Temporary Insanity

Places where it is good to spam for Blogathon and the like:

+ Your journal.
+ General blogathon/charity comms.
+ On posts to places related to the subject of your 'thon, or what you're doing for said 'thon, alongside ACTUAL CONTENT.

Places where it is not good to spam for blogathon:

+ The personal blogathon comm of a complete stranger.
+ Anywhere else. But especially that first place.

I'm sorry about the spam a couple of days ago, guys.

( Detail and rantiness, ahoy. )

So this is me throwing a modfit. Sorry 'bout that. Done now.

The trees then were sickly things, left to take root in soil that didn't know them, and so every night those four gathered, trying to make them grow.

And some will say while they waited they told stories, and some will say they invoked old, powerful magics. As for me, I prefer to believe the stories were the magics. Perhaps I flatter myself, but it's known that the smallest word from a Founder could change the world in those days. What might a story have done? Not that we'll know; honor to their memories.

Whatever they did, there was a power in those words, though must have seemed futile then. Four worlds they'd brought together, here in the only place all four could meet, and yet there was nothing they could do to make this world obey them. They kept on, regardless, determined to create the great City you see before you, to make the thing of their dreams take substance.

And the Queen? Well, she had fed well that night already. These strange new two-legged creatures were her rightful prey, sure enough, for their intrusions into her children's lands, but she was fat and content that evening, and so she paced around the edges of the cavern, listening, unnoticed. They spoke in the Dreamtongue, that all would understand, and she learned their words that night, and the night after.

And when she'd learned all the words they spoke, she returned to her children, and her children's children, and passed the words on.



Whoo. Not a satisfying conclusion, I know, but it's About That Time. This thing's been driving me crazy, because for some reason, as much as the background comes easily, the particular voice for the City!stories always escapes me, and using the old storyteller as a proxy isn't helping much.

Still, I've made enough of a start that I really do want to see this finished. I'll poke at it some more, I imagine. For now, goodnight, all. Hope you found something you enjoyed.

Special thanks to aguynamedgoo for covering for me when I crashed, to my sponsors (all two of them), and to all of you who've dropped by to offer encouragement and feedback. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

And for my fellow 'thonners who commented, I apologize for not being able to follow your blogs as well as my own, but I'll be checking out what y'all have done after I've slept a bit.

Awesome, all of you.

Thank you, and goodnight.

And in those days, none of the creatures were as graceful, as powerful, as feared as the great cats of the snow-plains. Teeth like daggers and coats like moonlight on a snowbank, so you'd never see one coming until it was already on you. And these were no mere beasts, either, my good folk. Like my friend the griffin here, they were creatures of thought, of cunning.

You won't see any now, of course. As to why... Well, that'll be told in good time, friends.

And it so happens that one one night, one of the great Queen Cats (for so they were called, mothers to whole tribes of cats, old and wise creatures, all), bolder than most, padded her way into the Hall of the Founders itself, into the great cavern underneath, and there she saw the eldest four of the Founders, gathered around the trees that grow under the City.

They say, gentlefolk, that in the days when the City was first made, the Founders bound the Chouri here, made them slaves to their will.

They say the Chouri are slaves still, for all that these days they just bring tradestuffs from the Lands Outside; bound though their masters are long gone. Some will even tell you that the Chouri still follow orders left aeons ago, orders without any reason remaining.

That may be true.

But I've another story, and if you've lived here long enough (and I've lived here longer than I most, gentles, but please don't ask me to put a span of years to it... such a vulgar kind of question, don't you think?), you know something about stories, and truth, and how, in places like this, one might become the other more easily than you'd think.

This story begins in the days when the City was new, the Lands Outside were a place of endless cold, and even the City, long may it stand, was covered in snow. In those days, before the walls came up, all the creatures from the Lands Outside wandered what few streets had grown up around the Great Roads, sometimes venturing into the Plaza itself, and there were many of the newly-arrived (and in those days, you must understand, everyone was) who wouldn't leave their homes at night for fear of what prowled outside.

You laugh, sir griffin? Well, it was a different kind of place then, and one as lately-come as yourself wouldn't know of the times before the walls, so laugh if you must, but some of us know.

