Let us go then, you and I

Fic: Song of You and Me

2017-01-07T07:09:00Z

Title: Song of You and Me
Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Pairing: Sheriarty (Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty)
Rating: M
Summary: There was nothing sexual about it. Not in the important sense at least. It was a physical reaction, easily explained by the heady rush that came with each new deliciously intricate puzzle, by the thrill of the challenge, the chase. He had felt it even during their first games – not quite as blatantly then, but Sherlock knew what he liked, and the fact that Moriarty happened to be best at providing it was irrelevant.

Notes: I wrote the first two paragraphs of this story in late 2012 and came across them a few days ago. I'm guessing I originally intended for it to be a fun bit of smut, but it had a mind of its own and got a little more intense - I may have gotten slightly carried away with how in love I am with their love, haha. After four years away from fandom, I'm insanely thrilled that these two drew me back in, and I'm really excited to finally be contributing my first Sheriarty fic. Writing this story honestly felt like coming home - I'm so happy to be back. I hope you enjoy it! <3

Also posted on AO3, fanfiction.net, and Tumblr.

And sosososo many thanks to the makers of these videos for their fucking gorgeous inspiration, I cannot stop watching them: Don't Let Me Down & Clarity

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock or Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" ("every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you").

P.S. Dear LJ, I missed you so much.

There was nothing sexual about it. Not in the important sense at least. It was a physical reaction, easily explained by the heady rush that came with each new deliciously intricate puzzle, by the thrill of the challenge, the chase. He had felt it even during their first games – not quite as blatantly then, but Sherlock knew what he liked, and the fact that Moriarty happened to be best at providing it was irrelevant. So each time he heard that taunting, breathy voice on the other end of the line and felt the blood surge to his crotch, he didn’t deign to pay the sensation any mind, writing it off as banal and uninteresting, not even bothering to be embarrassed or ashamed about it.

But if Sherlock was anything, he was an observer, and he hadn’t failed to notice that his…reactions had been getting more intense. At first it had presented as a stab of…of…he supposed in any other situation it would be called desire or longing, but both of those terms suggested an interest in the party inspiring them. Here it was chemical – heat, energy, hydraulics even; there was none of the horrid human aspect beyond the biological – no feelings or weakness or entanglement. No, he knew exactly what it was – a simple reaction – and knew exactly how to deal with it – by doing nothing at all. The only potential problem he had identified in recent weeks was the heightening of the phenomenon, and, in turn, the amount of brain space it was taking up.

He had not yet come up with a solution to this problem when late one night in the sitting room the jarring light of his mobile joined the glow of the crackling fire.

“That was a lovely sonata, darling,” his nemesis crooned with the sweetness of a lover, “were you thinking of me when you wrote it?”

As he tensed, his gut twisting at the word darling, Sherlock’s fingers jittered unconsciously over the bow he was still holding. He was not alarmed or even surprised to learn that Moriarty had been listening in, maybe even watching him. No, it was the truth behind his remark – a truth that Sherlock had not admitted to himself, even – that shook him.

“It’s just a distraction,” the detective replied in a low voice that fit in well with the smolder of the sinking fire, with the small hours of the night. In an effort that felt unnatural, he attempted to push away his observations of the circumstances he could not stifle otherwise – the way his gut grew taut with tangy heat and his pulse took off and his cock began to stiffen, ever so slightly. “Just like you are, yes.”

The man on the other end let out a comical groan of disappointment. “Just a distraction to the illustrious detective,” he drawled in that low-hanging lumber of a voice he put on. And then, in a higher voice, a voice that was more his own, “but you forget who you’re talking to, Sherlock, and I’m one-up on you. There’s no such thing as just a distraction when it comes to us. Distractions are all there is, and we both know that we’re each other’s best ones.”

Sherlock was clutching the phone more tightly than necessary.

“Why did you call?”

Over the line came a string of hummed notes, the exact ones Sherlock had been playing on his violin five minutes before. He shivered, and not out of fear. After a few beats of heavy silence in which Sherlock could hear Moriarty breathing, the criminal spoke.

“I have a new puzzle, Sherlock. I’ve been very observant recently. Or perhaps it’s just that there have been more interesting things to observe.” Sherlock could almost see the smoldering twinkle in Moriarty’s eyes, could feel the magnetic draw of him through the phone. He noticed that his fingers were trembling. “There’s something I need to do, something that needs to happen before I can burn your heart.”

Every bit of Sherlock was tense. He was overcome with a fierce need to shift in his chair, to relieve his straining cock with a touch of friction, but he didn’t move. He wondered if Moriarty could see him and bit the sides of his tongue, needing desperately to release some pressure in a way that wasn’t too visible.

"I know you’re waiting for me, Sherlock. You’ve been waiting for me all your life. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you waiting much longer.” Over the line came a breath, an inhale and exhale that sounded as though their creator were right up against Sherlock’s ear. “A new puzzle, my sweet, I’ll always have a new puzzle for you. Mmmm, the dance and the release, I’ll never get enough of it. You can’t either, I know you can’t – I know you, love.”

Later, Sherlock would not be able to figure out what had made him do it. Had it been the words themselves? The specific volume and texture of them as they’d been delivered through the phone? Some combination of the two, or perhaps something else entirely, something he hadn’t caught? In any case, his reaction did not make sense. At first, he was not even sure that he had done it, but the facts after the fact all pointed to his memory of the moment proving true: he found that his eyes had slipped shut, in a manner that could objectively be described as ecstatic, and that his throat still tingled from the noise it had let loose, a noise that could only be called a moan.

Moriarty’s only response was a sharp intake of breath and the beep beep of a cellular disconnection, and Sherlock found entirely too much of his brainpower suddenly occupied in calculating how likely it was that the criminal had heard the utterance and determined what it had been. His conclusion was frustrating at best.

A new puzzle came the next day, and he was sure it was Moriarty (there was no mistaking the inevitable way in which Sherlock’s pulse ratcheted up, the sudden slip and fall of his gut, the flash of blood to his cock). Sherlock didn’t take anything that wasn’t Moriarty anymore, and mercifully (he hadn’t had to beg yet), his archenemy had been active enough to distract him fully in recent weeks. A deep part of him knew straight away, though, that this was not the same puzzle to which Moriarty had been referring on the phone.

They next met at the dénouement of that distraction within the distraction, opposite one another on Millennium Bridge beneath a clear sky and the star-white lights of the rails. The only sign that Sherlock could glean of the possibility that Moriarty had heard and interpreted the moan was the slightest increase in the fierce, delighted heat in those Thames-dark eyes and in his singsonginess, in the fuel behind his taunting tone. Sherlock was glad for the dark and within it placed the hope that Moriarty had not noticed what judging by the burn the detective was experiencing was a marked decrease in the pallor of his cheeks and – how he knew he wasn’t quite sure – self-betrayal flowing from his gaze like the gush of an unquenchable wound.

Where before he had tried to stifle his observations, now they were just going haywire.

“This isn’t over Sherlock,” came the Irish drawl with the searing eyes as Moriarty stepped forward to stand just in front of the detective, as close as he could be without actually touching him. And all Sherlock could observe was the immense, incredible heat of him – like that of a star in an otherwise frigid night – and his scent, a thing the detective could not describe in his usual logical, detached fashion. Moriarty smelled of rained-on graves and the hearts of fiery explosions. And of something that Sherlock couldn’t identify but which was making one part of him want to slam the criminal up against the rail of the bridge and close every one of the spaces between them and making another part of him want to collapse against the other man and hold on forever. Christ, he smelled like poetry, and Sherlock was going out of his mind for him. All he could do now was hope that it stopped at his mind.

“We will never be over, Sherlock,” Moriarty’s voice was low and lilting and fanned across Sherlock’s ear like magmatic fog. “Just you and me between the stars and the deep and the void of this ordinary city, this world. You and me, love. Thank. God.” It wasn’t an expression. It was a command.

Sherlock shivered and Moriarty gave a laugh that shot up and broke against the night, shattering all over them. And then the heat of the other man was nothing but a well of cold, and Sherlock opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) to find Moriarty slipping off the side of the bridge like a dream melting back into the night. Sherlock stood watching the place where he’d been, a terror that he couldn’t identify coming over him.

Following that frustrating climax, Sherlock found himself in a week of despair, of mind-pounding boredom. The only things he had to analyze were the one thing he didn’t want to go anywhere near – himself – and the one thing he was afraid to go near lest he not find what he wanted (yes, alright, wanted) there – Moriarty. But finally, after a long day of pacing the flat, the screen of his mobile blazed to life on the arm of his chair, and moments later Sherlock knew both the relief of Moriarty’s voice and the thrilling horror that his moan had not gone unnoticed.

“I want you to pull that angelic bottom lip of yours into your mouth and give it a tug with your teeth, slow-like, so I don’t miss a thing.”

Sherlock froze. He thought: deep breath, conscious steadiness, focused calm, but he could not keep the quaver out of his voice.

“Why would I do that?”

“I could tell you that John Watson is not alone in his bedroom – and not in a sexy way – but I don’t think I have to. I told you, Sherlock, I’ve been observing. This is as much my puzzle as it is yours.”

Sherlock sat for a moment. Most people would assume he was plotting, appraising the web strands, fashioning a counter-attack, but he was not doing any of those things. The only question in his mind was why not?, and he was coming up with few reasons – John’s friendship, the messiness of sex, giving Moriarty a feeling of ownership over him (this last one made Sherlock shiver – it was terrifying and superb and ridiculous, for Moriarty already owned him, and he owned Moriarty – every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you). The reasons looked laughably weak and pointless beside his desire – yes, alright, desire – to do as Moriarty asked, to play the game. If that’s what it still was.

Even in the warm room, Sherlock’s tongue felt hot against his skin. His eyes slipped shut and the visions came and he let them – Moriarty watching him with those volcanic eyes, Moriarty’s teeth sinking into Sherlock’s skin in place of his own, Moriarty’s slick, demanding lips against Sherlock’s obliging yet equally hungry ones.

The criminal gave a drawn-out, utterly unselfconscious noise somewhere between a gurgle and a moan that made Irene’s text alert sound G-rated, and Sherlock’s eyes snapped open, a hiss escaping his lips. His grip on the arm of the chair was so tight his knuckle bones might as well have been on the outside.

“Goodnight, love,” came Moriarty’s breathless drawl over the line. A wave of disappointment slammed the detective. “Sweet dreams. I know mine will be.”

The phone went dark in Sherlock’s hand and he fought for breath as though he’d just run a marathon, shooting out of his chair to pace the flat, shaking madly. Alright, so as it turned out there had never been anything less sexual. He only hoped (weakly, some deep and galling part of him observed) that it would stop at sexual.

And somewhere in the back of his mind was a new image, prompted by Moriarty’s parting words: that of the criminal sleeping – curled in on himself, eyes closed, brow smooth. Sherlock felt as though something inside him were breaking, but he wasn’t quite sure what or how or why. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Over the next two weeks, Sherlock got into a fistfight with a twelve-year-old, shouted at John so often that the other man refused to return to the flat until Sherlock had “had a wank” (if only John knew), and briefly considered becoming a criminal before realizing that knowing the puzzle’s answer from the start would be no fun and goddamn it he already had a criminal, where the hell had he gone? He did not go to bed for five nights, and on the sixth morning – when he lengthened the route of his pacing to include his bedroom – he inhaled once before stopping dead and sinking to his knees to bury his face in his sheets. They smelled of poetry.

He spent every night after in his bed, but Moriarty did not return, and Sherlock was beginning to wonder if he was hallucinating the criminal’s scent, which still came over him at times. He was having tremors, was spending years in his mind palace, and avoided the needle only by reminding himself that he couldn’t know when he would hear from Moriarty next, and he wanted to be clear for him – he had to be.

It was as he was halfway out the door with Lestrade – who had arrived with the first vaguely interesting-sounding case in ages (a five, definitely not Moriarty, but Sherlock was going to explode if he didn’t do something) – that Sherlock’s mobile lit up with an unknown number. Swiping it on with the haste of an addict, he groaned shamelessly as the only voice he wanted to hear trilled, “hello darling. Gone through a bit of a dry spell have we?”

Surging back into his flat, Sherlock slammed the door in Lestrade’s face and didn’t even hear the detective inspector’s protestations as he gave himself over to the voice on the line.

“Moriarty.” He didn’t have to say anything – he was on the phone with the only person he truly enjoyed listening to – but he relished the way the man’s name felt in his mouth, felt all around him.

“I’ve missed you, darling. Glad you had the sense to skip that poor excuse for a case. We’ll have a lot more fun together.”

Sherlock sat without noticing, settling into the voice cradled against his ear, wanting nothing more than to have its owner before him, in the same room - to be looking into those eyes, eyes that could burn him in one glance, burn to the deep places that no one else could even see.

“What’s this about?” He wanted to push things, to hear Moriarty say it, but he didn’t quite know how. Every part of him that wasn’t made of all the longing and desire he’d been fighting to deny was terrified that Moriarty would hang up and leave him again.

The other man laughed, low and deadly. “Oh, let’s not play games, my sweet heart. You know what I do to you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock wasn’t breathing. There was a silence in which the entire rest of the world stopped.

And then Moriarty breathed –

“Christ, you do it to me too.”

And then Sherlock wasn’t breathing so much as gasping, and he could hear Moriarty’s breath too – quickened, hot, Sherlock was sure, even through the phone – and neither of them said anything, anything out loud, for how long Sherlock had no idea.

And then -

“Do you want me to come over, Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s phone was trembling.

“God, yes.”

For the next two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, Sherlock sat completely still, listening to the criminal breathe through the phone. And then the knob turned and the door ghosted open and there stood Jim Moriarty. After three excruciating weeks away from him, his sudden presence felt mythic to Sherlock. He felt as though he’d been walloped in the stomach by something he wanted to be hit with again and again and again.

“You were close.” The new part of Sherlock that did not run on cool logic was surprised to find his voice still worked.

Moriarty threw his phone to the side, closed the door just as silently as he’d opened it, and glided through the oil-dark shadows and the flame light, his eyes never leaving Sherlock’s. He gave a small smile that might just have been genuinely shy.

“Yes. Is there anywhere else worth being?”

Sherlock came to his feet, a meter from the other man. He let his phone fall to the floor with a clunk and stood facing Moriarty with free, trembling hands. Moriarty’s eyes were alive with something that in any other man Sherlock might have thought to be the reflection of the fire, but with Moriarty Sherlock knew better – it was its own fire.

Moriarty’s gaze did not leave Sherlock’s, but the criminal saw all of the other man, from his unsteady knees to the tips of his shaking fingers to the truth in his eyes.

“It looks like you missed me, love.”

Sherlock could feel an entire world collapsing behind his own eyes and knew the other man could see it, could see him. And where the ordinary surface parts of Sherlock that had collapsed into rubble inside him had expected to see control and destruction in the other man’s eyes, Sherlock’s heart saw only need and understanding and the hope of being understood.

The two stood alone in a world of silence, and then Sherlock spoke -

“I’ve missed you all my life.”

