Slumber

Recipient: Written for mugglechump at rarepair_shorts' Summer Wishlist fest, erm, sometime last week?
Title: Five Stories Astoria Greengrass Did Not Write
Pairing: Zacharias/Astoria
Prompt: I resent your misguided understanding of things you don't understand.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1400
Summary: Zacharias Smith works in the News department of The Daily Prophet. Astoria Greengrass is in Features. Zacharias has a hard time figuring out what that means.
Author's Notes: Originally posted here. Cross-posting to LJ and DW (I think I'm retiring creativeslumber).

( 'Features, Smith. I write features. Human interest, interviews, etcetera. Annabelle Cowley answers the letters addressed to Annabelle.' )

Title: Stages
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Pairing: Canon
Rating: PG?
Word Count: 250 words
Summary: Michael's family is dying.
Additional Notes: ccharlotte was reading too many cancer!Brian fics. There's a logical connection there somewhere, I'm sure. :|


Michael's family is dying.

He doesn't think about it very often, though, if at all, because Ben works out, Hunter still outruns him by a mile, and they finished Liberty Ride together.

It's a thought that startles him when Hunter complains about the winter cold or Ben sneezes, and then he thinks about it, but only for a while.

Because when Michael imagines the future he sees him and Ben with white hair and grandchildren.

*

Michael's family is dying.

There was a draft in the apartment and nobody remembers anymore who left the window open, but three days in and Hunter's caught a cold.

"Here, take some vitamins," Michael says.

"Have some water."

"Orange juice?"

He breaks down with a fever, and it isn't just the flu anymore.

Ben catches it too.

"We'll be fine," he tells Michael, and Michael asks the doctor if he has a stronger prescription to give.

*

Michael's family is dying.

The doctor asks to talk to Michael in private, and when he comes out he heads straight to Brian's apartment.

"Fuck them," Brian says, arm slung around him as they both lay amid broken furniture. "We're all the family we fucking need."

Michael's lips are tight and he takes another joint, knuckles shaking and bleeding. He breathes it in deep and holds it until it burns like fucking hell.

"Fuck them," he lies.

*

Michael's family is dying, and nobody knows what to say.

He locks himself in a room, shooting down hugs or offers of kind words with a deadened look in his eyes.

Even Brian says nothing.

*

Michael's family is dead.

Title: Five Things That Roger Davies Never Did
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Roger/Blaise
Rating: PG
Word Count: 525
Summary: See title. :|
Additional Notes: Written for ccharlotte, and written also for fanfic100, under the prompt If.

( Roger rolls the name on his tongue, contemplating it during practice, in class, as he catches glimpses of avoidant olive-green eyes across the Great Hall, along dungeon corridors and Hogsmeade weekends. )

Title: Gentler Kisses
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Vague, but let's put it at Ravenclaws, although it could work with another pairing I like.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 150 words--me and my love affair with the exact
Summary: There were gentler kisses now.
Additional Notes: For the fanfic100 challenge, for the prompt Taste. I haven't written properly in ages so this is a little. Meh. Unexpected, I guess. I was trying to write something else.


There were kisses that burned his lips and marked his skin long after they first claimed him territory. There were kisses that haunted him long after they'd gone, kisses from a wide-eyed boy with messy hair and goofy grins, now a lonely boy with delicate wrists and soft lips and kisses that lingered. There were kisses that he remembered, kisses that he missed, kisses from the boy he loved who thought love wasn't enough.

There were kisses he learned to forget, kisses he learned to replace with kind smiles and shy hellos, hesitant pauses that eased back into years of friendship and light banter with the same wide-eyed boy who kissed his heart to pieces.

There were gentler kisses now because they meant nothing and, in being so, broke nothing. They were too fragile to break anymore, the boys and their kisses.

But one kiss might have made them whole.

Title: Pansy's Presents
Pairing: Draco/Ron
Rating: PG
Word Count: 101
Summary: Pansy comes around to show her approval of Draco's new beau.
Additional Notes: Written as a pinch-hit for hp_kris_kringle in Christmas '05.


For Christmas that year Pansy had given Draco a present for a night out on Muggle London, providing them with dinner reservations at a classy restaurant as well as luxury accommodations for the night. Her note had instructed Draco to introduce his 'companion' to culture and that she still did not quite approve.

