ability to blend in. He was a bit plump, entirely ordinary, and absolutely unmemorable. He wore the brown hemp kimono of a well-to-do merchant, and walked in an extraordinarily unpurposeful manner, while still heading directly for his goal.
"Azaerafaeru-sssan." The greeting came from another man, seated at a small table next to a food stand. Before him was a half-eaten roast duck and a cup of sake. His kimono was as unassuming as Aziraphale's on the outside, but whenever he moved, small flashes of brightly-colored silk would show at neck and wrist.
"Kurauri-san," Aziraphale said. "What a surprise to see you here." His voice was mild, pleasant, and utterly unsurprised.
"Have a seat, angel," Crowley said. "I haven't seen you for two hundred years. Don't you think we've a bit of catching up to do? Have a drink."
Aziraphale sniffed. "I don't like sake," he said.
"Suit yourself. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Witnessing the meeting of cultures," Aziraphale said, discreetly materializing a tray of sushi in front of him.
Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you came with the Jesuits? Awful bunch of ponces. The country won't recover for centuries."
"You're just jealous," Aziraphale said.
"What, that our propagandists aren't as efficient as yours? As if! I rather liked the Buddhists. Well, some of them, anyway. Especially those militant chaps who are all about the praying for money and nuking Korea."
"They don't exist yet, Crowley," Aziraphale said patiently.
"Oh." Crowley took another drink of sake and winked at Aziraphale. "Well, I get my time periods a bit mixed up sometimes. Don't you?"
They'd lost Clark somewhere on the way home. Chloe just sighed and said he'd probably gone looking for Lex, and Lana grabbed her around the waist and spun her through the leaves until she smiled again. Pete looked vaguely uncomfortable, so Chloe wobbled over to him and put her arm around his shoulders and Lana put her arm around his waist, and they did the Wizard of Oz skippy thing all the way back to Chloe's house.
Chloe almost tripped going up the stairs, but she found her keys in her embroidered shoulder bag and opened the door. "Shh," she said. "My dad's probably asleep. We can go watch movies in my room if we're quiet. Pete, when are your parents expecting you home?"
Pete shrugged. "I dunno. They probably won't care as long as I don't sleep over."
"Excellent." Chloe grinned. "Go on up. I'll get some snacks."
When she opened the door, she found Lana and Pete looking through her DVD collection. Pete held up a case. "Dogma? Best move ever."
"I haven't seen it," Lana said quietly.
Chloe raised one eyebrow and grabbed the DVD from Pete. "Okay, that's it. We must educate Miss Lang here. Right, Pete?"
"Indeed, we must."
They crowded onto Chloe's low couch and she set her laptop on a table in front of them. "Potato chips, mes amis?" she asked airily, handing them to Pete.
"So, Lana," Pete said. "How did you manage to avoid an education in Kevin Smith movies?"
Lana shrugged, accidentally elbowing Chloe. "Nell doesn't approve."
"Oh," Chloe said. "About that--"
"It's a bit...colorful," Pete said. "Language, you know."
"That's okay," Lana said. "I can deal."
Chloe raised her eyebrows at that - surely Lana was too much of a princess not to object - but she snuggled further into the couch between her two best friends and clicked the play button.
In autumn the gardens were bare and dry, and even the statues looked sad. Olivia spent half the day in the library, and Viola woke up early and brought her hot milk with honey in bed.
They were young, and in love, and it didn't matter that the world was against them.
Leia's back curved rigidly with tension. Backed by the cool gray luminescence filtering through the curtains, she looked like one of the smooth metal statuettes that decorated their quarters, the ones that looked soft and malleable but were impossible to break.
Han had broken a man's skull with one once.
That had been in the beginning, when the assassination attempts were still frequent. Now -- well, they'd made an example of the last one. No one else had tried.
Han felt very old. He'd never objected to the blood on his hands in the old days. It had always been quick and clean - maybe not for honor but for survival.
He didn't like politics.