They shattered at the same time, reached for each other in the same instant, crushed their lips together with a ferocity far greater than that of the fire raging beside them. Sherlock’s hands were everywhere, everywhere and Moriarty was gripping the other man’s head as though he might die if he let go and they kissed and kissed and kissed like a fire that can burn without fuel, like drowning men kiss the sky. And then lips were searing against cheeks – never parting from the other, not for a second – and their arms were around each other tight enough to hurt, to restrict respiration – but the only true pain would have been in holding any less tight, in saying to the universe of course I will be fine if I am not one with this man who is me who I am who I have been looking for since before I could observe.

Sherlock felt it all then, the heat and the lust and the terror and the staggering relief and the ecstatic joy and the heart – of him and of the man wrapped around and wrapped in him – one heart.

“Moriarty,” he rasped against the other man’s ear, “Jim.” The criminal was trembling in his arms.

“Sherlock,” Jim Moriarty whispered in his own voice. “Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlo-”

In a flash, Sherlock had raked his lips back along the other man’s cheek to take his mouth again, fiercely, desperately, quite sure in an impossible way that he would simply cease to exist if their lips stayed apart any longer. There was heat – raging heat – and pressure and weight – comforting, wonderful weight – and the smell of damp graves and fingers seething through hair and Whitman’s fucking atoms and stumbling and gasping and then Sherlock had the other man’s back up against the wall beside the fireplace and his lips and nose were pressing into Jim Moriarty’s jugular and Jim was moaning in a way that some might attribute to a whore, his eyelids fluttering uncontrollably.

If Sherlock had been on fire for the man before, he was a fucking volcano now.

His hips flashed instinctively against Jim’s once and then Jim – whose ceaseless moaning had broken for an instant, catching in his throat – jerked back against him. Sherlock cried out and Jim pulled Sherlock in by the cheeks for a kiss that was wet and hot and felt like drowning in heaven and then Sherlock’s pale fingers were gripping Jim’s shoulders as though his life depended on it, and the kiss broke. They thrust against each other in a world beyond thought, Sherlock’s eyes dancing with fire as he watched Jim’s face – mouth parted, eyebrows high, cheeks flushed – and Jim watched him back through eyelids still drifting open and shut as though it was all he could do to stay conscious through the onslaught. The pace of Sherlock’s thrusts became feverish and his grip on Jim’s shoulders grew superhuman and then Jim’s hands shot down to the detective’s hips and wrenched him forward like a prayer and Sherlock’s head fell back with a groan that was almost a roar and Jim buried his face against Sherlock’s chest, his fingers curling into the fabric to pull him closer, closer, his breath gasping, gasping, almost sobbing.

They sank to the floor together, pressed up against each other, their breath intermingling. Jim still clutched Sherlock’s shirtfront. Sherlock hovered a palm over his lover’s cheek, and then caressed it, and Jim’s blown-out eyes found Sherlock’s. Jim gave a shaky breath and then a shaky smile. His voice came out soft and real. “Your heart was never my puzzle, not really. It was never a mystery to me.”

And Sherlock saw that same moan-inducing I know you, love in his Jim’s eyes and felt his own heart burn in a way he had never expected and realized that the scent he hadn’t been able to identify on the other man was home and knew the puzzle – the puzzle – had been his own, had been within him all along while he’d been rushing around observing everything on the outside.

And then the detective laughed – a great, booming, delighted and delightful thing – and the criminal smiled, with his lips and with his eyes.

“I was wrong,” Sherlock said then. This was all the things he’d tried not to let it be – sexual, brain-fogging, mind-bending, heart-wrenching, romantic, love it was love it was love. ”Thank God.”

Their lips met again and it was like the horizon against the sky, that kiss, them – inevitable and eternal and seamless and perfect. No matter where or when or how broken, they fit together exactly, always.

They eased their lips apart, just enough to be able to look into each other’s eyes, their hands still clutching at parts of the other as though they were the only two beings in an endless ocean. Sherlock’s eyes said I love you and Jim’s said I thought I knew but I had to be sure, thank you, you’ve saved me, I’m safe, I’ve always loved you, more than anything more than life, I love you, I’m home, I’m home with you.

Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty kissed on the floor of 221B Baker Street and then Sherlock draped his coat over them and pulled Jim closer, and against Sherlock’s lips Jim said something that was going to be “goodnight, love” but just came out “love.”

Fic: Dare To

2011-03-02T05:50:30Z

Title: Dare To
Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Holmes RPF
Pairing: Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: To my knowledge, this never happened, is not happening, and never will happen. Shame.
Summary: In the middle of a boring party, Robert decides to do something unadvisable.
Notes: Prufrock's Eliot's.

It’s a natural progression. They meld together like chocolate and peanut butter from the start, their off-set chemistry just as strong as Holmes and Watson’s. They’re completely comfortable with each other, arms easily slipping around shoulders and waists whenever they’re in touching distance, chins perched on shoulders. They come up behind each other and pinch each other’s sides before dissolving into laughter, hunching close together. They’re constantly joking and whispering, heads bent together, almost one entity, completely separate from the set around them.

If Guy left in all the bloopers of them forgetting lines and just staring intensely into each other’s gleaming eyes (or quite possibly forgetting lines because of this), smirks dancing around their lips until one of them cracks up and they both collapse into laughter, he’d have a Robert and Jude Are Fucking Each Other’s Brains Out show longer than the film itself. Not to mention the times they spontaneously nip at each other’s necks and earlobes.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, pricks snugly back in your trousers please, boys, we’ve got a movie to make here.”

---

It’s at a gala, a full year after they start filming, that they become something new. They’ve never talked about what they have – it’s always just been there, something they’ve both tacitly accepted. They’re strolling around the place, arms draped around each other’s waists, sharing a glass of red and trying to avoid other people when they’re roped into a one-sided conversation with an elderly man who’s set on telling them all about the history of London’s pollution.

He drones on and on, eyes slightly unfocused. Jude plays along, listening only enough to nod and “ah” in all the right places. Robert doesn’t even make an effort. He downs the remainder of the wine, places the empty glass on the table to his left, and gets the brilliant idea to grab Jude’s ass. The only change in Jude’s bearing is a quick, barely detectable intake of breath and a twitch of a smile. When the man, now getting into the killer fog of 1952, turns slightly to examine a roving plate of hors d’oeuvres, Jude’s head dips down, his lips burning a kiss against the tensing flesh of Robert’s neck. He gives a small bite and feels Robert’s throat vibrate beneath his lips, though the other man’s groan is nearly silent. Jude smirks against his neck and pulls away, sweeping the back of his hand in front of his mouth just as the droning man turns back, canapé in hand.

Jude mentions Prufrock, pretending to be interested. His eyes widen slightly as he feels Robert’s hand trailing from his right hip down to where his thigh meets his ass and squeezing once more before the sides of his fingers press against the fabric of Jude’s pants and into the cleft of his ass, sliding from the bottom up until his hand is resting on the small of Jude’s back, his index finger teasing beneath his waistband, stroking at the dip between Jude’s cheeks. The arm Jude has around Robert’s waist tightens its hold. His mind is going as foggy – not to mention as dirty – as the damned London fog. Taking a steadying breath, he slips his arm from around Robert’s waist, brings it surreptitiously to Robert’s navel, and in one flash of a motion grabs the other man’s crotch, nodding at the oblivious man across from them, his face set in a mask of polite interest, only his eyes betraying what is rapidly turning from amusement to lust. He’s only half-surprised to find that Robert is hard. Jude strokes and squeezes – once, twice – and Robert’s hand moves from the small of Jude’s back to his hip in an instant as his knees threaten to buckle.

Jude hides a snigger as he clears his throat, replacing his arm back around Robert’s waist.

“Thanks ever so much for the informative little chat, but I’m afraid we’ve got to be on our way.”

Jude yanks the two of them around without a second’s thought for the fog man, marching them towards a corner of the dimly lit room where a corridor juts off to the left.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Robert’s muttering to himself, having a difficult time placing one foot in front of the other but desperate to get the hell away from the chitchat and the platters and the eyes. What started out as a game has spiraled into a burning necessity laughably quickly.

“Susan?”

“Pretty sure she thinks this has been happening for a year and a half. Sienna?”

“We’re on the way out. Not to mention I’m sure she’d much prefer you to the nanny.”

“Right.”

They practically launch themselves into the deserted corridor, managing to make it only halfway down before Robert cracks and throws Jude into the wall, his lips everywhere. Jude kisses back with abandon, tangling his fingers in Robert’s hair and arching his head back with a moan as the other man’s lips slip down to attack his pulse point, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Fuck, we’re idiots. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve wanked to the thought of you?”

Robert groans against his neck. Jude’s hand rakes through the other man’s damp hair, over the nape of his neck, down his back to the curve of his ass. He pulls him closer, their clothed cocks pressing together. Robert swears, his lips recapturing Jude’s, his hands working furiously at the clasp of Jude’s pants. He layers raspy words between heated kisses, shoving Jude’s pants off his hips and taking the other man’s cock in hand, receiving a moan and a jut of hips in return. “I’ve – wanted you – so – fucking bad – since day – one.” Jude gives an arousal-strained moan, his head rolling back against the wall as Robert frees his own erection. Jude bucks and their cocks slide together. “Oh fuck me,” the British man breathes. Robert curses in a rush, slicking his cock with pre-cum and spitting into his hand. He curls one finger up inside, eases a second in. Jude stuffs his knuckles into his mouth, not quite having forgotten the gala twenty feet away. He feels the delicious burn of himself widening as Robert’s fingers scissor inside him, and then they’re gone and Robert’s coaxing Jude’s legs up around his waist and the head of Robert’s cock is flush against his entrance.

Their eyes meet as Robert pushes in, and the obsidian heat that Jude finds in the other man’s blown-out pupils combined with the feeling of being filled forces his eyes shut, his head pressing back, an unhinged moan rolling off his lips. Neither of them can believe this. They’re fucking in a surreality. A year and a half of being closer than the closest close and yet never crossing this line, never being quite this close. If there had been something inevitable about their relationship, everyone had seen it but them. Now, though, they wonder how they managed to go a single day without ending up in bed.

Jude hisses as Robert pulls back slowly and eases in again, urging him on by tightening his legs against his back.

“God, Robert, please.”

Robert groans low, one hand grasping Jude’s ass, the other slamming into the wall beside his head. He speeds up without further encouragement and they’re rutting against each other now, paying no heed to the world around them, every second of every minute of the past year and a half building into this moment. Jude’s cock leaks between their bodies. Robert buries his lips against Jude’s shoulder, thrusting wildly, too far gone to do anything but fuck his costar into the wall, society be damned. He hears Jude keen, feels warmth against his abdomen, and thrusts into the blazing whiteness as Jude clenches around him and his whole body shudders.

There’s a rushing fading in Robert’s ears and he can feel his chest working like a bellows. He doesn’t move. Jude doesn’t move. Their chests rise and fall together. Robert lifts his head from Jude’s shoulder.

“Well then.”

Jude smirks and blinks sleepily, completely relaxed.

“Yeah.”

Robert’s eyes are sparkling.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Jude gives a soft laugh, eyes lighting up.

“You’re going to have to get out of me first.”

Robert grins deviously.

“Not necessarily.”

Jude flushes a becoming shade of pink.

“Cheeky bastard.” He unlocks his legs, lowering himself off of Robert. He leans down to do up his pants, and Robert imitates him mock-grudgingly. They look each other over – stained, flushed, disheveled – and their laughter threatens to burst.

“It’s going to be almost as good as if I carried you out of here with my cock up your ass.”

Jude laughs, slipping his arm comfortably around Robert’s waist.

“Won’t they be proud.”

Fic: Intended

2011-03-01T10:57:18Z

Title: Intended
Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Reservoir Dogs
Pairing: Mr. Orange/Mr. White
Rating: R
Summary: Freddy’s got it all figured out.

Freddy knows exactly why he’s doing this. He knows the other guys think he’s got shit for brains, but this is the best way he can contribute – the best way he can keep people from getting hurt – and he’s going to do whatever it is he needs to do to make sure that happens.

-

When the older guy in the red shirt ruffles his hair and drapes an arm around his shoulders as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, he wants to be annoyed.

-

When he catches the guy from Milwaukee, Mr. White, with his those smiling eyes on him, he can’t help but feel them deep in his gut.

-

He tells himself the kisses are all part of the act – for the greater good and all that – but by the time he’s got his knuckles stuffed in his mouth, brain searing with white heat, hips jerking wildly against the other man’s hand, he’s having a fuck of a lot of trouble believing his own lies.

-

Freddy tries to hide the fact that his face is collapsing in devastation as White goes off on the cops. He knows these men – all three of them – and the fact that life’s printed them onto opposite sides of the same coin – two dying and one killing – is cleaving him apart.

-

When a marble-sized fraction of his gut implodes like a supernova, he feels his finger jerk the trigger, feels himself land on the asphalt, feels the woman’s shout like it’s magnified by a thousand, the weight of those two irrevocable seconds slamming into him like a pendulum. Then there’s the blaze of the sun in his eyes and White behind him, lifting him up, cradling him to his side, trying to walk him away from the moment.

-

He’s writhing in the back of the car, eyes wide, chin to his chest, just enough clarity left to think that Cabot went a shade too light when he dubbed him Mr. Orange. He’s squeezing the fuck out of Larry’s hand and everything’s turning to shit. He tried to play life like a game but failed to consider the fact that its next move’s impossible to anticipate, and everything’s possible.

-

He’s painted in blood, Larry’s arms around him, Larry’s comb raking through his hair as if he’s going to need to look presentable for whatever’s next, Larry’s whispers warm in his ear. The pain in his gut is almost negligible beside the pain in his chest.

-

The floor is a bath of crimson and his face is a sickly, pearly white. He’s screaming at Eddie, and Larry’s stroking a hand along his side, his body positioned protectively between the two.

-

There’s a smattering of gunshots and then Larry’s groaning, dragging himself along the floor towards him. Freddy squeezes his eyes shut and scours a breath from the air, the inevitability of the truth – the point where Mr. Orange meets Freddy Newandyke – creeping up on him. Larry’s going to wish the bullet killed him.

-

Freddy rolls his eyes skyward as the cool butt of the gun juts into his cheek, a warm hand running all over his head. Larry sounds like a dying animal.

“I’m. sorry.” Freddy forces out between clenched teeth, voice ragged and wheezy.

The gun’s biting into his cheek. Larry’s caressing his head as if he’s trying to rub the blood back in.

Freddy drags in a breath, his final thought blooming out of the darkness, his last feeling relief. He’s not going to be able to hurt anyone anymore.

Fic: Nightmare for a Dream

2011-02-25T21:45:33Z

Title: Nightmare for a Dream
Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Lie to Me
Pairing: Callian
Rating: PG
Summary: The truth’s sick of letting the stars of The Lightman Group lie to themselves.
Notes: For augrah – who I love love love for introducing me to this fandom – in partial exchange for the in-transit package of Roth goodies. ♥

Gillian fumbles for the plastic arch of the phone on her nightstand, bringing it to her cheek in a fog. She rolls onto her side, cuddling closer against the swirl of her burgundy sheets before sighing out a greeting.

