rat_jam | Let the Promptathon Begin!

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promptathon

Let the Promptathon Begin!

To join the battle, all you need to do is pick a prompt from below (any prompt, even if it's your own) and write/vid/manip/icon/draw/whatever the most creative bit of whatever you can create! And remember - PLEASE feel free to vid or icon or manip or do something non-written. We love ALL kinds of creative output equally!

When you've written/painted/made it, paste it into the comments here. Once you've done that, you can post it wherever else you want.

You may enter as many times as you like, so long as each entry is completely separate (not a series of linked pieces). Also, please do not link to old work - this should be something new, produced for the challenge, based on one of the prompts.

THE RULES

1. It must fit in one comment, so the limit is 4,300 characters (there's no minimum limit). It can be part of a longer piece that you may post elsewhere, as long as it's something new and based on one of the prompts, but all we want here is the part that you are most proud of. If you make art, if it's larger than 350 px wide, please use a thumbnail linking directly to the piece (directly to the artwork, not a post or site). The thumbnail can be up to 350 px wide, and 300 px high, and should include as much of the art as possible. If it is a vidlet or something else requiring dowloading, like a fanmix, please post the link to where we can download. Feel free to post a teaser image, but please confine yourself to the artwork preview rules.

2. Important! Please use the subject line of your comment to identify the snippet, like so: Title, prompt, rating (i.e. Fandom, Pairing, prompt word, rating system of your choice). For example, I might write: "Staying Awake, One Tree Hill, Lucas/Nathan, rain, R", or "The Sun Has Gone Down, Crossover, Torchwood/Stargate Atlantis, Jack/John, under fire, for all ages".

3. You have one week – the post will close for new entries next Sunday, April 1, at midnight eastern standard time. PLEASE be certain to check the World Time Clock to verify the deadline time in your area.

4. Don't forget that these prompts are only written as character one/character two for convience, NOT because of any requirement to make it a relationship story! Gen and friend are very welcome here. They can be interpreted in ANY WAY, so just imagine the FUN possiblities. You can take one prompt and write it, draw it, icon it, fanmix it, AND vid it. (Although if you have the time to do all of that in the week that these prompts are open, I might just have to kill myself out of jealousy :o) And you can use the characters in a different way each time. Don't be afraid to think outside the box!

5. Please don't post anything but your creations or feedback/feedback replies (to individual stories) here. If you've got any questions or comments, please leave them on this post right here, NOT on this post that you are currently reading. We'd like to keep this purely for the creative output (and feedback on the creations - readers/voyeurs, please do show the writers/artists much love for their creative offerings).

The prompts are right here
Thanks SO much to

sageness for coding and lending hosting space on her site!

The prompts using only one character were listed first, followed by the prompts for more than one character. ALL crossovers are under both fandoms, so you don't need to worry about looking in multiple places for your crossovers - those listed under Smallville are the same listed under Supernatural, if you are looking for prompts for a Smallville/Supernatural crossover.

Finally! Warning: ALL ratings are acceptable here, from the things that you would show your aged grandmother, all the way up to to the things that would make a sailor blush. Use your own discretion, and please label your stories, art, and other creative output accordingly.

Thank you kindly!

rules stolen from

oxoniensis and her AMAZING porn battle

Threaded | Flat

When They came to him in August, 1979 and told him he could continue serving his country after death, former prime minister Diefenbaker's first thought was "What?", almost immediately followed by "sure, I mean, why the hell not. I'll catch up with st. Peter later." Never let it be said that he wasn't capable of pulling it together in a hurry.

He bounced around time and space doing odd jobs for a couple of years--returning to his own lifetime to teach a young boy named Pierre to pirouette, showing a fresh faced Joe Shuster where to get the best comic books-- little jobs like that. Until one day, when They who recruited him returned and said "well" and "we've got a job for you" and "there's a Mountie, he will prove to be interesting", and he said "well" right back and then because he hadn't fallen off the cart yesterday, "what's the catch?"

Finally, out of the heavily pregnant silence that had fallen in the spiritual no man's land, They said, almost hesitantly for a supernatural phenomenon, "you'll have to go undercover as a wolf", a pause, "a deaf wolf." John Diefenbaker did the mental equivalent of taking a step back, pondered for a minute, then: "I haven't made it this far pussy-footing around; sign me up." And he tripped and fell down the rabbit hole, into a bear trap.

Isaac's seen many things he never in a million years would have dreamed possible when he was a boy.

He's seen man's first walk on the moon and remembers the name of every shuttle that went out into space and never made it back.

He's seen King's dream start to become reality, step by gruelling step.

He's seen his lovely bride give him two perfect daughters.

He's seen all the corners of the world, travelling by planes that were unfathomable when he was born.

He's seen his own country stunned by terror only to bounce back as strong as ever.

He's seen the Red Sox win the World Series.

And now, walking around the floor well after he'd thought everyone else had left, he sees his co-anchors share a passionate kiss. He shakes his head, chuckles to himself, and adds this to the list of things he never saw coming.

Leave it to Casey to find a cabbie who not only recognized them, but also wanted to talk shop.

It had taken all of Dan's self-control to not push Casey back against bar and drop to his knees in front of everyone and his insistence that he and Casey should leave now had earned him a couple of questioning glances. Outside, Dan had shoved his hands in his pockets to prevent them from straying and groping Casey in completely inappropriate places. It was a busy street and they were public figures and he could wait until they were in the relative seclusion of a taxi.

