Venture Brothers Het and Gen Fanfic

dropsofviolet — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:58:27 GMT

It's a bit late for Halloween, but I wrote this as a Halloween present for a friend and my roommate insisted I post it.

Title: Dean in Wonderland
Length: 445 words
Prompt: fic-or-treat: Math & Candy (Venture Bros., preferably starring a constumed Dean and Hank and Triana) for oystermato
Pairing: Dean/Triana
Other: Set S3; therefore spoilers for S3.

Excerpt: "Why do I always have to be the one in the dress?" Dean whined.

Hullo hullo

dloproject_blog — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:28:51 GMT

Resident doodler and general lurker around here--thought I'd join officially in case I got bit by the writing bug.

Most likely though, I'll be sticking around to read stuff and possibly doodle things for people who inspire me enough. I've got a White/Triana arts in the makin due to that awesome fic "Ten Months After Christmas".................

Not Sure If This Is 'FanFiction', My VB Animatic...

karcreat — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:24:49 GMT

Greetings, All!

I'm not really sure if this counts as 'fan fiction', tho I DID write the script for the project.

I'm creating a 'lost episode' of 'The Venture Bros', depicting what might have happened if henchmen 24 had actually lived at the climax of recent season 3...I did all of the artwork/voices/direction, would love to hear from fellow VB fans as to what they think so far (it's actually almost done, about 3 more minutes of footage to add).

You can view the animatic in progress, plus the storyboard art uses for the footage here...

www.karcreat.com/VentureBrosAnimatic.html

Heres a sketch from one of the boards...

You can leave input on the project at the bottom of the page, or email me at...

kkarstens@cableone.net

Thanks, much appreciated!

-Kevin Karstens
www.karcreat.com

terrie — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:42:39 GMT

YES YES, I KNOW, I HAVEN'T FINISHED THAT ... THING FROM BEFORE. I'm busy right now, shut up, I'll get to it.

Anyway, right now, fic! Crossposted to deathmance.

Title: The Sandhill Crane
Words: 522
Rating: G
Summary: Brock and Molotov are more alike than they know.

--

The Sandhill Crane.

Pausing in weeding his garden, Brock looked up at the sky, swiping at his forehead with the back of his hand. Birds were flying overhead, hundreds of them, in sprawling ‘V’ shapes. Huge birds, cranes of some kind, though they really didn’t stress ornithology during OSI training, so he didn’t know for sure. Brock squinted and watched them for a few minutes, then sighed and crouched back down again, yanking at the weeds that invaded his herb garden; unwelcome guests.

After dinner, while Brock washed the dishes, his mind started wandering, for some reason always returning to those birds he saw in the sky. Something was familiar about them, but he couldn’t pinpoint what, and yet he could not stop thinking about them. Unwelcome guests.

Drying his hands off with a dishtowel, Brock went into his room and started digging through his bookshelf. Most of his books were Led Zeppelin biographies or field manuals, but he had the odd reference book in there somewhere too. Brock was never a really big reader, but he did find some comfort in having books around to defer to when he encountered something that his years of experience with crazy didn’t help him understand.

He thought he had a birding guide in here somewhere, and he was right; he pulled it out from under a plumbing manual from the 80s and sat crosslegged on the floor, thumbing through it on what he realised was an overly optimistic whim. But then something caught his eye, and he flipped back a few pages to see what it was. The birds he’d seen in the sky. Grus canadensis. The Sandhill Crane.

As Brock read about the cranes, he realised that he used to see them as a child, in Nebraska. He really didn’t know why he remembered this -- they were just big birds, so why would something so trivial stick out in his mind? He stopped halfway through the paragraph he was reading, frowning, and just placed the book back on the shelf. Things like that, his childhood, they were unimportant. They didn’t matter anymore; they were no longer part of his life. His life started the moment Hunter burned his file, his old life, leaving it on ashes on his desk.

And right now, in Brock’s current life, he needed to finish washing the dishes. So he did.

Two months later and one thousand miles away, a red convertible zoomed down a deserted road on its way to Calgary. Molotov glanced at the sky behind her, in her rear-view mirror, and saw a flock of Sandhill Cranes, heading North to their breeding grounds. She smiled a little, sadly, nostalgically, but immediately dismissed the thought as the unwelcome guest it was.

She remembered the cranes from her childhood in Siberia, but that life was no longer hers, and so it no longer impacted her. Her life started the moment Brock Samson killed her father, leaving her old life dead and bloody on the ground.

And right now, in Molotov’s current life, she needed to leave someone else dead and bloody on the ground.

So she did.

Hi all! Just joined...

misterseth — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:40:14 GMT

...and I'd thought I'd throw some of my VB fanfics in the ring. Here's one I started last year, based on season 2 info. Let me know what you think...

The Monarch wobbled through the hallway towards his throne room, or as he would put it, the central synapse of his mighty cocoon, holding a bottle.

Things were not pleasant, he thought as he took a heavy swig from the bottle. Oh, he was still the undisputed master of his organization, and he still had the love of his life, and he still had his legion of ever loyal, if not terribly bright henchmen. He did, however, lack the one thing any self respecting arch villain required.