“Hello?”

“Gillian.” She can’t immediately place the voice on the other end, but there’s a rigidity in it that cuts through the residual dregs of sleep in her mind like a white-hot blade. She sits up, backing into the headboard.

“Zoe?” Gillian’s eyes dart to the clock – 3:48 – and she’s overtaken by a sick swoop of anxiety. A rush of benign possibilities, each more ridiculous than the last, bursts into her mind in an effort to reassure her, but she knows from the other woman’s tone that something is very wrong even before she hears the words.

“Gillian. It’s Cal – the doctor’s aren’t sure what – they think it might have been – I don’t – Emily just found him -”

Gillian sits completely still, eyes focused intently on a spot she isn’t really seeing. “Is he -?”

Zoe lets out a breath. Gillian squeezes her eyes shut. She’s gripping the phone so hard it would hurt if she had a fraction of brain space left to devote to physical pain. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a click that says Zoe’s hung up, but Gillian still has the phone in a vice grip, and she’s silently begging someone – anyone – to say something. She slowly curls into herself, knees to chest, arms to knees, temple to arms. Her hair cascades into her face, shivering against her skin like raindrops in a deluge.

---

Though there’s no reason she can think of to be early, Gillian is in a hurry to get into work. There’s a slight, inexplicable tremor in her hands, the sort that usually comes with a caffeine high, and she’s forgotten to put her stockings on. She’s collecting files at the reception desk when a door opens down the hall and she hears the familiar brogue.

“-and get me that wanker from yesterday, the midget-y one. If he’s not in the cube by lunch, my heart meds are coming out of your salary.”

“Anyone ever tell you patience is a virtue?” Loker calls after him.

“You’re free to phone the Buddha on your next job search.”

Gillian spins on her heel, dropping a blue folder whose contents shatter and slip their way across the polished floor. She barely notices, her eyes fixed on the man who’s just turning to her in surprise. The residual smirk from his exchange with Loker vanishes as he catches the look on her face. A few long strides and he’s right in front of her, big hands on her shoulders, eyebrows scrunched in concern as his eyes rake her face.

“Ay ay, luv, what’s the matter?”

Gillian presses the tips of her fingers to her temple and closes her eyes against the intensity of his gaze. The nightmare itself – lost to her conscious since dawn – has blazed back only in scraps, but the feeling balloons inside her, undiluted by daylight or the truth that invalidates it – that Cal is alive and well, that the warmth of his hands now soothes the shoulders that so recently rocked at his loss. She takes a deep breath and composes herself.

“Nothing,” she smiles and gives his forearm a light squeeze. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

He gives her a long look. “I’m here luv.”

He brushes her cheek with his palm and disappears down the hallway.

---

Gillian manages not to drop any more folders for the rest of the week. They expose a few truths, send a criminal to jail, and save an innocent woman from a terrible fate. But the lead that dropped into her stomach as the dream rushed back to her Tuesday morning remains, and she can feel her pulse singing constantly, her heart a notch more active than usual.

It’s Friday night, and Loker and Torres have just left. Gillian’s out on the balcony, hands on the railing and eyes closed. The night is still and chilly. She doesn’t hear Cal come up behind her and starts as his arms slip around her waist, his chin coming to rest on her shoulder.

“Easy, luv.”

Gillian takes a deep, steadying breath and settles back into his chest.

“You scared me.”

“Ah yeah, that’s me, stealthy as a ninja.” He sees her lips curve up. “What’s it then?”

Gillian turns her face toward his. He’s got his head cocked on her shoulder, and while his expression is pleasant enough, his eyes tell her that he’s not going to let whatever’s up go until he gets the truth, that he may not be able to construct the whole truth without the benefit of words but that he knows something’s wrong and that’s enough for him to push. Gillian can feel his eyes on her as she moves one hand from the railing and brings the pad of her thumb to his lips, letting it slip from one side to the other. Her eyes slide up to his and she’s spent enough time reading people to know what she sees there, what he can’t hide. She revolves in his arms until their chests touch and weaves her arms around him, one gliding over the warm plane of his back while her other hand sweeps up the nape of his neck, her fingers lacing into his hair. She buries her head in the curve of his shoulder, sighing deeply.

They rest like that, swaying infinitesimally, until her stomach rumbles softly.

“How does Chinese sound?” His words ruffle through her hair.

“Mm, wonderful.”

He can sense her smile against his neck. She lifts her head, exhaling softly, eyes gleaming. She can feel his arms tighten around her as his gaze sweeps her face. His lips twitch and he pulls her to his side, leading her back into the office with his arm looped around her waist.

---

Cal trades the delivery guy a twenty for the bursting plastic bag stamped with THANK YOU and a garish neon smiley face.

He stops at the threshold to his office, the bag swinging in his grip. Gillian’s curled up on the couch, fast asleep. He pauses against the doorframe for a few moments, watching her.

Cal leaves the take-out on the table and settles onto the edge of the couch, stroking a palm over her hair. She sighs and eases into his touch. He rises and shrugs out of his jacket, tucking it over her sleeping form before turning the overhead lights out and lowering himself onto the floor beside the couch.

---

Cal’s leaning back against the edge of the couch, sleepless but content, when Gillian begins to get restless, her head turning from side to side against the cushion.

He twists to face her, hears her breath hitch.

“No,” her eyes are squeezed shut, eyebrows knitted. “Cal.”

His heart stammers. He raises himself up onto the couch beside her as her nightmare grows more insistent.

“I ca – can’t lose you, please.”

Cal’s eyes widen, his face softening. He smooths his hand down the length of her arm.

“Gill, luv, wake up. It’s okay.”

She’s muttering in the mumble of the unconscious, the articulate corners of her words sanded into softness by sleep but sharpened by an undercurrent of anxiety.

“No. No! You can’t leave me, you can’t, I didn’t get to say – I didn’t…”

Cal’s pulse is racing. He strokes her hair, gives her fingers a light squeeze.

“Come on luv, wake up, it’s okay.” He hates seeing her like this, hates thinking about her alone, thrashing against her pillow every night since the day he first saw the nightmare on her face. He hates himself for not trying harder to wake her, but he’s riveted, ruled by the voice in the back of his mind that’s telling him to just wait, that this is something he needs to hear.

Gillian’s shivering wildly, clenching his jacket to her chest.

“Cal, no! Cal, I love you. Cal, please. Please wake up.”

Cal exhales in a rush, winded. He’s a mess of extremes, lungs frozen, head and heart flooded with heat. He wraps his arms around her and holds her against his chest, quenching the nightmare like a flame, his palm easing up and down the curve of her back, fingers trembling.

“God, Gillian. I love you too, you know that. I love you. I'm sorry, I'm such an idiot, I should have told you. Wake up, Gill. Everything’s fine. Everything’s perfect.”

---

There are distant sounds somewhere beside her. Her lungs are struggling for air, jammed by the mist between her mind and her body. Her form goes taut as her eyes fly open. She’s gasping, and her trembling hands are trying to come to her chest but they can’t seem to reach it, there’s something in the way. She’s about to call his name with her first breath when she realizes he’s already there, beside her on the couch, his arms around her, his body between her grasping hands and her heaving chest, his lips in her hair. She squeezes her eyes shut, relaxing around a sob, her hands alternating between running flat across his back and bunching in the fabric of his shirt.

“It’s okay love, everything’s alright.”

She clutches him against her, breathing still ragged, but when she speaks her voice is steady. “Cal.”

He strokes the back of her head and she lifts her chin, her eyes finding his. Moments come and go. She finds the truth in his eyes, bare and unburied, and he finds awareness of the truth in hers and gives a slow, heavy blink of confirmation, his lips easing up at the corners.

“Let’s get you home love.”

Booklist '09

2010-01-04T07:29:00Z

Started recording a few years back for that 50bookchallenge comm but have mostly given up on actually accomplishing it.

1. Daisy Miller by Henry James

2. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

3. Watchmen by Alan Moore

4. Looking for Alaska by John Green

5. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

6. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

7. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

8. Paper Towns by John Green

9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

11. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

12. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

13. Q&A by Vikas Swarup

14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
15. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown*

16. Cultural Misunderstandings by Raymonde Carroll

17. The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier

18. The General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez

19. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

20. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

21. Popol Vuh by The Mayan People

22. The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

23. Adolphe by Benjamin Constant

24. Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

25. A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

26. By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolano
27. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

* = re-read

Pretty sure that's everything. Got quite a few in-progress/possibly-never-to-finish ones (mostly for school), but they will have to go on next year's list if I make it.

Happy new year!

Fic: Bloody Lost

2009-07-22T07:22:24Z

Title: Bloody Lost

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Lost/Twilight crossover

Characters/Pairings: Ben Linus, Carlisle Cullen, mention of Edward/Bella

Rating: PG

Genre: Humor

Summary: One night the traveling island decides to thoroughly confuse a certain Ben Linus by moving into a section of ocean labeled “occupied” for a few minutes of amusement.

Notes: For augrah. I am beyond horrifyingly late, but I hope you like it all the same.

Benjamin Linus was confused, and this made him uneasy.

Confusion was not a state Ben was used to. On most days it avoided him like the plague, thinking to itself “this man seems to know far too much about far too much – I would be required to expend a ridiculous amount of energy were I even to attempt to befuddle him in the slightest, so how about I just nip off and infect the brain of this funny doctor fellow here who everyone seems to call Jack.” Confusion, incidentally, was a lazy ass of a state.

But that’s enough about that. Let’s head back to Ben, who happens to be far more interesting and mysterious and sexy and therefore worthy of stories.

Ben was confused. He’d set off down a perfectly familiar path, one he’d walked no less than a thousand times in his life, only to find himself in an unfamiliar clearing. Sure the island was a strange one, but he was Ben Linus for god’s sake and damnit that meant something. Mysterious clearings didn’t just launch themselves out of the sky and flop into his path.

Ben had just started to head through the clearing to rejoin the path on the other side (in the hopes that it would eventually decide that it hadn’t changed drastically and was really the path he knew and loved) when he heard a rustling noise coming from the leaves a few feet to his right. When he looked up, a kindly-looking – not to mention rather remarkably gorgeous – man whose silky blonde hair and pale ivory skin (with just a hint of a shimmer to it) shone in the moonlight stood staring at him – no, regarding him – with golden eyes.

“Hello,” the man addressed Ben pleasantly, “may I help you?”

Ben regarded him – no, stared at him – for a few moments, eyebrows flying high, eyes wide and distinctly unimpressed, lips a thin line.

“No.”

He continued walking.

The shiny man cleared his throat.

“It’s just that you look a bit lost.” He said it like someone might say “it’s fabulously sunny today, don’t you think?” or “I do love your new puppy, whatever might its name be?”

Ben stopped in his tracks, stood stock still for a few moments just to ensure the man knew his temper was running short and he was highly displeased to be at all distracted from his track to who-the-hell-knows-where, then turned on his heel and cocked an eyebrow.

“Actually, sir, I know exactly where I’m going, and I would appreciate it if you would keep your silly lectures about my island to yourself in the future. Whoever you are,” he added, making it clear that he did not approve of his existence.

“Oh, well I am of course quite sorry. It’s just that I’m a bit confused now. I was under the impression that this was my wife’s island.”

Ben was, as usual, not impressed.

“Is your wife named Jacob by any chance?”

“I’m afraid not…is that a problem?”

“On the contrary. I presume it’s quite lucky for both you and your wife. Now if you don’t mind, I’m a busy man…”

Ben turned abruptly and headed back in the direction he hoped might lead to the path he was pretty damn sure was no where near here, wherever here was.

“Alright then. Well it was nice meeting you,” said the man, whose eyes, though slightly confused, sparkled. He did not move but watched the other man retreat, listened to his footsteps as they disappeared around the corner and, after a few moments, stopped abruptly. There was a slight pause, more footsteps, and the man rounded the corner once again.

“Are those friends of yours? In the…house?”

Carlisle couldn’t help but let a sliver of amusement into his voice, his eyes twinkling. “Oh, you mean Edward and Bella?”

Ben blinked.

“Well I’m afraid I couldn’t tell their names, but there’s no doubt in my mind that one was a man and one was a woman, yes.”

“Ah yes. I apologize. You see they’re not used to having complete strangers roaming the island, so they don’t worry about things like closing curtains and wearing clothes and other trivialities like that. The rest of us know to keep away. We've all got our own little cabins just in case.”

“I see.” Ben had the distinct impression that this man was having far too much fun at his expense. “So this really is your island then?”

“Esme Island, off the coast of Rio, yes.”

“Right.”

Ben wasn’t entirely sure how he had gotten here. In fact, confusion was being quite outgoing that particular night, feeling rather daring it was, but he felt his chances would be better if he just…headed back the way he had come. And so he started off in the direction of the familiar path. The island, he knew, had its ways, and there had to be some reason for –

He was about to leave the clearing when he stopped dead, whipped around, and fixed the magnificently gorgeous, infuriatingly calm, obviously quite knowledgeable and wise and special and awe-inspiring man before him with icy eyes, wondering, hoping that maybe, just maybe…

“Is your name Jacob?”

The blonde man frowned. “I’m afraid not.”

Ben sighed, gave the man an “I’ll be watching you damn freaking closely” look, grudgingly let some more confusion in, and went back the way he’d come, noticing the world give a little shudder out of the corner of his eye as the path became familiar once more.

---

Carlisle watched the man disappear, then gave a bemused shake of the head and a little chuckle. What a strange man. He hoped he would make it back alright, wherever he was going. He pushed through a dense wall of leaves into an adjacent clearing and entered his humble cabin, where he grabbed a book - Of Mice and Men - off the shelf and lowered himself into his worn-looking wooden rocking chair, settling in for the long night.

Drabble: Devout

2009-02-25T07:01:53Z

Title: Devout

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: TDK

Pairing: Batman/Gordon

Rating: PG-13ish

Summary: One story ends and another begins.

Notes: For brushed_velvet.

“Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”

Gordon’s outline trembles slightly, like a digital image skipping, and though Bruce knows the commissioner will never in a million years dare to say it, dare to impose, decades of police training cannot hide the question swimming in his eyes: what about my faith?

The heart of darkness stills around them for an endless moment as they stand – man in hero-suit, hero in man-suit – beside the blown-out carcass of the dead building home to so much of their pain.

Bruce’s pitch-ringed eyes burn into Gordon’s pleading ones and they say everything, everything he needs to know. Their tacit exchange is enough to establish the truth but not enough to make it good enough, not enough to hijack fate.

Gordon’s mouth – rosy putty beneath those desperate eyes - falls open the slightest bit. The breath of time they have before the world distorts itself into a deeper lie is running ragged.

“Maybe you can do this, but I can’t.” His voice sounds foreign to his own ears.

Silence cradles his words. Intensifies them.