Leia's eyes glinted in the half-light. Outside was full, blazing day, too bright for humans to bear without smoked lenses, but indoors was dim and chill, kept just slightly warmer than discomfort.
Leia's eyes were chill, too, and her voice, as she said, "Han, I don't think it's going to work anymore."
At night, when Padmé sleeps, Anakin looks at his wrist where it meets the prosthetic arm. He rubs back and forth over the skin until it burns with friction, and imagines he can see the scar. Sometimes he sees flickers of the future from the corners of his eyes.
There will be more scars.
It has been a year since he married her, and he regrets it already. He grows more empty inside every day, and he knows something has to fill the emptiness eventually.
He's pretty sure it won't be the living Force, at least not in the way Obi-Wan would wish. He's too empty to care -- except --
Somewhere inside, he remembers loving Padmé. He knows she deserves better, his proud senator who only cries in her sleep, who has devoted her life to a people who adore her without knowing her.
He's not even sure he knows her, despite all they've shared.
She's shivering in her sleep, so he pulls the woven blue blanket over her. Her sister had given it to them as a belated wedding present. He lets his good hand linger against her cheek for a moment and waits for the regret that no longer comes.
"i dReAmEd I sAw a MoUntAiN," Delirium said. "It wAs made of PiNk ice cream. CheRRy, I tHiNk. DiD yOu sEe it?"
"No," Desire said. It had a small, pearl-handled penknife, with which it was cleaning its nails. Desire wore a gray silk tuxedo, and a top-hat rested jauntily on its jet-black hair.
"I tRiEd to eAt sOmE, but it MeLted aNd Ran aWay on MoUsE LeGs." Delirium's hair shifted to a pale lavender, streaked with blue. She tugged on Desire's coat-tails. "WiLl you FiNd me SoMe IcE cReAm? BlUe and SkY-FlaVoReD?"
Desire let its hand linger on Delirium's hair, and there was something almost like fondness in its narrow yellow eyes for a moment. "I don't have any ice cream, sister," it said, its voice for once not dripping its usual coaxing honey. "Perhaps our sister Death does."
A frown crossed Delirium's face. "I dOn'T LiKe yOu aNyMoRe," she said. "I'lL mAkE yOu mElT like, like...um...I dUnNo...SoMeThInG MeLtY. HaVe yOu SeEn my FiSh? ThEy fLoAtEd AwAy lAsT WeEk. ElDeR BrOtHeR SaYs ThEy'Ll FlOaT bAcK. I tHiNk tHat'S wHat hE sAiD...."
"I haven't seen your fish," Desire said. It smiled, tiredly, a small, secret-cat-smile without any teeth. "Forgive me, sister, but I've an appointment to make."
Shakespeare stares at his hands. Dirt under his fingernails, scratches about the knuckles, hands just washed, not perpetually inkstained like Marlowe's. He's a decent actor and a damn fine director, and that's all he'll ever be. Marlowe is mad if he thinks otherwise.
"Listen, Will," Marlowe says, thin, pale face intense in the lamplight. "England's getting too hot for me. I've got to leave."
Shakespeare frowns. "Couldn't you just -- lie low for a while? Until this blows over?"
Marlowe catches Shakespeare's nervous hands in his and squeezes. "That's just it, Will. It's not going to blow over this time."
"Bugger," Shakespeare mutters.
Marlowe laughes. "Well, we could, but that wouldn't solve anything." His face grows serious again and he glances out the window at the darkened streets, his eyes for a moment fierce and bright in the glass.
"And see, this way I can still write. I can send the plays back, and you'll publish them, Will. You can bring them to life onstage like no-one else. Please, Will."
Shakespeare sighs and brings Marlowe's hand to his lips for a moment. "Very well, Kit," he says, "but I don't like it."
Marlowe's mouth softens a bit and he brings one hand up to brush Shakespeare's cheek. "It'll be for the best," he says. "You'll see."
"Perhaps." But you'll be gone.
[This prompt became Dreamers of the Day.]
