bingo, baby
Nov. 16th, 2010 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cridecoeur posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
origfic_bingoHell yeah, I actually completed one. I'd like to note that that's never happened before. These bits and pieces are from various universes, two from a super hero story with the confounding name with a little zep from my friends, and three from a science fiction universe (or, uh, an AU of that universe) which I call, for lack of anything better, the space dragon 'verse. I seriously need a better name. Anways!
title: homelessness, meet laser bear
prompt: homeslessness
rating: pg-13
content notes/warnings: slash. and faily super heroes. and swearing.
Twilight’s skimming over the sky and all Patrick can think is shit, man as he rifles through the money people have dropped into his guitar case because he maybe has enough in there to eat, but definitely not enough for a bed. Whatever, he can chill at the corner diner. They don’t usually kick him out, unless he smells really bad - he sniffs himself and thinks eh, not too bad. He’s just about to pack up his guitar and go, when a giant bear that shoots lasers out of it’s eyes shows up and then he’s not too worried about the $8.50 in his case and more about how he’s going to die by laser bear, holy fuck.
He jumps up, clutching his guitar in from of him like a seriously fucking flimsy shield, and ends up with his back against the wall. “Uh,” he says, as the fucking laser bear - he should have listened to his Mom, he never should have moved to the city, forget becoming a rock star, weird shit always happens here, like fucking laser bears that probably started out as someone trying to cure fucking dandruff or what the fuck ever - advances on him, and then somebody shouts, “I’ll save you, citizen!” - seriously what kind of tool says shit like that, this isn’t a comic book, and nobody calls anybody citizen anymore, not even the mayor - and suddenly he’s in somebody’s arms and really fucking high up.
“Uh,” he says, as he watches the laser bear toast the wall he’s been backed up against. He looks up to say holy shit, thanks, only then he sees who it is and says, “Holy shit, Alex?” and nearly gets dropped for his trouble.
“You’re not supposed to recognize me!” Alex says, kind of squeakily, and then swerves to avoid being laser-ed out of the sky.
“Dude, you’re not even wearing a mask!” Patrick says, clinging to Alex like he could die without him, which he really fucking could. Also, he seriously doesn’t want to be dropped, shit, forget laser bears, he’d splatter from this high up.
“I’m wearing glasses!”
“This isn’t a comic book! I’m not fucking stupid!
“Jinx, look out!” someone says, and Alex drops downward so fast that Patrick’s stomach ends up in his throat. A laser beam slices the air above them.
“Holy shit, man,” Patrick says, and then looks around to see who’d just saved their asses, gets an eye-ful of the gayest looking super hero get-up he’s ever seen - he’s sucked a lot of dicks, okay, he knows gay, and this one involves feathers - and, “Holy shit, Dwyn?” That’s Alex’s fucking roommate, what the fuck.
Dwyn makes a frantic motion at Alex that Patrick can’t interpret and hisses - like Patrick can’t fucking hear him, right? - “He recognizes me! Why does he recognize me?”
“I don’t know!” Alex says, and Patrick gets the feeling if Alex weren’t holding him - and, seriously man, keep your arms right the fuck where they are - he’d be throwing his hands up in the air.
“Dude,” Patrick says, “I’d recognize your fucking stupid hair anywhere, man, and I’ve heard you talk, like, a million times.”
Dwyn covers his face and moans, “We are so bad at this.”
title: this is a love story, it's just not yours
prompt: love letter/song
rating: pg-13
content notes/warning: somehow this prompt turned into less of a love letter and more of a really ridiculous method of proposal. and, oh, the swearing. i apologize.
“You know, I could just fly us down,” Dwyn says, once the silence starts to get kind of awkward. Patrick gazes longingly at the roof door. Seriously, this isn’t a fucking after school special, and getting trapped on the roof with the dude he’s digging - who, fuck, could fly them down, except for how everyone would see him out of his super-gay super-hero costume and make the connection - is too much of a stupid fucking cliche to have actually happened.
“Fuck.” Patrick says. “You’re not in your fucking costume, man. I’m not gonna be the one to blow your really shitty cover.”
Dwyn sighs and, after a minute, pushes himself up off the ground and walks over to the buildings edge. “Dang it,” he says, and Patrick pushes himself up to his feet and walks over to see what he’s looking at. Turns out there’s a fucking lot of people lined up in front of the club door.
