will write for food...

[edenfalling]

I am having serious trouble working up motivation to write, which is frustrating. Like, I will open a document, check where I was in the story, type maybe five words, and... nothing. Blank. It's particularly annoying if I've been mentally juggling and arranging ideas earlier in the day so I know roughly where I want to go and just can't quite get there once I am actually trying to type letters on a keyboard.

One thing that I've found helpful in the past when I've had trouble writing is to switch gears and write something completely different, and also -- this is the key part -- something with an external rather than internal pressure/reward system. Like prompt!fic.

So.

Give me one to three characters plus a mood, a scenario, or a prompt word, and I will write you a ficlet that is at least three sentences or 100 words long.

Help me out, please?

---------------

1. Kiss the Bride: Susan Pevensie as Queen of Narnia, coping with marriage proposals. 425 words, for madamehardy. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

2. In Sure and Certain Hope: Dave, John, Jade: somber but hopeful. 275 words, for shinyrock6498. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

3. Under Pressure: Lessee. How about some Naruto: Sakura, building pressure. 400 words, for branch-and-root. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

4. Literal Interpretation: Jade, John, Davesprite, god worship. 675 words, for asukaskerian. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

5. Freedom Ride: Kanaya, Aradia, Prompt word: whoops. 425 words, for gracefularchitect. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

6. Tall Ship of War: How about Shezan and/or Ilgamuth, and boats? 225 words, for autumnia. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

7. My Sorrow's Share: Arwen and the pro/con of choosing humanity. (I'm on a Silmarillion kick.) 125 words, for mmarycontrary. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

8. Crowning Glory: How about Susan Pevensie, combs or haircombing? 625 words, for cat_i_th_adage. (Also a cottoncandy_bingo fill, because why not!) [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

9. Picture Perfect: Karkat, Dave, Davepetasprite, likeness. 150 words, for primtheamazing. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

10. Pay It Forward: Ayakawa Yukiko and educating the next generation, please. :) 1,150 words, for wistfulmemory. (Also a cottoncandy_bingo fill!) [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

11. Mischief Night: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke; "strangely satisfying". 550 words, for eos_joy. (Also a cottoncandy_bingo fill!) [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

12. Necessary Measures: Rose, Jasprose, and Kanaya, bickering. 200 words, for primtheamazing. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

13. In Abeyance, In Arrears: Bro, Dave, dour. 150 words, for anonymous on Tumblr. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

14. Broken If Revealed: Daredevil: awkward reveal, "This is- it's not what it looks like...?" 2,150 words, for shinyrock6498. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

15. An Unorthodox Pedagogical Approach: If you’re willing (and can without spoilers), I would love a future fic showing Naruto, Shinnin, and Sakura working together as a team while on a mission. 300 words, for wistfulmemory. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

16. Part of Your World: Jade, Rose, prompt word: adventure. 675 words, for gracefularchitect. (Also a cottoncandy_bingo fill!) [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

Comments

Kiss the Bride

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from madamehardy: Susan Pevensie as Queen of Narnia, coping with marriage proposals.

-----

"Corin, I'm honored that you like me so well you wish us to spend our lives together," Susan said, kneeling on the stone steps of Anvard so her face was level with that of the little prince. Behind her back, she closed the fingers of her left hand and twisted her wrist, as if snapping a thread. Be silent, the gesture said, and I will take care of this. The murmur of laughter and the rustle of clothes stilled into silence as her retinue and the gathered members of Lune's court made her and Corin the center of an impromptu tableau.

"So you'll be my wife?" Corin asked, his face still flushed with excitement and sticky with the residue of raspberry jam.

Susan bit her lip and did her best to look woeful. "Alas!" she said. "There are two problems. First, you are far too young to think of marriage."

"But what if--"

"You are far too young," Susan repeated. "As am I, though less so than you. Second, I think there is a secret about weddings and what comes after that no one has yet thought to tell you."

Corin scowled in fierce indignation. "What? That's not fair. Tell me!"

Susan leaned in close, placed her right hand on his shoulder, and stage-whispered in his ear: "I am sorry to tell you this terrible thing, since you have been such a good friend to me all your life. If we get married, you will have to kiss me on the mouth."

