Coloured Crayons -by- Captain Rainbow Bright

Lol I Eats Your Fingers

2009-12-06T03:41:06Z

HERE 'TIS!

Almost as Cool as Stealing Prosthetic Legs

Lizzy Borden Took an Axe

Plastic isn't important. Plastic is nothing. When you steal a plastic limb, you're taking nothing of value.

“I know. Shut up.”

The words played through his mind anyway. Plastic is not important. Plastic is not important. Plastic limbs are worth nothing. You’re not stealing a real limb.

But it was a real limb. It was a real limb for so many people, and Shane was taking that away. He was taking their legs right off of their bodies. He was denying people their right to walk, to sew, to play tennis. He was raising insurance and hospital costs and prosthetic costs and funeral costs and probably spreading hepatitis and AIDS while he was at it.

You think too much.

It was true. Shane did think too much. He didn’t even understand how he got into this mess in the first place. The Shane he used to be didn’t even have the balls to ask for someone’s pencil. He never kept down a girlfriend. Never kept down a job. Never fit in with his family. And here he was, still not fitting in, yet somehow breaking into hospitals and health shops to steal supplies.

The problem was that the Shane back then didn’t have Neil. And even when Neil did show up, Neil wasn’t inside his head. He was there now, watching, listening, and dictating every move Shane made. He wasn’t sure if Neil actually had some crazy telepathic power or if he had just gotten to the point where he imagined Neil’s voice. The terrifying thing was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know if he was crazy or possessed, or both, and that scared the shit out of him. It scared him enough to initiate Neil’s voice again.

Time is wasting.

They were ready for him. The health shop had tripled their security efforts, not that Shane could blame them. They were, after all, the only medicinal shop not burgled on this route. Security cameras lined the outside of the building, scanning the parking lot at every available angle. They were scattered throughout the inside of the store as well, not as visible so as to give the ‘hidden camera’ edge. Shane could point them out though. There was one in the left corner, one above aisle seven, and another pointing at the mirrors lining the ceiling. It made Shane almost want to chuckle. All that money spent on cameras, but it didn’t matter. Shane was invisible.

You’re dead inside.

It was true. He was invisible. It was how he met Neil. Funny thing, meeting someone because you don’t exist. It didn’t make sense. Then again, nothing about them made sense. Nothing about them ever made sense.

“You’re broken,” Neil had said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re dead inside. No one knows you exist.”

Shane had blown it off at the time. Neil was a freak, a new boy at Cutlers that didn’t get on with anyone. He ate alone, sat alone, slept alone. Up until that point Shane didn’t even know he could speak. It wasn’t until Shane was standing in line at the grocery store and his image didn’t appear on the camera that he listened. That’s when he realized Neil was right. That’s when he got too close.

There was a new lock on the door of the medicinal shop. Not that it mattered. Shane was good at picking locks. When he was a boy, his father would lock up special foods in a hutch above the kitchens. Shane never had a place to go home to during the holidays, never tasted a mother’s homemade sweeties, so he became an expert at sneaking the hidden tarts and chocolates. If only he knew then that his sweet tooth would benefit him in committing federal crimes.

The truth was, it didn’t matter who made the lock or what size it was. As long as you had the right pin, it was simple to hit the release trigger. Shane used his mother’s old hair pin, another item that his father had found missing under strange circumstances. The pin was long and thin, with a curved gold handle and a dulled point. Three small turns and a dull click later, the lock was on the ground and Shane was slipping inside the building. The alarms didn’t go off. How could they? He wasn’t made of anything.

The stock of prosthetics was located in the back room. It was a simple job really, all he had to do was grab the prosthetics, put them in a bag, and leave. It was so easy. So very easy. It was a simple in and out job, fifteen minutes tops, but Shane hung around. Next to the boxes of prosthetics were the papers for each recipient.

Don’t ever look at the patient files.

But he did anyway. He had too. Breaking and entering, stealing; it was all so easy. It was all so painless. He was numb going through the motions, didn’t feel anything. It was like he was turning into Neil; cold and remorseless. So he had to read the files. He had to read whose lives he was destroying because then he would feel guilty. If he hated himself, it meant he was still human.

And what if you don’t?

The first set of legs was meant to go to a war veteran named Thomas Mitchell. The man lost both of his legs fighting for home and country. By taking them away, Shane was spitting on the public service and millions of lives given for his home. Shane was being a cold ungrateful bastard by taking them away. It stung, but only a small prick of remorse. Shane picked up the next chart and flipped through the pages. Old woman lost her arms in a freak electrical accident, young football star hit by a car…young child missing hands from a boating accident. The guilt hit him suddenly, forcing Shane to drop to his knees and resist vomiting on the floor. There it was. He was still human; he was still capable of feeling.

No, you’re just selfish.

He didn’t bother unpacking the prosthetics and putting them in bags. He rushed the job, dropping the charts all over the floor and grabbing the entire box of prosthetics. He may have even knocked medicines off of the shelves as he ran out of the store. It was only when he was on the streets, surrounded by people who didn’t even see him that he was able to slow down and breathe. Neil would know about the mess at the store. He would know about the sloppy way Shane handled things. He would know everything unless Shane slowed down and breathed; breathed and pretended nothing was wrong.

It didn’t matter. Neil was either a mind reader or Shane was a crap actor because Neil knew as soon as Shane walked through the door. And Shane knew that he knew, could feel Neil rummaging around in his brain for satisfactory answers that Shane would never be able to say out loud. It was written in Neil’s eyes, for eternity.

“That took a little long, Shane,” Neil said coldly, eyeing the corner that Shane was to drop the boxes. “You weren’t having a look at patient files, were you?”

Shane was a shit liar. Actually, Shane was quite brilliant at lying, it was only around Neil that the art fell to pieces. Neil knew everything, and Shane knew it was a rhetorical question but he lied anyway.

“New lock,” he mumbled, “I had trouble picking it.”

Neil gave a small smile that looked like it was tearing his skin and nodded as if he understood. He ran his fingers through Shane’s hair, almost lovingly, except there was nothing loving about the look on his face, and his grin grew wider. It almost made Shane’s face hurt to look at the unnatural stretch of skin. “Don’t worry, Shane. I believe you,” he cooed in a way that made Shane want to vomit because the glint in his eyes meant that he didn’t believe a single word that had come out of Shane’s mouth.

