bitterfic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:46:02 GMT

nicked from hyel

Comment with a fandom and I'll tell you my:

One True Pairing Ship:

Canon Ship:

"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" Ship:

"You are one sick bastard" Ship:

"I dabble a little" Ship:

"It's like a car crash" Ship:

"Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" Ship:

"Makes no canon sense but why the Hell not" Ship:

"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" Ship:

"When all is said and done" Ship:

The Fire Within: Inglourious Basterds Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:13:16 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: The Fire Within
Fandom: Inglourious Basterds
Pairing: Shosanna/Marcel
Rating: PG
Warning: implied violence
Word Count: 106
Author's Note: Written for ib_100 Prompt #2: Fire
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

The Fire Within

Shosanna burned.

There was a fire within her, demanding justice, demanding vengeance. She wanted to live, to survive, but the fire blazed. She could have no peace till she saw the ones who had killed her family go down in flames, go up in fire.

Fire.

It burned within her; hotter and more urgent than love or self-preservation. She would set the world on fire, even if it cost her her life, even if it cost her all that was left to her.

Marcel understood. The fire was in him too. In his heritage. In his blood. As he loved her he would burn with her.

The One To Blame: Mad Men Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:06:08 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: The One To Blame
Fandom: Mad Men
Pairing: Don/Betty
Beta Reader: Fedink
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Language, spoilers for season 3.
Word Count: 113
Author’s Note: Written for of_the_moon100 Prompt #12: Frozen
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

The One To Blame

It was tempting to cast Betty as the ice queen. Heaven knows she looked the part, pale snow blonde, cold and immaculate bitch.

It would be easy to make her the villain, with her frosty bitterness and her back-up plan for getting out of the marriage.

Easy, but not fair, not true.

The truth was Don had been lying to her on a dozen different levels every day since they’d met. For most of their marriage she hadn’t even known his real name. From the start he’d frozen her out of huge parts of his life, giving her access to only the most superficial things then wondering why she was starving, freezing, untouchable.

A Secrety History: Harry Potter Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:56:55 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: A Secret History
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Molly Prewett Weasley/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: Written for femslash100 challenge #216: History. I have a bad habit of shipping couples where one kills the other.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

A Secret History

They had a history together, a secret history unguessed by those who knew them best.

They were family, Molly Prewett and Bellatrix Black. Cousins, removed but close enough that they were each other’s first kiss (though the haughty Blacks sneered at the rough-hewn Prewett clan).

Molly had been the elder, but young for her age. Bellatrix was so sophisticated and in the end, Molly got hurt on so many levels.

They had a secret history. Molly knew first hand how cruel Bellatrix could be, knew all too well that it wasn’t safe to let Bellatrix Lestrange anywhere near her daughter.

Electroconvulsive Therapy: Heroes Fic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:39:54 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Electroconvulsive Therapy
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Elle (implied Peter/Nathan)
Summary: Elle gets Peter’s attention. Set during season 2 when Peter is imprisoned by the Company.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 1135
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, incontinence, non-consensual sexual situations, implied incest.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

It wasn’t so much that Peter ignored Elle as that he didn’t see her. He spent his time trapped inside himself, bogged down in his own guilt. He didn’t have time for anyone else.

Elle didn’t like it, she didn’t like being invisible. No matter how often she threw herself at him he just didn’t seem to care. He’d swallow his pills and turn away. Elle didn’t like that. She knew she was pretty, that she at least merited a little attention. He shouldn’t have turned away.

There was something Elle had wanted to try for a long time, but her father wouldn’t let her. He went out of town, gone off without her; he left her to her own devices. He left her with Peter. He shouldn’t have left her, knowing what she wanted to do.

Peter was lying on his cot when Elle came in. He didn’t move. He didn’t even look at her.

“Up, up, up,” she cajoled without mirth. “Time for your pills.” Dully and dutifully he rolled off the cot, sat down at the small table and accepted the handful of pills and the glass of water from her. “How you doing, Petey?” She purred.

“Okay,” a flat, monosyllabic answer. She rubbed his shoulders.

“You don’t look so great. You look kind of pale. Have you been losing weight?”

“I guess.”

His voice was so flat; he just didn’t care about anything. She worked her fingers up his neck, he didn’t care about that. She massaged his temples.

“Peter…”

“Yeah, Elle?” Whatever.

“You seem kind of depressed. You know what would help?” No answer. He didn’t know what would help. So she answered for him. “Electroconvulsive therapy.”

Electricity shot from her fingertips straight through Peter’s brain. He jolted to his feet, convulsing before he hit the ground.

“What did you do to me? What the fuck did you do to me?” He managed to shout before everything went black.

When Peter came to he was lying on the floor of his cell, sufficiently disoriented that he wasn’t quite sure how he had gotten there.

“What… what…” he muttered. Elle’s face came into focus, looming over him.

“Have you come back to me, baby,” she cooed. “Feel better or do you need another shock?’ He remembered vaguely his muscles tightening, not being able to breathe; feeling like his heart was stopping.

“No,” he said. “Please. No more…”

“Whatever you say, honey,” she said soothingly than clicked her tongue with disapproval. “It looks like someone’s had an accident. Did little Petey pee-pee in his pants?” When she mentioned it he realized he was cold and wet below the waist, that his pants were soaked through. He tried to get up but his head felt like it was splitting in two and it was all he could do to keep down the contents of his stomach. When Elle pushed him back to the floor, a hand on his chest, he almost gratefully complied.

“I’ll take care of this mess you’ve made,” she said, her voice mocking and cloying all at once. “Okay? Let’s get you out of these nasty wet clothes.” She unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. He lifted his hips to help her as she peeled them off. “Good boy. Now your undies. Good, now let’s get you cleaned off.” Unceremoniously dumping the wet clothes in a garbage bag, Elle started wiping him off with a warm, damp towel.

Naked from the waist down with Elle cleaning him up after he’d pissed himself Peter knew that he ought to be embarrassed, even humiliated, that maybe what she wanted was for him to be humiliated yet somehow he couldn’t feel it. He’d been a nurse for so long, dealing with accidents of this nature on a day-to-day basis. He couldn’t bring himself to feel judgmental about what had happened to him, especially when he was too foggy to even really remember it.

As Elle washed him he thought that he ought to be doing what she was doing, taking care of people, cleaning up after them, making them feel better. Instead of being locked away, he ought to be with Nathan in the hospital, doing for Nathan what Elle was doing for him. Nathan was so proud; it would be hard for him to accept care from strangers, for them to see him like this, at his most vulnerable.

Gently, Elle stroked his penis with the warm cloth.

“Do you like that?” She asked teasingly, then dropped the cloth so it was just her hand on him, around him. He felt too sick and was too out of it to get hard, but it did feel good, her small, sure fingers touching him like that. He thought of Nathan, Nathan burned in a hospital bed. He thought of touching Nathan the way Elle touched him, stroking his brother, bringing him relief…

“Nathan.” He muttered. He turned his head, rested his cheek on the floor, closed his eyes, and imagined Nathan writhing under his hand.

“You miss your brother?”

“Yeah…”

“Is he the one you’re always thinking about? Even now? Do you want to do this with your brother?”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m pretty you know,” she said. Her hand slowed, fell still though she continued to hold him. “I’m pretty and I’m smart and I’m really damn powerful so maybe you should be thinking about my hand on your dick instead of your big brother.”

She was about to send a snap of electricity through his penis when he opened his eyes, opened them and looked right at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said with an almost childlike sincerity. “You were helping me and you are pretty. I should have been here with you.”

She was too stunned to answer him. She stroked his hair, her hand trembling. Somehow her whole experiment had turned out different than she expected. She had hurt him but he thought she was helping him; he had made her mad and touched her at the same time. He was sick, he had some sexual attachment to his brother but he seemed so pure. It was all too confusing for her.

“Let’s get you up off the floor,” she said disguising her conflicting emotions with a veneer of cheerfulness. “Come on,” she helped him to his feet and guided him the few steps to his cot. “You’ll feel better after you get some sleep.” She hoped it was true, that he’d be back to normal after a rest. She hoped she hadn’t rattled something in his brain loose or caused any kind of permanent damage that her father might notice.

He was still naked from the waist down but she tucked him in under the covers.

“Thank you,” he called to her as she slipped out of the cell.

No One There: Criminal Minds Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:48:14 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: No One There
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Pairing: Spencer Reid/Multiple
Word Count: 200
Rating: R
Warning: Drug addiction, sexual content.
Author’s Note: Written for slashthedrabble Prompt #232: Under the Influence
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

No One There

When he wanted wanted needed the drugs he wasn’t Spencer Reid anymore, wasn’t himself, wasn’t the sum of his parts. All the things he based his identity on, his intelligence, the work he did, just ceased to mater. He might as well have had an IQ of 87 instead of 187. He might as well have been an unsub, an unsub’s victim because he wasn’t a genius any more, he wasn’t a FBI agent; he wasn’t in control, he wasn’t one step ahead.

