Valentines all-sorts
Feb. 14th, 2008 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseEvery year I try to do a little bit of a... cleaning-out, of my documents. Finishing all the little niggling pieces that have been hassling me, things that I might have forgotten about, or just put aside for another time. Some things just can’t be written in one sitting, or at all without a few months of distance to bring me around to whatever it is that they “want” to do. Usually I go through this process in the week coming up on New Years, but since I was too busy for it this December, I apparently am making up for it for Valentines.
Here’s a handful of fics, some new, some old, all sorts of pairings, all about love in one form or another. And a very happy Valentines' Day to all of you. ♥
I wrote this first one... oh, probably about a year ago. I’m not sure what stopped me posting it back then, but here it is now, just in time for the holiday. I hope you’ll forgive the silliness, as well as a little bit of strong language from Buffy.
Buffy/Angel (post-series(s)) - Vampires, Slayers, and Cookies
By all rights, nothing should scare her anymore.
She’s lived through warfare and demons, through at least six would-be apocalypses, and innumerable disastrous attempts by some idiot or other to take over the world using supernatural means that should never have been allowed into mortal hands. She’s killed more vampires than she can count, defeated innumerable embodiments of evil, and watched her school, and later her whole town, come crashing down around her. She’s survived to bury friends, a few lovers, and her own mother, and she’s been buried herself, once, only to rise again into a world of her own nightmares.
And yet, she’s afraid to push the button on one stupid elevator.
Not any elevator. It’s not some kind of elevator-phobia, or whatever that would be... Willow would know the word. Maybe Dawn would, too. Anyway, it’s not like that. She’s not afraid of the elevator itself - not scared that it will get stuck, or plummet into the depths and kill her on impact. She’s not afraid of closed spaces, which is fortunate given her unfortunate past experience of waking up in a coffin buried six feet under the ground.
It’s just that this elevator will take her to the one man who still makes her feel, twenty-eight years of full and rather violent life experience to the contrary, like a silly eighteen year-old.
She takes a deep breath...
“Fuck it.”
And pushes the button.
And then waits.
It’s a very long wait.
“Any self-respecting vampire would want their super top-secret headquarters buried deep in the ground. Nope, he’s gotta be the one vamp in the world with an itch for a panoramic view of sunny SoCal.”
Griping doesn’t exactly help, but it does pass the time while the numbers crawl higher and higher. Closer and closer to the top of the building that was once the home of Wolfram and Hart. At least there aren’t any mirrors in the elevator - Angel’s still vampire enough that he hates being faced with his own lack of a reflection. For once, she’s grateful. The temptation to fuss about her appearance is already gnawing at her, and if there were a mirror she’d be sure to get caught up in second-guessing everything. The jeans (‘go casual, like it’s no big deal seeing him again, but maybe this is too casual?’), the sweater (‘didn’t I wear something like this the last time I saw him?’), the hair... everything. It’s easier just not seeing.
If ‘easier’ is taken to mean ‘brain-breakingly nerve-wracking.’
Finally, the door opens. He’s right there. She can’t help but see him, right away - even in a crowded room where she wasn’t expecting him, she’s sure she could immediately pick out his build, the set of his shoulders, the way he does his hair. No matter what, she’s sure the sight of him would make her heart jump exactly like this. Make the tips of her fingers tingle. Make her throat feel immediately both dry and as though she needs to swallow a lump or risk croaking the instant she tries to talk.
The good news is, he looks just as shocked as she feels.
“Buffy?”
“I... umm...” She had a whole speech planned. She wrote it out a week ago, when she was still trying to decide if this was a good idea. She’d even thought about asking Willow to proofread it, before deciding that she didn’t really want to tell her friends she was coming here, or to let them know what she was thinking about until it was already done. She didn’t want to think about how they’d react, all the cautions they might offer, or what they might think of her for revisiting her past like this. It’s all gone now, though. Best to work on instinct. She says the first words that come to her mind.
“I think I’m baked.”
No real story behind the next one, other than that I have another, much longer, Sarah/Harry fic that I keep intending to finish... but this happened instead. *Shrugs* As long as there are words coming out somewhere, I suppose I’m not one to argue.
Harry Sullivan/Sarah Jane Smith Change of Plans
The phone rang only once before she answers - unusual for Sarah Jane, who’s usually too occupied with whatever she’s doing to pick up promptly. She must have been at her desk already, writing, Harry thought. She confirmed this a moment later, saying she’d been working on a new article. “What occasions the call?”
“Well, I was looking at the calendar yesterday, and I noticed it’s nearly Valentine’s Day,” Harry points out. “It’s Tuesday,” he adds, since Sarah rarely keeps good account of the date.
“Of course...”
“Unless you’re busy, of course, I thought we might go out for dinner. Just for a bit of fun.”
They’ve had this conversation ten times before, the Sunday before Valentine’s for each of the ten years since Sarah returned from her travels with the Doctor, and yet he always makes the invitation as though it was the first time - an afterthought, nothing more. No expectation must be assumed, no implication allowed to work into his voice. He did not own her, nor her time, and the day he implied as much even with the best of intentions, he knew full well she’d be gone. It is imperative that the tone of the invitation be kept as light as possible.
Some years he almost resents her for making him walk on eggshells like this, year after year. And yet, he has never managed to convince himself that she isn’t worth every minute of the effort, once she accepts. And she’s always accepted, after all, so really...
“Er... Harry, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve already made plans.”
Had always accepted, that is. In the past. Harry blinks once, and recovers himself with the calm and grace under pressure that is required of a military physician. “Of course. Don’t worry in the slightest, old thing. We’ve always said it was just unless the other had someone else.”
“It’s this new bloke I’ve met - a photographer. He worked with me on that magazine article I did last month, and... Well. He asked me last week, and I thought, why not give it a try.”
A photographer. He worked with her on an article. Harry’s fingers tightened on the back of the chair, and he unclenched them slowly and deliberately. He has no provisional rights over her. He never has. They’ve always made this arrangement on the basis that it could be pre-empted at any time. “Of course,” he answeed lightly. “No, you’re right to do it, Sarah. I hope you have a lovely time.”
“Thank you. You, too. You ought to ask that woman at your office, the oncologist. The one who loaned you the crepe pan, you said she was single, didn’t you? She was a lovely woman. Beautiful hair, and I think she fancied you.”
