in_the_blue | (no subject)

Kate/Sawyer. Post-canon. "You run, I con." Can a tiger change its stripes?

Island life never much suited him to start with, but he sure as hell did like going back to the south. Sobered by living too many damn lives for too long, the events of the time with Dharma weighing heavy on everything he did, he found himself a little place in the back roads of Alabama. Foreclosure -- he wasn't stupid -- and he got the house and the acreage and the scraggly livestock: sheep, goats, the odd cow. And then, only because Oceanic and Ajira gave him more damn money than he knew what to do with, he let the old lady whose family owned the place for a couple hundred years stay there until the day she passed. He hadn't been ready to settle down anyhow.

When her kids came by to collect her stuff, their you don't know how much this has meant to us, Mr. Ford rolling right off his shoulders like rain off a freshly-waxed Mercedes-Benz, the place was finally his. He'd never owned a house a day in his life although he'd lived in too damn many of them, and the first thing he did with this one -- after the cleaners were gone and the place was as spotless as a centuries-old farmhouse could be -- was lock the door on it and head down to the Caribbean for a spell. Place wasn't gonna feel right until he had it furnished island-style after all.

***

Legal fees were nothing trivial. Legal fees after breaking the terms of parole were even less trivial. Hiring the best lawyers, setting the scene for a sympathetic judge: those things all took money but what was the price of freedom? The answer to that question was all of it. Freedom cost everything, but it was so worth it. A motorcycle, a change of clothes, some hair dye, and a stack of brand-new bibles was all it took and the day she finally left California a free woman with a new identity, the breeze in her hair, the little remaining cash in her pocket, she wasn't worried. It was time to move on.

She took the southern route, intent on not unloading any of the bibles until she hit the actual Bible Belt. If she'd made it as far as Ray's farm in Australia without a penny to her name she could make it across this country the same way and she did, taking her time, weaving in and out of mountains and canyons, corn fields and ranches. The bike finally gave out on her somewhere in the wilds of Alabama and as if fate had it planned this way all along, she almost wasn't even surprised at who opened the door when she knocked.

***

"Heard you disappeared, Freckles." Old habits: the nickname slipped out, speaking to a different time and place, but he had no regrets about it.

"And I heard you bought the farm, James. I didn't think they meant it literally." Looking out at the setting sun from a pair of rocking chairs on the porch, sipping mint juleps, was both ridiculous and a comfort. "I feel like I stepped into the pages of a Flannery O'Connor story. You really live here?"

His outrage was all pretense; he laughed down into his bourbon. "Ain't nothin' wrong with Flannery O'Connor, woman. She's the quintessential southern author. She would've had a damn field day with our story."

Kate's nose wrinkled, a moment of self-effacement. "Quintessential. Did you just say quintessential?" Her laugh rang out over the rolling fields, attracting the sheepdog's attention. "I have a confession to make: I never read any Flannery O'Connor."

The words well hell, woman, come check out my library died on his tongue in favor of something a lot simpler, a lot less filled with innuendo, but a hell of a lot more enticing. "You just say the words I Never?" The smile was all in his eyes, every damn bit of it.

(The game lasted three years.)

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I especially love this part:

His outrage was all pretense; he laughed down into his bourbon. "Ain't nothin' wrong with Flannery O'Connor, woman. She's the quintessential southern author. She would've had a damn field day with our story."

It's just so Sawyer.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I missed my opportunity to throw in a good line about a good man being hard to find. Next time! ♥

Naturally, you can do whatever you want -- if anything -- with this:

Kate, Sawyer, Jack, the Kwons, Sayid, and Hurley weren't touched by Jacob. They were visited by either angel!Six or angel!Gaius.

Two cigarettes in an ashtray,
My love and I in a small cafe.
Then a stranger came along,
And everything went wrong.
Now there's three cigarettes in the ashtray.

Okay, this is it: she gives Tom the signal. This is the big moment and they say practice makes perfect. Tom's the perfect lookout, too, that little airplane tucked away, and that lady talking about her farm is another really good distraction. The lunchboxes are right... over... here.

That's it, that's the one, the New Kids on the Block one. Reaching out, she almost has it in her hand when she hears a grownup's voice. Crap! Busted!

"Of course, one has to make a choice in all things he or she does. But let me give you a small piece of advice, young lady."