Corin jerked away and made a face as if he'd just bitten into a rotten apple.

Susan very carefully didn't laugh at him. Lune's pointed cough from behind her ensured that nobody else did either, at least not aloud. "There, you see?" she said. "'Twould never do, to break a friendship strong as ours with such unpleasantness as that. Now let us part as friends, and when we meet again next spring, this shall be naught but a memory to make us both smile."

She held out her hand in offer.

Corin hesitated for a moment. "We'll still be friends? And you'll still teach me to shoot next year? And I can still be your knight when I get bigger?"

"My word as Queen," said Susan. Corin placed his small hand against her own, and they shook solemnly in agreement.

(It was, Susan was fond of saying in later years, by far the best outcome to an unwanted proposal that she ever experienced. Corin just wished she'd stop telling the story.)

In Sure and Certain Hope

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from shinyrock6498: Dave, John, Jade: somber but hopeful

-----

"And remember, be respectful! Rose died. We know she's going to wake up and remember everything from both lives, but none of her family or other friends do and it would be incredibly rude to act like there's nothing to mourn, especially since the crash was so bad they had to do a closed-casket ceremony," Jade said as she parked her Jeep outside the cemetery where Rose's family had been burying their relatives for generations.

Dave adjusted his suit coat and ran a hand through his hair, tidying it after the adventure of Jade's driving. "I'm still hung up on the part where she actually unbent enough to make other friends, let alone go drag-racing with them. I'm pretty sure original flavor Lalonde would rather have died than--"

The air in his mouth and throat abruptly vanished before he could finish his sentence.

"Dude. Not cool," John said as Dave sucked in a new breath and struggled not to cough.

"Yeah, seriously," Jade said. She hooked her left arm around Dave's right and began tugging him toward the cemetery gates. "I respect your coping mechanisms, but this is not the time or place. Wait until the corpse party when Rose can join in."

"You're being stupidly oversensitive and Rose would agree with me," Dave grumbled. "Both versions of her, even. But fine. Whatever. You're the friendleaders." He ran his fingers over his lips as if zipping them shut, then fished one of Jane's homemade apple-flavor hard candies out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth. He could make it through a funeral without talking if he really tried.

Tomorrow he'd have his sister back.

Under Pressure

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from branch-and-root: Lessee. How about some Naruto: Sakura, building pressure.

I think this is part of the Tides AU, taking place at some unspecified point after Troy in Reverse.

-----

When she gets out of here, Sakura decides, she is going to learn some earth jutsu. Not only will it be a practical way to shore up the team's weaknesses -- none of them are very good at defense, too focused on causing or fixing damage rather than preventing it in the first place -- it will ensure that she never ends up this helpless again.

She lifts her right hand the bare fingerbreadth she has room for and grinds her knuckles into the stones holding her underground. Chakra pulses through her body, waiting to be released, but precision can never entirely compensate for raw strength and a strike would only bring the rest of the rubble tumbling down to crush her flat. It's already a miracle that she survived the first avalanche, that a trickle of fresh air is seeping in through some maze of hair-thin gaps too small and too offset to allow any light into her prison. Sakura doesn't want to press her luck.

It was nearly sunset when she and the boys ran across two former Earth-nin on the Wind Country border. She thinks it's probably midnight by now. She took out one of the idiots herself, which is why she was vulnerable to a strike in her blind spot. She's sure Naruto and Sasuke made short work of the other after he buried her. She's equally sure they'll dig her out eventually.

(Naruto could probably manage the excavation faster with a whirlwind, but she's glad either he saw sense or Sasuke punched some into him. Being the target of that much force, however well-intentioned, would also press her luck in ways she'd rather avoid.)

Something shifts above her and twenty tons of rock are suddenly resting directly on her left shin. Sakura grits her teeth against the shock of pain and channels her chakra to the point of contact, reinforcing bone, muscle, and skin. "Be careful!" she shouts, on the off chance that her teammates can hear.

No answer comes, just another shift and resettling of stone, this time onto the right half of her ribcage.

Fuck.