Except the cab Casey'd flagged down was driven by their "number 1 fan" and wanted Casey's thoughts on the Islanders' recent change to their starting lineup.

Dan's apartment was closest, but still much too far away for him to wait until he was allowed to touch. He reached over and rested a hand on Casey's knee. Casey's eyes flickered over to Dan's briefly before returning fixedly ahead to meet the driver's in the rearview mirror as they continued their discussion. Dan smirked then schooled his face into a bored expression and turned his head to look out the window.

He squeezed Casey's knee once and started to slowly walk his fingers up the inner seam of the jeans. He kept the pressure light, knowing that it would feel almost ticklish through the denim.

Casey kept rattling off the names and stats for all the players on the injury list without any noticeable hitch in his voice until Dan's hand reached his cock and started tracing teasing patterns. Dan shifted in his seat and used his other hand to do the same to himself.

When that stopped being enough, Dan moved his hand up to Casey's belt and tried to unbuckle it one handed. He quickly found he was at the wrong angle and he'd either need to turn around and make it very clear to the driver what they were up to or ask Casey for a little help if he wanted to continue. Unwilling to do the former in front of someone who most definitely recognized them, he settled on the latter.

Dan stared at Casey, trying to catch his eye. Casey refused to look away from the rearview mirror until Dan started drumming his fingers insistently against his cock. Casey shot him a quick glare and twisted away, giving Dan an even worse angle to work with. Dan sighed and returned to making teasing strokes that he hoped were frustrating Casey as much as they were him.

Dan bolted from the car when it pulled up beside his building, not wanting to spend a second longer in the cab than he had to. Not when there were far more enjoyable things to be doing.

Casey paid the cabbie and waited until the car was half a block away before walking over to Dan, who was impatiently holding the lobby door open. "What the hell, Danny? He could have seen something and he obviously knew who we were."

Dan clapped a hand over Casey's mouth and let one of his fingers slip between Casey's lips. "Can we do the talking part after we have sex?"

Casey blinked and nodded. They raced to the elevator.

The kid was getting cocky. She thought Danver’s strength and powers could save her from anything. Kid didn’t realise that there aren’t any absolutes, no certainties…

She’s picking her way through the fire and the ash laughing.

No certainties. There’s no predicatable future. He should know that, yet it took Mariko to remind him.

Rogue’s dancing, her feet scant inches from the burning floor.

He should have realised that she wasn’t for him, was never for him. He’s not the sort of guy to deserve somebody like her. Guy, heh, there were times Logan forgot that he wasn’t quite a man at all. Just some animal, enslaved by his senses, not reason. If it were otherwise, he’d have seen it coming.

She’s one step off turning cartwheels behind him. She thinks he hasn’t noticed. She thinks that they are good now, like Logan and Carol were good. If they were, than she’d know to leave him alone right now.

Was Logan an animal dreaming he was a man or a man dreaming he was an animal? He’ll leave that one for Elf; he was the one to think about things like that. Elf, kneeling, on a spaceship, thousands of miles and only a year away, talking about divine plans as he was about to be eaten from the inside by some monstrous progeny.

Rogue is definitely Raven’s daughter, laughing and cocksure. He can’t see much of Irene in her – except for the sadness that sometimes creeps into her eyes and the tell-tale smell of salt.

Belief makes things complicated. Blind faith, like this ragtag team have in Charley makes things even more so. Logan knows for certain, he could never have been what Mariko deserved. But then, there’s no such thing as certainty.

The creeping lizard monster leaps out of hiding, claws out. Rogue kicks him in two like she’s flicking dirt off her slippers.

"How's she flying, lil' albatross?"

River didn't seem surprised he was there, even though he called before he got on the bridge. But not much surprised River, especially these days. "Well."

Mal frowned a little. She was bein' quiet again. Got that way, sometimes, ever since Miranda. She'd be fine for a couple of weeks, and then she'd hide up in the bridge for a few days, not talkin', not smilin', only eatin' cause Kaylee or the doc'd bring her something.

Mal didn't know what made her quiet, but he knew he liked her better when she was happy and laughin' and teasin' and... well... River.

"Coordinates set," she announced, jarring him out of his thoughts.

Mal smiled. "Well, now, who told you where we were goin'?" Not that she needed tellin'.

"Nobody."

"Then where'd you set it for?"

She looked up at him and now she was smilin' -- that playful smile that did somethin' funny to his stomach the last month. "Second star to the right, and straight on 'till morning."

Took Mal a minute to understand, and then he laughed. "All right, then, sweetheart. Bring me that horizon."

He turned and left, then, and although he didn't hear anything, when he looked behind him, she was followin', just as he knew she would.

Click on the thumbnail to go to the 1024 x 768 desktop wallpaper, then right-click and save. *g*

Off-balance. That's how she feels. To be honest, she's never felt particularly on-balance, not since the accident had put a rod in her spine and a wobble in her walk. That had put paid to her career as a prima ballerina. Well, more accurately it had put paid to her starring role as a daisy in the Second Year Infants' Easter Parade (though if anyone asked she always said she would have been the Anna Pavlova of her generation and then things would inevitably degenerate into a conversation about meringue and she'd have to find something sweet to eat and fast).