And Gave Her Mother Forty Whacks

Shane should have suspected something was out of the ordinary when Neil called him in during the afternoon. Neil and Shane didn’t live together, even though it certainly felt like it from Shane’s perspective since Neil was always lurking in the back of his mind. Jobs were always given to Shane on a post-it attached to his door, and they were all meant to be done at night. Even though Shane was an extremely talented thief, slipping into a store and stealing in broad daylight was plain foolhardy. Part of him wanted to ignore the summoning. Whatever it was that Neil wanted, it wasn’t good. Neil was never the bearer of good news.

The door of the house was left open for Shane. Neil never gave out keys. Shane doubted that the man even owned a spare himself. The rules of the house were simple, when you were wanted or expected, the door would be open, and if you weren’t it would be closed and bolted. It had taken a few months for Shane to get used to the routine, but now he was accustomed to these mid-afternoon rendezvous. He stepped inside the dim hallway, removed his shoes, hung his coat, and bolted the door shut behind him. Sometimes he liked to think Neil was paranoid, but after years of knowing the man, he knew paranoia had nothing to do with any of Neil’s actions.

Neil had a cold house. It wasn’t even the temperature that was cold, the thermostat generally read 70 degrees, but despite this Shane always felt chilled inside. The floor was grey marble tile, and the cold seeped through his socks and nipped at his feet. The walls had never been painted, and remained the same cool white that had been painted when the house was first built. There were few furnishings, no pictures on the wall. It was almost like a hotel. A hotel no one wanted to sleep in. Neil sat in an ice blue chair in the middle of his living room. When he saw Shane, he smiled.

“I have something for you,” he said and gestured to the battered table by the window. On it was a crudely wrapped parcel. Shane felt the package first, checking to see if it was fleshy or hand-shaped. It wouldn’t be the first time that he had received some sort of appendage from Neil. This package was different. It was small and had smooth corners and sides. It was a box. What was in the box, Shane didn’t know.

“Well open it,” Neil murmured, and even though he was all the way across the room, Shane could feel the breath tickle the back of his neck.

Shane unwrapped the brown paper slowly. He wasn’t trying to be careful, he just didn’t know what to anticipate. Gifts from Neil never fell under the category of roses, or rings, or fish, or anything normal. As the paper fell away piece by piece, Shane felt his stomach sink closer to the floor. He was mildly surprised when it wasn’t a box of used needle tips infected with AIDS, or a box of hornet stingers, or something equally grotesque. Instead a small box of crayons fell into his hand. He held up the box to clarify that Neil wasn’t confused and hadn’t accidentally given him something else. Neil just smiled, and the coil in Shane’s stomach sprung tighter because Neil never did anything accidentally.

Shane regarded the box with new intensity, desperately searching for anything out of the ordinary. It was small, and the brand didn’t match any crayon he had ever heard of, but other than that, nothing seemed wrong.

“What’s this?”

“A delivery for an Andrew Shinny,” Neil answered with a smirk. “I believe you know what room he’s in. Come on Shane, the little boy wants to color.”

Shane felt as if his lungs had collapsed. “That little boy has no hands,” he wheezed.

Neil just smiled; a cold smile that didn’t even come near his ice blue eyes. “What a pity.”

Shane opened the box and nearly vomited all over the floor. Inside was a perfect rainbow, red to indigo, of finger shaped crayons. He tossed the box aside and watched as the multicolored fingers scattered across the floor. Neil didn’t even move. He didn’t have to.

“Well really, that was rude. They were his fingers after all.”

“You’re a sick fuck.”

Neil was right on him then, standing too close like he always did so that Shane could feel the words straight through his chest. “You never read the patient files Shane. You never read the files.”

Andrew Shinny’s room was smack dab in the middle of the pediatric ward. Shane felt his palms slick with sweat as soon as he stepped out of the elevator. Even though he had gone by three different nursing stations, run into a couple of elderly men, and walked in on two residents swapping spit in a supply closet, Shane was still nervous about the task set at hand. The plan was to leave the crayons on the table set by the door with no one being the wiser of how they got there.

Or he could throw the crayons away and not have anything to do with the entire situation. Except Neil would find out, like he always did, and Shane would be forced to amputate the kid’s legs and then turn them into meat pies for the mother as a consolation. His stomach rose to his throat at the thought, and Shane managed to make it to the sink of the staff bathroom. His vomit stained the porcelain sink, staining the white with red. Above the sink was a cracked mirror, and Shane stared at his split reflection.

“Did I really think of that?” he asked the two faces. They smirked at him, each side rising in a crude imitation of Neil’s tight face-splitting smile. He leaned in closer, trying to figure out the color of his eyes, but black pools stared back at him.

“Yes,” they answered, mirror rippling under their voices.

You have a job, Shane.

He did have a job. It was in room 207. 205, 206, 208… Room 207 stood separate from the other rooms, planted in a corner between 209 and 211. It was a room no one could find except for those who went looking for it. Of course Neil would choose this room, or Andrew would choose it, or Neil would choose Andrew because of it. Shane didn’t believe in coincidences anymore.

There was no table by the door of the room. It had been moved to flank the other side of the young boy’s bed. Shane’s stomach churned unpleasantly as he entered his room, and even though he was sure it was his nerves, his footsteps seemed to shake the entire building. The boy stared at him; a blank stare, not unlike Neil’s, and didn’t move. It was a simple in and out job, all he had to do was leave the crayons on the table. But as soon as he set them down, a small stump slammed down on his hand, making his own fingers crunch and whither.

“I know what’s in the box,” Andrew said, eyes still hollow and unfocused.

Shane forced a smile around the pain in his hand. “You do?”

Andrew’s stump pressed harder. “I know what’s in the box, Shane.”

Shane’s stomach dropped at that. He didn’t believe in coincidences anymore, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t wish for them.

“Would you like to color, Shane?” the boy asked, and his voice sounded surprisingly similar to Neil’s.