He lacked an enemy.

Normally, this would be trivial, as he was the sworn enemy of Dr. Venture.

However, in order to win the undying love and respect of Sheila, he swore not to fight him again.

Scratch that. He PINKY swore.

Normally, he would just register with the guild for another arch enemy to fight. Indeed, it had been after the incident with that Dickweed Phantom Limb, that he had tried to register for another arch enemy. However, things were slowing down in the field of supervillany.

Sheila recommended that he switch careers altogether. While that sounded good on paper, there were a few difficulties…

THE COCOON, TWO MONTHS EARLIER, THE BRONSTEIN’S SON’S BAR MITZVAH RECEPTION

From the entranceway, the Monarch looked gingerly at his former command center. His proud butterfly themed sanctum was modified to resemble a gaudy banquet hall and dance floor for the Bronstein family. His once impressive throne was the seat of honor for the Bar Mitzvah boy.

It started when Sheila suggested he try catering as a new profession. He was initially opposed. He was a SUPERVILLAIN for badness sake! Still, she convinced him to at least give it a try. By good fortune, most of his henchmen were former waiters, disenchanted student chefs, or fast food fry cooks. To top it off, number 21 and 24 knew quite a few songs, and would make great entertainment.

Everything went ok at first. He, along with Dr. Girlfriend acted as Maitre ds while the henchmen were dressed in busboy uniforms. Somehow, 21 and 24 got hold of some dj equipment, and were livening up the banquet with their rendition of Hava Nageela.

Of the guests themselves, the mother, seemed to be the most annoying, acting like a watered down Leona Helmsley. Her major foibles ranged from making sure everything was perfect, demanding that they go with a less butterfly oriented theme, to chastising the henchmen for minor screw ups, like forgetting to make sure certain relatives stayed away from the mini bar. All for the sake of outdoing her peers for ‘event of the season’.

The father looked like he preferred to be home watching the game. And the Bar Mitzvah boy himself… well, although he had the rare privilege of sitting in HIS throne of power as the guest of honor, he looked like he preferred that the whole reception would take place at McDonalds.

It was when the boy discovered the ‘hidden’ buttons on the armrest his throne, that things went from not so bad, to worse.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Monarch saw the boy start to press a particularly nasty red button.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” he screamed as he dashed towards the throne. In the process, he knocked over 3 hench-waiters, two elderly relatives, and a table.

All in vain.

He pressed the button.

Immediately, a cleverly hidden trap door activated under the boy’s mother, causing her to fall into the gauntlet of terror. Simultaneously, a high definition display lowered itself from the ceiling, placed for the convenience of watching his victims suffer, revealing the mother, who landed on a soft mattress below.

Unfortunately, that would be her only sense of relief for what was to come.

The Monarch cringed with dread as the first gauntlet activated. The butterfly blades of terror!

She barely managed to escape to the next room, when the second gauntlet activated.

She entered a seemingly dark area. Almost immediately, projections of the Monarch displayed, each laughing sinisterly. As she started to scream madly, the second gauntlet activated. The floor of flames!

Not the floor of flames! He thought.

“Someone! Disable the gauntlet of terror!”

“Yes sir!” said a henchman as he pressed a switch.

“NOT THAT ONE!”

Too late.

Immediately, the control stations rose from the floor, knocking over tables, the mini bar, and everything that was in the way. The once gaudy banquet hall now resembled a disaster area.

At that moment, the Monarch noticed that the mother made it to the doors of doom.

“CHOOSE THE FIRST ONE!” he screamed, in vain.

She chose the third one.

And set loose the dreaded robotic Mel Gibsons!

As he covered his face with his hands to avoid the apparent carnage, Sheila calmly turned the switch that would deactivate the gauntlet.

Needless to say, the entire affair was a disaster.

Minutes later, the guests who were injured, or suffered strokes, were taken out by paramedics. Mrs. Bronstein herself was strapped to a gurney, and heavily sedated. Nevertheless, she would have a lasting fear of anything that resembled butterflies, or Mel Gibson.

The father, while visually supportive of his wife, was secretly relieved that he would be able to catch the end of the game.

The Bar Mitzvah boy ironically, seemed to be the most pleased. Not only did he have a good time, but they were moving the reception to McDonalds!

THE PRESENT

The Monarch gingerly reminisced on that fiasco while he took another swig of leftover Manishewitz. Of course, his next endeavor was also a complete fiasco. It all started when a friend of his convinced him to work for a network marketing company. Unfortunately, the company in question was Scamway. As a result of their ‘corporate agreement’ i.e. pyramid scheme, the cocoon was stuck with ten thousand cartons of their crap. Since there was no legal recourse, he took matters as only a supervillain could.

SCAMWAY HEADQUARTERS, SOMWHERE IN MICHIGAN

The early morning light shined over the corporate compound, which lay peacefully on the Michigan landscape. One could almost hear ‘Au claire de la lune’ as he observed this tranquil scene.

Suddenly, over the horizon, a sinister cocoon shaped craft flew towards the compound. Seconds later it hovered over the buildings.