But at this moment in time, Caroline feels more off-balance than ever. Twenty-two tequila shots and bottles of beer (quantity: some) would do that to a woman. Even a doctor woman. It wasn't that, though. Or, at least, not just that.

It had been an inauspicious start to her new job, turning up unwashed, unkempt and ever so slightly unhinged. And then there had been the whole not-sleeping with the hospital Lothario to contend with on Day Two. That anyone gave her the time of day at all she considered a miracle. But that was just the thing. It wasn't only the time of day they were giving her. By her - still drunken - count, three men were at least a little in love with her (and possibly one woman, although she had her doubts about the sanity of that one) and that fact was hastening past the realms of 'aww' and 'nice' and 'mmm' into 'slightly disturbing'. Because. Three men? In love with her? Whatever for?

Okay, so Guy may just want to get into her knickers (she is still wearing them, isn't she?) and Martin may just assume he's in love because he'd only had to tell her his name once and she'd rescued him from the attentions of Crazy Mildred in bed 7 that time, and Mac may have been having some kind of bet with himself (or Guy) – who kisses a sicky mouth? Really? – but still, it's unprecedented. Caroline knows she makes rather a shoddy girl – small tits, manly gait, hair with which she is constantly at war, inability to appreciate the finer points of scrunchies and Heat magazine. Not like pretty, perfect Angela. If they'd all snogged Angela that would've made sense, but they didn't. They chose her. Which. No.

So here she lies, drunk in the dark, the world tipping askew and it works for her. She wonders if things will straighten out in the morning. She wonders if she wants them to.

Fraser had continued his father's habit of keeping a journal; for posterity and for the ability of the written word to present connections and clues that he had heretofore missed. Every day, consular and police duties permitting, he would compile his recollections into little leather bound books; his life, bound within the swirls and loops of his evenly spaced handwriting.
"Hey Fraser, you seen my case notes?"
Ray, however, is never even, never neat. Fraser hands him the pages that he had been desperately searching for. Ray takes them from him with a careless "thanks buddy", and their fingers brush for a brief moment. Fraser watches Ray smile and triumphantly smooth the creases from the tired paper and he thinks that this, this will remain unwritten.

Ask anyone, they'd tell you that Ray's wild, a little unpredictable. But, moment of truth, he's got a routine. Every morning, the alarm goes off, he lurches up, stumbles to his mr. coffee, pokes a button, stares at it a moment then stumbles (notice the trend) to the shower. When he's alive (i.e. after coffee sweetened with m&m's) he takes a couple minutes to style his hair artfully. Presto. A human being. And if you'd asked him, he would have said, no question, Fraser's also a man with a routine, a plan. So when Ray lurches up, not the sound of the alarm, but to the sound of someone knocking, he can't say who's more surprised, himself inside or Fraser outside. Now Ray's a man coffeeless, and Fraser looks like he himself doesn't know how he got there, when it's pretty obvious he walked. Ray blinks a couple of times. Fraser starts to look uncomfortable. He holds a bag out to Ray, he can smell the coffee from where he's standing.
"I guess you'd better come in,"
And morning routine kicked off the rails, but plus one Mountie, Ray shuts the door, world on the outside, Ray and Fraser on the inside.

"I've been there, you know." Sam doesn't think she's drunk, really. But she must be, to be saying stuff like this to Vala. "Tied-up, locked-down, shut in my own head and screaming for release." She burps. Definitely drunk. But not falling under the table drunk. Maybe she can only think about this without some vague pain when she is drunk.

This is stupid.

"You have?"

Vala doesn't even sound interested. Sam scowls into the nearly-empty glass and considers wandering over to the wet bar the Air Force provided them with for this little black tie shindig. She's probably a disgrace to the uniform she's wearing, but right now, she doesn't care. She's saved the planet far too many damned times. And all the thanks she gets is a smile and a fucking medal, and a wet bar.

"Forget it." She downs the last of the drink and climbs off her stool. Habit makes her straighten the regulation-length blue skirt, and she notices a run in one of her stockings. Dammit.

"Already packing it in, Colonel?"

"Yeah." Leaving Vala to chat up every male in her vicinity, as well as those all the way across the dance floor, Sam makes her way from the room. She stops twice to give her regards to General Hammond and Major Davis.

The hotel that the Air Force had contracted for the gathering has nice rooms. Sam makes her way down the hall to the elevator--the room she was assigned was ten floors up and even she's not that much of a health freak that she'll take the stairs--not caring if anyone else notices as she begins unbuttoning her jacket. The prim little colonel routine is getting damned old, at this point. And if she didn't know she had to do it to play politics, she wouldn't do it at all.

Riding the elevator is a little like sobering up, and Sam steps out feeling less lost in her own head.

"You're difficult to keep up with." Vala is actually panting a little, from where she's leaning against the wall.

Sam stares at her for a moment, then decides she doesn't care why the other woman followed her.

"Look, Sam--" Vala catches her at her door. "--you obviously needs some relaxing."

Shoving her keycard into the lock, Sam bumps the door open, still ignoring Vala. Her goal is the chair, and her jacket lands on it, followed by her blouse. "I do?"

"Yes. Should I put this on the other side--oh, they serve breakfast. Can we get a Continental breakfast in the morning?" Earth minutiae endlessly distracts Vala, sometimes. "I do rather feel the Air Force could spring for that, given all I've done for them." Vala wanders towards Sam, reading the menu on doorknob hanger.

