Ficlet Post: Halloween/Rare Pairings
Nov. 8th, 2009 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
harborshoreI'm done! At last, at last. I kind of had a little too much fun with these, let's just put it that way, and therefore they are All Over The Place. We have superheroes, a weird sort of fairy tale, a ball (complete with stupid shoes), steampunk, a crossover with ATS, Bunny!pov (yup, I wrote a story in the pov of Mikey's cat, feel free to laugh) and a lot of other strange little universes. No warnings, I don't think, apart from very vaguely implied off-screen violence in the girl!Gee/Amanda ficlet and past original character death in the Bob/Gerard/Lyn-Z one. Oh, and Alicia is dead in the one where she is a ghost. Obviously.
Also, in terms of pairings, we have, in no particular order: girl!Gerard/Amanda, Lyn-Z/Alicia, Lyn-Z/Alicia/Jamia, Alicia/Mikey/Pete, girl!Bob/Gerard, Cash/Ian, Kitty/Lyn-Z, Bob/Gerard/Lyn-Z, and Frank/Mikey/Pete.
Title: Kick Your Shoes Off
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Alicia
Word Count: 1242
Summary: Lyn-Z hates balls. And dresses. And the shoes she's wearing. Luckily, she meets someone who can distract her.
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
airgiodslv. Prompt: costume party or masquerade ball and LESBIAN GHOST PORN.
Lyn-Z worries at her sleeve again. It's one thing to have to dress up, it's kind of a whole other sort of deal to be ordered into a ball gown complete with a train and seriously uncomfortable shoes. And the lace at her wrists just itches.
But it's the Centennial Ball tonight, and the whole school has to do this. Her only consolation is that Steve and Jimmy have to wear suits; Lyn-Z doesn't think she's ever seen Steve look this uncomfortable, not even when he'd sleepwalked into the hallway naked and the headmistress had come across him peeing on a potted plant. And Jimmy mostly looks like a pointy stick.
No, not that kind of a pointy stick, he's definitely left the one he insists on using as a "focus" in his room. She's pretty sure one of them or Chantal will succeed in spiking the punch anyway, hell, she'd do it herself if her shoes weren't so goddamn uncomfortable. Instead, she's elected to sit very still on a bench and watch the dancing, trying to remember enough of it to draw later.
There's a skeleton ball calling her name, and she can almost, almost see it in the way the dancers move, gracefully or not. That elbow, there, and that girl, oh, Rayna, the way she spins, it makes gorgeous a stupid word.
Lyn-Z watches and watches, wishing she'd been allowed to bring in a pen and a sketch pad. But no, tonight is for "fun", so her art supplies are back in the dormitory. To her, it seems like the whole point of going to a boarding school with a focus on art and music would be that you think art and music is fun, but apparently the teachers had all felt the Centennial Ball should be a night off from school.
Sure, a night off wearing a purple dress and stupid shoes. And possibly they hadn't wanted her to start drawing dancing skeletons that might have started blending with the real dancers.
That's when she feels it. Just a touch, a finger tracing over her palm, a hand grabbing her wrist. What the--
And then there's a voice in her ear, soft and low, "Hey, hey, wanna come with me instead?"
Lyn-Z has no idea what prompts her to say yes (well, okay, so she's kind of always up for something different), but she does, and she follows the tug on her wrist through the side doors into the garden.
There's a full moon, and it just looks so close tonight, close and low like she could touch it if she wanted. Lyn-Z sort of has the urge to howl, but she settles for kicking off her shoes and looking around for the girl, the--something, who got her out here.
The shadows shimmer and solidify, and oh, oh, she's beautiful. Lyn-Z knows she's staring, but she can't help it, the girl is, like, she's all tall and dark-haired, and she has these eyes, shit. Her black dress is just skimming the ground, long-sleeved and low-cut, and Lyn-Z has no idea where to look or what to say.
"Hey," she manages, and winces at herself.
The girl smiles. "Hey, I'm Alicia."
"Alicia? Like third floor Alicia?" Lyn-Z didn't think they had someone with this kind of power in the school, but she's definitely heard the name before.
Alicia shakes her head. "No, like student-thirty-years-ago Alicia."
"You're--" Well, that's it, the universe officially really sucks.
"Dead? Well, kind of. I was, and then it didn't stick, so the headmistress let's me stay here. But I don't--"
"No, shit, sorry." Lyn-Z has no idea what to say. Alicia is dead but she's not, and she's smiling at Lyn-Z like, maybe, and, no. Too fucking much.
"Hey, no," Alicia says, coming closer. "I wanted to show you something over by the lake, I didn't mean to freak you out or anything, you're just..." She trails off, and now she's really close.
Lyn-Z looks up, and she's not scared, she's not, she's just, it's a little hard to breathe, that's all.
"The lake?" she manages, shivering when Alicia's hand brushes over her wrist again.
Alicia nods, then grins. "Race you!" she says and promptly disappears.
"Unfair!" Lyn-Z yells after her and hikes her skirts up, starting to run. The grass is soft under her bare feet, and she's laughing as she runs, because she's not inside anymore, the moon is rolling slowly along the line of the trees, and there's a girl out here with her. So what if said girl is cheating in a race, it's not like it matters.
And so what if she's technically dead? Gerard is dating the kid of a Chaos Demon, that's gotta be much worse.
She leans down to slide underneath a tree, almost trips over a root but saves herself just in time, and then she's at the lake. At first she can't see Alicia, but then there's a movement in the shadows and Lyn-Z almost reaches out to touch, but doesn't know if she can. Like, what if Alicia can touch her but not the other way around?
Alicia turns around and grins. "Finally," she says loftily. "I was beginning to think you'd never get here."
"Oh, shush," Lyn-Z responds. "Show me what's so special about the lake tonight, it's more interesting than your gloating."
"Come here," Alicia says, and Lyn-Z obeys, standing right next to Alicia. She's probably imagining the warmth she feels coming off of Alicia, but she's going to pretend it's real.
Hell, maybe this whole night is a dream; maybe she's just in her dorm room, caught in one of her drawings again.
"Look," Alicia whispers, pointing outward. There's something glowing on the surface of the water, it looks like—
"It's a Norwegian water lily," Alicia whispers, voice really close to Lyn-Z's ear, and she can't help but shiver at the feeling.
"What's so special about those?" she says, trying to keep her voice steady and low.
"They only bloom once every fifty years," Alicia says, one hand circling Lyn-Z's wrist again. "Once every fifty years, on the night of the full moon, and legend has it that if you watch…" she breaks off, and Lyn-Z turns her face to look at her.
"If you watch, what happens?"
"You're supposed to fall in love," Alicia says, sounding oddly serious, and Lyn-Z wants to laugh, she really does, but her voice feels caught in her throat.
"I don't even know you," she says, still not looking away.
Alicia shakes her head. "I know, it was stupid, it's just, you draw, the way you draw, right? Things come to life, and they're beautiful, so beautiful, and you're, just, you're so, I can't stop going to look for you, I do it all the time."
She starts to draw back, but Lyn-Z reaches out now, finds her courage and reaches out, curving her hand around Alicia's shoulder.
"Show me around the garden," she says, and she knows her smile is shaky, but she's betting Alicia knows how to read it.
Sure enough, Alicia's smiling back, and now she's stepping closer again, so close and Lyn-Z wasn't wrong, she's totally warm, and she closes her eyes into Alicia's kiss, Alicia's mouth sliding over hers, Alicia's hands on her hips.
Title: Got To Get To Her Somehow
Pairing: Alicia/Lyn-Z/Jamia
Word Count: 381
Summary: AU. A member of their team is kidnapped, so Jamia and Alicia are putting together a rescue effort.
Notes: Forfleurdeliser. The prompt was trick or treat, so of course I wrote about superheroes.
"I hate Halloween." Alicia glared at herself in the mirror, adjusting the mask for the fourteenth time.
"I know!" Jamia called from upstairs where she was getting the last bits of intel from the Ways.
Alicia's head was full of numbers. They had another twenty minutes before they had to go; it'd been thirty hours since Lyn-Z's last check-in; Alicia had burned through her normal costume exactly twelve point five hours ago when she'd been blinking in and out too fast, trying to look for Lyn-Z in too many places at once.
So she was stuck wearing this. It looked like a bad mix of Wonder Woman and Spoiler, what with the glaring primary colors and the full-face mask. Jamia had rolled her eyes when Alicia had asked what was wrong with black, and pointed out that since Alicia had burned through six costumes in the last two weeks, they were out of the black fabric they needed.
Not that the costume was really important. And it was Halloween, so she'd blend in. Just, ugh. She was going to get questions about what comic book hero she was meant to be, she just knew it. Also, this costume was Boob City, which, double ugh.