All he thought about, all he cared about was the drugs, getting the drugs, taking the drugs, getting away with it… then when he took them he was blank. His brilliant memory wiped clean, he was gone, a limp body with empty eyes. Usually so fastidious, stand-offish, self-contained, he belonged to anyone who had enough Dilaudid to get him off or just anyone who happened to be there who happened to want a strung-out boy genius who didn’t even have the presence of mind to say “yes” or “no” anymore.

A needle in his arm, someone’s hands on him, someone’s cock filling his mouth, someone’s fingers spreading him open but nothing to find inside, no one there.

Enough To Forget: Eastern Promises Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:32:53 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Enough To Forget
Fandom: Eastern Promises
Pairing: Nikolai/Kirill
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Alcohol abuse, sexual content.
Author's Note: Written for slashthedrabble Prompt #232: Under the Influence
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

Enough To Forget

That night, after he left Anna by the river Thames (after he left Anna holding the baby, after he left Anna forever) Nikolai let Kirill get him drunk.

Draining every bottle pressed to his lips, he got drunk enough to forget who he was but he couldn’t get drunk enough to forget Anna.

Under the influence, he could at least forget that it was Kirill and not Anna who was kissing him, Kirill and not Anna who he kissed back. Forget that it was Kirill and not Anna who lay beneath him, legs wrapped around his waist, moaning his name.

A Clean And Noble Death: Heroes Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:20:09 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Fandom: Heroes
Title: A Clean and Noble Death
Pairing: Peter/Nathan
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Alcohol abuse, incest, mother hating.
Author’s Note: Set during Season 2. Written for slashthedrabble Prompt #232: Under the Influence
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

A Clean and Noble Death

Nathan drank.

He drank and thought of Peter; flying into the sky holding Peter, letting Peter go and the blinding light of the explosion before everything went black.

He should have held on, no matter what Peter said. Held his brother right to the end, kissed his brother’s lips as they flew towards the sun, and been turned to ashes by the impact when Peter finally went nuclear. That would have been a good death. A clean and noble death, better than the life he’d come back to, a life under the influence of scotch and whiskey and Angela Petrelli.

Thank you!

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:04:33 GMT

Thanks so much to eve_n_furter and vicky_v for their virtual gifts.

In Bed With the Devil: Carnivale Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:01:28 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: In Bed With the Devil
Fandom: Carnivale
Pairing: Tommy Dolan/Iris/Brother Justin
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 100
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-con, incest, threesome, dark themes.
Author’s Note: Written for tv_100 prompt #119, Dreams and drabble_a_trois prompt #37 Dream.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

In Bed With the Devil

The night he made his deal with Brother Justin, Tommy Dolan dreamed of Iris. He dreamed that she welcomed him, yielded to his kisses, allowed his caresses, a hand on her breast, on her thigh, allowed him to lift her skirts, unbutton her dress. She lay down for him and he lay upon her, entered her but as he moved inside her he felt a weight on his back, a searing pain as he himself was penetrated by Justin.

He woke, heart pounding, covered in sweat, wondering who he had made his deal with and what it had cost him.

Pearlescent: Original Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:13:37 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Pearlescent
Fandom: Original
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 213
Rating: PG
Warnings: References to alcohol, bisexuality.
Author’s Note: Written for visualcomplex’s origfic: writing meme for the prompt “pearl”.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Pearlescent

I don’t wear jewelry, not a bit.

I don’t wear jewelry, but if I did I think that pearls would be nice.

Not pure pearls, the rare and expensive ones that spring full-grown from the head of Zeus and are solid pearl stuff all the way to the center. No, I prefer irritant pearls. The sort of pearls that start when a grain of sand gets inside an oyster and annoys it to the point where it covers it over with liquid pearl goo that hardens until layer by layer a pearl grows; a flawed pearl with a grain of sand at its heart.

These are my kind of pearls. Tag-along kid sister pearls not quite as valuable as their prissy, pristine older sisters. Janis Joplin pearls that hit on girls as well as boys and hide books and bottles in their handbags. Mummers’ parade pearls – the Pearly King and Queen.

The kind of pearl that’s all shimmery and pearlescent on the outside but sharp and hard and annoying and common deep down inside, just like me. Never quite what my rich sister would have me be, never quite what my Christian parents would have me be. Something else – less in some ways, more in some. A precious stone though not to everyone.

So Are You: Mad Men Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:36:47 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: So Are You
Fandom: Mad Men
Pairing: Sal/Kenny
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: Written for tv_100 Prompt #120: Beautiful
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

So Are You

Sal laid the artwork for the new ad campaign out on his drafting table, drawings of women in extra control girdles.

Kenny leaned in close to look. So close Sal could smell the milkiness and the mouthwash mintyness of his breath. Close enough that Sal could feel the tickle as a stray hair, so blond it was nearly transparent, fell onto his hand.

“These are way too nice for selling cheap girdles,” Kenny said with a low, admiring whistle. “Beautiful.”

It was only through an act of supreme self-control that Sal refrained from saying “thank you, so are you.”

Finger-Shaped: Original Fiction

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:52:28 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Finger-Shaped
Fandom: Original
Summary: When I was in college I liked this boy, Vincent….
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 664
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Language, drinking, violence, sexual content.
Author’s Note: Written for visualcomplex’s origfic: writing meme for the prompt “bruise”.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same.

Finger-Shaped

When I was in college I liked this boy, Vincent.

He was two years younger than me and punk as fuck. He read Love and Rockets, he’d met Iggy Pop, he’d even done heroin. He had long, greasy black hair and crooked teeth. He wore big boots and wrote poetry about masturbating on the large open air plaza at the center of the school.

I was fat in college and because of that I considered Vincent completely out of my league. He was cool; he smoked cigarettes and went to NYC on drug runs. He also had a girlfriend who looked like the punk rock version of Snow White.

As I said, completely out of my league. I nursed my crush for Vincent confident in the knowledge that it would come to naught. Still, we were pretty good friends. He liked my writing and even let me dance for a band he was in when they performed at a community center in Woodstock. We talked about books by William S. Burroughs and Henry Rollins. We talked about all girl punk rock bands, which were my passion in those days. He hugged me whenever we saw each other.

Then everything changed.

It came to naught all right, but not quite in the way I expected.

In February of 2003, about a month after I turned 21, Vincent’s girlfriend went out of town for the weekend. The two of us decided we’d get drunk together. Using my newly legal status I bought some beer for him and some brandy for me. I took them over to his place. He sang Neil Young’s “Powderfinger” for me. He played Babysitters on Acid, an album by the all female NYC band the Lunachicks. I danced. I liked to dance back then, even though I was overweight, I stomped and spun and tossed my head till I was dizzy. I loved to dance. I don’t dance any more.

At some point during the evening Vincent’s housemate Jason came home. He had my friend Shosanna with him and her friend Jill. Jill and Shosanna were both pretty girls, unlike me. Both of them always had guys interested in them. They were also attracted to each other and couldn’t deal with it so inevitably the conversation came round to their mutual attraction to each other as straight girls.

I was drunk enough that I told them it was bullshit and that everyone was bisexual so why didn’t they get over themselves and make out? Jason agreed. Jason happened to be gay, so I suggested that if Jason could kiss a woman, Jill and Shosanna should have no problem kissing a woman. Jason and I kissed. Jill and Shosanna kissed. Vincent and Jason kissed. I kissed Jill and Shosanna. Everybody kissed everyone else but mainly, Vincent and I kissed. I confessed that I had a bit of a thing for him. He said he’d thought I was a lesbian. We kissed some more and he dug his fingers into my arm. I was wearing a little black dress (they make them in plus sizes too) and a droopy black sweater. He dug and dug and dug his fingers into my arm until I screamed.

At some point in the evening I passed out.

When I woke up I was laying on Jason and Vincent’s couch. Shosanna was standing over me going “I can’t believe what you did.” I couldn’t believe what I’d done. My arm hurt. When I looked there were black marks on it. I thought the dye from my sweater had run. Not so, it turned out that they were bruises. Dark black bruises shaped like Vincent’s fingers.

As the bruises faded, whatever Vincent and I had been faded too. We didn’t talk about books or rock bands anymore. He didn’t hug me any more. There had been a time when I had thought I’d give it all for just one kiss. I got my wish, but it tasted like ashes.

The Manor House: Original Fiction

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:39:42 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: The Manor House
Fandom: Original
Summary: The Manor House was a huge mansion located out in the desert. Originally intended as a summer retreat for a very wealthy family it had long since fallen into disuse. After the occupation, the owner of the house offered it to resistance leaders to use as a sort of secret base…
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 3300
Rating: R
Warnings: Language. Implied and attempted rape. Children in sexual situation. Violence.
Author’s Note: The lyrics to “Miss Otis Regrets” are by Cole Porter.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

The Manor House

I was only nine years old when the invasion occurred. I can just barely remember the weeks of bombings, followed by the occupation, the tanks in the streets, soldiers at every corner, midnight searches of houses, resistance fighters strung up on the fence of the courthouse…

It was a dangerous time but my mother, Hilde, had always been fearless. From the beginning she allied herself with the resistance. I know that to many this makes her a hero, but as you will see there was a great deal more to it than that. If I learned nothing else during the six years of the occupation it was that the world is infinitely more complex than it seems.

