Greetings, yall! Sometime back, Ms. Magnificent Kiwi challenged me to the Song Prompt meme. Basic rules: put your music software on random, and for every song that comes up, write a little story to it. The catch is that you only have the length of the song to write to. In my case, I would pause when the song came on, look up the lyrics, pick some as the actual prompt, and then hit play and write through the song.
As it turns out, they're kind of addictive. And since I wrote so many of them, I thought I might as well share.
The following parts are not so much a story as a collection of vignettes, told from various perspectives, arranged in parts around a loose theme. I am still working on some of the arrangements, so there are more to come. Each one is prefaced by the artist, song title, and lyric I used as a prompt. Sometimes the response fits the prompt; sometimes, it was just a jumping off point for my brain to go careening around a character's brain. They haven't been edited in any consistent fashion, except for the occasional typo fix and to add formatting for posting here.
Disclaimer: I own nothing: not the games, not the characters, not the setting, not the songs nor the lyrics nor the tunes they dance to. I'm just making weird little sand castles in my part of the sandbox, that's all.
Rating: Right now, T. Within another part or two, it'll go to M. As with the following two, parts will contain specific warnings. The only warning that applies to all of these is that EVERYTHING IS KINDA DEPRESSING because it's hard to write a joke in the space of a three minute song.
Pairings: None. Later, there'll be some Ada/Leon, Claire/Leon, Jill/Chris, what you could call Ada/Claire, and possibly Jill/Leon or Leon/Jill/Chris.
Spoilers: These will cover pretty much the entire history of Resident Evil, including Revelations and trailer spoilers for RE 6.
Thanks to: Kiwi for getting me started; the Lovely Betas Faye and Himawari for their help with the arrangements, checking typos, and listening to me whine; and, of course, everyone who reads these. Much appreciated, ya'll!
Cake - "Frank Sinatra"
A faintly glimmering radio station
Chris has had a lot of homes.
There was his parents' house in Missouri. Hasn't thought about it in years. Had a slope to the backyard that made running dangerous sometimes. He nearly twisted his ankle back there.
There's his grandparents' house in Oklahoma. Wasn't a huge stay there before he ended up with his Uncle. Already divorced. Cop. Had no kids. Didn't really want kids, either. His house was a tiny duplex, crammed with the detritus of his life.
High school was a home, in its own way. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs was, too, for four years. Then pilot training.
And then nothing. Because he did the right thing.
Now his home is a Motel 6. His suitcase is the jump bag he should be using for missions, but it's just packed with shit. Smokes. The occasional bottle. Five of the same shirt. Three of the same pants. Socks. Boxers.
Or sometimes it's a ditch on the side of the road.
Or sometimes it's a shelter. He has money, but shelters are sometimes the only places that'll let him in when he looks like this.
It breaks up his idea of home into pieces. He finds it in the small things now. In a room with a decent bed. In the drift of a curl of smoke. In the bottom of a glass.
And sometimes, in the echo of an old song, stirring a memory of home in years past.
Sometimes.
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Radiohead - "No Surprises"
A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal
Leon didn't have an apartment. Or a house. A townhouse, a condo, all those luxuries people knew as "home" - none of it.
He had a room. He shared the house with some other agents, the kind that just needed a bed and a mirror to shave in front of before hitting the next job. It had some things in it. They were mostly work things, though there were a few little mementos from his jobs.
Scraps of fabric, blue and bloodied. Scraps of fabric, white and bloodied. A keychain with a cute animal on it. A knife, blade dull.
He really shouldn't be surprised by how much he saved that had blood on it. But sometimes, every once in a while, he had to stop and shake his head at it.
Sometimes between jobs, he would lie on his bed-comfortable, high class sheets, money had to spent on something besides clothes and weapons-and think about where he would live. What kind of apartment. What kind of house. What would the kitchen be like. The bathroom. Would he do his bed in grey? Would he have plants?