“Miranda got married last year, Sarah.” She’d loaned him the crepe pan two years before, and given up flirting with him some months after. She’d wanted a more serious relationship, she’d said, and she’d gotten the idea that he was in love with someone else. In love with Sarah Jane, in fact. She was a clever woman, Miranda.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be, I was quite pleased for her. She’s a lovely woman, and her husband’s quite a good chap. I went to dinner with them some months back.”
“Well... There’s plenty of time for you to meet someone new...” Even Sarah didn’t sound as though she believed that one.
“I rather doubt it, Sarah. But I’m not worried. I’ve been busy at work lately, it’ll be nice to have a quiet night in. Have a good week, Sarah. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“You, too. Take care.”
He hung up the phone and carefully sat down on the sofa, then stood back up again and put on his coat. He was not going to sit around the house and sulk just because Sarah Jane had another date for Valentine’s. She deserved it. Maybe it was time for him to move on, too, and stop constantly relying on this holding pattern they’d been dancing through for the last ten years. His friends had all been telling him so for years, but... they didn’t know Sarah, did they?
Harry shook his head and left the house, trying not to think about what exactly this photographer of hers was like. Trying not to think about how there wasn’t another woman on Earth quite like Sarah Jane.
* * *
Valentine’s Day had become a routine to Sarah Jane after ten years of passing it with Harry Sullivan, and for once it was exciting to think of doing things a bit differently, with someone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Harry - she adored him, of course, he was one of her best friends. Probably the best, at least on Earth. But he wasn’t the most creative man alive. Every Valentine’s that they’d spent together had gone the same. He called her the Sunday before and asked her in that calmly cautious way he had, and then on the day of he would show up precisely at the time they’d agreed on. He’d only been late once, and that turned out to be the day he’d been caught in an emergency consult. He dressed very nicely, always a necktie and jacket, and always wore that ridiculous bowler hat that she’d never had the heart to tell him was decades out of style. He always brought her a bouquet of red roses. They always went to Italian, always the same little place, where he always ordered the same fine white wine and the same chicken parmesean. She always ordered something she’d never tried, mostly to goad him. They chatted through the meal, talking about the same things they always did on any other day, and he always turned out to have paid the waiter to play a slightly soppy song on the violin. He always insisted on ordering dessert, and then always refused to have any himself. “Not getting as much exercise as I used to, I’m afraid,” he always remarked. “It’d be a shame if the uniform didn’t fit anymore.”
He always drove her back to her house, except in the years before she’d inherited the house, when he’d naturally driven her back to her flat. He always walked her to the door, always the gentleman, and kissed her goodnight with the same gentle solicitousness. He always looked just the slightest bit surprised when she invited him in, and always, always, told her that she was the most remarkable woman he’d ever known.
It wasn’t that it was tedious, exactly - Harry was a wonderful, kind man, and quite a good lover in addition to that. It was just that she felt at once too young and too old to have such a predictable routine as the near-extent of her romantic life. Anyway, it wasn’t good for him, either. Harry was an old-fashioned sort of fellow, and Sarah had a notion he’d never really be pleased with a modern woman like her. Much as he claimed he didn’t, she suspected that he wanted someone to settle down with. If he didn’t quite want someone who’d darn his socks, he probably wouldn’t object if that was what he ended up with. And she wasn’t the sock-darning sort. So that was that. Better for both of them to give up the charade and find people more suitable to their needs.
Andrew was like that. Andrew was an artist, and a journalist - he understood what it was like to chafe under society’s expectations, and if he was a bit younger than her... well, it was only by two years, and that hardly mattered. He was charming and debonair, he spoke Swahili and had lived in the bush for years working with a very well-respected ethnographer, and he had three books of his work published. And he was impetuous, unpredictable. Yes, Sarah thought, brushing out her hair one last time - this would make a good change for her.
...At least, it would if he ever showed up.
Twenty minutes late, just when she’d begun to think that perhaps she ought to call to make sure he hadn’t forgotten, Andrew pulled into her drive and honked for her. Harry always rang at the door... but the point of this was doing things differently, wasn’t it? Sarah straightened her skirt, shook out her hair, and checked the mirror in the hallway one last time, and stepped out into the evening gloom for her first exciting Valentine’s date in almost as long as she could remember.
It was certainly a night she wouldn’t soon forget.
Andrew hated Italian, she was pleased to discover, so they went for curry. The place was new, and when the waiter finally brought it, the food was only mediocre, and much less spicy than Sarah had hoped. Andrew was deeply apologetic, and insisted on buying wine to make up for it, even though she thought that a funny choice for curry. The red he picked was vinegary and almost thick with tannin. The dessert was mango mousse. Sarah had never realized how much she relished her annual tiramisu until she was faced with that cheerful, brilliantly yellow confection. It was good mango mousse, she told herself defensively. She was just... in the habit, she supposed, of the tiramisu. She’d considered ordering those little fried dumplings soaked in rosewater syrup instead, but Andrew had made a remark about them being nothing but fat-globules coated in sugar, and then made a pointed remark about the woman eating them at the next table and how he couldn’t bear a woman over forty who couldn’t be bothered to watch her figure.
“Look at her, the cow,” he continued. “Imagine she was quite pretty when she was young, don’t you think? I mean, look at the husband, he’s certainly got money. Can’t imagine he’d marry a rasher of bacon like her if he meant to,” he continued, and took a deep sip of his coffee. “If you’re not going to finish that mousse, d’you mind if I snag some?”
Sarah pushed the plate over to him and imagined him ballooning to twice his current girth. It was one of the best thoughts she’d had all night.
He got lost twice driving her home, both times conveniently ending up headed toward the neighborhood she remembered him mentioning that he lived in, and both times laughed a bit too loudly when she corrected him. When they finally got back to her house, he opened her door and then stood, hands in his pockets, and looked speculatively up at her house. “So, shall I come up?”
Sarah looked him over once, taking in the batik shirt and longish hair she’d thought were so charmingly bohemian, the affected looseness of his walk, the way he’d bragged all through dinner about the important people he knew and had worked with, and then smiled her brightest and most polite smile. “I think not. Thank you for a lovely evening, Andrew. Goodnight.”