The summer I turned eleven, I went to the Manor House for the first time along with my mother and my eight year old sister Alma.

The Manor House was a huge mansion located out in the desert. Originally intended as a summer retreat for a very wealthy family it had long since fallen into disuse. After the occupation, the owner of the house offered it to resistance leaders to use as a sort of secret base. Isolated as it was, the Manor House was ideal for this, however to minimize detection (and simply because the resistance lacked the resources) no improvements could be made on the house which was a tumbling down horror.

In the Manor House windows were broken and ceilings collapsed. The vast marble swimming pool was thick with scum and algae. Mold grew on the walls and the rooms were strewn with the droppings of the wild animals that made their home there. This was where my family would make our home.

Along with my family, the Manor House was occupied by commanding officers in the resistance army and a number of men and women who like my mother were specialists in various fields, lending their expertise to the cause. I was somewhat baffled by this arrangement. I couldn’t see how biologists, chemists, or a psychiatrist like Hilde would be any use in a war.

The majority of the soldiers, anyone below the rank of Sergeant, camped out in the desert. Our mother had strictly forbidden Alma and I to have anything to do with them. However at first Hilde spent much of her time sequestered in her makeshift laboratory deep in the bowels of the Manor House, giving Alma and I ample time to explore at our leisure.

Looking back it was probably extremely dangerous for two little girls to be creeping about a camp of armed soldiers prepared for battle but Alma and I were, in our way, fearless as our mother. Spying on the soldiers became our favorite pastime.

When the soldiers were around the house they were very disciplined and polite. They went about their duties with mechanical efficiency looking neither right nor left. When they did interact with their superiors or the specialists they used as few words as possible, usually only a “yes, sir” or a “no, ma’am.” They were very different when they were by themselves in the desert drilling. No less efficient, they were loud and coarse. They used words I had never heard but which I sensed contained a crude and violent sexuality.

Fuck. Cunt. Cocksucker.

When we were in bed at night Alma and I would whisper these words to each other, treasuring the pieces of adultness we had somehow found ourselves in possession of.

“Motherfucker, asshole, twat, faggot.”

Sometimes, Alma and I would sneak about to the soldier’s tents and watch them when they were at their leisure. Here, all the discipline fell away. Hanging around the tents they hardly seemed different than the boys my own age I had known in school. They joked and roughhoused with each other. They complained about the food and the lack of girls, they had contests to see who could pee furthest, longest, with the greatest accuracy.

Peeing seemed to be a great source of delight to the soldiers and it was through peeing that Alma and I would first make contact with Gideon, who would become our soldier.

One day we were hiding behind some of the scrubby desert bushes. As the soldiers marched by one of them slipped behind the bushes and began to pee. Then he spotted us but instead of chasing us away or even being embarrassed he only winked playfully in our direction as he continued to relieve himself. Several weeks later we spoke to him for the first time. He told us that his name was Gideon. He said he liked to be around little girls and that we were always welcome to talk to him and promised he wouldn’t tell Hilde about our visits to the soldier’s camp.

Gideon would change dramatically as time passed. When we first saw him, he was tall and lanky but months of training would build him up bigger and bigger. By the time I was thirteen and Sammus had become our tutor Gideon was a giant, his hugely muscled arms easily as big around as my waist. He was our window into the world of the soldiers. He would help us hide places where we could listen to them undetected and find out all sorts of things about them, about what went on around the base and about the war.

Alma and I adored Gideon, we felt entirely at ease in his presence to the point where we could sit on his knee and say our special words to each other as if we were alone in bed.

Gideon was our special secret. We met him often by the outside walls of the Manor House where the overgrown remains of the garden hid us from prying eyes.

We had been at the manor house for over a year when a strange little man named Sammus became our tutor.

Alma and I were not told where he came from or anything about him but from the beginning we sensed that something about him was off. Sammus was an adult, yet he had the round, unformed face of a baby and the scrawny body of a young boy. He was a man, but there was something prissy and feminine about the way he spoke and moved. He showed a fussy concern for my sister and me that no male ought to have displayed.

It wasn’t just Sammus either; it was the way the people around us reacted to him. The adults around the Manor House didn’t chat with him. They didn’t ask him how he was doing or gossip or complain about the filth we lived in. They looked away when he went by and spoke quietly to each other when they knew we were out of earshot. Sometimes they spoke too soon and we would overhear a bit of what was said.

“Sammus seems to be holding up.”

“He must be particularly susceptible.”

“Hilde does good work.”

“Still, I wouldn’t trust him with my children…”

The fact that adults treated Sammus like this endeared him to Alma and me. Like us he was beneath the notice of grown-ups but also somehow problematic, a cause for concern.

Sammus rarely took us outside of the Manor House but when he did, we got quite a different reaction from the soldiers of the rank and file. They reacted to Sammus with open hostility, shouting at him, calling him a son of a bitch, an occupier and a faker.

I was confused, so I asked Gideon about it.

“You girls shouldn’t have nothing to do with that guy,” he told us. “He’s dangerous. He’s a solider, like me, but part of the occupation. ‘stead of shooting him they let your mother go to work on him, she’s got him hypnotized. He don’t know where he is or who he is anymore.”

I felt very bad for Sammus and I said so.

“It’s a messed up situation,” Gideon agreed. “I almost feel sorry for the guy even though he’s one of them. He’d be better off dead; at least his soul would be his own.”

Gideon didn’t know a lot about what went on in the Manor House, but I spent most of my time there and gradually began to learn more and more about Sammus from the talk of the specialists and officers.

First of all, Sammus wasn’t the only prisoner of the occupying army kept in the Manor House, he was however my mother’s prize specimen. She had been able to completely subdue his actual memories and personality. As Gideon said, Sammus didn’t know who or where he was any more. He had no understanding that he was in enemy hands. He believed he had been hired as our tutor and that the Manor House was the luxurious mansion it had been years before. He also believed that he was a young woman. Alma and I giggled when we learned this—it explained so much about Sammus’ bearing—but other things I discovered were much more distressing.

One afternoon as we hid on the staircase by the pool Alma and I overheard a behavioral specialist who worked with our mother talking to a brash Lieutenant who was just back from the front. From their conversation I learned for the first time that our mother was fucking Sammus.

“That’s just wrong,” the Lieutenant said loud enough for it to carry over the entire vast pool area. “She hypnotized him so he doesn’t know what’s what and now she’s fucking him? That’s gotta be against some law.”

“Everything that goes on here is against ‘some law’,” the behaviorist said coldly. “We need Hilde, the resistance needs her. If she wants to sleep with her headcases, let her. She’s making a major contribution to the cause.”

“Shit,” the Lieutenant said. “Shit. I’m not sure which is worse. Her fucking him or her letting him look after her kids like she does. What if he remembers who he is? He could kill those little girls.”

“Hilde has confidence in her work. We’ve sent prisoners she’s worked on back into the occupying army, her creations are seamless.”

“It’s craziness I tell you, bat-shit craziness.”

“Maybe so but the future of our country might just hinge on this craziness.”

What I had heard made me proud and confused all at once. My mother was a very important person. My mother might also be a very bad person, but hadn’t I always known that? She had always had a selfish recklessness, a certain disregard for Alma and I. While I was alarmed by what I heard I did not doubt any of it. The behaviorist and the Lieutenant knew my mother as well as I did.

When I began to spy on Hilde, I knew what I would find. It took me several weeks but I did find it, after all there was only a makeshift plywood partition with a crooked hinged door separating her bedroom from where Alma and I slept. I heard and I saw her with Sammus and soon I understood what they did if not why.

Of course I told Gideon. He was very interested in hearing about my mother’s nocturnal adventures with the hypnotized enemy solider and never grew impatient as Alma and I went on and on about the things we had discovered. Some of them we even demonstrated for Gideon, on each other or on him. I remember straddling his heavily muscled thigh, bouncing up and down to show him how Hilde rode her toy. At times like this we all had to be careful not to giggle too loudly and give away our hiding place.

Without Gideon to warn us to keep quiet, it didn’t take Hilde long to catch us spying on her. One night we were peeping through a crack in the door when she got off Sammus and languidly strolled over, pushing the door open to reveal Alma and I.

“So now you know,” she said with one of her cruel smiles. “That makes things easier.”

After that, Hilde made no effort to hide her relationship (such as it was) with Sammus either from us or from anyone else around the Manor House. Quite publicly she would kiss and caress Sammus. During those odd times when Hilde wasn’t working and Sammus wasn’t watching us we would see them sitting beside the murky pool, our mother snuggled up against him.

“A lot of the boys doesn’t like what your mother’s doing,” Gideon told us. “I’ve heard them saying that a beautiful woman like that ought to be with one of us, not an enemy.”

I heard grumbling criticism of Hilde’s behavior everywhere. She seemed to be reaching the limits of how far she could go. Most outspoken was the Lieutenant.