“What?” The boy didn’t answer. And then there was searing pain running up his entire arm because the stump was pressing down…and down…and down; hard enough to sever. Shane couldn’t even scream as he watched his fingers pop off one by one. Pop, pop, pop, just like the cheap Barbie heads from the Dollar Store. Pop, pop, pop.

“Quick Shane, you don’t want the ink to dry out.”

And Shane knew that the ink was his own blood, that he was supposed to draw with his own fingers like the sick twisted freak that he was, but he didn’t know how to explain that he had no fingers and he couldn’t hold onto anything and he couldn’t even see anything because the pain was blinding and the blood was making him queasy and he didn’t know…didn’t know. And everything. Went. Black.

Andrew was asleep on the bed, his stumps wrapped in clean gauze, with a tired woman sitting close and stroking his head. There was a tray with old food sitting on a table by the door. It was a simple in and out job. Shane threw the crayons on the top of a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich and bolted from the hospital.

When She Saw What She Had Done…

Shane escaped to a closed off coffee shop not far from Neil’s house. Sometimes Shane wondered if part of everything was his fault, because he always came when Neil called, and even when he didn’t Shane wasn’t that far off. The pain in his fingers had reduced to a dull ache, but they were still red and almost swollen. Hot coffee did little for the pain, but it was pleasant enough to drink.

“Arthritic hands?”

Shane raised his gaze at the sound of a woman’s voice. Standing right in front of him, and apparently talking to him, was a young woman with strawberry hair and supple curves barely visible underneath her bulky sweater. She was the most beautiful thing Shane had ever seen, and Shane had half a mind to blurt out something lame like: You can see me? Instead he went along with something a little more traditional.

“Excuse me?”

The woman chuckled, flipped her hair over her shoulder, and took the chair across from him without asking. “Your hands. I noticed you rubbing them so, it’s either arthritis or a nervous tick of some sort.”

Shane saluted her with his coffee. “Very observant.”

She laughed appreciatively. “I have to be. My assignment week is to observe different people. I’m studying psychology.”

Shane smiled. “So can you help interpret my dreams?”

The girl looked a bit nervous, as if she wasn’t sure if he was being serious or if he was trying to pick her up. “I said psychology, not astrologic dream reading,” she said noncommittally.

“I’m serious.” Shane saw her expression drop. “Please?”

She shrugged and sipped her coffee. “I suppose.”

Don’t speak Shane. You never speak.

“I have this dream,” his throat closed and he coughed to clear it. “Sorry. I have this…dream. I get it a lot. I’m in a room-“ his heart was in his esophagus and it was getting harder to breathe-“and it’s a chessboard. It’s all a chessboard. And all the pieces are dead. It’s just me and no one knows I’m there.” His lungs were collapsing. He could feel them caving in, but God it felt so good to speak to somebody. “And it’s all one room, all one chessboard, but I can’t help but feel like I’m lost. And then-“ God, his head was killing him. He could see sparks behind his eyelids. “-I realize I have strings attached. I-I’m a puppet and all of my stitches are coming undone. But instead of straw it’s-maggots…because-“

He was going to die. He was going to die now because he spoke when he shouldn’t have and Neil couldn’t stand it and his head was going to explode and he was going to die.

“-because…”

You’re dead.

“I’m dead.”

Shane cradled his head as the girl stared at him. Then her hand was on his shoulder and he could feel it and the pain started to ebb away. She gave him a small smile and handed him his coffee. He took a sip, savoring the burn down his throat.

“I think,” she began, “I think you watch too much Harry Potter.”

He laughed. It was weird because he hadn’t laughed in such a long time and it sounded like dirt and soft wind and it tasted like death and it hurt, but it was wonderful. She laughed too, and hers smelled like grass and warm spring and didn’t look painful at all. Maybe if he laughed a little longer, his would feel natural too.

“I’m Roxanne,” she said.

“Shane,” he responded.

“Hello, Shane.”

That night, Shane didn’t see Neil or go back to his apartment. There was a twist in his gut, something telling him that he was being a bad child, disobeying his parents, but everyone had to sneak out of the house once in a while. Shane ignored his conscience, and fell asleep in a warm bed that was not his own and smelled faintly of roses and formaldehyde.

Neil was waiting for Shane in his flat, and it was almost comical because Neil never came to Shane’s place. Shane’s walls were a light caramel color, and his accents were in browns reds and oranges. He tried to feel warm when he came home. Neil almost looked like he was sweltering, and it made Shane almost feel like he was in control. Almost.

“Here comes the triple traitor to the king,” Neil recited softly.

Shane held up his hands in a fit of early surrender. “She initiated conversation with me,” he explained.

Neil shook his head. “Shane,” he nearly cooed, “that doesn’t bother me. I’m glad you’ve made a friend.”

Shane knew that there was most likely some cryptic message hidden behind Neil’s words. Deep inside he knew that Neil would never be happy for him about anything, knew that he should anticipate some sick joke to come next. But none came. The silence stretched on and Shane felt like he was the only uncomfortable person in the room because he hadn’t accepted Neil’s good wishes.

“Thank you,” he tried uncertainly.

Neil nodded, as if in approval, and handed Shane to folded pieces of paper. Shane unfolded them carefully and was surprised to see two admission tickets to the city’s corn maze. He looked at Neil in confusion and the other man shrugged.

“They were a gift. I would have taken you, but it’s always better to go to these things with a female companion, don’t you agree?”

Shane did agree. He agreed completely. He just didn’t understand why Neil was being nice and handing him an actual gift. An actual, useable, no-body-gets-hurt gift. He felt liberated, crazy with power, and he had a feeling that Neil could feel it too, especially since Shane’s home warmth was penetrating Neil’s icy blues. Even his head was quiet.

“It’s because she saw me isn’t it,” Shane pieced together before Neil left. “I’m not broken anymore.”

Neil gave a pained smile, one that looked almost grotesque on his thin face, and walked out. It made Shane giddy with delight, a feeling on par with being immortal. When he looked in the mirror, he saw his own face.

Roxanne was thrilled about the maze passes. The city corn maze was set up in the heart of downtown, and it was still a mystery to everyone how they managed to grow corn in the middle of a cobblestone street. It was for that reason alone that there were no complaints about the cost of admission. A free ticket was the equivalent of winning the lottery. The crowd even seemed to split and disperse as they walked by, almost as if they were royalty. Shane didn’t mind.