"Sure." Tiredly, Sam unzips and steps out of her skirt. Standing there in her slip and underwear, she thinks she should feel odd, with Vala there.

"Good. I'll need it." Vala disappears again.

Rummaging in the suitcase, Sam pulls out blue pyjamas. It's easy to slip out of the rest of her clothes, and she's stepping into the bottoms when Vala returns.

"Now that's a nice sight," Vala says, tone approving. She comes close enough to wrap her arms around Sam from behind, hands just under her ribs, flat against her skin. "Still angry with me?"

"I wasn't angry with you." For a moment, Sam leans back against her, closing her eyes and wondering if she's still drunk or simply tired.

"Could have fooled me."

"You can be fooled?" It's an attempt at a joke, but Sam pulls away to finish dressing.

"Of course I can. Though, I'll admit, it doesn't happen often."

"Of course it doesn't." With a snort, Sam climbs into bed, cuddling up to the pillow. A sigh escapes her.

Vala asks, voice odd, "Shall I go, then?"

Admitting that she needs comfort is something Sam doesn't do often. She holds up the edge of the blanket, sleepily looking at Vala. If she doesn't ask, she won't sound weak, and Carters are never weak.

"Oh, good." Vala strips without bothering to hang or drape her clothes over a chair, then moves, naked and beautiful, to climb in next to Sam.

Sam turns, and her hands skim over Vala before she kisses her gently. Vala makes an approving noise, wriggling closer.

Unfortunately, the contact relaxes Sam enough so that the alcohol in her system has free reign. "Night."

"Those weren't his last words, were they?"

"Beethoven's. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Danny shrugs in response, still staring at the grave, his face blank. For the first time in a long time, there's no trace of a smile. His eyes look empty.

"What're you thinking?" Harriet asks, and immediately feels stupid.

"I saw him two hours Before." Danny says it like there's a capital letter there. Like now there's three parts to his life, instead of two: Before Matt, Before Jordan, After Matt. "I should've stopped him."

"You didn't know."

"I should have."

Harriet doesn't know what to say. It doesn't matter. Nothing will stop him from blaming himself, for cursing those two hours he couldn't distract him. She knows that much.

Maybe she should feel jealous, that she has to comfort Danny when she was in love with the guy. But it's Danny and Matt. There's no way she could be as upset as Danny is; it hurts for her, but she knows she'll go on. Everyone knows she'll eventually get past it.

No one knows if Danny ever will.

"Let's go," she urges softly, not sure what to do, but knowing that sitting here for another hour won't make things any better for him.

"Not yet." He turns to face her for the first time. "Go home, Harry." She pretends there's something more to that request than wanting to be alone. She pretends that maybe he still cares about anyone still alive.

"Okay," she says, because she can't figure out how to tell him no. She walks herself back to her car because no one else stayed this long (Jordan would have, but the baby needed her) and collapses into the driver's seat. She has to cry before she can drive, or she'll fall apart on the road.

The words on his tombstone echo in the back of her mind. Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.

She claps hard until she needs her hands to hide her face in, until her palms are raw, but it doesn't help her send his ghost away.

"Her eyes came to me saying, I trust you"
Poetry, the liquid words that flow and dance on the tongue. The way my hands flow and dance on her skin, no engine grease today. And a woman, writer from earth that was who knows me or knows enough to not make any difference. Beneath me (us) Serenity hums content in her dreams, asleep now that the one who wakes her is alone with me; occupied. There is a parabola in the arch of her back; a dance in the movement of her arms and between us around us within us the universe; all the stars in all the heavens. And the third woman in bed with us, in my head whispering. So I speak the words out loud,
"breasts to breasts we arc a leaping."
And she who is not me but is so close leans back, just a little "yeah," she breathes, understanding (I, for once, understood).
"Home," I say, and I touch, and she smiles; radiant, radiating.

*All quotes are Dionne Brand, a poet I'm sure River would have loved.

Sheppard Book adapts. He adjusts to the rhythm of Serenity, the idiosyncrasies of the crew she carries. He still prays before every meal. And if the captain looks at him incredulously, well, he can hold his head high, for if the Israelites could learn how to sing the songs of Zion in exile, surely he can keep faith in the face of one decent man's determined intolerance.

"I think we should have sex."
"What? No!"
"Come on Rory, it's perfectly logical."
"Paris..."
"It's the end of High School, and all the literature I've read suggests that this is the optimal time for experimentation. Now, I'm sure you've always wondered what a lesbian encounter would be like. This is the perfect time to find out. Most of your classes are pretty much finished, so you can't claim that you're too busy. Don't look at me like that, this is a perfectly reasonable plan."
"Ok, I'm going to turn around now and count to ten, and when I turn back, we are going to pretend that this conversation never really happened and it was all some sort of mirage."
"..."
"Ten."
"You're being childish you know, and selfish. This could be very important for my personal development."
"Well, now I really want to have sex with you."
"Really?"
"No."

Her father taught her to shoot when she was ten. It was a bonding thing, or so he joked. Anastasia learned to clean the rifle, dismantling it and putting it back together with clumsy ten-year-old hands. Her father had been proud, though. She was learning, he'd said. Learning to be the woman she could be.

