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if you read nothing else in this post, read the last paragraph!!!
The printer is making death rattle noises. There are four of us currently here, in an office of 20+. None of my favorites are in. At least five of the people who aren't here are out for the entire week. So much jealousy. So much. I know my vacation is coming but I want it to come FASTER! I really miss having a winter break this year. This is the first year I've ever not finished reading through the Yuletide archive before having to go back to school/work. I am only up to the beginning of the M's in the fandom list; I'm a little over halfway there. I want to read more and more and more, but I'm trying to avoid fan fiction while at work, especially since my wireless access is no longer cutting it and I can't do internets on my laptop.
Basically, this is a pointless post about how bored I am and how cranky I am that I have to be at work today when I could be at home reading fanfic, kink meme-ing, and RPing. Ridiculous complaints are ridiculous, but I am still so happy it is a four-day work week.
(If you want a good laugh, go through Rotten Tomatoes' section for Sherlock Holmes. Some of the less flattering reviews are uproarious. I sat by myself at the reception desk this morning, as no one called and no one came in, just laughing my ass off. Bad reviews are the best! Writers always come up with their best turns of phrase in them.)
So this is a Give Me Things to Write and I Shall Endeavor to Write Them post! You all know my fandoms and what I am willing to try (for the record, a few ideas off the top of my head: Sherlock Holmes (new movie or oldschool canon), Iron Man, Glee, Sons of Anarchy, The Mentalist, NCIS, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, iCarly, National Treasure, M*A*S*H, Hellboy, Firefly, True Blood... there are many many many things I'm willing to try that aren't on this list, so feel free to request others if you know I am familiar with the source material). I can't write anything dreadful or explicit due to being at work, but otherwise, I'm pretty easy. Give me a character or characters, a pairing, a situation you want to see somebody in, a word or a song lyric or a phrase... Crossovers, crack, angst, romance, gen, whatever else, and general ridiculousness are all a-okay. Just give me something to jot short things about. For the love of God, please. D: D:
Basically, this is a pointless post about how bored I am and how cranky I am that I have to be at work today when I could be at home reading fanfic, kink meme-ing, and RPing. Ridiculous complaints are ridiculous, but I am still so happy it is a four-day work week.
(If you want a good laugh, go through Rotten Tomatoes' section for Sherlock Holmes. Some of the less flattering reviews are uproarious. I sat by myself at the reception desk this morning, as no one called and no one came in, just laughing my ass off. Bad reviews are the best! Writers always come up with their best turns of phrase in them.)
So this is a Give Me Things to Write and I Shall Endeavor to Write Them post! You all know my fandoms and what I am willing to try (for the record, a few ideas off the top of my head: Sherlock Holmes (new movie or oldschool canon), Iron Man, Glee, Sons of Anarchy, The Mentalist, NCIS, Bones, How I Met Your Mother, iCarly, National Treasure, M*A*S*H, Hellboy, Firefly, True Blood... there are many many many things I'm willing to try that aren't on this list, so feel free to request others if you know I am familiar with the source material). I can't write anything dreadful or explicit due to being at work, but otherwise, I'm pretty easy. Give me a character or characters, a pairing, a situation you want to see somebody in, a word or a song lyric or a phrase... Crossovers, crack, angst, romance, gen, whatever else, and general ridiculousness are all a-okay. Just give me something to jot short things about. For the love of God, please. D: D:
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"Without further adooooo~~~" Carly wiggled her fingers, both girls' faces bobbing in and out of camera view. "WE GIVE YOU:"
(Behind the camera, Freddie was already stifling laughter.)
"GIBBYYY THE TEEEERRIBLE," both girls chorused together, doing TA-DA! arms in the general direction of the back of the studio. Freddie hit the button to bring the letters up and they flashed across the bottom of the screen, Gibby's new title in barbaric-looking lettering.
No one stepped out.
Sam and Carly exchanged a glance, smiles still fixed, and then Carly said into the camera, "I said--"
"GIBBY THE TEEEEEEE~~~EEEERIBLLLLLE!" they both chanted again.
Nothing.
"Gibby!" Sam barked, stomping off toward the back of the studio. "If you don't get out here, I'm gonna break your thumbs and wiggle 'em like spaghetti noodles!" She vanished into the back.