The guy's smoking a cigarette and he's dressed like a total dork in that suit -- who dresses like that? no one -- and he looks all greasy and stupid, but she's not afraid. She's not afraid in the least. Defiant arms fold over her chest; her lower lip pouts menacingly.

"I don't take advice from strangers."

"Only lunchboxes, I see." He waves his fingers as if dismissing the entire notion. "Now, it couldn't possibly make the least bit of difference to me if you steal a lunchbox or if you don't. That's not where my interest lies. The advice I have for you is far more critical than that." A line of smoke floats up toward the store's ceiling and as much as she doesn't want to watch it, she can't help it. It's like time's stood still for just a moment.

How did he know she was going to steal one of these? Who is he? It doesn't really matter. "Critical, huh? Spit it out, seeing as how you just blew my opportunity." The neighbor woman finishes paying for her stuff; Tom fidgets by the door and the look he gives her is a pleading one.

The weird old man laughs and leans forward, and he smells like smoke and rose petals and fresh rain and she doesn't know why. "Don't tell anyone, but New Kids on the Block will be so passé in a few short years. The lunchbox you really want to steal is this one." He points to a Super Mario Brothers box; she can't help but snort aloud.

"That's stupid. I don't want that."

"Oh, but you will in about twenty years, Miss Austen. It will be worth a small fortune." Conspiratorially, he leans forward. "Go ahead. Now's your opportunity. Bury it away for a time. You'll thank me later."

"You're weird and dumb. Go away."

He does. Just like that he vanishes; Tom gives her the hurry up! sign. She doesn't want a dumb Super Mario Brothers lunchbox -- she wants New Kids on the Block -- but he said... so what's she supposed to do?

While the shopkeeper's back is turned she puts both in her backpack, grabs Tom by the hand, and runs out of the store giggling. It's a beautiful sunny day, the kind that's just perfect for climbing trees.

Edited 2010-05-31 21:04 (UTC)

I'm going to comment on every one of these because you were awesome enough to write something for each character and they're kind of amazing.

Little Kate is a fantastically little no-nonsense opportunist about her New Kids lunchbox. I love that she took both lunchboxes. I love that she thinks Gaius looks "all greasy and stupid," I think Gaius's voice here is pretty impressive, and I love this exchange:

"I don't take advice from strangers."

"Only lunchboxes, I see."

Leaving all of my more general comments here, I'll also say that I love the impressions Six and Gaius leave on each character. This was a delight to read.

For the sake of your in-box, I'm going to answer these all in one place. Let me just tell you that at first when I saw your prompt I had no idea what to do with it, but I knew it was going to be great fun regardless. I admit to having a little bit more of a soft spot for angel!Six and angel!Gaius than for their Cylon and human counterparts. They're pretty over-the-top as angels, especially Gaius, so he was a lot more fun. He's like a drunken talk-show host who knows about next season's secrets already, and I bet James Callis had a blast playing him.

All in all, it was much easier for me to write Gaius than Six. Once I'd decided to redo each scene, all I had to figure out was which angel was the more appropriate and what the differences would/should/could be.

Little Kate was a lot of fun to write. More tough than nervous, more eye-rolling than rule-following, I could just see her dishing it back out to Gaius. I don't know what difference not getting caught shoplifting will make to her future, but I do know it was a good day for trees.

Little Sawyer could have gone one of two ways. I do like that he's internally defiant with Six and I think in this crossover reality he might still go back and rewrite his letter a lot of times over the course of his life, but being empowered to erase it might change him in so many ways. I don't know. It's all hypothetical. He's still going to be told to be tough and get over things, of course.

Sun and Jin: I couldn't resist putting in both Six and Gaius, so I'm glad you liked that it went that way. I have to say that Jin's his Korean is excellent is one of my very favorite lines, canonically, so I was pretty thrilled to be able to use it. I like that Six and Gaius ended up being the antithesis of what Sun wanted her relationship to be with Jin, and that they were both forgotten afterward. Setting it at the wedding meant I really couldn't change it too much because of the constraints of the day, but it was fun finessing the details.

Jack was going to be seduced by Six one way or another (she had to try it with someone, and Gaius wasn't available). I figured he was the most likely candidate, and she did make a pretty good substitute for an Apollo bar. I also couldn't resist his do I know you? line because he uses that canonically a number of times, and to do it after making out with her at the hospital kind of cracked me up (along with the icon; I'm shy on Jack icons).