When she was fourteen, her mother introduced her to things like makeup and dressing correctly for every occasion.

Ana took to those lessons as well as she had to the earlier ones.

Being able to fire a pistol was just one more thing she put on her application when she enlisted at seventeen. She was bright-eyed, and certain that life was full of adventure and hope.

It was the hope that she slowly started losing, as time went on.

When the world ended, there was still Billy. He was older than her, but Anastasia felt as though she had more years on him. Dee wondered, sometimes, what would have happened between them if the world hadn't ended. She knows it wouldn't have been much.

But Billy was also fear. The fear of letting someone in too close, the fear of knowing he could die, the fear of waking alone in ten years because he'd gotten tired of her.

He thought she hung the moon, and that gave her too much control over him.

Two days after he died, she stood in the firing range, pistol in hand. It was familiar, even though she hadn't used one since the cylons boarded the Galactica months before.

Lee Adama, someone who could become more than a casual flirt, someone who might want to give her the universe, is lying in a bed, recovering from a bullet.

And Billy Keikeya is dead.

Dee checks the pistol is loaded, puts on her ear protection and raises the gun, aiming with a precision that earns her six shots through the center of the target.

When it comes back, she nods at it and moves to put the gun down.

A hand on her arm stops her. "Hey, Dee."

It's Racetrack. Anastasia doesn't bother smiling--it's not that she doesn't like the other woman. She just doesn't know her, and she's really in no mood to talk. "What?"

"You look like you could use a drink."

Dee shrugs, "We all could use a big one."

"Yeah." Racetrack seems to consider a moment, then releases her. "I'll let you go." She lifted her own pistol. "Unless you wanna stay and outshoot me."

The challenge hangs in the air for a moment, then Dee flashes a grin, "You're goin' down."

"Now that's what I like to hear," replies the other woman. She raises an eyebrow, "What's the stakes?"

"That drink you mentioned. I win, I get us a bottle of ambrosia. You win..."

"I get us a jar of Chief's 'shine." Racetrack pauses, then laughs, "You're stackin' the deck, Dee."

"Not at all, Lieutenant, not at all."

They retake their places at the range, lift their weapons, and fire.

Dee wins.

The ambrosia's been in her locker a long time, she's just been waiting for an excuse to drink it.

Sam promised himself that he'd never return. Despite all his efforts to remain aloof and apart, Sports Night ended up being a comfortable fit, one that he could see himself settle down with. That was when he knew it was time to leave; it was better to keep moving. Safer.

Dana called. He wondered how she tracked him down. He rarely gave out his personal number precisely to avoid calls that would drag him back to the people and places he'd worked hard to put behind him. He started to ask but she barrelled through his question.

A stroke. A second one, more severe and damaging than the first. The Sports Night crew wanted someone they knew and trusted and the owner of the new network lacked the industry connections to have any other suggestions of his own, and would he please come back, it's what Isaac wants.

In his head, he said no ten times. Twenty. He ran through a litany of reasons why he couldn't, both generic all-purpose excuses and brutally honest explanations. Into the phone, he said yes.

He watched the display count up to forty-nine, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the elevator.

Oooh, very sparkly! *admires*

Ben was dead. Ben was dead. No matter how often she repeated it, it still didn’t feel real. But she had seen him fall to the station platform, blood draining from his body. She had felt the bullet rip through him, the force pushing him into her arms. She had seen the love and desperation in his eyes fade as she opened her arms and let go. Fade through shock into silence, the strange snowy wasteland inside him that she has glimpsed before now.

She has tried, so many times, to take that snowfield, to own it. But although her outward appearance has become a finely crafted mask of ice, her heart still burns, still threatens to melt the façade.

When Victoria was ten years old she set fire to the house. It wasn’t on purpose. She had found her mother’s matches dropped beneath the kitchen table, their smell intriguingly chemical and alien. A sharp movement of her hand produced heat and light like a tiny miracle. She let it burn as close to her fingers as she could before she put it out. Lit another. Taking the wastepaper basket outside and lighting it produced another miracle, the metamorphosis of bits of trash into a dancing display. When the sparks, blown in the high wind, caught the porch, the flames fanned to scorching, her first thought was how dangerously beautiful it was. By the time the fire crew arrived the whole house was ablaze. She remembers standing in the flickering orange light, filled with wonder that her whole world could be so very fragile.

She had thought that what she wanted was to own Ben, to take back what was rightfully hers. But perhaps what she really craved was to watch the slow deterioration of their relationship that would have come with time and isolation. Ben could never have lived with the guilt and the shame. She could never have lived up to his expectations.

Perhaps what she really wanted was to melt the ice, burn it away, consumed and destroyed by fire. The proof she was seeking all those years ago, that nothing can make you happy forever, and forever is a long, long time.

The hardest thing to get used to was the unpredictability. It didn't matter if he was up to his elbows in blood, scarfing down what passed for a meal, or stealing a few hours sleep; choppers could come at any time. Bombs too.

Even during the quieter moments, there was never time to just stop. There were often complications with patients they'd thought were ready to ship out and frantic attempts to stabilize before it was too late. Off-duty didn't actually mean off duty. Shifts never ended, not really.

It was overwhelming and exhausting and BJ didn't know how the others did it. Maybe once you were here long enough, you just got used to it, but BJ couldn't imagine ever getting used to this.

