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Title: I'm Not a Gangster Tonight
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Fandom/Characters: Chess/The Arbiter and Doctor Who.
Word Count: 1043
Rating: G
Summary: The Arbiter has been waiting for someone to call checkmate for a very long time.
Author's Notes: Written for dreamsofstars. The idea was entirely hers.

( You could say the Arbiter's lost his way. )

I told you all it was coming.

Maybe I'd enjoy the gloating more if, you know. I hadn't been bit. In a way though I think it's better this way.

We're You're never going to win.

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Characters/Pairing: Jason/Peter
Word Count: 1467
Rating: R for sexual situations and very minimal language
Summary: It starts when Peter walks in on Jason in a private moment and then it becomes something they aren't sure they should embrace or escape.
Author's Notes: This was one of the first real ideas to grab me and rattle around in my brain for a long time, so that's exciting. Thanks so much to msmoocow for being an awesome beta, and thanks to meemsers. The title comes from one of my favorite songs ever.

Here's the last part! Enjoy! :D

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( They last a few days in a turbulent intermission, hovering between two acts, and Jason isn't sure he's ready for the rest of it. )

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Characters/Pairing: Jason/Peter
Word Count: 1467
Rating: R for sexual situations and very minimal language
Summary: It starts when Peter walks in on Jason in a private moment and then it becomes something they aren't sure they should embrace or escape.
Author's Notes: This was one of the first real ideas to grab me and rattle around in my brain for a long time, so that's exciting. Thanks so much to msmoocow for being an awesome beta, and thanks to meemsers. The title comes from one of my favorite songs ever.

Here's part four!

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( Jason's knee bounces as he sets up his computer, arranges cords, puts things in drawers. )

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Characters/Pairing: Jason/Peter
Word Count: 1445
Rating: R for sexual situations and very minimal language
Summary: It starts when Peter walks in on Jason in a private moment and then it becomes something they aren't sure they should embrace or escape.
Author's Notes: This was one of the first real ideas to grab me and rattle around in my brain for a long time, so that's exciting. Thanks so much to msmoocow for being an awesome beta, and thanks to meemsers. The title comes from one of my favorite songs ever.

Here's part three!

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( The last day before summer finds them lying at opposite angles on Peter's bed. )

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Characters/Pairing: Jason/Peter
Word Count: 1564
Rating: R for sexual situations and very minimal language
Summary: It starts when Peter walks in on Jason in a private moment and then it becomes something they aren't sure they should embrace or escape.
Author's Notes: This was one of the first real ideas to grab me and rattle around in my brain for a long time, so that's exciting. Thanks so much to msmoocow for being an awesome beta, and thanks to meemsers. The title comes from one of my favorite songs ever.

Here's part two. :) Enjoy!

Also arqueete brings up an interesting point. If you want to read this fic to the soundtrack I used to write it (the times I chose to listen to music; usually it was either what I'm about to link you or silence), then you can download that here. It's Death Cab for Cutie's Plans album; just don't include Crooked Teeth in that playlist. That song doesn't really fit the mood. If you're a Death Cab fan and have Narrow Stairs, then toss in "I Will Possess Your Heart", "Bixby Canyon Bridge", "Cath...", and "Grapevine Fires".

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( The night is shaping up to have that familiar feeling, not unlike a fire snapping in a fireplace. )

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Pairing: Jason/Peter
Rating: R
Word Count: Part 1.2: 2077

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( Silence returns to curl itself around their feet but Jason doesn't really pay attention to it this time. )

Title: All the Stars Bend Over Sideways
Author: Rachelle (prosopopeya)
Characters/Pairing: Jason/Peter
Word Count: 3778 (Part One: 1701; Part Two: 2077)
Rating: R for sexual situations and very minimal language
Summary: It starts when Peter walks in on Jason in a private moment and then it becomes something they aren't sure they should embrace or escape.
Author's Notes: This was one of the first real ideas to grab me and rattle around in my brain for a long time, so that's exciting. Thanks so much to msmoocow for being an awesome beta, and thanks to meemsers. The title comes from one of my favorite songs ever.

This fic is completed; it'll be uploaded in parts. There are five parts in all, and only the first one is this long.

1.1 | 1.2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

( The start of summer is a fresh taste in the air, full of dripping popsicles and stale chlorine. )

So I aimed low this year but it turned out better for me in terms of how comfortable and pleased I feel with my creativity. I was supposed to write 3000 words this month, and I wrote 5631. I know that's small change when you consider people writing upwards of 50k a month but I'm not wired that way. I'm highly pleased with 5631 words -- especially considering out of my goal of 3k? Yeah, I managed that in just that WIP fic I have. And I haven't been inspired to write a fic in a looooooong time.