Once inside the corn maze, his good mood began to spoil. Shane was never a fan of Halloween or dressing up or fake blood or horror movies. Corn mazes were like haunted houses, only outside. Roxanne didn’t mind at all; didn’t even notice Shane’s reluctance to trudge forward.

“I love going to the corn mazes before anyone else gets there. Otherwise it’s too crowded and you don’t get nearly as scared,” she said after about ten minutes of wandering.

Shane actually preferred it with other people around. He wasn’t keen on getting scared. He was always scared. He smiled and agreed with Roxanne anyway. Better with no people. Better with no witnesses.

“Did you ever go through the corn maze as a child?”

Shane could feel something prickling the back of his neck. Something wasn’t right. He was being watched and it wasn’t playful. He knew how these things worked. People hid behind the bushes and jumped out. But they were halfway in and no one was jumping.

“I think we came a little too early. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone here.”

Roxanne laughed and tossed her hair out of her face. “Don’t be silly. If it wasn’t open, that nice man wouldn’t have let us in.”

Shane nodded, but the twist in his stomach wouldn’t go away. Nice man at the front. Nice man at the front. He looked so familiar but Shane couldn’t place his face.

“Wouldn’t we have already been jumped by now?”

Roxanne sighed in a way that conveyed she thought Shane was being quite childish. “Maybe they’re waiting for the opportune moment to come out and scare the little pants off of worry warts like you.”

Opportune moments? Yes, there was an opportune moment but it didn’t belong here. This wasn’t right. The whole scenario wasn’t right.

“Something keeps touching the back of my neck,” he said instead.

Roxanne gave an exasperated sigh and clasped his hand in hers. “It’s just the corn leaves. Now will you stop worrying please?”

Shane nodded. Maybe he was just being a worry wart. Maybe he should just relax. Except there was rustling in the corn and he could feel Roxanne let go of his hand and he knew why it felt wrong but it was too late because Neil was there and the knife went across her throat so quick that she couldn’t even scream. Shane couldn’t even scream as the blood poured out of the wound and splattered over his shirt and neck. He couldn’t speak because he could hear the bone cracking under the force, could feel her windpipe collapse; could hear her gurgling as her lungs filled with blood.

Neil let go of her body and it dropped unceremoniously to the ground. He was completely clean, even in a white shirt and pants like some holy messiah sent by the devil. He flourished the knife with a chuckle. “Don’t you hate it when women don’t listen,” he asked with a predatory glint in his eyes.

Shane couldn’t answer. He knew there was something wrong, he had felt it, but he hadn’t done anything. He had let her die. The man in the front was a man he worked for and he didn’t notice and he had killed her. No, Neil had killed her. It was always Neil. Neil regarded Roxanne like she was a piece of road kill.

“Funny isn’t it,” Neil said with a smirk, “Death in the breadth of life.”

“You planned all of this didn’t you?”

Neil smiled. “Why Shane, the maze doesn’t open until nine. You’re an hour early. Didn’t you read the card?”

Shane wanted to lunge at him. He could feel the adrenaline pulsing throughout his entire being, could feel every fiber in his body screaming at him to just do it. But he didn’t. He wanted to punch Neil. He wanted to rip the smile off of his face. He wanted to bite, kick, scratch, and scream, but he couldn’t move. And Neil knew it. Neil knew it because he was laughing and licking the blood off of the knife, and even when he pressed up against Shane and kissed him to where Shane could taste the blood too, he couldn’t move. Neil pressed the blade into Shane’s hand, and Shane found himself taking it without question.

“I’m your spade. You’re dead. You’re my Maraclea.”

She Gave Her Father FORTY-ONE

Appendage Thief Caught!

The famous prosthetic thief that has been plaguing hospitals and medical supply stores alike has finally been caught, and in a surprising turn of events, has turned out to be another well known person of town and country. Prime Minister Albert Baker was discovered this morning with the stolen goods stored away in his personal warehouse. Along with the plastic limbs were other stolen items ready for import. The police are treating this case with utmost priority and it is quite possible that the prime minister election will come sooner than expected…

Shane stopped reading the article and folded over the paper. Neil looked relaxed, a new look for him, a good look for him, now that the job was done. Shane had just been the bus boy. Neil was the mastermind behind everything, the one who actually took all the action. As much as Shane didn’t want to admit it, he almost admired him for it.

“Is it over then?” Shane asked, sitting next to Neil and not flinching away when the other man rested his arm on the back of the sofa.

“It’ll never be over. You know that.”

Shane looked at the map tacked against the wall listing every club member from the highest in command to the lowest servant.

“No, I suppose not.”

It wouldn’t be over. Shane knew it, and he accepted it…sort of. No one knew Neil, no one knew him like Shane did. Maybe if they did, they would understand that he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t possibly ever leave. The truth was, sometimes it was rough. Sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes Shane thought he was in love, and sometimes he knew he was wrong.

Feeling (A Being Human Ficlet)

2009-09-13T20:36:01Z

Title: Feeling
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Mitchell-centric, Annie, Lauren
Author: Tiffany Dreamglitter
Summary: Mitchell has a secret hidden in boxes.
Word count: 382 (This one is short)
AN: Done on that i-pod shuffle prompt to the song Niki Fm by Hawthorne Heights
Disclaimer: If I made money from this, it would be a glorious day.

Mitchell is not a sentimentalist. He’s anything but. The cardigan that George gave him for his birthday? He threw it out as soon as one of the threads snagged. He was also working desperately hard to throw out Annie’s parsley grater. Nobody in the house really ate parsley. It was a completely useless tool, especially since Owen gave it to her.

Mitchell didn’t hold onto objects. Instead he had pictures. There were hundreds of them tucked away into boxes and bags hidden in the back of his closet. They were mostly photos of young women, some men, all smiling in eternal happiness. Mitchell liked them smiling. With the photos, he didn’t have to remember their agonized faces. He didn’t have to remember the anguish, the realization, or the horror. When they smiled, he didn’t see the blood.