“It’s like she’s cut off his dick and is using it to pleasure herself right in front of us all,” he said with undisguised contempt for anyone to hear. “I don’t want to see that kind of shit… and in front of those kids too. It ain’t decent.” Whenever he spoke like this there were murmurs of agreement.

Hilde however was unconcerned.

Since we’d arrived at the Manor House she had been reprogramming prisoners, sending them back to the occupying army as ticking time bombs. Her time bombs began going off right on schedule, making a devastating impact on the enemy. Suddenly Hilde could do no wrong, the hostility towards her evaporated. If she wanted to spend her precious moments of leisure lounging around on top of a brainwashed prisoner so be it. Even the Lieutenant seemed to have made his peace with her.

Morality can be a flexible thing, particularly in times of war.

Alma and I learned from our mother that we ought to be able to do as we pleased. We also learned how to control Sammus.

She had a fur piece she had worn before we came to the desert. Sometimes when no one was about she would take it out, stroke the fur against Sammus’ cheek and sing –

“Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today, madam,
Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today.
She is sorry to be delayed,
but last evening down in Lover's Lane she strayed, madam,
Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today.”

As she sang his eyes would glaze over and she would whisper in his ear what she wanted him to do, who and where he was.

Alma and I had no fur pieces but we were able to improvise. In one of the unused rooms of the Manor House we found a dead squirrel. With a pair of shears, we cut off its tail and the next time we tired of our lessons I rubbed it against our tutor’s cheek while together Alma and I sang.

“When she woke up and found that her dream of love was gone, madam,
She ran to the man who had led her so far astray,
And from under her velvet gown,
She drew a gun and shot her lover down, madam,
Miss Otis regrets, she's unable to lunch today.”

It worked as well for us as it had for Hilde. Sammus’ eyes went dead and he would do as we said. Most often we had him take us outside so that we could have secret meetings with our Gideon. He was very impressed by the way we’d been able to take control of Sammus and pleased that we were able to spend more time with him.

As a game, Alma and I would try to hypnotize Gideon. We’d often seen Hilde do it. She could put almost anyone into a trance so deep she would stick pins in them and they wouldn’t even notice. Alma and I weren’t quite so good. Whenever we thought we had put Gideon under he would suddenly grin and pounce on us, tickling us all over. We had to be careful to silence our laughs and shrieks or the patrolling soldiers nearby would have heard.

Each time we visited Gideon, each time he tickled us things went a little further. One day his hand would graze my thigh. The next day it would linger there. The next day he would stroke my leg before he let me up… each day a little further. At the time, I thought nothing of it. It was affection, something my sister and I were eager for and Gideon was so natural and friendly neither of us ever resisted or asked him to stop.

I can’t even say for certain that I wanted him to stop.

Each time, things went a little further but everyday Alma and I went to him, our vacant-eyed tutor in tow.

One day Gideon was tickling me. I was under the bulk of his huge body and the skirt of my dress was up around my waist. Alma gasped when he pulled my panties off but fell silent when he shushed her. He told me that he would be careful not to hurt me but when he put his finger inside me I would have screamed if he hadn’t put his hand over my mouth. There would have been more, he would have done to me the thing we’d seen our mother do to Sammus so many times but suddenly there was a loud noise and Gideon’s huge body seemed to have been picked up and slammed away from me.

I pulled down my dress. Only then did I look up and see Sammus standing there. Gideon’s gun was in his shaking hand. Something was different about him, that unformed look about his face was gone and his eyes seemed to glow in the desert sun. Something about those eyes told me that for the first time in the almost two years I’d known him he was himself. Not Hilde’s toy, not our tutor, not a prisoner of war but a solider.

And he knew. He knew everything, remembered everything. All those days of believing he was our governess, all those nights with Hilde, I could almost feel the air rippling with motion as everything passed before those eyes.

I wasn’t at all surprised when he put the smoking gun to his temple.

“Don’t,” I said. Alma was screaming and crying. Several resistance soldiers had appeared from the nearby camp, their weapons drawn.

“Stand down,” one of them screamed at Sammus. “Drop your weapon, move away from those girls…”

Sammus pulled the trigger. My mother’s toy, her choice specimen, splattered his well-washed brains over the walls of the Manor House.

Someone cheered.

Alma and I never told the truth about what happened. We never told what Gideon had tried to do or how Sammus had saved me. It was easier to pretend that Sammus had somehow broken his programming and seized Gideon’s weapon. It was easier to pretend that Gideon had died defending us and that Sammus was the villain. Easier for the adults, easier for Alma and I—we had loved Gideon after all. He had been our soldier, our special secret whereas Sammus had never been anything to us but our mother’s puppet.

After Gideon and Sammus’ deaths, Alma and I were sent away from the Manor House to a girl’s school. Hilde continued her work, the war raged on.

When I was sixteen years old the occupation ended. What had been the resistance became the army and the Manor House was abandoned for legitimate bases. Two years later the war ended. That was twenty years ago.

After the war, Hilde returned to private practice. She was well respected for her involvement in the resistance. Whatever questionable things she may have done were forgiven because she had the grace to be on the winning side.

Monthly Round- November 2009

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:38:34 GMT

I wasn't participating in NaNoWriMo but I still ended up cracking out a good deal during the month of November after a long period of writers block. I wrote a grand total 36 stories and drabbles in all -- 13 femslash, 14 slash, 5 gen, 3 het and 1 threesome-- I'd very much like to thank Fedink, my beta-reader, for proof-reading them all.

Atonement

Just Playing: Briony/Lola, R. Drabble.

Crossovers

True Blood/Mad Men)
On The Veranda: Pam/Betty Draper, PG-13. Betty Draper had the perfect life. The woman offered her a way out…

(Kill Bill/Revolutionary Girl Utena)
Copperhead: Juri Arisugawa/Elle Driver, PG-13. IIf the girl wanted to surrender her ego, to learn to live without pride, Elle was more than willing to accommodate her.

Dr. Who

Away From the Mirror: Donna/Rose, PG-13. Set during the episode “Turn Left”, Rose helps Donna to deal with her fears.

Not This Time: Doctor/Master, PG-13. Drabble.

Lucy's Dress: Doctor/Master, NC-17 (rape): The rules of the game couldn’t have been simpler—whoever wore Lucy’s dress was supposed to be Lucy.

Fight Club

Fully Integrated: Marla/Narrator/Tyler. R. Drabble.

Firefly/Serenity

Iris, Messenger of the Gods: Inara/Saffron, PG-13. Set post-Serenity. Inara was delighted to gain the attention of Ariel’s progressive new Prime Minister, the mysterious Iris.

Jewel and Star, Irana/Kayle, PG. Drabble.

Heroes

Best Interests, Peter/Nathan, R (incest). Nathan just wanted to stop Peter from doing anything he'd regret.

Validation: Peter/Claude, NC-17. Set during season 1. There was more to Peter than Claude was willing to see.

Ready to Shine: Monica/Camille, PG. Drabble.

The One Who Picks Up the Pieces: Peter/Nathan, PG-13 (incest): Set a couple years before the series begins. In an effort to please his family, Peter is attending law school. Desperately unhappy, he increasingly turns to alcohol for relief. Nathan discovers this and intervenes.

Historical

A Ray of Sunlight: Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard, PG. Drabble.

Inglourious Basterds

What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You: Donny Donowitz/Hugo Stiglitz, NC-17. A glimpse inside the world of Hugo Stiglitz.

They Called Him the Gentleman: Hans Landa, PG. Drabble.

Hanukkah Behind Enemy Lines: Aldo Raine, Smithson Utivich, Donny Donowitz, Shosanna Dreyfus, Marcel, Hans Landa. PG. Glimpses of the holidays from several perspectives.

Inkheart

Unlucky: Mo/Dustfinger, PG. Drabble

Entangled: Dustfinger/Silvertongue, R. For hours Dustfinger had lain awake on the narrow bed, surrounded by towering boxes of books, hoping for and dreading Silvertongue’s arrival.

Kill Bill

The Art of the Poisoner, Elle Driver, PG. Drabble.

Little Women

A Rainy Day Adventure: Laurie/Jo, R. On a rainy afternoon, Jo decides she and Laurie should see what it’s like for him to be a girl and her a boy.

Mad Men

To Hell With the Right Thing: Sal, PG-13. Sal reflects on his lifelong discretion and where it’s gotten him.

Merlin

Inconstant Rose: Morgana/Guinevere (Gwen), PG. Morgana and Gwen go to a nearby kingdom to visit Morgana’s dearest childhood friend, Roshannon. Morgana is distressed to discover that their bond is no longer what it once was.

Red Dragon

After the Fact: Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham. R. Drabble.

Reservoir Dogs

God Only Knows: Orange/White, R. Drabble.

Mexico (What Could Have Been): Orange/White, R. Drabble.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Persephone or Hades: Utena/Anthy, R. Utena dreamed that she wandered through an underworld of darkness and pain.

Tarnished Gold: Touga/Nanami, PG-13 (incest). Years after they have parted, Nanami writes her Big Brother a letter.

Runaways

Diamond in the Sky: Nico/Karolina, PG. Drabble.