"Trick or treat?" she muttered at the mirror.
Behind her, Jamia laughed, sharp and clear.
"I'd say we're in the tricks column tonight, don't you think?"
Alicia met her eyes in the mirror. "We're gonna get her back, and then, and then--"
"We're gonna burn the fucking place down." Jamia snapped her fingers and stretched out her arm, letting the flame run up and down. "Did I tell you I figured out how to breathe fire?"
"You did not," Alicia said, grinning for the first time since Lyn-Z's last comm burst had scraped and gone out.
"Oh yes," Jamia said. "I may have burned a tiny tiny hole in the ceiling, but hell yes, I can breathe fire."
"Well, don't do it now," Alicia said, reaching out and pulling Jamia close, close. "Kiss me for luck instead."
It was as awkward as ever, bending down (why were her partners so short?), but Jamia made a sweet, sweet noise into her mouth and Alicia thought, no, yes, we can do this, we'll get her back.
Title: Takes One To Know One
Pairing: Alicia/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 376
Summary: Alicia dares Mikey to dress up for Halloween.
Notes: Foriamsupernova. The prompt was Alicia dares Mikey to dress up with her and go to some club on Halloween and they see Pete there and HOT DANCEFLOOR SEDUCTION HAPPENS.
"I don't know, are you really sure about this?" Mikey calls out to Alicia while looking at himself in the mirror, pulling at the skirt she coaxed him into. "It looks--I just look like a dude in a skirt."
She walks into the bathroom and hooks her chin over his shoulder, meeting his eyes in the mirror. She buries her smile against his neck for a second, and he shivers, can't help it, can't ever help it with her.
"Trust me, Mikeyway," she says softly, sliding her hands over his hips, "I'm so very sure about this."
He shakes his head, because, "Seriously, dude in a skirt."
Alicia laughs and kisses his neck again, and then drags him out the door.
--
The club is packed, the dance floor full of witches and ghosts and various variations on sexy that Mikey kind of fails to see the appeal of. Or, okay, so he maybe can't look away from Alicia.
Alicia decided that they should switch for the night, her wearing a suit and him wearing a dress, so she's looking like she should be in a 1930's gangster movie, all sharp lines and hat at a jaunty angle, while he's stuck in a dress that he swears is getting more uncomfortable by the minute.
But it's still pretty great to be dancing with her. Her smile is stupidly hot, the kind of thing Mikey tries to find words for sometimes and fails, and she's smiling at him.
Then suddenly he feels someone else's hands on his hips, sees a flash of a grin out of the corner of his eye, and then Pete's between them.
"What's with this, Mikeyway?" he says, pulling at Mikey's dress.
"It's a dress," he says in his best deadpan, and manages to not laugh when Pete (very predictably) presses in closer.
Pete looks him up and down and continues, "Because someone should have told me if we were crossdressing today."
Mikey's about to answer when he looks up and sees the way Alicia's looking back, the way she's looking at them both. Hmm, maybe, maybe. It's been a while, for the three of them, but the way Pete can't seem to keep himself from touching (his hands are back on Mikey's hips now), well. Maybe the dress was a good idea after all.
Title: Ghosts In The Machinery
Pairing: Gerard/Lindsey, implied eventual Bob/Gerard/Lindsey
Word Count: 853
Summary: AU. Gerard and Lindsey bought a boat to live on and do their art, but they keep finding odd things.
Notes: Formahoni. The prompt was Bob/Gerard/Lindsey, in which there are GHOSTS of some sort.
Disclaimer: I know nothing about boats bigger than a three-person sailing boat.
"Gerard!"
Gerard snaps awake and hits his head on the bunk. Really, this whole boat thing had been so charming in the beginning, but at this point the cramped space is really fucking frustrating.
"What?!"
Lyn-Z appears through the door, arms crossed and frowning.
"Don't tell me you kept drawing the ghost idea. You know what that does to the engines."
Gerard bites his lip. "Seriously? Again?"
"If by that do you mean are there creepy children lined up around the engine and talking to it while it responds, then yes, it's fucking well happening again."
"Shit."
"Uh-huh."
Really, who would have thought their boat would be so impresionable? It was just an old boat, named Sheila after someone's wife, and the engine had been in good working order and everything. Also, the walls had been empty, so they'd both been really excited about painting them—Lyn-Z had filled one with her skeletons dressed in patched garish colors, and Gerard had started the parade of creepy children that had Lyn-Z so annoyed now.
Whatever, it's not like they hadn't found seven dancing skeletons in the pantry last night.
"I seriously think we need to go downstairs," Lyn-Z says, and Gerard can't help the shiver.
"You know what happened last time," he says, willing her to abandon the idea. He doesn't need to spend another week looking over his shoulder to make sure his shadow is still attached, thank you very much.
She shakes her head, looking impatient. "I know, but we won't open that trunk, or the cabinet that made me dance polka for three hours until my shoes fell apart, okay?"
Gerard sighs. Really, why he had to go and marry someone who was so stubborn is beyond him. But then he looks at her, at the oil smudge on her cheek and the old gloves she always wears when she's fucking around with the engine, and his heart skips a beat, no two, because he knows why he married her. Really.
--
The cargo hold is as cramped and smelly as last time, and Gerard flicks on the light as soon as they've gotten all the way down the stairs. Not that it helps much; it's a single lightbulb and it sways with the boat, so the shadows move weirdly and Gerard can't help but find shapes in all of them, reaching fingers and snarly claws.
"Come on," Lyn-Z says, sounding more than a little shaky, but she's better at pretending to be brave than he is, so she goes forward, to the last large trunk, the one they haven't tried opening yet. They've been down here four times before, just to see if they could find what is causing the hauntings (because it must be that, right? Gerard's never heard of a haunting where the boat reproduces drawings before, or steals your shadow, or, or—but that must be what it is).
Lyn-Z looks back over her shoulder at Gerard, takes a deep breath, and then flips the lid. She gasps, and Gerard hurries over to her. And then he gasps, because in the trunk, no, the coffin, is a man. Not dead, though, it looks like—
"Is he sleeping?" Gerard asks Lyn-Z in a loud whisper. The man's eyes flicker open.
"Well, I was," he says testily, then starts to sit up. Lyn-Z has to help, because he seems to be having trouble moving, but then he's up, kind of glaring at them both.
--
The man's name is Bob, it turns out, and he used to be the ship's engineer twenty years ago.
He's also really hungry, he says, and refuses to explain anything until he's gotten fed. So Gerard and Lyn-Z make a joint effort and manage not to burn anything this time (having both of them be focused probably helps, Gerard thinks, and mentally promises never to try and combine making scrambled eggs with finishing a story again), and then they watch Bob eat.
He ignores their stares, chewing contentedly and when he's finally done, he says, "Not much to tell, really," mouth quirking like he knows that's going to drive them nuts.
"Oh, come on!" Lyn-Z says.
"Have you really been sleeping for twenty years?" Gerard adds, flapping one hand at Bob as if he could wave the story out of him.
"I suppose," Bob says, consideringly. "I agreed to go to sleep when Sheila died and Kay didn't want to drive the ship anymore, but she didn't want it to break—it's kind of a special ship, you know?"
Both Gerard and Lyn-Z nod. There's a lot of unusual modifications around, they know they haven't found all of them yet.
"So you were like a guardian angel?" Gerard asks, and Bob snorts.
"I wouldn't make a very good angel, I smoke too much, but I really did love the ship, and there was nothing for me back home. Besides, Kay said—" and then Bob falls silent, and won't elaborate no matter how much they pester him.
"Wanna stick around, then?" Lyn-Z says, finally, and Bob smiles a little.
"Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice."
Title: Some Day I'll Make It Mine
Pairing: girl!Gerard/Amanda
Word Count: 681
Summary: Gee can't find her brother, and the forest is too fucking deep.
Notes: Forsoftlyforgotten. The prompt was this video, which is Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
It's been three days since Gee last saw Mikey. The forest is empty, smells empty, even though the fucking deer and bunnies and dumb, stupid, good-for-nothing animals are everywhere. She hunches down and looks at the tracks in the moss again, willing them not to fade out, willing there to be something she can follow. What's the point of this fucking sense of smell if she can't--
Breathing in and out a couple of times, she looks up at the sky automatically when she starts to feel the drag in her bones. She still has two days before the full moon, but it always gathers beforehand, this feeling, low in her gut and pinching at her. And she can't look for Mikey once she's turned; not unless she has an actual goddamn trail to follow.
"Fuck!" She yells, splitting the silence in the forest wide open, and she can hear the deer fleeing far away. Good.
