Jaguar (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kittydesade) wrote2012-01-25 10:50 am
kittydesade) wrote2012-01-25 10:50 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Characters: Mary Margaret, Mr. Gold
Word Count: 798
Rating: PG
Prompt: Cuddle meme!
After that kiss, everyone knew. At least, it felt that way.
Mary Margaret didn't dare go home, Emma would take one look at her and break out the pitying looks. The ones that said, oh honey. I've been there. I've done that, and this never ends well. She didn't have to know Emma's past to know that this wasn't going to end well, he was married, for crying out loud! He hadn't left her once, when he'd had the opportunity and more of an excuse, what made her think he was going to leave Kathryn now?
She almost tripped over the spot where they'd kissed. Right out in the open in front of everyone, good going, Mary Margaret. Someone might have seen. Hell, in this town, someone probably had seen. And it'd be all over the town within three days.
And then the jeering, and the sideways looks, and by the time she tripped again on the sidewalk in front of the pawn shop she was scrubbing tears out of her eyes because even if this was a deserted street the shop windows and street lights didn't need to see her cry. Nor the people who looked out of them, nor the man turning his sign and locking his door who she almost bumped into.
“Oh, excuse me, dear!” His voice raised her hackles and soothed her all at once, articulate and soft and lilting. The kindly old uncle voice who was just close enough to pat your hand and make your troubles go away and just so distant as to be mysterious and a little unnerving. Most days, unnerving.
Mary Margaret shook her head. “Excuse me... I'm sorry, I should have been watching where I was going.” Chin tucked down, curled away. He saw the tears anyway.
“Hey, now. What's the matter?”
She tried to sidestep him, but he fell along into step with her and for a man with a limp and a cane, he walked pretty sprightly. “It's nothing,” she told him, so maybe he'd leave her alone.
“Nothing brings tears to the eyes of the fairest maid in town,” he quipped, and she gave him a funny look. “Well, that certainly should be true, I think.” They stopped. He had one hand on her back between her shoulders before she realized it. “Tell me?”
It all came out in a blubbering mess. She didn't mean to, but between the tacit and tactile offer of a hug and the mellow voice it all spilled over. The whole stupid story, starting with Henry and his book and ending with one moment of bad judgment outside Granny's diner earlier that day. And he did hug her, he put one, then both arms around her and she half-heard the sound of the cane clattering back against the brick wall, and he felt so frail. But warm. A bit good. He smelled of old things, old buildings, and like being a child when everything around you was grand and solid. And by the time she'd cried herself down to the occasional sniffle she realized how incongruous it was to be weeping all over the boogeyman of Storybrooke, and taking comfort in it.
“I'm... sorry,” she mumbled, retrieving his cane for him and feeling even more guilty when she thought of how it must have hurt to stand there for so long. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean...”
“It's all right, my dear.” And again there was that voice, although the smile didn't help. It was all right as long as she focused on his voice and as long as he didn't smile like a shark exploring its prey. “Are you all right, now?”
“I...” Mary Margaret frowned. “I think so. Yeah. Thanks...” Was it her imagination or did he look pained, just for a moment, at the surprise in her voice.
“Grand,” he smiled, less shark in it this time, and started back down the street. “I hope things get better for you, Miss Blanchard. I really do.”
The funny thing was, she believed him. Or maybe that wasn't the funny thing, she thought, head tilted and brow wrinkled as her mouth squinched itself up into an interrogative. The funny thing was, he had helped. And she knew he'd keep her secret, he was a master at keeping secrets, that one, it was one of the reasons no one trusted him. You never quite knew what he knew and what he didn't. But that had helped. And she walked slowly back to her apartment with the memory of his arms vivid and wiry around her and the scent of old fabrics and musty spice where she'd pressed her face into the shoulder of his coat.
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Characters: Emma Swan, the Stranger
Word Count: 952
Rating: PG unless you look close
There's something about him that screams, don't touch. Every thing she knows about him, which is very little and that right there is bad enough, says that he's not what he seems. He's up to something. Who the hell writes on a typewriter in this day and age, anyway?
Someone who's old-fashioned. Gee, who does she know like that?
Someone who isn't always confident of having an internet connection or electricity. Okay, fair enough. But everyone she can think of would default to notebooks and pens, not hauling around an old Selectric or whatever the hell it is. On a motorcycle. Does he even have room for clothes on that thing? Does he even care? He has to shower sometime, but she doesn't think she's seen him change shirts more than a couple of times.