“Pretty sure they’ve got cameras, dude, “ Patrick says.
“Dang it,” Dwyn says, again. Then, mournfully, “Who still likes grunge, anyways.”
“Fuck you, man,” Patrick says, “Grunge rocks.”
“You would say that,” Dwyn says and then, “What the heck,” as a collective gasp goes through the people standing in line below. He takes a stuttering step back from the edge, until he sees that the people who are pointing up aren’t pointing up at him. What they are pointing at is a one of those big fucking balloons that fly over games, only this one’s flashing Marry me, Gabriel across the side in big, blocky letters.
“What the fuck,” Patrick says, “Seriously?”
“Huh,” Dwyn says, as one dude goes down on his knee, holding something up - Patrick’s going with ring box - to another dude whose kind of flapping his hands and looking overwhelmed. “That’s kind of romantic.”
“What, you’d want to be proposed to by helium balloon?” Patrick says, looking over at Dwyn’s profile. Dwyn turns his head to look at Patrick, eyes smoothed out by the reflection of neon city lights.
“I don’t know,” Dwyn says, “I mean, big gestures are nice?” and some really pathetic part of Patrick writes down helium balloons and big gestures in its notes, then draws little hearts all over the paper. For fuck’s sake.
title: tumbling
prompt: worst case scenario
rating: pg-13
content warning/notes femslash.
The ship gives a sudden violent shudder, and Chiela goes down hard before Terasu can catch her, landing right on her ass, giving an uncoordinated flail that probably makes her look like a real idiot. What, so she doesn’t have her space legs, yet, give her a break. Then, just as Terasu’s about to laugh at her - being Chiela’s alien girlfriend isn’t going to stop her, no way - the ship bucks - there’s no other word for it - up and down, then drops, and if they were on an airplane right now, the stewardesses would be staggering down the aisle, telling them to fasten their seat belts and put their trays in the locked, upright position. As it is, Terasu flumps over just as Venka comes over the comm. to say, “Get your asses up here now.” Terasu scowls - at nothing but the situation, as far as Chiela can tell. “What do you want to bet,” she says, “That this is Nikolao’s fault.”
Chiela pulls herself upright by clinging to the wall then leaning heavily against it and staggering forward a few steps with the motion of the ship. “You think everything is Nikolao’s fault,” she says.
“Everything is his fault,” Terasu says as she pushes herself upright - not, Chiela notes, with much more grace than she herself had. Chiela’s not about to argue the sentiment - she doesn’t particularly want Terasu angry with her, which she undoubtedly will be if it even seems like Chiela is defending Nikolao. Which she wouldn’t be, exactly, she just doesn’t think it’s fair to paint him with one stroke. She doesn’t think it’s fair to paint anyone with one stroke. Except maybe like Hitler. But Nikolao definitely has not reached Hitler proportions of assholery. Which is good because if he had, Chiela would definitely take him down with her teeth. Assuming she could keep her teeth long enough to do anything with them, which is maybe assuming too much.
By the time she and Terasu stagger into the cockpit, Nikolao and Sprita and Pipra are already there, strapped tightly into their seats, Pipra looking a little green are the gills, and, seriously, he’s supposed to be some sort of space adventurer, shouldn’t he deal with space-turbulence better than this? Of course, Chiela guesses, you probably don’t deal with a lot of space turbulence, seeing as it’s space, and the lack-of-atmosphere doesn’t exactly promote turbulence.
“Get your asses down,” Venka says, “This is about to get rough,” and Chiela kind of figured things were already rough, so she doesn’t like the sound of that.
Terasu staggers across the room - even Terasu can’t make that look attractive, which is kind of a shame - dragging Chiela with her. She doesn’t so much land in her seat as across it, and Chiela actually falls over on the floor next to Terasu’s seat and, hey, thanks for dragging her into that. Chiela clings to her own seat and manages to pull herself up into it and strap herself in without any serious injuries so that’s good.
“We’re closest to Cetre Panleif,” Venka says, struggling with the controls, trying to stabilize the ship or at least trying not to crash it into an asteroid or whatever else could be waiting for them to crash into it. “We’re going to have to land there.”