Carly stared wide-eyed into the camera. "Uh..." she said.
"I don't wanna!" shouted Gibby from backstage, and then there were yells and few lower-pitched shouts from Sam's voice. Gibby came flying out into the studio, his two-horned hat askew on his head and covering his eyes, and his furry skirt rustling with his panicked hurry.
Carly caught him by the shoulders and steered him in front of the camera. "It's Gibby the Terrible, everyone!" she said.
Gibby tipped his hat up, raised his plastic sword, and, through his blond fake beard, said a flat, "Arrr."
"That's pirates, you numb brain," said Sam, strolling after him while biting off a hunk of beef jerky. "Not Vikings."
"You guys said if I was gonna do this, I'd get to have creative freedom!" Gibby shot back at her, putting Carly between the two of them.
"And you do!" Carly interrupted, once again with a fixed smile at the camera, in a voice that belonged on a game show announcer somewhere. "He may not be six feet tall--"
Sam jumped back into the script. "--And he may be wearing a horned hat and carrying a cup made out of a skull, which is historically inaccurate--"
"And yet so funny," said Freddie from behind the camera, and Gibby scowled at him.
"--But he's going to perform a traditional Viking ritual! Freddie?"
"La musica!" Freddie trilled, leaning back to the computer and pressing play. A loud pop song filled the studio, and Gibby began doing the macarena with an expression that suggested that he was doing this under extreme duress and threats of epic wedgies.
"Well, that's all we have time for today," Carly said, as the camera shifted back to them and Gibby kept dancing away in the background.
"Uuuuuntil next time," said Sam, bouncing.
Both girls threw an arm up, fists clenched, at the same moment, and shouted, "PILLAAAAAAAGE!"
"Aaaand -- we're out," said Freddie, keeping an eye on the equipment and finally able to laugh, and Gibby groaned and flopped on the floor.
"I will never have a social life again," he said, his voice muffled by the floor.
"Oh, cheer up, Gibbifer; it's not like you had one to begin with," Sam said, and she used his back as a stepping stone to walk toward the studio door.
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So, how about a slashy original Sherlock Holmes drabble?
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“Holmes,” he hissed quietly, and as if someone or something had been waiting for a sound, splashes echoed off the tunnel walls from around the corner just ahead. Watson glanced down at his service revolver, held steadily in his hand and pointed at the wet ground, and he began to make his way forward as quietly as possible. He did not dare call out again; he simply had to trust that if the rapidly approaching footsteps belonged to Holmes (and from the loud approach in the vast amounts of liquid being kicked up, he strongly suspected that they did not), his companion would not shoot him between the eyes in error.
The figure that came around the corner was certainly not Holmes. Watson found himself holding his service revolver on a bright red neck, and when he automatically adjusted to bring the barrel up to head level –
Watson’s eyes grew enormous.
“Damn!” said the red horned creature, which was pointing a pistol of tremendous proportions at Watson’s knees. It – he, from the deep American voice, the build, and the hair on his face – holstered its weapon. “You’re not a man-eating alligator.” He sounded, of all things, disappointed.
Watson opened his mouth; closed it. Then he tried once again. “Holmes,” he called, not daring to glance away.
“You can put the gun away, pal,” said the creature, which Watson answered by slowly backing away, his arm still raised.
“Holmes!” he barked over his shoulder as loudly as he dared.
“Terrible stealth, man; simply bottom rate,” echoed Holmes’s irritated voice. The fact that he had responded at all – and was coming closer – spoke to just how much of a desperate edge had been in Watson’s shout. “Moretti is just going to casually saunter out of the tunnels at this—” Sherlock Holmes turned the corner, and stopped in his tracks. He blinked. “Good God.”
“Oh,” said the creature, looking from one man to the other. “Crap.” A moment passed. “Hey babe?” he called over his shoulder.
“What?” shouted a quite annoyed, quite American, quite female voice. Watson and Holmes exchanged a swift glance. Watson slowly began to lower his weapon.
“I think we took a wrong turn somewhere.”
“How wrong?” she asked, louder, accompanied by the sound of quiet splashes.