And then she hears the singing. Humming, really, a low and scratchy voice that--how is it this close? How did she not notice?
Gee turns around until she can hear them coming, an oak tree behind her and open paths to escape in both directions.
It's a woman, which considering the depth of her voice is actually surprising, Gee thinks, trying to remember if she's ever met someone with that kind of singing voice before. Not since she was at the academy, she doesn't think, and even then, the women were always, their voices was high, like birds or something, and her own voice had cut right through them, strong and low and carrying as far as she wanted it to.
Not much left of it now, and what there is gets used up every moon, over and over and over.
This woman, though, she's wearing pants like Gee is, which is also unusual, and she's, well. Gee shakes her head to try and feel less stupid, and the woman smiles.
"Never seen you here before," she says, as if she knows everyone in the forest. Maybe she does; she smells like magic.
"I'm looking for my brother," Gee hears herself saying, and stops, horrified. Smells like magic, sure, and carries truth spells in her voice, too.
The woman nods. "I heard him, four nights ago. Come with me, I'll show you."
So they walk. The woman refuses to say we're they're going, only tells Gee that her name is Amanda and that she has a cottage "in the neighborhood".
Gee snorts at that. "What, you mean you live next door to Mr Bunnykins?"
"Actually, he goes by Harry. Harry Hare, you know."
Gee tries to figure out whether Amanda is joking, but somehow it doesn't seem like she is, even if there's a smile in her voice now. It's more like, sure, she's had Harry Hare over for tea.
Amanda shakes her head and Gee realizes she'd been talking out loud. Dammit, not again. And she can't even blame it on Amanda's truth spells.
"No, but he likes carrot cake, so he comes over for that sometimes."
And then they get there, and yeah, Gee can see it, the signs of a struggle, and the hint of Mikey, Mikey, on the ground are streaks of sun-warm yellow. Oh, she's close to the moon if she's already seeing scents.
"Thank you," she says, turning to Amanda. "I need to--"
"I'd know if he had died within my domains," Amanda says, and then, "Here, come here," reaching out for Gee.
Gee stills under Amanda's hand, tilting her face up. She doesn't know why she does it, doesn't know why she trusts Amanda like this, but. There it is.
Amanda looks at her intently, hand still cupping Gee's cheek, and then she leans in, kissing Gee. It's heady, magic spilling between them, and Gee can feel the protection spell settling in her veins, running hot and strong. Amanda's bracelets must not be silver, because the ones on her wrist aren't burning at all.
"Luck," Amanda whispers, and then she turns and walks away, disappearing into the shadows.
Title: The Wind Began To Howl
Pairing: Cash/Ian
Word Count: 440
Summary: Cash has a new bass. It's haunted.
Notes: Forcolouredmango. The prompt was Shingai Shoniwa!!!! Haunts some one!! Anyone!!! Bonus points if it is Cash/Ian. Shingai Shoniwa is the super-talented and seriously hot lead singer/bassist in The Noisettes, which, if you haven't listened to them yet, what are you doing?
"Ian." Poke. "Ian." Poke.
Ian stirs, mumbling blearily and batting at Cash's hand. Seriously, they've had this conversation: no waking anybody up before ten, and definitely not at, like--Ian blinks his eyes open to check--four in the fucking morning.
"What," he croaks out, and realizes he still sounds too sweet. Dammit. Comes of not seeing Cash enough; it's like Ian forgets he's a douchebag and smiles stupidly even when Cash is totally not being sweet. Sometimes he is, though.
Anyway. That wasn't the point.
"What, Cash?"
"You know, you know that new bass I just got? The one that's British?"
Ian nods. The mailman probably knows about Cash's new bass; the bus driver and Cash's next door neighbor and all the waiters at Cash's restaurant definitely do.
"Well, I think it's haunted."
"...Cash. Cash, you--did you fucking wake me up at four in the morning for--we're not on tour, you don't need to prank me, if you're going to wake me up there should at least be, like, blow jobs involved."
Ooops. Ian's fairly sure he didn't mean to say that last part out loud.
And now Cash is looking at him, even while he's continuing to talk about his haunted bass.
"I came in, right, and there was, it wasn't on its stand, and this chick was playing it--she had this fucking amazing afro, and shit, fuck, her legs, right, this mini skirt, and she was good, better than most bassists I've ever seen."
Ian nods stupidly, because Cash is still looking at him, and, okay, he knows that look, he toured with Cash, he's been the wingman while that look was working it next to him. It's weird (weird isn't the right word, probably, Ian thinks) to have it directed at him.
Cash stops talking, suddenly, and smiles, grins, leaning close. "Hey," he says, "hey, Ian," and oh, oh, that's Cash's mouth, that's Cash biting at his lip.
Weird is still not the right word, but Ian is still sleep-fuzzy and can't come up with a better one. He kisses back, anyway, kisses back and kisses back, his eyes falling shut, and then he opens them again, because it feels like they aren't alone.
Sure enough, there's a chick leaning against the wall, amazing legs, just like Cash said, and what's possibly a rubber duck stuck in her afro. She's grinning, like Cash and Ian are the best thing she's seen in a while, and Ian doesn't know where to look or what to do.
"You're welcome, kid," she says, voice really smooth and clear and real, and then she blinks out of existence.
Title: Take Me Disappearing
Pairing: Gerard/Oz
Word Count: 366
Summary: I'm just going to use the prompt: Gerard fills in as lead singer for "Dingoes Ate My Baby" (Devon injured himself in a bizarre apple-bobbing incident?) at a Halloween night gig at The Bronze.
Notes: Formorebliss.
Gerard's nervous. No, scratch that, Gerard is really fucking nervous. It's only been three days since the short guitarist for the only rock band in the school came up to him and said,
"Um, so, Halloween?"
Gerard didn't know what he meant, so he sort of nodded encouragingly at Oz to see if he could get him to elaborate a little.
"Like, we have a gig," was the response.
"I--think I'm going? My friend Frank told me about it, and, yeah, we're fucking excited, you know?"
Oz smiled a little at that and said, "No, we need a singer. You can sing."
Gerard had to sit down.
But he had agreed to sing, and practice had been okay (and now Gerard totally knew what he wanted to do with his life, shit, this was even more fun than being Peter Pan had been, with much less potential for humiliation afterwards), but now he has to get on stage. Shit fuck shit.
He stays sitting.
At least he has a cool costume. Or, like, he's wearing his badass leather jacket, and it feels like a costume but it also feels really right.
Someone pokes his shoulder.
Gerard takes his hands off his face and looks up. Oz is kind of smiling at him again, hands in his pockets. They're in a room behind the stage (the drummer called it their dressing room, but it looks more like a storage room to Gerard).
"We're, it's us now," Oz says.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I just gotta--" Gerard runs his hands through his hair and tries to get up again.
Oz looks at him intently, and, okay, now he's leaning really close.
"I wsn't gonna do this 'til after," he says, matter-of-fact, but then he kisses Gerard, swallowing Gerard's surprised noise.
It's a really spectacular kiss. Gerard gets a hand up, scratching along Oz's neck, and hey, oh, that's definitely something he likes. But "hey, hey," he tries to say into Oz's mouth, because stage, show, now.
Oz apparently gets it because he backs off, but keeps his grip on Gerard's jacket.
"Let's go," Gerard says decisively, because hell, now he can definitely take on this crowd and win.
Title: The Loneseome Organ Grinder Cries
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Kitty
Word Count: 460
Summary: Lyn-Z isn't sure about this.
Notes: Foryan_tan_tether. Prompt: Lyn-Z and Kitty on a ghost train! The other installment in this verse is over here
"This was maybe not one of my brightest ideas," Lyn-Z admits, as they watch the porter stroll down the train corridor once again, feet misty and gliding about half an inch above the carpet.
They're crouching on the floor of their carriage after needing to fend off three ghostly school boys, who'd swarmed through the wall clamoring for food (and Lyn-Z's pretty sure they weren't after cookies, exactly). The holy water stored in Kitty's pack had been sufficient, but they'd rather not have to do it again.
"Meh, whatever," Kitty says, "It's not like I don't know how to say no when you want to go off on one of your things, and besides, this is kind of exciting, my first haunted train. Castles are so last year, right?"
Lyn-Z grins. "I love how you call them my things," she says, "I mean, I could have sworn I wasn't the one who decided we were going to build a better ship than Mr Wentz and his ilk and beat them in the Great Race. The race, mind you, wherein I lost one of my toes and you, oh, what was it again? Deaf for a month on one ear after falling?"
"We beat them, didn't we?"