"Observe," Auda abu Tayi tells his son, and the sweep of his arm encompasses the desert. "This is yours; it is in your blood and your bone and your breath. You will not love it, but it is yours, and perhaps one day before you die you will see Damascus." His words echo off the canyon walls and dance into the darkening sky.
The canyon walls are bare, as craggy as the face of Auda abu Tayi, bronzed sun-worn skin stretched harsh and taut over bone. In his bearing is the strength of the cliff, in the proud jut of his jaw the merciless heart of the desert.
He lets his son grasp the ivory hilt of his sword for a moment, the sword his father also carried and his father before him. Although he tries valiantly, the boy can barely hold the sword off the ground. He is too young.
"Observe, politician," Auda tells Ali ibn el Kharish, and the word sounds like a curse on his lips, "Damascus. It is not as you imagined, is it?"
Ali only shakes his head, mute at the destruction. He does not try to hide the pain in his eyes, but the fierceness there is only slightly obscured by tears. He had been raised on stories of the gardens of Damascus, of fruit trees and fountains, and what to a Bedu would be almost unimagineable luxury, nearly Paradise.
"No," Ali says softly. "It is not what I had imagined."
It had been bright earlier, and unseasonably warm. Gwen had spent the afternoon lying on a blanket in the quad, studying. Latin verbs always seemed so much simpler outside, and everything smelled lovely and green. She'd been feeling a bit musty from a winter indoors.
Now, as she made her way back to her room, the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in. She shivered slightly; her shirt was too thin for the sudden chill, and damp with sweat on the back and under the arms.
The first raindrops hit the pavement while she was still far from cover, and she made the mistake of looking up without stopping.
"Bugger," she muttered, when she sat up. The knee of her jeans was torn and her shin felt bruised. Her papers had scattered several feet away. She scrambled over to them and started gathering her work to her, only to be joined by another pair of hands. She looked up: a girl's brown arms covered with cheap bangles, colorful batik blouse, an incredibly long fall of sleek black hair in a heavy braid over one shoulder.
The face was almost anticlimactic, oval and almost-pretty, an oddly unmemorable mix of Indian and European.
"Ta," Gwen said, smiling with relief as she retrieved the last of her papers.
"You're welcome," the girl said. Her smile was quiet and friendly, unassuming. "I'm Alanna."
"Gwennyth," Gwen said automatically, and held out her hand. "Most people call me Gwen."
The girl's hand was callused and warm, and she had a good grip. Comforting, Gwen thought, and then wondered where that thought had come from. "I was thinking of going out for tea," she found herself saying. "Care to join me?"
The east cell block always echoes: steady drip drip of water, the occasional clank of metal, the pacing of inmates, a constant quiet rush of sound that becomes a cacophony in the minds of bored inmates.
That's what gets to you, the older women tell the new arrivals, the boredom. It's their way of wearing us down, since they know they can't kill us. Not really. It hasn't ever been done, you know.
And underneath the boredom is the fear: What if I'm the first?
For the first few weeks, Velma dances in her cell, click stomp spin twirl jump all compressed into a five by ten square of concrete crossed by shadow. She dances to keep off the suffocating boredom. She dances because she is a dancer, because it's what she does and what she is. And most of all, she dances because there's an audience.
Not her cellmates, no -- most of them can't see her from their cells -- but sometimes out of the corner of her eye she sees Mama Morton watching. She never acknowledges Mama's presence, but she can feel eyes on her, and she's always careful to arrange herself to best advantage. If anyone can drape over a skinny little hard-as-nails cell block cot, it's Velma Kelly, and she does. She knows Mama wants something and she's pretty sure what it is, and she sure as hell isn't giving it up without getting something in return.
There's a crumpled five-dollar bill tucked into her garter, waiting. Whenever Mama walks by the cell, Velma makes sure a flash of thigh is showing, and the money. The first time Mama's eyes had flickered down, once, calculating, and she had smiled razor-sharp at Velma and walked on, her keys clanking at her side. After that, she didn't react at all.
And the weeks pass, and Velma dances less often, less well. Weeks of fruitless effort and a cold bed take a bit out of Velma.