“The entire quadrant is uninhabited - “ Nikolao starts, and then the ship drops suddenly, as if caught in the gravitational pull of something big and Chiela thinks, Oh, God, we’re going to die. Nikolao seems to be clinging pretty tightly to his seat so maybe he’s thinking it, too. “We can’t - “
“We don’t have much fucking choice!” Venka says, “I’m landing her,” and that seems to settle that because Nikolao doesn’t look particularly happy, but he’s also not arguing with her. What follows is probably the least pleasant wait of Chiela’s life as the ship starts to creak and groan and Chiela thinks, we’re not going to make it, we’re going to fall apart, and hopes that being sucked into space isn’t a completely horrible way to die, although she can’t imagine it being anything but awful. No air plus crushing vacuum equals holy fucking shit.
Chiela’s kind of distracted by the thought of dying horribly so at first she doesn’t notice the clattering out in the hallway - and, anyways, how’s she supposed to know that clattering is any different from the other creaking, groaning, clanking noises that the ship is making - until the cockpit door opens and - holy shit. That’s Zopyros, looking even wilder than before, protuberances growing from his shoulders and elbows, in addition to, you know, being blue and fuzzy and in possession of feathery antennas a whole fucking lot of sharp teeth.
“Hey, hey guys,” he says, with a manic laugh. “So how fucked are we?” and, “Zopy,” Sprita says, sounding horrified, “what did you do?”
Zopyros actually cackles, at that, which is a sound Chiela hasn’t heard from anyone in a really long time. Or possibly ever - she’s pretty sure she’s only read about people cackling, like witches and, uh, other people who cackle. Evil stepmothers, maybe, or queens who poison apples or - Chiela take a deep gulping breath and clings to her seat because the shaking’s only getting worse and worse, like the ship’s going to give any second now, and, seriously, if she could vote Zopyros off the island - ship, whatever - she would do it right now. They’ve got to have an escape pod they could eject him in. They’d obviously be better off, because what he says in reply to Sprita is, “I fucked with the engine. Might have broken it, ha ha, can you believe that?” and, yes, Chiela can even thought she really, really doesn’t want to.
title: you've got to see this
prompt: authority figures
rating: pg
content warning/notes: none
Wald’s truck is in the gym. Wald’s racing-red, practically royalty Raptor - okay, so that’s kind of annoying alliteration but it’s true - his Ford F150 STV Raptor, the truck he lords over everybody, the truck Terasu makes snide remarks about I bet he didn’t buy her dinner, first, is in the gym. Chiela’s so stunned, she doesn’t know what to do for a minute, and then she has to bite down on her tongue until it hurts so she won’t start laughing because Wald is standing not 15 feet away from her, and he looks furious.
Chiela turns to look at Pipra, who’s got his hands tucked under his chin and is making big eyes at her, like he doesn’t know what to do either. Then he turns, and she follows his gaze, and even if Chiela couldn’t only think of one group of guys who could pull this off, the engineering and auto tech guys are there, discretely - or, okay, not so discretely, but at least they’re not like chest-bumping - high-fiving each other in the corner. And Nikolao is… Nikolao is leaning against the gym wall, arms crossed over his chest, smirking. Chiela doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smirk before. He looks surprisingly good doing it. Chiela can almost see, now why Pipra’s so into him, if he weren’t, you know, a dude and apparently suicidal. She’s not sure even Terasu would go toe to toe with Wald, and Terasu will go toe to toe with pretty much anybody.
Wald, though. Wald has definitely noticed. He’s - okay, storming towards Nikolao doesn’t even cover it. He looks like an avalanche about to hit Nikolao full-force. He pulls up just short of slamming him into the wall, a muscle in his jaw jumping from how tightly his teeth are clenched.
“Sergeant,” he grinds out, “I would like an explanation.”
If Chiela were Nikolao right now, she’d be on her knees, praying for divine intervention. Nikolao, though, just pushes himself off the wall, cool as… as something really fucking cool, okay, and peers around Wald, as if he doesn’t already know what he’s going to find. “Your car is in the gym,” he says, then straightens back up, and looks Wald square in the eye. “I imagine you're going to have some trouble getting it back out.” He hitches his back pack up onto his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a bus,” and pushes right past Wald, holy shit.