Inside the cocoon, the Monarch had already set the bridge to battle mode. He looked grimly at his target, and issued the command.

“Commence primary ignition.”

Immediately, a ray blast was fired from the cocoon, obliterating the buildings below. After the dust cleared, a hatch opened, dropping cartons upon cartons of unsellable Scamway products. A few moments later, the cocoon flew away from the once tranquil scene.

</div>

Prompts, etc

terrie — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:36:31 GMT

Well hello there, goblins. I find myself in sort of a creative slump, so I am asking for your help here. Give me prompts, and I will write them for you in the comments below. You are so damn excited, I know, but please try to contain yourselves.

RULES: are simple.
1) as per community rules, no slash. het and gen are a-OK.
2) nothing with explicit sex. save that for your kink memes. explicit violence is fine though.

Now go, request! Also feel free to write something too if something strikes your fancy. I guess this is sort of like an informal prompt meme. Maybe.

flight__ — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:01:48 GMT

Title: 1983
Rating: Um, maybe like PG? It talks (awkwardly) about ~lady business~. ~That time of the month~. Haha, periods.
Length: 1330 words
Summary: Molotov's father really should have had a son.

In 1983, three things happened to Molotov Aleksandrovna Koktiz.

The first was that she turned fourteen years old, which everyone had expected, as per the normal passage of time. Her birthday consisted of two people, her former Olympic team coach and an old friend from school in Siberia, calling to wish her a nice day, and her father didn’t hit her at all for twenty-four hours.

The second was that her training with the KGB began, which was less expected but more celebrated, since it was something that actually pleased her father, and they both moved out of their miniscule Moscow flat into the nearest military compound, which was about fifty miles outside of the city, to the north.

The third was that, for the first time, Molotov got her period.

This happened shortly before her actual birthday, which was in the beginning of August. Molotov was asleep in her bedroom of the suite she and her father shared within the compound, and, as usual, her father came in to wake her up at exactly 0530.

“Get up, Molotov, you lazy waste of my genes,” he called, leaning in the doorway and flicking on the light. This was just one variant of many insulting ways he tended to rouse her from sleep, though his tone did not usually bear much anger or hatred towards her.

Rather than leaping from bed as she normally did, Molotov merely stirred and mumbled, then rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. This gave her father a moment’s pause.

“I said, get up, girl,” he repeated irritably, entering her room and yanking the duvet off of her, throwing it to the ground next to him. “You can loaf about when you are dead, which will most likely be soon, given how terrible you are at espionage.”

Even this jab did not inspire her to get up; instead, she curled into a foetal position in the cold, her thin nightgown raised enough to expose her white panty-clad bottom a little as she wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I don’t feel good, Papa,” she said weakly.

He was not inclined to believe her. “You won’t feel good when you are shot either, but you will still have to run away from your enemies, won’t you?”

She did not answer.

Rolling his eyes, her father crossed his arms as he glared at her and sighed. “What’s wrong with you, girl?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, mumbling. “My stomach hurts so much.”

This was not descriptive enough for her father’s taste, and he grabbed her by one ankle to physically drag her from the bed. “Get up and go to the bathroom,” he commanded as she fell to the floor, yelping. Whining quietly, she finally stood up and obeyed, one arm still crossed over her midsection. Making a soft, disgusted noise at her impertinence, he bent to pick up her duvet and throw it back on the bed, where he left it in a heap for her deal with when she came back out.

A moment later, there was a bloodcurdling scream, and Molotov came out of the bathroom, tears running down her face. “Papa! Papa, help, please!”

“What is it, Molotov?” he said, startled despite himself at this; if there was one thing he could say for Molotov, it was that she was generally very calm and well-balanced.

“I don’t know,” she cried, holding her hands out. “I was just in the bathroom, and there was blood, and my underwear, and...” she trailed off here, obviously terrified.

Her father blanched. Poor Molotov might not have understood what was going on -- after all, it wasn’t like he had ever sat her down and explained menstruation, and there was no woman in her life to do that in his place -- but he sure did. The problem was, he just didn’t know what to do about this. Her period had already been delayed by her gymnastic career and the incredible amounts of physical stress her body endured during that, he had really just been hoping that it would never happen at all. Molotov had covered her face with her hands and was sobbing, not noticing that he was staring blankly at her.

“Okay, okay,” he finally said, quietly, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Go back in the bathroom and wait there, I will be right back.” Pushing her gently back toward the restroom, he exited the suite, walking quickly down a series of halls to the medical wing, which was unfortunately staffed with men who were all as unwilling to explain this concept to the compound’s only teenage girl as he was. They handed him a box of sanitary napkins (which were not something he could remember the women in his life using, but which he realised were probably the best option, given the male population of where they lived) and gave him some instructions, then sent him on his way, despite his demands that one of them come with him.

Back in the suite, Molotov was sitting on the toilet, crying and shaking, her panties on the floor a yard away. Though crumpled, there were a few obvious spots of blood on them. Sighing, her father went back into her bedroom and grabbed her a new pair of underwear from her bureau, then went back into the bathroom, gingerly stepping past her to sit on the edge of the tub, clutching the box of pads and her underwear.