Sakura sacrifices her leg, orders herself to ignore the snap of bone and the slow seep of blood from veins and arteries she can't accurately pinch shut without either sight or the touch of her hands, and does her best to keep breathing until she sees the sky.

Literal Interpretation

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from asukaskerian: Jade, John, Davesprite, god worship.

-----

-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

EB: hey dave sprite?
TG: yeah what
EB: this is kind of a weird question and i just realized i have no idea how to lead in to it so the question itself will make any sense, bluh.
EB: hmm. you go to lohac sometimes right?
TG: no
EB: oh.
EB: why not?
TG: reasons
EB: wow that was very enlightening! i feel so enlightened.
TG: cool for you look is this conversation going anywhere or can i get back to jamming with jade
TG: we had a groove going and i can feel it slipping away with every blue word that waffles across my shades
TG: all that music drowned in a sea of expansive egbertian evasions
EB: it's going somewhere!
EB: but like i said, i'm not sure how to lead in to the actual question.
TG: heres a thought why not just ASK the question
TG: explanations can come after if needed
EB: fine, whatever.
EB: do your consorts
EB: (or dave's consorts, i guess)
EB: treat you kind of... weirdly?
TG: define weird
EB: ...
EB: this is going to sound so egotistical that i can hear rose mocking me from another universe.
EB: but fine, i'll stop waffling.
EB: do they treat you like a god?
TG: no
EB: huh. really?
TG: really
TG: whod worship leftover scraps man that would be a dumb religion
TG: they talk about alpha dave that way though which is what youre really asking
TG: and jades iguanas think shes straight up the goddess of spring or some shit like that
TG: melted all the snow and brought back the green when she kindled the forge
TG: they have hymns and altars and everything
TG: and speaking as a piece of game mechanics i can promise you theyre not faking and this is perfectly normal for sburb
TG: god tier equals god
TG: its right there in the fuckin name this is not rocket science
EB: i am so uncomfortable with this.
TG: yeah well learn to deal
TG: hey jades been reading over my shoulder and she wants to talk to you
EB: i don't WANT to deal! i want it to go away!
TG: she says and i quote
TG: john stop bugging davesprite about this its really awkward for some reasons i cant tell you because theyre not my secrets and other reasons that should be obvious if you take a minute to think you doofus
EB: hey!
TG: i will talk to you later if youre still freaking out
TG: because being a god is way more responsibility than i want and i bet if that freaks me out it must freak you out even more
TG: but for now come over and play music with us
TG: you will feel better and also listening to the concert were going to put on in a few days will improve the quality of your consorts liturgical music by literally immeasurable amounts
TG: and when a witch of space says something is literally immeasurable you know its serious business mister
TG: endquote
TG: oh wait sorry
TG: <3 <3 <3 then endquote
TG: cant forget the love
EB: well you can tell jade that her subtle insults to my intelligence and status as an awesome and considerate friendleader did not go unnoticed.
EB: but i'll come over anyway because there is never a wrong time for music.
EB: and anything that might improve those hymns sounds like a good idea to me.
TG: word
TG: and on that note
TG: i suggest you blow your current popsicle stand and deus yourself up a machina in the form of a piano
EB: dave sprite!
EB: that is a bad joke and you should feel bad.
TG: like i care about joke quality clown shits your territory not mine
TG: and speaking of territory were in the third starboard ballroom, next to nannasprites kitchen
TG: follow the antiphonal chanting

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

EB: dave sprite!!!
EB: ...
EB: vengeance will be mine.

[eos_joy]

Hmm...how about:

Naruto: Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke; "strangely satisfying"



(I miss Naruto ;__;)

Freedom Ride

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from gracefularchitect: Kanaya, Aradia, Prompt word: whoops

-----

"'Whoops?' That is not a reassuring word coming from a starship," Kanaya said with an equally unreassuring dryness in her voice.

Aradia couldn't move much in the helmsrig, but she spared a brief flare of teek to flap a dismissive biowire in her crewmate's direction. "Don't get sarcastic at me, everything is under control! We're just making an emergency landing behind the exhaust vents of Battleship Condescension. Looks like we get to test Equius's voidy thing against live trolls a few days earlier than planned." She toggled on the ship-wide intercom and repeated the last two sentences for the benefit of the crew at large, then routed all complaint calls to Karkat up on the bridge.