There's an idea working itself 'round the insides of my brain, but it's original!fic, for all that it's a short one, so I'm mulling it over right now, trying to get it to work.

City!verse, which almost no one knows what is, but for the maybe two people that do, this'll be pure backstory.

One-bang, two-bang, three-bang, and they all fall down. She can't look, because looking means knowing, and she doesn't want to see their eyes. Windows to the soul. She doesn't want to know the families-children-vacation-next-month-baby-on-the-way bits of them. They're targets. It's basic geometry. Dash of physics. Ashes, ashes, they all...

But this is her way, the not-forgetting. So when Simon takes her head in his hands and whispers, "They're all gone, mei-mei," she just looks back at him, knowing he won't understand.

"No," she says. "They're still here."



100 words exactly, according to my word processor. I owe allfireburns for this one, as I dug up a prompt she gave me long ago. ^_^

I'm in the home stretch, looking at various prompts which are all horribly uninspiring, and my imagination's fizzled out and died on me.

Lotsa cloves and caffeine. Maybe I should get some Real Food. I've still got my soup from last night, untouched.

But hey, if anyone's reading this, throw something at me. Anything. Pick a fandom, pick a pairing, pick a random subject for original!fic.

Gods, my back hurts.

The unfinished stuff has ceased to hold any interest for me, so I'm changing tracks and going with some random Heroes stuff. I've got a challenge table for Zach anyway. Minor character love!


It was a typical day. Their last English test had been handed back at the end of class, with predictable groans from the jocks who'd failed. Zach tried to shove his own test into a notebook before anyone saw, but he wasn't in time to stop a shadow from falling over his desk.

"Nice grade. Too bad most of us aren't little fags, or we'd all have A's."

Zach looked up at what had to be the world's only living specimen of homo neanderthalensis and rolled his eyes. "Right, because I couldn't possibly have read the assignment."

He eased out of his seat, avoiding sudden movements, looking for a clear avenue of escape. As soon as he got to his feet, the burly jock advanced another step, a couple of his only slightly less imposing teammates moving to flank him, and Zach froze.

"Little fag like you? No way. You sucked cock for that A. Does Mr. Simmons moan all pretty for you when you suck him off?"

His brain knew that the best strategy, the only strategy, was to ignore them. He'd said as much to Claire countless times. Unfortunately, his mouth had other ideas.

"Yeah," he said, giving the ape-man in front of him a superior smirk, even as he backed toward the exit. "Kind of like your dad does when I fuck him up the ass, come to think of it." And then he took advantage of the moment of stunned silence to turn and run, the panicked mental refrain of Ohshitohshitohshit drowned out by the sounds of three very angry jocks in pursuit.

It just figured that it was the pretty blonde cheerleader that got to be invincible, not the guy who didn't know when to shut his mouth, didn't it?

Yeah. Typical day.

Mark's shoving him away roughly, and the look in his eyes is pure panic, thin hands clutching Roger's shoulders. This is all wrong. All wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong, echoes the voice in his head, and a dimmer echo of crazy and murderer, which can't be what's going on because didn't Mark want this?

Mark doesn't look like he wants this, though. Mark is wide-eyed and shaking and holding him at arm's length, looking like he's still not sure what's going on, and Roger does the only thing he can think of.

"I'll go."

Mark curls in on himself as if he's been hit, still shaking, and Roger grabs his pillow.

"It's your bed," Mark says finally, and Roger just shakes his head.

"My fault. I'll go."

"Look, I'm sorry! I'm just not like... I didn't think...! Roger, don't," he says, but Roger's aready grabbing a spare blanket, and Mark's not moving, which just confirms this was exactly what he shouldn't have done.

Roger's cold and he's alone, and everything is wrong, and so he leaves Mark there in his bed, shaking and staring into the darkness after him.


End chapter, though this'll need some polishing later.

So this next bit, that I've been working towards? The end of the chapter that's taken me a year to finish?

Goo and I had that bit scripted. Our Mark and Roger muses played it out in an AIM conversation over a year ago, that I could have sworn happened on this computer, where Trillian logs absolutely everything. So this should have been an easy bit to write, seeing as how I could just go over what we came up with then and rewrite it all, using the chat log as a reference. It was just getting there that was killing me.