“Stop crying,” he told her, though his tone was unnaturally soft and warm. “It’s okay, it is a normal thing.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, snivelling. “This has never happened to me before.”

“No, I know,” he answered, shaking his head. “This is... it happens to women, all women, every month, I think. It’s not your fault, so stop crying. It is just what happens when girls grow up, that’s it. Without it, there would be no babies, so even your mother had this.”

“Really?” she asked, wiping at her eyes with her fists.

“Yes,” he told her, nodding, then cleared his throat. “So... I went to the hospital wing and got you these,” he continued, holding the box out to her. “You just... put these in your panties, and they keep the blood off your clothes, I guess, and then you throw it away when you need to use a new one. And the doctor said that you can take a warm bath for the pain, okay?”

Molotov accepted the box, and the underwear he was handing her now, and nodded a little.

“So, you do this now, and... I will wait outside,” he said awkwardly, waiting for her to nod again before getting up and going back into her room to stand near the closed bathroom door with his arms folded over his chest. She came out with her arms crossed as well after a few more minutes, still looking miserable and pained, and her father sighed once more before grimacing and enfolding her in his arms for one of the very few hugs he ever bestowed upon her. Molotov stiffened noticeably, startled by this development.

He let go of her quickly, clearing his throat a little and running his hand over her hair once, trying to be as gentle and sympathetic towards this horrible female plight as he could. “Why don’t you just go back to sleep, child?” he suggested, his head tilted down toward her. “I... I’ll let you be excused from training for the day, for this.”

Molotov nodded slowly, and trudged back over to the bed, where she laid down and curled up under the duvet. Heading toward the door, he flicked off the light and began to leave, but then thought better of it and turned back around in the doorway. “But don’t expect this kind of treatment ever again,” he added gruffly, before exiting and shutting her door behind him.

He should have had a son.

QUICK NOTES~: I named Molotov's father, you can figure out what if you look hard enough. Um, I used 'Koktiz' instead of Coqtiz or Cocktease because it would be written Коктиз in Russian, and I like the idea that it's her real name.. And in Soviet Russia, they didn't really have feminine hygiene products at a civilian level, but I think it wouldn't have been that far-fetched for a military compound. Annnnnnnnnd... I think that's it.

Three Ways that Thaddeus Venture Dies (gen AU)

dropsofviolet — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:45:44 GMT

Title: Three Ways that Thaddeus Venture Dies
Words: 693
Fandom: Venture Brothers
Pairing: gen
Rating: G
Spoilers: Heavy spoilers for The Doctor is Sin (episode 3x02)
Disclaimer: The Venture Brothers is the property of Doc Hammer, Jackson Publick, Adult Swim, and other subsidiaries that I am not involved with. This fanfic is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.

Excerpt: The square glasses are coming back into style again, right? And turquoise?

1. ready for anything

He signs the paper and the pain in his palm is only a low burning compared to the pain in his head. He's given something of his father's legacy away again, but he can't quite put his finger on what and he doesn't care anymore, he can't. The square glasses are coming back into style again, right? And turquoise?

Brock bursts in and he feels a moment of shame, but Killinger handles it. He finds Brock a new job, a better one. Then he plans Venture's first arch job.

"How do you feel about Venomous Venture?" he asks in that clipped accent of his. Hank squeals, "Cool!" Venture nods. It doesn't really matter that he isn't venomous, right? They could work something out later if they needed to. He had some sort of snake venom in the labs somewhere.

That's what he is thinking about when the laser blasts hit him in the face. It isn't Jonas Venture Jr.'s intention to hurt his brother. He believes mostly in nonviolence now. But there is a malfunction in the security robots-- not the sort that melts one's face into tragic disfigurement, but a greater one.

Thaddeus Venture is dead before his troops are at the door. Killinger turns to Hank. Dean is screaming and it seems like he'll never stop, but Hank's world has been reduced to two slits in a mask.

"Will you?" Killinger asks. Slowly, Hank nods.

2. strictly third-rate

He signs the contract. He wears the costume and he fills out the thousands of applications and he even spends several hellish evenings at Guild parties. Sucking up to the Monarch, the fscking Monarch, and he has enough self-respect left to hate himself for doing it.

The stuff he does is low-brow-- ray guns and elaborate plans and those traps that take ten minutes to kill and nine-and-a-half minutes to escape. Hank, Dean, and Brock disappear one day and he doesn't notice for almost a week. The boys move in with Jonas (curse them! curse all of them!) and Brock gets a new job.

He could clone them-- even Brock, he'd saved DNA just in case-- but it wouldn't be the same. So he sighs and goes on. Eight-minute traps with seven-and-a-half minute escapes. A standing invitation to dinner shouted after him as he goes home each time, defeated. The occasional jail visitation, staring at his sons (so tall! when did that happen?) from behind the bulletproof glass.

Killinger is long gone the day Thaddeus Venture dies, alone in a compound that has one-hundred people on regular staff (including the cleaning lady, who refuses to wear a uniform, but she gets the ring out of the tub so Venture lets her stay). It isn't suicide, or a blown trap-- just old age.

