raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (girl!doctor - my doctor)
[personal profile] raven
I really don't like Sundays. Especially the Sunday before I have to resit my driving theory test. Groan. Anyway, the first of the prompt fics.

[livejournal.com profile] thunderemerald wanted "Remus. Tonks. Wedding.... Sirius."

now is the winter of our discontent, HP, gen.

It is an unseasonably cold day in July when they get married, and Remus is plagued by an absence of ghosts. The idea seemed glorious in Grimmauld Place, when they laboured in the late winter nights under yellow lamp-light, moving Headquarters; they were delighted to be leaving the shadows of the house, horribly aware of the cost, and they were dizzy with glee and with grief, stopping in the gaps and cubby holes to find each other with outstretched hands. His memories are marked by the lights – yellow sconces, golden wand-tips, reflected star-like gleams in her eyes as she danced, giddy and guilty, through the winter of that house.

It was warmer then. The wind picks up in the garden, making the grass ruffle in strange patterns, and he wraps his arms around himself. If Sirius were here, he thinks, dazedly, things might be better – he would pull it all down into context, make this into more than a sequence of symbolic actions, a chanting of banns, make it an occasion of joy. He would steal Remus’s shoes, pull Tonks’s just-done hair, he would make this real, within and without the frame of war.

“You would have laughed,” he tells the empty air, pacing in a circle with his dress robes skimming the dew-wet grass. And then, because all is silence, and he can, “I miss you, you fucking bastard. I wish you were here.”

There is no reply. Remus didn’t expect one. He expected nothing but this dim chill, the bloodless white of his fingertips in the cold. After a minute Tonks comes out of the house, standing in the doorway, framed by the shadows inside. “Remus,” she calls. “It’s time.”

Traditionally, he shouldn’t see her before the wedding. Traditionally, weddings are joyous affairs.

He remembers her as he knew her before: glorious in her irreverence, startling in her beauty, angry and ecstatic and alive.

He remembers Sirius like that, too.

Remus walks back across the wet grass, joins her at the threshold, and thinks, clearly through the chill: all shall love me and despair.

And Sirius would laughed loudest of all at that, but no-one rises to deny it. In the quiet in the garden in the dimmed summer, the ghosts forever hold their peace.


[livejournal.com profile] insaneizzi wanted girl!Doctor/Jamie, which I can't oblige with because I've never seen any Jamie eps, but [livejournal.com profile] dressedindeath wanted just girl!Doctor. This is a piece I have had flying around for a while, but I've never been able to finish.

First, there had been drinking. Jack remembered drinking. To excess, in fact. There was always stuff worth imbibing at one of these things; this being the annual dinner of the most honoured and sacred assembly of Time Agents, every good vintage from Bang to Crunch was liberally in evidence, and enough to swim in, too, what with those high-interest savings accounts that were absolutely, categorically, no-we-really-mean-it-this-time, we-will-kill-you verboten.

And once there had been drinking, there was, naturally, dancing. The high-ups among the Agency didn’t skimp on expenses, you could give them that. (Verboten! Absolutely.) If you could figure out what to do with your partner, your wineglass and your paper plate, given you generally didn’t have three hands, and you learned to ignore the occasional angular dischord from the band who had woken up that morning in 1939 and were naturally still a little confused about the current proceedings, and you were still on your feet and conscious after six shots of juniper, and you could dance – yes, if you could cope with all of that (and Jack could), then it was, quite simply, the finest venue in the universe.

It had been a haulage ship, drifting in deep space waiting to be stripped for parts, before it was patched up and the bridge gutted to become a massive, round empty space. With the opacity drained from the encircling walls and the addition of some soft lighting, the dancers were, in effect, dancing between two suspended dinner plates with the glory of the galaxy around them. The walls were more transparent than spotless glass, but spongier to the touch.

Jack didn’t touch them. He was far too busy establishing a lasting relationship with his wineglass. And when they’d finally agreed to see other people, there came the woman. She was beautiful, and she was wearing a red dress. Naturally – it had all seemed perfectly natural at the time – she was the one who caught his eye on his first, predatory stroll around the room, and then he was dancing with her below the light of the Milky Way. When he spun her around so the dress flew up in a flat whirl and her hair became an effervescent cloud around her head, it wasn’t the stars he was looking at.

And now, after drinking, dancing, and her, there was the equally natural conclusion, which took place pretty soon afterwards on the creaky bunk they’d given him in the bowels of the ship. It was inevitable, really. They hadn’t even stopped to rip each other’s clothes off, preferring to work around the problem. Come to think of it, it was more than three weeks since he’d had sex with a beautiful woman – less time if you omitted the qualifier – and she was beautiful, so bewitching a creature that he’d got this far without even once – “...fuck, Susan...” – forgetting her name.