He stops about half-way to the door, turns to look over his shoulder, and adds, “Oh, yes. And your brakes were misaligned. You should really see a better mechanic,” then keeps right on walking, leaving Wald red-faced and spiting-mad in his wake, in what might be the coolest move Chiela’s ever seen. Forget has seen. Probably ever will see. When Nikolao sees Pipra in the crowd he pauses and nods to him, then pushes the door open and walks out.
“Oh my gosh,” Pipra breathes out, “Oh my gosh,” then turns to stare at Chiela, and says, once more. “Oh my gosh,” and all Chiela can think to add to that is, “Wald’s going to kill him,” because Nikolao’s a fucking dead man, no joke, Wald’s never going to let him make it out of college alive.
When she turns to see what Terasu thinks of all this, she finds her narrow-eyed, hands on hips, watching the door, as if she expects Nikolao to walk back through it any second, now, and not be a total bad ass, seriously. She catches Chiela watching her and purses her mouth up. “Okay,” she says, “This may not be as fucking stupid an idea as I thought,” which Chiela figures is the closest she’s going to come to endorsing the whole thing, out loud.
title holy shit, man, your face!
prompt: holding hands
rating: r
content notes/warning: attempted assault of a nasty variety.
Wald jostles Pipra as he goes by carrying a beaker of… something, whatever, what does Chiela know about Chemistry? Aside from, like, where hydrogen is on the periodic table, and she can only remember that on good days. Pipra, though. Pipra goes rigid, like Wald did something way worse than almost bump him off his chair - and half the ROTC guys have done exactly that, so it wouldn’t even be a new thing. But when Wald says, “Hey, Luchjo,” and Nikolao turns part way around, Pipra breathes out, “No,” and then, as he jumps up out of his chair, “No!” louder, and suddenly he’s grappling with Wald, who spits out a, “What the fuck, get off me.” Pipra doesn’t let him go, though - and Chiela’s out of her seat along with most of the class because, seriously is Pipra crazy, hasn’t he pissed Wald off enough recently? - he just starts shouting, “Lye, it’s lye!” and then Nikolao is doing his best to wrestle Wald to the floor, Chiela hears something shatter, and somebody screams.
#
“Sodium hydroxide,” Nikolao says, grimly, to Chiela, while they’re waiting outside of the Dean's office - although apparently this was a big enough deal that not only is the Dean in there, but the campus police, and somebody from the city, and Wald’s mom. When Nikolao sees that, yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to Chiela, he says, “Lye,” and then when that gets no reaction, he makes a disgusted noise and says, “It’s a base. It burns.”
“Holy shit,” Chiela says, “So he was going to - “ and then doesn’t really know how to finish that sentence.
Nikolao arches an eyebrow at her - and, seriously, he shouldn’t do that, he looks like a tool, but Chiela’s mostly distracted by what he says, which is, “Ruin my good looks, apparently.”
“Holy shit,” Chiela says, again, just as the door to the Dean’s office door opens and Pipra steps out, looking pretty ragged - he hasn’t come out on top, trying to keep Wald away from Nikolao, but he’s succeeded, so there’s that, at least. Both Pipra and Nikolao freeze when they see each other, and for once, Pipra doesn’t seem to know what to say. He just kind of opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, and then bites his lip and looks down at the ground. Nikolao licks his lips, nervously, then stands up jerkily from his chair and goes to stand in front of Pipra. He raises one hand as if he’s going to touch Pipra, then seems to lose his nerve - and seriously, this is the guy that disassembled Wald’s car, reassembled it in the gym, and then stayed so fucking cool in the face of Wald’s fury. Chiela’s pretty sure she’s never seen him lose his nerve. So, apparently, his line is talking to people who saved him from getting his face eaten. And not in a fun way.
“Uh,” Chiela says, without really meaning to, and Nikolao’s attention snaps to her. He grimaces, and then grabs onto Pipra’s hand and tugs him down the hall - Pipra gives a startled “Whoa!” as he goes and stumbles a little before he manages to catch himself - and around the corner.
“Uh,” Chiela says, again, and then jerks up out of her seat and goes after them because she’s not stupid.