This is when Mama comes and says in a voice like honey "You poor thing, you must be cold! Why don't you come up to my office with me and we'll see what we can do for you."
And inside, Velma Kelly smiles her own razor-blade smile, making sure to look nervous and scared as Mama palms her five dollars and takes her arm.
Velma can do destitute.
Alec clapped his hands to his ears as the tires screeched. Gravel flew up around them. "Christ, James! They told me you were an...enthusiastic driver before, but not this enthusiastic."
James glanced over at Alec and grinned brightly, a quick flash of teeth. "Oh, just relax and think of England, Alex. It'll be over soon."
"Yes, because we're both going to die," Alec muttered.
James laughed and squinted into the glare from the sun reflecting off the windshield. "You'll get used to it, Alec. A few more years with MI6 and you'll find yourself a bit more adventurous."
"Or stupid." Alec peered out the window for a moment, turned slightly greenish, and went back to resolutely staring at his hands, which were gripping the dashboard with white knuckles. He strained to keep from ricocheting off the door or James whenever the car swerved. "I feel bruised already."
James raised an eyebrow, but did not take his eyes off the road. "Really, Alec. I'm sure there are much more pleasureable ways to get yourself bruised."
Alec's eyes widened and he coughed. "James, do you foresee a stopping point in the near future?"
"I don't know. I suppose it all depends on what we're going to do when we do stop."
"Anything, James, anything," Alec said, with as much feeling as he could put into the words.
The sand is hard and almost uncomfortable under Ali's back, but even through his blanket it still radiates the fading heat of day. With Lawrence kneeling over him, half-naked and his eyes fixed on Ali, a little discomfort doesn't matter. In the night Lawrence's scars gleam pallid against his skin. Ali has watched Lawrence's health grow worse for months, until it seems that he survives on will alone.
If Lawrence's scars pain him, he never speaks of it. His mouth is warm and wet against Ali's collarbone. Ali arches into the caress, the catlike swipes of Lawrence's tongue as he works his way up to Ali's mouth and kisses him, fierce and almost cruel. He reaches up to pin Ali's wrists above his head, and Ali is faintly surprised at his strength for a moment. But Lawrence is all whipcord muscle and bone and sheer will, so perhaps it is not that surprising, and Ali doesn't really care anyway.
Lawrence's eyes glint in the moonlight that filters through the tent, and the knife in his hand glints too. Ali stiffens momentarily, a question on his lips, but Lawrence leans down and kisses his forehead with a tenderness that pulls at Ali's heart. "Please," Lawrence says, and he presses the hilt of the knife into Ali's hand and closes his fingers around it.
[First three lines of dialogue lifted directly from the movie.]
"You tried very hard to give us Damascus," Ali said, and the words turned to sand and ash in his mouth. He wanted to say, Why are you leaving me? He wanted to say, What is Damascus without you? He wanted to say, Come home with me, Aurens.
He did not.
"It's what I came for. And that would be something." Lawrence's eyes were bright as he spoke, and his hand moved slightly, as if he wanted to reach out and catch Ali's sleeve.
"Yes," Ali forced himself to say. "Much."
They remained in silence, gazes locked on each other. Ali absently noticed Auda slip away, shaking his head and muttering to himself, but he pays him little mind.
"Why, Lawrence?" He stepped forward and cupped Lawrence's cheek in his hand.
Lawrence's eyes closed and he turned into Ali's touch, pressing his lips to Ali's palm in something that was almost a kiss.
"I will stay," Lawrence said, finally.
Even as relief swelled in Ali's breast and he embraced Lawrence's shaking body, he wondered if Lawrence was only staying because it was easier than telling the truth.[This prompt became Roses and Jasmine.]
Return to Fanfiction by Carmarthen
All text and web design, in regards to thewritegirls.populli.net/carmarthen is Copyright © 2000-2002 "Carmarthen." All other trademarks, characters, pictures, and music cited and contained herein are the property of their respective owners.