This is a selection of drabbles written for the psohdrabble community at LiveJournal, where I am a challenge mod. I didn't want to split them into separate chapters because the thing about each drabble is, it is precisely 100 words long; forever clicking forward gets annoying to the reader.
Title: Untitled.
Pairing: Leon/D
Rating: PG
Notes: This is in response to this week's challenge, Challenge #150, Ambiguous.
Sleeping, D could have been a woman. Leon sat up in bed and studied his face, seeing a weariness that was out of place on one so young. D's eyelashes, woman-long, fluttered as he dreamed, and a quiet whimper escaped him--Leon reached under the blankets and gripped his hand, not knowing what else to do. Sleeping still, D turned onto his side, curled around Leon, laid his cheek on the detective's thigh, brought his knees up until they touched Leon's legs. One long arm wrapped around Leon's back, and D smiled softly, sighing.
Sleeping, D could have been human.
Response to Challenge 204: Painkiller
Title: Painkiller
Rating: G
Pairing or Characters Involved: Implied Leon/D
He'd felt like this once. Broke a tooth in a fistfight with a rapist. Open nerve screaming, colours dancing across his vision like electricity, scalp twisting into knots, bile rising in his throat and just the wrongness of it, the cold air like lava on the open pulp every time he sucked a breath. Hurt too much to worry about being a pussy--tears streamed down his face until the Vicodin kicked in.
There isn't any medication for this, just the knowledge that something that had been there was missing, leaving behind only the jagged edge of where it had fit.
Nobody ever writes about Chris...
Title: Circles
Rating: G
Characters: Chris, Honlon
Chris dreams that Junrei is dancing in front of him, twisting in quick, clumsy circles. "You jerk! You lost us!" Kanan shouts. He slumps to the floor, miserable. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave." Instantly Shuko is before him, taking his clenched hand in her soothing one. "Kanan is acting foolish." she says. "You've lost nothing. Everything turns, Christopher." she lifts him to his feet, and he turns with her, with Junrei. "Everything comes back to the center, if you wait. Watch. Keep your eyes open."
When he wakes, only half-remembering, he's happy.
A bit of poetry for challenge 194, Peace.
Rating: G
Word count: 82
Characters: Leon
It had become something like coming home;
the peony-scent of the sitting room
the dim light, the too-sweet tea.
He's lost his love for suggestive conversation;
With that other, these silences would have meant something.
But peace is ephemeral, and meaning, elusive.
If he had the courtly language to express it,
he'd say that he was lost.
He can't find his way through that part of town now
Always startling at shoulders like his
Hair almost as lustrous, laughter almost as light.
Perhaps the decision was inevitable.
Lovebirds sicken, left behind; wolves, however, hunt.
Response to Challenge 260, "The Best Therapy"
Title: Tears, Sweat, or the Sea
Rating: PG
Pairings or characters involved: D, Leon
Sugar is more bitter than it was
or cloying; have you taken even this from me?
I find I can't now hate the way I could.
(They made me see a shrink! Can you believe it?
Fuckin' A, D, like I'd tell 'em anything.
Can't find you if they've got me stuffed
into an I-love-me jacket.)
The shop's denizens are tireless
in their attempts to please me.
But I am--impossible to please.
I don't know what I could be looking for,
but whatever it is, it is not here.
(Jill says, cure for anything's salt water.
I ain't cryin', but I'm sweating for sure...
And you, you're runnin'. Think I won't catch you?
I will.)
Response to Challenge 204: Painkiller
Title: Pain, Killing
Rating: G
Pairing or Characters Involved: Implied Leon/D
Vodka, whiskey, something pale green that tasted like liquorice, four kinds of beer. More local booze than a tourist would drink, and he doesn't even notice the redhead eyeing him from across the room. He aches, and all the foreign alcohol in the world can't stop the throbbing. The voices around him speak English(at least, for once), but he can't make any sense of them.
God damn it, D. Source of all this discomfort. He'd heard a story, here, of fairy food--one taste, and you waste away in agony, wanting it and nothing else.
Dimly, he realises he might be starving.
Response to Challenge 204: Painkiller
Title: Pain, Killed
Rating: G
Pairing or Characters Involved: Implied Leon/D
He wakes facedown on sheets the colour of a ripe plum. Drowsy, numb, he knows he's hurt, but it's just out of arm's reach.
"You gave me quite a turn, Detective."
Oh, God. Like electricity, and yes, there's the sensation of bruised ribs and lacerations, mouth too dry to speak. He's too weak to turn, or perhaps afraid.
"You leapt. In front of a car." D's voice does not waver. "You are an idiot." D's hands on his shoulder help him sit up. Leon collapses against him, grinning.
It hurts, but he's coughing, laughing. "Got your attention, though!" he rasps.
Title: Just Before
Rating: R
Pairings: Count D/Leon
Pet Shop of Horrors Challenge: #205 Afterlife
There's gravel biting Leon's left ear. Funny what you notice. There's a crowd now, and he wants to say, don't move me, you don't move a victim of impact trauma, wait for the EMTs. But he can't talk, and he's finding it harder to breathe.
They thought we were angels, once.
Leon can't move his head. His eyes aren't focussing. But he doesn't need to look to know that voice.
They were wrong. But we're allowed some leeway, sometimes.
Long fingernails graze his cheek. I'm sorry.
"Hah. Bastard. Took long enough."
A pause. A breath, shaky. "Missed you."
Everything goes dark.
Author: come_love_sleep
Rating: Soft R
Characters: Count D/Leon
Notes: For Challenge #206, "Rebirth"
There is nullity, in the exact moment of orgasm. The world flees. No consciousness of his grand and tragic Duty, the needs of his animals, or even the savor of his dear Detective's skin; it's dissolution, as close to the mindlessness of death as he might get for another thousand years. Leon's exultant cry returns D to himself--the Universe slams into place with sweat and flesh, his body trembling as Leon eases him into a nest of pillows and limbs. Later he'll realize he came back different, lacking the old well-travelled rage and hurt; not innocent, but somehow new.
Title: Dizzy
Rating: PG for language
Characters:D, Leon
Notes: I like this prompt. There's so much artistic stuff that can be done with it.
"YOU!"
The shout froze D where he stood. The petit-four he held crumbled.
"You son of a bitch you son of a bitch you son of a bitch bastard do you have any idea where I've been? How long I've had to look for you?"
If Leon knew he'd be here, at this bakery, then he already knew where the Shop was--he'd been more careful, this time. Hard, callused hands closed on D's shoulders, turned him, and he couldn't break from the Detective's fierce unblinking eyes. "D'you have any idea how much I've missed you?"
Leon kissed him until the world spun.
Author: come_love_sleep
Rating: G
Characters: Leon
Notes: For Challenge #206, "Rebirth"
The door was right there.
Something flickered overhead (Cedar Waxwing, Leon thought in the back of his mind), but his step was firm--there was a sense of perfection and inevitability to this, at long last. The shop looked the same, though the flowers at its foot were different(Painted Trillium? Really? Trust D to get them to grow), and he knew that when he opened the door, it would be the same room; dim light reflecting in jeweled eyes, rich scent of incense and little-bird's-tongue tea. And D.
I'm different, though. Leon thought, grinning. Won't he be surprised?