And then, after a particularly gruelling shift where he'd lost several patients in a row and was ready to collapse under the weight of it all, Hawkeye caught his eye and flashed him a small, private smile. For a brief moment the world stood still, the war called a truce, and there were no choppers or bombs overhead. Nothing but Hawkeye smiling at him and the realization that he could do this, could keep going.

Sam pulled the calendar off his wall and flipped forward to November, counting the days until Thanksgiving, until Dan would be back, if only for a visit. The answer was far too many. Dan had only been gone a few hours, but his absence was already felt.

He re-hung the calendar and picked up his driver's ed manual for a last minute cram session. He had to pass the test this afternoon and get his licence. It would be torture here without Dan, but he'd get through it if he could just grab the car and escape whenever he needed.

She saw the blood on his knuckles in the light, and knew she didn't do that to him.

Jenny didn't say anything, but tied her apron around her waist and pulled her hair back.

Fifteen minutes later, Tommy was downstairs smelling like lye, ashes. She dished up eggs and bacon and smiled back at him.

When he found jam on his thumb, he licked it off and winked at her.

Jenny shivered, and felt warm.

She went back to the kitchen and leaned on the dishwasher, gripping the edge and taking deep, steadying breaths.

When she got back, Tommy was standing behind the counter, and before she could tell him he couldn't be there, it wasn't his place, he reached out and kissed her. There was a bit of bacon caught between his back teeth, and his hands smelled like strawberry when he held her face, and a little like death.

He broke off -- they were both gasping -- and began to move his lips along her jaw, down to her neck, while she breathed in his ear and scrabbled under his shirt for skin. He was hot but his fingers were cold, when he lifted her onto the counter, and slid her skirt up her legs.

Over his shoulder, Jenny saw the "OPEN" lettering of the sign facing her.

"Back up to the bedroom?" she said.

Tommy shook his head, and smiled like a crafty kid who finally figured out where the candy box was hidden. "Nah," he said.

He leaned over her, his weight pinning her against the counter, her elbow hitting the corner. That would hurt soon, but now she lifted her arm to his neck and wrapped it around, bringing him close. His hands were running up her legs, up her skirt, up to the line of the underpants she'd just put on not twenty minutes ago and fuck, his thumb was rough and hot and moving and his fingers weren't cold any more.

Jenny was breathing hard, practically panting. She was embarrassed until she noticed Tommy was just as turned on as she was, his eyes closed, his hips moving little circles against her, his hand sliding gently inside her then quickly, harshly, as she grabbed him and held him tight and gasped into his ear.

His other hand unlaced her apron strings. Jenny pulled his shirt untucked from his belt and felt the heated skin of his back, his waist, his stomach, "oh God," she said, and locked her legs around him.

She was going to hit her head on the cash register.

The diner closed in around them. Tommy burned hard in her hands, rubbing and thrusting against her. He beckoned her closer with his fingers: "c'mere," he might have whispered into her neck.

Jenny came.

She opened her eyes.

Tommy was on her breast, his hands holding hers against him, and a few seconds later he began to shake and kiss her, over and over, greedily.

In a moment, she reached for her apron, and began to clean up.

Many Atlanteans do not understand, so caught up in their obsession with their bitter drink coffee. They have never experienced an Athosian tea ceremony; they do not know what it means to experience a properly prepared cup of Athosian morning tea. A true cup takes actual minutes to prepare, an alien concept in the instant culture that pervades so much of the city, the continuous demand of now. It is a ritual Teyla cherishes, a moment for peace. She wonders sometimes if the history of their galaxy could have been changed if everyone had paused to make a cup of tea and drink it together, Ancestors included. It is a silly thought, but when disaster has just been averted, and she's lying alone in her bed exhausted, that doesn't stop her from thinking it.

Teyla finds peace in her tea. She finds serenity. And sometimes, watching people trample around the city of the Ancestors frenetic and unbalanced, she believes her tea a more valuable commodity than any lamented item from earth. Listening to McKay bemoan the absence of Big Macs, however, she thinks so silently and merely aims an eloquent look at Miko, who returns a tentative knowing smile.

Once, late, when she had finally stolen a moment to engage in her ritual, she did not take her tea in solitude. For her, It is still an odd notion to think of time as stolen. Previously time felt like a steady rhythm, as inexorable as nature, and to cheat it was akin to cheating death. The machines of the Ancestors have shown her how fragile time really is. How fragile everything is. That night, when Teyla sees Miko in the solarium where she keeps her tea set, she startles. Miko tries to apologize and begins to leave. Ordinarily Teyla would respect her boundaries and let her go. But this time Teyla sees the small cup in Miko's hand, white with a bird made up of blue lines wrapping around it, like fingers, and Teyla is tired of drinking her tea like a secret, something to be hidden. On Athos it would have been a violation of tradition to drink the tea alone, a waste, and unheard of to drink it at night. As leader, it would have been her responsibility to oversee that the traditions were respected; she tastes the irony with every sip of her tea. Sometimes it tastes like rebellion. It always tastes like loneliness. So recklessly, she reaches out. Miko looks shy, as fragile as the teapot she carries.