So I searched the logs. Which takes a bloody long time, when you consider that I have literally two years of logs of everything we've ever said to each other.

And then I discovered it's not there, which makes me think it happened on the laptop, which had its harddrive die on me.

GRAAAR.

Rewriting from memory, it is.

And we're back to crazy!Roger being crazy.


Mark's takeout carton is empty, and so's Roger's, for that matter. Roger wonders how long he's been sitting there with his thoughts going in circles, but it doesn't matter, because this is a sign.

This has to be a sign.

He follows Mark into the bedroom, watching him strip down to just corduroys, and every movement's a kind of perfection, even when Mark bangs his knee on the dresser and curses under his breath. And when Mark pulls on a t-shirt, that's a bit disappointing, but still okay. Roger watches the skin slide over the sharp angles of his shoulderblades as he pulls the shirt on, and it's better than okay.

Roger, for his part, just peels his shirt off and climbs into bed wearing jeans and socks. Already, his skin's itching for the feel of Mark against him, and when Mark climbs into the bed next to him and rests a head on his shoulder, it's so good it hurts.

He wraps an arm around Mark's waist, telling himself that if it's a sign, Mark will do something. If it's a sign, Mark will do something. If it's a sign, Mark will do something, but Mark's breathing is evening out as he falls asleep, and it's entirely likely it wasn't a sign at all.

Unless it was a sign he should do something. He promised himself he'd let Mark take the lead, but...

But Mark's lips are so close, breath warm against his skin, body pressed to his, and Roger can smell him, feel him, almost taste him. Needs to taste him. One kiss won't hurt, with Mark soundly asleep.

Just one kiss.

He shifts in bed, tilting Mark's face towards his, and Mark's lips are parted, and it's nothing much to just brush his lips across Mark's, or to dart out a moist tongue, tasting...

And then he can't remember why just one kiss was worrying him so much. He's kissing Mark deep and lovingly, and Mark's moving against him, still mostly asleep, and kissing back, and this... This is right.

And then Mark opens his eyes. And everything goes wrong.

Once he's got a bit of beer in him, it's enough to calm him down so he can pour hot water into Mark's mug and bring it and his beer over to the couch. He sets the mug on the table by Mark to steep, and while he's doing that, he swears he can smell Mark, even under the tea and Chinese food. He takes another long pull from his bottle, and settles down on the couch again, contemplating that perhaps waiting for Mark to realize how much they need each other wasn't the best idea.

The line between 'things Mark needs to figure out for himself' and 'things Roger needs to figure out for Mark' keeps blurring in his head, and he's got a vague suspicion that's a bad thing.

On the other hand, things have gone so well so far...

Mark seems content to eat in silence and let him brood over it, which is all to the better as far as he's concerned. It's a given that Mark loves him, that he wants this as much as Roger does; Roger's long since learned to ignore the little voice that asks him if he's sure about that. If he wasn't sure, he wouldn't have done what he did. Otherwise, that would make him...

He doesn't finish that thought.

So Mark wants this, but obviously, he's still adjusting to the fact that they're both positive. Still, Roger could... help him adjust? Maybe.

He's so lost in those thoughts, chasing each other round and round in his head, that he only looks up once Mark clears his throat.

"I'm... kind of tired," Mark says, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

"And that," Mark says, poking Roger with a chopstick, "is why I never pick up the phone when she calls. If I need to hear her nagging me, I can just ask you to do the voice."

"I live to serve," Roger says, smirking. "Speaking of... You want tea or something?"

"Mmm. Please."

He gets up, maybe a little too eagerly, but making tea gives him a perfect opportunity to watch Mark. He puts water on to boil and leans against the fridge, watching as Mark picks at his dinner, oblivious. He has a particular fascination with watching Mark use chopsticks... For all the comments about musicians having talented hands, it's a skill he's never mastered.

Watching someone eat with a pair of sticks shouldn't be erotic, he tells himself. It's just Mark, eating, the same way he always does. Nothing special about that. But that doesn't keep him from watching as each tiny morsel passes Mark's lips, and wondering just how long he'll be able to keep taking things slow.