"Of course we did," Lyn-Z says, and her breath is caught all over again by Kitty's smile. They don't speak again for a while, but Lyn-Z closes her eyes into Kitty's kiss and thinks of building a flying machine, an artificial bird, something.
Kitty bites her lip and swallows the noise Lyn-Z makes at that, before she sits back on her heels and gets an abstracted look in her eyes.
"Hauntings have a cause," she says, and Lyn-Z nods.
"There was a train accident twenty years ago at Rotherwood station," she says, and Kitty nods.
"Where we're heading."
"Logically, as we approach the accident site--" she breaks off, rummaging for her pack.
Kitty nods, reaching for her own. "They'll head for the part of the train where the tracks broke."
"The question is, should we recreate the accident and see if we can help them pass on, or--"
The grin spreading on Kitty's face is a dream to behold. "Or, oh, what if we can talk to them, calm them? That's what you were thinking, right?"
"Right! Because if we could run the train, it would, man, I think it would finance our next expedition. You know Lord Righ would help promote it."
"It'd be perfect for his crowd, unconventional wretches as they are," Kitty says fondly, and slides her pack on. "Ready?"
"Oh, I'm fucking ready alright," Lyn-Z says, leering a little, which earns her a grope and a low laugh before they slide out into the corridor, heading for carriage 5.
Title: His Pointy Shoes And His Tail
Pairing: Implied Frank/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 607
Summary: Bunny wants revenge.
Notes: Forturps33. Prompt: buying costumes for all the pets, because they so would! Um, this turned out quite differently from what I intended.
Bunny scratches irritably at her left ear. The hat just will. Not. Come off. She can't decide if she wants to kill Gerard, who gave his brother a book of fairytales as inspiration for the new comic book they're thinking about doing, or Mikey, who actually bought the costume.
She squirms a little, because the red cape-thing is seriously itchy, and then she accidentally steps on it and trips. Again.
Gerard is going down. Or, hey, maybe she can just go sit in his lap the next time he comes over, that'll work. Smiling beatifically, she sees herself curled up comfortably while Gerard sneezes again, and again, and again.
There's a noise behind her and she turns, this time more gracefully, and, oh, oh wow. She'd laugh if she ever did such a plebeian thing in front of other pets.
Hemmy is staring at her mournfully.
"A baseball costume," he says. "Complete with little pants."
"Please. You noticed my ruffles, right?" she says. "I think I win Least Undignified Costume this year."
"Oh no," Hemmy says. "Dude, Peppers has that one, for sure."
Bunny is intrigued. By a dog's Halloween costume. How is this her life?
"Well?" she says.
"She's hiding," Hemmy says, grinning from ear to ear in that infuriatingly happy bulldog way.
"You know where, right?"
He nods and she looks at him impatiently.
"Well, lead the way!"
--
Peppers is in one of the two guest rooms Mikey has but that Pete and Frank never use when they're here. Bunny likes it when Frank doesn't bring all his dogs, because they just take over everything. This is nice, just the three of them, but she'd never admit that to the dogs.
Hemmy shoulders the door open and they both slink inside. Peppers is indeed hiding, and, yeah, that's just about as undignified as it gets.
"You poor thing," Bunny says drily.
"Stop making fun of me," Peppers mutters.
"I wasn't!"
"You really were." Hemmy headbutts her carefully, only nudging her a step or so aside.
He's gotten better at that; the first time they met he'd completely knocked her over. Much better than his master, now. Pete still hasn't learned how to greet people in a dignified manner, and neither has Frank. Bunny had been horrified at their last arrival.
"I want to die," Peppers says.
"A clown's not so bad," Hemmy says, tail wagging. "It's...cute?"
"It is not. It's a trase-, no, trat-, no, what's that word?"
"Travesty," Hemmy says knowledgeably.
"It is," Bunny agrees. "I'm still not sure it beats Little Red Riding Hood, but--"
Peppers shakes her head. "I have a red wig, okay? With curls."
"Point. More importantly, what should we do to get back at them?"
The dogs start grinning and Bunny smirks. This is going to be at least as good as last Halloween, maybe even better. And then she knows--oh, it's going to be so good.
"They're busy, right?"
"Humans are always in season," Peppers says, rolling her eyes.
"Especially Pete," Hemmy says. "What are we doing?"
"For Pete and Mikey? I'm thinking phones."
"You are my favorite cat," Hemmy says, and Peppers nods.
"For Frank, though--Peppers, what do you think?"
"He left his guitar out, you know the one."
"Oh, oh, you are bad," Bunny says appreciatively.
"I am a clown," Peppers says darkly, and the others nod.
"Totally get it," Hemmy says. "Let's go, though, before they're done with this round."
--
An hour later, anguished cries echo through the house, and Bunny curls up between her two best friends and smiles. Happy Halloween indeed.
Title: Look Out Tonight
Pairing: girl!Bob/Gerard
Word Count: 592
Summary: Bob is really over this tall dark and brooding thing. If he wanted to be impressive, he shouldn't have named himself Angel. Also, Gerard is being a pain.
Notes: Forturloughishere. Prompt: getting attacked by demons in LA somehow leads to getting involved with Angel and his gang.
Bob stares at Gerard mulishly, pointedly not taking the towel he's holding out. She doesn't actually need ice, she's only bleeding a little bit, and she's only bleeding because Gerard wouldn't get out of the way in time so she could hit that blue bastard over the head properly.
Trash cans are so useful when they're in the right place, though.
They're in an old hotel now, where the White Knights who showed up and read some crap so the blue guy (whose name was apparently Krygon or something stupid like that) disappeared.
"Exorcism!" Gerard had whispered in her ear excitedly, and she'd rolled her eyes.
Whatever, it's not like they're all that uncommon. As Gerard should know, his grandma had been called to do them more often than the local Catholic priest.
But they got taken back to the hotel because Gerard was complaining about his shoulder where he'd taken a couple of hits from Krygon, and for some reason everyone was fussing over Bob's leg. She fucking hates fussing.
Gerard seems to catch just how how unamused she's feeling and backs up a bit.
Mr Dark and Brooding takes the towel from him and comes over to Bob.
"So, um, you should ice your leg."
"I'm fine," Bob says and glares right back when he looks at her like she should know better. Men. Even Gerard, and sometimes he was practically a girl.
"Oh, honestly," Christina--no, Cordelia says and comes over, taking the towel away from Angel. "Boys are so useless."
Bob can't help but smile at that, the near-perfect echo of her own thoughts, and doesn't say anything as Cordelia pushes her jeans leg up and starts cleaning her off, all the while talking about the need to be careful, but somehow she doesn't annoy Bob while doing it. Mostly because she doesn't sound like she thinks Bob should be wearing a dress and leaving the fighting to the boys.
"Angel should know better, too," Cordelia says suddenly.
"Really? His name is Angel?" Bob knows she's betraying her amusement and that Angel is still in the room, but whatever.
"I know, right?" Cordelia says. "Anyway, he should know better than to lecture you like he did back there, in the alley. For what it's worth, he doesn't usually react like that to girls fighting."
"Could have fooled me," Bob says.
"Well, maybe he's PMS-ing. I've always thought it would solve a great deal if all vampires would have a period. I mean, totally gross, right, but it'd be so practical, don't you think?"
Bob looks over and sees both Gerard and Angel listening to their conversation, looking completely horrified. She starts laughing and nods at Cordelia. "I like you."
"Of course you do! I'm like, the only normal person around here." Cordelia squints at Bob's leg, wraps it up neatly and pronounces it satisfactory.
Bob tries standing up, and, yeah, it feels pretty stable. She grins at Cordelia, thanks her, promises to meet her for coffee next week, and hobbles over to Angel and Gerard.
"I'm gonna take my boyfriend home now," she says. "And for the record, I have a couple of black belts and grew up fighting thugs in Chicago--I save my boyfriend from trouble, it's not the other way around."
Gerard smiles at her, and she suppresses the urge to kiss him on the nose.
Angel nods at Bob, and Gerard takes her hand. While walking out, she hears Angel behind them: "Jesus Christ, why is it always the blonds?" and Cordelia laughing at him.
Also, in terms of pairings, we have, in no particular order: girl!Gerard/Amanda, Lyn-Z/Alicia, Lyn-Z/Alicia/Jamia, Alicia/Mikey/Pete, girl!Bob/Gerard, Cash/Ian, Kitty/Lyn-Z, Bob/Gerard/Lyn-Z, and Frank/Mikey/Pete.
Title: Kick Your Shoes Off
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Alicia
Word Count: 1242
Summary: Lyn-Z hates balls. And dresses. And the shoes she's wearing. Luckily, she meets someone who can distract her.
