Mystery Tuesday
May. 7th, 2013 01:10 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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comment_ficTa da! Tuesday has rolled around where I live. That means it's time for today's theme. Mystery. Could be a fandom from the genre or maybe the characters are curious what is really in that doublemeat medley.
Simple rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts from one fandom.
Make sure your prompt is spoiler-free until at least one week after the original airing/publication date.
If there are spoilers in your fill, warn and leave at least three spaces.
Format your prompts like so:
Fandom(s), character or pairing, prompt.
Some examples:
Castle, Kevin Ryan, there is more to him than meets the eye
Cabin Pressure, Ensemble, The Talisker has gone missing on Birling Day. Everyone wants to point to Douglas, except that Douglas is off today.
tag=mystery
Simple rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts from one fandom.
Make sure your prompt is spoiler-free until at least one week after the original airing/publication date.
If there are spoilers in your fill, warn and leave at least three spaces.
Format your prompts like so:
Fandom(s), character or pairing, prompt.
Some examples:
Castle, Kevin Ryan, there is more to him than meets the eye
Cabin Pressure, Ensemble, The Talisker has gone missing on Birling Day. Everyone wants to point to Douglas, except that Douglas is off today.
tag=mystery
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:21 am (UTC)pt 1/2
Date: 2013-05-07 07:29 am (UTC)Such a thing could never happen, of course.
And if it did, Will doubted that he’d be able to find the words.
--
They say it was a drunken brawl. A random event, connected to nothing.
But Kit’s life was rich with scoundrels high and low. Slitters of throats and makers of kings.
And there was the air of scandal that always surrounded him, wafting about like a perfume, danger and sex and blood and light in every faintest whiff. A heretical man, a connected man, a man whose secrets might destroy houses that have stood for centuries.
Rumors abound. It was to protect a royal secret, it was to protect a patron’s reputation, it was jealousy, it was revenge.
Will knows that it could be any of these. Kit was entangled in too many webs for anyone but Kit himself to understand. There had long been whispers that he was a spy; Will thought it likely. Will also thought it possible that being a spy was the least of his secrets.
Will remembers the first time he saw Faustus. The man who gave up his soul in exchange for secrets, for morsels of information packed in raw, simple words; it was through some alchemy, some dark magic, that secrets transformed themselves into power.
Only a spy could write such a play, Will had thought to himself.
He wondered if that was how Kit saw his own life – an inevitable ticking down, filled with terror, until the cost of one’s secrets is collected for good.
Will has yet to write a play where the thirst for knowledge leads to tragedy; only his comic characters are blessed with such curiosity. Sometimes Will wonders if he fears speaking it aloud, even in a play: that wanting to know, wanting to breathe deeply of life’s secrets, can only lead one place.
--
Of all the rumors circulating after Kit’s death, the one that Will hates the most is the one Will would give anything to believe.
They titter that perhaps Marlowe is alive. Faked his death to avoid prosecution.
But of course he is dead.
That’s just the way of humankind – to say that death is far away, even with a skull in one’s hand.
There are many secrets Marlowe kept from Will, but Will understood him. Not his knowledge, not his source of income or his true loyalties perhaps, but Will understood him as a man.
Kit would never pretend to be dead. He soaked in the dirt and the bright of the city like it was his meat, or his wine. His covert friendships, his favorite decadent haunts, his subtle threads of connection and power – he would not give such a realm up. He would invent a thousand subterfuges he would play to his advantage before he would ever agree to leave forever.
Will knows this about him.
And so Will knows: he is truly dead.
--
One morning, when they had not known each other long, Kit rose out of bed to attend to business.
Will had pulled him back, kissed his shoulder, assured him that it was the nightingale and not the lark they could hear.
Kit had kissed him, then stroked his hair, fuller then, and smiled fondly at him. But Kit’s business could not wait.
“I could accompany you. Assist in your business,” Will offered. He was young and foolish and still thought that rumors of intrigue would mean adventure and carpe diem and dark, glistening stories to tell. He didn’t yet realize that intrigue usually just ended in spilled guts.
Kit had refused. “You should stay in the world you know best. The stage.”
“All the world’s a stage,” Will quipped, and leaned in for another kiss.
A hand at his shoulder, stopping him. “For some of us more than others,” Kit said, almost hiding the regret in his voice.
“I’ll still make your opening night,” Kit had promised then, and gave Will’s arm a soft squeeze. He finished dressing and left Will alone in the bed to ponder all his mysteries.
When they had been together longer, Will stopped asking about his other lives. As long as he was giving one Kit to Will and one Kit to poetry, Will knew he had no claim to ask for anything more.
--
pt 2/2
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Date: 2013-05-07 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-07 06:11 am (UTC)Fill: tomorrow's just a mystery (but that's ok) , The Following, Mike/Debra
Date: 2013-05-07 10:16 am (UTC)*
Debra pulls her jacket tighter around herself, stares out past the lighthouse to the sea beyond. Smoke still rises from the charred remains of the boathouse, and from the corner of her eye she can see Mike and Ryan talking with Marshal Turner. She closes her eyes as she takes a deep breath, grateful for the fresh air on her skin, filling her lungs - she already knows she's never taking that for granted again.
There's a part of her that can't believe it's over, that Joe Carroll is really dead. This case has been so all consuming that it's hard to think about the next one and she's not so sure she wants to, not right away at least. She's not going to have to, she knows that: she's in for a nice chunk of medical leave, mandated therapy sessions and after that, who knows? Alternative Religions will still be there but for a woman who's spent her entire life surrounded by cults, she's wondering if it might be time for a change. Maybe even a sabbatical. She could visit Beth, spend some time with her. Maybe go back to Serenity Hills, see her parents one more time. Maybe ten years will have changed them; maybe hearing her name on the news will have. It wouldn't hurt to try.