Emma has a bad feeling about this. About him. But there's something about him that she can't explain and can't let go of, either. Something magnetic and attractive more than nice, the way he dances conversational circles around her. She can pick apart his meanings enough to know that's what he's doing. And, again, who does she know like that?
Gold has to know he's in town. He knows everything that goes on in Storybrooke. But if there's a connection there she isn't seeing it. He hasn't gone to see the pawnbroker and Gold hasn't called her in to threaten her into investigating him. Or ask. She still remembers that favor she owes him and somehow she thinks when he calls in his marker it'll be something she regrets more than finding out information about a mysterious stranger.
She doesn't have anything to go on. His prints come up clean. He won't give his name. His license plate comes up to a name so common it has to be an alias, Jeff Smith. Okay, sure, there are people with that name, she doesn't know any of them born that way.
A quick internet search turns up auto repair, a politician, a historian, and a greenhouse, so she puts that away. Goes back to what she's seen. He fixed his bike, he could be in auto repair for all she knows. He's at least handy. Likes old things. She wonders how old his bike is, has no way of knowing. Could probably find out. Every time she thinks of him her thoughts fragment into pieces and scatter on the wind like bits of paper. She should write all this down so she remembers to ask someone.
He wanted to take her out for a drink later. Didn't say when. Almost a week after that he showed up as she was closing up the sheriff's office and just said "Come out for a drink with me," and she went. Sure, why not, right? And they sit and have coffee, he didn't even insist on it being drinks in the more traditional sense of the word, coffee and pie. Sitting and chatting. The crumble of the crust on her lips and the way it clings, stuck with sugar, until she wipes it away. Burst of cherry tartness drowned under the warmth of the coffee. It's more dizzying than booze. And the conversation chatters on about anything and everything, as natural as breathing, and she finds herself talking about her time in prison. All the stupid things she's done.
"We do a lot of dumb, crazy things when we're desperate," he admits, and something in the way he says it reminds her of the way Gold had called her a desperate soul, only he wasn't calling her that. Not now, anyway. She doesn't think that's what he meant.
Still she wraps her hands around her mug and uses it to cover how loaded the words are when she says, "Hard to be a lost, desperate soul."
It sounds so trite. Maybe that's why he smiles, or maybe it's because the phrase is familiar, or maybe it's because he knows she's fishing for something and he doesn't intend to give it to her. Which would fit in with the rest of his irritating silence. For a man who talks so much he's good at saying nothing.
She doesn't get anything more from him that night, but he takes her back home, for what that means right now, and he tells her he had a good time. Like you do when you're on a date. And she opens her mouth to ask if that's what this was, his convoluted way of asking her on a date, when he uses the light hand on her wrist to make it a tight arm around her waist and brushes cool lips over hers. Cool and soft. And for a second, that reminds her of someone else, too. Even though she doesn't want it to. Reminds her and doesn't at the same time because this man is taller, a little broader and definitely more muscular. Not wiry but built up, warm and solid with bulk to him and when he lets her go it's a cold shock to the system.
"Be seeing you," he tells her, with an obscure gesture of thumb and forefinger and then he's on his bike and gone again and she's left blinking and wondering what just happened and why she didn't understand, why she had only a few edge pieces and a whole bunch of blue middle to this damned puzzle that was Storybrooke.
Characters: Mary Margaret, Mr. Gold
Word Count: 798
Rating: PG
Prompt: Cuddle meme!
After that kiss, everyone knew. At least, it felt that way.
Mary Margaret didn't dare go home, Emma would take one look at her and break out the pitying looks. The ones that said, oh honey. I've been there. I've done that, and this never ends well. She didn't have to know Emma's past to know that this wasn't going to end well, he was married, for crying out loud! He hadn't left her once, when he'd had the opportunity and more of an excuse, what made her think he was going to leave Kathryn now?
She almost tripped over the spot where they'd kissed. Right out in the open in front of everyone, good going, Mary Margaret. Someone might have seen. Hell, in this town, someone probably had seen. And it'd be all over the town within three days.