Kanaya seemed to be struggling between an impulse to disapprove of Aradia's approach to protocol and an equally strong impulse to laugh. She compromised by setting down her pruning shears (biowires could and would take over an entire helmsblock within a week if they weren't properly tended) and resting a hand on the control board, next to the bank of buttons and levers formerly marked 'Emergency Failsafes' and now either melted into slag or relabeled 'Let Aradia Have a Life (Without Electrocuting Her in the Process, Numbglobes!)'. "Do you want to accompany the boarding party?" she asked.

"It would be fun, wouldn't it? But no." Aradia sighed. "It's more important to ensure we have a quick escape than to throw another body into danger. I'll do what I can to lure some ghosts through the hull and pass on any useful information. Just don't get captured. The point of a rescue mission is to leave with more people than we came with, not the other way around."

"We'll bring Sollux and Feferi back," Kanaya promised.

Only if that was the way things had to go to make the timeline work, Aradia thought. And she didn't know the future anymore. She had no way to be sure that saving her matesprit and moirail -- saving an Heiress who wanted to dismantle her heritage and the most powerful psionic hatched in generations, who also happened to be the descendant of a heretical rebel cult leader -- wouldn't spark some even worse catastrophe down the line.

But no. That was the voice of futility and the empty dead. She was alive, her friends were out of the game, and this time around they were going to make the universe bend toward justice, Empire and Empress be damned.

"Yeah," Aradia said. "Of course you will. And then we can really get to work."

My Sorrow's Share

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from mmarycontrary: Arwen and the pro/con of choosing humanity. (I'm on a Silmarillion kick.)

This is very short mostly because I am working only from slightly hazy memory. (Apparently I am too lazy to go look up details even though my copy of the Silmarillion is sitting literally six feet away from me as I type this. *sigh*) Title is a line from ‘On Another’s Sorrow’ by William Blake, because I couldn’t condense the Four Noble Truths into something both pithy and appropriate.

-----

When Arwen was younger, she watched her father mourn his brother and could not understand her uncle's choice. She would never cause such pain to her family.

Now that she is older, she knows that grief and loss are inevitable. Even the promise of reunion in Valinor comes at the price of leaving all that is good and fair here in Middle-Earth. And to stay forever young, to persist unchanging until she has outlived descendants as far removed from her as Estel is from Elros? Would that bring anyone joy?

It would not, Arwen thinks, as she takes her husband's hand and joins her fate to his. Sorrow is inevitable, but she can choose its form, and she will not cause such pain to herself.

Picture Perfect

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from primtheamazing: Karkat, Dave, Davepetasprite, likeness.

-----

"Stay still, dammit, I need a good photo of you guys fur my new shipping wall!" Davepetasprite said, flickering through time in hot pursuit of their targets.

Finally Dave seemed to realize that time travel wasn't a viable form of escape. He shoved Karkat behind him instead (aww, so cute!) and said, "Isn't that a little narcissistic or something? I mean since you're kind of half me?"

Karkat's protests were muffled into incoherence by a fold of Dave's cape.

Davepetasprite flexed their wings in a shrug. "Yeah, maybe. But who cares! I'm cute, you're cute, and Karkitty is cutest of all, so for the last time stay still befur I have to get creative." They held up the camera just as Karkat stuck his head over Dave's shoulder, a confused frown tugging his eyebrows down into an adorably grumpy triangle, and pressed the shutter release to capture the scene.

Purrfect.

Necessary Measures

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from primtheamazing: Rose, Jasprose, and Kanaya, bickering

-----

"Rose. Rose. Excuse me. Jasprose? I feel it's only polite to inform you both that if you don't cease these constant verbal attacks I will be forced to take steps. I will do so whether or not you understand this warning."

"One moment, Kanaya," Rose said in the distracted manner that meant she hadn't registered the meaning of a single word, nor Kanaya's increasingly irritated tone of voice. At the other end of the sofa, Jasprose smiled sweetly and inquired if Rose would like to restate her last point because clearly she couldn't have meant to sound as ignorant as her words had implied.