Or maybe she won't get a chance. The thought comes to her that Sarah Fuller was part of Joe's last unfinished manuscript, now Debra herself is. She's supposed to be dead and Joe still has any amount of Followers out there who would finish the job on his behalf. The thought sends a shiver down her spine and she pushes it away - Ryan and Mike would have her in protective custody in a heartbeat if there was any such threat to her.
"Hey." She opens her eyes at the sound of Mike's voice, turns her head to look at him. His lips are curled into a smile but his eyes are worried. Compared to the youthful agent she met only a few weeks ago, this case has exacted a heavy toll on him too, but he's still more concerned for her than for himself. "You ok?"
For a woman who's always know exactly what she wanted to do and where she was going, for a woman who's had all her certainties taken from her, Debra still manages to nod, even to smile. "Just enjoying the fresh air," she tells him and he nods, steps closer to her and puts an arm around her shoulders. She leans into it, rests her head against his, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. This case took a lot from them, but they gained something precious from it too.
He squeezes her shoulders, presses a kiss to the top of her head. "C'mon," he says. "Let's get out of here."
He never takes his arm from around her shoulders as they walk and if the sight of them like that attracts second and third looks, then Debra doesn't really care.
She doesn't know what tomorrow holds, but she knows as long as she and Mike hold on to each other, then everything will be ok.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 06:14 am (UTC)Angel fill: Contract (Lindsey)
Date: 2013-05-07 06:34 pm (UTC)Edit: Hit the tab and enter keys by accident and ended up posting before I was done. Serves me right for typing directly into the message box. :P
Contract
He became a lawyer because he wanted to get rich.
True, he could have chosen to become a doctor, but it wasn't a doctor who came to take Daddy's house when Lindsey was seven; it was a lawyer.
Lindsey was seven when he learned that the law isn't meant to protect poor folk like him and Daddy. The law is meant to make rich people richer.
So he studied. He stayed up nights and stayed in instead of going out with friends. He gave up movies and burgers at the diner in favor of old, dusty books and notebooks full of scribbles.
It paid off. He got into a good school - one of the best.
In college, he worked a full-time job, and went to school full-time, too. He studied harder than he ever did in high school. He studied in his sleep.
And again, it paid off. He finished early. He scored high on the LSATs and got into Hastings, the youngest in his class.
Again, he worked hard, and then came a time when it all paid off.
A lawyer from Wolfram and Hart - Wolfram and Hart, one of the biggest law firms in the world - approached him and said that he wanted Lindsey to come and work for them. Of course, he wouldn't be in the main offices until he got his degree, but he'd have his foot in the door.
Holland Manners. Lindsey decided then and there that he wanted to be like Holland Manners. He wanted to wear thousand-dollar suits and have people at expensive restaurants address him by name. He wanted a nice car. He wanted it all.
So he put up with working in the mail room, and kept working hard. He put up with the newest star associate calling him Mailboy with a smirk on her professional-yet-pink lips. He graduated a year early.
And now, here he was, in Holland Manners' office, with a pen in his hand - an old-fashioned fountain pen with red ink - sitting with his brand-new contract on the desk in front of him.
He's reading it through, only for appearances' sake because he knows that he's going to sign it no matter what, and he comes across an odd-looking clause.
"Sir?" he asks, "What's this about my soul?"
Mr. Manners laughs and shoots him a 'gotcha' gesture. "We want to make sure our new employees actually read these things. Good catch, Lindsey. I just knew you were one of us."
Lindsey grins and signs.
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Date: 2013-05-07 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-07 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-07 11:38 am (UTC)Fill: End of the Mystery
Date: 2014-12-28 08:58 pm (UTC)But that call never came, which was why Roy stood in front of a white headstone, squatting to lay a parcel of flowers before it. With a glance around, Roy surreptiously pulled a flask from his pocket, taking a drink before pouring some onto the earth next to the stone. "So," he said, capping the flask again, "I met your killer. I wish I could say I destroyed him - it - in a flash of fire, but that didn't happen. Fullmetal and, believe it or not, Scar, that Ishballan, did. And Riza. They managed to calm me down, talk reason to me." Roy smiled grimly. "It was touch and go, but they were right - who could trust me if I became the same sort of agent of destruction as Bradley?"
He laid his hand on the flat, cold marble. "They were right. I wouldn't be someone fit to lead this country, had I lost my head."
Taking a deep breath, Roy rose to his feet, tucking both hands into his coat pockets. "I always planned on you being here to keep me in line. Riza needs as much help as she can get for that." A faint smile tilted his mouth. "But I guess you'd be happy to know there have been some military regulations revoked, including the one about dating and marriage. Riza and I have been seeing each other in that capacity for three months."
He laughed suddenly. "That's a foolish phrase, isn't it? It sounds like a legal contract. But I wanted you to know I'm happy, and so is she. You may've had a part in that." Roy set his fingers on the top of the stone for an instant, letting out his breath in a long sigh.
"I'm sorry you're gone, Maes," he said. "And I'll do everything I can for Gracia and Elicia." He could feel the warmth coming from somewhere, the touch of her gaze on his shoulders. Were it from someone else, Roy might've considered her prowess as a sniper. As it was, he could sense how she watched him. "But now I have someone waiting for me, and I understand everything you ever told me about it." Straightening his spine, he saluted the stone, spinning precisely on the ball of his foot, and marching back to where Riza waited for him.
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Date: 2013-05-07 11:38 am (UTC)