(no subject)
Oct. 6th, 2004 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zarahemlaI've been having lots of fun writing drabbles for the first lines of other peoples' fics, so I present here some of mine in the hopes of getting drabble-age out of it.
I won't tell you the fandoms (though some are obvious) so you can just riff on it.
It's not a dark alley they meet in, but a vast, brightly lit ballroom in Los Angeles.
A ranchers son ought to be used to hardship.
They cut the rope from the saddle and let him fall.
Two days after Archie Kennedy died of his gut wound, and all the other officers of the Renown were cleared of charges of mutiny most foul, and one day before Captain Hornblower will sail the Retribution back to England, Horatio takes William out into Kingston Harbour and teaches him how to swim.
She looks at him with eyes that are, strangely, not blank, but electric.
Riley has only ten minutes with the nameless dead girl.
The leaves sigh around Alain, as if they're trying to tell him something, something so low and delicate that he will never hear it.
Bright is not stupid.
Freed from the stifling heat of the tavern, Jack stumbles into darkness.
The moonship's black corridors echo under Uther Doul's heels.
The train goes by every day, but it only goes one way.
We're watching the moonlight bounce off the New York City skyline.
I think I had him there, for just one minute.
In the arena of Krycek's head, he's playing chess.
I won't tell you the fandoms (though some are obvious) so you can just riff on it.
It's not a dark alley they meet in, but a vast, brightly lit ballroom in Los Angeles.
A ranchers son ought to be used to hardship.
They cut the rope from the saddle and let him fall.
Two days after Archie Kennedy died of his gut wound, and all the other officers of the Renown were cleared of charges of mutiny most foul, and one day before Captain Hornblower will sail the Retribution back to England, Horatio takes William out into Kingston Harbour and teaches him how to swim.
She looks at him with eyes that are, strangely, not blank, but electric.
Riley has only ten minutes with the nameless dead girl.
The leaves sigh around Alain, as if they're trying to tell him something, something so low and delicate that he will never hear it.
Bright is not stupid.
Freed from the stifling heat of the tavern, Jack stumbles into darkness.
The moonship's black corridors echo under Uther Doul's heels.
The train goes by every day, but it only goes one way.
We're watching the moonlight bounce off the New York City skyline.
I think I had him there, for just one minute.
In the arena of Krycek's head, he's playing chess.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-06 04:33 pm (UTC)*
We're watching the moonlight bounce off the New York City skyline. "It's pretty from here," Rory says, and she's almost right. If I were standing on top of my car like in that R.E.M. video, spinning around with my arms outstretched, it would be a pretty view. But you can get arrested for doing that on the Henry Hudson Bridge, where we have been for half an hour now. In that time, we have moved approximately four feet.
"We're going to miss it," I say. "We're going to be in traffic for a week, and when we get there, there won't be any parking."
"We're not going to miss it," Rory says. "Dinner may have to be highly suspicious pizza, eaten while being cruised by gang members, but we will not miss it."
"How can you be so sure?" I say. "You're always so sure of things."
"We're still three hours early," she says, "and The Bangles would never let us down like that."
"Did you pay them off?" I say.
"No," she says, kissing your cheek. "But we are so adorably in love that they would sooner die than start without us."
I don't bother contradicting Rory. She's so good at believing in fairy tales that she makes them come true.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-10 12:24 pm (UTC)Reunion; Weiss Kreuz; Crawford, Aya
Date: 2004-10-07 12:10 am (UTC)It's not a dark alley they meet in, but a vast, brightly lit ballroom in Los Angeles. Crawford smiles with real humour and walks away from the girl he's been using as cover.
"White wine, please," he says in Japanese and watches the waiter's back stiffen in shock.
Aya spins round, dropping the tray. Crawford has already stepped aside, not wanting his suit splashed. He laughs as Aya tries to disguise the fact he's just gone for a non-existant sword.
"Fujimiya. I see you've gone down in the world. Or are you here on assignment?"
Schuldig, he calls, loud as he can. Look what I found.
A moment's pause, then, Well, well. The lost kitten. How pathetic, he really is a waiter. Oh, and he hates you.
