rules: you will be given a word. then, share an excerpt from your wip(s) that starts with each letter of your word.
Dipping my toes back into fic writing for the first time in a long time by taking up @secretpersona8's invitation to dabble with the word CHAIN.
If anyone else wants to participate - your word is STARE!
All from a daemon/His Dark Materials AU:
C - "Change to something else, anything else," he begs. Screams at her with impotent rage in the middle of the woods where his father can't see the tears freezing to his face. 12 years old and he knows that here, this form will have them judged for the rest of their lives.
For a month, he goes to the library and reads every animal-related book he can find in the hopes of sparking her interest in some other predator. It's useless though. Her final change happens the night his mother leaves, all that's left of her a note on the counter that says "I can't stay. Don't come looking." It’s easier to hide from a drunken mountain lion when you’re the same color as the snow.
H - "Hey, don't sweat it, Buck," John says loudly, making sure his voice carries all the way to the back of the group. "Everybody knows the real heroes keep their souls by their sides."
"That make you the villain in this fairytale, Bucky?" Curt calls from the middle of the pack.
"Course it does, Biddick. Literal lightness and darkness right here," he waves his free hand around to encompass Ziph and Cassiopeia. "Metaphor couldn't be more on the nose."
The resulting roar of laughter breaks the tension. Someone shouts they're surprised Bucky knows what a metaphor even is, and John's happy to let the good-natured ribbing turn to his smarts and away from Gale's perceived failure.
A - An hour into meeting his new bunkmate, Gale has a new name and Cassiopeia has four giant tufts of fur missing from her shaggy tail.
"Neither of them seem to understand the concept of personal space," Gale grumbles to her when John and his daemon finally wander out of the room.
"Isn't it wonderful?" Cassie says, and the only thing worse than her dreamy sigh is that Gale agrees with her. "I could crush her with one paw, and she doesn't even care."
It's too soon for Gale to tell if that confidence is a sign of a reckless soul or a secure one that's used to having her much larger human around to keep her protected from trouble.
I - "I want it too," she whispers into his hair in a mimicry of preening, and hazy images of Gale's hands smoothing ruffled feathers float between them.
He lets himself watch as Gale moves across the dance floor and tries not to be towed under by the grief of this rejection. Because it was a rejection, a question asked and answered in public so neither had to deal with the fallout or pushback that surely would've followed in a more private setting.
John loves Gale, and he knows Gale loves him too, but he doesn't know how to bridge the gap that keeps widening between them.
N - "No. Absolutely not. We don’t fly suicide missions, Egan.”
“Like fuck we don’t. If something happens to him in there, I’m dead anyway.”
“If something happens to you, I am! You think he won’t put a bullet between my eyes if he finds out I knew about this?”
“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” John says it lightly, like a joke, but they both know he’s serious.