The creature took another look at the two of them. “Realllly wrong.”
A slight woman in an entirely-black, form fitting costume ducked out of a side tunnel, a very strange gun held casually at her side – and she stopped in her tracks when her eyes fell upon Watson and Holmes. “Shit,” she said. “Did we time travel?” She said it as though the phenomenon were an everyday irritation.
“They are searching out a man-eating alligator,” Watson told Holmes, his tone more than suggesting his startled disbelief.
“Fascinating,” said Holmes, without skipping a beat. “We will be sure to scream if we spot it. Tell me, have you seen a man running through these tunnels?” This last statement and then question, he turned on the woman and the creature.
The woman pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “He went that-a-way,” she said sardonically.
“Capital! Come, Watson,” said Holmes, charging in the demonstrated direction, and Watson was left to protest, “Holmes!” while he was dragged along by his scarf.
“Watson,” said the creature thoughtfully, and then Watson could hear him brighten without even having to turn around to see it. “Hey! I think that was Sherlock Holmes.”
“We’re in Victorian England?” the woman demanded. “Red!” and then their voices were gone in the darkness behind them.
The game was afoot.
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Anyway, any chance of seeing Father Mulcahy discuss 'I just found out I'm friends with the devil' with Aslan? Since that thread never got written.
Alternatively, some kind of NCIS/M*A*S*H* crossover, perhaps with Hawkeye and Ducky being old friends.
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Sherlock Holmes, Holmes/Watson, post-boxing.
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Holmes was laughing like a maniac, and making himself of very little use when it came to moving forward.
“I will never,” Watson grunted, Holmes’s arm slung around his neck and warm side pressed up against his, “understand why you find lying to hansom cab drivers so amusing.”
“That is because you have no appreciation for the finer things in life, old boy.” Holmes lurched to the side again as he spoke, and Watson barely caught him in time to prevent him from toppling over, staggering himself. The hansom rattled off into the darkness behind them, and Watson hauled Holmes up the steps and into 221B. Mrs. Hudson had left a lamp burning, and under the flickering light, the full extent of Holmes’s dishevelment – and of his bruises – became more readily evident. His shirt tails were hanging out, his wrinkled jacket and scarf thrown on haphazardly. His left eye had begun to swell shut and his face was slowly turning ugly colours in several locations. He moved like a drunkard, or perhaps like a man trying to ride a bicycle while upside-down underwater, all of which did not assist Watson in his generally thankless job of dragging him back to Baker Street after a boxing match.
Watson shot a most dubious look at the staircase in front of them, then grimly started up it.
“Are you ignoring me?” Holmes sounded terribly amused by the prospect, tapping steps with Watson's cane as they went along.
“How you could possibly think so, given that you are currently threatening to pull me off the staircase with you—” Watson let go of Holmes's waist to grab the rail, and he held there until the worst of Holmes’s momentary lurch had passed. “—I have no idea.” Watson was a stout fellow and the taller of the two, but Holmes was heavy and stumbling, and while Watson generally went about without great trouble from his bad leg, it became quite difficult to avoid placing his weight on it while supporting another party’s.
“I am not about to pull you off the stairs,” Holmes scoffed, even as his opposite shoulder hit the wall, dragging Watson with him. “I am simply having some small bit of trouble with my equilibrium.”
“Small?” Watson said with a hint of incredulousness, finally wrestling him upright, up the final few steps, and into the hall.
“Infinitesimal.”
“I do hope that this infinitesimal experience will dissuade you from allowing an opponent to crack your head against the floor again in future.”
“It was a diversionary tactic,” Holmes insisted. “I had him right where I wanted him.”
“I’m certain,” said Watson, whose tone suggested nothing of the sort, as they came to a halt outside the familiar door. If he released Holmes, Watson strongly suspected that his companion would tumble, and as partially tempting of a thought as that was, as a physician, he could not allow it. Thus, instead of finding his own heavy set of keys, Watson simply shifted the arm already around Holmes’s waist and reached into his jacket pocket.
Holmes blinked at him exaggeratedly and said immediately, “Why Watson, I never knew you cared.”