WHOO, new card.
title: homelessness, meet laser bear
prompt: homeslessness
rating: pg-13
content notes/warnings: slash. and faily super heroes. and swearing.
Twilight’s skimming over the sky and all Patrick can think is shit, man as he rifles through the money people have dropped into his guitar case because he maybe has enough in there to eat, but definitely not enough for a bed. Whatever, he can chill at the corner diner. They don’t usually kick him out, unless he smells really bad - he sniffs himself and thinks eh, not too bad. He’s just about to pack up his guitar and go, when a giant bear that shoots lasers out of it’s eyes shows up and then he’s not too worried about the $8.50 in his case and more about how he’s going to die by laser bear, holy fuck.
He jumps up, clutching his guitar in from of him like a seriously fucking flimsy shield, and ends up with his back against the wall. “Uh,” he says, as the fucking laser bear - he should have listened to his Mom, he never should have moved to the city, forget becoming a rock star, weird shit always happens here, like fucking laser bears that probably started out as someone trying to cure fucking dandruff or what the fuck ever - advances on him, and then somebody shouts, “I’ll save you, citizen!” - seriously what kind of tool says shit like that, this isn’t a comic book, and nobody calls anybody citizen anymore, not even the mayor - and suddenly he’s in somebody’s arms and really fucking high up.
“Uh,” he says, as he watches the laser bear toast the wall he’s been backed up against. He looks up to say holy shit, thanks, only then he sees who it is and says, “Holy shit, Alex?” and nearly gets dropped for his trouble.
“You’re not supposed to recognize me!” Alex says, kind of squeakily, and then swerves to avoid being laser-ed out of the sky.
“Dude, you’re not even wearing a mask!” Patrick says, clinging to Alex like he could die without him, which he really fucking could. Also, he seriously doesn’t want to be dropped, shit, forget laser bears, he’d splatter from this high up.
“I’m wearing glasses!”
“This isn’t a comic book! I’m not fucking stupid!
“Jinx, look out!” someone says, and Alex drops downward so fast that Patrick’s stomach ends up in his throat. A laser beam slices the air above them.
“Holy shit, man,” Patrick says, and then looks around to see who’d just saved their asses, gets an eye-ful of the gayest looking super hero get-up he’s ever seen - he’s sucked a lot of dicks, okay, he knows gay, and this one involves feathers - and, “Holy shit, Dwyn?” That’s Alex’s fucking roommate, what the fuck.
Dwyn makes a frantic motion at Alex that Patrick can’t interpret and hisses - like Patrick can’t fucking hear him, right? - “He recognizes me! Why does he recognize me?”
“I don’t know!” Alex says, and Patrick gets the feeling if Alex weren’t holding him - and, seriously man, keep your arms right the fuck where they are - he’d be throwing his hands up in the air.
“Dude,” Patrick says, “I’d recognize your fucking stupid hair anywhere, man, and I’ve heard you talk, like, a million times.”
Dwyn covers his face and moans, “We are so bad at this.”
title: this is a love story, it's just not yours
prompt: love letter/song
rating: pg-13
content notes/warning: somehow this prompt turned into less of a love letter and more of a really ridiculous method of proposal. and, oh, the swearing. i apologize.
“You know, I could just fly us down,” Dwyn says, once the silence starts to get kind of awkward. Patrick gazes longingly at the roof door. Seriously, this isn’t a fucking after school special, and getting trapped on the roof with the dude he’s digging - who, fuck, could fly them down, except for how everyone would see him out of his super-gay super-hero costume and make the connection - is too much of a stupid fucking cliche to have actually happened.
“Fuck.” Patrick says. “You’re not in your fucking costume, man. I’m not gonna be the one to blow your really shitty cover.”
Dwyn sighs and, after a minute, pushes himself up off the ground and walks over to the buildings edge. “Dang it,” he says, and Patrick pushes himself up to his feet and walks over to see what he’s looking at. Turns out there’s a fucking lot of people lined up in front of the club door.
“Pretty sure they’ve got cameras, dude, “ Patrick says.
“Dang it,” Dwyn says, again. Then, mournfully, “Who still likes grunge, anyways.”
“Fuck you, man,” Patrick says, “Grunge rocks.”