Aya glares at him,and Crawford reaches casually into his pocket. For a moment he sees the hope in the boy's eyes, as if he'd welcome being put down, but then Crawford pulls out a twenty dollar bill and tucks it into Aya's hand.
"Buy yourself a sandwich later," he says maliciously. "Now if you'll excuse me, some of us have friends to get back to."
He walks away. Amusement over. Back to work.
Re: Reunion; Weiss Kreuz; Crawford, Aya
Date: 2004-10-07 04:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:08 am (UTC)-----
It's not a dark alley they meet in, but a vast, brightly lit ballroom in Los Angeles. Some corporation's annual event: cheap booze and awkward junior management types in formal clothing they don't know how to wear. There's enough Wyndham-Pryce in Wesley to want to sneer at it all, but in truth all he wants is to be able to go home. Instead, here he is, the face of Wolfram and Hart (and there's an irony to that which he can't quite pin down), a cup of oily whiskey in one hand and boredom in his eyes. Gunn has been carried off to trade stories with the other corporate lawyers; Wesley hasn't seen him for an hour.
"Dull, isn't it?"
No one speaks like that from birth: it's the kind of accent people assume when they want to hide their origins. Wesley turns to look and finds pretty blue eyes and short blond hair and a face that might have been from anywhere. Certainly the most interesting thing he's seen this evening, not that that's much of a statement. The dinner jacket looks bespoke; Oxford, he suspects, or he'd like to have been, and probably Lincoln or Trinity. He offers a noncommittal shrug.
"You're not with Figline Enterprises, I take it."
"Wolfram and Hart. You?"
"Credit Suisse, at the moment."
There's rumored to be substantial collection of mystical objects hidden in one of the basement levels of Credit Suisse, although no one from Wolfram and Hart has managed to get a look at them; his predecessor had a substantial file on the problem. He gives the man next to him a second look. His good tailoring is hiding more than muscle, he suddenly realizes. There's a gun, at least one, under there as well. Definitely the most interesting thing he's seen this evening. He holds out one hand. "Wesley Wyndam Pryce."
"Julian Sark."
(tbc. Really.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:37 am (UTC)Mal knew he deserved better, but it had been a days-long trip on a broken-down nag with Mal in the front and "him" (he couldn't bring himself to even think his name, because then it'd all be true and Wash'd be dead forever) draped over the back, wrapped in a sheet and tied down tight.
Mal looked hollowly at the woman in front of him, his body on the verge of collapse, and, despite her tears, Zoë moved forward, wrapped her arm around his waist, and carried him inside.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-07 04:09 pm (UTC)Lost in Translation
Date: 2004-10-10 02:15 am (UTC)The guitar has been John's latest obsession every since we came back from Tokyo, and he hasn't stopped twitching or humming yet. There's a manic energy that surrounds John that makes me feel I have to be still for the both of us. Like a calm before the storm.
It gets too much sometimes that I have to leave the room. I go down the hotel bar and it's the same dim lighting, the same clinking of glasses, but nothing is really the same. I turn around looking for the jazz band but of course the soft elevator music is coming from a sound system.
Tokyo feels like a faded and hazy dream, like everything that happened there happened to someone else and I was just watching it on TV. There was a man at the bar with clips on his back and the girl sitting behind him laughed, which surprised her because she'd forgotten what that sounded like. It was like the faint rumbling of distant thunder, short and sudden and far between. I close my eyes but that feeling never comes back.
Sometimes late at night, I'm flipping through the channels and I see that man staring back at me through the screen, but he's years too young and driving a truck. He's not the man I remember and this isn't the show that I was watching. I shut the TV off.
I turn away from the window to look at my husband. John is singing out loud and slapping his hand against his knee, keeping time with the beat. I sit on the windowsill and lean up against the pane, feeling a little dizzy from knowing that we're 34 floors up.
New York isn't Tokyo, and my life isn't a television show. Somewhere across the country, the man is sitting at home with his wife and kids and that isn't the way I remember him either.
I call out to John. He looks up at me expectantly, pulling off his headphones, and I realize that there's nothing to say.
Re: Lost in Translation
Date: 2004-10-10 12:23 pm (UTC)