christmas ficlet #2, for therese, who asked for mr. darcy meets spock. um. when i said no guarantees about length or quality, i really really meant it.

*

Mr. Spock’s hat—and that was a most unusual name, even for the Americas, where it was rumored the former colonists bred with the natives and had all manner of strange customs—was pulled very low over his ears, so that it must have been quite uncomfortable, particularly in the August heat. Perhaps that explained the man’s sober, almost sour expression.

“I am still unclear as to the nature of your interest in my property,” Darcy told him. “But I suppose there is no harm in letting you walk the grounds. You may take one of the foresters with you as a guide, if you wish. It would be unfortunate if you became lost or injured and were unable to return to the house for help.”

christmas ficlet #1, for teh_bug, who asked for discworld and cuddling

*

It’s only because of the cold, Angua tells herself, and then wonders why—they’re alone on a stakeout that almost certainly won’t come up with anything and she’s currently sporting four legs and a whole lot of fur. Even if anyone was around to see them, nobody would think twice about a beggar huddled up with his dog in a surprisingly trash-free corner.

Well, they might, but only because Carrot’s unusually young, fit, and straight-backed for a beggar. Not even a spectacularly ragged and filthy hooded cloak can truly disguise him. All it does is hide his face.

He’s said similar things about her furry problem from time to time and she believes him—she does, truly. Except things do look different when she’s in this shape, though not enough to keep her from feeling self-conscious about pressing against Carrot like she wants to climb into his skin, so all she can say with any honesty is that she’s still conflicted, same as always.

It’s cold, she repeats to herself, and pretends that’s why Carrot’s hand feels so warm when he rubs her ears.

1st day of Christmas; was going to be for gen_drabble, but i couldn't bear to cut it down to size.

*

It comes like the ending of the world: the sky splits open---open, so that the things behind the stars are visible. Beings formed of solid light spill down, singing music like mountains of sound, like the sea or the sky itself, so hugely it rings against the listening ears.

This is too much; the shepherds fall to the ground, sobbing into the earth, begging for mercy. They could not stand, even had they the will.

Peace, the angels sing. Peace. We bear good news, not ill.

The shepherds hear the message despite fingers stuffed desperately into ears, could not forget it if they tried. It sears itself into their memories like a brand.

At long last, scant minutes later, the sky closes again, leaving the night silent except for the sheep. And the shepherds rise like new men and go to seek the infant king.

prompted by this bit of crack by pentapus, and starring Dean, who is not a horse.

*

See, this was the nice thing about the Impala: she didn't look at him like he was crazy/stupid/an impostor. Which, okay, he kind of was (the last one, not the first two, despite what certain people said), but it wasn't his fault. And when he found out whose fault it was, he was going to salt and burn the sucker, regardless of who or what it was, with malice aforethought.

First, though, he had to go rescue Sam, because apparently his little brother really was a pretty, pretty princess.

what went before

Because no matter how she loves John---and she does, in parts of her heart she hadn't known of until John worked his way into them---no matter that she holds his life as dear as her own, he is not the man she would have now holding her son, making faces at him like the besotted idiot he is.

"Told you it was a spindly-drome," Ronon said somewhat triumphantly despite the general mayhem happening around them.

"Yeah, well, cupcake, Ronon. It looked like a cupcake. No sane person would expect a cupcake to have teeth." There were too many people running around for John to get a good shot at the---mutant cupcake or whatever the hell it was, but Ronon fired a couple shots at something and was rewarded with a high-pitched squeal that definitely wasn't human.

John sighed and lowered his own weapon. "Why does everything in this galaxy want to eat us?"

"It's a cupcake, Ronon." John's given up on not sounding exasperated, because really. "Not enough icing and probably tastes like Styrofoam because they keep sending us the crappy box mixes. A cupcake, that's all."

Ronon continues to peer dubiously at the object in question. "Dunno. Still looks like a rabid, facing-eating spindly-drome to me."

John sighs and moves the cupcake another six inches further away from Ronon. "Y'know, I used to think you were a badass."

for gen_drabble thing 2: key

*

He should’ve been more freaked out about being (basically) nothing more than a walking key for the expedition—should’ve been, but at the time he was mostly trying to pretend this didn’t suddenly mean his mom was an alien.