I knew that in this version of things Nadia wasn't going to get hit by a car, not that it couldn't happen again later. Just not in my fic: I needed a reason for Sayid not to get distracted to the point of losing Nadia and since they were just talking about their anniversary trip, it made sense to me that Sayid would be less likely to talk to a hooker-looking lady. This one actually started in my mind with him deciding blondes weren't his thing, in part because I never really believed in Sayid/Shannon and in part because he probably really needs to be in control in most given situations.

Hurley... I just love. Much of his dialog is ripped straight from canon, but he was all... dude, I don't know what your deal is, but leave me alone with Gaius. He might have thought himself crazy (and here there was no confirmation from the Jacob substitute that he wasn't, mostly because Gaius always pretty much doubted his own sanity) but he knew this other guy was. And echoing canon for him, it was inevitable that the cab driver wouldn't see Gaius there at all.

Thanks for the prompt! I loved it, and it definitely kept me from smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo all day. ♥

Stupid pen. Stupid notebook. Stupid funeral. He gives the pen one shake, two, does that trick his mom (no, he ain't gonna cry again, he's all cried out, he's all cried out, he's...) showed him one time -- licks the end of it -- and tries again, but the thing won't work. It won't work at all. That's when the lady with the yellow hair walks over and sits down by his side.

"I'm very sorry about your mother and father, James."

She's pretty and he doesn't know her, but there's lots of people here he doesn't know. He wonders what she wants, and how come she don't just go away and leave him alone.

"You ain't got a pen on you, do you?"

"Oh, you don't want a pen." She reaches over and smooths down his hair like mommy used to do and that almost makes him cry again 'cause he can't believe she's gone, but like his Uncle Doug says, ain't nothin' to do about it but be a man, understand what things have to do with you and what things don't, and get on with things except only he ain't got the slightest idea what getting on with things means. He's just a kid, and they're still deciding what to do with him.

"What do you mean I don't want a pen? Can't you see I'm writing here?"

The lady laughs and it's a soft laugh, not all mean and angry or fake and loud or full of concern like they shouldn't ought to be laughin' around him since his parents died, not that kind of laugh. "Pens are permanent. But I do have this." Drawing a pencil out of her purse, she hands it to him. "It's got a good strong eraser on it too."

"What do I need an eraser for, lady?" His eyes fill with tears but he blinks 'em back. Like Uncle Doug said, it's been an e-motional day all around.

When she stands she's real tall, real pretty, and she leans over and pats him on the head. "Sometimes we want to hold onto the past and sometimes we want to let it go. Have faith in yourself, James, and have faith in God's will. Listen to what you know in your heart, not to what anyone else tells you."

Yeah, like you, he almost says. Right now he don't have much faith in God or in His will, but he takes the pencil and a moment to think about what she's said and starts up writing again.

Dear Mr. Sawyer, he writes, You don't know who I am, but I know who you are, and what you done.

"Hey, lady? What do you know about God's will? You think it was God's will killed my mommy and my dad?"

She's gone when he looks up and all the grownups are too busy to notice, so he reads what he wrote, studies his pencil for a minute, then erases everything on the page. When his Uncle Doug comes up and asks what he's writing, his answer is honest.

"Nothin'. Uncle Doug?"

"Yeah? Come on, Jimmy, we gotta get to the cemetery."

"You believe in angels?"

"Angels and demons, Jimmy, I believe in 'em both."

He takes his uncle's hand, dependent for a moment before remembering he's eight years old now and can stand on his own.

"Good."

Heh, I have to admit that my favorite thing in this one is Six telling Sawyer not to listen to what anyone else tells him and him almost answering back yeah, like you.

I like the pencil instead of the pen and the question about God's will that he asks Six but never gets an answer to followed by the queston he asked his uncle. I love the mostly unconscious struggle between tragic orphaned Jimmy and independent little tough guy.

From the moment she first laid eyes on him, she has not been able to believe her luck. All her life she's been told not to be a dreamer, not to be such a romantic, but with Jin she has come to believe there is such a thing as love at first sight. She was sure he wouldn't feel the same way about her but he did; she was sure her father would never agree to their marriage but he did; she was sure they would never go through with this day... but they did. The words of his vow -- we will never be apart, because being apart would be like the sky being apart from the earth -- ring in her ears still, and linger on her thoughts, and settle over her like a very private and very happy veil and she knows they will keep her warm and protected and loved forever.