The stillness in the world shatters into a million screaming pieces, and Gordon doesn’t have time to brace himself for the onslaught as Batman slams through the air between them like a bullet, tangling gloved fingers through already-disheveled hair. He doesn’t have time to breathe, time to think. Fierce, night-black heat is everywhere and warm human lips are crushing his, just as hungry and desperate on the outside as Gordon is on the inside. He lets out a half-sigh, half-sob and kisses back in a dazed frenzy. The kiss is true and not enough and over in a half second that feels like a decade and a millisecond at once. Then Batman is slipping his hot lips over Gordon’s ear to whisper “have a little faith” and his warmth is gone and his cape is billowing out behind him like a shadow desperate to keep up and the hell hounds are chasing, chasing, chasing and Gordon doesn’t want to have faith in himself or anything, anything but him, but he will if there’s the slightest chance it will be rewarded.

Drabble: Mock Death

2009-02-24T06:38:47Z

Title: Mock Death

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Prison Break

Pairing/Character(s): Alex Mahone

Rating: Mature

Genre: AngstAngstAngst

Summary: When the man woke up, face down in the grass beneath a moonless sky, every single part of him was dead save for his mind.

Notes: For pamalax. Spoilers for 4x01…and possible liberties taken with a fine plot point that we’re going to ignore for the time being.

When the man woke up, face down in the grass beneath a moonless sky, every single part of him was dead save for his mind, which fought tooth and claw against reality, trying to throw itself back into the dark abyss of sleep, clawing at the sloping walls of unconsciousness – mock death.

It came back to him more quickly than was merciful.

His name. His crime. His son.

There was nothing beyond the little brown haired boy. The boy whose Daddy had failed him.

The noise that broke the still air then was jarringly, painfully human. It tore itself from Alexander Mahone’s mouth like a horrible, formless cancer that could no longer stand to inhabit such a broken creature.

Seconds passed. Minutes. Years. Millennia.

The ground pushed itself into his head and curled against his knees, and the air picked him up then, slowly, carefully. The low brick wall slumped against him. His hands, dead hands, lifeless hands, shook themselves. A cigarette fumbled its way from his pocket, found a flame somewhere in all the pressing darkness, and caught with a pfst that his ears didn’t hear.

The playground to his right was a mess of vibrant blues and yellows and reds beneath all the black. His eyes - dead, dark eyes - forced him to watch as the memory of his son ghosted down the slide, laughed with a joy that didn’t belong in the world anymore, a joy that smashed its way through Alex’s dead heart like poison, splitting veins and burning dead flesh.

His lips curled themselves around the cigarette and his lungs sucked, hard, filling themselves to the brim with the empty promise of death. He wanted to kill himself. Wanted his dead hands to wring his neck. His dead feet to throw himself backwards and around and upside-down off the highest peak of the playground. Wanted his dead lungs to distort themselves and grow around the thick, tarry air in his chest and suffocate him forever and ever and ever until there was nothing.

Pure nothing.

Alex Mahone was not a man used to getting what he wanted.

The weight of pure everything forced itself down on his shoulders and he let out a breath with his own lungs and crushed the butt of the cigarette into the scratchy brick surface of the wall digging into his back.

His heart, quick and very much alive, crushed and spat blood and pain in his chest.

He stood up by himself on his own thin, unsteady legs and started off, shakily, through the park and away from the park and away from this everything, forever. He took a breath of darkness.

The cage wasn’t going to let him go. Not tonight.

Drabble: Blackout

2009-02-24T02:06:38Z

Title: Blackout

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: TDK

Pairing: Batman/Joker

Rating: Mature

Summary: Gotham’s guts go dark one night.

Notes: For teithiwr. And, as ever, but especially today, for Heath. This wouldn't exist without you.

I am everything in the dark.

Thought’s pale corpse clunks to the floor between us and Feeling surges into play, an intoxication headier than any drug. The sharp toe of my boot slams into something, some part of him, and an eager giggle claws its way from my throat to meet his angry growl. Something hard and fast slams into my side and my giggle surges back to my lips as I inhale sharply.

Out the window, Gotham is a black labyrinth of heavy shapes pushing up through a suffocating curtain of shadow, of hard angles muted by darkness and silence. I can feel the fear, palpable fear, of a city doused in darkness. Somebody somewhere in some corner of the black world is afraid of the dark and that somebody is screaming inside, mind illuminating a whirlwind of fear. I feel a grin tear itself across my face. My nerves are humming, excitement pooling like a choked scream in the flesh above my elbows. My lungs are searing, muscles raging, skin on fire, pulsing under each blow. We lunge out at one another, again and again and again, canceling out any real effort, lost in the feelings of hitting and being hit, hitting and being hit, hating and wanting and hitting and hitting and hitting and being hit and unraveling in the darkness.

Another giggle. My lungs feel like strained bellows squeezing out air and frenzied sound. My words tumble into the craze, riding on thin, breathy giggles.

“I ca-can’t see.”

I double over then and my laugh scrapes at the dark corners of the room, all sharp nails and bright plastic and screaming delight.

His fist collides with my jaw. I can feel him deflating, feel his energy or his will draining away to hide with everything else in the darkness. I can feel his eyes close as my laugh shrieks down the walls and away. I see black, black, black everywhere, creeping through my eyes into the tunnels of my mind. I feel the clammy stick of unseen color on my face, feel blooming bruises and blazing cuts and sour breath in raw lungs and broiling heat in my gut and groin and all over, all over and I hear him slide down the wall beside the window that looks out on nothing, his own magnified breath ragged.

“What do you want?” There is a taste of a growl in his whisper.

I let the silence mingle with the darkness just long enough.

I straighten up, cricking my neck, stretch stretch stretching up and everywhere, moaning and sighing and laughing all at once before letting it all fall down and taking a step that echoes in the silent darkness like a particularly satisfying bomb blast.

“This.”

I feel him - his heat, his confused anger, his flesh (so soft and warm and human), his pride, his nerves his heart his breath his gaze his denial his gray area, hidden there amongst the black of the night and the white of nothingness.

My laugh slaps him hard across the face and I know he feels it sharper than any blow.

We are everything in the dark.

Drabble: Deluge

2009-02-17T02:16:23Z

Title: Deluge

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairing: Sam/Dean

Rating: Mature

Summary: Sam grinned one of those grins that tears across your mouth when you know you’re alive and a part of the universe and Dean whistled, low.

Notes: For onehoureternity. (Oh hallo, run-on sentence!)

The rain fell down around them in torrents, drenching the Impala, pounding on the windshield, streaking the world outside, distorting it until all they could see was the blurry smudge of the empty highway and the clean transparency of the waterlogged, indistinguishable world beyond.

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

They looked at each other then, because there was certainly nothing to see in the swimming world outside, and the utter closeness and realness and aliveness of his brother’s face compared to the drowning world he’d just torn his eyes from hit Sam like a blow to the gut. His mind skipped a beat. He saw something in Dean’s eyes, something deep and dark and hungry hiding just above the curve of that sly, soft pink smirk, and dragged his gaze away to drench it in the view from the windshield once more. It was unreal, this storm. The road was deserted. The world was being washed clean. There was no way anything could survive this cleansing, this distortion. Not even a demon could withstand the drenching. The world was dissolving and with it all the pain and anger and fear. Sam grinned one of those grins that tears across your mouth when you know you’re alive and a part of the universe and Dean whistled, low, and they looked at each other again, silently, and Sam’s grin disappeared and Dean’s smirk didn’t seem to have quite as much of its shit together as it usually did and that deep hungry darkness in his eyes reappeared and Sam let out a breath that carried with it a “Dean”. And then suddenly the hungry darkness wasn’t deep, wasn’t even trying to hide.

“Sammy.” Dean’s voice was thick with something that Sam had never, ever heard, and as much as it scared him, he wanted to hear it again and again and again until his ears were raw and he was filled with more fear than he’d ever held and somehow, sometime the Impala had come to a stop and someone else’s eyes – hungry and dark – were close to his, so close, and someone else’s hot breath was ghosting over his face and there. There it was again, that sound, rich and fucking heavy with pent-up desire and need and fuckyespleasewant, except that this time it had come from his own lips.

“Dean.”

Dean groaned and his hand – warm and rough – gripped Sam’s chin and their lips crashed together, heat on heat, hunger on hunger, darkness on darkness, and Sam moaned against his brother’s lips as the rain pounded into his mind, spreading clarity through the cloud of desire cause fuck if this wasn’t the way he’d always wanted it, and if Dean’s ravenous lips and low groans had any truth to them, Sam wasn’t the only one.

“Bitch,” Dean choked out.

“Jerk,” Sam hissed against his lips as he shifted into his brother’s lap.

And, god, everything was the same and everything was different. The rain was painting the world silver-gray around the awkwardly-parked Impala and their lips were working fiercely, fingers roaming, groans skimming over heated skin and Sam grinned against Dean’s neck because fuck if he wasn’t alive as hell.

Drabble: Suckered

2009-02-17T00:09:57Z

Title: Suckered

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Severus/Harry

Rating: Matureish

Summary: Snape really should be more careful when it comes to drinking from unattended goblets. Especially on Valentine’s Day.

Notes: For jess_williams.

Severus Snape had no intention of staying for the Valentine’s feast. He whipped into the Great Hall, robes billowing out behind him, snatched a goblet of pumpkin juice (scarcely missing tipping it onto Professor McGonagall, who was listening as Granger discussed spell range compared to wand length), and slipped back out the way he had come, vibrant pinks and reds still staining the bulk of his vision. He breathed a quick sigh of relief, leaning against the stone wall beside the Hall as he took a sip. His eyes fell on a figure standing by the House hourglasses and his stomach gave a heavy, sick swoop.

Potter seemed to be reading the house points with interest. Snape’s hand shook. The goblet slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor, the orange liquid puddling at his feet.

Potter’s head whipped around, his mouth hanging open, his eyes lighting up in confusion as he caught sight of his professor. Heat twisted viciously in Severus’s abdomen. He clutched the cool stone of the wall with desperate fingers.

“Potter,” he ground out, the logic in his mind telling him not to let the boy get any closer, telling him to run, telling him to shut the goddamned hell up. But, god, he needed help and the boy was the only one there, and if only he could just touch him, just for one second, just look into those green eyes and oh –

Potter rushed over to him, passing a worried hand over Severus’s forehead.

“Professor,” his voice was shaky, eyes concerned, “are you alright?”

Severus drew a desperate gulp of air, tried not to moan, and ground his eyes shut against the gorgeous sight before him.

“Potter. Been poisoned. Need help.”

He could feel the boy tense.

“Poisoned?” His voice was thick with horror. “I’ll get Madame Pomfrey -”

“No!” Severus’s eyes snapped open. His spidery fingers snatched at Harry’s wrist. “Need to get to office.” He moaned, and transferred his grip to Harry’s shoulder. “Need to get to antidote.”

“Right.” Harry wasn’t about to argue with the Potions Master on how best to treat poisoning. He wrapped his arm hastily around his professor’s back and the two hurried down to the dungeons.

---

Severus knew he hadn’t ingested much of the love potion and knew, too, he was lucky to be strong enough to fight off many of its effects. But still, Harry’s every movement against him in the dark sent his nerve-ends screaming for more. Severus tried to hold his breath and lean away from the boy, but he could feel his mind yielding to the pull of the potion. Finally, they reached the potions dungeon, and Severus reached a hand out for the cold of the wall, trying to drag himself away from Harry with the last of his strength.

“Professor?” Harry’s voice, low and anxious, rushed up his spine to set fireworks free in the base of his skull.

“Fu-fuck,” Severus breathed. His attempt to get away from Harry had failed miserably. He could feel the frigid wall on his back and the heat of the boy against his side. He could feel the logic in his mind shrinking rapidly, its last words warning him that this would not end well. He hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fuck it.”

“Professor, please, tell me where the antidote is, I don’t want anything to happen to y-”

“Nothing,” Snape growled, “is going to happen to me.”

“I don’t -”

Snape caught Harry’s lips mid-sentence, snatching the breathy words from them. The boy’s mouth - warm, soft, and utterly delectable - went slack, and Severus moaned into him, high on what was now, to him, the sole antidote in the universe to his hunger. Harry broke away with a gasp and Severus whined and Harry muttered: “remind me to thank Hermione” with such a tone of blatant deviousness that Severus’s suspicion, even in his clouded state, was piqued. And in the half-second he had before Harry’s fingers could weave their way into his hair and capture his hungry lips once more, Severus’s mind flickered back to the Great Hall, to Granger standing just inches from his vulnerable goblet.

“God, you saucy boy,” he growled out, letting himself be taken by the boy who got every fucking thing he wanted.

Drabble: You've been hit!

2009-02-14T18:23:44Z

Title: You’ve been hit!

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Law & Order: SVU

Pairing: Elliot/Olivia

Rating: PG-13

Summary: It was Munch’s idea to take the annual department office party to the ever-so-sophisticated field of laser tag, foregoing the usual stuffy restaurant for a good ol’ every-man-for-himself showdown.

Notes: For kansasspice.

It was Munch’s idea to take the annual department office party to the ever-so-sophisticated field of laser tag, foregoing the usual stuffy restaurant for a good ol’ every-man-for-himself showdown. After providing the bored-looking teenager at the desk with their “code names” and securing their laser vests, the team was set free into a cavernous world of snaking ramps and tunnels, a world whose walls crawled with neon stripes and bright webs of glow-in-the-dark paint.

Olivia, who had never been laser tagging and wasn’t entirely sure just yet what she should do, was marveling at the network of vibrant light and weaving darkness before her when she heard a thick zap and saw the panel on her gun flash:

You’ve been hit by the MUNCHINATOR!

Olivia whipped around, leveled her own gun, and pulled the trigger. There was an answering zap as her laser beam connected with the target on Munch’s chest. She gave him a sly grin and ran up a ramp to her left, losing herself in the maze.

She stopped behind a wall on the second floor to get her bearings. The darkness was intoxicating. Anyone could be aiming at her from afar. Anyone of her friends could be hiding in the darkness. And the best thing about it? Nobody could die. Nobody would die. It had been so long since she’d had real fun.

She heard a screech from the lower level and peeked through a slant in the wall to see Fin (code name: “The Finisher”) zap a laughing Casey (code name: “Novakain”). Olivia grinned and shot Fin, who glanced around wildly, unsure of who had hit him.

Olivia took off to her left, giving Cragen (code name: “Captain Cool”) a sheepish grin and shooting him in passing as she zipped around another corner, climbing higher.

As she ran down a long, dark corridor high above the ground, she heard another whirring zap, saw You’ve been hit by HELLiotRAISER!, and turned with a wide grin, finger on the trigger. Another zap and she’d hit Elliot square on the chest. Another and her screen flashed wildly. She took off again, laughing, weaving her way through the labyrinth of darkness and bouncing neon, Elliot’s heavy steps following close behind. She whipped around a thin wall and hid, hand clasped over her mouth, trying not to let her breath and silent laughter betray her. She breathed carefully, quietly, in and out, in and out, vision bright with neon and dark with the absence of it.