A Song of Ice and Fire

Sweeter Than Lemon Cakes: Daenerys/Sansa, PG. Drabble.

Eat A Peach: Renly/Loras, R. Riding to meet with his stern and disapproving brother, Renly would have very much preferred to have been back in bed with Loras.

Southern Vampire Mysteries

Can't Help It: Sookie Stackhouse, PG. Sookie reflects on her mixed feelings about motherhood.

Sweeney Todd

The Ghost Inside: Johanna (Benjamin)/Anthony, PG-13. Three years have passed since the events of Sweeney Todd. Passing as a boy, Johanna is now called Benjamin. She and Anthony are sailors together. When Anthony is accused of murdering the Captain of the vessel they’re sailing on it falls to Benjamin to save him.

Torchwood

Father Figures: Jack, PG. Father figures tend to let their children down.

Watchmen

I'm Sorry Too: Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II)/Janey Slater, R. After Jon leaves, Laurie just can't shake the bitterness.

X/1999

Pretend: Seishirō/Subaru, PG-13. Drabble.

Hanukkah Behind Enemy Lines: Inglourious Basterds Fic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:59:25 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Hanukkah Behind Enemy Lines
Fandom: Inglourious Basterds
Characters: Aldo Raine, Smithson Utivich, Donny Donowitz, Shosanna Dreyfus, Marcel, Hans Landa
Summary: Glimpses of the holidays from several perspectives.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 849
Rating: PG
Warnings: Anti-Semitic Nazis, references to war.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

Hanukkah Behind Enemy Lines

The truth was before he became leader of the Basterds Aldo Raine had never met a real live Jew. As such he was woefully ignorant when it came to the finer points of Jewish holidays.

“So what’s this Hanukkah about?” Aldo wanted to know. “It some kind of Jew Christmas?”

“Not exactly…” Utivich said (when something needed explaining it generally fell to Utivich).

“What about Santy Claus?” Aldo demanded.

“Pardon?”

“Santy Claus. Do Jew folk have Santy Claus?”

“No, no Santy… er… Santa Claus.”

“How about the baby Jesus? Do you celebrate the baby Jesus?”

“Um no, we don’t celebrate the baby Jesus. Though I guess the baby Jesus would have celebrated Hanukkah. It goes back to way before Christ.

“The Jews were being oppressed, as usual, and the Temple was desecrated. The Jewish people revolted and took back the Temple. When they were rededicating it, they found there was only enough oil to light the eternal flame for a single night, but a miracle occurred— the oil didn’t run out and the flame burned on it for eight days. On Hanukkah we celebrate this miracle by lighting candles for eight days.”

“I never heard that story before,” Aldo said. “Why haven’t I ever heard that story before? How come they ain’t never made a movie based on that story? That would make a bang-up movie, I’d go.”

“So would I, Sir.”

“I go to a lot of movies, Private Utivich, and I never even seen a film with Hanukkah in it, why is that?”

“I can’t say, Sir. I guess most people who aren’t Jewish don’t concern themselves with the Jews. Except maybe for hating us.”

Aldo thought for a moment, gripped Utivich’s shoulder with rough affection.

“That don’t seem right,” he said.

*****

During the days of Hanukkah, after the late show had let out and all the patrons had left the cinema, Marcel kept watch as Shosanna lit the candles.

In the empty theater, right in front of the movie screen she assembled a makeshift menorah. Nine candles. One for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah and one more, called the shamash, to light them with.

As Shosanna lit each candle, she recited a blessing. Her voice, loud and clear, filled the auditorium. If there had been anyone left in the theater, they might have heard her. It was a risk she was willing to take. She was in hiding but she was also bold. In the cinema, before the movie screen she could imagine that anything was possible. She could imagine that her family was there, lighting the candles with her. That she didn’t need to hide, that she was free, that she sang the Ma’oz Tzur for all to hear, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

*****

It was snowing on the sixth night of Hanukkah. There was wind and the snow was bitter, not pretty. While the men were lighting the menorah and reciting the blessings Utivich noticed that Donny wasn’t there (that was the sort of thing Utivich was liable to notice.)

After the candles were lit, the Basterds sang and joked and gambled with a dreidel, betting cigarettes and chocolate bars. Lieutenant Raine was cleaning up. Utivich would have liked to join them, but instead he slipped away from the camp to look for Donny.

There were Nazi troops in the area so Utivich knew there was no way Donny would have gone too far afield. Sure enough he located him within shouting distance of the camp, sitting on an outcropping of rock among the trees. Huddled in his coat against the icy wind, Donny didn’t seem nearly as cocksure as usual. Utivich skittered down the rock and sat down beside him.

“Something on your mind, Sergeant?” He asked. In the camp someone was playing a guitar now.

“Yeah,” Donny said. “I’ve got something on my mind. I’ve just been thinking of my neighborhood in Boston, what it’s like this time of year.”

“Tell me about it.”

“All the rich ladies are in their fur coats and best wigs, business is boomin’ at my dad’s butcher shop, a sugar smell in the air from sufganiyot frying at the corner bakery, menorahs burning in every window….”

Utivich nodded.

“That’s what we’re fighting for,” he said.

“What happens if we lose?” Donny asked. “I keep thinking what’s gonna happen to all those people back home if we don’t win this one? Walled up in ghettos like in Poland, shipped off to work camps….”

“We’re gonna win, Donny.” Utivich said thinking of his own family, his own neighborhood. “We gotta win.”

“Win or die trying,” Donny said.

*****

Hanukkah made Landa’s skin crawl. Whenever it came he knew that the rats were scurrying, coming together behind closed doors, telling their stories of rebellion and triumph, bolstering their spirits and planning their next move.

During Hanukkah, Landa was especially vigilant. He watched for shops that closed early, for windows that were darkened, for any sign that the rats might be huddled within whispering those chilling words “A great miracle happened there.”

The Art of the Poisoner: Kill Bill Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:02:27 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: The Art of the Poisoner
Fandom: Kill Bill
Character: Elle Driver
Word Count: 100
Rating: PG (implied violence)
Author’s Note: Written for gen_drabble challenge #32: poison.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

The Art of the Poisoner

As good as she might be with a gun, a knife or a sword when it came to killing Elle’s first choice would always be poison.

It wasn’t that killing with poison was easier, in some ways it was more difficult. Weapons were by nature direct and confrontational but poison, poison was sly.

In most cases, to get poison into your intended victim, you had to know them, to be familiar with the way they did things. You had to make them trust you and allow you into their life enough to find a place to slide the poison in.

more meme madness

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:13:04 GMT

1. Prepare a list of 10 characters and 10 scenarios/prompts. (Example: #1 and #2 are menaced by circus animals.) Keep it to yourself.
2. Have your friend prepare 10 characters and 10 prompts, without knowing what's on your lists.
3. Swap prompts lists.
4. Write the synopsis of a fic for each prompt.

My Characters

1. Joan (Mad Men)
2. David (Strangers In Paradise)
3. Don Draper (Man Men)
4. Severus Snape (Harry Potter)
5. Peter Petrelli (Heroes)
6. Rose (Dr. Who)
7. Utena (Revolutionary Girl Utena)
8. The Silhouette (Watchmen)
9. Daenerys (A Song of Ice and Fire)
10. Tara (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

The Prompts (provided by hyel)

1. #9 and #3 (Daenerys and Don Draper)- as children
Don remembers a time in his childhood when imagination was such a force in his life that he would be transported away from his unhappy and impoverished childhood into another world. In this alternate reality he met the equally unhappy Daenerys, a deposed princess in exile, bullied by her cruel older brother who reminds Don of a more polished version of his crude but abusive father.

2. #1 and #3 (Joan and Don Draper)- futurefic.
It’s 1972, Joan is a widow, her husband having been killed in Vietnam several years before. She has become a lesbian feminist and an anti-war activist. Balding paunchy and pushing 50 Don Draper is a martini drinking relic for a bygone age. The two of them meet up, down several drinks and reminisce on what went awry with their Sterling-Cooper era dreams.

3. #8 and #6 (The Silhouette and Rose)- historical AU. Elizabethan England. The Lady Rose is newly come to court from the countryside. At her first ball she finds herself being courted by a dashing masked woman who calls herself the Silhouette.

4. #7 and #2 (Utena and David)- darkfic.
After dying of brain cancer David finds himself transported to Ohtori Academy where he finds himself teaching theology to a group of students that includes Utena. Having gone through the events of both the anime series and the movie, Utena argues that Jesus is female. While David initially holding to the Biblical concept of Christ, Utena’s evocation of a suffering female presence makes an impact on him and he must reassesses his belief in the Bible as source of the truth.

5. #5 and #10 (Peter and Tara) in an action adventure.
When Peter comes in proximity with Tara his empathic power absorb and mimic her magical powers yet because Peter has no knowledge of witchcraft he has no control and goes haywire. Tara must teach him the fundamentals of magic so that he can control the power before he wrecks havoc on the fabric of reality.

6. #4 and #2, (Snape and David)pre-canon.
One summer Angry teen!Severus and Angry teen!David meet up through street gang activities. They began to delve into the occult together practicing black magic and conjuring demons.