All they have to do now is get through the receiving line.

Every auntie of hers asks when they will start a family, every uncle gives Jin that knowing wink and pat on the shoulder -- as if no two people have ever been married before and as if the two of them have no concept of the intimacy that lies before them on their wedding night -- and every friend gives congratulations and every stranger... strangers? It's not unheard of; they look like they belong and they look like they do not belong.

"We'd like to offer you our..." The eccentrically-dressed man rolls his eyes as if the words are a trial "...blessing. Aren't there any more appropriate words to use after all this time? Blessing gets so old and overused. Sadly, it's also still the best word for the job." The last bit is said to the woman on his arm; smoke from his cigarette wafts up and away. Curiously enough, it doesn't smell terrible like most cigarettes. It must be a foreign brand.

"Don't listen to him. Never listen to him." The woman, tall and slender and formidable, shakes her head at her companion. "Your love is a very special thing." Her voice is steady and unwavering. Sun looks from the odd couple to her new husband, her brows raised in question, his shrug back at her confirmation that he's as surprised as she is.

"Thank you." Sun smiles and bows; Jin does the same. "It was good of you to be here today."

This time the woman answers. "Goodness is a concept that's hard-won, Mrs. Kwon. Hold it close and layer it with faith. Faith in God, faith in each other."

"Enough with the God business already," interrupts the man, eyes rolling in amusement, his smile leveled at the newlyweds. "You'd think after all this time she would give it up, wouldn't you? I mean, honestly. Pushing one's agenda on everybody gets so old after a while."

"Shut up, Gaius." The pretty foreign woman digs her elbow into her companion's side; he feigns discomfort at it but they bow, and with a low don't ever take it for granted that could be meant for her situation with Jin as newlyweds or as some old comfortable argument between the westerners, they move away.

"Who were they?" The question bears asking; doesn't her new husband hold all the answers?

Jin's response, smile still plastered on his face -- the receiving line is far from ended, after all -- shakes his head. "I don't know, but their Korean is excellent."

Associates of her father's then: if she remembers, she'll ask him later but it isn't so very important. The words they said are relegated to the back of her thoughts: she is ready for the day to be over and for her new life with her husband to begin. That is all that matters.

They will never be like the bickering foreign couple. It's a promise she makes to herself right away, and one she intends to keep.

THEIR KOREAN IS EXCELLENT.

Hahaha. I'd kind of hoped that if you went this route, writing each encounter, that you'd have both Six and Gaius in this one (and as someone who's not a fan of either character, I'm just as surprised as anyone that I'm saying something like that, heh). It works kind of beautifully. I like their bickering, and I love Sun insisting to herself that they will never be like Six and Gaius. As much as I'd enjoyed the key differences in these encounters versus the canon Jacob encounters, I like the similarities in this one (plus Gaius thinking pushing agendas is getting old).

Are you sure I'm the one who doesn't believe in you, Jack? His father's words echo angrily in the dull headache of his thoughts. There's never been anything but rivalry between them, nothing at all but rivalry and if he could have it any other way he would. Any other way at all would be preferable to trying his damnedest to prove himself over and over and over again, only to be shot down at every turn. He's sick of it. He's sick to death of it, and to top it all off, his last bit of change has just gotten stuck in the damn machine. Doesn't that figure?

Distraught -- for the first time, he thinks he knows exactly why his father drinks so much -- and momentarily left feeling entirely helpless, he doesn't even notice the woman approaching until she's literally right on him. Her hands wrap around his neck, her body not an inch from his. She speaks into his mouth like she could siphon the breath right from his body, she's that close, and her perfume has to be the single headiest thing he's ever smelled.

Did he die and go to heaven? The way he responds to her touch is practically automatic. Life hasn't been going his way lately and he could really use this distraction; his arms wrap around her waist, one hand moving up her back, the other moving down it, and when she leans in just that much more closely to kiss him he kisses her back, no holds barred. It's sweet and wonderful and heavenly and the words just what the doctor ordered make him laugh silently. The only reason he breaks contact at all is to come up for air.