And then the jeering, and the sideways looks, and by the time she tripped again on the sidewalk in front of the pawn shop she was scrubbing tears out of her eyes because even if this was a deserted street the shop windows and street lights didn't need to see her cry. Nor the people who looked out of them, nor the man turning his sign and locking his door who she almost bumped into.
“Oh, excuse me, dear!” His voice raised her hackles and soothed her all at once, articulate and soft and lilting. The kindly old uncle voice who was just close enough to pat your hand and make your troubles go away and just so distant as to be mysterious and a little unnerving. Most days, unnerving.
Mary Margaret shook her head. “Excuse me... I'm sorry, I should have been watching where I was going.” Chin tucked down, curled away. He saw the tears anyway.
“Hey, now. What's the matter?”
She tried to sidestep him, but he fell along into step with her and for a man with a limp and a cane, he walked pretty sprightly. “It's nothing,” she told him, so maybe he'd leave her alone.
“Nothing brings tears to the eyes of the fairest maid in town,” he quipped, and she gave him a funny look. “Well, that certainly should be true, I think.” They stopped. He had one hand on her back between her shoulders before she realized it. “Tell me?”
It all came out in a blubbering mess. She didn't mean to, but between the tacit and tactile offer of a hug and the mellow voice it all spilled over. The whole stupid story, starting with Henry and his book and ending with one moment of bad judgment outside Granny's diner earlier that day. And he did hug her, he put one, then both arms around her and she half-heard the sound of the cane clattering back against the brick wall, and he felt so frail. But warm. A bit good. He smelled of old things, old buildings, and like being a child when everything around you was grand and solid. And by the time she'd cried herself down to the occasional sniffle she realized how incongruous it was to be weeping all over the boogeyman of Storybrooke, and taking comfort in it.
“I'm... sorry,” she mumbled, retrieving his cane for him and feeling even more guilty when she thought of how it must have hurt to stand there for so long. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean...”
“It's all right, my dear.” And again there was that voice, although the smile didn't help. It was all right as long as she focused on his voice and as long as he didn't smile like a shark exploring its prey. “Are you all right, now?”
“I...” Mary Margaret frowned. “I think so. Yeah. Thanks...” Was it her imagination or did he look pained, just for a moment, at the surprise in her voice.
“Grand,” he smiled, less shark in it this time, and started back down the street. “I hope things get better for you, Miss Blanchard. I really do.”
The funny thing was, she believed him. Or maybe that wasn't the funny thing, she thought, head tilted and brow wrinkled as her mouth squinched itself up into an interrogative. The funny thing was, he had helped. And she knew he'd keep her secret, he was a master at keeping secrets, that one, it was one of the reasons no one trusted him. You never quite knew what he knew and what he didn't. But that had helped. And she walked slowly back to her apartment with the memory of his arms vivid and wiry around her and the scent of old fabrics and musty spice where she'd pressed her face into the shoulder of his coat.
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Characters: Emma Swan, the Stranger
Word Count: 952
Rating: PG unless you look close
There's something about him that screams, don't touch. Every thing she knows about him, which is very little and that right there is bad enough, says that he's not what he seems. He's up to something. Who the hell writes on a typewriter in this day and age, anyway?
Someone who's old-fashioned. Gee, who does she know like that?
Someone who isn't always confident of having an internet connection or electricity. Okay, fair enough. But everyone she can think of would default to notebooks and pens, not hauling around an old Selectric or whatever the hell it is. On a motorcycle. Does he even have room for clothes on that thing? Does he even care? He has to shower sometime, but she doesn't think she's seen him change shirts more than a couple of times.
Emma has a bad feeling about this. About him. But there's something about him that she can't explain and can't let go of, either. Something magnetic and attractive more than nice, the way he dances conversational circles around her. She can pick apart his meanings enough to know that's what he's doing. And, again, who does she know like that?
Gold has to know he's in town. He knows everything that goes on in Storybrooke. But if there's a connection there she isn't seeing it. He hasn't gone to see the pawnbroker and Gold hasn't called her in to threaten her into investigating him. Or ask. She still remembers that favor she owes him and somehow she thinks when he calls in his marker it'll be something she regrets more than finding out information about a mysterious stranger.
She doesn't have anything to go on. His prints come up clean. He won't give his name. His license plate comes up to a name so common it has to be an alias, Jeff Smith. Okay, sure, there are people with that name, she doesn't know any of them born that way.