“You would say that,” Dwyn says and then, “What the heck,” as a collective gasp goes through the people standing in line below. He takes a stuttering step back from the edge, until he sees that the people who are pointing up aren’t pointing up at him. What they are pointing at is a one of those big fucking balloons that fly over games, only this one’s flashing Marry me, Gabriel across the side in big, blocky letters.
“What the fuck,” Patrick says, “Seriously?”
“Huh,” Dwyn says, as one dude goes down on his knee, holding something up - Patrick’s going with ring box - to another dude whose kind of flapping his hands and looking overwhelmed. “That’s kind of romantic.”
“What, you’d want to be proposed to by helium balloon?” Patrick says, looking over at Dwyn’s profile. Dwyn turns his head to look at Patrick, eyes smoothed out by the reflection of neon city lights.
“I don’t know,” Dwyn says, “I mean, big gestures are nice?” and some really pathetic part of Patrick writes down helium balloons and big gestures in its notes, then draws little hearts all over the paper. For fuck’s sake.
title: tumbling
prompt: worst case scenario
rating: pg-13
content warning/notes femslash.
The ship gives a sudden violent shudder, and Chiela goes down hard before Terasu can catch her, landing right on her ass, giving an uncoordinated flail that probably makes her look like a real idiot. What, so she doesn’t have her space legs, yet, give her a break. Then, just as Terasu’s about to laugh at her - being Chiela’s alien girlfriend isn’t going to stop her, no way - the ship bucks - there’s no other word for it - up and down, then drops, and if they were on an airplane right now, the stewardesses would be staggering down the aisle, telling them to fasten their seat belts and put their trays in the locked, upright position. As it is, Terasu flumps over just as Venka comes over the comm. to say, “Get your asses up here now.” Terasu scowls - at nothing but the situation, as far as Chiela can tell. “What do you want to bet,” she says, “That this is Nikolao’s fault.”
Chiela pulls herself upright by clinging to the wall then leaning heavily against it and staggering forward a few steps with the motion of the ship. “You think everything is Nikolao’s fault,” she says.
“Everything is his fault,” Terasu says as she pushes herself upright - not, Chiela notes, with much more grace than she herself had. Chiela’s not about to argue the sentiment - she doesn’t particularly want Terasu angry with her, which she undoubtedly will be if it even seems like Chiela is defending Nikolao. Which she wouldn’t be, exactly, she just doesn’t think it’s fair to paint him with one stroke. She doesn’t think it’s fair to paint anyone with one stroke. Except maybe like Hitler. But Nikolao definitely has not reached Hitler proportions of assholery. Which is good because if he had, Chiela would definitely take him down with her teeth. Assuming she could keep her teeth long enough to do anything with them, which is maybe assuming too much.
By the time she and Terasu stagger into the cockpit, Nikolao and Sprita and Pipra are already there, strapped tightly into their seats, Pipra looking a little green are the gills, and, seriously, he’s supposed to be some sort of space adventurer, shouldn’t he deal with space-turbulence better than this? Of course, Chiela guesses, you probably don’t deal with a lot of space turbulence, seeing as it’s space, and the lack-of-atmosphere doesn’t exactly promote turbulence.
“Get your asses down,” Venka says, “This is about to get rough,” and Chiela kind of figured things were already rough, so she doesn’t like the sound of that.
Terasu staggers across the room - even Terasu can’t make that look attractive, which is kind of a shame - dragging Chiela with her. She doesn’t so much land in her seat as across it, and Chiela actually falls over on the floor next to Terasu’s seat and, hey, thanks for dragging her into that. Chiela clings to her own seat and manages to pull herself up into it and strap herself in without any serious injuries so that’s good.
“We’re closest to Cetre Panleif,” Venka says, struggling with the controls, trying to stabilize the ship or at least trying not to crash it into an asteroid or whatever else could be waiting for them to crash into it. “We’re going to have to land there.”