He shrugged and got back into the car, and drove away. Harry, Sarah couldn’t resist thinking, would at least have waited until she’d got into the house, if not actually walked her up to the door himself. Well... not everyone was Harry Sullivan, were they? She’d wanted something different this year, and she’d certainly gotten it.
The house was dark, and the television was full of nothing but soppy movies for all the bleeding-hearts who couldn’t get a date but wished they’d had one. After flicking twice through the channels and opening three different books without finding herself interested in anything, Sarah picked up her car keys... and then hesitated. What if Harry had asked someone out? What if, when she arrived, she was interrupting exactly the romantic routine he’d gone through with her on so many Valentines’ past?
Well... he could just not answer the door, then, couldn’t he?
At his house, the silence after her knock was so long that she almost gave up. Just as she was starting to turn away, Harry opened the door... wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers, his hair rather mussed.
“Oh, god. I’ve interrupted, haven’t I?” Sarah covered her mouth, aghast at herself. Of course he wouldn’t ignore the door at ten o’clock in the evening - he’d assume it was something important, and he was Harry, for goodness’ sake, a man who’d never shirked responsibility in his life.
“Sarah?” What’s wrong, old thing?”
“I’m sorry, Harry, I just... thought I’d stop by, and I didn’t think... I wasn’t thinking, and here you are...” She waved her hands helplessly.
Harry stared at her, and then lifted his left hand. A pair of reading glasses dangled from his fingers. “Catching up on journals?”
Sarah stared. “In your boxers?”
“Well, it wasn’t as if I was expecting guests.” He folded the glasses and set them neatly on the little table in his entryway. “What’s happened? I thought you had a date. And you certainly look as if you did,” he added, gesturing at her elegant knee-length dress. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, my date was just...” Sarah raised a hand to forestall an imminent rush of questions from Harry. “Nothing horrendous. He didn’t... turn out to be a Sontaran in disguise or something. He was just... He’s gone, anyway. Dropped me off at home an hour ago, we said goodnight, and he’s gone. And I’m glad,” she added.
“Well... that’s good then. If you’re glad.” Harry ran a hand through his hair, clearly bemused. “Did you... want to come in and talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about, honestly, Harry. I just... didn’t feel like being alone. I thought of you, and how I’d put you off on Sunday, and I just thought...”
“That I’d be alone,” he finished for her.
“No! I mean, I... don’t make it sound like that. You told me yourself you didn’t have anybody... and that was my fault, I know, for putting you off at the last minute.”
“We always do things at the last minute.” Harry shrugged. “I suppose there had to be at least one year that it didn’t work out.”
“I do that to you, thought. I call, and you drive to Aberdeen. I make you wait until the last minute, and... and then I go off with an idiot photographer who takes me to the worst curry place in London.”
“Well, that’s a shame...”
“I know! But that’s not my point,” Sarah continued quickly, lest they get distracted by the relative merits of curry. “The point is... I don’t know. Am I taking advantage, Harry? Tell me, honestly. Am I?”
Harry thought for a moment, and then tugged her gently over to the sofa, where he sat on the arm so that he could look her in the eye. “If I didn’t want to do these things, Sarah, I wouldn’t do them. You’re not making me do anything I don’t want to do.”
“But it isn’t...”
“It doesn’t matter.” Harry bent forward and kissed her softly. He smelled of laundry detergent and whiskey, and under that the faintly salty, musky smell of just him. When they parted, Sarah dropped her head onto his shoulder, and they sat for a long moment, she just breathing, he combing her hair softly with his fingers. His calluses rasped on the back of her neck every so often, sending shivers down her back.
“I’ve made a bit of a mess of our Valentines’, haven’t I?” Sarah murmured after the silence had extended comfortably beyond any fear of either of them being angry.
“Well... we’re both here, aren’t we? We’re together, and... I haven’t cooled any white wine, but I’ve got plenty of whiskey, and...” Harry shuffled, and when Sarah angled her head to look at him he looked a bit embarrassed. “Also quite a large box of chocolate-covered strawberries I’d bought on Saturday, before I found out you had other plans. Had no idea what I was going to do with them, alone, so...”
Sarah laughed. “You bought chocolate-covered strawberries?”
“I’d thought we might do something different this year.” He chuckled softly. “I guess I got that part right, at least.”
This one’s for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nekokoban, because I promised it to her ages ago and have been dithering over it ever since. I’d open it up every few months and try to make something of it... and this time I think it might’ve worked. At least I hope it did. XD
Haruka/Kantarou (Tactics) - Broken Pieces
“Ah - Haruka?”
He couldn’t look up. The edges of the bowl shone in the late afternoon sunlight - shattered, but shining in a way that he’d barely remembered the ancient pottery was able. He imagined that the fragments caught the light in a way they couldn’t have when they were one whole, perfect curve.
“Is that...?”
“It fell.” He lifted his hand to the breast of his jacket and the half-imagined hollow where his bowl usually nested. “When I veered to catch the demon.”
“Oh. Haruka, I’m sorry, I know it was important to you...” Kantarou trailed off, apparently realizing that he was out of his depth. What words could the human have to fill this void? His short lifespan knew no greater bond than the sum of his short own years.
“Everything breaks.” He lifted his head and met Kantarou’s eyes. They caught the sun, too. He sat back on his heels and wished the human would say something more. Pale hair, pale skin, and bright, marble-like eyes reminded him too much of his bowl and other things that could too-easily turn to shards and fragments in the sun.
“We’ll get you a new one.”
A... new bowl?
“I don’t want a new bowl!”
Kantarou made an impatient noise. “So you’ll eat with your fingers straight out of the rice-pot, now? You have to have <i>something</i>. Youko won’t like all the mess you’ll make if you don’t.”
He tilted his head and peered at the thin pieces scattered before him. Perhaps Youko could put them back together somehow...? She was clever with things like that. “I don’t want a new bowl,” he repeated. “I like this one.”
Kantarou crouched down, his bells chiming dimly as he bounced on his heels. “But this one’s broken, Haruka.”
“I know that.” He reached out and gathered the pieces, one by one, and removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped each shard, one fold for each partial horizon. “But it is my bowl.”
“<i>Was</i> your bowl.” Kantarou corrected. He already sounded annoyed. Impatient human.