The teakettle whistles, and he jumps, turning off the hot plate and dropping a teabag into Mark's favorite mug.

Okay, he thinks, time to relax a little. But Mark makes relaxing so very, very hard. He turns again and peers into the fridge.

"Whose beer?" he askes, pulling out a lone bottle of Dos Equis.

"Yours, if you want it," Mark calls back, and Roger cracks it open and drinks greedily. Something needs to happen. Something needs to happen soon.

Whoa, hold on, I hear you saying, what happened to Chapters 1-5, and the first three parts of Chapter 6? Simple. I started Good Intentions a year and a half ago, and the first five chapters were written way back then. They live here, in trollopfic. The first three parts of Chapter 6 were in last year's Blogathon, and can be found here, here, and here. Then I got massively blocked. I'm going back to poking at it now, though.

I'd include the usual Good Intentions warning for Crazy!Roger, but he's pretty warm and fuzzy so far.



The scent of Hunan pork wafts up from the carton, and he smiles suddenly, spearing a piece of pork with his fork and waving it under Mark's nose.

"Look Mark, pork! Poooork... Doesn't it smell good? Bet you'd like to have some, but Jews can't eat pork, Mark..." It's stupid, but good old Roger Davis-brand stupidity never fails to make Mark smile.

Mark looks up from his vegetables and rice and raises an eyebrow. "I was never that good a Jew." He opens his mouth and neatly bites it off Roger's fork, chewing contentedly.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, Mark, but you've just lost all your Jew points. God doesn't love you anymore."

"You're right," Mark says, nodding seriously. "I'll have to have a very serious talk with Rabbi Himmelfarb next time I go home." He starts to smile a little then, and Roger smiles back.

It's funny, he thinks, how his own spirits seem tied to that soft upward curve of Mark's lips. All Mark has to do is smile, and everything's fine again.

"When are you going home again?" Roger asks him.

"No time soon," Mark mutters around a mouthful of rice. "I can just see her reaction when she sees me taking my AZT..."

"What, you still haven't told her?"

"...That her darling baby has the AIDS?" Mark scowls at his food. "Can't you just see her reaction?"

Roger grimaces. "Let me see if I can get this right: Marky, sweetie, I told you!" He's been around Mrs. Cohen enough to be able to mimic her voice reasonably well, at least. "I told you what would happen if you moved to the city with all those artists and people on drugs and that Davis boy! But you never listen to me, because God forbid you should listen to your own mother for once, and now look at what's happened to my perfect baby!"

This blogathon interval spent cleaning cat vomit out of my carpet and comforting the sick kitty.

So sorry.

Best to just come out with it.

"Listen, I got something to talk to you about."

She looked up at him, her brow furrowed. "Is it the compressor coils? 'cause I can fix those..."

"Er, no. ...Wait." He peered at the bits Kaylee'd been working on. "The compressor coils are what, now?"

He stopped, shook his head, and started over, sighing. "Little Kaylee, I won't deny I care for you something fierce, and it was some comfort being with you back there, but I..."

She gave him a reassuring smile. "That's all? Captain, I know. It was gonna-die sex. There's special rules for that, or somethin'."

He stared at her, a wave of relief washing over him, but he still had to be sure. "So..."

"So it's not you I'm gonna be nursing a broken heart over. We were gonna die, and now we're not, and that's all." Kaylee cocked her head to one side and looked up at him like she was wondering how he'd take the news. "We shiny?"

Mal allowed himself to smile, then. "We're very shiny."

Kaylee beamed up at him again, going up on tiptoes to give his cheek a little smooch, then pulled away, heading back to the compressor coils.

Mal, for his part, just watched her as he reached up to touch the spot on his cheek she'd kissed. "Though I might have to have some words with whoever you will be nursing a broken heart over..." he said, finally.

"Captain!" Kaylee's laugh was made of love and exasperation both, and when she shoved him out of the engine room, he, for once, let himself be shoved. Not that he'd take kindly to such a thing in the future, but then...

Well, there were special rules for this, too.


And that's the fic! Hope you enjoyed.

It wasn't until his leg was patched up and he could walk under his own power that he made his way down to the engine room, dreading the conversation that was to come.