A quick internet search turns up auto repair, a politician, a historian, and a greenhouse, so she puts that away. Goes back to what she's seen. He fixed his bike, he could be in auto repair for all she knows. He's at least handy. Likes old things. She wonders how old his bike is, has no way of knowing. Could probably find out. Every time she thinks of him her thoughts fragment into pieces and scatter on the wind like bits of paper. She should write all this down so she remembers to ask someone.
He wanted to take her out for a drink later. Didn't say when. Almost a week after that he showed up as she was closing up the sheriff's office and just said "Come out for a drink with me," and she went. Sure, why not, right? And they sit and have coffee, he didn't even insist on it being drinks in the more traditional sense of the word, coffee and pie. Sitting and chatting. The crumble of the crust on her lips and the way it clings, stuck with sugar, until she wipes it away. Burst of cherry tartness drowned under the warmth of the coffee. It's more dizzying than booze. And the conversation chatters on about anything and everything, as natural as breathing, and she finds herself talking about her time in prison. All the stupid things she's done.
"We do a lot of dumb, crazy things when we're desperate," he admits, and something in the way he says it reminds her of the way Gold had called her a desperate soul, only he wasn't calling her that. Not now, anyway. She doesn't think that's what he meant.
Still she wraps her hands around her mug and uses it to cover how loaded the words are when she says, "Hard to be a lost, desperate soul."
It sounds so trite. Maybe that's why he smiles, or maybe it's because the phrase is familiar, or maybe it's because he knows she's fishing for something and he doesn't intend to give it to her. Which would fit in with the rest of his irritating silence. For a man who talks so much he's good at saying nothing.
She doesn't get anything more from him that night, but he takes her back home, for what that means right now, and he tells her he had a good time. Like you do when you're on a date. And she opens her mouth to ask if that's what this was, his convoluted way of asking her on a date, when he uses the light hand on her wrist to make it a tight arm around her waist and brushes cool lips over hers. Cool and soft. And for a second, that reminds her of someone else, too. Even though she doesn't want it to. Reminds her and doesn't at the same time because this man is taller, a little broader and definitely more muscular. Not wiry but built up, warm and solid with bulk to him and when he lets her go it's a cold shock to the system.
"Be seeing you," he tells her, with an obscure gesture of thumb and forefinger and then he's on his bike and gone again and she's left blinking and wondering what just happened and why she didn't understand, why she had only a few edge pieces and a whole bunch of blue middle to this damned puzzle that was Storybrooke.
no subject
I'm willing to let David's lack of personality slide due to the whole "recently in a coma and now possessed by a head full of lies" thing, but it really does make it hard to root for him or Mary Margaret. So far almost every Storybrooke character we've met has been more interesting than either of them. For example, I'm now dying to know both Red's backstory and Grumpy's. Grumpy's even more now that it looks like the girl who played Katherine Walters in HT has been cast as his love interest.
I just googled Begbie and now I can't decide if I'm more confused or alarmed. Ah, Trainspotting. That will now be third on my list!
no subject
There's that, true. But yes, that is an excellent way to put it. Even if Emma makes me want to slap her with fish for how utterly earnestly clueless she can be sometimes. But I am all about more Red backstory
and should really finish that Ruby/Gold fic before canon interrupts againand oooh. Oh, now I want to see that episode.Begbie is how I pictured Robert Carlyle for the longest time. It was all a bit silly. Fair warning though, Trainspotting is a serious mindscrew with a lot of really gross imagery. And kind of depressing.
no subject
I'm restraining my annoyance at Emma's obliviousness by realizing that I'd be equally skeptical of Henry's story if I were in her shoes. But COME ON, lady. Even I would look around after a while and go, "Hm. You know what? Something IS screwy about this town."
Yay, more Ruby/Gold! And yeah, I'm trying to knock out as many prompt fills for them as I can before canon blows the idea of them out of the water. Especially since I'm not too keen on Dr. Whale being the Big Bad Wolf, if that does turn out to be the case.Hopefully it features more Stealthy. Stealthy needs his own miniseries. And it's taking all my willpower not to add "Smurf" to the end of the dwarf names. I don't even know why, but my brain keeps confusing the two.Hmm, I think I'll download it and watch it on the car trip tomorrow. We've got a five hour drive up to NYC, so there'll be plenty of time for a movie or two.