Except he did. It stained his mind and poured over his bed sheets, melting through his eyes. He could never forget them. 100 years of misery. One century of regret sat in boxes smiling up at him. Maybe one day he would throw them away, but for now he was okay with the ghosts. As long as he could keep smiling, he could live with them. It wasn’t such a dark secret when there were so many others out there who were not in the box, so many people living, breathing, beating.

Except one. A new girl whose face was not in the box, but on his nightstand and outside his window. A girl who should have died but didn’t. A girl he couldn’t stop thinking of. He could hear her breathing, could feel her heart speed up in time with his, could feel her blood freeze under his fingertips.

When he sees her, he’s taken back o the days before the boxes. Back when he was needed; when he didn’t need.

He can’t turn her away because he remembers how it feels to know on one. Just to see a familiar face, to catch the tune; he knows how it gets harder and harder to find. So she stays, tucked away in a frame, hidden in a hotel shower, breathing but not quite.

“Help me,” she says. “You made me like this.”

And Mitchell can’t possibly imagine putting her in the box.

When it Rains (A Being Human Ficlet)

2009-08-31T07:38:41Z

Title: When it Rains
Rating: PG-13
Characters: George-centric, Mitchell, Annie
Author: Tiffany Dreamglitter
Summary: Sometimes George has a hard time coping.
AN: Sequel to Fish N' Chips but can definately stand alone.
Disclaimer: If I made money from this, it would be a glorious day.

When it hits, it hits hard.

George wakes up with bile clogging the back of his throat and the desperate urge to scream and throw up. He doesn’t. Instead he pushes himself out of bed and smoothes out his sheets. He fluffs up his pillows and folds over his comforter and picks up his clothes that were uncaringly tossed aside the night before.

When George goes to the bathroom, he gets dressed, washes his face, and brushes his teeth without looking in the mirror. It’s on these days that he by-passes putting in his contacts because he can’t bear to face himself. Because he knows that if he looks up it won’t be George in the mirror.

If broken glass was seven years bad luck, then George was forever cursed.

On these days George didn’t join Annie and Mitchell for tea and toast because inside he wanted to break all of the used mugs and scream and rant. On these days he would make himself scarce in the hospital supply closet because he became the employee that patients always complained was simply incompetent, running invalids into garbage cans and putting down used sheets and such instead of clean ones.

Sometimes there would be a clenching in his gut and the monster inside simply reached out and snapped a patient’s neck. Sometimes George had to run away because the visions in his mind were too much to handle. Because the fantasies he had were about killing and he really didn’t even mind. It terrified him.

These were the days George went to the pub by himself and drank draft after draft of the same cheep beer that Mitchell hates. The light fades away with George sitting in the same dim corner, glowering at the bowl of shattered peanut shells. He wants to break them down more; break them down molecularly until there is nothing left. He wants the world to stop moving. He wants all the glass to break at the same time and he wants the shards to pierce through everyone’s heart and he wants it all to end. He wants to disappear.

On the streets, George often forgets where he is. He can’t hold his liquor. It drugs him like a dog, clogging his sense of smell and skewing his perception, forcing him down unfamiliar streets and upturned pathways with inverted colors. Part of him wants to run into the woods even though it’s not his time and unleash everything. He wants to give himself a heart attack. He wants to die. He wants so much that he can never have and it hurts. It hurts somewhere so deep that he can’t reach it; somewhere it can hide and torment him like his own pathetic miserable existence.

Sometimes George wakes up in the woods, nearly thrown that it isn’t the 28^th day because he feels sore and guilty and nauseous as if it was.

Most of the time he wakes up in his own bed with memories of screaming and crying and things that should have never been said. The memories are worse than waking up with lost unconsciousness because they mock everything he ever used to be. The George he knew would never throw a tantrum. The George he used to be always smiled and ate kosher and was socially awkward. George would never call Annie a whorish twat or Mitchell a disgusting carnage-addicted monster. George would never toss his most prized possessions to the floor, and he would most definitely not lose his Star of David in a fit of rage.

On those mornings, George wants to curl up with the guilt and cry away the shame, thinking back on what it is like to feel so completely alone.

Those mornings, there is always a fresh cup of tea on his nightstand and his star somehow reappears around his neck. Those mornings, he walks into the kitchen with his tail between his legs and Annie will still hug him and Mitchell will smile as if what George had said didn’t hurt.

“It’s alright,” they say. “It’ll all be alright.”

Sometimes, George believes them.

Fish N' Chips

2009-07-28T04:36:08Z

Indeed, it is a Being Human Fic.
Title: Fish N' Chips
Pairing: Not quite Mitchell/George
Rating: PG
Summary: Some days, George feels a little bit more human.
Disclaimer: I wish I owned these boys.
Author's Note: WTF IDEK

Some days George gets stuck in a state.

Like when he’s in the supermarket, roaming around the Stop N’ Shop with a green plastic basket slung over one arm looking at frozen bags of chips. Chips, just like anybody else, figuring out which would go best with dinner. Extra crispy? Slices? Crinkled? Garlic Cheese? Could Mitchell even eat garlic?

Said man stands directly behind him, making a game of nearly running George over with the shopping cart, and George hates how he jumped every single time. He hates it even more how the smirk never leaves Mitchell’s face because the bastard knew that he would.

It makes George wonder; maybe Mitchell really can’t eat garlic. Maybe if he got the garlic chips Mitchell would be stuck with soggy fish and no side. It was an entirely preposterous thought because Mitchell ate all the garlic bread when it was spaghetti night, but Geroge still thinks of it as a brilliant idea.

“You can eat garlic chips, right?”

Mitchell rolls his eyes as if to say You really have to ask that? Really? and George rolls his back as if to say Well I was just checking you know, just in case, because even if you can eat it, it makes you smell horrid and I’m really looking out for your best interest.

“What kind of chips do you want?” he tries again.

Mitchell shrugs his shoulders, not even bothering to straighten up off the cart.

“There’s extra crispy, straight, crimped, curly-"

Mitchell laughs. “Do those happen to be the gay chips?”

“No. Wait, what? No-no nonono- that’s completely- why would- what made you think I was insinuating-"

“George, calm down. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

George’s face flushes all the way to his ears and he hates how he can be so easily played.