Ron had been stunned.

"Close your mouth, Weasley, unless you’d like to put it to better uses," Draco smirked, tugging his companion to the bed of their hotel room and hoping Pansy forgives him for ignoring dinner reservations, and the socks Ron thought fit to get her.

Title: Ava Adore
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Ginny
Rating: PG
Word Count: 200
Summary: Harry and Ginny are in love, but. Post-war.
Additional Notes: Again, written for xylodemon's I Didn't Get to Go to TWH Ficlet-a-thon. For saphreanth, who prompted with Harry/Ginny. Post-war, but dark. They are both definitely in love with one another, but still, dark. Prompt: lovely girl, you're the murder in my world (from the song Ava Adore by The Smashing Pumpkins). Thanks also goes to siobhanohare, who laughed at me when my word count went from 58 to 74 in thirty minutes. :|


Sometimes she’d like to believe in fairy tales, like she did when she was so much younger. Sometimes she wished that a boy’s smile and the flutter of a girl’s heart set everything right. Sometimes she wanted to close her eyes and open them to white picket fences and sun-dappled gardens and his smile. Her blush. Everything right.

*

He thought it would be over when it was over. He thought he’d finally get his normal life back, the one that was stolen from him when he was one, the one that kept slipping from his fingers when he was thirteen, and then sixteen. He deserved to be surrounded by his friends, not haunted by their memories.

*

There was a story once, tucked between a poem and a tale of knights and quests, of a perfect, short life traded in for a longer, tragic story trapped in the pages of a gift. She wonders if she’d made that choice.

*

In a quiet moment he finds her in the kitchen, humming to herself. He stands behind her, hand resting comfortably on her stomach as he kisses her good morning. She leans back against him and he smiles. She blushes. And everything’s right.

Title: Nineteen Truths About Theodore
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: None (gasp)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1900
Summary: Nineteen truths, nineteen years, nineteen drabbles. Theodore Nott in nineteen hundred words.
Additional Notes: Unedited and written in the spaces where life would let me. For kiwi666. Happy birthday. :)

( It hasn’t been a long life and it isn’t a short death. )

Title: Premonitions
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Blaise/Theodore, very very subtle hint of Draco/Theodore
Word Count: 100 words
Rating: PG
Additional Notes: Written for ccharlotte, who prodded and whined. :D Prompted by "Hogwarts era, best friendship/slight sexual tones :|" and "with colour playing a role :|" Also, forgive the title, I was being rushed. :|


One day, when they were older, they'd realise.

In between sheets of forest green, Blaise will wake to quiet gasps and soft cries, the sound of muffled demands and the whisper of a name that isn’t his, and then he’d realise.

With a craving for red wine, Theodore will turn to find Blaise’s head on his shoulder, and then, to the crescendo of Act Three, Scene Two and the soft breathing of the boy sleeping against him, he’d realise.

One day they’d realise, but until then Blaise shifts restlessly in his bed and Theodore tugs at his formal-black collar impatiently.

Title: A Cultural Thing
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Zacharias
Word Count: 100 words
Rating: PG
Additional Notes: Yes, I shipped Draco/Zach, especially after reading the stuff mistful wrote. Had a bit of trouble with this one, though.


"Look, it's bad enough you're a Hufflepuff."

"What's wrong with being a Hufflepuff?" Zacharias asked indignantly. Draco gave him a long-suffering look. Zacharias glared.

"We just need my parents to warm up to the idea of you, is all I'm saying," Draco mumbled as means of explanation.

"Didn't take you long to warm up." Zacharias smirked.

Draco studiously ignored him. "It's only for Christmas."

"It's not even a proper Jewish holiday."

"You're Jewish too?"

"Brilliant. I've Nazi in-laws."

"Close enough," Draco said. "Don't we have any common ground?"

"We're both boys?"

Draco held his face in his hands and sobbed.

Title: What Girls Know
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Hermione
Length: 250 words
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Harry and Ron talk. Girls know everything.
Additional Notes: Can you believe it? Neither can I. Harry/Hermione, the ship I never thought I'd write, but I do love a challenge, and abilizersparkle prompted me with H/Hr and a fluffy Christmas. Honestly, Hannah, I've no idea why we're friends. *giggles* Merry Christmas anyway! *snuggles*


( 'You know you've got to tell her soon.' )