"You don't want the Apollo bar," she breathes in a voice like vintage port over crushed velvet. "Trust me."

He knows he doesn't want it, not any more, but the side of him that's more science than faith forces a step back. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen: tall and lanky, model-thin, perfect blue eyes, a mouth like a rose. This is so very right, but it's also so very wrong and he has to pull away from her. He has to do it. He has to ask.

"Excuse me. Do I know you?"

Edited 2010-05-31 22:58 (UTC)

Six certainly would've been more... efficient in her effectiveness with Jack than Jacob ever could've been.

And what great insert-this-story-into-canon foreshadowing with the line about him thinking that for the first time he understands why his father drinks so much. His attraction to her is perfectly palpable.

(Coupled with your icon, I have to giggle.)

A year: they've been married for almost a year. He isn't one for superlatives, but he will go so far as to say this has been the best year of his life.

"Paris or Rome?"

Nadia giggles, flirtatious. It's so satisfying to see her so happy. "No."

"Florence?" Insistent, he wants to find a destination that they can both enjoy. He's taken on the role of being the one to plan things in this marriage, and he doesn't mind it at all. It suits him, and Nadia hasn't minded ceding this small bit of control to him. She's still as headstrong and determined and forceful as always, but he's long said that together they make a formidable pair.

She's still lost in the moment, just glad to have this day. "It doesn't matter, as long as we're together!"

"Yes, it does! It's our anniversary, we have to find the perfect place." It's as much wishful thinking on his part as anything, but the settlement left him with money to burn. What better way than to take the woman he loves to a romantic destination?

"Can we settle for finding my sunglasses?" They stop at the street corner and she laughs again; the thing with her sunglasses has been a running joke for them all day. First she misplaced them leaving the house, and then at the coffee shop, and then couldn't find them at the bank when all the while the sunglasses were sitting right on top of her head, and now who knows where they are? One would think it a comedy routine she's planned.

The light changes; she starts across the street but he reaches for her arm as a very pretty woman taps him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir? Could you help me? I'm sorry, I think I'm lost. Are you from Los Angeles?"

Sayid looks her up; he looks her down. That dress, the makeup, the height of her heels: he has no use for this kind of thing. The prostitutes in this town are getting more brazen: he's out with his wife in broad daylight, for heaven's sake. Not the easy target people make him out to be, he shakes his head emphatically.

"Sorry. Blondes aren't my type." Taking Nadia by the arm, they move off down the street to the next corner. "Budapest. I hear it's spectacular at this time of year."

This may be strange, but I can hear the prostitutes in this town are getting more brazen pretty clearly in Sayid's voice.

Sayid and Nadia in happy times makes me happy, and I like that she doesn't get hit by a car at the end. It's almost a fix-it fic, and they are lovely together.

It figures that the cab he gets into is already taken, but the guy sitting there doesn't seem to mind. He's just as cool as a cucumber -- that's something his mom used to say, that things were as cool as a cucumber -- and he never really thought about it a whole lot because he wasn't ever that much of a salad kind of guy but this guy looks like he might be, all pin-striped suit and sunglasses and cigarette.

"Dude. There's no smoking in the cab."

Lowering his sunglasses, the dark-haired man with the scraggly beard flashes him a look of pure amusement. "Carry on. The driver won't even notice. I'm only going up the street a little way."

"You are? I mean... doesn't it, like, bother you that a guy walking out of jail gets into your cab with you?"

"Why should it bother me?" As if the cab contains all the room in the universe, the guy unfolds his legs and refolds them. There's a feeling of absolutely infinite space around him. "I wasn't the one in jail. I haven't been in jail for centuries upon centuries, but that isn't something you need to know about, nor would it make the least bit of sense to you if I did tell you about it, never mind that it wasn't precisely me who was in jail in the first place. Details."

"Yeah? Well, I was there 'cause I killed three people. But I didn't really." There's something just plain wrong about this guy, but then again, when you're crazy everything either seems wrong or so wrong it's right and he stopped trying to figure it out after they got back from the island. Nothing's made sense since then, except he has so much money he doesn't know what to do with it any more. Even jail couldn't rip that feeling of wrongness out of him, and he tried. He wanted to get arrested. It was worth losing the Hot Pocket. "But I am crazy. And cursed. I mean, ever since I played Leonard's numbers."