“It is. Even when it’s broken.” He tucked the wrapped bits of pottery delicately in the inner pocket of his jacket and stood.
“Haruka...”
“Let’s go.”
They stood quietly, looking at each other for a moment, and then a crow called out overhead. Haruka lifted his head to watch it pass. “Humans have short lives,” he said finally, and then stalked back toward the house. Kantarou watched him go, the long legs and elegant stride quickly multiplying the space between them.
And a bit of B5. Because apparently I can’t get enough of that Minbari melodrama...
Delenn, Lennier, Sheridan (no real pairing, but... well, the usual almost-threesome-ness) - Falls the Shadow
In the darkness, a single candle flickered.
When Sebastian asked if she was willing to die alone, friendless and forgotten, Delenn had thought that he meant in the future. In that far-distant time when they had defeated the Shadows, and she and John Sheridan had lived out quiet and peaceful lives together. She had thought he talked of fame, and she had no need to live or die as a hero.
That she might at some point sacrifice herself to their cause was no unheard-of concept for Delenn. But it had never once occurred to her that she might have to live for that cause, alone, and fight their war without him. Sebastian had described them as linked at the hip, a metaphor she had found strange, and now she realized that he had been right. Like a warrior who has lost a leg, without him, she couldn’t make herself stand again.
All our planning and preparation, all our work, and in the end, how easy it was to tear down everything we have struggled so long to create.
“Delenn.”
She didn’t have to look up, any more than Lennier had really needed to speak her name - his hand on her shoulder would have been enough. No one else had come to see her in the long hours since Ivanova’s professional visit.
“I just thought you should know... we haven’t had any word from the captain. None of our contacts have seen him or the White Star since he left. There’s no way to know for sure where he’s gone, but...”
Delenn held out a data crystal. “A time-delayed message.”
“Did he say...?”
She took a ragged breath. Speech was no longer an easy thing, it seemed. Lennier - suddenly beside her, always so attentive to her moods, and more a comfort now than she knew how to express - touched her arm, and she turned toward him, grateful for the moment of familiar contact. “Z’ha’dum,” she breathed.
“He went there? Alone?”
Delenn nodded, and felt her facade of calm begin to slip.
Once again, Lennier spared her the shame of confronting Ivanova directly. “My apologies, Commander, but Ambassador Delenn requires rest. Please... take the crystal. I shall inform you immediately if we receive any further news.”
And so the human woman had left. And since then, Delenn had sat in quiet prayer over the single candle, seeking for some understanding or comfort, some hint of how she was to proceed.
“You should rest.”
She shook her head. “I cannot.”
“You must, Delenn.”
She laughed, and was surprised by the hollow sound of despair in her own voice. “Will you order me, now, Lennier - is that how far we have come? Perhaps I will come to miss the timid attache who wouldn’t raise his eyes.”
“Only for your safety would I do this.”
“Don’t worry over me. I only need time to think, and pray.” And yet, the flame was no closer to giving her answers now than it had been when she first lit it. The shadows around them were no less oppressive. She turned to her aide, seeking light of another kind. “How will I do this, Lennier? Tell me - how will I hold this battle on my own?”
“You won’t. Not alone.” He folded himself down to kneel at her side, and leaned forward, the very image of the attentive student. In other times, it would have made her smile. “Commander Ivanova is still here to lead the station, and Doctor Franklin, and Marcus and the other Rangers, and G’Kar...”
“And you.”
“Always,” he agreed.
“I never thought... If either of us was to walk this path alone, it should have been him.”
“He knows nothing of the Shadows.”
“But he knows war, and tactics, and battle. I...”
“You will have advisors, and you will learn. We shall all help you, and you will manage.”
Lennier’s unwavering confidence made her stomach tighten. Better if he had railed and panicked - things he would never do, but still it would be better if she had to be the strong one. As it was, his ready acceptance and loyalty made each word weigh like another stone on her chest. “I miss him so much already, Lennier... I don’t know how I can continue our work without him.”
“You will. You are strong in spirit, and you will succeed.” Lennier’s hand was cool on hers, and she wrapped it in her own, eager for the comfort of touch. His hands were so unlike John’s - slender and unmarked, the smooth hands of a scholar, suited for the writing of calligraphy and the lighting of candles, the gestures of prayer and contemplation, rather than the rough hands of a warrior and worker, like John’s. Their fingers fitted together like two hands of the same body, and she smiled a little at that thought. Like hands to the mind is the loyal acolyte to her teacher, a long-ago priestess had told her, when she was an unruly and arrogant novice. The hands do not question the mind, and the mind does not punish the hands when they do ill, for if ill is done by those hands, it is the fault of the mind that moves them.
“You flatter me, Lennier,” she said softly. “But I hope you’re right. For all our sakes.”
Holding Lennier’s hand, hearing his breath soft beside her, watching his eyes follow her every move, Delenn began to feel as though the darkness had lessened somewhat around them. Lennier trusted her, as she had once trusted Dukhat - in the eyes of a good student, there was no possibility of failure for the teacher, and perhaps... just perhaps she could draw strength from his honest faith. For John, I will brave Z’ha’dum, she thought. And for Lennier, I will be strong until then. Until I can be whole again, with John at my side, the light of his trust will make me bold again. For the hands cannot know when the mind falters, or they, too, will grow still as stone, stiff with fear and uncertainty.
Reflected in the crystals around her room, Delenn saw their fingers twined together, and smiled at Lennier. “Come. We have work to do.”
Thanks for eating my code, LJ. :P Fixed now...
Here’s a handful of fics, some new, some old, all sorts of pairings, all about love in one form or another. And a very happy Valentines' Day to all of you. ♥
I wrote this first one... oh, probably about a year ago. I’m not sure what stopped me posting it back then, but here it is now, just in time for the holiday. I hope you’ll forgive the silliness, as well as a little bit of strong language from Buffy.
Buffy/Angel (post-series(s)) - Vampires, Slayers, and Cookies
By all rights, nothing should scare her anymore.
She’s lived through warfare and demons, through at least six would-be apocalypses, and innumerable disastrous attempts by some idiot or other to take over the world using supernatural means that should never have been allowed into mortal hands. She’s killed more vampires than she can count, defeated innumerable embodiments of evil, and watched her school, and later her whole town, come crashing down around her. She’s survived to bury friends, a few lovers, and her own mother, and she’s been buried herself, once, only to rise again into a world of her own nightmares.