"Stay;" Teyla says, mustering a weak smile, "share." The sentence curves on its own, almost becoming a question. Surprisingly Miko does, setting out her cup with a rhythm and precision Teyla recognizes. They prepare and share a pot almost silently, a small mutually agreed upon ceremony, not quite of Athos, and, she believes, not quite of Earth; Atlantean. Later, she is not surprised to consistently find herself back at the same place, at the same time, and never alone. It has been several weeks that they have met, and Teyla is beginning to find a new rhythm; with Miko, in the pulse beneath their skin, reclaiming the beat between one breath and the next.

"Yes, yes, Elizabeth, amazing opportunity, wouldn't trade it for the world. Despite the impressiveness of our surroundings, I'm just noting that there is still a distinct lack of Big Macs in this galaxy. So you can stop mocking my pain now, major, I heard your pitiful wail when we ran out of popcorn." She realizes that she hasn't been paying attention, caught in reminiscing, when she hears the tell tale signs of a McKay rant winding down. This city has brought her so many things, some wondrous, some less so, but now, solitude is not one of them.

He should have taken an umbrella.

He should have taken an umbrella but he'd only remembered it was raining when he was half way to the exit and if he'd gone back it would have ruined the drama of the thing. You can't storm out and then storm back in thirty seconds later, it's just not done. So he's outside in his shirt-sleeves, light blue cotton slowly staining dark, hands shoved in pockets, stomping along the sidewalk with water dripping from the end of his nose. That's just one more thing to add to the shopping-list of annoyances that he's already feeling. Goddamn it, he doesn't even know where he's going. His wallet is snug and dry on the counter and it's too far to walk to his apartment. So he makes a left and then another left and then another one and he's circling the building like some kind of very irritated bird of prey. He wonders if he seethes enough the water will start to steam off his body. He really hopes so.

It's on his fifth lap of the building that he starts to feel the rain trickling down his leg inside his pants and admits that he's going to have to go back in and that Casey's somehow going to turn Dan's unpreparedness into capitulation. And that does not make him happy because it had been a reasonable request and Casey had just blanked him. Spun him off as if he was an autograph hunter in a bar.

"We should tell Charlie," Dan had said.

"No," said Casey and that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

Dan had laid out the arguments one by one, the length of time they'd been together, his own relationship with Charlie, Charlie's intelligence, the potential for damage that lies cause and to each Casey had just said, "No." He'd even refused to have a proper argument about it. No wonder Dan is so mad. He scowls at the memory and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets though they're as wet there now as they would be if he took them out.

Rounding the corner of the building as he completes his fifth circuit, Dan spies a lonely figure, red umbrella illuminated by the street light above. It's Casey. Of course, it's Casey. Dan halts and Casey comes towards him, proffering the jacket that he's been holding over his arm. He holds the umbrella over Dan, they have to stand close and Dan's dripping onto Casey but he doesn't seem to mind.

"You know," says Casey, "It takes you about four and a half minutes to get all the way round the building. You were a little faster the first time, but then I think the extra pounds the rain gave you slowed you down."

"You've been timing me?"

"Well I had to do something while I was making sure you didn't disappear on me, didn't I?"

"And you let me go round five times before you brought out the umbrella?"

"I thought you might need time to calm down."

"And you thought 'hell, why not get a wet t-shirt contest of one thrown in for free'?"

"That too." Casey leans his head back a little and leers affectionately at Dan's chest, the clinging shirt leaving nothing to the imagination. "Come up, Danny, we'll get you out of those wet clothes." He touches Dan's elbow.

"Aren't you supposed to say 'and into some dry ones'?"

"Now that would just be spoiling it." Casey smiles and Dan has to work hard to stop an answering one appearing on his face.

"I'm mad at you, Casey."

"I know. Come up."

"Really mad."

"I know. Come up."

"I'm not having sex with you."

"Whatever you say, Danny."

"This isn't over."

"It never is."

"Will you make me hot chocolate?"

"With marshmallows if you want."

Dan looks out from under the umbrella, sees the rain sheeting down, glinting silver in the light from the street lamp. He looks back at Casey whose lips are smiling but whose eyes are contrite and decides what the hell? It's not the first time they've had this not-fight and it won't be the last. He tucks his arm through Casey's and they head for the warm and dry.

"You have to pick out all the pink ones, they taste funky," he says and Casey clips him around the head with a wet slap as the door swings closed behind them.

"You ready?"

"Yup. Lemme just..." Casey shut down the computer then straightened up. "'K, Danny, let's rock and roll."

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"What no?"

"You can't do it. You don't have it in you."

"I don't have it in me to be ready?" They started walking. "I'm always ready. Raring to go. All guns blazing. Hellza popping."

"No," said Danny. And, "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"This pathetic attempt to recreate your youth by utilising slang that would have never seen the inside of your mouth in a million years. It's not you, it never was you, it never will be you, now stop it." Dan patted Casey's arm and smiled.

"I'm not-"

"You are, my sadly deluded friend, you are."

Casey couldn't think of a retort that wouldn't descend into schoolyard squabbles so he let the space grow. They were in the car by the time Dan spoke again.

"So what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Casey, I've known you for what feels like at least sixty lifetimes, you only start trying to be cool when something's happened. So spill."

Casey stared out of the passenger window at the tree trunks passing by. He liked to count the seconds in between each one, he'd never been able to figure out which amused him more, the exact regularity of their planting or Dan's steady 25mph, never slower, never faster.

"She called me an old man."

"Firstly, she's clearly observant, secondly, who's she?"