Kanaya counted to twelve. Then she slammed the purple embroidered cushion down between her matesprit and her matesprit's alternate potential fate. Rose tipped backward onto the sofa's arm, while Jasprose levitated toward the ceiling, claws out and face-tentacles thrashing in alarm.

"Thank you," Kanaya said, tucking the cushion back into her sylladex. "Now, as I was saying. If you don't find some way to coexist in relative peace, I will have to find you an auspistice. I'm sure Karkat would be thrilled to volunteer. Failing that, I've been considering John. Or Roxy."

She smiled at the badly concealed panic on two versions of Rose's face.

Mission accomplished.

In Abeyance, In Arrears

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from anonymous on Tumblr: Bro, Dave, dour

-----

If he had smiled, even once -- a little 'hey, not bad' tip of the hat to Dave's efforts to improve his strifing skills, a rueful 'yeah, I hear you man, that's rough' to one of Dave's veiled complaints, even just a 'dude, wasn't that sweet' half-millimeter quirk of his mouth at something he himself did -- then things would... still have been fucking awful, actually. Maybe even worse; Dave has read some of the psychology studies Rose keeps pushing at him, and he knows about irregular reward systems and how they hook you more than heroin. Maybe flat upfront nothing was better.

But he still dreams of Bro's broad-shouldered silhouette walking away, and can't stop himself from running after and hoping that maybe this time -- maybe just once, in all the universes there ever were or ever will be -- his brother will stop, and turn, and show him a single beat of love.

Broken If Revealed

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from shinyrock6498: Daredevil: awkward reveal, "This is- it's not what it looks like...?"

*sits down to write a cute and tiny fill*

*looks up two days and two thousand words of angst later*

...Something went awry here. Deeply, seriously awry. Um. Hopefully you will enjoy the results anyway, though I am fairly sure they are not what you were looking for when you made the prompt.

-----

Karen generally had a lot of respect for Matt and Foggy -- they'd slogged through law school and passed the bar without losing their moral compasses, after all -- but when it came to common sense... well, that was a different question. She was absolutely sure their firm would crash and burn without her. Matt was locked in a bitter war with his spellchecker, Foggy couldn't manage accounting to save his life, and neither of them had the slightest idea how to maintain either physical or electronic filing systems.

Despite privacy concerns, she'd gotten in the habit of going through Foggy's desk when he and Matt took a long Friday lunch, just to make sure he didn't lose important documents in the chaos. (Matt, more sensible on this subject, didn't even try to keep his own documents and just gave her a Braille label-maker and a brief lesson in its use so he could navigate her own filing cabinets.)

So far she'd retrieved one overdue bill just in time to keep their electricity from being turned off, one accidentally overlooked witness statement that turned out to unravel a key portion of the prosecution's case against Ms. Agatha Neuhauser, and the takeout menu for the Japanese-Tibetan fusion restaurant Foggy was in love with. She'd left them all in Foggy's inbox without comment, and indulged in a mix of pride and amusement that he still hadn't figured out that she was his mysterious 'paperwork fairy-godmother.'

Today, though, she didn't want to let her discovery pass in silence.

"Hey, Foggy, can I ask you something?" she said when he and Matt piled in through the main door, still laughing over who even knew what.

Something in her voice must have given away her mood, because Matt raised his eyebrows, said, "I'll get started on the motion to compel disclosure of Mr. Rathore's travel itinerary and leave you two alone, shall I?" and vanished abruptly into his office.

Foggy frowned after him, good mood deflating slightly. Then he turned back to Karen with a broad smile. "Sure, ask away. Oh, wait -- did I screw up my billable hour reporting again? If I did, I am so, so sorry, and I swear I'll... probably keep doing it, but hopefully not again until next week?"

Karen smiled despite herself. "You won't be in the office until next week. I think that's a pretty safe bet," she said. "But no, I wanted to talk to you about a file." She glanced toward Matt's office, with its closed door and shadowed interior -- he'd forgotten to turn the light on again -- and bit her lip. "Um. Come into the conference room?"