Notes: For
airgiodslv. Prompt: costume party or masquerade ball and LESBIAN GHOST PORN. Lyn-Z worries at her sleeve again. It's one thing to have to dress up, it's kind of a whole other sort of deal to be ordered into a ball gown complete with a train and seriously uncomfortable shoes. And the lace at her wrists just itches.
But it's the Centennial Ball tonight, and the whole school has to do this. Her only consolation is that Steve and Jimmy have to wear suits; Lyn-Z doesn't think she's ever seen Steve look this uncomfortable, not even when he'd sleepwalked into the hallway naked and the headmistress had come across him peeing on a potted plant. And Jimmy mostly looks like a pointy stick.
No, not that kind of a pointy stick, he's definitely left the one he insists on using as a "focus" in his room. She's pretty sure one of them or Chantal will succeed in spiking the punch anyway, hell, she'd do it herself if her shoes weren't so goddamn uncomfortable. Instead, she's elected to sit very still on a bench and watch the dancing, trying to remember enough of it to draw later.
There's a skeleton ball calling her name, and she can almost, almost see it in the way the dancers move, gracefully or not. That elbow, there, and that girl, oh, Rayna, the way she spins, it makes gorgeous a stupid word.
Lyn-Z watches and watches, wishing she'd been allowed to bring in a pen and a sketch pad. But no, tonight is for "fun", so her art supplies are back in the dormitory. To her, it seems like the whole point of going to a boarding school with a focus on art and music would be that you think art and music is fun, but apparently the teachers had all felt the Centennial Ball should be a night off from school.
Sure, a night off wearing a purple dress and stupid shoes. And possibly they hadn't wanted her to start drawing dancing skeletons that might have started blending with the real dancers.
That's when she feels it. Just a touch, a finger tracing over her palm, a hand grabbing her wrist. What the--
And then there's a voice in her ear, soft and low, "Hey, hey, wanna come with me instead?"
Lyn-Z has no idea what prompts her to say yes (well, okay, so she's kind of always up for something different), but she does, and she follows the tug on her wrist through the side doors into the garden.
There's a full moon, and it just looks so close tonight, close and low like she could touch it if she wanted. Lyn-Z sort of has the urge to howl, but she settles for kicking off her shoes and looking around for the girl, the--something, who got her out here.
The shadows shimmer and solidify, and oh, oh, she's beautiful. Lyn-Z knows she's staring, but she can't help it, the girl is, like, she's all tall and dark-haired, and she has these eyes, shit. Her black dress is just skimming the ground, long-sleeved and low-cut, and Lyn-Z has no idea where to look or what to say.
"Hey," she manages, and winces at herself.
The girl smiles. "Hey, I'm Alicia."
"Alicia? Like third floor Alicia?" Lyn-Z didn't think they had someone with this kind of power in the school, but she's definitely heard the name before.
Alicia shakes her head. "No, like student-thirty-years-ago Alicia."
"You're--" Well, that's it, the universe officially really sucks.
"Dead? Well, kind of. I was, and then it didn't stick, so the headmistress let's me stay here. But I don't--"
"No, shit, sorry." Lyn-Z has no idea what to say. Alicia is dead but she's not, and she's smiling at Lyn-Z like, maybe, and, no. Too fucking much.
"Hey, no," Alicia says, coming closer. "I wanted to show you something over by the lake, I didn't mean to freak you out or anything, you're just..." She trails off, and now she's really close.
Lyn-Z looks up, and she's not scared, she's not, she's just, it's a little hard to breathe, that's all.
"The lake?" she manages, shivering when Alicia's hand brushes over her wrist again.
Alicia nods, then grins. "Race you!" she says and promptly disappears.
"Unfair!" Lyn-Z yells after her and hikes her skirts up, starting to run. The grass is soft under her bare feet, and she's laughing as she runs, because she's not inside anymore, the moon is rolling slowly along the line of the trees, and there's a girl out here with her. So what if said girl is cheating in a race, it's not like it matters.
And so what if she's technically dead? Gerard is dating the kid of a Chaos Demon, that's gotta be much worse.
She leans down to slide underneath a tree, almost trips over a root but saves herself just in time, and then she's at the lake. At first she can't see Alicia, but then there's a movement in the shadows and Lyn-Z almost reaches out to touch, but doesn't know if she can. Like, what if Alicia can touch her but not the other way around?
Alicia turns around and grins. "Finally," she says loftily. "I was beginning to think you'd never get here."
"Oh, shush," Lyn-Z responds. "Show me what's so special about the lake tonight, it's more interesting than your gloating."
"Come here," Alicia says, and Lyn-Z obeys, standing right next to Alicia. She's probably imagining the warmth she feels coming off of Alicia, but she's going to pretend it's real.
Hell, maybe this whole night is a dream; maybe she's just in her dorm room, caught in one of her drawings again.
"Look," Alicia whispers, pointing outward. There's something glowing on the surface of the water, it looks like—
"It's a Norwegian water lily," Alicia whispers, voice really close to Lyn-Z's ear, and she can't help but shiver at the feeling.
"What's so special about those?" she says, trying to keep her voice steady and low.
"They only bloom once every fifty years," Alicia says, one hand circling Lyn-Z's wrist again. "Once every fifty years, on the night of the full moon, and legend has it that if you watch…" she breaks off, and Lyn-Z turns her face to look at her.
"If you watch, what happens?"
"You're supposed to fall in love," Alicia says, sounding oddly serious, and Lyn-Z wants to laugh, she really does, but her voice feels caught in her throat.
"I don't even know you," she says, still not looking away.
Alicia shakes her head. "I know, it was stupid, it's just, you draw, the way you draw, right? Things come to life, and they're beautiful, so beautiful, and you're, just, you're so, I can't stop going to look for you, I do it all the time."
She starts to draw back, but Lyn-Z reaches out now, finds her courage and reaches out, curving her hand around Alicia's shoulder.
"Show me around the garden," she says, and she knows her smile is shaky, but she's betting Alicia knows how to read it.
Sure enough, Alicia's smiling back, and now she's stepping closer again, so close and Lyn-Z wasn't wrong, she's totally warm, and she closes her eyes into Alicia's kiss, Alicia's mouth sliding over hers, Alicia's hands on her hips.
Title: Got To Get To Her Somehow
Pairing: Alicia/Lyn-Z/Jamia
Word Count: 381
Summary: AU. A member of their team is kidnapped, so Jamia and Alicia are putting together a rescue effort.
Notes: For
fleurdeliser. The prompt was trick or treat, so of course I wrote about superheroes. "I hate Halloween." Alicia glared at herself in the mirror, adjusting the mask for the fourteenth time.
"I know!" Jamia called from upstairs where she was getting the last bits of intel from the Ways.
Alicia's head was full of numbers. They had another twenty minutes before they had to go; it'd been thirty hours since Lyn-Z's last check-in; Alicia had burned through her normal costume exactly twelve point five hours ago when she'd been blinking in and out too fast, trying to look for Lyn-Z in too many places at once.
So she was stuck wearing this. It looked like a bad mix of Wonder Woman and Spoiler, what with the glaring primary colors and the full-face mask. Jamia had rolled her eyes when Alicia had asked what was wrong with black, and pointed out that since Alicia had burned through six costumes in the last two weeks, they were out of the black fabric they needed.
Not that the costume was really important. And it was Halloween, so she'd blend in. Just, ugh. She was going to get questions about what comic book hero she was meant to be, she just knew it. Also, this costume was Boob City, which, double ugh.
"Trick or treat?" she muttered at the mirror.
Behind her, Jamia laughed, sharp and clear.
"I'd say we're in the tricks column tonight, don't you think?"
Alicia met her eyes in the mirror. "We're gonna get her back, and then, and then--"
"We're gonna burn the fucking place down." Jamia snapped her fingers and stretched out her arm, letting the flame run up and down. "Did I tell you I figured out how to breathe fire?"
"You did not," Alicia said, grinning for the first time since Lyn-Z's last comm burst had scraped and gone out.
"Oh yes," Jamia said. "I may have burned a tiny tiny hole in the ceiling, but hell yes, I can breathe fire."
"Well, don't do it now," Alicia said, reaching out and pulling Jamia close, close. "Kiss me for luck instead."
It was as awkward as ever, bending down (why were her partners so short?), but Jamia made a sweet, sweet noise into her mouth and Alicia thought, no, yes, we can do this, we'll get her back.
Title: Takes One To Know One
Pairing: Alicia/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 376
Summary: Alicia dares Mikey to dress up for Halloween.