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Watson could hear the muffled thud even while across the hall. He simply shook his head to himself and, finished gathering his bag into order, crossed back to find Holmes on the floor, ineffectually attempting to dissuade the dog from licking his ear.
“Good dog,” said Watson, nearly grinning, and he gave the bull pup a light, fond slap on the side. Then he took Holmes by the arms, hauled him to his feet, and led him to a chair by the fire, which Mrs. Hudson had presumably stoked before retiring.
“Dreadful creature,” Holmes said, bleary but irrepressible.
"The dog?" Watson asked, dragging over a second chair and opening his bag over a side table.
"No, you," Holmes said, and Watson gave a faint, genuine chuckle.
"Your head down, please."
"You probably say that to all your patients," said Holmes, leaning on the armrest and bowing his head, and Watson permissibly rolled his eyes as he carefully searched out the contusion hidden in Holmes's hair, more gentle than he had to be.
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Dr. Lance Sweets sits in a chair across from her, equally silently but seemingly vastly more at ease. He calmly and steadily looks right at Van Pelt while her eyes study everything in the office that is not her new psychiatrist. He has his hands clasped, a notebook nearby, and he seems perfectly content to sit there forever without ever saying a word.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Van Pelt says, “I feel like I’m in third grade again,” half-laughing and half-scoffing, desperately self-conscious.
Dr. Sweets smiles, the sort of smile that’s a professional front; meant to put you at ease. “Why’s that?”
Van Pelt almost laughs again. She feels a little hysterical, but hysteria is definitely not befitting of a California Bureau of Investigation agent and she stuffs the feeling down. “I don’t know,” she says. “The office, the authority figure staring at me til I break down and confess.”
“Well, I can set you at ease on a couple of those,” he says, smiling again. “I’m not an authority figure, you’re not here because you’ve done anything wrong, and I’m not trying to cause any breakdowns.”
“I guess,” Van Pelt mutters, and then she sighs and presses a hand to her face. “I’m sorry; you didn’t deserve that. It’s just I – I’ve just had some less-than-great experiences with psychiatrists. In the past.” God, she thinks, you need to grow a spine, Grace Van Pelt; you didn’t even want to apologize, but you felt so uncomfortable that you did it anyway.
He slowly nods, his fingers steepled in silence, and Van Pelt abruptly finds herself saying, “Look, I’m sorry, but could you please talk? The silent treatment is totally freaking me out.”
For a half a second, he looks startled, like he didn’t expect such frankness out of her and now has to revise his judgment, and then it’s gone behind that mask of professionalism again. “Sure,” he says. “We can talk. Why do you think you’re here?”
Van Pelt glances down at her knees. “You know,” she says, her voice low. “Red John. Jane. You’ve read the files.” Her tone takes on more of an edge than she means for it to, with the last sentence, and she rests one hand over the back of the other in her lap, her knuckles white with her grip. “The feds stole the case from the CBI and now I'm here to testify, except somebody decided I had to talk to a 'mental health professional' first, so here I am.”
Dr. Sweets looks at her for a long moment, and then he says, "Okay." She frowns at him, confused. "I think that's enough for today."
"Enough?" she asks, not quite daring to believe it. "That's it?"
"Well, I don't see the point in continuing if you don't want to be here and you don't want to talk to me," he says practically. He leans back and plucks a business card out of a stack off his desk, and then he clicks his pen and jots something on the back. "This is my card. Call me anytime. No more awkward silences. Scout's honor."
She nods quietly, hesitating for just a second before taking the card when he offers it to her. She flips it over to read the seven digit number on the back. "Cell phone?" she asks.
"Yeah," he says, and at her extremely unimpressed look, he hastily adds, "Oh no, I'm not hitting on you. Totally professional capacity, and anyway, my girlfriend would kill me." It's the most genuine thing that's come out of his mouth in ten minutes, and Van Pelt gives a tiny tic of a smile.
"Okay," she says softly.
In my extremely vague backstory, either Red John killed Jane or vice versa.
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*scampers away, blushing red*
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:D?
Basically I want to see Riley meet Sam, but anything else will undoubtedly be hilarious also!
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"Me llamo Sammo," says the other.
They both look at their guest.