7. #10 and #8 (Tara and The Silhouette) in a spy thriller.
After Tara’s death the Silhouette recruits her into a top secret covert group of lesbian avengers that goes undercover in the entertainment industry to right the wrongs that lead to the death of cannon lesbian characters.

8. #1 and #4 (Joan and Snape) in a dream sequence.
Feeling underappreciated at the office Joan falls into an exhausted sleep and dream of a man who made bad decisions as a young teenager that lead him to spend his adult life working to redeem himself, despised and mistrusted by the very person he must sacrifice everything, including his life, to help. Upon waking Joan realizes that no one will ever be quite as underappreciated as Severus Snape.

9. #6 and #5 (Rose and Peter) write fanfic.
Set before the start of both Dr. Who and Heroes. Teenage shop girl Rose meets American in London college boy Peter at the pub. Flirting ensues and e-mail addresses are exchanged. After Peter returns to New York he and Rose began to collaborate on an epic extravaganza based on a British comic book Rose introduced Peter to called Miracle Man about a time traveling healer. As Peter becomes more and more concerned with the relationship between the Miracle Man and his brother, Rose begins to get uncomfortable and wonder if he’s over identifying with the character and if his own relationship with is older brother is maybe a little off….

10. #9 and #7 (Utena and Daenerys) - poetry.

Two women,
A prince,
And a warrior queen.
Fighting for more than what has been,
Fighting to remake the world
As a place they can call home.

A whip and a sword.
Hair of silver white and
Hair of pink
Two women,
Young in years
But battle hardened.
Fighting for a place
In eternity.

If anyone is interested in trying this comment with a list of 10 prompts for me and I'll reply with a list of 10 for you (make up your list of 10 characters before you get my prompts).

Lucy's Dress: Dr. Who Fic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:34:16 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Lucy’s Dress
Fandom: Dr. Who
Pairing: The Tenth Doctor/Simm!Master
Summary: The rules of the game couldn’t have been simpler—whoever wore Lucy’s dress was supposed to be Lucy.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 807
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Forced cross-dressing, rape, allusions to violence, bat shit craziness.
Author’s Note: Set during The Year that Never Was (Season 3). Written for the prompt "Doctor Who, Doctor/Master, wearing Lucy's dress" at comment_fic.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

Lucy’s Dress

The rules of the game couldn’t have been simpler—whoever wore Lucy’s dress was supposed to be Lucy.

The Master excelled at the game. He could do several versions of his wife. Sometimes he would be a shrewish Lucy, screaming “you’re insane!” or making demands for attention. “You never touch me anymore,” he’d bleat convincingly. Then there was submissive Lucy, who cried and flinched at any sudden movement, who cowered and stared with wide, teary eyes. And sometimes when he was feeling sentimental the Master would play the woman he had fallen in love with, a vivacious Lucy awestruck and eager to play along with whatever her husband came up with.

Unlike the Master, the Doctor was frankly atrocious at the game. Simple as the principle was—whoever wore Lucy’s dress was supposed to be Lucy—he couldn’t seem to grasp it.

When the Master was being Lucy he never reacted properly. He didn’t slap shrew Lucy about or comfort submissive Lucy, swearing he’d never hurt her again. He didn’t make any effort to draw in agreeable Lucy. No. He asked disconcerting questions like “why are you doing this?” He would incessantly try and talk sense to the various Lucys, as if he were negotiating with the Master.

And when it was the Doctor’s turn to wear Lucy’s dress and be Lucy he was even worse. First he never wanted to wear the dress. It usually had to be put on him by force with the help of several armed guards, threats and beatings. When he finally did get into the dress, there were more whys. Worse, he made no pretext of being Lucy. He made no pretext about being anything except the Doctor in a frock and what could be more tiresome than that?

It fell to the Master to pick up the slack and keep the game going all by himself. The trick to doing this was to react to the Doctor not based on what he did or said but on how Lucy had acted the last time she wore the dress in question.

When the Doctor wore the pink sundress with white swiss dots the Master put an arm around his shoulders and talked about the future. When the Doctor wore the little black dress with fishnet stockings and a choker the Master blacked his eye. When he wore Lucy’s inauguration gown, the blue one that made her look like Grace Kelly, the Master ran a hand down the Doctor’s bare back where the jagged bones of his spine stood out then kissed him so tenderly that a softness came over the Doctor’s sharp, gaunt face and he didn’t resist.

“You’re beautiful tonight,” the Master whispered stroking the Doctor’s frenzied hair as he pushed him down onto the bed. The Doctor tried to rise, but the Master was forceful, pinning him down on his back until he finally lay still of his own accord.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” the Doctor pleaded. “You’re not well, you need help…”

“I’m Prime Minister now,” The Master said. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Lucy.” He pushed the skirts of the gown up around the Doctor’s waist and grasped his leg, stroking it from his ankle all the way up to his hips, finally hooking Lucy’s panties with his fingers, pulling them down and off.

“Stop this, please…”

“We have time, I’ll be quick. I won’t muss up your hair.”

He laid a kiss on the inside of the Doctor’s knee then worked his way down, licking and sucking and teasing until the Doctor’s cock stood up against his stomach and he was writhing despite himself.

“Are you wet for me Lucy? Are you ready?” The Master asked, crouching over the Doctor’s prone body lying amidst the sky blue taffeta. His lubricated fingers reached inside, probing, opening. The Doctor moaned but when the Master tried to enter him he struggled.

“Stop these games, you don’t understand what you’re doing,” the Doctor said. “Every time you do this you’re a little further beyond my reach…” The Master pushed inside him anyway. Tears welled up in the Doctor’s eyes as he turned his face away. He whispered a name, an old name that the Master didn’t use any more and didn’t like to hear. Memories flooded his mind shattering all illusions of frivolity. For the briefest instant he knew who he was and what he was doing. The Master scowled in annoyance and pressed a hand tight over the Doctor’s mouth. He finished in a few harsh strokes and stumbled to his feet.

“Why do you have to ruin everything?” The Master snapped. “Whoever wears Lucy’s dress is supposed to be Lucy. How hard is that to understand? If you can’t play nicely I think it’s time you went back to your cage.”

15 Word Meme take 3 (these things are addictive)

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:34:09 GMT

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1. Misa (Death Note)
2. Betty Draper (Mad Men)
3. Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood)
4. Pete Campbell (Mad Men)
5. Nymphadora Tonks (Harry Potter)
6. Dexter Morgan (Dexter)
7. Samuel (Heroes)
8. The Master (Dr. Who)
9. Esther (Orphan)
10. Anne Boleyn (The Tudors)

1. First time, 4 and 6 (Pete Campbell and Dexter Morgan)

Pete was a little bastard but not a killer. Dexter had to let him go.

2. Angst, 7. (Samuel)
He hadn’t meant to kill his brother or the doctor, somehow it had just happened.

3. AU 1 and 8. (Misa and The Master)
The Master had never hoped for a companion with even a fraction of Misa’s enthusiasm.

4. Threesome, 3, 6, and 9. (Sookie, Dexter and Esther)
Esther tried her best to convince Dexter and Sookie that she was in her 30’s.

5. Hurt/Comfort, 5 and 10. (Tonks and Anne)
Anne carried her head, Tonks glowed green from the final curse. They comforted each other.

6. Crack, 1. (Misa)
“Just because I can kill on sight doesn’t mean I can’t have a normal life.”

7. Horror. 10. (Anne Boleyn)
From the tower she watched her brother George’s execution, knowing that she would be next.

8. Baby fic, 5 and 9. (Tonks and Esther)
Being doomed to perpetual childhood, Esther had never considered the possibility of being a mother.

9. Dark, 2 and 8. (Betty and the Master)
She was sort of a retro version of Lucy, he thought. She’d be very useful.

10. Romance, 4 and 8. (Pete and the Master)
The first thing the Master taught Pete was how to hear the sound of drums.

11. Death fic, 2 and 3. (Betty and Sookie)
She died with a sigh, like that Peggy Lee song “Is That All There Is.”

15 Word Meme take 2- the hyel version

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:11:55 GMT

These are all characters from fandoms hyel know (taken from this list)

1. Write down the names of 10 characters.
2. Write a fic of fifteen words or less for every prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do step 1.

1. Luna Lovegood- Harry Potter
2. Morgana- Merlin BBC
3. Frodo Baggins- Lord of the Rings
4. The Corinthian – Sandman
5. Twilight Lady – Watchmen
6. Nessarose- Wicked
7. David- Strangers In Paradise
8. Grace- Promethea
9. Elle Driver- Kill Bill
10. Saffron- Firefly

1. First time, 4 and 6 (The Corinthian and Nessarose)

As she had no fingers he kissed her toes with the mouths under his sunglasses.

2. Angst, 7. (David)
Yousaka would always be inside him, writhing at his sister’s touch, lashing out angrily, fatally.

3. AU 1 and 8. (Luna and Grace)
Grace thought that the newest Promethea lived in a Misty Magic Land all her own.

4. Threesome, 3, 6, and 9. (Frodo, Nessarose and Elle)
Frodo acted as Elle’s eyes, Nessarose’s arms and as the heart for both of them.