And yet, she’s afraid to push the button on one stupid elevator.
Not any elevator. It’s not some kind of elevator-phobia, or whatever that would be... Willow would know the word. Maybe Dawn would, too. Anyway, it’s not like that. She’s not afraid of the elevator itself - not scared that it will get stuck, or plummet into the depths and kill her on impact. She’s not afraid of closed spaces, which is fortunate given her unfortunate past experience of waking up in a coffin buried six feet under the ground.
It’s just that this elevator will take her to the one man who still makes her feel, twenty-eight years of full and rather violent life experience to the contrary, like a silly eighteen year-old.
She takes a deep breath...
“Fuck it.”
And pushes the button.
And then waits.
It’s a very long wait.
“Any self-respecting vampire would want their super top-secret headquarters buried deep in the ground. Nope, he’s gotta be the one vamp in the world with an itch for a panoramic view of sunny SoCal.”
Griping doesn’t exactly help, but it does pass the time while the numbers crawl higher and higher. Closer and closer to the top of the building that was once the home of Wolfram and Hart. At least there aren’t any mirrors in the elevator - Angel’s still vampire enough that he hates being faced with his own lack of a reflection. For once, she’s grateful. The temptation to fuss about her appearance is already gnawing at her, and if there were a mirror she’d be sure to get caught up in second-guessing everything. The jeans (‘go casual, like it’s no big deal seeing him again, but maybe this is too casual?’), the sweater (‘didn’t I wear something like this the last time I saw him?’), the hair... everything. It’s easier just not seeing.
If ‘easier’ is taken to mean ‘brain-breakingly nerve-wracking.’
Finally, the door opens. He’s right there. She can’t help but see him, right away - even in a crowded room where she wasn’t expecting him, she’s sure she could immediately pick out his build, the set of his shoulders, the way he does his hair. No matter what, she’s sure the sight of him would make her heart jump exactly like this. Make the tips of her fingers tingle. Make her throat feel immediately both dry and as though she needs to swallow a lump or risk croaking the instant she tries to talk.
The good news is, he looks just as shocked as she feels.
“Buffy?”
“I... umm...” She had a whole speech planned. She wrote it out a week ago, when she was still trying to decide if this was a good idea. She’d even thought about asking Willow to proofread it, before deciding that she didn’t really want to tell her friends she was coming here, or to let them know what she was thinking about until it was already done. She didn’t want to think about how they’d react, all the cautions they might offer, or what they might think of her for revisiting her past like this. It’s all gone now, though. Best to work on instinct. She says the first words that come to her mind.
“I think I’m baked.”
No real story behind the next one, other than that I have another, much longer, Sarah/Harry fic that I keep intending to finish... but this happened instead. *Shrugs* As long as there are words coming out somewhere, I suppose I’m not one to argue.
Harry Sullivan/Sarah Jane Smith Change of Plans
The phone rang only once before she answers - unusual for Sarah Jane, who’s usually too occupied with whatever she’s doing to pick up promptly. She must have been at her desk already, writing, Harry thought. She confirmed this a moment later, saying she’d been working on a new article. “What occasions the call?”
“Well, I was looking at the calendar yesterday, and I noticed it’s nearly Valentine’s Day,” Harry points out. “It’s Tuesday,” he adds, since Sarah rarely keeps good account of the date.
“Of course...”
“Unless you’re busy, of course, I thought we might go out for dinner. Just for a bit of fun.”
They’ve had this conversation ten times before, the Sunday before Valentine’s for each of the ten years since Sarah returned from her travels with the Doctor, and yet he always makes the invitation as though it was the first time - an afterthought, nothing more. No expectation must be assumed, no implication allowed to work into his voice. He did not own her, nor her time, and the day he implied as much even with the best of intentions, he knew full well she’d be gone. It is imperative that the tone of the invitation be kept as light as possible.
Some years he almost resents her for making him walk on eggshells like this, year after year. And yet, he has never managed to convince himself that she isn’t worth every minute of the effort, once she accepts. And she’s always accepted, after all, so really...
“Er... Harry, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve already made plans.”
Had always accepted, that is. In the past. Harry blinks once, and recovers himself with the calm and grace under pressure that is required of a military physician. “Of course. Don’t worry in the slightest, old thing. We’ve always said it was just unless the other had someone else.”
“It’s this new bloke I’ve met - a photographer. He worked with me on that magazine article I did last month, and... Well. He asked me last week, and I thought, why not give it a try.”
A photographer. He worked with her on an article. Harry’s fingers tightened on the back of the chair, and he unclenched them slowly and deliberately. He has no provisional rights over her. He never has. They’ve always made this arrangement on the basis that it could be pre-empted at any time. “Of course,” he answeed lightly. “No, you’re right to do it, Sarah. I hope you have a lovely time.”
“Thank you. You, too. You ought to ask that woman at your office, the oncologist. The one who loaned you the crepe pan, you said she was single, didn’t you? She was a lovely woman. Beautiful hair, and I think she fancied you.”
“Miranda got married last year, Sarah.” She’d loaned him the crepe pan two years before, and given up flirting with him some months after. She’d wanted a more serious relationship, she’d said, and she’d gotten the idea that he was in love with someone else. In love with Sarah Jane, in fact. She was a clever woman, Miranda.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be, I was quite pleased for her. She’s a lovely woman, and her husband’s quite a good chap. I went to dinner with them some months back.”
“Well... There’s plenty of time for you to meet someone new...” Even Sarah didn’t sound as though she believed that one.
“I rather doubt it, Sarah. But I’m not worried. I’ve been busy at work lately, it’ll be nice to have a quiet night in. Have a good week, Sarah. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“You, too. Take care.”
He hung up the phone and carefully sat down on the sofa, then stood back up again and put on his coat. He was not going to sit around the house and sulk just because Sarah Jane had another date for Valentine’s. She deserved it. Maybe it was time for him to move on, too, and stop constantly relying on this holding pattern they’d been dancing through for the last ten years. His friends had all been telling him so for years, but... they didn’t know Sarah, did they?