"...Heey," Riley says weakly to the camera.
"...This is iCarly!" Carly says.
"We have with us today a dweeb--"
Carly elbows Sam, and Riley stops nervously watching his reflection in the camera lens long enough to look offended.
"--A guest!" Sam self-corrects. "A guest. Jeez. This," both girls gesture at Riley at once, "is Riley. He's a treasure hunter."
"You remember when those guys found all that cr-aaazy stuff under New York City a couple years ago?" asks Carly. The helpful animation that pops up, when Freddie hits a button, is an old-school drawing of a bunch of pirates standing over a huge mound of gold coins and treasure chests. Riley's face has been superimposed over a pirate with a pick-axe. He has been given an eyepatch and missing teeth and a mustache, all clearly Photodocked in with the black paintbrush tool. "Riley was one of Those Guys!" Sometimes, Carly seriously does sound like she belongs on the Game Show Network. This is one of those times. "He wrote a book about it."
"And I couldn't get on the Today Show, 60 Minutes, Oprah, the View, or even Tyra Banks," Riley says through gritted teeth with a fixed smile at the camera.
"...So here he is!" Carly exclaims, eyeing him.
Sam holds up a copy of The Templar Treasure and Other Myths That Are True. "God, you were such a dork when you were a kid," she tells Riley. "I can smell it."
("Sam," Carly tries.)
"Mostly 'cause you're still a dork now."
("Sam!")
"Laugh it up, fuzzball," Riley drawls. "One, dorks rule the world when they grow up, and two, I so was and am not a nerd!"
"Who you callin' Fuzzball?" Sam demands, and Carly swiftly steps between them, making HELP ME eyes at Freddie, who is manning the camera.
"And now," Carly says, the unmistakable signs of polite strain on her face, "we'll act out a scene!"
"My agent is sooo fired," Riley sing-songs under his breath.
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(1/2)
guest starinvestigate a serial killer and is kidnapped by him (and ultimately rescued by the L.A. NCIS team)."Hi McGee," Abby says cheerfully, navigating her rolling suitcase with one hand and her cell phone with the other. "I was going to text Gibbs but then I realized Gibbs doesn't text so I thought I'd text you but then I couldn't text and walk at the same time so I probably should have gone back to Gibbs but I already had your number dialed."
"I take it you're on the ground?" Timmy sounds a little out of breath; Abby thinks she probably interrupted him in the middle of running some kind of bizarre late night Gibbsian errand.
"You take it correctly!" she tells him, stepping around a family of five (the little girl staring after Abby's Doc Martens and dog collar, which wasn't the best choice ever for an airport security day). "Baggage bagged, security circumvented, and door about to be ... dove through. Dived through?" She wrinkles her nose. "That alliteration didn't work out the way I'd planned. Ignore that."
She pulls her suitcase out into the big area where -- actually, she doesn't know the technical term for it. Arrivals gate? Giant open space where people wait with bated breath for loved ones and wave homemade glittery signs welcoming them home? Abby totally digs that part of traveling, watching the happy reunions and all, but her flight from L.A. arrived in D.C. at 12:16 A.M. EST (man is that a lot of acronyms at once), which makes it barely 9:00 in Abby's still-in-California mind, which is always disconcerting. But anyway -- getting in after midnight means that there are less travelers and not so many little kids wanting to hug Daddy home.
"Hello?" she asks into the phone. "Hel-lo? You know, McGee, that long pause after someone stops saying something is usually a cue for you to--"
"Sorry," he breaks in. "Sorry, I just had to -- There you are."
Abby frowns. "There what is? What in the name of Linux is Gibbs making you do for him?"
"Gibbs isn't making me do anything for him," says McGee, his voice echoing strangely, and then she looks up and sees him standing about five feet away. Cell phone held to his ear, he gives her a wave even as he breaks out into a smile. "Hi."
"McG--" Abby starts to say into the phone, then she stops, closes the phone, and drops the handle of her suitcase. "McGee, what're you doing here!" She launches herself at him, beaming, and from the way he holds fast even after being hit with an onslaught of Goth, he's either been working out lately or knew that was coming and braced himself for it. Maybe both!