The guy in the suit waves his hand. "They're just numbers. Sequential, yes, and significant perhaps, in ways you can't yet understand. But the bottom line is that all numbers are just numbers, and all curses can be turned round and made into blessings. What if you weren't cursed? What if you were blessed instead?

Okay, he thinks. He's had enough.

"Dude. One crazy person per cab, all right? I think it's like... a cosmic law or something. Driver, over here." When the car stops, he hops out, leans into the driver's window, and gives him a bunch extra. "You know where the Santa Rose Mental Health Institute is?"

The driver nods.

"Take that guy in the back there, tell Dr. Stillman that Hugo sent him. Can you do that for me?"

"Sure, pal." Once again the driver nods and pockets the cash gladly: the back seat is, of course, empty. It's the last time he picks up a fare outside County.

The thing about Hurley never thinking much about cool as a cucumber because he was never much of a salad guy but Gaius probably being one cracks me up so much.

Hurley's voice is shockingly good, and I don't think I could be any more pleased with the idea of him telling the cab driver to take Gaius to Santa Rosa. The ending's perfect.

This was all beautifully done, ma'am, and I think you should be very proud of it.

You know how I love your Sawyer. How about a missing scene for an ending the writers didn't fit in?

"Step on it, step on it, or the damn plane's gonna leave without us." He can hear the roar of the engines and smell the fuel, and hell if he's gonna be left behind on this island one more time. Ain't gonna happen.

"I can't. I can't run any more. Go on, James, just go."

"Like hell, Freckles. I got to carry you I will. I made you a promise: you and me are gettin' off this damn island." She ought to believe him. After all, he's the guy who jumped out of a damn helicopter to save her and Doc and Hugo and Sun, and if he was willin' to lay down his life for her like that one time, he's sure as hell gonna live up to his word this time. "There ain't no goin' back for the doc."

It's those last words that cut into her like a knife; he can see it on her face but he ain't got time for that now.

"Almost there."

If he's got to tackle the damn plane and bring it down with his bare hands he will. Kate's in tears, Claire ain't much better, and him? He can taste freedom so bad and he wants it. Wants to leave this whole mess behind and start again, and that's what gives him the strength to jump out into the middle of the clearing and wave the damn plane down just as it's about to move.

For once in his life, he's in the right place at the right time.

Nice. I loved this little extra. Right place at the right time, indeed.

♥ I'm glad you liked it! I'm not sure it quite fit your prompt, but it was a missing scene, if not an ending they didn't give us.

Hell to the yeah! I made it in time! I saw 8 comments and thought "Awwww, fuck" - really, I did. Any'kay, how's about something for me? I'd love it more than my shoes...and I've got a lot of shoes, twinnie.

Prompt: Just Jack.

People are born alone and we die alone. No matter how many people surround us, we're ultimately alone and so every experience -- everything we hear and see and do -- is a solitary one. I know I said live together, die alone enough times that people got sick of hearing it, but in its purest sense, the statement holds any way you look at it. No matter what we think, no matter what we believe, we can live together and among each other, but we can't take anyone with us. We always, always die alone. Of old age, of sickness, on the operating table: ultimately, no one can go on that journey with us.

From birth, we're brought up to think -- to believe -- that the only thing that matters is finding the truth, and whether the truth comes in the guise of some God or our one true love (if either are real, or really possible) isn't as important as believing it will happen. It's the only thing that gets people through the hardest times of their lives: belief and faith, no matter what it's in.

I believe I did the right thing. When all is said and done, that's the only thing I can really claim.

I did the right thing.

Oh bless you! I loved this! So Jack, so true, and so... perfect.

I did the right thing.

Oh my yes. *sigh*

Awesome job, G!!!!!!!!!

First time for everything, right? This was the first time I wrote Jack. I'm glad you found it fitting for him! He's a tough character. Very much a sense-of-self kind of guy. Thanks for the prompt!

Since I don't have Lost on the brain, how about something about Gren and Julia on Callisto? ♥

"Do you have a name for that last one?"

She was so beautiful, sitting there on the corner bar stool, that it almost took the breath right out of his throat. Even though women weren't his style, he hadn't seen a real one in a long time and he'd forgotten just how delicate and curved and soft they could be. Men -- even men that looked like women or pretended to be women or changed into women -- were a different commodity entirely. He could always tell. It was the throat and hands that could never be completely hidden.