Would someone want to share it with him?
Then he shook his head. He wasn't cut out for a home. His life was his work. His friends were his work. Everything was his work, until the job was done.
Whenever that would be.
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Headless Chicken - "Mr. Moon"
Mr. Moon you walk upon the water
You shine like oil on machinery
You're sharper than a knife
And I'll love you all my life
Don't leave me here alone
Please take me with you
There are some luxuries to being a world class spy.
Oh, there's certain death and danger to it, of course. There's trials of the head and trials of the heart. Ada knows, in that distant way she feels things these day, that her sins are unforgivable. What she has tried to do-well. That, it seems, will always be a secret. The grand scheme will never be known. All that remains is the underlying damage, a chessboard of pieces scattered. And people-some people-always focused on the pieces. Never on their pattern.
But it has allowed her to have this home. And on nights like this, she is free to step into her backyard, dressed as she pleases, and walk down to the docks.
She brings juice to drink. Drinking alcohol, she has found, is for work. Sipping her own hand pressed fruit cocktail? That is a pleasure of home.
The moon hangs over the lake, swollen with silver. It lays a path on the water to the end of the dock, and she dips her toe into it.
As a girl, she'd always hoped when she pulled out her foot, it would be coated in silver moonlight. As a woman-well, sometimes she can't help but wish for the same thing.
She raises her juice to the moon. "Hello," she whispers to the night, in the language she no longer speaks for anything but business. "You called, and I am here."
She lays on the dock, drifts her fingers through the silver. "And as long as you are here, I'm not leaving. So-don't leave me."
Invocation for a cloudless night. And on this night, again, it works.
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J Ralph - "One Million Miles Away"
One million miles away...from home.
Her cell is four white walls, a bucket, and a pile of rags.
The bucket is obvious, as are the walls. The rags are for her to sleep in. After all, Wesker says-with that rare hint of humor, the tone in his voice she has learned to hate more than any other-beds are terrible for a supple and lithe creature such as herself. Most of the rags end up being used as some sort of blanket; concrete floors aren't terribly uncomfortable, but they do get cold.
Her apartment in DC had white walls.
She tries not to think about it. She has so little free time for her brain these days between missions and the seds they use on her between missions. She tries to think of something-productive. How she can get around the P-30. How she can somehow sabotage the work Excella and Wesker are doing. How she can shore up her defenses so it only seems like she's under. How she can send a message out, even. What she can do to expose this to the world.
It's a futile line of thinking, and part of her realizes that. But it's a better line of thought than just missing home.
She takes time out to just miss home sometimes, too, though. She can't help it, and she's learned to handle that. Her life isn't normal anymore, and the emotions inside her need to come out at some point. Sometimes, when she's on the P-30, she'll just start to cry. Sometimes she comes back to her white walls and spends the whole time throwing up in her bucket.
She does swear, though, that she'll never have white walls again.
Ever.
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Self - "Stay Home"
I wanna stay home today
Don't want no company
No way
No matter what her file may say, Sheva is not a raw recruit. She worked with several SOUs for months before she got her position as one of the rare West African BSAA SOAs. Her talents are trained, and she can handle herself in a crisis. She wished people would answer her damn questions during a crisis, but she's getting better with that. There's only so much history certain people can give out when they're rushing between rooms and bodies.
But what she is raw at is the aftermath of a big operation.
Decontamination.
Debrief.
More debrief.
More debrief.
Until she has told the story so many times she's sure her head is going to explode.
Three days after she's released to go home, when her mandatory time rests on the keel of her feelings, Josh calls.
"You comin' in?"
"Nope," Sheva says, idly dunking a tea ball.
A sigh. "You want me to come over?"
"No offense, Josh," she says with a sigh, "but the longer before I see anyone I work with, the better."
He chuckles at that. "Reports all right, though?"
"I'll wait on those 'til tomorrow."
She hangs up the phone. She drinks her tea.
Finally, she rests.