“Pick a chip,” he grumbles because he’s most definitely not planning on choosing the exact opposite of what Mitchell wants.

‘Oh Blimey George, it’s just chips. Does it really matter?”

George puffs out his chest indignantly. “Of course it matters. There’s crunchy and floppy and this Ore-Ida stuff that I think is American and these brown store brand ones that are much cheaper but look like something out of the garbage disposal and this gourmet organic stuff with- oh is that rosemary? Yes indeed, rosemary and thyme which is- good Lord- 6.79 special offer.” George’s voice rises in pitch at the price and he puts the bag back, knowing that he wouldn’t purchase it even if Mitchell hated it.

Mitchell laughs and turns the cart so that he’s heading towards the checkout counters. “It’s chips. Just grab the cheapest one and let’s go.”

George can’t help but feel a little pleased because the cheapest ones really do look un-edible so he does the opposite of what Mitchell says and grabs the 4.99 American chips instead.

These moments gratify George so much that he doesn’t even mind the funny looks he and Mitchell receive from the check-out girl because it isn’t a look of horror or disgust- just funny. It doesn’t matter because at that moment he and Mitchell are just two guys shopping. They’re just two normal flat-mates buying a normal tea of fish and chips and it doesn’t matter that Miss. Suzie Q. is looking at them like they’re queer because even being gay is normal.

And when he’s seated in the kitchen between Annie and Mitchell laughing over some joke that isn’t even funny, George is reminded of a time when he would sit with his girlfriend and do the exact same thing. A time where he was just George and ghosts stayed in movies, vampires belonged in Anne Rice novels, and werewolves were nothing more than bad prosthetics on t.v.

On these days, George forgets about the monsters and feels safe. He becomes Normal George, human George who can sit and eat tea with his mates, laugh and not care. These days, it doesn’t even matter when Mitchell says he always thought the Ore-Ida chips were the best.

How Now Mad Spirit

2009-07-12T05:46:11Z

Okay, first off, Were the World Mine is probably the happiest gay movie I have ever seen. Shakespeare to music, super bonus.
Second, it's great being short because Leg Avenue costumes fit me like normal dresses instead of outfits full of swank.
In other news, here's all my weird Merthar stuff cos I feel like posting.
I'm still working on Star Trek RPS. I feel really bad about that cos I should have done it like, a month ago. Whatev. I also wrote a song in school. It's called WTF is this IDEK.

AFTERNOON TORTURE WAS NEVER SO SWEET
“Mm, Gods, yes.”

Merlin didn’t mind that he was being a bit loud. His hand worked furiously, determined to get him some release before he had to go back to his duties. It wasn’t that Merlin normally wanked four times a day, but Arthur had been an unusual arse the entire morning. An arse meaning the man purposely chose his too tight pants for training, made indecent gestures with his practice sword, constantly teased Merlin with oral fixation, beckoned him to the stables, and then reprimanded him for not polishing his armor.

Merlin didn’t understand it. Had he done something wrong? Made Arthur angry? He couldn’t think of any other reason the man would torture him this way. Not only that, because he was too busy thinking about what he could have possibly done wrong, he couldn’t quite focus on getting off. Which he really wanted to do.

“Merlin, what on earth are you doing?”

Merlin groaned and had half a mind to just pick up the pace even more even with the risk of tearing his uhm, nether regions off. He could have gotten there if Arthur hadn’t bumped in. Merlin removed his hand from in his breeches and looked at Arthur with a desperate face and glassy eyes.

Arthur smirked and made some rather indecent gestures around where Merlin would most definitely like to be rubbing against. But just when Merlin was about to throw himself at Arthur’s feet and just start rutting against his leg, Arthur produced a long metal item with a wide grin.

“You should be polishing my sword.”

Merlin nearly cried.

Arthur laughed quietly as Merlin went to work hastily polishing his sword. Trembling fingers dipped the rag into oil, then ran it in long quick strokes over the sword. Merlin could hardly focus. He had a raging hard-on and Arthur was right there making him polish his sword of all things. Couldn’t he tell Merlin was dying inside? Couldn’t he feel the tension building, ready to take Merlin in a fit of flames? Merlin thought he did, because he could feel the man’s smirk burning into his neck.

“Yes Merlin,” Arthur whispered into his neck, enticing a small moan that Merlin had definitely not wanted to let out, “just like that. Move your hand up and down just like that. Such long strokes Merlin.”

Merlin’s hand faltered when he felt Arthur press against him, the man’s obvious erection pressing against his bum. For a fleeting moment he thought this was it, his waiting was up, Arthur would take him here and now and stars would explode and life would be perfect and- Arthur pulled away.

“Well don’t stop Merlin. Really, you’re going to stop halfway through. You have to keep rubbing it. Soft circles. Right near the base, mind your fingers. You’re so clumsy, you’d chop them off. Long strokes. Not so fast. Make good work of it. That’s right.”

And so it went for half an hour almost, Merlin’s cock pulsing with small bursts of pain from the inattention. At this rate he was sure he would come in his pants, just like when he was a small child and he would wake a mess with no recollection of how it got there. He felt hot, bothered, and humiliated, and Arthur was inspecting his sword with such an expression Merlin was ready to pounce.

“Ar-thur,” Merlin hated the quiver in his voice.

Arthur shook his head and stalked around Merlin like a predator inspecting his prey.

“Merlin,” Arthur purred nipping at one of the boy’s ears, “I do believe my lunch should be on the table in my room by now. It’s a special dish today, with lots of cream.”

Merlin was running up the stairs before Arthur had time to sheath his sword.

I DO BELIEVE WE CALL THIS A FAIRY TALE
‘In a land of flags castles and fire, there lived a young warlock named Merlin who couldn’t seem to get the love of his life to see past his large and unusually perfect nose. It wasn’t that Merlin wasn’t pretty himself, oh no. Rather, he was the fairest boy in all the land. However, the one he was in love with was also a boy, the princeliest boy in all the land, and he was also his master, which went against all codes of Master/Servant etiquette. Not only that, but the prince’s evil not-so-quite-step father wanted his son to be married, and planned to hold a ball that only the most beautiful of maidens could attend.