This one was all female.

"I call it Goodnight, Julia. Do you know the tune?" Now that was idle bar chatter; he'd lifted the melody from a little music box a friend gave him on the desert planet Titan while they were both stationed there during the war. The only name he'd been given for the melody was Julia, but he added the Goodnight when he got here and started playing it all the time. It naturally gravitated to the end of the set and anyone who was a regular at the Rester House knew it signaled closing time by now.

Lifting a cigarette to her lips, he thought, was designed to hide the very tight grin on her face. "You might think it's all coincidence, but my name is Julia."

Quick to the nearest matchbook, he lit one and held it up for her cigarette. "Wow. That is a coincidence. Does it mean you know my song?"

Julia took in a long breath of cigarette, exhaled it away, and looked at him levelly. "I do know the song. Where did you learn it?"

"From a little bronze wind-up music box." Now he studied her with a more direct and pointed curiosity than he would any other female who'd just happened to stray into his bar. "I'm betting you could have guessed that, right?"

One eyebrow raised, Julia held up one hand, thumb and forefinger about two inches apart. "About so big, very simple? Just the handle and the box. It used to belong to me." Now she leaned forward on one elbow. "Will you tell me how and where you learned the song?"

All eyes, he knew, were on them. A woman at this place was such a rarity and the men who'd stumbled on the place and stayed for whatever reason had a healthy appetite for female flesh, he knew that much. "It's a story. What do you say you and I go somewhere a little more private? I'm not so sure I want to talk about it here."

Julia already had her feet on the ground and her belongings in her pockets; she nodded to the door. "I never caught your name."

"It's Gren."

No real flicker of recognition showed on her face, but maybe she was just really good at poker; he didn't know and it didn't matter. At her behest he led the way, and there was something intriguing and dangerous about the anticipation welling in his stomach. The evening had a lot of promise, and not the kind the other men in the bar were hoping for.

From either of them.

This is just amazing. I've always loved the way you and

lostinapapercup play the dynamic between these two, and you've got everything I love about them here: the quiet sensuality, the humour, the intense sadness that's so much a part of both of them. All the details in the description and the observation are both just gorgeous.

♥ Thank you!

My extreme pleasure! Any excuse to write anything Bebop is a good excuse in my book!

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The fuck was he supposed to think? The guy gave him the creeps, all pasty and covered up and that friggin' cloak that never did anything but cling to him like a second skin and the gun on his thigh and the armor, he wasn't a big fan of the armor. But the worst of it all was his eyes. Red's a hair color, it's a tattoo color, but it ain't an eye color.

He could hardly look over at him, but luckily he had the chopper to fly and focus on that instead of starin' at friggin' Vincent Valentine, ex-Turk. Shit. He never wanted to be an ex-anything.

As he maneuvered Shin-Ra 3 down into the crater through the mist and fog, he turned the radio up even louder. Music was kinda necessary at this place, 'cause it gave him just as much of a case of the creeps as the guy sitting in the co-pilot's seat. When Valentine reached over and turned the volume down again, he about friggin' killed the guy: you don't mess with a pilot's controls.

"HEY."

"This is the spot you last saw them?" Valentine looked down into the depths of the crater and didn't make even a little apology for messin' with the volume. Fuck that, he'd be lucky to get a ride back out of here again and the only reason he was even doin' this was because the boss ordered it. Otherwise, no friggin' way.

"Yeah. Down on that ledge, the one that goes into that cave. You want... HEY. Don't do that. You're gonna..."

But already, Valentine was leanin' out, lookin' over the crater like it was his old stompin' ground or some shit like that. "Tseng and Elena both?"

"Yeah, Tseng and Elena both. They were there together."

"And... all you were able to retrieve was... the box." The fuck: was that accusation in his voice?

"Yeah, yeah, just the friggin' box before they got dragged away." Those were his orders: bring back the box. There was nothin' about Tseng or Elena or anyone else. Just retrive the friggin' box. Much as he hated to ask, he went ahead and did it anyhow. "Think you can find 'em?"

Vincent turned back, red eyes reflecting every light from every friggin' instrument on the panel. "Yes. Thanks for the ride." And just like that, the guy leaped out of the helicopter in a swirl of red.