It's almost a week before someone dares to investigate the weird smell in the labs.

3. overdosed

He doesn't sign the contract, but he signs plenty of them afterwards, watching Venture Industries shrink before his eyes. The boys can't play on the lawn anymore, he rents that to the government for mine-testing. Industrial Building #4 makes shoe polish now.

Sometimes Hank and Dean ask him why he has to sell, but their father doesn't answer their questions, preferring to shout at them until they go away. He fires Brock because he has to. Brock doesn't ask for much, but he has nothing to give.

The day before he signs the papers to sell the rest of the compound, Thaddeus Venture overdoses on "diet pills" and drowns in his own tub. Newspapers eagerly speculate whether the scientist's death was suicidal, but Jonas Venture Jr. puts on a tiny suit and plans his brother's funeral. Brock comes and sits in the back row, but he doesn't cry. No one does, really, except for Dean, and sometimes Dean cries when they're out of waffles.

The Monarch comes in late and sits down next to Brock. He's dressed "incognito," but he hasn't managed to hide the eyebrows. Brock grunts professionally.

The Monarch thought it would feel better to be attending his (former) archenemy's funeral. Really, it just feels sort of empty.

terrie — Thu, 22 May 2008 18:55:01 GMT

Title: 1978
Words: 438
Rating: PG
Summary: Brock is twelve years old and gets his first taste of responsibility. What happens pretty much sets the theme for his entire life.

1978.

When Brock was twelve years old, his mother and brother went to the Department of Health & Human Services in Lincoln to appeal for child support. Brock was left home alone, since his mother didn’t have time to find a babysitter who would actually watch either of the Samson brothers. And Brock was very mature for his age, she figured, he would be able to take care of himself. It was only for a few days, and he had the number to his grandparents’ house in Stanton if there was an emergency.

Brock’s brother had a cat. It was really the family cat, but it was mostly attached to his brother; it was indifferent at best to their mother, and whenever Brock got near it, it hissed and puffed up like an angry blowfish. His brother named it George Carlin or Richard Pryor or something; Brock didn’t know. He and his mother just called it ‘the cat’.

When Brock was left alone for the weekend, his mother and brother in Lincoln and his grandparents in Stanton, he was in charge of looking after the cat. It wasn’t a really big task, and he wasn’t that worried about it; after all, it was a cat, what sort of looking after did it really need? Give it food and water, clean out the litter box, and let it do its own thing.

For three days, Brock looked after his brother’s cat. He watched that damn thing like a hawk, making sure it didn’t get its tail burned off on the stove when he was making soup, and shooing it away from the turntable so it wouldn’t scratch the records, and just generally making sure it was safe and keeping it out of trouble.

Brock’s mother and brother were coming home on the fourth day. Brock found that sometime during the course of the day, the cat had disappeared. He looked all around the house, and all around outside, calling for George Carlin to come out of the bushes, and looking into neighbours’ yards to see if a dog had gotten to it or something. One hour before his mother and brother came home, Brock found the cat, dead, under the porch. It had escaped outside, and had somehow gotten into some antifreeze on the driveway. All it took was two minutes of Brock not paying attention as he opened the door to get the mail.

His mother said it wasn’t his fault, but Brock still felt like it was. His brother cried. Brock has disliked cats ever since.

They got a dog three weeks later.

Fic: Enjoy the Silence (Dr. Girlfriend/Brock: NC-17)

millari — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:00:54 GMT

Title: Enjoy the Silence
Author: millarific
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Dr. Girlfriend, Brock, Dr. Venture, Dean, Colonel Gentleman, implied Monarch
Pairing: Brock/Dr. Girlfriend
Wordcount: 4,244
Spoilers: Season 1: "Past Tense"
Warnings: None
Author's Note: My first Venture Brothers fic, written for a sweetcharity.net fic auction.

The problem was, she liked being Charlene

scrawled — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:44:24 GMT

I did a drabble project -- or rather am doing -- and one of the drabbles thus far is a VB one:

Watch and Ward genfic, 396 words

terrie — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:26:39 GMT

HEY FIC. Crossposted to deathmance, SORRY.

Title: Ekaterinburg
Words: 2271
Rating: PG-14, I think. VIOLENCE OHNOES.
Summary: Brock and Hunter are in Ekaterinburg on assignment, and Brock sees a familiar face.

November 1986. Ekaterinburg.

Hunter nudged Brock awake in a very gentle way by cracking him across the temple with the butt of his rifle.

Swearing loudly, Brock fell backwards out of the chair he had been resting in, tumbling unceremoniously onto the floor. Hunter leaned over, cherry end of his cigarette blazing in its holder, clamped firmly between his teeth.

“Goddammit Samson, do that shit a little more quietly, would you?! Jesus!”

Brock pushed himself up into a sitting position, rubbing at the back of his head. “Yeah,” he said irritably, biting his tongue. “What's going on?”

"What are you -- didn't they debrief you?" said Hunter, inflection rapid-fire and slurring.

“No,” said Brock, much more slowly than his mentor, “you didn't.”