Foggy also glanced at Matt's door, then looked back toward Karen with an uneasy expression. "Uh, sure. But be honest with me here: on a scale of one to 'I can never show my face in public again,' how embarrassing is this going to be?"

"To be determined," Karen said, and opened the door to the conference room -- which hardly deserved the name, but she shared Foggy's belief that it was important to plan ahead. She liked that about him, liked to talk half-jokingly, half-seriously about the future they and Matt would share.

She was less sure now that they were anticipating the same future.

Foggy closed the door, lowered its cheap plastic blind, and sat down across the equally cheap plastic table from Karen. He folded his hands, took a deep breath, and said, "Okay, hit me."

Karen set the unlabeled file folder she'd been holding onto the table. Then she flipped the front cover open to show the slimmer, bright red folder hidden inside, bearing a label in Foggy's looping handwriting: 'Contingency Plans (for when Matt's life inevitably goes to hell because he is a masochistic ASSHOLE)'.

Foggy's breath caught audibly in his throat. "Oh," he said. "Uh. This is-- it's not what it looks like?"

Karen put her hands flat on the table and leaned forward. "I think it's exactly what it looks like. And I think it's only the tip of the iceberg, because you're amazingly cryptic even in private notes. So tell me, what is Matt doing that makes you think he's going to get arrested and disbarred, or just plain killed? Is he trying to infiltrate the mob? Is it related to that 'car crash' from two months ago? Which I know was not an actual car crash, by the way, and I'm going to get the real story someday, but that's not important right now."

Foggy was trying to interrupt. She plowed over him, doing her best to convey her anger without getting so loud Matt might overhear. "Whatever the problem is, why haven't you done anything to get him out of it instead of just assuming he's going to crash and burn? And why didn't you tell me anything? He's my friend too! I work here too! I have a right to know -- and to help!"

"And I have a right to expect my private notes to stay private," Foggy countered. "Why were you going through my desk in the first place?"

"Because you can't organize things to save your life and somebody needs to make sure you don't lose important stuff behind your secret stash of Starbursts," Karen said. "That's not the point. The point is that Matt clearly needs our help, that I am sick of secrets, and that we all need to work together if we're going to stay alive long enough to do any good for the people of New York."

Foggy opened and closed his mouth several times. When he finally found some words, they weren't much more coherent: "I-- that is-- I wish--" He took a deep breath and tried again. "Look, you're absolutely right that Matt needs help and secrets are terrible, but it's not my place--"

The door swung open to reveal Matt, sans cane, standing with an unfamiliar tension in his shoulders and a strange twist to his mouth. "Foggy. Thank you for-- for everything. But Karen's right. I do need your help -- both of you -- and I think maybe I'm getting tired of secrets too. Especially since they seem to be contagious."

Foggy glanced at the red folder and winced.

"Matt?" Karen frowned in confusion. She hadn't heard him leave his office, and how had he overheard them anyway? "Um. I'm sorry for talking to Foggy behind your back. I didn't want to pressure you, but--"

Matt pulled off his glasses, revealing a faded black eye and a small cut just at the top of his cheekbone, as if he'd been punched by someone wearing a sharp-edged ring. "Karen. It's okay. I should probably have told you this a while ago, but I'm not very good at-- at being open."

"No shit. Which is hilarious considering what a pathetic liar you are," Foggy said, a little sourly. "You only get away with it because your life is so implausible nobody in their right mind would ever guess the truth."

Matt looked pained. Karen felt her eyebrows rise. "This is what you argued about, isn't it. The car crash that wasn't a car crash, and whatever has Foggy so worried he's making contingency plans for what sounds like-- like you dying and bringing everything we've worked for crashing down with you. So what is it?"

Matt swallowed, aimed his eyes toward her mouth, and said, "I'm Daredevil."

"Bullshit," Karen said involuntarily.