Oh, shit. At least his little delivery assignment was done: looked like Ex-Turk wouldn't be needin' that ride home after all. "Good luck, pal." Valentine would never be able to hear it; Reno swung the helicopter back up and away, out of the crater and back into the sunshine, and turned the music up loud. He friggin' hated that place.

I don't think I counted 8 pompts yet? Feel free to ignore this if I miscounted. Anyone from HP fandom prompt: oatmeal

Two identical sets of eyes peered out from behind the bannister.

"Watch," Fred whispered to his brother.
"I am," replied George.

Yawning wide, rubbing his eyes, tying and re-tying the knot on the belt of his bathrobe, Ron sat down at the breakfast table, pulling the bowl of oatmeal toward him. Without missing a beat he dolloped on cream and sugar and maple syrup, then tucked in and ate the whole thing. Sitting back happily, he rubbed his stomach, let out another yawn, and...

A perfectly round bright pink bubble escaped his mouth.

"What?" With a shrug, Ron poked at it until it popped. He yawned again; a second bubble (this one pearlescent purple) escaped.

"Oi!" Of necessity suddenly more awake he stood, the trousers of his too-short pyjamas exposing his ankles. The third bubble was yellow, followed immediately by a green, a red, a turquoise, and an orange which, by now, matched the color of Ron's face.

"Fred!" (indigo) "George!" (lime.) "I'm" (magenta) "going" (brown) "to" (violet) "bloody" (sea green) "well" (cornflower) "kill" (ivory) "you" (buttercup) "both!" (beige)

The twins, wise beyond their years, were long gone.

I love all of these SO MUCH. <3333

If you're still taking prompts: anything with Hurley after he's become the new Jacob.

"No, dude, those are, like, the old rules. If I'm gonna be the new Jacob, I get to make my own rules. It's my island now." The only thing he wa really sworn to do was protect the light and now that he was... like... Jack, who was... like... Jacob, he knew how to do that. It was just a question of what to do if people showed up, and if they got to come and go (he couldn't see why not) and if him and Ben got to come and go. Little details like that.

"All right, Hugo, you're right." Ben sat on a rock by the shore whittling a bamboo stalk into a fine point. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with it, but that's the way it always was when the rules changed along with het balance of power. He'd always thought the way he took care of the island was pretty good, but he'd been through a few things and come to a few realizations. Maybe it was time to sit back and help instead of stepping up and trying to take over. Time had certainly proved that his way hadn't been very successful.

Standing at the water's edge, arms spread out like he was gathering in all that was good in the whole ocean, Hugo spoke to no one and everyone. "Dude." He paused, and whether that was for emphasis or because he was trying to decide what to say next, Ben didn't know. "I'm not, like, the smartest guy in the world, you know? I thought I was crazy for the longest time. I broke a deck and kind of killed people stepping out on it. I learned the numbers from this even crazier guy, Leonard, at Santa Rosa and winning the lottery never got me anything but trouble. So I figure... let's make things simple here. First of all, no more keeping secrets." Now he turned back to Ben, the sudden realization that Ben was like... his Commander Riker now, his Number One, his Chewbacca, his...

"Dude. You're kind of my Richard."

"Does that mean I get to wear mascara and run errands off the island for you?" Once sarcasm had become a way of life, it was a difficult habit to break. The corners of Ben's mouth twitched slightly, curved into a smile, and finally became a full-fledged laugh.

Hugo laughed too. "If you can, like, find mascara, you can wear it. Come on." Moving back inland, he rested an arm around Ben's shoulder. "First thing we ought to do is like... round up the food we have, and this time I'm gonna do is put you in charge of that." He knew that over time he'd actually learn to spear-fish, to gut a good meal, to hunt boar. All those things he'd left to other people were like his responsibility now, but it was going to be good. Jack was right: it was supposed to be him. "And thanks for helping me get Desmond back home."

Slowly, Ben nodded. "It was my pleasure," he said, and he meant it.

The Commander Riker might have been my favorite moment, except for this:

arms spread out like he was gathering in all that was good in the whole ocean

Yes. Yes. That's my Hugo. *hugs him so much*

*beams* Thank you for the prompt! That was fun to write.

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Kate

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Sawyer

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Sun and Jin

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Jack

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Sayid

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Hurley

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