Merlin, a bit miffed that he was born a lad, contacted his lady friend Cinderella in the kingdom next door. She told him her story of becoming princess/queen after marrying Prince Handsome with the help of her fairy godmother. Merlin felt hopeful.

“Oh, woe is me!” he cried woefully. “If only I had a fairy godmother to get me to the ball!”

No fairy godmother came. They were all booked helping the other young maidens get ready for the ball. Merlin felt hopeless, until he remembered he was magic! He didn’t need a fairy godmother! He was a fairy, in the more modern sense.

So Merlin magicked one of Morgana’s dresses so that it would fit him like a sultry glove of pure princessness. He even made it appear like he had bosoms. Long black flowing hair covered his ears and fell in waves down his back. He powdered his nose, and stuffed abnormally large feet into abnormally small shoes. He was a beautiful woman, sort of. Looking ravishing, Merlin hobbled his way to the ball where there were hundreds of pretty lasses all waiting for Prince Pratface.

Merlin nearly wailed at the injustice. It wasn’t fair! Those ladies used magic! They weren’t really that pretty!

Arthur walked among the throng of women, looking for the one he would claim and impregnate with their perfect genes. Blue eyes met blue, and although Arthur was dense most of the time, he immediately recognized his true love.

He kissed Merlinella, claimed him as his bride, and they ran from the ball just as the clock struck twelve leaving two small glass slippers on the stone steps.

“Who was that beautiful girl?” the ladies asked.

Uther did not have an answer to their question, and the stirring in his gut gave him a not so good feeling about his son’s choice of bride. He somehow felt his entire ball plan had backfired.

Arthur and Merlin engaged in passionate love making, causing a meteor shower of shooting stars and bursts of rainbows. Bunnies hugged kittens who hugged puppies, and everything procreated making cute babies and fertile land.

And thus there was no more hunger and suffering, and Arthur and Merlin lived happily ever after in a land of cute and fluffy things.

The End’

“I can’t believe you called me Prince Pratface in a fairytale.”

“I can’t believe how after I spell out the perfect life, all you can focus on is one nickname.”

Arthur sighed and kissed the top of Merlin’s head as the boy cuddled closer into his side.

“I dunno. I think…this is- you know, pretty close to um, perfect.”

Merlin hid his smile in Arthur’s shoulder.

FEED ME, PENDRAGON!
It was hardly noticeable at first. Merlin would feel a slight touch when he walked past, maybe a curious tap around his thighs, but he always brushed it off as an eerie feeling on the back of his neck. He had heard stories of laboratory experiments gone wrong; of monsters being grown, eating their creators, then being destroyed and hidden from the government. He even had a collection of old Earth story books about killer science experiments grown in the basement. He refused to get caught up in the hype of fairy tales, and continued his work believing it was all in his mind.

The more he tried to ignore it, the more intense it became. No longer was it a simple tap along his thighs, Merlin now felt a definitive smack across his bum. He would examine the offender carefully, ignoring the fact that this experiment was pressing buttons he didn’t even know he had. Merlin would go home at night and examine the red welts across his arse and thighs in the mirror, gently tracing over the raised bumps until he grew hard. When he jerked off in the comfort of his apartment, he worked to convince himself that he had been thinking of Gwen, maybe even Morgana, not his work. He couldn’t avoid it though. Every time he came, he thought of his project. Night after night his fingers danced around his cock, working him to an orgasm through his obsession. He even gave it a name. Arthur.

Merlin tried to give the project to someone else, pass it on so that he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. But every time he held the transfer paper work in front of him, he could swear he heard Arthur crying. He couldn’t give him up. He couldn’t pass him on.

Merlin couldn’t ignore Arthur anymore. When he was busy taking vials to sample in the lab, long wiry tentacles tangled through his clothes and hair. Merlin could hardly get a vial filled before his lab jacket was on the floor and the buttons were being undone on his shirt. Merlin batted the tentacles away half heartedly, even though he knew that he couldn’t battle something he wanted as well. He swore he’d never get caught up in his work, would never become like a character in one of those vintage science fiction novels, and yet here he was, allowing Arthur to undo his trousers. One button. Two. Zipper.

Merlin dropped the vials and closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch. He couldn’t witness as he gave in, couldn’t see the horrible monster that he’d become. It was no longer a woman he craved, not even a man, but this thing that he created. This thing that was calling to him. This thing he could never let go as tentacles wrapped around his arms and neck, holding him in place. There were hundreds of them, coming from everywhere. He couldn’t see, but he could feel. Green and thin, but strong enough to feel almost like extended fingers. He could feel liquid rushing beneath the surface, almost like a blood pulse point. Almost human.

They were under his shirt now, feeling, tasting, teasing, and Merlin almost caved right then. Spread out like he was on a crucifix, Merlin gave in as they slipped into his pants, beneath his briefs, wrapping around his length much like a hand. Merlin resisted opening his eyes or crying out. He didn’t want Arthur to know he liked it, even though he was hard to where it nearly hurt. The long appendages working his cock were definitely not hands, but in Merlin’s mind they felt like hands. Thousands of hands coming from all directions, touching him in places he’d never been touched, making him shiver, making him shake, making him cry. It felt so wrong, so strange, that when he came, the feeling was amplified beyond what he had ever felt. His entire body rocked and spasmed, wringing every drop of liquid from his body through semen, sweat and tears.

When he opened his eyes, he was left standing with his pants undone and his shirt still unbuttoned. He stood alone, nothing touching him. Arthur smiled, the carved wooden face creaking slightly from the effort, green stems back in place and behaving. Merlin could only think one thing as he fixed himself in the mirror: fucking plants.

“Sir, how is the Pendragon Project?”

Merlin smiled. “I think I need more time.”

And this I should actually probably not be sharing but whatev. Food.

SCARS THAT CEASE TO BLEED
It had been too long a time. Arthur had gone through the months in a near haze ever since Merlin was taken.

“He has been captured by the enemy,” Uther had said.

Arthur was already in battle clothes and on his best steed.

“You will not ride after him. He was a sorcerer, an enemy to the crown.”

Arthur had known that. Merlin had told him one night, sobbing in his room. Arthur didn’t care.