Harry shook his head and left the house, trying not to think about what exactly this photographer of hers was like. Trying not to think about how there wasn’t another woman on Earth quite like Sarah Jane.
* * *
Valentine’s Day had become a routine to Sarah Jane after ten years of passing it with Harry Sullivan, and for once it was exciting to think of doing things a bit differently, with someone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Harry - she adored him, of course, he was one of her best friends. Probably the best, at least on Earth. But he wasn’t the most creative man alive. Every Valentine’s that they’d spent together had gone the same. He called her the Sunday before and asked her in that calmly cautious way he had, and then on the day of he would show up precisely at the time they’d agreed on. He’d only been late once, and that turned out to be the day he’d been caught in an emergency consult. He dressed very nicely, always a necktie and jacket, and always wore that ridiculous bowler hat that she’d never had the heart to tell him was decades out of style. He always brought her a bouquet of red roses. They always went to Italian, always the same little place, where he always ordered the same fine white wine and the same chicken parmesean. She always ordered something she’d never tried, mostly to goad him. They chatted through the meal, talking about the same things they always did on any other day, and he always turned out to have paid the waiter to play a slightly soppy song on the violin. He always insisted on ordering dessert, and then always refused to have any himself. “Not getting as much exercise as I used to, I’m afraid,” he always remarked. “It’d be a shame if the uniform didn’t fit anymore.”
He always drove her back to her house, except in the years before she’d inherited the house, when he’d naturally driven her back to her flat. He always walked her to the door, always the gentleman, and kissed her goodnight with the same gentle solicitousness. He always looked just the slightest bit surprised when she invited him in, and always, always, told her that she was the most remarkable woman he’d ever known.
It wasn’t that it was tedious, exactly - Harry was a wonderful, kind man, and quite a good lover in addition to that. It was just that she felt at once too young and too old to have such a predictable routine as the near-extent of her romantic life. Anyway, it wasn’t good for him, either. Harry was an old-fashioned sort of fellow, and Sarah had a notion he’d never really be pleased with a modern woman like her. Much as he claimed he didn’t, she suspected that he wanted someone to settle down with. If he didn’t quite want someone who’d darn his socks, he probably wouldn’t object if that was what he ended up with. And she wasn’t the sock-darning sort. So that was that. Better for both of them to give up the charade and find people more suitable to their needs.
Andrew was like that. Andrew was an artist, and a journalist - he understood what it was like to chafe under society’s expectations, and if he was a bit younger than her... well, it was only by two years, and that hardly mattered. He was charming and debonair, he spoke Swahili and had lived in the bush for years working with a very well-respected ethnographer, and he had three books of his work published. And he was impetuous, unpredictable. Yes, Sarah thought, brushing out her hair one last time - this would make a good change for her.
...At least, it would if he ever showed up.
Twenty minutes late, just when she’d begun to think that perhaps she ought to call to make sure he hadn’t forgotten, Andrew pulled into her drive and honked for her. Harry always rang at the door... but the point of this was doing things differently, wasn’t it? Sarah straightened her skirt, shook out her hair, and checked the mirror in the hallway one last time, and stepped out into the evening gloom for her first exciting Valentine’s date in almost as long as she could remember.
It was certainly a night she wouldn’t soon forget.
Andrew hated Italian, she was pleased to discover, so they went for curry. The place was new, and when the waiter finally brought it, the food was only mediocre, and much less spicy than Sarah had hoped. Andrew was deeply apologetic, and insisted on buying wine to make up for it, even though she thought that a funny choice for curry. The red he picked was vinegary and almost thick with tannin. The dessert was mango mousse. Sarah had never realized how much she relished her annual tiramisu until she was faced with that cheerful, brilliantly yellow confection. It was good mango mousse, she told herself defensively. She was just... in the habit, she supposed, of the tiramisu. She’d considered ordering those little fried dumplings soaked in rosewater syrup instead, but Andrew had made a remark about them being nothing but fat-globules coated in sugar, and then made a pointed remark about the woman eating them at the next table and how he couldn’t bear a woman over forty who couldn’t be bothered to watch her figure.
“Look at her, the cow,” he continued. “Imagine she was quite pretty when she was young, don’t you think? I mean, look at the husband, he’s certainly got money. Can’t imagine he’d marry a rasher of bacon like her if he meant to,” he continued, and took a deep sip of his coffee. “If you’re not going to finish that mousse, d’you mind if I snag some?”
Sarah pushed the plate over to him and imagined him ballooning to twice his current girth. It was one of the best thoughts she’d had all night.
He got lost twice driving her home, both times conveniently ending up headed toward the neighborhood she remembered him mentioning that he lived in, and both times laughed a bit too loudly when she corrected him. When they finally got back to her house, he opened her door and then stood, hands in his pockets, and looked speculatively up at her house. “So, shall I come up?”
Sarah looked him over once, taking in the batik shirt and longish hair she’d thought were so charmingly bohemian, the affected looseness of his walk, the way he’d bragged all through dinner about the important people he knew and had worked with, and then smiled her brightest and most polite smile. “I think not. Thank you for a lovely evening, Andrew. Goodnight.”
He shrugged and got back into the car, and drove away. Harry, Sarah couldn’t resist thinking, would at least have waited until she’d got into the house, if not actually walked her up to the door himself. Well... not everyone was Harry Sullivan, were they? She’d wanted something different this year, and she’d certainly gotten it.
The house was dark, and the television was full of nothing but soppy movies for all the bleeding-hearts who couldn’t get a date but wished they’d had one. After flicking twice through the channels and opening three different books without finding herself interested in anything, Sarah picked up her car keys... and then hesitated. What if Harry had asked someone out? What if, when she arrived, she was interrupting exactly the romantic routine he’d gone through with her on so many Valentines’ past?
Well... he could just not answer the door, then, couldn’t he?
At his house, the silence after her knock was so long that she almost gave up. Just as she was starting to turn away, Harry opened the door... wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers, his hair rather mussed.
“Oh, god. I’ve interrupted, haven’t I?” Sarah covered her mouth, aghast at herself. Of course he wouldn’t ignore the door at ten o’clock in the evening - he’d assume it was something important, and he was Harry, for goodness’ sake, a man who’d never shirked responsibility in his life.
“Sarah?” What’s wrong, old thing?”