"I thought you might need a ride home," he says into her hair, his arms wrapped around her almost as tight as hers are around him, and Abby smiles with her mouth closed against his shoulder and her eyes squeezed shut.
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OR IF THAT IS BORING FOR YOU
Tony Stark at Bill Compton's house. :D
(1/2)
She's completely unprovokable, and Tony Stark is really great at provoking, so that really says something. She sits there, silent and straight-backed and calm no matter what he says, her hair tied back in a ragged scarf to reveal her serene (truly beautiful under some streaks of grime, and don't think he hasn't tried that tack) face.
Which is why it is so shocking when one day (or night; in the caves through the mountains of Serenity Valley, who can tell?), she interrupts him while he's in the middle of a rather excellent monologue on precisely what he is going to do when he gets back to civilization (it involves more engineering and mechanical parts than most people's fantasies might).
"If you feel better enough to talk this much, you can answer some questions," she says. Her voice is low and a little husky, and just as modulated as the rest of her.
Tony only stops for a second; he tries to cover just how much this throws him. "Well," he says, mock-cheery, "I'm a Virgo, I enjoy long walks on the beach--"
"What're you doin' on Hera?"
"I came for the healing waters and I stayed for the scintillating company," Tony says, deadpan, one hand fingering the edge of the bandages wrapped around his chest.
She doesn't so much as twitch, looking at him steadily with the usual rifle resting across her (lovely, charming; beautiful legs) lap, casual as you please. "You came to show off a new weapon to the Feds. You're gonna build us one." She says it like it's simple fact; it's not a threat, it's not a promise. Just fact.
Tony's face settles into obstinate lines, and out of her sight against his side, he starts up a death grip on several blankets. "No," he says, and he doesn't know how she wordlessly, motionlessly summoned the guy, but a big Dust Devil comes through the door. Tony struggles to start to sit up when the big guy and the woman come toward his corner, but he isn't a fighter and he's weak and tired and unwilling to admit it but afraid, and with one of them on each of his arms, they haul him up like he's a toothpick.
As they drag him into the corridor, his chest feeling like someone has taken a sledgehammer to it, Tony thinks about the casual way that the woman summoned the other guerrilla, and he resigns himself to the conclusion that his guard is probably higher than a lowly guard in the hierarchy of this merry band of stone-faced idealists.
(2/2) (with profuse apologies for the character voice)
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"Have you seen this?" Ben crowed to Abigail, laughing over a crumbling cross-stitched banner. "I think Jane Jefferson stitched it!"
"Oh my God," Abigail said, scrambling across the vault, arms swung wide and outstretched. "Don't touch it, don't even breathe on it; we need to get a conservation team in here immediately--"
"Uhh Ben!" Riley barked, much louder and more desperate this time, and, while suddenly and swiftly backing up, he kicked over a eighteenth century tea table.
"Careful!" Ben and Abigail snapped in one anguished voice.
"I wouldn't worry about the antique furniture," Riley quavered, continuing to scramble backward as fast as humanly possible. "Guys, seriously--" Abigail stared at him; Ben frowned at Riley, then turned to look at the statue Riley had been studying.
It stepped out from behind the antique screen, and Ben realized that it wasn't a statue.
"Verdammte," Abigail whispered, her eyes huge.
"Guys!" Riley shouted, nearly back out the vault door by now, and Ben snapped out of it first.
"Come on, come on!" Ben ducked back around a sturdy armchair (mid-century Bergere, beautiful walnut detailing, most likely imported from France, he automatically catalogued), hauling Abigail with him.
The ... the thing, whatever it was, paused; he thought -- though he couldn't be sure, as it didn't have eyes, or a face -- it may have been looking between him and Abigail, and Riley in the vault doorway.
Abigail had stumbled at first, clearly still frozen in shock, but now it was her turn to come out of it; she swiftly took the lead, clambering over a steamer trunk in their scramble across the vault toward the door, trying to keep as many artifacts as possible between them and the -- whatever it was.
It turned toward them -- and something shattered across its gray-green-brown oozing surface, porcelain fragments flying. A strange, terrible sort of noise came from it, indecipherable and inhuman, and it turned back toward Riley, who promptly went, "WHATTHEFUCKISTHAT" and threw another vase (this one, Ben couldn't help but note with a distant cringe, of the Yi dynasty's distinct style).