5. Hurt/Comfort, 5 and 10. (Twilight Lady and Saffron)
They could take off their masks with each other (literal and physical) and be vulnerable.

6. Crack, 1. (Luna)
“I know the magazine is upside down, but it makes much more sense this way.”

7. Horror. 10. (Saffron)
As the creature approached Saffron realized that this time she had jacked the wrong ship.

8. Baby fic, 5 and 9. (Twilight Lady and Elle)
None of the other babies had two mothers who were quite so glamorous and dangerous.

9. Dark, 2 and 8. (Morgana and Grace)
In nightmares, Morgana wandered into Immateria and came face to face with the warrior queen.

10. Romance, 4 and 8. (the Corinthian and Grace)
Grace had often killed monsters but never expected to fall in love with one. .

11. Death fic, 2 and 3. (Morgana and Frodo)
Even using the forbidden power of the ring Frodo could not bring Morgana back from death.

Not This Time: Dr. Who Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:27:29 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Not This Time
Fandom: Dr. Who
Pairing: The Tenth Doctor/Simm!Master
Word Count: 200
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death (maybe). Sadistic glee and suggestions of very unpleasant things such as torture and maybe non-con.
Author’s Note: Set at the end of Season 3. Written for slashthedrabble prompt #231: No Happily Ever After.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.

Not This Time

I had him for a year.

I kept him locked up in a cage; mine to play with. He got to be the misused toy, the abused pet, and I was the brat that poked and prodded and twisted and tore.

I can’t speak for him, but I had fun.

I made his life a living hell. I did. I made him old, I made him scream, and I even made him wear Lucy’s dress. I did horrible things to him and his friends and his precious planet earth. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Then he ruined everything.

He forgave me for that long year’s worth of humiliation and pain. He opened his mind to me and I saw he was sincere. He didn’t want revenge, not him. All he wanted was to take care of me for the rest of eternity. He promised that when things grew twisted, he’d make them smooth, soothe the savage beast, that he’d hold me when the drums beat loud and everything fell away…

Where’s the fun in that?

I’d rather die.

Sorry, Doctor.

You’ve lost this patient even before the treatment could begin.

There’ll be no happily ever after, not this time.

They Called Him the Gentleman: Inglourious Basterds Drabble

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:24:41 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: They Called Him the Gentleman
Fandom: Inglourious Basterds
Character: Hans Landa
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 125
Rating: PG
Author’s Note: Set in the years following the war. Written for ib_100 prompt #1: Scars
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

They Called Him the Gentleman

Around Martha’s Vineyard they called him the Gentleman.

He never gave anyone cause for offense.

He was always immaculately dressed, from his polished shoes to his hand-stitched leather gloves. His soft and pleasing voice bore only the faintest trace of an accent.

He was polite and charming to all, from the attendant who pumped his gas to the elderly ladies he always tipped his hat to.

The delivery boys at the grocery store and the waitresses at the diner knew him as a generous tipper.

There was no reason to dislike the Gentleman, to mistrust or avoid him.

Yet people did.

Something about him made their blood run cold.

Maybe it was the scars; the ones etched into his forehead that formed a swastika.

Inconstant Rose: Merlin Fic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:53:45 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: Inconstant Rose
Fandom: Merlin
Pairing: Morgana/Guinevere (Gwen)
Summary: Morgana and Gwen go to a nearby kingdom to visit Morgana’s dearest childhood friend, Roshannon. Morgana is distressed to discover that their bond is no longer what it once was.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 1335
Rating: PG
Warnings: a bit of angst, a bit of sexual content highly romanticized.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

Inconstant Rose

In autumn, when the trees turned red and gold, my mistress Morgana and I rode from Camelot to the nearby kingdom of Shiadora. We went on a visit to the Lady Roshannon who was Morgana’s most beloved friend since childhood. She had married the year before, but illness had kept Morgana at home. Now however Morgana was well and went to celebrate the birth of Roshannon’s son.

“My Rose,” Morgana called her with such reverence in her voice that it hurt my heart. “My precious Rose.”

I had never met this paragon Morgana so cherished. She and my mistress had played together and forged their friendship before I entered into my Lady’s service. Still, I knew much of Roshannon. Morgana spoke of her often and glowingly and wrote her long letters. When a letter arrived from Roshannon, it was a great event.

I ought to have delighted in Morgana’s fondness for Roshannon. After all, it made her happy. Yet I cared little to hear of Roshannon. Presumptuous as it sounds, I felt this childhood friend occupied a place in Morgana’s heart that was rightfully mine. Wasn’t I her loyal companion, her faithful servant, her confidante and friend?

Whatever I was, it seemed to me that Roshannon came first and was held highest in Morgana’s affections. I told myself it was only right, that my mistress’s love should be reserved for a lady of her own rank. I told myself this but I could not make myself believe it.

All the way to Shiadora, Morgana spoke of little but Roshannon. She told me of the games they had played as children, the balls and feasts and revelries they had attended together, of Roshannon’s beauty and Roshannon’s wit.

I said little. What was there for me to say?

The castle of Shiadora was very grand. Built of rosy marble, it was high and airy, so pretty compared to the stolid fortress of Camelot. The mistress of Shiadora was as lovely as her kingdom. The moment I saw her I realized that Morgana had not been exaggerating when she praised her friend’s beauty. Roshannon was a breathtaking little thing, so petite and delicate I felt like a giantess beside her. Small as she was, Roshannon was curvaceously built, ripe and voluptuous. She had blazing red hair that streamed down her back and alabaster pale skin blushed with pink. When she met us she was wearing a crimson gown and I found I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

“Rose,” Morgana greeted her warmly.

“Please,” the Lady said, “You must call me Roshannon. I’m a married woman now with a child and no longer a maid.”

“Of course,” Morgana agreed readily and they kissed each other in greeting. Watching them I couldn’t help but notice that there was a certain chill in Roshannon’s smile, a restraint to her embrace.

“Come,” Roshannon said, taking Morgana’s arm. “You must see my little boy now.”

Roshannon swept Morgana off to the nursery. Alone and feeling quite sorry for myself I went to Morgana’s chambers to unpack her things.

Dinner was served in a beautiful hall with high stained glass windows of pink and red roses and scarlet leaves spread out on the floor. I attended to my lady, bringing her wine, a little bread and fruit (after a long journey she could eat little else).

Morgana sat at one end of a long table, Roshannon and her husband at the other. It seemed to me our hostess took little notice of her guest. She spoke to her husband about their child, laughing and cooing, and scarcely acknowledged Morgana.

I think Morgana was troubled by this, though she tried to keep her spirits up. In her chambers, I offered my Lady the sleeping draught she took each night but she refused.

“Rose will be here soon,” she told me. “She always comes, or sends for me and we stay up half the night, catching up.”

So we waited for a knock on the door, but neither Roshannon nor her servant appeared. When it was well past midnight, I fell asleep only to be awoken by Morgana’s cries. She had also drifted off and without Gaius’s remedy her nightmares had come on with overwhelming strength.

The next day Morgana was tired and pale with dark circles around her eyes. Still, she smiled brightly and paid court to Roshannon throughout the day. As was the case the evening before, her friend seemed preoccupied. I could scarcely blame Roshannon for being an attentive mother, but even when he was sleeping her babe dominated her attention and she had little to spare for Morgana.

That night, Morgana’s distress was evident.

“I don’t understand what’s happened,” she said, wringing her hands. “Could I have offended her in some way? Am I doing something wrong, Gwen?”

“Of course not, you’ve been a model of courtesy,” I told her.

“Rose and I have always been like sisters, closer than sisters. I just can’t understand…”

The next day she seemed to double her efforts to please Roshannon. I found it almost painful and could scarcely watch. It was as though she was a lowly servant (lower and more servile than I had ever been made to feel) and Roshannon her indifferent mistress.

At one point in the afternoon, Roshannon’s baby fell to fussing. Morgana rocked the child in his cradle and began to sing him to sleep. Her voice was beautiful and soothing, but the child continued to cry.

“Stop that,” Roshannon snapped. “You’re only keeping him awake.”

Tears welled up in Morgana’s eyes at her rebuke and fell silently down her face.

“For heaven’s sake, Morgana, do you have to be so dramatic?” Roshannon said coldly. “Do I have to deal with both of you weeping?”

Back in her chambers, Morgana wept in earnest. At dinner that night her eyes were red rimmed and she ate almost nothing.

“I will be leaving in the morning,” she told our hostess as the table was cleared.

“That may be for the best,” Roshannon said curtly. “You have to realize, Morgana that things can’t be as they once were. We’re no longer young girls. I’m a wife now, and a mother.”

“Oh Gwen,” Morgana sobbed when we were back in her chambers, “are the bonds between maidens something to be put aside by women, like an outgrown gown?”

“No, my Lady,” I told her. “Only for some.”

“I loved her,” Morgana said. “I loved her and once, she loved me. We danced and we kissed and we shared a bed on many nights. There was love between us but now it’s gone, as if it never existed. There was nothing I could do to save it…”

And though it was presumptuous I took her in my arms, stroking her long, dark hair.