“The entire quadrant is uninhabited - “ Nikolao starts, and then the ship drops suddenly, as if caught in the gravitational pull of something big and Chiela thinks, Oh, God, we’re going to die. Nikolao seems to be clinging pretty tightly to his seat so maybe he’s thinking it, too. “We can’t - “
“We don’t have much fucking choice!” Venka says, “I’m landing her,” and that seems to settle that because Nikolao doesn’t look particularly happy, but he’s also not arguing with her. What follows is probably the least pleasant wait of Chiela’s life as the ship starts to creak and groan and Chiela thinks, we’re not going to make it, we’re going to fall apart, and hopes that being sucked into space isn’t a completely horrible way to die, although she can’t imagine it being anything but awful. No air plus crushing vacuum equals holy fucking shit.
Chiela’s kind of distracted by the thought of dying horribly so at first she doesn’t notice the clattering out in the hallway - and, anyways, how’s she supposed to know that clattering is any different from the other creaking, groaning, clanking noises that the ship is making - until the cockpit door opens and - holy shit. That’s Zopyros, looking even wilder than before, protuberances growing from his shoulders and elbows, in addition to, you know, being blue and fuzzy and in possession of feathery antennas a whole fucking lot of sharp teeth.
“Hey, hey guys,” he says, with a manic laugh. “So how fucked are we?” and, “Zopy,” Sprita says, sounding horrified, “what did you do?”
Zopyros actually cackles, at that, which is a sound Chiela hasn’t heard from anyone in a really long time. Or possibly ever - she’s pretty sure she’s only read about people cackling, like witches and, uh, other people who cackle. Evil stepmothers, maybe, or queens who poison apples or - Chiela take a deep gulping breath and clings to her seat because the shaking’s only getting worse and worse, like the ship’s going to give any second now, and, seriously, if she could vote Zopyros off the island - ship, whatever - she would do it right now. They’ve got to have an escape pod they could eject him in. They’d obviously be better off, because what he says in reply to Sprita is, “I fucked with the engine. Might have broken it, ha ha, can you believe that?” and, yes, Chiela can even thought she really, really doesn’t want to.
title: you've got to see this
prompt: authority figures
rating: pg
content warning/notes: none
Wald’s truck is in the gym. Wald’s racing-red, practically royalty Raptor - okay, so that’s kind of annoying alliteration but it’s true - his Ford F150 STV Raptor, the truck he lords over everybody, the truck Terasu makes snide remarks about I bet he didn’t buy her dinner, first, is in the gym. Chiela’s so stunned, she doesn’t know what to do for a minute, and then she has to bite down on her tongue until it hurts so she won’t start laughing because Wald is standing not 15 feet away from her, and he looks furious.
Chiela turns to look at Pipra, who’s got his hands tucked under his chin and is making big eyes at her, like he doesn’t know what to do either. Then he turns, and she follows his gaze, and even if Chiela couldn’t only think of one group of guys who could pull this off, the engineering and auto tech guys are there, discretely - or, okay, not so discretely, but at least they’re not like chest-bumping - high-fiving each other in the corner. And Nikolao is… Nikolao is leaning against the gym wall, arms crossed over his chest, smirking. Chiela doesn’t think she’s ever seen him smirk before. He looks surprisingly good doing it. Chiela can almost see, now why Pipra’s so into him, if he weren’t, you know, a dude and apparently suicidal. She’s not sure even Terasu would go toe to toe with Wald, and Terasu will go toe to toe with pretty much anybody.
Wald, though. Wald has definitely noticed. He’s - okay, storming towards Nikolao doesn’t even cover it. He looks like an avalanche about to hit Nikolao full-force. He pulls up just short of slamming him into the wall, a muscle in his jaw jumping from how tightly his teeth are clenched.
“Sergeant,” he grinds out, “I would like an explanation.”
If Chiela were Nikolao right now, she’d be on her knees, praying for divine intervention. Nikolao, though, just pushes himself off the wall, cool as… as something really fucking cool, okay, and peers around Wald, as if he doesn’t already know what he’s going to find. “Your car is in the gym,” he says, then straightens back up, and looks Wald square in the eye. “I imagine you're going to have some trouble getting it back out.” He hitches his back pack up onto his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a bus,” and pushes right past Wald, holy shit.
He stops about half-way to the door, turns to look over his shoulder, and adds, “Oh, yes. And your brakes were misaligned. You should really see a better mechanic,” then keeps right on walking, leaving Wald red-faced and spiting-mad in his wake, in what might be the coolest move Chiela’s ever seen. Forget has seen. Probably ever will see. When Nikolao sees Pipra in the crowd he pauses and nods to him, then pushes the door open and walks out.