Notes: For
iamsupernova. The prompt was Alicia dares Mikey to dress up with her and go to some club on Halloween and they see Pete there and HOT DANCEFLOOR SEDUCTION HAPPENS."I don't know, are you really sure about this?" Mikey calls out to Alicia while looking at himself in the mirror, pulling at the skirt she coaxed him into. "It looks--I just look like a dude in a skirt."
She walks into the bathroom and hooks her chin over his shoulder, meeting his eyes in the mirror. She buries her smile against his neck for a second, and he shivers, can't help it, can't ever help it with her.
"Trust me, Mikeyway," she says softly, sliding her hands over his hips, "I'm so very sure about this."
He shakes his head, because, "Seriously, dude in a skirt."
Alicia laughs and kisses his neck again, and then drags him out the door.
--
The club is packed, the dance floor full of witches and ghosts and various variations on sexy that Mikey kind of fails to see the appeal of. Or, okay, so he maybe can't look away from Alicia.
Alicia decided that they should switch for the night, her wearing a suit and him wearing a dress, so she's looking like she should be in a 1930's gangster movie, all sharp lines and hat at a jaunty angle, while he's stuck in a dress that he swears is getting more uncomfortable by the minute.
But it's still pretty great to be dancing with her. Her smile is stupidly hot, the kind of thing Mikey tries to find words for sometimes and fails, and she's smiling at him.
Then suddenly he feels someone else's hands on his hips, sees a flash of a grin out of the corner of his eye, and then Pete's between them.
"What's with this, Mikeyway?" he says, pulling at Mikey's dress.
"It's a dress," he says in his best deadpan, and manages to not laugh when Pete (very predictably) presses in closer.
Pete looks him up and down and continues, "Because someone should have told me if we were crossdressing today."
Mikey's about to answer when he looks up and sees the way Alicia's looking back, the way she's looking at them both. Hmm, maybe, maybe. It's been a while, for the three of them, but the way Pete can't seem to keep himself from touching (his hands are back on Mikey's hips now), well. Maybe the dress was a good idea after all.
Title: Ghosts In The Machinery
Pairing: Gerard/Lindsey, implied eventual Bob/Gerard/Lindsey
Word Count: 853
Summary: AU. Gerard and Lindsey bought a boat to live on and do their art, but they keep finding odd things.
Notes: For
mahoni. The prompt was Bob/Gerard/Lindsey, in which there are GHOSTS of some sort.Disclaimer: I know nothing about boats bigger than a three-person sailing boat.
"Gerard!"
Gerard snaps awake and hits his head on the bunk. Really, this whole boat thing had been so charming in the beginning, but at this point the cramped space is really fucking frustrating.
"What?!"
Lyn-Z appears through the door, arms crossed and frowning.
"Don't tell me you kept drawing the ghost idea. You know what that does to the engines."
Gerard bites his lip. "Seriously? Again?"
"If by that do you mean are there creepy children lined up around the engine and talking to it while it responds, then yes, it's fucking well happening again."
"Shit."
"Uh-huh."
Really, who would have thought their boat would be so impresionable? It was just an old boat, named Sheila after someone's wife, and the engine had been in good working order and everything. Also, the walls had been empty, so they'd both been really excited about painting them—Lyn-Z had filled one with her skeletons dressed in patched garish colors, and Gerard had started the parade of creepy children that had Lyn-Z so annoyed now.
Whatever, it's not like they hadn't found seven dancing skeletons in the pantry last night.
"I seriously think we need to go downstairs," Lyn-Z says, and Gerard can't help the shiver.
"You know what happened last time," he says, willing her to abandon the idea. He doesn't need to spend another week looking over his shoulder to make sure his shadow is still attached, thank you very much.
She shakes her head, looking impatient. "I know, but we won't open that trunk, or the cabinet that made me dance polka for three hours until my shoes fell apart, okay?"
Gerard sighs. Really, why he had to go and marry someone who was so stubborn is beyond him. But then he looks at her, at the oil smudge on her cheek and the old gloves she always wears when she's fucking around with the engine, and his heart skips a beat, no two, because he knows why he married her. Really.
--
The cargo hold is as cramped and smelly as last time, and Gerard flicks on the light as soon as they've gotten all the way down the stairs. Not that it helps much; it's a single lightbulb and it sways with the boat, so the shadows move weirdly and Gerard can't help but find shapes in all of them, reaching fingers and snarly claws.
"Come on," Lyn-Z says, sounding more than a little shaky, but she's better at pretending to be brave than he is, so she goes forward, to the last large trunk, the one they haven't tried opening yet. They've been down here four times before, just to see if they could find what is causing the hauntings (because it must be that, right? Gerard's never heard of a haunting where the boat reproduces drawings before, or steals your shadow, or, or—but that must be what it is).
Lyn-Z looks back over her shoulder at Gerard, takes a deep breath, and then flips the lid. She gasps, and Gerard hurries over to her. And then he gasps, because in the trunk, no, the coffin, is a man. Not dead, though, it looks like—
"Is he sleeping?" Gerard asks Lyn-Z in a loud whisper. The man's eyes flicker open.
"Well, I was," he says testily, then starts to sit up. Lyn-Z has to help, because he seems to be having trouble moving, but then he's up, kind of glaring at them both.
--
The man's name is Bob, it turns out, and he used to be the ship's engineer twenty years ago.
He's also really hungry, he says, and refuses to explain anything until he's gotten fed. So Gerard and Lyn-Z make a joint effort and manage not to burn anything this time (having both of them be focused probably helps, Gerard thinks, and mentally promises never to try and combine making scrambled eggs with finishing a story again), and then they watch Bob eat.
He ignores their stares, chewing contentedly and when he's finally done, he says, "Not much to tell, really," mouth quirking like he knows that's going to drive them nuts.
"Oh, come on!" Lyn-Z says.
"Have you really been sleeping for twenty years?" Gerard adds, flapping one hand at Bob as if he could wave the story out of him.
"I suppose," Bob says, consideringly. "I agreed to go to sleep when Sheila died and Kay didn't want to drive the ship anymore, but she didn't want it to break—it's kind of a special ship, you know?"
Both Gerard and Lyn-Z nod. There's a lot of unusual modifications around, they know they haven't found all of them yet.
"So you were like a guardian angel?" Gerard asks, and Bob snorts.
"I wouldn't make a very good angel, I smoke too much, but I really did love the ship, and there was nothing for me back home. Besides, Kay said—" and then Bob falls silent, and won't elaborate no matter how much they pester him.
"Wanna stick around, then?" Lyn-Z says, finally, and Bob smiles a little.
"Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice."
Title: Some Day I'll Make It Mine
Pairing: girl!Gerard/Amanda
Word Count: 681
Summary: Gee can't find her brother, and the forest is too fucking deep.
Notes: For
softlyforgotten. The prompt was this video, which is Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.It's been three days since Gee last saw Mikey. The forest is empty, smells empty, even though the fucking deer and bunnies and dumb, stupid, good-for-nothing animals are everywhere. She hunches down and looks at the tracks in the moss again, willing them not to fade out, willing there to be something she can follow. What's the point of this fucking sense of smell if she can't--
Breathing in and out a couple of times, she looks up at the sky automatically when she starts to feel the drag in her bones. She still has two days before the full moon, but it always gathers beforehand, this feeling, low in her gut and pinching at her. And she can't look for Mikey once she's turned; not unless she has an actual goddamn trail to follow.
"Fuck!" She yells, splitting the silence in the forest wide open, and she can hear the deer fleeing far away. Good.
And then she hears the singing. Humming, really, a low and scratchy voice that--how is it this close? How did she not notice?
Gee turns around until she can hear them coming, an oak tree behind her and open paths to escape in both directions.
It's a woman, which considering the depth of her voice is actually surprising, Gee thinks, trying to remember if she's ever met someone with that kind of singing voice before. Not since she was at the academy, she doesn't think, and even then, the women were always, their voices was high, like birds or something, and her own voice had cut right through them, strong and low and carrying as far as she wanted it to.
Not much left of it now, and what there is gets used up every moon, over and over and over.
This woman, though, she's wearing pants like Gee is, which is also unusual, and she's, well. Gee shakes her head to try and feel less stupid, and the woman smiles.
"Never seen you here before," she says, as if she knows everyone in the forest. Maybe she does; she smells like magic.
"I'm looking for my brother," Gee hears herself saying, and stops, horrified. Smells like magic, sure, and carries truth spells in her voice, too.
The woman nods. "I heard him, four nights ago. Come with me, I'll show you."
So they walk. The woman refuses to say we're they're going, only tells Gee that her name is Amanda and that she has a cottage "in the neighborhood".
Gee snorts at that. "What, you mean you live next door to Mr Bunnykins?"
"Actually, he goes by Harry. Harry Hare, you know."