“She isn’t worth your tears, my Lady,” I said. “If she can’t see what a gift your love is she can’t see at all. She lives amidst beauty but she’s blind. I pity her.”

“You’re sweet,” she said. “So sweet. If only I could believe you. Someday soon you’ll marry yourself and leave me. You’ll forget whatever affection you bore me just as starlight fades with the rising sun…”

I thought of Arthur’s kiss and of Lancelot and how they filled my heart with joy and yearning all at once. Yet I could never forsake Morgana as Roshannon had. Both men were in my heart but Morgana was there as well, all of them together in the part of me that held love.

“I will never forget you or the love I bear you,” I said earnestly. “Even if I were a queen, I would still be your devoted servant. You will always be in my heart.”

I kissed her then, a sad and sweet and binding kiss, a promise. She lay back on the pink satin coverlet, her dark hair tangled all about her, her white dress seeming to glow.

“Thank you,” she whispered, smiling through her tears.

The One Who Picks Up the Pieces- Heroes Fic

bitter_fig@yahoo.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:35:34 GMT

Author: Bitterfig
Title: The One Who Picks Up the Pieces
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Peter/Nathan
Summary: Set a couple years before the series begins. In an effort to please his family, Peter is attending law school. Desperately unhappy, he increasingly turns to alcohol for relief. Nathan discovers this and intervenes.
Beta Reader: Fedink
Word Count: 1584
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest. Alcohol abuse, some sexual content.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator

The One Who Picks Up the Pieces

Peter was well into his second semester at law school when Nathan began to realize that something was very wrong. There was no overt indication, just a collection of little things that might easily have been overlooked but which Nathan, always vigilant where his brother was concerned, noticed.

Little things—a couple of phone calls where Peter had sounded out of it, his reluctance to discuss his law school classes, the dinner where he’d drunk five cocktails, his unexpectedly elated mood at his nephew’s birthday party which had led Heidi to speculate that he was tipsy…

It was all these hints that convinced Nathan he needed to keep a close eye on Peter. He remembered all too well the intense pressures of law school and frankly he doubted that Peter was coping as well as he claimed.

With this in mind, Nathan stopped by Peter’s apartment unexpectedly early one evening in hopes of finding out what was going on.

His timing proved apt – when Peter opened the door, Nathan could smell alcohol.

“Have you been drinking?” He asked immediately.

“Uh yeah, a little. I had a glass of wine with dinner.” Peter said. Nathan pushed by him into the apartment and began examining the kitchen. There was no smell of cooking or food, no dishes or take-out containers visible, no evidence of dinner at all, only a half empty bottle of wine on the counter. Nathan picked it up.

“A glass? With dinner?”

“Okay, maybe a couple of glasses,” Peter said defensively. “I’m an adult, Nathan, I’m allowed.”

Nathan popped open the lid of the recycling bin. There was another bottle sitting on top. He pulled it out.

“You’re on your second bottle,” Nathan said. “And you haven’t eaten. Hits you harder on an empty stomach, doesn’t it?”

Fear, guilt flashed over Peter’s face. For all his claims of adulthood he was obviously as terrified as a little boy at being caught.

“I’m not mad at you, Peter,” Nathan said quickly. “But I need to know why you’re home alone drunk at 7:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Tell me what’s going on.”

“You caught me at a bad time, that’s all,” Peter said avoiding his brother’s eyes. “I had a really rough day, I wanted to relax. I overdid it, that’s all.”

“What about last week?”

“Last week?”

“You called me at the house. You were incoherent.”

“I… I don’t remember doing that.”

“I imagine you don’t. God, Peter, sit down before you fall down. Talk to me; tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is I’m here for you. You have to know that.”

Peter half fell onto the sofa. Nathan sat down beside him, putting his arm around his brother’s shoulders. Peter turned away.

“I’m okay,” he muttered. “It’s nothing…”

Nathan cupped Peter’s chin in his hand, turning his younger brother’s face towards him.

“Look at me, Peter. You can tell me the truth, whatever it is.” Peter breathed deeply as Nathan stroked his unshaven cheek tenderly. “Tell me.”

“You’re right,” Peter said. “I’ve been drinking, way too much and way too often. I don’t want to but I can’t help myself. I’ve tried not having anything in the house but I end up going out and buying stuff…”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Um, about a month and a half. I was at this party, I drank about six glasses of wine and for the first time in months I didn’t feel like I was suffocating. I didn’t care about anything, mom and dad, law school, getting an internship, none of it mattered. It felt great, really, really good. Like this huge weight had been lifted.

“I felt kind of sick the next day but that night I bought a bottle of wine and drank it on my own… I felt the same way, like I could stand my life for the first time in a long time. I started doing it every night. For the first week I had really bad hangovers but then I got used to it.

“Now though, I feel like I’m losing control. It’s the only thing I want to do any more. Everyday I’m just waiting to be done with class and get home so I can start drinking. On the weekends I’ve been starting at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I’m drinking more too; it’s gotten close to two bottles everyday…”

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Nathan asked. “Are you that unhappy with your life?”

Peter nodded, putting his arms around his brother’s neck.

“I’m afraid…” he said. “I don’t think I can be a lawyer, I don’t think I want to be one. Ever since I started law school I’ve been having dreams that I’m not going to finish… Dad’s going to kill me…”

“You can’t keep on like this, Peter. You’re going to end up with a really serious problem if you do.”

“What’s wrong with me, Nathan?” Peter asked. There were tears in his eyes. “Why do I do everything wrong? Why do I fuck everything up?”

“What’s wrong with you is that you’re unhappy. You’re depressed, you’ve been under a lot of pressure and you’re self-medicating but you’re not a bad person. I’m going to help you, Peter. We’re going to figure out what you want to do, what will make you happy.”

Peter shifted on the couch, curling up against his big brother, resting his head on Nathan’s chest. Nathan stroked his hair soothingly.

“What I want to do…” Peter said. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“I want to help people, people who are sick and in pain. I want to take care of them.”

“You want to be a doctor?”

“No,” Peter said shooting up. “Not a doctor. I don’t want to do surgery or anything like that, just bring people food and medicine, help them out…”

“It’s okay; you don’t have to be a doctor. You can be an aide or a nurse or something like that.”

“Dad’s going to kill me,” Peter said again.

“No he won’t, not if I’m on your side.” Nathan kissed his brother on the forehead. “You can be whatever you want, Peter,” he whispered. “You don’t have to stay in law school. It’s okay for you to leave, better than being so miserable you have to get drunk to face life. I’ll take care of this. I’ll talk to Dad. Tomorrow I’m going to see that you get some help. We’ll get you back in control then you can have the kind of life you want.”

“Thank you, Nathan.”

“I just want what’s best for you.”

“I love you, Nathan,” Peter slurred.

“I love you too.”

Peter raised his head, looked his brother straight in the eye.

“How much?” He asked with surprising force.

He began kissing Nathan on the lips, softly at first but harder and more insistent with each kiss.

Nathan was startled, shocked even. His first instinct was to push his brother away but there had been something in Peter’s face that gave him pause – defiance, as if Peter were daring Nathan to reject him and a deep fear, a horror that he would. Peter was like a child misbehaving, pushing the limits to see if he would still be loved when he was bad.

Nathan didn’t want to reject him, so he allowed the kisses. He parted his lips, he even returned Peter’s kiss.

“I love you unconditionally,” Nathan said when there was a pause. Peter smiled wickedly and climbed onto Nathan’s lap. He started unbuttoning his brother’s shirt, his fingers running through the hair on Nathan’s chest, tantalizingly circling his nipples. Nathan gasped in a combination of pleasure and distress. He found himself clutching his brother, one hand at the small of Peter’s back, the other around his neck.

“Nothing you do will make me stop loving you,” Nathan gasped as Peter rocked against him. “Not the drinking, not law school, not even this.”

Peter kissed him again, nuzzling against Nathan’s neck. He continued tracing patterns on Nathan’s chest more and more slowly until he fell completely still. With considerable relief Nathan realized that he had fallen asleep.

He carried his brother into bed. It was surprisingly easy, almost as though he could defy gravity. When Peter was safely tucked in, Nathan returned to the kitchen and drained the half empty bottle of wine in a few gulps. More than anything he wished Peter had some scotch.

Everything he’d said to his brother had been absolutely true. He just hadn’t said everything there was to say. He hadn’t told Peter that he was able to pick up what was happening so quickly because he’d been in the same place himself, many times. He had his own experiences with secret and solitary drinking. There had been times in his life when he felt like he was on the verge of losing control, standing at the very edge of the abyss. Somehow he’d always pulled himself back, taken control but he knew that he carried within him a dangerous potential, which was just waiting for a moment of vulnerability to seize him.

It might have helped Peter to know that, it might have helped Nathan but it wasn’t something he could disclose even to his brother.

Especially to his brother.

In the Petrelli family, Peter was the one who got broken. Nathan was the one who picked up the pieces. That was the way it had to be.