Ultimately I say mission accomplished, not just in terms of word count but in terms of restimulating my writing. Hurray. :)

Okay, just to let everyone know, I haven't totally abandoned mini_nanowrimo. I fell silent on it because I started working on something that might actually turn into something and I didn't want to jinx it. I still don't want to jinx it so there will be no details here, other than there is something in the works. And currently I'm way over my 100 daily word goal. XD

SO YEAH THAT'S IT. :)

This was entirely inspired by today's picture prompt. I kind of like it.



Day Ten: Unstuck in Time

There’s detergent in the air, a clean-washed smell of soap and crispness and warmth, and the sound of clothes in a gentle breeze, of clothespin creaking against thick string. Between two baskets—light clothes, delicates; towels—a girl fidgets on long, thin legs, her knee bulging from between spindly thigh and bony shin. She’s too little to do anything more than stand, which is a difficult enough task when the air swirls and mixes up the smell and the sounds with her hair, all of it lightly whipping along her cheeks.

Her mother hums, one piece of clothing at a time, one clothespin at a time, extras stuck to her shirt, hanging off her like misplaced jewelry. Time feels disjointed, unimportant, irrelevant when there’s soap at her nose, wind tickling her ears, her mother’s quiet, calm voice somehow presiding over it all. She could be six or she could be sixty; it wouldn’t change this moment, this day, this sun, this song, this wind, these clothes.

... guys.

Guys.

1) I wrote Melchior/Moritz fanfiction for the first time in a while, though it isn't very long, only 532 words.

2) I wrote... .... .... happy Melchior/Moritz. Though it's just friendship, not anything relationshippy.

i. no. rite.

Anyway it was inspired by this:



and mostly by me just having a good day. And wanting to cuddle.

Day Nine: Greenery and Humid Air

It feels rebellious to be out this late, to feel how the darkness inching closer changes things, how the wind cools down, how branches snap farther off in the woods and the chittering of animals is louder, more oppressive without the light to hold it back. A part of Moritz doesn’t want to be out here; a part of him finds it almost too rebellious, too strange, but mostly he doesn’t care. The air is light and crisp and moist and it feels good in his lungs; it feels more like life than anything else he’s been living lately.

And anyway, it’s not every day he and Melchior get to have a secret adventure outside, their socks rolled down to keep them from getting dirty and their sleeves rolled up, their jackets folded at the base of the tree. They started out energetic, with laughter and heated debate (mostly from Melchior’s side, but Moritz got a speech or two), and then there was the swimming, the setting up of the tent, the preparing of food.

Now, though, they’re just lying outside with the sun sinking into the trees. It sends orange light through Melchior’s hair, making it blend in with the webbing of branches and leaves behind him. There’s a glow to his skin like that, in this light, lying back on the ground with his shirt sticking to him, their skin slightly wet, his chest falling in a steady, slow rhythm.

He’s tired but he isn’t sleepy; he’s worn out but he isn’t exhausted. It’s the kind of tired that’s fulfilling, that leaves you with more than it takes away because it lets you lie still and sink into your thoughts, but they aren’t troubling thoughts. Homework or his parents or his dreams aren’t going through his head; instead he notices the smell of the grass, the sound of the wind tickling the leaves, the feel of his shirt, warm and damp.

They’re not talking anymore and even if Moritz has come to need the rise and fall of Melchior’s voice as much as the rise and fall of his own breath, there’s something peaceful, something so very uniquely theirs in this silence, the silence that comes from companionship and talking and laughing and playing. In this lull, with the crickets and birds and squirrels and insects shifting in the fading light, he can hear everything that makes them who they are, everything that makes them this MelchiorandMoritz unit that feels so much more comfortable sometimes than Moritz’s own skin.

Melchior glances over, turning his head gently, the silence too heavy and thick and omnipresent to let him move too quickly. For a moment Moritz thinks he’s going to say something; his lips part and maybe he almost does, but all that follows is a smile.

Moritz returns it, feeling a slight blush creep into his cheeks, but at that moment, he really doesn’t care. The wind is cool against his face and the last few amber remnants of the day are dripping over the horizon. His heartbeat is hushed, afraid to break the stillness, and his lungs are quiet; it’s just the unspoken bond between them drying in the last light of summer.

I'm doing a better job of getting into this story than I would be if I were writing an actual NaNo. Here're Dulcinea and Louisa again. :)

I didn't really take any inspiration from day seven's prompt post. This bit is something I thought up when I decided to name the girl Dulcinea.

Day Seven: Matador

“Hola, mi hija. Hola, Luisa.” Dulci’s mom smiles, looking up from her Spanish People, and Dulci rolls her eyes.

“Can’t we speak English? We’re not even Spanish.”