"The dark haired girl in the library, the one with the bangs, what's her name?"

"Melissa. Melissa was mean to you? I'm shocked. Shocked and appalled. Maybe your incessant flirting finally ground her down."

"I do not flirt."

"Hey, Melissa," said Dan in his fake-Casey voice, "you're looking very fresh today. Is that a new scent you're wearing? Here is a profound, yet manly tome that I am checking out in order to impress you when really what I wanted was a book on gay sex for the over seventies."

Casey laughed and swatted half-heartedly at Dan, leaving his hand resting on Dan's thigh.

"I do not do that."

"Oh, but you do. It's kinda cute." Dan's hand moves from the wheel to grasp Casey's briefly before returning to the exact same position. His eyes never waver from the road. "Seriously she called you 'old man'? That's not like her."

"Actually there were these teenagers and one of them pushed me a little on the way to the desk. Melissa said 'Be careful, Mr McCall is an old man, have some respect.'"

"So being you, you chose to focus on the old man thing and not on the respect thing. Oh, Casey." Dan shook his head. "And now I'm going to have to put up with the hepcat talk until you've got it out of your system."

"I guess I don't think about it much," said Casey. "Being old. Because I don't feel that way with you. You make me feel rock and roll even if I never liked the music all that much."

"Now that you can say whenever you like."

"I can?"

"Yup."

"Maybe when we get home I'll say it again."

"That, I can handle," said Dan. "I'll bring the rock, you bring the roll. And if we make it out alive, I'll fix you dinner."

"And if we don't?"

"Well you know how it goes: live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. One out of three's not bad."

"No," said Casey, watching the tree trunks beginning to blur as suburbs gave way to forest. "It's not bad at all."

She appears in the throne room. Today, she looks so innocent, her legs hooked over the arm of the chair. And perhaps she is that innocent, she is Death, largely untouched by human desires, and the little bit – that single day every hundred years – is this thing of incomprehensible joy.

Her ice cream cone is dripping onto the memory of carpet. Dream took it from the dream of a carpet merchant in Bodrum, dreaming of the perfect sale, drinking apple tea with Dean Martin and Kamal Attaturk. Birds circle in the tiny ribbon of sky between the buildings.

“What I don’t get–” She twirls the pendant around her neck, which suddenly isn’t an ankh but a blue glass eye that means evil will never touch her. “– is how you just steal when you could have. I mean, Baskin Robbins has to be better than a dream of ice cream. It’s real. And what’s to stop you getting a dream of some poor British kid; they only have three flavours out there, four if you mix the three together. They call it Neopolitan.”

It can’t be like any Naples that Dream knows. A beautiful city dreaming in the shadow of a mountain of half remembered fire. Not even the ruins of Pompeii and fair Herculaneum will wake them. They sleep as their ancestors – Greek merchants and Roman playboys – slept in the new city on the sea.

And their cousins still sleep beneath the ash, still not dreaming that it might have been better in insidious Baiae. Dream cannot imagine – and that itself is unthinkable – his sister walking the roads of the notorious city. It’s something about her innocence. He knows she wasn’t always like this, but his memory lies…

…just as her memory lies. If that isn’t Delirium’s area… Delirium would have loved Baiae, dancing on the edge of madness… but then, Delerium was beautiful, terrible, worshiped beatifically. Women dancing with snakes, blood hot with wine, enticing her to visit them. Young men doing terrible things in her shades of dreams.

Not Dreams, not nightmares; something unique. Something once so powerful. What had happened? Had humanity become so accustomed to the terrible and dark side of their minds?

Dream picks up a slice of beef from the memory of a young man in the trenches of Ypres and puts it on his plate. The fat looks unappetising, but then, Dream doesn’t really want to eat. He has something to prove to his sister, but isn’t quite sure what.

Is Delirium just the first of them to… What if people stop dreaming, dying, desiring? Where would they go? Would their natures turn in on them, as Delirium’s has? Perhaps it would be better for them to flee like D—

“Come on, Dream, taste this. Live a little.” She’s dancing, standing still in front of him, proffering the cone.

It’s bubblegum strawberry.

Threaded | Flat

Page 2 of 6

On Guard, due South, Diefenbaker, undercover, G

Seen It All, Sports Night, Isaac, never, G

Good Things Come, Sports Night, Dan/Casey, cab, R

Rogue/Wolverine, tease (comicverse)

To The Right, Firefly, Mal/River, dark and bright, G

[art] Stargate Atlantis: Teyla & John, Stickfighting. PG.

Askew, Green Wing, Caroline, wonky, G

Journal, due South, Fraser, unwritten, G

6:30 am, due South, Kowalski, routine, G

Bar Scene, SG-1 Sam/Vala, Possession, PG13

Applaud, My Friends, the Comedy is Finished; Studio 60, Matt-Danny, hours, PG

Nova;novel, Firefly, Kaylee/River, heavens, PG

Galut, Firefly, Mal/Sheppard Book, Psalm 137, G

Logic, Gilmore Girls, Paris/Rory, class

BSG, Dee, arms

Double Back, Sports Night, Sam, return, G

no subject

Frozen, due South, Victoria, 'Fire', G.

Downtime, M*A*S*H, Hawkeye/BJ, still, G

Downtime, MAS*H, Hawkeye/BJ, still, G