The creature glided toward Riley, who swiftly backpedaled -- and then, with an "Urk--" and a violent jerk that more than suggested an outward source to the sudden motion, he disappeared from sight.
"Riley--" Ben started to shout.
A big red-skinned man in a long trench coat took two easy strides into the vault, walking through the space where Riley had been standing seconds earlier, and he delivered a crushing punch to where the face of the thing would have been, if it had a face. It went flying backward across the vault, and then the big guy turned his attention to Ben and Abigail.
He grinned broadly, showcasing rows of huge white teeth, all the pearlier and more shiny given their contrast with his bright red skin. "Hiya," he said, and then Ben found himself unceremoniously grabbed, his entire bicep engulfed by a hand that was bigger and more solid than any hand had a right to be, and hauled right out of the vault.
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"--nother thing, make sure that Dielder doesn't try to--" Plourr unceremoniously hands a two-year-old to Ajedrez without stopping the steady stream of words into her comm, "--keep taking over the committee meeting; that huttslime would kick a whisperkit if it meant more good press for himself--"
Ajedrez and Princess Ianna stare at each other, the little girl's pudgy legs dangling. Ianna blows a dubious bubble, and Ajedrez sets her on her feet and gives her a gentle push toward the blanket laid out across the floor and covered with toys. "Go on, niña."
"No," Plourr is saying, turning away, "no no no, no, no--"
It's a quiet garden, tucked deep within a restricted area of the palace, but Ajedrez takes her responsibility seriously. Keeping Ianna in her peripheral vision (knowing that despite her seeming inattention, Plourr is watching the toddler like a hawkbat), Ajedrez trails behind Plourr at a comfortable distance, hands clasped lightly behind her back.
Switching the comm off with a final irritated instruction, Plourr whirls back -- and raises an eyebrow at Beatriz. "Unless you suspect Ianna of hiding a thermal detonator in her kiddie shoes, I don't think we're in a whole lot of danger here."
"I'm just doing my job," Ajedrez says lightly, walking back toward Ianna beside Plourr.
"Krayt dragon mierda," says Plourr, and by this point, Ajedrez doesn't think twice about the Spanish curse words sprinkled in with the name of a large lizard from Tatooine (Plourr has taken to Spanish cursing like a duck to water and loves to use the words interchangeably with Huttese, which Ajedrez has yet to get the hang of; the glottal stops are disgusting). "You just wanted to hear what I was going to do to Dielder."
"Not very much, from the sound of things," she remarks dryly as Plourr takes a seat on a low-lying stone wall overrun with vines.
"I was doing plenty of shooting on the inside," Plourr promises, prodding at Ianna with her foot; Ianna promptly grabs her mother's boot, holds on for dear life, and goes kaput right down on her side.
"Those giant cannons with the energy bursts?" Beatriz Ajedrez asks, and if her expression has gone a touch dreamy, well, she can hardly be blamed.
"I was thinking something of a smaller caliber, some good close work, but sure," Plourr says companionably, "ion cannons work for me."
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(Bonus points for McGee and Tony talking computers, or for Ziva humorously mis-stating an idiom. DOUBLE BONUS POINTS FOR BOTH!)
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“So you’re seriously telling me,” says Tony Stark, frowning, “that someone was killed in my office building, and not only was someone killed in my office building, it was a United States Marine.”
“Yes sir,” says McGee. “That’s the long and short of it.”
Stark sits up in his chair, leaning forward over the desk, and he looks quite serious for the first time since McGee entered his inner office. “Let me see the picture again.” McGee passes the full-color service shot of the dead man across the desk again, and this time, Stark spends several long seconds examining it rather than giving it a flip, cursory glance. “I still don’t recognize him,” he says. “Hey Pep!”
His personal assistant immediately appears in the doorway, which makes McGee stifle a smile, knowing how DiNozzo – in the personal assistant’s office – probably feels about her sudden absence. “Felix is going to be really unhappy that you’re talking to the agents without him,” she says, but she sounds resigned, like she didn’t expect anything less of him.