Not that Kaylee wasn't grown and capable of figuring things out for herself, but she was a sweet little thing, and he didn't want her hurt more than he could help. And if somehow, she'd gotten the idea that him and her were... Well, it didn't bear thinking about, what with her practically his mei-mei and part of his crew besides, their activities in the face of imminent death notwithstanding.

"Captain!" She looked up from the little bit of whatever it was she was tinkering with, brightening the moment he walked in. "You're up!" She bounded over to give him a hug, and he made sure not to wince so she could see. Oh, gaoyang zhong de guyang, this wasn't going to be easy, was it?



Got most of the rest done, but I'm out of time and it's patchy enough that it's getting its own separate post while I clean it up. So! One more part!

The next most gentlemanly thing to do would be to avert his eyes, but Kaylee only snorted when she caught him looking away.

"You ain't got a problem touching, but you can't look?" There was a bit of annoyance in her voice. "If I'm that unpleasant to your eyes, you oughta just say."

"No, no! Not at all! I just... Didn't seem right, with the seeing. Since I hadn't, and we're rescued now."

"Keep going, Captain," Zoe murmured. "I've got money riding on just how deep you're going to dig yourself."

"Not helping," he whispered back, looking across the cell at Kaylee, then turning again to raise an eyebrow at Zoe. "...You knew I was going to...?"

"I wouldn't mind looking!" Jayne called from the hallway. "And from what I seen, I wouldn't say no to touching, either!" He poked his head around the doorway. "So when do I get to be trapped somewhere with Kay--"

"Jayne! You shut your mouth and get back in the hall, or so help me, I will..."

"Shall I shoot him, sir?" Zoe smoothly filled in the pause while he tried to think of a suitable threat.

"That works." Slowly, he climbed to his feet, leaning against the wall at first, then stepping forward to test his leg.

"Captain, are you sure that's a good idea?" Kaylee was peering at him, concerned, but he waved her off.

"I'm fi--aiya!" The leg buckled underneath him, and suddenly he had a woman taking hold of each shoulder, keeping him up.

"No offense, Captain? But I figure Zoe's right about that idiot thing."

Mal just grunted and slung an arm over each of their shoulders. There was no shame in being carried home by womenfolk... Not those two, anyhow. "That," he said, straightening up again, "is why I've got myself a damn fine crew."

Even focused as he was on gettng out of there, he couldn't miss seeing Kaylee's grin from the corner of his eye.

Kaylee stirred finally, blinking up at him. "We dead yet, Captain?"

"No one's dying today. Cavalry's here," he said, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Oh." She blinked up at him, then turned to look at Zoe and Jayne. "You found us!"

"And I'm wondering how exactly it is you did that. Not that I'm complaining, mind," Mal broke in.

"Didn't think you would, sir," Zoe said, shoving Jayne back into the hall, out of sight of the doorway. "There's a tracking device in your coat."

"You put a tracker in my coat?" He stared at her, incredulous.

"Only on account of you occasionally being an idiot, sir."

"Oh. Well, then."

Kaylee climbed off him, giving him a chance to fix his pants for the first time, as she scampered about the room, gathering her clothing. It occurred to Mal that perhaps the gentlemanly thing to do would be to offer her his coat, but she was already pulling on her coverall.

Kaylee clung to him still, and they had to have fallen asleep at some point, because next thing he knew the door was sliding open, and that light in his eyes rutting hurt. He squinted into it, just a mite embarrassed at being caught with his pants down, literally and figuratively, what with his mechanic sprawled naked on top of him, and him completely at a loss for a plan, daring or otherwise. Might as well expect the worst.

Only the worst wasn't near as bad as this.

"We interrupting you, Captain? We can always come back later, if you need more time." The silhouette in the doorway had resolved itself into something tall and female. There couldn't be a better or worse sight in all of space right then, to his mind.

"Ni tama de. Tianxia suoyou de ren. Dou gaisi!" *

"Looks like you already made a start on that," Jayne said, poking his head around the side of the door.

No, he was wrong. There was a worse sight, and he'd just seen it.


*Though most of the Mandarin should be gathered from context, this is the infamous "Fuck everyone in the universe to death!" quote.