“I’m sorry, Harry, I just... thought I’d stop by, and I didn’t think... I wasn’t thinking, and here you are...” She waved her hands helplessly.
Harry stared at her, and then lifted his left hand. A pair of reading glasses dangled from his fingers. “Catching up on journals?”
Sarah stared. “In your boxers?”
“Well, it wasn’t as if I was expecting guests.” He folded the glasses and set them neatly on the little table in his entryway. “What’s happened? I thought you had a date. And you certainly look as if you did,” he added, gesturing at her elegant knee-length dress. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, my date was just...” Sarah raised a hand to forestall an imminent rush of questions from Harry. “Nothing horrendous. He didn’t... turn out to be a Sontaran in disguise or something. He was just... He’s gone, anyway. Dropped me off at home an hour ago, we said goodnight, and he’s gone. And I’m glad,” she added.
“Well... that’s good then. If you’re glad.” Harry ran a hand through his hair, clearly bemused. “Did you... want to come in and talk about it?”
“There’s nothing to talk about, honestly, Harry. I just... didn’t feel like being alone. I thought of you, and how I’d put you off on Sunday, and I just thought...”
“That I’d be alone,” he finished for her.
“No! I mean, I... don’t make it sound like that. You told me yourself you didn’t have anybody... and that was my fault, I know, for putting you off at the last minute.”
“We always do things at the last minute.” Harry shrugged. “I suppose there had to be at least one year that it didn’t work out.”
“I do that to you, thought. I call, and you drive to Aberdeen. I make you wait until the last minute, and... and then I go off with an idiot photographer who takes me to the worst curry place in London.”
“Well, that’s a shame...”
“I know! But that’s not my point,” Sarah continued quickly, lest they get distracted by the relative merits of curry. “The point is... I don’t know. Am I taking advantage, Harry? Tell me, honestly. Am I?”
Harry thought for a moment, and then tugged her gently over to the sofa, where he sat on the arm so that he could look her in the eye. “If I didn’t want to do these things, Sarah, I wouldn’t do them. You’re not making me do anything I don’t want to do.”
“But it isn’t...”
“It doesn’t matter.” Harry bent forward and kissed her softly. He smelled of laundry detergent and whiskey, and under that the faintly salty, musky smell of just him. When they parted, Sarah dropped her head onto his shoulder, and they sat for a long moment, she just breathing, he combing her hair softly with his fingers. His calluses rasped on the back of her neck every so often, sending shivers down her back.
“I’ve made a bit of a mess of our Valentines’, haven’t I?” Sarah murmured after the silence had extended comfortably beyond any fear of either of them being angry.
“Well... we’re both here, aren’t we? We’re together, and... I haven’t cooled any white wine, but I’ve got plenty of whiskey, and...” Harry shuffled, and when Sarah angled her head to look at him he looked a bit embarrassed. “Also quite a large box of chocolate-covered strawberries I’d bought on Saturday, before I found out you had other plans. Had no idea what I was going to do with them, alone, so...”
Sarah laughed. “You bought chocolate-covered strawberries?”
“I’d thought we might do something different this year.” He chuckled softly. “I guess I got that part right, at least.”
This one’s for
nekokoban, because I promised it to her ages ago and have been dithering over it ever since. I’d open it up every few months and try to make something of it... and this time I think it might’ve worked. At least I hope it did. XDHaruka/Kantarou (Tactics) - Broken Pieces
“Ah - Haruka?”
He couldn’t look up. The edges of the bowl shone in the late afternoon sunlight - shattered, but shining in a way that he’d barely remembered the ancient pottery was able. He imagined that the fragments caught the light in a way they couldn’t have when they were one whole, perfect curve.
“Is that...?”
“It fell.” He lifted his hand to the breast of his jacket and the half-imagined hollow where his bowl usually nested. “When I veered to catch the demon.”
“Oh. Haruka, I’m sorry, I know it was important to you...” Kantarou trailed off, apparently realizing that he was out of his depth. What words could the human have to fill this void? His short lifespan knew no greater bond than the sum of his short own years.
“Everything breaks.” He lifted his head and met Kantarou’s eyes. They caught the sun, too. He sat back on his heels and wished the human would say something more. Pale hair, pale skin, and bright, marble-like eyes reminded him too much of his bowl and other things that could too-easily turn to shards and fragments in the sun.
“We’ll get you a new one.”
A... new bowl?
“I don’t want a new bowl!”
Kantarou made an impatient noise. “So you’ll eat with your fingers straight out of the rice-pot, now? You have to have <i>something</i>. Youko won’t like all the mess you’ll make if you don’t.”
He tilted his head and peered at the thin pieces scattered before him. Perhaps Youko could put them back together somehow...? She was clever with things like that. “I don’t want a new bowl,” he repeated. “I like this one.”
Kantarou crouched down, his bells chiming dimly as he bounced on his heels. “But this one’s broken, Haruka.”
“I know that.” He reached out and gathered the pieces, one by one, and removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped each shard, one fold for each partial horizon. “But it is my bowl.”
“<i>Was</i> your bowl.” Kantarou corrected. He already sounded annoyed. Impatient human.
“It is. Even when it’s broken.” He tucked the wrapped bits of pottery delicately in the inner pocket of his jacket and stood.
“Haruka...”
“Let’s go.”
They stood quietly, looking at each other for a moment, and then a crow called out overhead. Haruka lifted his head to watch it pass. “Humans have short lives,” he said finally, and then stalked back toward the house. Kantarou watched him go, the long legs and elegant stride quickly multiplying the space between them.
And a bit of B5. Because apparently I can’t get enough of that Minbari melodrama...
Delenn, Lennier, Sheridan (no real pairing, but... well, the usual almost-threesome-ness) - Falls the Shadow
In the darkness, a single candle flickered.
When Sebastian asked if she was willing to die alone, friendless and forgotten, Delenn had thought that he meant in the future. In that far-distant time when they had defeated the Shadows, and she and John Sheridan had lived out quiet and peaceful lives together. She had thought he talked of fame, and she had no need to live or die as a hero.
That she might at some point sacrifice herself to their cause was no unheard-of concept for Delenn. But it had never once occurred to her that she might have to live for that cause, alone, and fight their war without him. Sebastian had described them as linked at the hip, a metaphor she had found strange, and now she realized that he had been right. Like a warrior who has lost a leg, without him, she couldn’t make herself stand again.
