≈ DRABBLES - FEB 2014

[poppyapples]

Piter&Reid

When it finally happened he didn’t plead for his life, knowing fully well that out of all the bad men he’d met during his time with the Bureau, this was one you could not bargain with. The cold steel, slid between two ribs and precise in nature felt more like an extension of the owners soul, like his personality taking physical shape and although he suspected that he was entitled to a few answers here in the final few moves of their chess game, only one came to mind. For his own peace of mind more than anything else, a baffled novice wanting a peek at the masters strategy before admitting defeat.

Mouth tasting strongly of copper, Reid licked at his lips. His hands, already growing cold, did not move to clutch at the seeping wound, nor did he turn his head to look into those pits of blue within blue and when he spoke, his voice trembled only slightly with pain. Knowing fully well withholding the satisfaction was the only trump card he still held.

“What did I miss?”

Kitty&Reid

The average human heart beats approximately 72 beats per minute, which adds up to roughly 2.5 billion heartbeats during an average 66 year lifespan. These 72 heartbeats per minute pumps 4.7-5.7 litres of blood through the body, through a muscle that weighs approximately 250 to 350 grams and is roughly the size of a fist. There’s a 34.3% predicted survival rate after 7 minutes of complete cardiac arrest, sinking rapidly to 4.6% after 13 minutes of complete cardiac arrest.

Spencer Reid has now known Katherine Anne Pryde for 110 days and at least 98 of those days came with some kind of cardiac malfunction. His bpm has doubled or tripled or quadrupled, pumping his blood with impossible heat through his veins. The muscle, no bigger than a fist, has hammered so hard against his ribs that he was sure there was a fracture and other times it didn’t beat at all, still for minutes in anticipation of the imminent break that didn’t come — yet.

Despite this intense abuse, he’s found that his heart has only grown stronger — not weaker as one would expect from prolonged cardiac malfunction. If that isn’t a medical miracle, he doesn’t know what is.

Aidan&Euphie

Sometimes late at night, when the dome was still and the artificial moon hung high in the artificial sky, Aidan would head out to the garden plots. While there he’d stretch out on his back, not caring much about the dirt that would catch in his hair or how his shirt would slowly grow damp from the wet soil. Sometimes he’d smoke, sometimes he wouldn’t, but every time he’d let his thoughts wander with the steady rhythm of his breathing. Hopes and dreams, fears and disappointments, a yearning for something else or a comfort in what he already had.

After Helix’s disappearance, it was always about him. Heartbreaking grief would grip him, add moisture to the dirt before leaving him limp and longing, nails split and torn from being dug into the earth with such desperation. As the days turned into weeks, the roar of emotion would die down to a simmer and later on, into quiet nostalgia. He knew now that the boy would not return, or at least that he would not return any time soon. Even more so he knew that as much as he tried to deny it, his thoughts no longer pulled in the direction of the omwati like an untrained dog.

It had crept up on him quite by mistake. At first he thought nothing of it, chalked it down to loneliness and finally feeling needed again, of yearning for physical contact and of loving someone quite platonically. It was nothing and then it was in such an undeniable way that not even he could turn a blind eye to it, and once he realised that much it was nigh impossible to stop thinking about it. The idle mind wandering was no longer contained to late night naps in the garden and as much as he tried to look at her as a sister, the thought made him sick to the bone.

He never acted on it. There was one kiss and no more, forced together by bots and a desire he neither could nor wanted to examine more closely, but still just the one and he’d be damned if there was a second. Sometimes he’d catch himself watching her, mind wandering quite freely despite his best efforts to cage it. Silly little fantasies popped up like crocus in spring, sticking their heads up in the snow that had covered his heart for so long — what would she do if he kissed her now, without the aid of bots? What would she say if he swept her up, held her close, asked her to dance. Asked her to share his bed, just to sleep and maybe later to not sleep at all.

He found himself wondering what it would’ve been like had she been born in his world. What they could’ve done, had they met before Helix claimed him. If she would’ve liked him had they been in school together, a thought that was always met with a firm “of course she would’ve, she likes everybody.” He thought about taking her home to the farm, to his parents, of showing her the deep, black lake and the pear trees with the grey leaves and sticky, sweet fruit and sometimes late at night when he was too tired to care he thought about what it would be like to be hers and no one else’s. What he’d write in his vows, because those thoughts are why late night exists and once you’ve gone that far it’s no further to think about what their kids would look like. Idle, hypothetical. Nothing would happen. He would never act on it.

The lonely princess in her tower and the knight that yearns despite his best efforts not to. Some things are better left for the fairytales.

Spike&Rebecca

She wasn’t his first choice. She wasn’t even his second, or third or even the choice that he would never make yet knew perfectly well he couldn’t resist, but she was still a choice and in a place like Marina, that could mean everything. Her policies on killing were less than ideal but she spoke them out of a mouth that could make his eyes roll back into his skull and some nights, that made it worth it. Nights when he refused to think of Dru, nights when he wished Harmony was there to at the very least fill the bed, nights when he reluctantly realised how far under his skin Rose had really gotten.

She was foulmouthed enough, dirty enough, adventurous enough and perhaps even gullible enough to let him into her bed, not every night but enough nights to make the framework creak. Sometimes they wouldn’t even shag, just stayed up with a bottle of beer and Sex Pistols and stories of Woodstock and New York in the 70’s and most of the time he’d even clean them up. Talk about the culture, the excitement, not the way Nikki Wood’s eyes looked back at him right before he killed her. Some people would say that she neutered him — he knows, because he would’ve been one of them had this been about someone else — but he’d always scoff and say that it was nothing. A bit of fun, what’s the harm in a dead-water prison? You take the company you can get.

And that’s what he’s clinging to now, as he laughs at her threat to pierce something while he sleeps, as he pushes her down onto the mattress and explains for the thousand time that he’s a dead man and each time there’s excitement in her eyes, not fear. It’s just company. Nothing serious. A way to kill the time, even if he sometimes thinks he should just kill her instead. Before it’s too late.

Spike&Tyki

They were three bottles in when the suggestion came and at first Spike was set to turn it down. Wasn’t his style, he’s not some poofter but a bottle and a half later his hand is halfway down Tyki’s pants and his fangs even deeper in his neck. He’s not sure what to blame, the copious amounts of whiskey or how good the Noah of Pleasure is at twisting something into a good idea when it was never supposed to be such, but a year in this place can make anyone ease up on their convictions and Spike didn’t grip too tightly of his to begin with. Knowing that this is happening only because Tyki is letting him somehow takes the edge off — it’s not his decision, just a game, just a bit of fun. What’s the harm, taking a pint of blood in exchange for a clothed fumble against the counter?

Afterwards, when there’s nothing but a mess of spilled whiskey and bloodied shirts, Spike expects to feel some kind of regret but when nothing comes he just grins, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Shoots his murderbro a hooded look.

“I’ve still had better.”