Gee tries to figure out whether Amanda is joking, but somehow it doesn't seem like she is, even if there's a smile in her voice now. It's more like, sure, she's had Harry Hare over for tea.
Amanda shakes her head and Gee realizes she'd been talking out loud. Dammit, not again. And she can't even blame it on Amanda's truth spells.
"No, but he likes carrot cake, so he comes over for that sometimes."
And then they get there, and yeah, Gee can see it, the signs of a struggle, and the hint of Mikey, Mikey, on the ground are streaks of sun-warm yellow. Oh, she's close to the moon if she's already seeing scents.
"Thank you," she says, turning to Amanda. "I need to--"
"I'd know if he had died within my domains," Amanda says, and then, "Here, come here," reaching out for Gee.
Gee stills under Amanda's hand, tilting her face up. She doesn't know why she does it, doesn't know why she trusts Amanda like this, but. There it is.
Amanda looks at her intently, hand still cupping Gee's cheek, and then she leans in, kissing Gee. It's heady, magic spilling between them, and Gee can feel the protection spell settling in her veins, running hot and strong. Amanda's bracelets must not be silver, because the ones on her wrist aren't burning at all.
"Luck," Amanda whispers, and then she turns and walks away, disappearing into the shadows.
Title: The Wind Began To Howl
Pairing: Cash/Ian
Word Count: 440
Summary: Cash has a new bass. It's haunted.
Notes: For
colouredmango. The prompt was Shingai Shoniwa!!!! Haunts some one!! Anyone!!! Bonus points if it is Cash/Ian. Shingai Shoniwa is the super-talented and seriously hot lead singer/bassist in The Noisettes, which, if you haven't listened to them yet, what are you doing? "Ian." Poke. "Ian." Poke.
Ian stirs, mumbling blearily and batting at Cash's hand. Seriously, they've had this conversation: no waking anybody up before ten, and definitely not at, like--Ian blinks his eyes open to check--four in the fucking morning.
"What," he croaks out, and realizes he still sounds too sweet. Dammit. Comes of not seeing Cash enough; it's like Ian forgets he's a douchebag and smiles stupidly even when Cash is totally not being sweet. Sometimes he is, though.
Anyway. That wasn't the point.
"What, Cash?"
"You know, you know that new bass I just got? The one that's British?"
Ian nods. The mailman probably knows about Cash's new bass; the bus driver and Cash's next door neighbor and all the waiters at Cash's restaurant definitely do.
"Well, I think it's haunted."
"...Cash. Cash, you--did you fucking wake me up at four in the morning for--we're not on tour, you don't need to prank me, if you're going to wake me up there should at least be, like, blow jobs involved."
Ooops. Ian's fairly sure he didn't mean to say that last part out loud.
And now Cash is looking at him, even while he's continuing to talk about his haunted bass.
"I came in, right, and there was, it wasn't on its stand, and this chick was playing it--she had this fucking amazing afro, and shit, fuck, her legs, right, this mini skirt, and she was good, better than most bassists I've ever seen."
Ian nods stupidly, because Cash is still looking at him, and, okay, he knows that look, he toured with Cash, he's been the wingman while that look was working it next to him. It's weird (weird isn't the right word, probably, Ian thinks) to have it directed at him.
Cash stops talking, suddenly, and smiles, grins, leaning close. "Hey," he says, "hey, Ian," and oh, oh, that's Cash's mouth, that's Cash biting at his lip.
Weird is still not the right word, but Ian is still sleep-fuzzy and can't come up with a better one. He kisses back, anyway, kisses back and kisses back, his eyes falling shut, and then he opens them again, because it feels like they aren't alone.
Sure enough, there's a chick leaning against the wall, amazing legs, just like Cash said, and what's possibly a rubber duck stuck in her afro. She's grinning, like Cash and Ian are the best thing she's seen in a while, and Ian doesn't know where to look or what to do.
"You're welcome, kid," she says, voice really smooth and clear and real, and then she blinks out of existence.
Title: Take Me Disappearing
Pairing: Gerard/Oz
Word Count: 366
Summary: I'm just going to use the prompt: Gerard fills in as lead singer for "Dingoes Ate My Baby" (Devon injured himself in a bizarre apple-bobbing incident?) at a Halloween night gig at The Bronze.
Notes: For
morebliss. Gerard's nervous. No, scratch that, Gerard is really fucking nervous. It's only been three days since the short guitarist for the only rock band in the school came up to him and said,
"Um, so, Halloween?"
Gerard didn't know what he meant, so he sort of nodded encouragingly at Oz to see if he could get him to elaborate a little.
"Like, we have a gig," was the response.
"I--think I'm going? My friend Frank told me about it, and, yeah, we're fucking excited, you know?"
Oz smiled a little at that and said, "No, we need a singer. You can sing."
Gerard had to sit down.
But he had agreed to sing, and practice had been okay (and now Gerard totally knew what he wanted to do with his life, shit, this was even more fun than being Peter Pan had been, with much less potential for humiliation afterwards), but now he has to get on stage. Shit fuck shit.
He stays sitting.
At least he has a cool costume. Or, like, he's wearing his badass leather jacket, and it feels like a costume but it also feels really right.
Someone pokes his shoulder.
Gerard takes his hands off his face and looks up. Oz is kind of smiling at him again, hands in his pockets. They're in a room behind the stage (the drummer called it their dressing room, but it looks more like a storage room to Gerard).
"We're, it's us now," Oz says.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I just gotta--" Gerard runs his hands through his hair and tries to get up again.
Oz looks at him intently, and, okay, now he's leaning really close.
"I wsn't gonna do this 'til after," he says, matter-of-fact, but then he kisses Gerard, swallowing Gerard's surprised noise.
It's a really spectacular kiss. Gerard gets a hand up, scratching along Oz's neck, and hey, oh, that's definitely something he likes. But "hey, hey," he tries to say into Oz's mouth, because stage, show, now.
Oz apparently gets it because he backs off, but keeps his grip on Gerard's jacket.
"Let's go," Gerard says decisively, because hell, now he can definitely take on this crowd and win.
Title: The Loneseome Organ Grinder Cries
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Kitty
Word Count: 460
Summary: Lyn-Z isn't sure about this.
Notes: For
yan_tan_tether. Prompt: Lyn-Z and Kitty on a ghost train! The other installment in this verse is over here"This was maybe not one of my brightest ideas," Lyn-Z admits, as they watch the porter stroll down the train corridor once again, feet misty and gliding about half an inch above the carpet.
They're crouching on the floor of their carriage after needing to fend off three ghostly school boys, who'd swarmed through the wall clamoring for food (and Lyn-Z's pretty sure they weren't after cookies, exactly). The holy water stored in Kitty's pack had been sufficient, but they'd rather not have to do it again.
"Meh, whatever," Kitty says, "It's not like I don't know how to say no when you want to go off on one of your things, and besides, this is kind of exciting, my first haunted train. Castles are so last year, right?"
Lyn-Z grins. "I love how you call them my things," she says, "I mean, I could have sworn I wasn't the one who decided we were going to build a better ship than Mr Wentz and his ilk and beat them in the Great Race. The race, mind you, wherein I lost one of my toes and you, oh, what was it again? Deaf for a month on one ear after falling?"
"We beat them, didn't we?"
"Of course we did," Lyn-Z says, and her breath is caught all over again by Kitty's smile. They don't speak again for a while, but Lyn-Z closes her eyes into Kitty's kiss and thinks of building a flying machine, an artificial bird, something.
Kitty bites her lip and swallows the noise Lyn-Z makes at that, before she sits back on her heels and gets an abstracted look in her eyes.
"Hauntings have a cause," she says, and Lyn-Z nods.
"There was a train accident twenty years ago at Rotherwood station," she says, and Kitty nods.
"Where we're heading."
"Logically, as we approach the accident site--" she breaks off, rummaging for her pack.
Kitty nods, reaching for her own. "They'll head for the part of the train where the tracks broke."
"The question is, should we recreate the accident and see if we can help them pass on, or--"
The grin spreading on Kitty's face is a dream to behold. "Or, oh, what if we can talk to them, calm them? That's what you were thinking, right?"
"Right! Because if we could run the train, it would, man, I think it would finance our next expedition. You know Lord Righ would help promote it."
"It'd be perfect for his crowd, unconventional wretches as they are," Kitty says fondly, and slides her pack on. "Ready?"
"Oh, I'm fucking ready alright," Lyn-Z says, leering a little, which earns her a grope and a low laugh before they slide out into the corridor, heading for carriage 5.
Title: His Pointy Shoes And His Tail
Pairing: Implied Frank/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 607
Summary: Bunny wants revenge.