And now, when he’s alone in the city (his city) and no one can hear, he tells Atlantis she’s the loveliest lock ever (because she is) and he’s happy to slot into her any day of the week and other things that sound only more ridiculous when said to a very old city instead of another person.

(He means every word, though.)

for gen_drabble thing 3: armor

*

If asked, Rodney will admit that the Nomex survival-suit makes sense (and the memory cloth is a brilliant excuse for having a cape). It makes sense and looks pretty cool, and Rodney’s maybe just a little bit in love with Lucius Fox (not that he’d ever admit that to anyone, ever, John), and Batman’s all about being smart and thinking twelve steps ahead, but—

But the whole point of Batman, some part of him wants to protest, is that he’s only human, so very fragile, and yet he runs around in spandex anyway and dares the odds to touch him.

for gen_drabble thing 16: timeless

*

She begins by giving herself half a day awake for every eternity spent dreaming, to explore the city, sift through the uncharted territories of the databases. All she lacks is paper, to leave messages for her future self.

But the city never ages, even as she does, and eventually she longs for some proof that she’s not living in an endlessly-repeating bubble of now.

Eventually she lives in brief snatches, waking just long enough to rotate the ZPMs, letting the centuries slide away unnoticed like smoke through fingers, waiting for the day she’ll close her eyes for the last time.

for gen_drabble thingy #23: Jezebel

*

“'Jezebel'. Really?”

“You’re just sore because I managed to hit a triple word score, which means you’re going to lose this one.”

“No, I’m annoyed because you keep trying to cheat, despite what happened last time.”

“That was totally not my fault, and you know it. And what do you mean, ‘trying to cheat’? Jezebel’s a real word.”

“It’s a name.”

“That’s a kind of word.”

“But not one that’s allowed.”

“It’s a . . . noun! Y’know: ‘You jezebel you’. Someone called me that once and I broke his nose for him.”

“Nice try, but no cigar.”

“I hate this game. ...‘Bun’?”

To be Satedan is to be taller, faster, stronger. Smarter. Braver. Satedans stand toe to toe with Wraith, stare them in the eye and laugh.

(A Satedan and a Wraith walk into a bar. The Satedan walks out. Alone. Wearing a new coat.)

These things are true. Therefore, these other things must also be true: anyone not from Sateda is shorter, slower, weaker. Dumber. More afraid. No one else—not even the Hoffans with their science and sacrifice, or the Genii with their spies and paranoia—can go up against the Wraith and win.

(Neither could the Satedans, as it turns out.)

every now and then i go back through my old files and find stuff like this: the world's third piece of fanfic for The Song of Roland. which i read part of, once, about seven years ago.

yeah, i dunno either.

*

“I don’t understand it,” Roland said, almost petulant, with a shove that sent his laptop sliding across the table, destroying Orlando’s piles of paperwork as it went. Orlando sighed and put down his pen. No point in continuing until after Roland was finished. “Why are Arthur and Merlin so popular? Look—hundreds, thousands of stories about them, and these are just the ones based on that stupid TV show.”

Orlando sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on, although that was more their current bank balance’s fault than Roland’s. Not that Roland was helping. “You’ve been reading fanfiction again, haven’t you?”

“Yes—No! That’s not the point!”

“Well, what is? Arthur built a kingdom, and Merlin had magic powers and the whole mysterious aura thing going for him. You got everyone killed by refusing to call for help, and I was the practical-minded schlub who didn’t have enough spine to grab the horn from you and blow it myself. Of course people prefer reading and writing and dreaming about them. We’re boring.”

Roland muttered something that might have been ‘speak for yourself’, shooting a poisonous glare at the bills covering most of the table and spilling down onto the floor.

“Also, we’re broke.”

for gen_drabble challenge 19: tousled. don't like it as much as my former attempts, but. *shrugs* it's something written and finished, anyway.