And then suddenly he stood before her, grin plastered across his face, eyes bright, gun at his side because he didn’t need it to prove he’d beaten her. Her hand fell away from her mouth. Silence hung between them for one second, two. One moment they were playing laser tag in a giant, timeless, darkened room - playing kids - and the next their big fake guns were hanging at their sides and their faces were close, so close in the darkness and Elliot’s lips were brushing her cheek and he was inhaling sharply against her skin and Olivia’s fingers were dancing over his hot neck and they were breathing each other’s air softly, quietly, and their hearts beat once, twice and the targets on their chests were close enough to zap zap zap each other.

And then all at once the room deflated, laser sounds fading into silence. The game was up. Elliot kissed her forehead and Olivia slipped their fingers together and they made their way out of the maze together, leaving the safe exhilaration and the shared breath and the silly names to sleep in the neon-dark world forever.

50bookchallenge 2008: 21/50

2009-01-01T21:36:25Z

AKA Yet Another Epic Failure

1. The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
2. Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
3. City of Masks by Mary Hoffman
4. 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
5. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
6. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
7. The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
8. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
9. Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (re-read)
11. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
12. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
13. The Killing Joke by Alan Moore
14. Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison
15. Antigone by Sophocles
16. King Lear by William Shakespeare
17. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
18. Oedipus the King by Sophocles

I didn't take very obsessive records last year, so unfortunately there may be one or two I forgot, and I could've sworn I read The Subtle Knife in February or March when I was home sick for a couple days, but it's the last one on my '07 list so I am thoroughly confused.

Hopefully I'll have a better literary 2009 (maybe I'll actually complete it for once!).

EDIT: Oh mon dieu. It keeps cutting off my last three for no particular reason. So here -
19. Animal Farm by George Orwell
20. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
21. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

Fic: Gravity

2008-08-04T08:43:59Z

Title: Gravity

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: TDK

Pairing: Joker/Batman

Rating: R

Warnings: Spoilers, sexual situations, blood, language, fun!

Summary: It only takes Batman a week to get caught and thrown in Arkham, the Joker’s parting laugh still ringing against the base of his skull as they process him for confinement.

Notes: For the Batman Kink Meme, with the prompt:

Pairing: Batman/Joker
Kink: "Batman: You'll be in a padded cell forever.
The Joker: Maybe we can share one."
HMM. What do you think they'd get up to, dear Anons?

It only takes Batman a week to get caught and thrown in Arkham, the Joker’s parting laugh still ringing against the base of his skull as they process him for confinement.

“All it takes is a little push.”

They throw him in with the Joker on purpose. Of course they do. In the end, few humans hesitate to give others that fateful push, not when it earns them a laugh and a pat on the back. His eyes are brighter than Bruce has ever seen them. He’s taken aback by the clean, makeup-free face and stumbles over his own socked feet as the heavy door closes behind him. Behind them.

“Bruuuuuuuuce Wayne. Brucecakes. Batsy. Brucey. Rich, dumb, and pretty – quelle surprise!” The Joker gives a vicious little eye roll and crosses his ankles, his mismatched, multicolored socks now white. Bruce steps carefully over his outstretched legs and sinks down against the lightly padded wall, eyes trailing from floor (white) to ceiling (white), to door (white) and finally to the Joker, who is so completely washed-out and dumbed down in comparison to his usual purple, green and red self he may as well match the rest of the room. His flyaway blond hair though, still tinged with green, is a sweet and unexpectedly welcome reprieve of color. Bruce is surprised by the man’s utter…normality. He’s years younger than he would have guessed. Only the warped, puckered corners of his mouth hint at the mind beneath. His eyes are dark and loaded, as if daring Bruce to comment on his stripped, whitewashed identity.

Bruce just watches. There’s nothing to say. Nothing to do, no one to save, no justice left to serve. In here they are the same.

The Joker glances to the door, then lets his eyes dance over to his wriggling toes.

“So are you surprised the great Gotham turned on you?” He cocks his head to the side and sweeps his eyes over to Bruce. Bruce is struck by how captivating they are now that the custom horrorsuit and garish face paint are gone. He pauses before answering, mulling over his words.

“Not at all. To them I am a murderer and they have done the right thing. Gotham has only fulfilled the promise of Batman, to bring justice where justice is needed. They have saved everything by condemning me.”

“Yeahhhhhhhhh.” The Joker flicks at an invisible speck on his white pant leg, a smirk twisting his unpainted lips. “I suppose I did sc-rew things up for you.”

Bruce gives a noncommittal shrug and leans back against the wall, closing his eyes.

The silence does not last long.

“Destiny, what did I tell you?” Bruce hears the Joker scoot closer, the rough fabric of his uniform hissing against the rubbery floor. “I’m here because of you, you’re here because of me. Something in that great mind of yours must be able to appreciate that.”

Bruce cocks an eyebrow. “Great mind?”

“Only great minds end up here.”

Bruce is unsure whether by “here” he means Arkham or alive in the presence of the Joker for an extended period of time. He feels the Joker’s hip against his own as he inches closer. The man is bony beneath the thick white fabric. He feels fragile. There is a warm weight against Bruce’s shoulder. When the Joker next speaks, his voice is close and his jaw works softly against Bruce’s shirt.

“You must be feeling very conflicted. Bruce. Batman. Just who are you? Who are you? You march in here in your new white suit, the protector of Gotham’s soul, ready to be locked – locked – up with its breathing laughing laughing down. fall. Noble to the end. Valiant. A crusader.

“Out there you could try to be two. Bruce. Batman. But this place changes everything.”

Bruce flinches softly as the Joker’s fingers rub at his chest, pressing into his sternum.

“Whose heartbeat is this? Hmm?” The Joker rolls his head back, stretching, tipping its crown into the hollow of Bruce’s shoulder, a soft smile curving his lips.

“Bruce. Wayne. Doesn’t. Exist. Not anywhere, not here. And in here,” his head rolls back into place, shifting against Bruce’s shoulder. His hand falls from Bruce’s chest to land on his thigh with a loud thwack. “Batman can’t exist.”

He lets his words hang in the air, sighing, shifting closer to Bruce in the brightness.

It’s a few long minutes - or perhaps a few short hours – before that high, pliant voice works its way against the grain of silence once more. Bruce feels the warmth leave his shoulder, feels large eyes boring into his head.

“Don’t expect to get used to the white. It’s unnaaa-tu-ruull.” His fingers crawl up Bruce’s neck and clutch at his jaw. Bruce takes a sharp breath, unmoving. So far unresponsiveness has done him well.

“We’ve no violet, no forest green, no deeeeeep blue.” His tone hits a low growl. “Just the knowledge of our black hearts squelching in our chests and the crimson -” he bites the bumpy inside of his cheek, desperate to draw blood, groaning softly – “oohhhhh the red, sloshing beneath the surface. Set to overflow. Made to come. free.” He wrenches Bruce’s head to the side, letting out a quick sigh of pleasure at the sound of protesting joints, aching bones.

“Look at me.”

Bruce wrests his jaw from the Joker’s grip and trains his dark gaze on the pale face, his eyes guarded, protesting against the sudden brightness. The other man is close, his face trembling, his breath hot on Bruce’s face.

“You. belong. to. me. Out there -” he waves his hands at the door, eyes fixed and bright, unhinged, never darting from Bruce’s face, “out there there are others. People. Forming a great, tangled web you can weave yourself into and lose yourself in. People to protect you, people to harass you, people to keep you alive, people to lend you purpose.” His voice sinks deep on the last word, his lips going slack, eyes glassy. He reaches out, snatching at Bruce’s shirt to pull him close, and Bruce lets him. “Out there we make. each other. I play off you – feed off you – and you come back again and again because my heart still sings in my chest – because you let it, againandagainandagain.” The Joker slides into Bruce’s lap, pressing him into the wall with clutching hands and manic eyes. “But the people – your web, your web, your spider – they eat you alive, they suck your precious blood, they steal your purpose and your face collapses with your mask. Let it die, let it die, they let it die, they let you die.” The Joker’s lips ghost over Bruce’s as he speaks, almost accidentally, his words a frenzy of heat. “In here there is no one to protect you and no one to make you but me. And there is nothing to stop us anymore. Nothing.”

Bruce doesn’t know who starts the kiss. Doesn’t know why or when or how but the Joker’s hands are cradling his head in a vice grip and his cracked lips are chafing hungrily at Bruce’s, his tongue striking out fiercely, forcing Bruce to respond or choke. Bruce’s mind freezes as he tries to jerk his head back into the wall, tries to do something useful with his boneless hands, shudders violently against the thick web engulfing his mind and ends up pressing his hips up into the Joker’s somewhere between oh my and god.

The Joker bites at Bruce’s lip, hard, drawing thin, tangy blood that runs over their lips and melds its way into their frantic kiss like melted butter.

“Fuck.”

Their lips slip apart and their hips jut together. Bruce grinds his teeth, angry splotches of light bursting against his eyelids as he squeezes them shut. The Joker’s breath flushes over his tense neck in choked, erratic waves.

The brightness bursts, jagged weightless diamonds swimming in Bruce’s head, disappearing into the dark web one by one by one. His head lolls precariously between his shoulders. One of the Joker’s scars sears against his neck. Their chests rise and fall unevenly. Bruce feels blood drying on his lips, down his chin. He feels heavy, too heavy for oxygen to force its way in and out, for his heart to pump on and on and on againandagainandagain, too heavy for the white padded floor of Arkham Asylum to hold him up, hold him in.

There is nothing to say.

Nothing to do.

The lights click off, drenching the white in a blackness so deep and complete he doubts there is anything beyond it. No people. No world, inching along day by day outside thick walls and bars and locks, the Batman gone from their hearts and minds and streets.

There is a heartbeat, there in the darkness. Against his chest. There is breath against his shoulder and the press of ribbed, contorted skin against his neck and blood in his mouth.

Just a little push.

All it takes.

Gravity is infallible. Constant. Truly incorruptible.

Something you’ll never be.

</div>

Fic: Second Thoughts

2008-08-02T03:52:21Z

Title: Second Thoughts

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Twilight

Pairing: Carlisle/Bella

Rating: PG-13ish

Summary: Humanity is precious. Carlisle knows that better than anyone.

Notes: Just a quickie before the end! And I'm not entirely sure where Bella was born, but let's pretend.

Carlisle adjusted the tip of his fountain pen, his golden hair catching the light as it sifted into his eyes.

“It’s a record of your human life. Just a sentimentality. Edward asked me to help you with it, and I gather it’s the least we can do for him in the face of what’s to come.”

Bella nodded and swallowed, shifting against the crimson velvet of her seat. Carlisle looked up at her from behind his desk.

“Full name?”

Bella stared at the tip of the pen where it hovered above the heavy parchment.

“Isabella Marie Swan.”

His hand swept across the page, each slight movement more graceful than anything she’d achieved in her short human life.

“Date of birth?”

“September 13^th…19…87.”

She thought she saw a slight twist flash across his lips.

“Birthplace?”

“Seattle, Washington…United States of America…Earth…”

Carlisle looked up from the page, a smile curving his perfect lips, his eyes laughing. He looked slightly haggard – as haggard as he could, at the very least. His eyes were nearly black. Darker than she’d ever seen them. He let the pen fall to the parchment with a neat clunk.

“What is your earliest memory?”

This question caught Bella off-guard. She bit her lip, gaze swinging up to the wood-paneled ceiling.

“I don’t…know exactly. I didn’t have much…concept of time when I was little. There was the day a boy at my preschool pulled the alarm as a prank and the fire trucks came. We all had to file out into the backyard and wait for ages. And I remember sitting in the garden with my mom. We wore sundresses and drank tea and watched the flowers sway in the breeze, the sun on our faces.”

Carlisle nodded, watching her intently. Bella didn’t notice he’d stopped writing.

“The first dream you remember?” His voice was low, almost husky. Bella wondered if his eyes had gone darker since she’d started speaking.

“Um.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. Glanced to the side, eyes sweeping over the spines of large, tightly-bound books.

“I remember…being underwater. I have dreams that I’ve confused with memories. I was pulled under the surf at the beach. Spun around underwater, afraid of the current and calmed in the silence. In another our apartment burned down. Though we didn’t have…an apartment. And in one I could have sworn actually happened but that no one else remembers, my mom and I were in a diner, and she tried to remove her straw wrapper by blowing on the open end. The wrapper…flew off and hit the man in the next booth in the back of the head.”

Bella realized she was smiling. She bit her lip again, waiting for Carlisle’s next question. When he didn’t speak, she glanced up to see him staring at her, eyes slightly glassy. Her gaze startled him out of his reverie.

“I do apologize.” He glanced down at the parchment, toying with the fountain pen.

“Favorite food?” Bella heard the hidden question, though she tried to push it away. Food you’ll miss the most?

“Is this…” her eyes raked the carpet, following the patterns. “Is this really necessary?”

Carlisle sighed softly, sweeping the pen away. She could feel him staring at her, black eyes boring into the crown of her head. Suddenly, soundlessly, he was before her, kneeling on the blood-red carpet in his dark dress pants, his cool hands reaching up for her flushed cheeks. She saw the fierce, dark eyes flash beneath a shock of blond hair as he rose up to slide their lips together, his mouth soft and demanding against hers, his tongue sweeping out to rub at her lower lip. Mind in frantic overdrive, she let her lips part, responding, struck by the thin, delicious tang of mint on his breath. She tangled a hand through his perfect blond hair and let out a small moan, pulling him closer.

He was halfway across the room before she could blink.

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. That should not have gone on as long as I let it.”

She stared at his tense back, at the thin stripe of pale neck peeking up from the collar of his burgundy dress shirt, her hands gripping her skirt in tight fists. She felt lightheaded. She took a deep, shaky breath.

“What – what do you mean?” She wasn’t entirely sure how the question had made its way out.

“Human experience is precious, Bella.” He spoke into the corner. His arms were crossed over his chest. She thought she glimpsed a slight tremor in his closed fist. “Vampires – we feel, yes. Yes. But you have to be prepared to close the door on certain feelings forever. Surprise. The kiss of the sun on your bare skin. That certain edge that comes with knowing there’s an end to everything. If you’re ready for that, please feel free to join our family. If you’re ready for that,” he turned around to face her, his eyes guarded, his jaw set, his arms still firmly crossed against his chest, “Edward is waiting for you.”

“Right,” she didn't say it loud enough for human ears, but knew he heard her all the same and rose to shaky feet, smoothing her skirt against her thighs. She glanced over at him, hugging her middle, trying not to meet his piercing jet eyes. She gave a soft nod.

She turned on her heel, placing one foot carefully in front of the other on her way to the door. She clutched the cold handle. Took a breath. Turned back to see him standing alone in the corner, watching her carefully.

“Thank you.” She let her hand slip off the handle, her eyes level on his as she flipped the lock into place with a quiet click.

Neither of them moved for a long moment. And then they both did.