“No se necesita ser español para apreciar la cultura,” her mom replies cheerily, her accent slightly tainted from her Southern upbringing. I had to start taking Spanish in middle school just so I could understand what Dulci’s mother was saying when I went over to their house. By the time I got to class, I understood nearly everything in that first year thanks to her.

Dulci, as you can imagine, is fluent, but she doesn’t speak it anymore. She takes German in school to spite her parents, and she gets C’s too; I think that’s another form of attack, but one that I could never make sense of. She speaks German with a fluid rhythm to rival her mother’s when she wants to, not that I can ever understand her. Mostly, though, she likes to curse in German. No one can understand her, then.

“Whatever, Mom,” she sighs, marching up the stairs to her room.

The day I told her I was going to take Spanish in school, she nearly had a fit, her voice threatening to yell as she put her hands on her hips, her eyes wide and angry and looking for a fight.

“Why in hell would you do something like that? You don’t need a Spanish class; you spend enough time here!” I shrugged her off, and she rolled her eyes and didn’t talk to me for two days. I’ve never spoken a word of it in her presence, but there’s something I like about knowing Spanish and knowing that she knows Spanish. It’s like a secret language we could share, if she would ever speak it.

I smile at her mother and run up the steps before she engages me in any Spanish conversation, running past Goya and Velázquez and Greco reproductions, past Andalusian artifacts and portraits of authors, pictures of Dulci and her family sprinkled between them. Inside Dulci’s room is the only place in the entire house lacking in both art and anything remotely related to Spain. The pictures on her walls are posters of German bands, animes, French movie posters, pictures from Italy—but nothing Spanish.



For day eight I drew inspiration from this:



And though it didn't really get included, I misread the quote for this day and it was part of what was going on in my head when I was writing:

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will. ~John Atkinson

I read "If you don't ruin your own life, somebody else will."

Day Eight: Huesos

Snow cakes the walls surrounding the graveyard, pale grey stretches of bone serving to protect the inmates inside. Somehow the ground inside is coated with a thinner layer than the ground outside, like the energy of decomposing bodies is making the snow melt. Or maybe they’re thirsty in there, and they need to pull the water from above the ground and keep it down in there with them. Gravestones stand like sentries to watch out for who might be trespassing into their territory, and I stand at the gates, watching Dulci hop up onto the stone wall and kick her feet against it, knocking snow to the ground.

“Get down from there,” I mutter quickly, eyes flashing between her and the stones inside, waiting for one or the other to move.

Dulci laughs and shakes her head, reaching for her cigarettes. She takes one out and taps it against the box before she brings it to her lips to light it. “Why? They’re dead. They don’t care.” Her breath is white and grey and it mixes with the bare tree behind her, its branches hanging down and waiting to pull her into their fold.

“They might,” I mumble and slink away from the door, standing by her but not touching the wall. If I had my way my feet wouldn’t even be touching the ground.

“Oh, please. You watch too many horror movies. They’ve rotted your brain.” With that she grabs her bag, purple and red and orange and the only color for miles, and swings her legs over the side. Her laugh is quick to come after she leaps off and I hear her land, her feet squishing into the snow.

“Dulci!”

Eehhh. Sort of inspired by the prompt post:
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. ~ Plato

Dulci and Louisa again.

Day 6: Blinders and Filters

I used to think that between the two of us there weren’t any secrets. It felt like I told her everything about me, everything that mattered to me or happened to me or didn’t even really matter all that much. That’s actually a problem of mine, that I never really know when to shut up. Dulci says I lack a filter in the back of my throat to keep my thoughts from spilling out when I don’t want them to.

I used to think that was true but here, today, watching her rake her fingers through her hair and twist it in top of her head in a bun, I know it’s not true. It never felt like a secret I was withholding until I realized just how much I could never say to her how beautiful I think she is. I can feel the surge of thoughts clogging up my filter, choking me.

It won’t be until much later that I get that there was never a time when there weren’t secrets between us, even before I hit puberty. She was always a secret.

Election Day distracted me from actually posting up what I wrote yesterday. XD

Day Four isn't really inspired by anything in the prompt post; this is a character that's been kicking around in my head for a little while, though I'm not sure if anything's going to happen with her. Her name is Dulcinea, Dulci for short.


Day Four: Hopeless Cases
It’s always been like this, always a new saint for a new day for a new batch of sinners, of needy people, of jobs, of diseases, of towns. It used to start out with “Did you know there’s a patron saint for journalists?” or “Did you know there’s a patron saint for rape victims?” but now we skip the formalities. All it takes is for her to sit down at our table and a few seconds of conversation before someone asks, “So who is it today?” She doesn’t even reply in sentences anymore. “Abdominal pains.” “Taxi drivers.” “Hairdressers.”