Hunter looked at him, eyebrows knit, and even through the mirrored sunglasses, Brock could tell the colonel was squinting. “Of course I didn't, boy-o,” he said, turning back to the window and placing binoculars to the lenses of his glasses. “Need to know basis.”

Brock stared at the back of Hunter's head. He was here, why wouldn't he need to know why? Hunter's skull did not have the answers that Hunter himself was not giving, so Brock got up from the floor, righted his chair, and sat back down. He took out his cigarettes, all nearly crushed from when he had landed so heavily on them, and fished out one that was not broken to light it.

Hunter remained motionless at the window, focussed in his task, for what seemed like hours, not addressing Brock once. This is what stakeouts tended to be like, Brock had found: a lot of waiting, a lot of boredom, a lot of trying unsuccessfully to stay awake.

On his sixth cigarette, halfway through the third round of counting the ceiling tiles, Brock fell asleep again. Hunter didn’t wake him up this time; that task was given to Brock’s cigarette, still lit, falling out of his mouth and burning his hand.

“God -- ow,” said Brock, annoyed, swiping the cigarette to the floor, where he crushed it under his heavy boot.

When he finally looked up from scowling at the thing that had burned him, Hunter was watching him severely, cigarette holder held between his teeth at a stiff, irritated angle.

“Samson,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Were you sleeping again.”

“Not ... sleeping exactly,” said Brock slowly.

Hunter sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, sunglasses bouncing slightly as he squeezed his fingers together. “Listen, Samson -- I won’t be around to babysit you forever; you’ve got to take charge, man! Be alert! You have to be able to watch an empty house for days without sleep or food or moving. Or sleep! What? Don’t interrupt me.”

Brock had not been about to.

“This great nation is counting on you, boychick, to keep our enemies at bay, away from our borders, our children, our women,” Hunter continued.

“But we’re in their territory ...”

“Well, yes, of course we are; that’s what the -- good God, Samson, that is some advanced technique! You almost got me there,” said Hunter, grinning with avuncular pride. “There may be a promotion in this for you.” He turned back around to look out the window.

Brock just gaped at the back of his head for a few seconds, silent.

After a moment, without turning around, Hunter thrust a small, shoe box-shaped rectangle at him with the hand not holding his binoculars. Brock took it with some apprehension, looking back up at Hunter after giving the thing a quick once-over.

“Recording device,” Hunter clarified still without looking. Brock was beginning to suspect the colonel had eyes in the back of his head, like real ones, because he immediately explained further without seeing the look of doubt cross Brock’s face. “The Reds’ll be looking for the little ones. Big, outdated motherfuckers like that one’ll be easily overlooked.”

Brock still had his doubts, but did not voice them, only turned the thing over in his hands to inspect it closer.

“Coordinates two six three four,” instructed Hunter. Brock stood and headed briskly toward the door, pulling on his overcoat.

“And Samson,” Hunter called.

Brock turned back around; Hunter was looking at him intently. “Yeah.”

“Whatever you do, don’t light a cigarette; a good sniper can see a hot cherry for miles.”

Brock nodded, absently patting the half-empty pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He did not especially want to get shot tonight.

Hunter stood calmly for a moment, watching Brock, and then abruptly waved his arms around wildly. “Well? What the hell are you waiting for; get out there, goddammit! You’ve got a forty-five minute window so ske-fucking-daddle!”

--

Brock reached the coordinates two six three four in twenty minutes, making it there with relative speed by ducking into a few alleyways and thankfully not having any encounters with enemy patrols. He set the device, triple-checked its connections and double-checked the transmitter, then turned around to return to base. He made it half a block when he saw two uniformed officers turn the corner at the end of the street, heading toward him.

Brock quickly ducked into the narrow space between two buildings, pressing himself up against the greasy brownstone, and listened to the footsteps approaching, drawing closer and closer. He strained to pick up the conversation between the two men, but they were speaking too fast and too quietly for his limited Russian comprehension.

Cursing silently, Brock inched backwards along the wall until the voices were right on top of him, at which point he went still, holding his breath, not even daring to turn his eyes to watch the men pass. Oblivious, the two continued on until their voices started becoming quiet again. Brock held his position for several minutes until he couldn’t hear them anymore, then finally crept out from his hiding spot.

The men were nowhere in sight along the street; they must have turned the corner again. After a moment of hesitation, Brock returned to the recording device to make sure it had not been discovered. By his accounts it hadn’t, as it appeared to be undisturbed, though it was still incredibly conspicuous, just sitting openly in an enclave in the side of the building. Perhaps Hunter was right, since those officers had walked right past it and apparently it hadn’t been noticed.

Letting go of the breath he hadn’t realised he had still been holding, Brock cautiously started back down an alternate route back to base, mentally pulling up the map of the city as he carefully crept around and between buildings, keeping an ear and eye out for more patrols. Thankfully curfew had been implemented, so he didn’t have to worry about running into civilians.

He was about halfway back, having taken the longer and safer route, when, just as he rounded a corner, he was face-to-face with two patrolmen. Brock couldn’t tell if they were the same ones from earlier but it didn’t matter; all three men stared for a few long, silent seconds, completely thrown off guard.