All our planning and preparation, all our work, and in the end, how easy it was to tear down everything we have struggled so long to create.
“Delenn.”
She didn’t have to look up, any more than Lennier had really needed to speak her name - his hand on her shoulder would have been enough. No one else had come to see her in the long hours since Ivanova’s professional visit.
“I just thought you should know... we haven’t had any word from the captain. None of our contacts have seen him or the White Star since he left. There’s no way to know for sure where he’s gone, but...”
Delenn held out a data crystal. “A time-delayed message.”
“Did he say...?”
She took a ragged breath. Speech was no longer an easy thing, it seemed. Lennier - suddenly beside her, always so attentive to her moods, and more a comfort now than she knew how to express - touched her arm, and she turned toward him, grateful for the moment of familiar contact. “Z’ha’dum,” she breathed.
“He went there? Alone?”
Delenn nodded, and felt her facade of calm begin to slip.
Once again, Lennier spared her the shame of confronting Ivanova directly. “My apologies, Commander, but Ambassador Delenn requires rest. Please... take the crystal. I shall inform you immediately if we receive any further news.”
And so the human woman had left. And since then, Delenn had sat in quiet prayer over the single candle, seeking for some understanding or comfort, some hint of how she was to proceed.
“You should rest.”
She shook her head. “I cannot.”
“You must, Delenn.”
She laughed, and was surprised by the hollow sound of despair in her own voice. “Will you order me, now, Lennier - is that how far we have come? Perhaps I will come to miss the timid attache who wouldn’t raise his eyes.”
“Only for your safety would I do this.”
“Don’t worry over me. I only need time to think, and pray.” And yet, the flame was no closer to giving her answers now than it had been when she first lit it. The shadows around them were no less oppressive. She turned to her aide, seeking light of another kind. “How will I do this, Lennier? Tell me - how will I hold this battle on my own?”
“You won’t. Not alone.” He folded himself down to kneel at her side, and leaned forward, the very image of the attentive student. In other times, it would have made her smile. “Commander Ivanova is still here to lead the station, and Doctor Franklin, and Marcus and the other Rangers, and G’Kar...”
“And you.”
“Always,” he agreed.
“I never thought... If either of us was to walk this path alone, it should have been him.”
“He knows nothing of the Shadows.”
“But he knows war, and tactics, and battle. I...”
“You will have advisors, and you will learn. We shall all help you, and you will manage.”
Lennier’s unwavering confidence made her stomach tighten. Better if he had railed and panicked - things he would never do, but still it would be better if she had to be the strong one. As it was, his ready acceptance and loyalty made each word weigh like another stone on her chest. “I miss him so much already, Lennier... I don’t know how I can continue our work without him.”
“You will. You are strong in spirit, and you will succeed.” Lennier’s hand was cool on hers, and she wrapped it in her own, eager for the comfort of touch. His hands were so unlike John’s - slender and unmarked, the smooth hands of a scholar, suited for the writing of calligraphy and the lighting of candles, the gestures of prayer and contemplation, rather than the rough hands of a warrior and worker, like John’s. Their fingers fitted together like two hands of the same body, and she smiled a little at that thought. Like hands to the mind is the loyal acolyte to her teacher, a long-ago priestess had told her, when she was an unruly and arrogant novice. The hands do not question the mind, and the mind does not punish the hands when they do ill, for if ill is done by those hands, it is the fault of the mind that moves them.
“You flatter me, Lennier,” she said softly. “But I hope you’re right. For all our sakes.”
Holding Lennier’s hand, hearing his breath soft beside her, watching his eyes follow her every move, Delenn began to feel as though the darkness had lessened somewhat around them. Lennier trusted her, as she had once trusted Dukhat - in the eyes of a good student, there was no possibility of failure for the teacher, and perhaps... just perhaps she could draw strength from his honest faith. For John, I will brave Z’ha’dum, she thought. And for Lennier, I will be strong until then. Until I can be whole again, with John at my side, the light of his trust will make me bold again. For the hands cannot know when the mind falters, or they, too, will grow still as stone, stiff with fear and uncertainty.
Reflected in the crystals around her room, Delenn saw their fingers twined together, and smiled at Lennier. “Come. We have work to do.”
Thanks for eating my code, LJ. :P Fixed now...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-02-14 05:05 pm (UTC)*happy sigh*
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Date: 2008-02-14 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 05:22 pm (UTC)Like hands to the mind is the loyal acolyte to her teacher
This is so perfect. If Lennier is an extention of her, then she can abuse him just as she abuses herself. Beautiful ficlet.
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Date: 2008-02-14 05:41 pm (UTC)(Poor Delenn - I can't ever seem to say anything purely nice about her in a fic... I love her, but she's a scary, scary woman. ♥)
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Date: 2008-02-14 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-14 07:04 pm (UTC)You make a very interesting point about Lennier, as well. His choice to serve Delenn above all else destroys him, I suppose you could say, but it was his decision to make. The word "surrender" here is particularly apt.
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Date: 2008-02-14 05:36 pm (UTC)YOU FINISHED IT YAY and here you were worried that you'd get voices wrong. (You're not allowed to say that any more.) The parallel of the bowl and human lives, and Haruka walking away and eeeeeee♥♥
Thank you, Jen~ :3
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Date: 2008-02-14 05:39 pm (UTC)It was really fun to write, but for a long time I couldn't figure out how to end it. Once I did... It was so neat getting to play with them for a bit. ♥♥♥
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Date: 2008-02-14 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-15 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-15 09:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-15 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-17 10:21 pm (UTC)I don't know the Sarah Jane era of Who too well, and I don't know your other fandom at all, but I love, love, love the Buffyverse and B5 fics. Buffy's voice is so perfect, right down to the way she's sort of rolling her eyes at her own nervousness. And you know I'm a sucker for that mutually dependent Delenn-Lennier relationship.
Their fingers fitted together like two hands of the same body, and she smiled a little at that thought.
Especially when it can generate reactions like "Aww! And now they're going to fight a massive interplanetary war together!"
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Date: 2008-02-18 07:08 pm (UTC)There's nothing like Delenn and Lennier for combining cute and scary, I think. ;)