But as Matt and Foggy started talking over each other in an amazingly incompetent attempt to explain -- made worse by the fact that Matt clearly didn't want to and Foggy was obviously a bit vague on the details of the whole thing -- evidence slotted together in her mind, piece after damning piece. How the man in the mask knew to be at her apartment the night she retrieved the files. Matt's constant injuries. The way Matt and Foggy had stammered through a non-explanation of how they'd contacted the Devil. Matt's grace at avoiding temporary obstacles when he was tired or distracted, even though he'd crash into them when he was awake and alert. Why they couldn't get hold of Matt the night of the bombings.

It was completely implausible -- completely impossible -- and yet...

"Oh my god. You are Daredevil. I don't know how, but you are."

Matt made an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. "I've just been trying to tell--"

"I don't care how you do it! Not now. I'll care later. Later you're going to tell me everything. But Foggy's right. This is going to go to hell, and then Foggy and I will have to pick up the pieces. What if they disbar you? What if they let Fisk out? What if--" What if somebody started looking into Matt and found out all of Karen's secrets in the process? What if Fisk found out? About his mother, about Wesley, about--

Karen pressed her hands to her face and tried to breathe.

"Hey. Hey, Karen." Foggy leaned across the table to brush his fingers against her shoulder. "That's why I made the folder. Because we need to plan for the worst, just in case. But now you can help me knock sense into Matt so he stays safe -- well, safer -- well, less unsafe -- and plan some good alibis and just, organize things so they work. Like you already do, but now you, too, can join in the illegal and morally dubious side business I didn't know I was establishing alongside our nice, honest law firm!"

The joke fell like a deflated balloon through the sound of Karen's ragged breathing.

Matt's face crumpled and he stepped forward, reaching out in entreaty. "Foggy, I'm--"

"If you say you're sorry one more time without putting forth any genuine plans to change what you're doing, I will hit you," Foggy said. "I don't care if you're a ninja. I will do it. Then I will start doing my laundry with too much Tide and those spring-fresh dryer sheets, buy some hideously floral-scented shampoo and a clashing cologne, and spill cheese snacks all around the office until you sneeze yourself into submission."

"Please don't," Karen said from behind the shield of her hands, her breath and heartbeat finally approaching normal once more. "I like breathing through my nose and I think I'd have to stop if you do that."

"Yeah, I think-- I think that counts as cruel and unusual punishment," Matt said, the careful lightness of his words a thin disguise over the watery tone of his voice. "We should keep it so I'm the only one in the firm actively breaking the law."

Karen lost the next minute to the roar of blood in her ears and the frantic struggle to draw air back into her lungs. When she could hear again, both Matt and Foggy had rounded the table; Foggy was rubbing her back while Matt held her shaking hands pressed between his own palms.

"Breathe," he was saying. "In, and hold, two, three. Now out, and hold, two, three. It's okay, Karen. Now in, and hold, two, three. And out, and hold--"

"It's-- I've got it. I'm good. You can stop," Karen managed to say. "Thank you. I'm sorry."

"Seriously, what is it with you people and your unfair hotness and inability to understand the proper application of apologies?" Foggy asked the air. "You don't need to apologize for a panic attack. What you need is a hug and a drink. Maybe not in that order."

Karen lowered her hands to the table, then wrapped her fingers around Matt's wrists when he tried to pull away. "I do need to apologize, though. Because Matt's not the only one with secrets. And mine could cause-- could cause--"

She felt Matt's pulse warm under her fingertips and Foggy's hand gentle and comforting on her shoulder. She wanted them to stay this close forever, but she couldn't bear to let them keep comforting her under false pretenses. "Do you remember James Wesley? Fisk's assistant, who hired you to defend Mr. Healy and then disappeared?" she asked.

Matt grimaced and nodded.

"That slimy creep?" Foggy said. "Ugh. What about him?"

Karen closed her eyes and shoved through the panic setting like glue in her throat. "I killed him. I shot him six times and wiped down the table and threw away the gun. I didn't need to, I could have stopped after one and gotten away, but I killed him and I'm not sorry."

Both Matt and Foggy had gone very still during her little speech.

But they didn't pull away.

Oh, Karen thought. Oh. She opened her eyes. "I think," she said, looking down at the red paper under her hands, "that if you're serious about all three of us working together, you might need a contingency folder for me too."