</div>

Fic: Pulling Out

2008-07-24T09:06:44Z

Title: Pulling Out

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: TDK

Pairing: Joker/Batman

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: Sexual jazz, violence, SPOILERS, possible general craziness – I really have no clue, extreme sleep-deprivation is eating at my brain so there could be all sorts of things going on…I apologize in advance for the last scene, for one thing…

Disclaimer: I don’t own Batman, and I certainly don’t own Nat King Cole.

Summary: “You like it?” The Joker struck a pose, his garish red lips curving up in a wicked grin as he watched Bruce carefully from beneath his eyelashes. “This is just a tryout, mind you, the real lucky one will be your blond beau Mr. Dent."

Batman rode on the soft lilt of the wind, gliding towards the search signal that stabbed off the roof of MCU and into the black night, a part of his mind incensed that Gordon dared to call him tonight of all nights but the majority of it too desperate for distraction to care.

He landed softly on the roof, folding his wings back into place as he did so. The searchlight snapped off with a hiss and a flash. His head shot up, eyes scouring the darkness as his heart kicked into a dull thud beneath his armor.

“Gordon?” he hissed, his voice infused with a mere sliver of the growl it normally held.

“Yessssssssssssss Batsy?” The laughing voice came from behind the blackened hull of the searchlight. There was a low, maniacal cackle and a form stepped out to face him in the darkness.

“What do you want?” Bruce tried to muster up as much of the deafening growl as he could, but his throat felt dry and he was painfully aware that fear tactics were little use against this man either way.

“What do I want?” The Joker’s head jerked to the side as he gazed over at Bruce, his lips forming a small circle of vicious glee as he giggled quietly. “I want what anyone wants – a fulfilling future,” he gestured wildly with his arms as he turned on his heel and sauntered back to the searchlight, a small but jaunty spring in his step as he rattled them off, “love, devotion, life, money, Christmas!,” he gave a dramatic shiver, clapping his hands together in mock glee, “fluffy bunnies and pink kittens, commitment, a goddamn phone call, blah blah blah.” He yanked the bar on the light and spun around to face Bruce once more as the sharp white of it caught his mismatched form.

Bruce blinked.

“You like it?” The Joker struck a pose, his garish red lips curving up in a wicked grin as he watched Bruce carefully from beneath his eyelashes. “This is just a tryout, mind you, the real lucky one will be your blond beau Mr. Dent – he’ll get the full effect of the costume – you know - white room, automatic be-duh, the smell of death in every corner…perhaps a sponge bath -”

“You’re not getting anywhere near him!” Bruce surged forward, adrenaline feeding newfound strength as desperation gnawed at his bones.

“Oh ho ho, bit touchy tonight aren’t we?” The Joker darted around the light to lean over it, arms crossed, his painted face thrown into sharp relief by the strength of the illumination flooding his features. Bruce stopped dead and swept around, fists locked tight, a tremor running the length of his spine. He had to stay calm. Violence was ineffectual, a weakness. He strode carefully to the edge of the building, readying himself to soar off and leave the madman behind – his games were poisonous, and tonight Bruce was more vulnerable than ever.

“What, leaving so soon?” Bruce could feel the deadly glint in the Joker’s eyes, even with his back turned. “You haven’t been nearly as much fun as I expected.”

“Tough luck.” Bruce shuddered as his wings snapped out, forcing his mind away from thoughts of killing the Joker, of throttling him to within an inch of his life, of making him beg for mercy as he pummeled his head into the sharp curve of the light’s bat symbol again and again, for everything, for her –

“I can tell you where she is.”

Bruce’s swimming mind cracked into place in all the wrong ways, the small part of it that wanted to kill ballooning out into the rest of it, shunting Batman’s precious ideals to the back.

“Mmmmmmmhmm,” Bruce could almost feel the Joker click his tongue. He felt him move away from the light, felt him step up from behind. He snapped his wings back into place and swung around because he was just Bruce Wayne. He was just a man in a suit. A man in a suit with a few misplaced principles running around his head like dysfunctional whirligigs.

He lashed out with his right hand, sending the Joker flying to the ground with a growl from his own mouth and a grating cackle from the other.

“W-watch it!” The other man breathed through his choking laughter. “You’ll dirty the dress!”

Bruce gave him a kick in the gut, watching in disgust as the Joker curled up on himself and laughed harder.

“This is t-twice in one night Bat-sy,” he turned his head up to the masked man above with a lewd grin, “I’m beginning to think this abusive relationship of ours is a tad unhealthy.”

Bruce grunted, his foot snapping out to wallop the Joker’s bare shins.

“Oh, ohh hooo hoo, I’ll be purple by morning! Such a lovely shade of bru-tality, don’t you think?”

Bruce roared, his foot connecting with the Joker’s nose in a sick crunch. Blood spilled down the side of his cheek and onto the ground, turning dark against the black of the roof. The Joker’s eyes shone fierce with delight as he ran his finger through the blood and sucked it off with a groan.

“Purple’s nice, yes,” his voice was deadly and low, heavy with pleasure, “but red tastes so much better.”

Bruce felt his eyes clouding with tears of rage and helplessness, felt his bubble of strength shudder and burst, its liquid fire seeping out of his system like water through a child’s hands. His legs gave out beneath him and he sank to the ground, his armor scraping the roof’s short wall as he did. He stared into the light, eyes blank, relived its brightness kept him from seeing the Joker curled at his feet. For a moment, the blanket of silence was punctured only by the hiss and pop of the floodlight and their heavy, steady breath. Bruce felt the Joker stir at his feet and ignored him.

“Don’t you want to know where she is?” Bruce refused to glance down at the man below, but tensed in response.

“Rachel is dead.” His voice was his own.

“Ah,” the Joker’s grin stretched wider at the sound of the man beneath the mask. He dragged himself up onto his knees, until he was kneeling just in front of Bruce, his blood-streaked face moving to block the light. His eyes, milky and hypnotic, surveyed Batman’s face. He shifted forward a few inches, his bare knees brushing Bruce’s boots as he rested one hand on Bruce’s tucked knee and inched the other toward his mouth. “But did you see her die?”

Bruce flinched as the Joker’s finger traced his lips but didn’t dare look away. Rachel’s face blossomed in the forefront of his mind, her eyes fierce with passion, her face brushed with an expression of jaded happiness, a brand of weary love that was all for him and all his fault. He didn’t make her eyes light up like Harvey did.

“I heard her speak. I heard her last moments.” Bruce’s mind ran thick with pathetic, deluded hope. They hadn’t found a body.

“Lemme tell you something,” the Joker’s voice was low and fervid, his golden-green hair bright with the light from behind. He trailed his finger down to trace Bruce’s exposed jaw before gripping his chin and leaning in close. His tongue flicked out quickly and he glanced around for eavesdroppers, just for the fun of it, before grinning softly, his face inches from Bruce’s. “I’m not wearing any underwear. And you’re right! She is dead.”

---

“L is for the way I laugh at thee…O is for the only thing you see…”

Bruce’s consciousness struggled its way up the slippery footholds of reality. Ludicrously bright light glared at him from the opposite side of his weary eyelids. They didn’t want to open. They wanted to step on the hands of his conscious mind and laugh as it slipped back into the abyss, but something was calling.

Bruce caught the light, sickly-sweet, disorienting scent of chloroform as he jerked back into being, his eyes flashing open as the world rushed back to fill the abyss. He saw the Joker. Saw him prance around the floodlight in his coy little number and groaned. The Joker flashed him a wink, tracing the bat symbol on the light with what looked to be his own blood.

“V is very very, fucking ordinary…E is even more than anyone that you implore for mer-cy…da da da da da dee dum!” He looked up to meet Bruce’s eyes from across the light with a mind-splitting grin, gave a quick growl of manic delight, and traipsed around the light to crank it into darkness once more. The moon had risen since Bruce had fallen unconscious, and now spread its light in a pale blue streak across the roof. Bruce wasn’t sure whether or not he was grateful for its slight illumination.

As the Joker made his way over to him, Bruce realized he now sat on a different section of the roof entirely – to the right of the light, against the brick wall of the building housing the door to the roof. He also happened to realize, with a twist of dread, that his hands were bound to the small grating at his back.

“Did you like my song?” The Joker knelt down between his outstretched legs and gripped his jaw, slowly moving Bruce’s head around on his neck as if he were a doll. “I’m not especially pleased with that last bit,” he stilled his hand, glaring into Bruce’s eyes with rapture, “it could use some…carving down, but the original didn’t give me much to work with I’m afraid.” He tapped the forehead of Bruce’s mask, as if he was personally responsible for the less-than-satisfactory lyrics.

“Now then.” The Joker’s eyes slipped shut and he gave a delicious little shiver of anticipation.

“What are you doing?” Bruce hissed, straining at his binds.

The Joker clucked his tongue disapprovingly, rocking on his heels as he placed his hands on Bruce’s armored thighs and rolled his eyes skyward, letting them flicker down to Bruce’s only occasionally. “Th-that is the wrong question entirely Batsy. You should be much more concerned with what I’m going to do. At the moment I am relatively harmless, and ergo do not warrant concern. However -” his eyes snapped back to Bruce’s and he grinned, yellow teeth peeking through crimson lips, “a constant, tiny amount of concern is always a safe bet as I could go and do something like this.”

He flashed him a hungry grin before crashing down onto his knees, reveling in the sharp ache as he snatched Bruce’s jaw once more and yanked their lips together. Bruce, too stunned to prepare himself, took a sharp breath through his nose as he felt the Joker’s tongue snake around his own, probing fiercely. The Joker gave a loud groan, biting down hard on Bruce’s lower lip as he did, shaking their heads together with unchecked glee, not caring that Batman’s head smacked into the wall as he did. He pulled away with a great gulp of air, the grin that was still plastered to his face even wider.

“I’ve always wanted to do that!” He mused brightly.

Bruce regarded him from behind heavily lidded eyes, dazed, his head throbbing, lips tingling.

“Oh come on!” The Joker tapped his helmet with his palm. “Don’t be a spoilsport – the best is yet to come!”

Bruce gazed back, uninspired, as the Joker cocked his head and placed his hands on the white linen curving over his hips with a mock frown. He gave a shrug, reaching into one starchy white pocket as he did.

The knife he revealed shone silver in the moonlight, and Bruce forced the small part of his mind still in his control to focus, tried to ready himself for the attack. The Joker fingered the blade, slipped to the side to straddle Bruce’s right leg, and scooted forward with a low groan. Even through the padding sheathing his leg, Bruce could tell he was hard. His breathing went shallow as the focused part of his mind shuddered between abandon and reality. The Joker leaned closer, knife in hand, and sliced through the bindings on Bruce’s wrists. His hands fell to his sides, boneless and limp. His surprised eyes flickered to the painted face.

The Joker leaned in, simultaneously pressing his hips into Bruce’s abdomen and shunting his own knee up against Bruce’s crotch as he whispered against Bruce’s cheek, his voice thick.

“You’re more fun when you think you’re in control.”

With that he gave a violent cackle and bounded back between Bruce’s legs, shunting the knife he still held into the seam at the armor’s hip. He wrenched away piece after piece, tearing expensive fabric with deft, eager hands as he worked towards his goal.

He felt the heat of Bruce’s cock before he saw it, and gave a delighted giggle as he groped for it in the folds. Bruce gave a hiss and squeezed his eyes shut, going tense. He could feel his blood singing in his veins, could feel the potential energy screaming beneath the surface of his skin, ready to spur his legs into action, ready to force him from this place, not ready to contend with his mind, not strong enough to reel in his pitifully dangling consciousness, not ready to overcome his humanity. Tonight he was just Bruce Wayne.

The Joker’s sticky red lips closed over the head of his cock and he couldn’t stop himself from crying out, couldn’t stop himself from using the hands that had been so recently freed to tangle shuddering fingers in the Joker’s filthy green tresses and hold him down. The Joker snickered around his prize, and the divine tremor sent Bruce’s head crashing into the wall behind. His glassy eyes caught the remaining sliver of the laughing, mocking moon where it hung, smothered within the blackness of the sky above as it crept behind a building. He couldn’t look down. Couldn’t face the truth. The Joker pulled away with a pop, fighting the hands desperate to keep him down. He rested his head against Bruce’s plated abdomen, chuckling under his breath. Bruce tried to thrust his hips up but found nothing in the way of friction. The Joker, head still to Batman’s chest, raised a hand to slide up the thick black armor and slip beneath the mask. Bruce froze, trying to jerk away as reality came crashing back in. He couldn’t do this. He was risking everything.

“Shh shh shh shhhhhhhh,” the Joker’s thumb traced the hot underside of Bruce’s jaw. Bruce shivered. The Joker chuckled, his fingers caressing every inch of skin they could reach. “It’s like pulling out before you come – not as satisfactory as the real thing, but better in the long run.” He gripped the edge of the mask and pulled it away in one stroke.

Bruce held his breath, desperate to close his eyes though he didn’t dare move. The Joker kept his face down, the crown of his head resting against the armor’s sternum. Bruce watched his white-clad back as steady, even breaths made it rise and fall. He felt hot fingers on his face, the smooth pad of the Joker’s thumb as it swept across the bridge of his nose. The Joker slid his head further up Bruce’s chest, face still down, and buried it in the curve of Bruce’s shoulder as he lifted his other hand to Bruce’s cheek. Bruce exhaled, sitting stock-still, letting the Joker’s hands roam across the plains of this face, letting the Joker’s fingers rake through his hair, letting his eyes fall shut and a groan escape his mouth as the Joker rubbed his kohl-blackened eyelids with soft fingers and slid his knee forward to press it slowly into Bruce’s crotch.

Slowly, painfully, Bruce let his hips jut forward, gasping at the friction. His fists shook where they lay balled at his sides. His breath caught in his throat as the Joker moved one of his hands from his face and slipped it beneath his dress with a choked groan. The other still stroked at Bruce’s exposed flesh, fingers tracing lips, eyebrows, sweeping across his cheek, tangling into his hair. The Joker’s breath was hot on his neck and he nipped at his flesh, sending jolts of fire down Bruce’s spine.

The Joker thrust into his hand and came with a deep groan, his back arching against the darkness. He took a deep breath, erratic giggles sneaking from his lips as he slid back down, his second hand slipping away from Bruce’s face as he went. His tongue touched the tip of Bruce’s cock and the man shattered, tears desperate to squeeze themselves from the corners of his eyes. The Joker swirled his tongue around the head of his cock with a moan, then raised himself once more, reaching for Bruce’s unmasked face in the darkness. Bruce started and tried to pull away as he caught sight of the Joker’s own pearly face swimming up in front of his own, but realized the blackened eyes were shut.

“See this is the thing about you being in control, Batman,” he breathed in a metallic whisper.

The Joker felt for his lips in the darkness before surging forward to capture them, his tongue seething into Bruce’s mouth. Bruce groaned at the slick, salty tang of himself mixed with the gummy, synthetic face paint and shuddered violently.

The Joker tore away abruptly, his lips slanting across Bruce’s cheek to hiss in his ear.