“Oh my gosh,” Pipra breathes out, “Oh my gosh,” then turns to stare at Chiela, and says, once more. “Oh my gosh,” and all Chiela can think to add to that is, “Wald’s going to kill him,” because Nikolao’s a fucking dead man, no joke, Wald’s never going to let him make it out of college alive.
When she turns to see what Terasu thinks of all this, she finds her narrow-eyed, hands on hips, watching the door, as if she expects Nikolao to walk back through it any second, now, and not be a total bad ass, seriously. She catches Chiela watching her and purses her mouth up. “Okay,” she says, “This may not be as fucking stupid an idea as I thought,” which Chiela figures is the closest she’s going to come to endorsing the whole thing, out loud.
title holy shit, man, your face!
prompt: holding hands
rating: r
content notes/warning: attempted assault of a nasty variety.
Wald jostles Pipra as he goes by carrying a beaker of… something, whatever, what does Chiela know about Chemistry? Aside from, like, where hydrogen is on the periodic table, and she can only remember that on good days. Pipra, though. Pipra goes rigid, like Wald did something way worse than almost bump him off his chair - and half the ROTC guys have done exactly that, so it wouldn’t even be a new thing. But when Wald says, “Hey, Luchjo,” and Nikolao turns part way around, Pipra breathes out, “No,” and then, as he jumps up out of his chair, “No!” louder, and suddenly he’s grappling with Wald, who spits out a, “What the fuck, get off me.” Pipra doesn’t let him go, though - and Chiela’s out of her seat along with most of the class because, seriously is Pipra crazy, hasn’t he pissed Wald off enough recently? - he just starts shouting, “Lye, it’s lye!” and then Nikolao is doing his best to wrestle Wald to the floor, Chiela hears something shatter, and somebody screams.
“Sodium hydroxide,” Nikolao says, grimly, to Chiela, while they’re waiting outside of the Dean's office - although apparently this was a big enough deal that not only is the Dean in there, but the campus police, and somebody from the city, and Wald’s mom. When Nikolao sees that, yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to Chiela, he says, “Lye,” and then when that gets no reaction, he makes a disgusted noise and says, “It’s a base. It burns.”
“Holy shit,” Chiela says, “So he was going to - “ and then doesn’t really know how to finish that sentence.
Nikolao arches an eyebrow at her - and, seriously, he shouldn’t do that, he looks like a tool, but Chiela’s mostly distracted by what he says, which is, “Ruin my good looks, apparently.”
“Holy shit,” Chiela says, again, just as the door to the Dean’s office door opens and Pipra steps out, looking pretty ragged - he hasn’t come out on top, trying to keep Wald away from Nikolao, but he’s succeeded, so there’s that, at least. Both Pipra and Nikolao freeze when they see each other, and for once, Pipra doesn’t seem to know what to say. He just kind of opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, and then bites his lip and looks down at the ground. Nikolao licks his lips, nervously, then stands up jerkily from his chair and goes to stand in front of Pipra. He raises one hand as if he’s going to touch Pipra, then seems to lose his nerve - and seriously, this is the guy that disassembled Wald’s car, reassembled it in the gym, and then stayed so fucking cool in the face of Wald’s fury. Chiela’s pretty sure she’s never seen him lose his nerve. So, apparently, his line is talking to people who saved him from getting his face eaten. And not in a fun way.
“Uh,” Chiela says, without really meaning to, and Nikolao’s attention snaps to her. He grimaces, and then grabs onto Pipra’s hand and tugs him down the hall - Pipra gives a startled “Whoa!” as he goes and stumbles a little before he manages to catch himself - and around the corner.
“Uh,” Chiela says, again, and then jerks up out of her seat and goes after them because she’s not stupid.
WHOO, new card.
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Date: 2010-11-17 01:45 am (UTC)Also, from my inner chemistry geek: sodium hydroxide is a base, not an acid (though maybe the characters wouldn't know that). Still fucking dangerous! Just other end of the pH scale. :D
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Date: 2010-11-17 03:32 am (UTC)*hides face in hands* Oh, that's embarrassing. I don't know how I mixed those two up! I even researched it! Going to fix now.