“I’ll give you ‘fuck, Susan,’” he heard her say.

And before he’d really had time to think, if thinking had been at all par for the course at this point, she’d flipped him over and sat down pretty heavily on his back.

“Kinky,” he told his pillow.

“It’s about to get kinkier.” She dug a kitten heel into his side – very kinky, yes – and then something hard and single-barrelled was pressed against the back of his head.

“Oh,” he muttered. “Is there any chance you just get off on this kind of thing, or...”

“Get up. Slowly.”

“Um. Shit.” Jack realised, belatedly, that he was face-down and naked, as well as the more traditionally pressing problem of the gun held to his head. “Um, do you really want to... I mean, I don’t think I’m...”

“Move an inch too fast and I will put a bullet in your head.” She said it lightly, almost conversationally, and something lurched in Jack’s stomach.

After a painful, frightening minute, he was at least standing up if nothing else. Susan was still right behind him, close enough for him to smell her perfume, and she gave him a sharp tap with the weapon. “Right. Move.”

“Where?”

“Out that door. Now.”

“Um,” Jack began, already aware that it was a ridiculous concern given the dangerous and possibly homicidal woman with the gun to his head, “um, I’m naked…”

“That’s not my problem. If you want to stay alive, you’ll move.”

It was only as he was walking slowly down the corridor that he remembered her reluctance to shed her own dress. If he survived this, he decided, he’d be less slutty in future.

He’d always planned to die in bed. This had not been part of the plan.

They didn’t meet anyone for five whole minutes, and Jack began to wonder if it was really the middle of the night. The ship’s artificial cicadian rhythms were hard to decipher, but it might well be early in the morning by now. Which meant people sleeping off their hangovers and no-one up and about to see Jack naked, but less cheerfully, no-one to jump-tackle the freakishly strong and/or trigger-happy woman after his blood.

Susan didn’t speak, but Jack could hear her breathing above the creaking of the old ship. It was going to be his grave, he realised with a sudden frightening coldness. He was going to die here, alone in this flying mausoleum of a craft in the depths of space, and worst of all, for no reason. Dust to dust and he’d never know why.

When he was forced around the final corner, his hands and feet were cold from fear and his eyes on the ground. Which meant that when a woman he’d never seen in his life jumped out of a blue box and yelled, “Jack!”, he made a bid for the ceiling regardless of the death threat pushed against to his head.

“Um,” he began, after he landed, but she’d grabbed hold of his hands and pulled him inside the box before he could say anything more, and then there was a whole new reason to doubt his sanity.

“Well?” demanded the strange woman. “Aren’t you going to say it?”

“It’s bigger on the inside than the outside,” Jack said weakly, and sat down on the floor. He was in a large, complicated sort of room with rising girders and a green-lit, organic sort of feel to it. Unusual, but definitely a ship’s control room, observed the part of his unconscious mind that never forgot the Agency training. The exterior must be some sort of illusion, for a ship with engines big enough to need this sort of control had to be vast.

But they weren’t moving. The ship-within-a-ship seemed to be idling, thrumming at the edge of his hearing, and in the few seconds since he’d sat down on the floor, everything had been quiet.

All at once, Jack noticed the distinct lack of people trying to kill him. Susan was walking swiftly around the central console, checking levers and dials. Every so often she glanced in his direction, but they weren’t murderous glances. Her expression fitted better on her face than that; somehow, her eyes were broadcasting worry. “Jack,” she said, softly, “give it time. You’ll feel better in a minute.”

There was a pause while Jack thought about it.

“You,” he managed to get out with some difficulty, “you, you were trying to kill me.”

“Was I?” she asked, in tones of mild enquiry. “Was I really? What with?”

“What with?” Jack exploded. “You had a gun held to my head and you’re asking me what with?”

“Perhaps,” she said, still mildly, “you mean this.” She held up a small, gleaming metal object, and Jack staggered across for a closer look at the gleaming chrome barrel of a vintage Chanel lipstick.

“No,” Jack said, “no, no, no...”

With a smile, she walked around him and placed it in its former position. At the sound of his groan, she drifted serenely away, peering at her reflection in a dial whilst she reapplied.

“Jack, it’ll be all right,” said the strange woman, who still looked unaccountably pleased to see him. She patted him on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see. By the way, do you know you’re naked?”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Okay, that’s it. Who are you? How do you know my name? Where am I? Susan, please, please, tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“My name,” said the woman in the red dress, “is not Susan.”

“Right,” Jack said. “Right, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“That’s Rose over there, and you can call me the Doctor.”

“I think I need one.”

“Good thing you’ve got me, then, isn’t it?” she said, and something in her grin reminded Jack of dancing with her below the stars. “What you need is some clothes and a nice cup of tea. Could do with them myself, at that.”