Part of Your World

[edenfalling]

In response to a prompt from gracefularchitect: If you're willing to take seconds: Jade, Rose, prompt word: adventure

This seems to have turned into a tiny sequel to New Roots, which is a no-Sburb AU in which Rose is a published author and Jade owns and runs a sort of combined florist/garden shop business. It's also a Cotton Candy Bingo fill for the prompt bed.

-----

Rose shifts on her quilt, uneasy at being naked in broad daylight with the windows open, though she knows rationally nobody can see into her second-story bedroom through the dogwood tree and the lacy gray curtains. But Jade said that if Rose wouldn't get a tattoo the next best thing was body art and Rose enjoys indulging Jade's more lighthearted whims, so here she is, trying not to jostle her girlfriend's hands while Jade traces cool lines over her back with a pair of black and purple Sharpies.

She doesn't know what the finished design is meant to be. She doesn't know where Jade's hands will move next. She doesn't know how Jade will want to show her off once her masterpiece is finished.

There's something delicious about being so willingly vulnerable, something charged with an energy that isn't quite sexual but could tip her over the edge into arousal at the change of a breath or a misplaced (correctly placed?) brush of skin on skin. Rose might need to write this scenario into a book someday -- altered and anonymized, of course.

And speaking of vulnerability...

"I've been thinking," Rose says into her pillow.

"A dangerous pastime!" Jade says, the words slightly mangled by the purple marker cap held between her teeth. Her right hand continues to make repetitive curved strokes in the hollow between Rose's shoulder blades.

Rose turns her head just enough to catch Jade's gaze through her sleep-mussed hair and raise a single unimpressed eyebrow. "Do you really want to start a Disney quote-off with me? Please recall which one of us grew up in a saccharine-soaked household with a mother who worshipped all things cute and even mildly redolent of magic, and which one grew up in an abandoned robotics factory repurposed into a survivalist hunting lodge."

"Yeah, and which one of us built her own television specifically to catch up on all the pop culture she missed before her thirteenth birthday?" Jade returns as she switches markers and draws a series of tiny circles over Rose's left hip. "But sure, we'll table the battle for later. I don't want you to laugh and spoil my art. End of tangent! What have you been thinking about, and why does it deserve such a vague and ominous lead-in?"

"To answer the latter: habit, I suppose. It certainly wasn't intentional. To answer the former--" Rose pauses, clenches her fingers around the edge of her mattress where the pillow will hide her tension from Jade, and says, "Would you move in with me?"

The marker stills on her back. "Huh," Jade says. "That was not what I was expecting you to say."

Rose tries very hard to keep her voice level. "Occasionally I strive for novelty. But, would you? We've been dating for nearly thirteen months, I have space going to waste, and I-- I'm tired of having to say goodbye so often. I want to know that when you say you're going home, you mean the same place I do."

"Are you sure you've thought this through?" Jade asks. "I mean, Bec might not get along with Jaspers. You might not like plants and circuit boards taking over all your shelves and tables, or long hair clogging your shower. I might not like being psychoanalyzed before breakfast every morning, or the inability to keep beer in the house for unwinding after a shitty day, or your crazy amounts of fan mail. There are a lot of potential pitfalls."

It's true; there are. Rose has listed a good three dozen in the month since she kissed Jade goodbye after dinner on Sunday and thought, 'If she lived here she wouldn't have to leave. We could wake up on Monday together. In our bed.'

"We might crash and burn horribly," she agrees. "But I want to try. If you're willing."

"Well," Jade says. "I've never turned back from an adventure yet. We'll just have to defeat any challenges together."

She leans down, careful not to smudge the still-wet lines on Rose's back, and tips Rose's chin up for a kiss.

[autumnia]

Hmm. I was re-reading To Every Thing There Is a Season last night (which totally distracted me from writing) so how about: Shezan and/or Ilgamuth, and boats?

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

Um, how about Susan Pevensie, combs or haircombing?

(I just like Susan, okay?)

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

Ayakawa Yukiko and educating the next generation, please. :)

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

If you're willing (and can without spoilers), I would love a future fic showing Naruto, Shinnin, and Sakura working together as a team while on a mission.