“Shit,” Brock said, then dove into the cover of a nearby alleyway as one officer opened fire, the other fumbling for his gun.

Scrambling to his feet, Brock charged down the alley to find better cover, and he could hear the men screaming at each other in Russian, again too quickly for him to understand. He was dead, he was sure he was going to be dead in a minute, maybe two, and his heart was pounding and his head was racing and god damn it this alley was a dead end, why didn’t he remember it was a dead end from the maps?

Whirling back around, Brock looked frantically for anything to hide behind, but there was nothing; just some small boxes and a fire escape mounted to the wall of one of the buildings trapping him, its ladder pulled up and nearly inaccessible. He swore again and could hear the two men getting closer, a flashlight beam slicing through the dark air as they neared him.

“Stoj!” one of the officers shouted, but Brock couldn’t see which one; the light was blinding him. But he could hear them; they skidded to a halt and he could swear he heard their hearts beating. They were afraid, they weren’t soldiers like him. They were just policemen.

But still, they were in his way.

Brock lunged forward quicker than the patrolmen could react, grabbing the face of one of them, his thumb and middle finger plunging smoothly into eye sockets. This one must have been the one holding the flashlight because it fell to the ground, beam swinging wildly, and broke apart on impact with the pavement, scattering batteries and bits of metal and plunging the alley into darkness. Brock could hear the man screaming but it only inspired further rage in him; he kept his hand on his face and lifted him up by it.

The other patrolman had just snapped out of his shock and fumbled with the gun still at his hip, aiming shakily at Brock. He got a shot off that just missed Brock’s shoulder, but it didn’t matter because Brock just threw the now-blinded man off to the side and grabbed the wrist of the other, wrenching it up. A few more shots were fired, but they went straight up or otherwise into the air; Brock could hear a few bullets ricocheting off the fire escape. He could also hear the man screaming as his bones snapped and splintered.

Soon the gun stopped firing, though the last bullet must have hit the fire escape in just the right way, because the ladder came swinging down. Brock glanced up at it and took a step back, letting go of the wrist just in time for the ladder to come crashing down to the pavement directly on top of the patrolman’s skull, splitting him sagittally and spraying the alley (and Brock) with blood and bone and bits of brain matter.

Brock observed this passively for a moment, then lit a cigarette. He stepped over to the other policeman, who was moaning wordlessly, half-delirious from pain and blood loss, and lifted him up by his blood-soaked jacket collar. He was about to just slam the man’s skull against the wall when something metallic caught the starlight up on the rooftop. He looked up toward it instinctively, and saw a young woman, dressed in black, her red ponytail swaying slightly in the wind. It took him a moment to register what he was seeing, and when he finally did, his eyes widened and he dropped the man, who landed with a loud thud and a faint moan.

It’s only the second time he’d seen her but he immediately recognised her; it’s the same woman who had left him pinned to a bed in a burning hotel room a month before. She’s even more beautiful now than she was that night, and Brock could hear his pulse in his ears, louder than the policemen’s nervous heartbeats had been.

Without knowing why, Brock took a hesitant step toward her, even though she was up on the roof, hand slightly outstretched. She just smiled down at him, then looked through the telescopic lens of the Kalashnikov she had in front of her, finger on the trigger guard.

Brock blinked, cigarette falling out of his mouth. Why had he not noticed that?

The woman told him something in Russian but she’s too far away for him to understand, and it doesn’t matter anyway because then there was a loud crack and then Brock couldn’t see anymore, blinded with pain, but he thought he was falling backwards and then his head hit the pavement and then he didn’t think anything anymore.

--

It’s light outside when Brock finally wakes up, and he’s not in the alley anymore but he’s not at base either, but Hunter is at his bedside, smoking despite the fact that they are obviously in a hospital. Noticing that he had woken up, Hunter leans toward him, breathing smoke in his face. Brock can’t tell if he’s doing this intentionally.

“Someone got you good, boy. Didn’t I tell you not to light up a cigarette?”

Brock squints a little, somewhat disoriented, and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess, but I --”

“But nothing,” snaps Hunter, smacking Brock over the head with a rolled-up Stars and Stripes. Brock flinches away from this, and Hunter continues: “You’re lucky he didn’t finish you off right there, though maybe he thought he did. You can’t handle getting shot very well, can you?”

“I dunno,” Brock says slowly, rubbing absently at the back of his head. He notices distantly that there is an IV in his arm. “That was my first time ...”

Hunter just ashes his cigarette impassively and stands up, handing Brock something small and cold to the touch. “Well, it won’t be your last. Learn to duck,” he suggests, then strides out of the room.

After he leaves, Brock looks down at what Hunter had placed in his palm. It’s a shell casing, and Brock immediately knows that it’s the one that had just been taken out of his body. It must have been intended as a memento, but it’s much more than that to Brock, so much more that he can’t even put it into words and gets a headache from thinking about it.

Sighing, he turns over to sleep, keeping the bullet in his hand, fingers curled around it.

Dean's Day.

umbricman — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 02:11:11 GMT

“Broooooock!”