“He was a liar.”

“Not to me.”

Arthur didn’t get very far. Arrows pierced through the weak spots on his armor. He was bedridden for a month. Uther said the enemy struck his son. People were in uproar. Arthur cried.

He didn’t know what to do now, nearly a year later, with Merlin standing in front of him. The entire town seemed silent, waiting. The two embraced like old friends, like brothers, like lovers. Merlin cried.

He was skinny. Holed up in the camp with other prisoners, Merlin had lost what little meat he had. Arthur carried Merlin to his room, much to his protests. He wanted to hold tighter, but he was afraid Merlin would shatter and be lost forever.

The next week Arthur didn’t leave his room. Merlin slept often, whimpering through the dreams. When he was awake Arthur would feed him a little at a time. Bread, fruit, mead. It was slow. It was perfect.

“Arthur,” Merlin mumbled one morning, “your leg is wrong.”

“And you’re too thin.”

Arthur tried to hand Merlin a strawberry, but Merlin didn’t take it. He took Arthur’s face in his hands and kissed him hard, and Arthur felt the burn of shame in his throat because Merlin knew and there was nothing worse than a lame knight. Arthur offered the strawberry again, and Merlin took it, understanding that Arthur could not be pitied. He kissed Arthur again, juice from the fruit still on his tongue.

“Help me,” he whispered.

And Arthur knew what Merlin was doing but he didn’t care. He took another strawberry from the bowl and chewed it himself, Merlin pressing light kisses to his jaw. They kissed again, strawberry transferring from one mouth to the other, Merlin swallowing and Arthur nuzzling his cheeks. So it went for what seemed like an eternity. Fruity kisses, control, submission, understanding. It went slow. It was perfect.

But the next strawberry Merlin grabbed, taking a bite himself and using the other half to paint watery lines over Arthur’s lips and chin. Arthur didn’t understand until Merlin licked him, slowly, deliberately, and he knew it was no longer about control, but forgetting. It was what Merlin needed.

A slice of bread came next and Arthur bit into it obediently, ignoring the grains that spilled down his chest. Merlin was there, licking the crumbs and sucking the flesh like a small kitten. Laces were undone slowly, shirts lifted off as Arthur ate sliced peaches from Merlin’s chest. Hands reached out, explored, grasped; two newborn babes destined together for all eternity.

Breeches were abandoned while they painted each other with crushed bananas, dipped into with childish fingers and sucked off like wild Gods. When Arthur first entered they remembered who they once were and Merlin made such a noise that Arthur thought he had broken him in half. They rocked back and forth, searching for a time when everything was innocent, when there was hope, when the future made sense. Tongues danced over skin that tasted too sweet, tasted of melon and strawberry and banana and stale bread and underneath some unrecognizable taste of them mixing together, melding, a taste that was undeniably love.

They moved wordlessly in unison, the air breathing confessions of I know and hold on and I’m afraid and I love you. They chased promises, trying to find the thing they’d lost, the pressure building until they were sure to explode from the abandonment, clashing together until the epiphany shook them both that they were no longer lost.

They fell together, cling to the one thing that mattered as tears mixed with wine. They fell asleep in a huddle to the drone of silent affirmations. Soon. I’ll tell you soon. It will all be alright. Soon.

Here is a list of things I need to finish

Big Bang (The Story of the Backalley Boys)
Well Hello There Mr. Spock (Kirk/spock/rpf)
S.H.Y (Spring Awakening: Ernst/Hanschen)
THIS IS HELLTON! (DPS Neil Todd)
Pinto RPF boarding school request that I have yet to even start on.
Oh yeah. It's a lot.

ANTHONY HEAD WAS MEANT TO BE A FUCKING ROCKSTAR

2009-07-04T03:38:02Z

For fucking serious.
So I just watched REPO!, yeah? And it's like, oh my god. Anthony HEAD. Yeah. Hard fucking core man.
And Paris Hilton wasn't so bad. Which is saying something

Oh yeah. He goes there. Anyway, the song he actually sings right there is Legal Assassin, if you want to search it.

This evening I have four movies. Hell yeah. I am staying up all night to watch these glorious titles.

By the way, I would do this man.

Friend Lock!

2009-06-15T05:57:00Z

That's right. I am now Friends Only. Comment if you would like to be added.
(Thanks to lastling for making this fabulous banner and for itachitachi for telling me who it was.)

For those who want to know before they add me, here is a master list of all the pairings I ship..

The History Boys: Scripps/ Posner (OTP) but I like slashing them all!

Being Human: Mitchell/George

Spring AWAKENING: Ernst/Hanschen. Melchior/Moritz

DR. WHO ( Doctor/Master, Cute DOCTORDONNA BFFL)

TORCHWOOD (Jack/Ianto, Owen/Tosh, Gwen being Gwen)

LORD OF THE RINGS (Frodo/Sam, Merry/Pippin, Legolas/Gimli, Legolas/Figwit)

MERLIN (Merlin/Arthur, Morgana/Gwen, Lancelot/Gwen, also Bradley/Colin)

DEAD POETS SOCIETY (Neil/Todd, Charlie/Meeks)

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS (Bret/Jemaine obv)

PANIC! AT THE DISCO (Brendon/Ryan)

DBSK (Jaejoong/Yunho, Yoochun/Junsu, Changmin)

CHRISTOPHER RICE (All of his characters with anyone!)

NARUTO (Kakashi/Iruka)

D. GRAY-MAN (Allen/Kanda, Lavi)

STAR TREK (Kirk/Spock, Chekov, Pine/Quinto)

LEGAL DRUG (Kazahaya Kudo/Rikuo Himura)

NANA (Nobu/Shin)

VAMPIRE KNIGHT (Zero/Aido)

KAMEN RIDER KIVA (Wataru/Nago, Wataru/Kengo, Ramon)

SKINS (Maxxie/Anwar, Chris/Anyone, Tony/Sid)

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE (Simon/ Kylie, Simon)

LOVELESS (Ritsuka/Soubi)

WOLFS RAIN (Kiba/Hige, Toboe/Tsume)

DEATH NOTE (Kira/L)

JAMES FRANCO <3