Behind her, a column on the control console began to rise and fall. “Come with me,” the Doctor said. When he hesitated, she held out her hand. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Jack Harkness. I’d far sooner sleep with you than kill you, let’s put it like that.”

“You tried to kill me!”

“With a lipstick?”

“All right!” Jack gave up and followed her. “All right, all right. Just one last thing, before clothes and tea and whatnot: what’s going on?”

“That’s simple,” said Rose. “We need your help.”




More to come.

on 2007-07-29 05:40 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] a-t-rain.livejournal.com
I know nothing whatsoever about Doctor Who, but the first one was lovely.

on 2007-07-30 09:18 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you, sweetie. :)

on 2007-07-29 05:58 pm (UTC)
ext_7899: the tenth doctor stands alone (is secks time nao?: DW)
Posted by [identity profile] rhipowered.livejournal.com
Both lovely, but the second one made me sporfle. Particularly [if] you learned to ignore the occasional angular dischord from the band who had woken up that morning in 1939 and were naturally still a little confused about the current proceedings.

on 2007-07-30 09:19 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
*grins* Thankee!

on 2007-07-29 08:06 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] skipthedemon.livejournal.com
Heh. You must been reading my mind, since it's been stuck on girl!Doctor all day. :happy sigh:

on 2007-07-30 09:19 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Heee, yay! :)

on 2007-07-29 10:25 pm (UTC)
tau_sigma: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] tau_sigma
Hee. Lovely ficlets.

And oh, you haven't seen Jamie?! You are missing out.

on 2007-07-30 09:23 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you!

And yes, I know. My life is sadly incomplete. :)

on 2007-07-30 03:32 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] vikingwriter.livejournal.com
Beautifully written piece (sorry, can't comment on DW). Mind if I friend, as I'd hate to miss more (or the *ahem* Altered States Ficathon)?

on 2007-07-30 09:26 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you! :) And friend away! *g*

on 2007-07-30 04:23 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] thiswaltz.livejournal.com
the first one is dream-like and heartbreaking. (Oh, Remus! *sniff*)

and the DW one is funny and lovely and made me really want more of it! there will be more, wont there? you can't just leave it there...?

("You tried to kill me!"

"with a lipstick?"

hee!)

on 2007-07-30 09:27 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you! And argh, I don't actually know what happens, so I have to leave it there! It was such a fun beginning, and then I had no idea of the middle or the end...

on 2007-07-30 10:34 am (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] glitterdemon.livejournal.com
I love the HP. Very true, I think, and beautiful.

on 2007-07-30 09:27 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you! :)

on 2007-07-30 12:10 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] nerves-patterns.livejournal.com
The first one is beautiful. Wow.

on 2007-07-30 09:27 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
*blushes* Thanks, sweetie.

on 2007-07-30 06:18 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] thunderemerald.livejournal.com
I got my ficlet! Oh goodness-- it was really lovely, and even Remus's LOTR-inspired melodrama made me sad. My poor werewolf.

Thanks so much for that.

on 2007-07-31 09:06 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
You're welcome! Thanks for the prompt. :)

on 2007-07-31 02:10 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] insaneizzi.livejournal.com
insaneizzi wanted girl!Doctor/Jamie, which I can't oblige with because I've never seen any Jamie eps

Oh dear, does this mean I'll have to write it myself?

The fic was shiny, btw. More than that but wonderful words are not forthcoming because of tiredness.

on 2007-07-31 09:09 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
*gleeee* Thank you.

on 2007-08-01 11:33 pm (UTC)
arboretum: (Default)
Posted by [personal profile] arboretum
was recced here by [livejournal.com profile] glitterdemon, and that first one is just amazing and beautiful.

on 2007-08-01 11:39 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you so much! :)

on 2008-05-11 01:29 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] true-masquerade.livejournal.com
I wandered over here after seeing you recced indirectly on LGBT Fest.

I loved the first one here. It made me sniffle. Very moving. I'm really looking forward to reading your other stuff now :-)

on 2008-05-11 10:50 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] loneraven.livejournal.com
Thank you very much! :)

on 2008-09-19 04:19 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] greenapple.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)
I like it. :)

on 2008-09-19 04:21 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] greenapple.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)
By which I mean, the second one. :) Sorry -- followed a link here and didn't bother to scroll up to see there were two of them.

on 2010-08-25 02:17 am (UTC)
ext_348818: Jack Harkness. (nice arse Doctor)
Posted by [identity profile] canaana.livejournal.com
He was far too busy establishing a lasting relationship with his wineglass. And when they’d finally agreed to see other people,

I love your prose, and I love your Jack. :)

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