“You have more fun when you’re not.”

---

It was still dark when Gordon arrived at the blown-out MCU in the early hours of the morning – dark enough for him to notice the ray of the floodlight surging into the black canopy above. The bat symbol was bigger than usual, and slightly misshapen. He flung his coffee to the curb, crashed into the building, and took the stairs two by two, drawing his handgun as he did so. Upon reaching the final landing, he inched to the door, his gun at the ready, and peeked through the window as he pushed outside.

An unconscious Batman lay strapped to the floodlight, his legs dangling off the edge. Gordon felt the force of his pulse in his Adam’s apple as he took a cursory glance around the roof and rushed to the light, putting his ear to the man’s nose. Still breathing. He shook him softly, his eyes pooling with worry. Swearing, he moved for the binds, and as he did a white glint caught his eye.

There was a card pinned to the armor of the Batman’s chest, just above a section of the suit that looked decidedly mismatched. Gordon leaned closer, squinting. On the right side of the card – a Joker, of course – was a small sentence in a careening, loopy red script…

The real Batman stood up.

</div>

Fic: Face-Lift

2008-07-21T00:42:39Z

Title: Face-Lift

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: TDK

Pairing: Joker/Batman

Rating: R
Words: 1,389

Warnings: Extremely disturbing, Joker-style -- and of course SPOILERS SPOILERS MON DIEU SPOILERS! You have been warned.

Disclaimer: I’d be smiling if I did.
Summary: Sharing is caring…it can be fun.

Garish, blinding laughter rang out as Bruce’s black-clad fist collided again and again with the Joker’s chalky face.

“TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!” He boomed, his voice crashing into the white walls of the interrogation room, a raging storm of fear.

The Joker rolled his head slowly along the tiled, red-streaked wall to grin up at the masked man above.

“Hit me again, bat boy.” His jagged laughter bubbled up from the long rip of his mouth. “You’ll have to try harder than that to realize I don’t bleed like other men – in fact,” his eyes slipped closed and he shifted his head back and forth along the wall, leaving a deepening garnet trail in its wake, “I bleed laughter, slaughter, laughter, slaugh -”

Bruce’s hand struck out, grabbing the Joker by his neck to slam him against the already cracked and bloodied two-way mirror.

“Ooohh, that’s more like it,” he gushed, cracking a wide smile to show yellowed teeth, his eyes slanting down lazily to tease Bruce’s own.

“I’m not interested in playing your games,” Bruce growled, his eyes narrowing.

The Joker’s grin widened further.

“Everyone’s interested in playing my games. And they do it so well. You especially.” He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and lifted his eyes to the blindingly white ceiling, as if wondering just how to word his next sentence. “You see Batman – I have a certain amount of talent for…attracting playmates. I could never play the games I want to play all on my own, so it’s important to me that I have the…charisma,” his eyes shot down to meet Bruce’s once more and he gave an elaborate, delighted shudder, wiggling between the wall and the massive man holding him to it, “necessary to draw charming people like yourself.”

Bruce hissed and tightened his thumb against the painted jaw.

“I enjoy giving others the chance to join in my fun.” The Joker reached up for Bruce’s face, grabbing his exposed jaw before he could jerk away. “We are alike, Batman.” He molded his expression into one of sadness. “If only you could see that through your blackened eyes.” He let go of Bruce’s jaw and reached up to smudge at the dark paint circling the masked eyes, his thumb just brushing at the right eye’s underside as Bruce jerked his head to the side.

“Mmm.” The Joker rubbed his blackened thumb under his own eye, darkening his melting paint with the Batman’s. He grinned as he felt Bruce’s hand shivering under his jaw, as he felt his fingers shudder where they were pressed to his pulse points.

“You feel that?” He was delighted, his eyes jumping with glee. “It’s racing.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, his hand falling away from the other man’s neck, though there was no room between them for him to escape. The Joker pressed his hand to the Batman’s solid suit, letting it go flat over the area hiding the heart. His forehead creased, his scars turned down in a frown. His eyes roved slowly up to meet Bruce’s, a smile hidden just beneath their glossy surface.

“I can’t feel yours.”

Bruce swallowed loudly, his breath coming in long, loud draws through his nose. His eyes widened and he tensed as he watched the Joker’s hand slide slowly, languidly up the chiseled façade of the batsuit. As he reached the neck, his long, searching fingers slipped beneath the mask and crept into warm flesh. Their eyes met. The Joker’s were loaded and knowing, his face twisted in a smirk. Bruce tried to pull away, but his body felt heavy, his mind ran thick with lead. The Joker’s icy fingers smoothed up Bruce’s feverish skin, finally coming to rest with thumb and index finger pressing into each side of the man’s neck. He inhaled slowly, his eyes slipping closed, his scars turning up in relish.

“Now I feel the real Batman. Dare I say he’s enjoying my little game?” One eyelid crept open to scrutinize Bruce’s face. His eyes were closed. He held his breath. The joker’s smile curled up further. “I just knew we’d be friends. And now for the final touch.” He snatched his hand from beneath Bruce’s mask, smirking as the man’s dark eyes snapped open. He straightened up – all business again - and cracked his neck with a guttural groan of pleasure. He grabbed Bruce by the back of the head, clutching at the black rubber as he leaned back to get a good look at him, his eyes playful and dark with anticipation.

“All you need is a smile!”

His crimson lips crushed Bruce’s flat ones, his tongue stabbing through to swipe his scalding mouth with vigor. He cracked a smile against flushed lips as the Batman tried to pull away with the last of his waning strength, the last of his tepid will. The Joker’s hand snaked beneath the edge of the mask to clutch at the heat of Bruce’s neck as he flipped them around to slam Bruce into the window. His other hand pressed into the mirror, leaving a faint bloody streak as it slid down ever-so-slowly. He laughed against Batman’s mouth as he felt him exhale and respond, cracking cracking cracked. As his hand reached the bottom of the mirror he flipped it around to offer the watching officers his middle finger before grabbing Bruce’s jaw and pulling his lips away with a faint laugh to roll his cheek onto Bruce’s, letting his scar press into the perfect flesh. His eyes slipped closed and his grin stretched tight. He pulled his cheek away, panting through his smile as he saw the red curve of paint gracing Batman’s own. He kissed him slowly – once, twice – licking along his swollen red lips, lazy cackles riding on his heavy breath as he reached Bruce’s other cheek and pressed his elongated smile against the scorching skin. His eyes roved up to Batman’s. He chuckled softly upon seeing them closed and let his own slip shut as he rolled his sticky cheek away from the second print he’d made. He kissed him slowly once more, his loud, drawn-out moan vulgar.

He pulled away from the Batman with victorious eyes, patting him lightly on the shoulder as he surveyed his work. Batman’s borrowed smile stretched sticky and bright from one edge of the mask to the other, especially wide and messy on and around his own lips.

“There now, don’t you look lovely.” The Joker leaned forward to pinch his cheeks, eyes leaping with glee. Bruce snapped his head to the side, tearing away from his grip, sliding down the wall in a heap, his fists tight and quaking. The Joker tilted his head to one side, shaking it slowly. He caught sight of his face in the mirror as he did.

“You stole my smile,” he drawled, stepping forward to inspect the faint pink of his lips more closely. He sighed, shook his head, and gave the mirror a raspberry kiss, licking up the bloody trail he’d left with a groan.

“Well Batman, it’s been fun.” He stepped back from the mirror and crossed his fingers, kneeling down for Bruce to see from where he lay on the floor. “Here’s hoping your girlfriend and her boyfriend didn’t kick the bucket while we were getting our jollies off!” He uncrossed his fingers and reached down to caress Batman’s cheek. Bruce made a quiet noise of defeat in the back of his throat. The Joker thumbed the unblemished skin lovingly before scraping the nail of his index finder along the right side of Bruce’s painted smile, collecting the blood with a soft moan as it came. He swept his dark finger across each of his scars, staining them bright crimson once more, then dipped it back and ran the finger slowly around the circle of his lips, sweeping the blood off the bottom lip with a lick and a groan before renewing it once more. Bruce stared up at him, eyes dead, a thin shiver wracking the length of his body. The Joker smirked down at him.

“Thanks for the quickie!”

Leaping up, he bounced across the room to wrench the chair out from under the doorknob. He threw it to the side, raised his arms to the ceiling, and smiled a great, bloody grin.

“COME AND GET ME!”

</div>

Fic: Easy Way Out

2008-04-13T21:51:44Z

Title: Easy Way Out

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Lost

Pairings/Characters: Ben/Juliet, OC

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Angst

Warnings: Suicide

Summary: I’d chosen long before to love apathy in her place.

Notes: What’s this? A FIC? MON DIEU, IT IS! /writer’s block -- POST-“The Other Woman”

The day it started was like any other: cold, dark and rainy. I woke up with chest pains, a dull, persistent aching against my ribs. I tried to ignore them.

I’d chosen long before to love apathy in her place.

She still slept beside me, her skin pale – pale like the hull of the plane before it split, pale like a corpse drained of blood. I watched her with blank eyes, my legs folded beneath me, my heart still clunking in my chest like a car on its last leg.

She didn’t know how hard it was to love her like I did.

I watched and watched, waiting for a slice of sun to flush across her face, waiting for a lapse in the rain to make it all worthwhile. As it happened, she awoke and the sun did not. Her face was smooth as stone, her eyes as dark.

I used to wonder if the sun hadn’t whispered its way out of existence without bothering to let us know.

But she loved me. I saw it in her eyes, in the turn of her lips, in the crease of her brow, in her cheeks.

she was mine she was mine she was mine she was mine

She rose up and sighed across the floor, her pale pale legs swishing lightly beneath her pale pale slip.

Do you want anything to eat?

No, not anything.

I heard her rummaging around in the kitchen. Heard the ceramic shriek of the baking jar being opened. Knew she’d chosen one of last night’s burnt muffins.

You’re sure you don’t want anything to eat?

I’m sure.

There was human silence then for a long time. The rain pelted the ground outside. Pelted the roof. Pelted my ears.

I couldn’t stand it, but I had no choice.

She came back into the room, still pale, still silent, still mine.

What do we do now?

We do what ever you want to do.

I don’t want to do anything.

Fine.

She watched me. I watched the rain. We didn’t need an excuse to love each other. My heart gave a painful jump and I shifted.

The thread that held it in my chest tightened and shivered.

She went into the bathroom and closed the door and the next time I saw her she was pale on the inside and red on the out. My eyes held her close from the doorway and the pain stopped, all of it.

She died mine.

Now she is everywhere. Now it is all pale, blindingly pale. The white stains the walls and the bed and the floor and the corners of my heart. My mind is filled with blankness. The chest pains come more often now, and maybe if she weren’t everywhere it wouldn’t hurt as much.

Mr. Linus? You have a visitor.

There is a small girl in the doorway. Her hair is thin and yellow. Her eyes are bright. Her outside is pale. I do not know her. She smiles. She smiles, and it cracks the room’s white veneer. A rosy blush surges across her smooth cheeks as she runs to my arms. I do not know her, but I let her hug me anyway.

Daddy daddy daddy daddy, I’ve missed you daddy.

I do not know what I’ve missed.

</div>

Fic: Waxing Poetic (valentine08 #7)

2008-02-15T20:43:04Z

Title: Waxing Poetic

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: PG-13

WC: 632

Notes: For the seventh and final day of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: romantic kiss.

“I read a fascinating book last night.” Hermione moved from her post at the window of her Arithmancy classroom to slide into the desk facing her boyfriend.

Draco leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. “Well then – let’s hear it.”

Hermione crossed her legs and leaned towards him with a coy smile, taking pure and ridiculous joy from the spring breeze as it tumbled lazily through the window.

“It was about a man – a passionate, obsessive man living through the dark, romantic Victorian days. He was in love with this girl you see – beautiful, virtuous, entirely out of his league - the usual.” Hermione paused, her eyes dancing. Draco cocked an expectant eyebrow. “His love tore him apart from the inside out, a festering, parasitic presence that sapped him of life and sanity as it robbed him breath by breath, beat by beat. He professed his love to her one beautiful spring’s day, in a charming field rife with sunshine and butterflies and perfection, but she turned him down, spurning him with disaffection, condemning him to walk the earth a living ghost – stocked with breath and blood but no heart." She paused dramatically. "She ran off with some count or admiral or what-have-you that night, leaving the poor man to his own devices and the business end of his rifle.”

Hermione ended breathlessly, leaning farther over the desk between them.

Draco blinked.

“Charming.”

Hermione looked delighted.

“Isn’t it though? Don’t you ever wonder what life would be like if it was inspired not by wealth or power but sustained by love and honor? I mean sure, it’s ridiculously cliché, but there’s a reason for that and when you sit down and really think about it…” She trailed off and leaned back in her chair, fixing Draco with such a look of sincerity that he was able to feel, if only for a moment, just what she meant. He grasped her hand, smoothing her knuckles with the pad of his thumb.

“I understand.” He managed to restrain himself from mentioning the whole suicide thing or rattling off a suave “frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”.

“It’s better now though. Here.”

Draco glanced up.

“How do you mean?”

Hermione eased her fingers away from his to trace the thin curve of his mouth.

“The guy gets the girl.”

She kissed him softly, her lips skimming the corner of his own.

“The girl gets the guy.”

She smiled against his cheek, then kissed him again.

“Everyone’s happy.”

Draco smirked.

“Obsessive maniacs fun in theory then - less so in practice? What a strange notion.”

Hermione grinned and he cupped the back of her head, pulling her to him with a playful growl, his lips crashing onto hers with just the sort of fervent passion she’d been idolizing moments before. He smoothed his fingers through her silky hair, pulling her onto the desk before him with surprising ease. She moaned quietly, thrilled out of her mind that class was out for the day.

He pulled away softly, smoothing her pink cheeks with his thumbs, his forehead resting on her own.

Hermione smiled, rubbing the back of his thigh with her heel.

“Obsessive maniacs I can do without, but I can’t say I’d begrudge you the odd love letter, or perhaps…impassioned inter -” she winked and cleared her throat, “excuse me, discourse.”

“As a matter of fact,” Draco curled a lock of her hair in his fingers, smirking softly. “I’m up for that discourse right now.”

“Oh is that right?” Hermione grinned, tugging him closer with her legs. “No preparation needed? Got it all planned out?”

“What can I say? I happen to be highly gifted when it comes to…discourse.”

“Cocky, are you?”

“That’s the idea.”

Hermione grinned against his lips.

</div>

Fic: Reach (valentine08 #6)

2008-02-14T06:24:29Z

Title: Reach

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: PG-13

WC: 303

Notes: For day six of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: secret kiss.

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning –

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

-The Great Gatsby

“You know I love you.”

The words on his lips still made her shiver. His lips traced patterns, slow and hot against the trembling flesh of her neck.

“I know as well as anything,” she whispered against his ear, “that I love you back.”

Cool, centuries-old stone pressed into her back. Pure, tall warmth ranged the length of her front, holding her steady. She wouldn’t have it any other way – not any other way.

