Finding the Words Meme :)
Thanks very much for tagging me, @sanguinarysanguinity! The goal of this meme is to find particular words in one's WIPs, but I don't have enough WIPs to be very successful by those rules. So, I just searched my works and chose passages to share that fit :)
Words to find: queer, happy, restless, hunger, worthy
(queer) Spider stories -- 221B Baker Towers is an entirely fan-invented modern AU in which the central premise is that Holmes and Watson, as men of colour in Britain, are facing no individual Moriarty as their adversary. Instead, the 'Moriarty' of this 'verse is systemic inequality and injustice. This scene features genderqueer!Irene and their trans wife, Freya.
Irene and Freya crashed at Baker Towers the night before a planned vigil and counter-protest. I struggled slightly to understand Irene, as their American accent was so different to the English I was used to. But I caught on to most of what they meant. They and their wife were a riot together, not to mention a luminous couple. Freya had a fine-boned elegance about her, and Irene was handsome that night in vintage regalia fit for a king; a Prussian military uniform complete with saber and cloak, their blond hair slicked back and twisted tight.
"Please tell me you're wearing that to the vigil tomorrow," Sherlock said. "There's no queer flag in the world that isn't improved by an accompanying sword."
"No dice, I'm afraid," they laughed. "Tomorrow night we'll be beating our swords into ploughshares and lifting our voices to pluck at the heartstrings of the masses, by which I mean the benighted souls who happen to be streaming YouTube live on a Thursday."
(happy) Forever Taking Leave - a Battlestar Galactica/Sixth Sense fusion in which Kara can see dead people. The premise is that Lee dies at the very beginning of the show in the initial Cylon attacks, and the story reinterprets all Kara's emotionally avoidant behavior throughout the show as her effort to avoid admitting to herself that he's a ghost.
Time had always passed somewhat strangely for her. Still, the two years she served on Galactica before the brass stood it down for retirement seemed long.
During the decommissioning, Lee dropped by the brig to play cool. She eyed him up and dressed him down, and as usual they got nowhere. If she’d known the worlds were ending, she’d probably have been nicer. She’d have tried to touch his hand, anyway, before he pulled it away from the bars.
The Cylons attacked, and she was good at war, except for the mission briefings when the ready room filled with pilots and she was too tired to figure out which ones were still alive.
She was on deck waiting for repairs to her bird when the Chief told her Lee was gone. It hit her so hard she wasn’t safe to fly, so she walked to her rack and took out the photo Zak had left. She prayed. She prayed to all the Lords of Kobol, but in her heart she turned to Apollo and begged. Have mercy.
Two hours later she looked up from under her Viper and Lee was walking across the deck like he owned it. He was smiling and smug and a little bit invincible, everything that made most people dislike him on sight. Everything that kept her up at night; everything she’d never told him.
He might actually be alive. It could have been a garbled casualty report the Chief had told her about – that was more than likely in this chaos. Or Lee could have pulled a trick, saved himself with some retina-detaching move like she would have done. The gods could have been kind.
Or this could be the trick, right now, the horrible trick of her sixth sense – he could be dead and not know it yet, holding out his hand to her.
In that moment she decided she would never allow herself to find out.
She stared into his eyes and took his hand, but didn’t come any closer. There wasn’t a mark on him, as far as she could see. He’d just got in from flying, and the deck where she was working was relatively exposed, next to the outer hull. Maybe his hands were just cold.
“I hear you’re the new CAG now,” he grinned, raising an eyebrow at her.
“That’s what they tell me,” she shrugged. Then, more quietly, “I thought you were dead.”
“Well, I thought you were in hack.” He shook a little with laughter. She felt it.
She relaxed, suddenly happy beyond words. He didn’t even look tired, and she’d never noticed the light in this room. It was white and clean on his face. She stood with him and talked about nothing until he pulled away to get back to work.
(restless) Rewriting History - a WWI Holmes/Watson epistolary fic where they discuss the ancient past (via Thucydides), the uncertain future, and at last their more personal history.
Moving now from the sublime to the ridiculous: our camp is lately overrun with poultry. Every army represents a hoard of cheerfully amoral foragers, and ours have set their sights on the poulet of Le Havre. I don't know who started the fad, but every young infantryman nowadays keeps a hen roosting at his tent. Some are quickly sacrificed to make a roast dinner, but most are kept to provide eggs that supplement the skimpy rations of biscuits and pozzy.
From daybreak to nightfall I am immersed in a restless, dun-coloured, clucking sea. This is why I could never have been a farmer, Holmes. I cannot live among barnyard animals for any length of time without feeling that my brain is dribbling out my ears. Give London my best, I miss it terribly just now. The chickens say hello.
(hunger) Aphrodite's a Great Conversation Starter - a Destiel first kiss fic that dives into unfinished business from the early seasons.
"I wanted your approval," Cas said. "But I also just…gravitated to you. I hated to see you hurt, and that seemed to be all I ever saw." Cas ran the pad of his thumb across Dean's lip, delicate as if it were a bruise. "You made detachment impossible." Dean was only beginning to learn Cas's hands, but this particular hunger in them — the itch to heal, the impatience to pinpoint pain and take it — was long familiar. "By the time I rebelled, at least, I was ready to put your life before my own, which is a kind of love. It took longer, though, to reach real tenderness. To put not only your life, but your happiness first."
(worthy) do not stand at my grave - a time travel fic where Holmes leaves for The Future and Watson has to decide how to continue on in the present. Part of the story looks at what would happen in some of Holmes's cases if he weren't there to solve the mystery, but Watson found other ways to help. This is Violet from the Solitary Cyclist.
Dear Dr. Watson,
Though it has been more than four months since Mr. Carruthers made his confession, the memory circles my mind in the hazy hours when sleep eludes me. The knowledge of a horror narrowly dodged can leave nearly as powerful a stamp on the heart and imagination as a horror actually experienced. I am convinced that your quick action in making my removal from that place possible saved me from disaster, for I have no doubt that Mr. Woodley would have stopped at nothing. I feel it in my bones: if I had stayed another few weeks, he would have cornered me on that lonely road. My dear Cyril also wishes to be remembered to you and sends his gratitude. We were so afraid that Woodley might follow and accost me, even in town, that we swore ourselves to one another before the county registrar on the very afternoon after you left us. What our wedding lacked in ceremony it assuredly made up for in security, comfort, and relief.
I am writing this morning because our solicitor has just finished putting all in order as regards my inheritance. My uncle's bequest is more than we shall ever need. I have talked it over with Cyril, and we are agreed that some of this largesse should go to worthy causes. I wish to return to your idea of creating a fund in memory of Mr. Holmes. I believe you were resolved to support it with the proceeds of your writing. If that is still your intention, then I would be both proud and grateful to offer an annual contribution in perpetuity. If having such a fund available can enable others to listen to their own premonitions of danger and walk away in good time from whatever puts them at risk, nothing would make me happier than to contribute my share. I hope such support will be as much a blessing to them as it was to me, and I know you will disperse the trust wisely as individual circumstances warrant.
~~
I tag anyone who wants to play with either their WIPs or just their works! I will throw out these words for you:
dark, wry, moonlight, music, trust