They’re always there, dangling from her neck or ears or wrists or shirt or sometimes even her belt, trinkets jingling on her purse like the distant call of a chorus, a small one. It’s never more than one at once; once she told me that felt sacrilegious, to wear more than one. It felt like tempting fate, like overplaying your hand. She likes to play it safe.


Day Five is inspired by the prompt post.

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. ~ Susan Ertz, Anger in the Sky

Same characters as yesterday; same narrator (Louisa, thx shapesofbirds for having a cool name), same girl.


Day Five: Rainy Sunday Afternoons

“What do you think about them?” Her voice is abrupt, different from the quiet, steady monotone of two kids studying, and I look up from my history book, tilting my head.

“About who? The conquistadors? About Columbus? I’m not really a fan.”

She shakes her head and she isn’t really talking to me anymore; I can see it in the way her eyes dart past me, in the way she chews at her lip instead of at her hair, a habit she’s been trying to break since fourth grade.

“The ones looking for the fountain of youth. Who want to live forever. There are a lot of people out there who want that, aren’t there? Who never want to die.”

There’s a sharpness to her eyes but I don’t like to see it so I watch her lips instead, slightly chapped but always a faded shade of rose, either in the early stages of its first bloom or crawling out toward its last days.

“I guess so, yeah.” There’s no other reply that feels safe other than a noncommittal one, and anyway I’m watching her hands, their fingers curled tight into her palm, holding onto something that neither one of us could see.

“What do you think they want to live for, all those people? What are they doing now that’s so great they want to keep it going forever? That’s a long time, Lou. That’s a fucking long time.”

It’s a pathetic, miserable little thought that flashes through my mind, but there it goes and there it went and its passing is brief but I can’t ignore it. My lips almost let it out, but my teeth scramble to hold it back, biting hard into my bottom lip. Maybe I could live forever with you. I’m glad when it’s gone, when it slinks back into the depths of unwanted thought and feeling it came from.

I really love mini_nanowrimo. Whenever I've tried NaNo in the past, it stresses and frustrates and irritates me beyond belief and crushes any creativity I may have under the burden of word counts and finishing and blah blah blah.

HOWEVER. mini_nanowrimo is much better for me. It's actually so much more fun to do mini stories every day.

Day 2: Of Cabbages and Kings
Word Count: 164/100

The time has come, though not to talk; she’s through with talking, with fretting, with worrying. She’s through with it all, with her whole life to this point, and though her hands shake and her ankles protest the heels she’s still wearing—she’s ready. Finally she’s goddamned ready for something to happen in her life.

This is where all the poets would say that it’s surprisingly easy to leave, but it isn’t. Maybe they’re supposed to say that, to help make you think that it’s true, to help give you hope that maybe one day you can break free from whatever your life is and take one step in another direction, then another, and another, until your life is so far gone that it starts to fade into the woods, just another path that you chose not to go down.

It isn’t easy, but it feels damn good. And maybe, somewhere inside, maybe she’s ready for something to be difficult.

mini_nanowrimo! First day! :D Hopefully I can do this this year. I can't do actual NaNo because jgiowaghew I just don't have the time, but I should be able to manage 100 words a day. We'll seeeee.

Here's my first one... I'm kind of eehhh about it, but hey -- first one, right? Also it's 4:30 and I'm not going to keep reworking it, so there you go. Inspiration taken from this prompt in the prompt post:

I - Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require. ~Shakespeare, Sonnet 54

Day One: Caveat

I could say I spent today studying your rose-colored lips, curving out of your face in a gentle upsweeping arc, and that little indentation—that little furrow between the nose and the upper lip, you know? It has a name but I don’t remember it, and anyway it isn’t important because yours, oh yours is perfection. It doesn’t need another name.

I could say that’s how I spent today, but I can’t. That’s how I spent yesterday, and the day before, an eternity of days before that. I know because we’re destined for each other. You and me, me and you. We were made for each other. My heart beats the same blood as yours. Goosebumps prickle my skin when you get cold.

We haven’t spoken yet in this life, but we will.

Soon.

SO. ABOUT LAST NIGHT. It's a really long account of what transpired, but there are plenty of John being adorable bits so you can scroll through to read those? XDD

( The entire night )

Title: Lines of Fear and Blame
Author: Rachelle(prosopopeya)
Character/Pairing(s): Melchior and Moritz (friendship), mentions of Melchior/Wendla
Word Count: 1473
Rating: PG
Summary: Moritz's light burns sharp, a coal that needs tending in the middle of a broad, snowy field, and Melchior has a decision to make.
Author's Notes: It's been a while! I'm a bit rusty but I hope to write more. We'll see. Happy birthday, meemsers.

( He can still smell the scent of fresh woodruff, sweet and innocent. )