Stark waves her off. “Felix is a lawyer; he doesn’t like anything,” he says flippantly. “Listen, would you get this down to Cabe in security and have her look at it?” He flops the photo in his hand, and McGee clears his throat; Stark glances at him sideways. “That is, as long as the special agents don’t object.”
“He is only being an ache,” says Ziva, shouldering her way into the room. Stark’s eyebrows furrow.
“A pain,” corrects McGee, frowning. “And no, I’m not. I—”
“We have more than one copy, McGee. Ducky and Palmer are with the body; if you object so strenuously to the photo leaving NCIS custody, you could escort it to security.” Ziva is doing that saunter that she does when she’s sizing up a man, and she is, McGee can tell, even if her eyes are all over the office rather than on Stark himself. That beautiful personal assistant, in the meantime, has near-silently melted away back into her own office, which is quite a feat considering the shoes she’s wearing. “Gibbs directed that you go get the security tapes.”
Frowning even more deeply now, McGee tugs his cap down on his forehead. “You got it,” he says, and he’s halfway to the door with the backpack slung over his shoulder before he changes his mind and turns back. “Mr. Stark?”
Stark tears his eyes away from Ziva. “—Yes, Special Agent?” He somehow manages to make three simple words sound very insouciant.
“I just wanted to say, sir – reading about your arm aperture robots was what made me want to go to MIT. And the work you’ve done with arc reactors and the Iron Man—”
Stark looks half-bemused, but before he could say anything (or McGee could finish his sentence), Ziva makes a quiet rude sound. “I am beginning to understand why it is that Tony calls you McGeek,” she murmurs as she passes him, and much put-upon, McGee sighs and steps out of the office.
“I didn’t realize anybody in the federal government was still a fan of mine,” Stark says cheerfully.
“There are those of us who are not so troubled by vigilante justice,” Ziva says, sitting down in front of his desk. “So long as it is truly justice.”
Stark’s smile is broad and easy, and masks many things, Ziva suspects. “I couldn’t agree more, Special Agent…”
“Officer David,” she says. “Mossad liaison to NCIS.”
To his credit, his eyebrows barely lift. “Mossad? I love women who can break me in half with their pinkie,” he says, and Ziva laughs despite herself.
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The girl didn’t move, her chin tucked low – but not quite to her chest – with her black hair tumbling across her shoulders, covering her face on both sides. Her expression was thoroughly, frighteningly blank, ruthlessly so, her eyes just as bereft of emotion and fixed on the wall, and the psychiatrist’s own face momentarily broadcasted her unease.
“Well,” she says, “my name is Dr. Keller and we’re going to be good friends, Elizabeth.” She held out a hand, but her subject didn’t so much as blink, much less look at her or shake her hand. She slowly lowered her hand. “Excuse me for just a moment; I’ll be right back.”
As she left, Liz didn’t move; she kept sitting with her hands folded tightly in her lap. The new doctor didn’t shut the door to the viewing room behind herself; she left it open a crack, and Liz listened to the conversation going on behind the mirror that she knew was really a window.
“Jesus,” said the new doctor’s voice.
“I did try to warn you, Dr. Keller,” said a man.
“Has anyone gotten through to her at all yet?”
“No, ma’am. She’s been like that ever since she came in. Didn’t even twitch when she was told that her mother was dead.”
Liz watched the partially open door, dead-eyed and silent, and then she looked down at the boxes of crayons and large sheets of paper carpeting the table in front of her. She sat still for a long, long moment, and then she reached over and carefully selected a blue crayon.
* * *
Dr. Keller stopped dead in her cracks for a second as she stepped back into the room, and then she kept walking and sat down on her feet across from Liz. She was better than the old doctors; at least she didn’t seem afraid (she doesn’t know, Liz thought) and she came down to her level while talking to her. “May I see?” she asked, and it was only because she asked permission – and was not already reaching for the picture – that Liz very carefully considered it, dispassionate and grave, then bobbed her head once.
Dr. Keller pulled the sheet of paper across the table and looked at the clumsy stick figure engulfed in furious blue scribbles. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Is she flying?" she asked, smiling, and Liz felt too-hot tears prick at the back of her eyelids.
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