Notes: For
turps33. Prompt: buying costumes for all the pets, because they so would! Um, this turned out quite differently from what I intended.Bunny scratches irritably at her left ear. The hat just will. Not. Come off. She can't decide if she wants to kill Gerard, who gave his brother a book of fairytales as inspiration for the new comic book they're thinking about doing, or Mikey, who actually bought the costume.
She squirms a little, because the red cape-thing is seriously itchy, and then she accidentally steps on it and trips. Again.
Gerard is going down. Or, hey, maybe she can just go sit in his lap the next time he comes over, that'll work. Smiling beatifically, she sees herself curled up comfortably while Gerard sneezes again, and again, and again.
There's a noise behind her and she turns, this time more gracefully, and, oh, oh wow. She'd laugh if she ever did such a plebeian thing in front of other pets.
Hemmy is staring at her mournfully.
"A baseball costume," he says. "Complete with little pants."
"Please. You noticed my ruffles, right?" she says. "I think I win Least Undignified Costume this year."
"Oh no," Hemmy says. "Dude, Peppers has that one, for sure."
Bunny is intrigued. By a dog's Halloween costume. How is this her life?
"Well?" she says.
"She's hiding," Hemmy says, grinning from ear to ear in that infuriatingly happy bulldog way.
"You know where, right?"
He nods and she looks at him impatiently.
"Well, lead the way!"
--
Peppers is in one of the two guest rooms Mikey has but that Pete and Frank never use when they're here. Bunny likes it when Frank doesn't bring all his dogs, because they just take over everything. This is nice, just the three of them, but she'd never admit that to the dogs.
Hemmy shoulders the door open and they both slink inside. Peppers is indeed hiding, and, yeah, that's just about as undignified as it gets.
"You poor thing," Bunny says drily.
"Stop making fun of me," Peppers mutters.
"I wasn't!"
"You really were." Hemmy headbutts her carefully, only nudging her a step or so aside.
He's gotten better at that; the first time they met he'd completely knocked her over. Much better than his master, now. Pete still hasn't learned how to greet people in a dignified manner, and neither has Frank. Bunny had been horrified at their last arrival.
"I want to die," Peppers says.
"A clown's not so bad," Hemmy says, tail wagging. "It's...cute?"
"It is not. It's a trase-, no, trat-, no, what's that word?"
"Travesty," Hemmy says knowledgeably.
"It is," Bunny agrees. "I'm still not sure it beats Little Red Riding Hood, but--"
Peppers shakes her head. "I have a red wig, okay? With curls."
"Point. More importantly, what should we do to get back at them?"
The dogs start grinning and Bunny smirks. This is going to be at least as good as last Halloween, maybe even better. And then she knows--oh, it's going to be so good.
"They're busy, right?"
"Humans are always in season," Peppers says, rolling her eyes.
"Especially Pete," Hemmy says. "What are we doing?"
"For Pete and Mikey? I'm thinking phones."
"You are my favorite cat," Hemmy says, and Peppers nods.
"For Frank, though--Peppers, what do you think?"
"He left his guitar out, you know the one."
"Oh, oh, you are bad," Bunny says appreciatively.
"I am a clown," Peppers says darkly, and the others nod.
"Totally get it," Hemmy says. "Let's go, though, before they're done with this round."
--
An hour later, anguished cries echo through the house, and Bunny curls up between her two best friends and smiles. Happy Halloween indeed.
Title: Look Out Tonight
Pairing: girl!Bob/Gerard
Word Count: 592
Summary: Bob is really over this tall dark and brooding thing. If he wanted to be impressive, he shouldn't have named himself Angel. Also, Gerard is being a pain.
Notes: For
turloughishere. Prompt: getting attacked by demons in LA somehow leads to getting involved with Angel and his gang.Bob stares at Gerard mulishly, pointedly not taking the towel he's holding out. She doesn't actually need ice, she's only bleeding a little bit, and she's only bleeding because Gerard wouldn't get out of the way in time so she could hit that blue bastard over the head properly.
Trash cans are so useful when they're in the right place, though.
They're in an old hotel now, where the White Knights who showed up and read some crap so the blue guy (whose name was apparently Krygon or something stupid like that) disappeared.
"Exorcism!" Gerard had whispered in her ear excitedly, and she'd rolled her eyes.
Whatever, it's not like they're all that uncommon. As Gerard should know, his grandma had been called to do them more often than the local Catholic priest.
But they got taken back to the hotel because Gerard was complaining about his shoulder where he'd taken a couple of hits from Krygon, and for some reason everyone was fussing over Bob's leg. She fucking hates fussing.
Gerard seems to catch just how how unamused she's feeling and backs up a bit.
Mr Dark and Brooding takes the towel from him and comes over to Bob.
"So, um, you should ice your leg."
"I'm fine," Bob says and glares right back when he looks at her like she should know better. Men. Even Gerard, and sometimes he was practically a girl.
"Oh, honestly," Christina--no, Cordelia says and comes over, taking the towel away from Angel. "Boys are so useless."
Bob can't help but smile at that, the near-perfect echo of her own thoughts, and doesn't say anything as Cordelia pushes her jeans leg up and starts cleaning her off, all the while talking about the need to be careful, but somehow she doesn't annoy Bob while doing it. Mostly because she doesn't sound like she thinks Bob should be wearing a dress and leaving the fighting to the boys.
"Angel should know better, too," Cordelia says suddenly.
"Really? His name is Angel?" Bob knows she's betraying her amusement and that Angel is still in the room, but whatever.
"I know, right?" Cordelia says. "Anyway, he should know better than to lecture you like he did back there, in the alley. For what it's worth, he doesn't usually react like that to girls fighting."
"Could have fooled me," Bob says.
"Well, maybe he's PMS-ing. I've always thought it would solve a great deal if all vampires would have a period. I mean, totally gross, right, but it'd be so practical, don't you think?"
Bob looks over and sees both Gerard and Angel listening to their conversation, looking completely horrified. She starts laughing and nods at Cordelia. "I like you."
"Of course you do! I'm like, the only normal person around here." Cordelia squints at Bob's leg, wraps it up neatly and pronounces it satisfactory.
Bob tries standing up, and, yeah, it feels pretty stable. She grins at Cordelia, thanks her, promises to meet her for coffee next week, and hobbles over to Angel and Gerard.
"I'm gonna take my boyfriend home now," she says. "And for the record, I have a couple of black belts and grew up fighting thugs in Chicago--I save my boyfriend from trouble, it's not the other way around."
Gerard smiles at her, and she suppresses the urge to kiss him on the nose.
Angel nods at Bob, and Gerard takes her hand. While walking out, she hears Angel behind them: "Jesus Christ, why is it always the blonds?" and Cordelia laughing at him.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-08 09:58 pm (UTC)So, so much to love here. Like Gerard is dating the kid of a Chaos Demon, that's gotta be much worse. and "For Pete and Mikey? I'm thinking phones."
"You are my favorite cat," Hemmy says, and Peppers nods. and pretty much the entirety of the last one. ^_^
Seriously. Made of awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 07:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-11-09 11:18 pm (UTC)OMG I DIDN'T MEAN TO WRITE THAT ONE. *hides*
i like the way you turn a phrase, missy
Date: 2009-11-12 12:52 pm (UTC)and
Of course he is. I love this universe, it feels simultaneoulsy realistic and kind of dream-like? And then kissing, which is always brilliant.
Have I mentioned that I love the way you write Bob and Lyn-Z? They don't even have to be paired together, I just like their interaction. Of course, I love Bob ALL THE TIME, so. &hearts
Of course, Amanda Palmer would rule the entire damn forest. That's just how she rolls. There should be more of this. (Gee needs to find Mikey! And thank Amanda for the protection spell! And then they should all have carrot cake with Harry Hare. &hearts)
Phantom bass player turned matchmaker? A+
I made an embarassingly high-pitched noise when i realised that Oz was Buffy!Oz, who remains one of my favorite characters ever. I wish he'd been around for longer DD:
I love that Pete's obsession with words has rubbed off on Hemmy. &peteBuffy crossover! &hearts's, you.
Re: i like the way you turn a phrase, missy
Date: 2009-11-13 01:20 pm (UTC)Also, it looks like there might be more of that Gee-and-Amanda story. Maybe maybe. I am being ENABLED.
NO YOU.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-01 05:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-01 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-01 05:31 pm (UTC)I also really love the first one -- so atmospheric and eerie; and I adore the Gerard/Oz one too.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-01 09:36 pm (UTC)And thank you! I'm pretty in love with the first one, honestly, and Gerard/Oz is so much fun.