Draco’s lips met her pulse and she shivered, arching her head back till he could see the tiny raise and dip, raise and dip of flesh where her heart branched out to meet her mind. He pressed his thumb to its heat, his eyes sweeping up her face to rest on hers.

“Scared love?” He mouthed against her lips.

“Not scared, no,” she breathed.

“Don’t you worry,” he kissed her softly, cradling her flushed cheeks in his smooth palms. “I’ll always be here to keep that heart of yours racing.”

“Hermione!”

There was a loud rap on the door of her bedroom. She flinched. It was Harry.

“I’ll be down in a second Harry! Just give me a moment!”

She watched the door wide-eyed, listening closely for the sound of retreating footsteps before turning back to the scene before her. Two small, faint blue figures embracing atop the glassy surface of her past. They faded before her eyes, sinking into the depths of the stone basin with a wrenching sort of finality. She slid to her knees, smoothed her robes, and shoved the basin under her four-poster. A few drops splattered out and hit the floor, gleaming where they stuck. She struggled to her feet, righted the covers to hide the light, and walked to the door, ready as she never would be to meet Harry and her present.

</div>

Fic: Intervention (valentine08 #5)

2008-02-13T08:04:49Z

Title: Intervention

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione (with a bit of friendly Ginny/Hermione thrown in, just as a warning)

Rating: PG-13

WC: 833

Notes: I apologize beforehand for the theme – I just saw Cruel Intentions for the first time – how could I possibly resist? For day five of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: French kiss.

“Alright now – don’t freak out.” Ginny gave her friend a warning look.

“I’m not going to freak out,” Hermione muttered grudgingly, attempting simultaneously to calm her racing pulse and figure out why she was humoring Ginny in the first place.

The redhead’s rosebud lips hovered closer, touching upon Hermione’s ever-so-lightly. Hermione re-adjusted her head, squeezing her eyes so tight she saw sunspots on their insides. Ginny’s tongue flicked out, dipping briefly into the heat of Hermione’s mouth.

“As amusing as this lesbian encounter is, you’re doing it all wrong.”

Ginny sighed, breaking away from Hermione to shoot Malfoy a withering glare. Hermione kept her eyes firmly shut, counted to five, opened them and groaned. He was still there.

“I don’t know what you’d know about it,” Ginny narrowed her eyes, her voice cool and measured. “The last time I checked you couldn’t be a lesbian no matter how hard you tried.”

Draco quirked an eyebrow, his lips snaking up at the corners. He leaned back against the side of the great stone staircase, inspecting a manicured nail.

“I meant the kissing practice, but take my advice how you wish.”

“Not at all then.” Ginny dismissed him, turning back to Hermione. “Shall we go to lunch then?”

Draco cleared his throat. He obviously felt he was not done being impressive.

“Now just one moment ladies. The lunch can wait.” He eased himself off the wall, stepping up to the edge of their blanket where it sat spread in the green spring grass. He crooked a long, pale finger at Hermione.

“What?” she grumbled.

“Well, you need a bit of proper practice, don’t you?”

She snorted, staring up at him as if he’d lost his mind. “And just what are you on this fine morning?”

His suave expression didn’t flinch an iota. He leaned down before she could protest, grabbed her hand, and pulled her up until she stood against him. She was really rather startled with how well the whole thing worked for him. She shot a glance at Ginny, who still sat in her place on the blanket, clearly torn between helping her friend and allowing Hermione some proper, highly amusing practice. Although Hermione had to say she really didn’t look too broken up about it. She narrowed her eyes.

Draco pulled her closer, one large, cool hand against the heat of her neck, just hovering over her pulse point, the other curling into the loose hair at the base of her neck.

“Now now Hermione,” his devious lips played constant host to a twisting smirk. “Calm down.”

The man was being much too charming for his own good. She thought about stomping on his foot, but it seemed petty to resort to childish antics at a time such as this.

He closed the space between them antagonizingly slowly, the pad of his thumb brushing at a soft spot at the base of her neck all the while. The tip of her pink tongue darted out of its own accord to wet her lips.

The kiss lasted a lifetime. Hermione’s mind tripped over itself in its effort to analyze the situation. Their tongues touched once, twice, three times, sending electric shivers to Hermione’s fingertips where they gripped his shoulders. A mad giggle broke through the haze. Hermione broke away, flustered, glaring at Ginny whilst attempting to push Draco away.

What in hell did she think she was doing anyway?

Ginny clapped a hand over her mouth to quell her laughter. Draco stared at Hermione in mock disbelief.

“It’s a miracle!” He grabbed at her hands, as if trying to imbue just an ounce of the amazement he felt within her. She waited for his declaration with hard eyes. “Hermione Granger failed her first lesson ever!” His face split into a grin.

Hermione determined then and there to develop a spell to allow one’s eyes to propel physical daggers. Ones which would do the recipient barrels of bodily harm.

“The teacher must be miserable,” she muttered haughtily, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Au contraire, mademoiselle. The student will merely have to retake the class and hope she does better the second time. Now though, I believe it’s time for lunch. Till take two then ladies!” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, shot Hermione a sparkling glance, and walked off towards the castle.

Hermione watched him go with narrowed eyes before giving a loud “humph” and plopping down onto the blanket. “Insufferable jerk.”

“You have to admit though,” began Ginny, who had finally managed to recover herself, “it was quite amusing.”

“Whatever.”

There was a long pause, through which far-off shouts floated up from the lake and the grass soaked up sun.

“So will you be attending lesson number two then?”

“What?” Hermione’s eyes were still locked on the castle doors. “No!”

“Are you sure?” Ginny shot her a sly glance.

“Yes!” Hermione gripped her arms more tightly than was necessary.

“Uh huh.” Ginny stood, offering Hermione a hand. “We’ll see about that.”

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Fic: Purification (valentine08 #4)

2008-02-12T07:49:45Z

Title: Purification
Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Hermione
Rating: PG-13
WC: 781
Notes: For day four of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: underwater kiss.

Hermione floated back against the wildly enthusiastic pillowed bubbles, letting the warm water flush suds into her hair and soak into her skin. She drew a deep breath, smiling for no particular reason. The steam was rife with a sharp, refreshing citrus scent. She loved magic.

She was very much enjoying floating languidly and thinking of nothing whatever when she heard a tiny click through her reverie. Then the creak of a door. A drawling, gleeful voice that could belong to only one person. The peaceful place she’d created for herself all but shattered as she launched herself from a floating position to a standing one and ducked into the bubbles to her chin.

“What in the seven circles of hell do you think you’re doing Malfoy? How did you get in?” She narrowed her eyes till they were thin enough to slice through human flesh. Which, of course, was her intention. She could feel her heart pounding beneath her breast.

Malfoy smirked, not the least bit daunted.

“Magical password, remember Granger? The staff still hasn’t perfected the whole automatic locking thing, so you bathe at your own risk.” He leaned against the marble wall, smooth as the stone he touched.

“I hate magic,” Hermione hissed.

“Now now Granger, you know you don’t mean that -”

“Get. Out.”

“Excuse me?” He took a step closer. The bastard was clearly enjoying himself.

“Out. Now. This is completely uncalled for. I’m,” she flushed to the roots of her hair, “not dressed.”

The gleam in Draco’s eyes grew a tad brighter. He leaned over the edge of the bath, making as though he was trying to sneak a peak, but Hermione knew the bubbles blocked her from view. At least she hoped so.

“I’m sorry Granger, is that a problem? From what I’ve heard, all of Gryffindor Tower’s seen you in the nude. No harm in branching out to…Slytherin, is there?”

Hermione made an enraged noise somewhere between a growl and a disbelieving snort.

“In your dreams.”

Draco kneeled down, fixing her with an unsettlingly intense gaze.

“Yes.” His eyes bored into hers. “I suppose so.”

Hermione inhaled a bubble and proceeded to cough like a maniac.

Draco just laughed. Threw back his head and belted out a tinny, frighteningly gorgeous laugh that sent shivers to Hermione’s toes.

Hermione didn’t know what made her do it. In the hours that followed, throughout which she reviewed the event a hundred times over, she pinned it down to pure, devious impulse.

As Draco laughed, she took a watery step forward, grabbed his hands off his knees, and pulled him into the bubbly depths of the Prefect’s Bath. He came up spluttering, his hair in his eyes, his robes plastered to his skin. There was a pause through which Draco breathed heavily and Hermione watched wide-eyed. One second. Two. Three. She gave the faintest of giggles and plunged below the surface.

Somewhere in the mess of bubbles and warm water, thin, warm fingers found her face. She didn’t open her eyes, not once, but felt him against her. Felt his lips on her chin as he missed, then on her lips as he hit home. It took all of her willpower not to breathe in. Her knee brushed the thick fabric of his slacks. She laughed, letting bubbles burst between them, floating to the surface in the verve of suds and rushing water. She scrunched her toes and pushed off from the bottom, gulping citrus-scented steam as she reached the surface. Draco was seconds behind her, his lungs heaving.

He gave her a small, disturbingly un-Dracoish smile, followed by a randy, highly Dracoish wink and swam to the edge, pulling himself out. His robes dripped buckets onto the tiles. He pulled his wand out, drying them with a stream of air from its tip. Hermione watched him as he worked, unconsciously pulling at her bottom lip the whole while.

“I’d like to finish my bath if you don’t mind.”

He whirled around, looking vaguely offended, to see her grinning back at him. He cocked an eyebrow.

“You enjoy yourself Granger. I know you’ll find a way to have fun without me…especially since I got you started off.” He smirked in a fashion that would be illegal someday if Hermione had anything to do with it.

“I’d say in your dreams Malfoy, but I already know I will be,” she deadpanned from the bath.

He bid good-bye with a flash of his middle finger, stepping out and closing the door behind him with a snap.

Hermione held her breath, propelled herself underwater, and broke into a series of uncharacteristic giggles she was extremely glad no one could hear.

Fic: Mid-Dinner Mint (valentine08 #3)

2008-02-11T07:37:46Z

Title: Mid-Dinner Mint

Author: interpretthis
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: PG-13

WC: 557

Notes: For day three of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: angry kiss.

Hermione glared at her husband from across the large mahogany table, cutting into her slice of ham with a vicious stab. She shoveled a bite into her mouth and chewed as if her life depended on it, trying with all her might to avoid the steely eyes of her father-in-law and the appraising, narrowed eyes of his wife.

Draco cleared his throat.

“Hermione if I could speak with you for a moment in the hall?” His eyes bored into her from across the table. She swallowed thickly and dropped her knife, standing and making her way into the hall without even glancing at him. He knew how much she hated these dinners and still he berated her.

Draco was two steps behind her into the darkness of the corridor, closing the door behind him with a snap as he came. He stood stalk-tall, drawing himself up to an imposing height in the disturbingly still darkness.

“Hermione,” he breathed, his voice low and husky. She crossed her arms across her chest with another swallow and watched her toes as she scrunched them tightly in her flats. She could feel his eyes on her head like ice. A pool of moonlight spilled in from a window a few yards down. She glanced over to it. Anything to avoid those eyes. “I know you dislike my family -”

“Only because they dislike me!” she broke in haughtily, snapping her head up to glare at him, her eyes dancing with dark fire.

Draco clenched his teeth tightly.

“Once a month Hermione. All I ask is for you to behave yourself once a month. You don’t need to chat or even smile, but if you could get through one bloody night without snide comments and death glares, the world would be a happier place.”

“And will they lay off the ice in return? I think not.” Hermione took a short step forward to stamp on his foot. She knew she was being childish, but it was a hard subject to drop.

Draco growled and grabbed her arms, pressing her into the dark, paneled wall. Hermione sucked in a sharp breath, closing her eyes against his neck.

“You. Will. Behave.” He hissed softly, letting a shiver course the length of her spine with each word. He loosed his grip on her arms and cupped her cheeks, pressing his icy lips to her feverish ones with fierce intensity. All thought of annoying him and his infuriating parents flew from her head and into the darkness as she let his tongue sweep in and claim her. She clutched at him, running her fingers into the hair at the base of his neck as a silent thrill pulsed through her. He pulled away suddenly, breathing heavily. Hermione moaned, catching his gaze with pleading eyes. She steadied herself against the wall.

“If my parents knew…” Draco trailed off with a manic gleam in his eye.

Hermione glared.

Draco leaned in once more, pressing their lips together one instant and pulling away the next. He straightened his dinner clothes, flashed her a strange expression somewhere between an inviting wink and a warning glare and disappeared back into the dining room.

Hermione was going to kill him after his parents left. But not before she –

“Hermione, you coming?” he called from the table.

She grumbled and opened the door.

Fic: Ballast (valentine08 #2)

2008-02-10T06:20:23Z

Title: Ballast

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: PG

Notes: For day two of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: playful kiss.

Hermione grabbed up her basket of flowers with shaky fingers, thumbing the ribbed handle nervously. She stepped towards Draco, inching up close enough to reach out and touch the velvety lapels of his crimson jacket. He smirked down at her, flashing her a blatant and rather alarming wink. She’d gone over this so many times in her mind she thought she’d go crazy.

Just do it.

She drew her head back and let her eyes flutter shut, waiting for…for…

His lips crashed onto hers in an incredible fervor, snatching the breath from them in an instant. Hermione’s knees wobbled. She feared she’d fall if he moved away. Hell, she was practically leaning on him. His tongue swept her lips. A tiny but rather desperate corner of her mind screeched, reminding her to breathe. Draco broke the kiss.

“Alright guys!” Luna Lovegood stood up from her chair in the audience, a pencil behind her ear and a battered old clipboard under her left arm. “That was great! We should be ready for opening night Friday! If you could just run it through one more time…”

Hermione groaned inwardly.

It was going to be an infuriatingly long, breathless night.

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Fic: Double Larceny (valentine08 #1)

2008-02-09T06:18:23Z

Title: Double Larceny

Author: interpretthis

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Draco/Hermione

Rating: PG

Notes: For day one of the 7 Kisses Challenge @ dramionedrabble. Prompt: stolen kiss.

A small triangle of silver glinted from Hermione Granger’s bag, catching Draco Malfoy’s eye in mid-sparkle as she pulled a ridiculously large book from its depths. From the front of the classroom Professor Binns droned on about this and that, both of which nobody gave a damn. Draco nabbed the kiss from her bag just as she was turning to wink at him.

“Hey,” she hissed, glaring. “That’s mine!”

Draco flashed her a hundred-watt grin, unwrapped the thing faster than she could blink, and popped the piece into his mouth, letting the chocolate melt and glide across his tongue. He leaned forward in an instant, capturing her frowning lips in a quick kiss before leaning back to enjoy his stolen candy.

She raised an eyebrow coolly. “As was that.” He watched a small grin tease at the corners of her lips. Her eyes danced. “In class and everything. You really need to keep yourself in line Mr. Malfoy.”

“Oh now that’s just disgusting.” Ron muttered grumpily from the opposite aisle, scrunching the ends of his feather pen as he glared. “Get a room.”

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