*

“I like things that go more than 200 miles an hour,” John says when Teyla first meets him: seeming nonsense, though she ignores that because she likes his smile, which pretends to be false but isn’t. Later he explains (with distracting hand motion and whooshing sounds) what he meant, but she can’t understand the why of it. Puddlejumpers are fast, but mostly tiresome.

Now, though, in a car with no roof, wind blowing her hair into snarls that will take long hours to tease out, she begins to understand. Even though they’re still solidly on the ground, this is flying.

i'm not here, and i didn't write this, and i won't be writing more of it in the future.

*

At some point, usually about fifteen minutes in, there came a point of utter despair and a sense of great futility: the car had become one of those horrific 3-D puzzles that can't be solved because the pieces would have to pass through each other to produce the desired shape and normal people just can't make that happen, and everyone seemed content to simply stand around and comment on this fact instead of doing something about it.

This was largely Zach's fault, as he was a terminal over-packer, quite capable of amusing himself for an entire week with one of the aforementioned 3-D puzzles but unable to remember that fact for the next trip. And no one did anything about it: Yvaine just tried (fruitlessly) to minimize her own luggage, Xe appeared to be entirely oblivious (as always), and Valentine simply packed up his family in their own car and heartlessly left Wib to wrangle the rest of the band all by himself. The injustice of it was enough to make a grown man weep.

Eventually, though not without some superficial damage, everything was fit into the car, everyone was chivvied into seat and seatbelt, and they were off. Each time as they drove away, Wib swore he'd make someone else do the packing next time, knowing as he did so that he lied. They all had their roles, their places, and his was to fit the pieces into the required whole.

for gen_drabble; Nepenthe, "the one that chases away sorrow".

*

“Why don’t you meditate?” Teer asks one morning, gently incurious.

“I do,” John says (lies), twiddling a grass-stem.

“You sleep,” she corrects, her expression sweet but humorless. (Nobody ever really smiles here.)

“I don’t want to ascend,” he says; don’t want to leave them behind, he doesn’t, but she hears anyway.

“Why not? They’ve left you.” She presses her hand against his heart. “You hurt—I can feel it. Why do you choose to remember such pain and the people who caused it?”

“There’s more than one way to abandon someone,” he tells her (break, heart; I prithee—) and walks away.

Therese darling, I don't remember if this is exactly what you asked for, but it's what got written. You have my profoundest apologies.

*

Spock regarded the tricorder as he might a being who insisted that Terran pigs could indeed fly unassisted, the planet’s satellite was in fact made of green cheese, and the Enterprise was actually a four inch long model made out of plastic.

“Well?” Kirk repeated, the impatience suggested by his folded arms belied by the slight upward twitch of his mouth. “What are we looking at?”

After another almost embarrassed silence, Spock admitted, “I am unable to ascertain. The readings are indicative of inanimate organic matter, such as cloth and hair, and yet—”

Kirk made an expressive gesture upward. “And yet.”

Spock followed the gesture with his eyes, to where what appeared to be a large, antique ‘teddy bear’ was hanging from a balloon, singing something about clouds, and floating in the direction of some kind of insect hive. “And yet,” he agreed. The insects began to swarm around the teddy bear, who continued singing. “I must confess I find this place . . . unsettling. ”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” Kirk flipped open his communicator and thumbed the switch to open a channel. “Transporter room, get us out of here.”

As they beamed out, the last sounds they heard were the teddy bear’s shouts and the bang of a balloon exploding.

Time spent translating carvings on stone arch encountered on PX-3042: 178 minutes
Time spent isolating search terms: 36 minutes
Time spent navigating unnecessarily complicated search screens: 14.5 minutes
Time spent waiting for search to run: 92 minutes
Discovering that there are only two results and one of them is a sentence fragment:

"You'd think the Ancients would've figured out a better way to do this. I mean, really: stargates but no Google--not to mention their complete inability to keep proper records. It's no wonder they're all dead!"

Watching Rodney attempt spontaneous combustion from sheer irritation: well worth the hassle.

Put me in a cage and lock the door: I will beat myself against the bars until I bleed, and bite your fingers even if they come to free me. Give me wings and sky enough to fly in: I will return to you of my own volition, clear of eye and calm of spirit, ready to tear apart any enemy you might have.