“Eh?” Brock turned around and looked over the couch. Dean was standing there, hands on hips, his face scrunched up into one of clear annoyance. “What do you want, Dean?”

“Well….” Dean looked nervous for a second, hunching over slightly as his natural timidity took over for a moment. He then had another look of determination and quickly stood back up. “Well, I’d like to spend some time. With…with you!”

“What?” Samson merely raised an eyebrow.

“Sure! You’re always helping POP with whatever.” He raised one hand up and raised his voice slightly. “Brock, do this for me! Get that! Help me Brock, help me!”

“Dean, usually your father’s just gotten himself into a load of tro-“

“-and HANK! You’re ALWAYS spending time with him! Like yesterday!”

“He threw up all over the kitchen floor and I had to make sure he cleaned the place up properly.”

“STILL!” Dean looked…. well, Brock couldn’t tell if it was one of anger or sadness that was etched on his face then and there. Probably some mixture of both.

Brock sighed. “Fine. Give me a day or two. Then we’ll go have a day to hang out together or something. Alright?”

“AWESOME! You just wait, Brock. I’ll think up a bunch of things for us to do. It’ll be the best day ever!”

------
Eventually the big day arrived. Actually, Brock had to admit it was probably big only to Dean. He just planned it to happen on a day he knew Doc or Hank probably wouldn’t do something too stupid without him around. Probably.

At any rate, both he and Dean were having breakfast, he was just enjoying a couple of pieces of toast, and Dean was pouring himself some big bowl of sugar-encrusted cereal. Yeah. This was going to be a long day, then.

“…And then! THEN we can probably go hang out in the city like a coupla two cool, tough guys!” Dean was excitedly pointing out in between gulps of his food. “You and me, Brock!”

Brock just looked up slowly. “Uh, kay.”

“Then we can do something tough! Like…uh, I dunno.” Dean looked down for a second before perking up again. “Fighting evil villains!”

“Dean, I doubt anyone’s going to do some big attack on the city.”

“Well, they could.”

------
Brock found that they were, indeed, at the city. Some bookstore…. Dean said that the day was perfect timing for picking up the new Jr. Boy Detective book. As such, Brock found himself fidgeting with embarrassment over everyone staring at him and Dean in the children’s section, by a rack of ‘big readers’ books.

Dean was frantically turning the rack. “Ooooh…come ON! There has to be a copy of Jr. Boy Detective and the Problematic Pizza around here somewhere!”

Brock looked to the boy with a half-disgusted look, though Dean wasn’t paying attention. “Dean, don’t you think you’re a…. a little too old for these things?”

“But Brock! They’re BIG chapter books! They say so on the front cover!” He took a glance downwards-some toddler had stepped up to the rack. “Oooh…okay, you want to look. Okay.” He stepped back-it was ALWAYS good manners to let a child go first, right? But then-

-Bottom rung…. the book was there! Dean quickly crouched down and swiped it off the rack. “I found it, Brock!” he exclaimed.

“MINE!” the kid shouted, pointing at the book.

“What? No! I found it first!”

“MINE!” the child yelled again, reaching out and grabbing the tome.

“Wh…hey, leggo!” Dean began to tug back. Gently, of course, he didn’t want to hurt the kid somehow or anything. Sort of. This kid was kind of strong! “I found it…” he grunted slightly when the kid suddenly pulled hard…”-first!”

Brock glanced back-a kid? Dean was fighting a kid now….and losing? No. “Dean!” No response. “Dean.” He said with a lower tone of voice. “Drop it.”

Dean was still pulling the book towards him. “Brock, come on, I found it first-“

“Dean.”

“…Fine.” He let go, and the kid fell on his bottom from the momentum. He began to bawl. In only moments a woman had rushed up and picked him up, cuddling him, then looked up to Brock with fury.

“You….” She looked from Brock to Dean and back. “Control that bully of a son! JERK!” She lifted one hand and slapped Brock’s face, then left in a huff.

For a moment Brock rubbed his cheek as Dean looked up to him in horror.

“Dean. We’ll order the books online or something from now on.”

------
After sitting through about two hours of some mind-numbing G-rated schlock fest (“Dean, you’re sixteen. PG-Thirteen is past you AND I’m giving permission to go see something else…”) they had finally returned to the compound. It was a warm day, and Dean wanted to go swimming.

“We’ll just relax for now before heading back onto the town or something.” Dean rambled on, towel on arm and chest out. “For now we should just have fun and get a tan and look good for any girls…” he suddenly stopped, face shrouded in horror. “Brock! Triana and Kim are at the pool!”

Brock had to keep himself from sighing. “So.”

Dean gave a small nervous, wave to the girls, and then turned back to Brock. “So…they’ll…. well, I dunno, but do you think I should get them something? Drink? Snacks! Yes! Something refreshing!” Before Brock could say anything Dean had rushed back into the building.

He came out several minutes later with a tray of several glasses of water, walking quickly, a proud smile on his face. “Now to just serve those two and look swell doi…”

He tripped, and for a second it looked that he’d fall…to Brock’s surprise Dean managed to get a hold of himself just before it could happen. When Dean finally stood up again, though…

….

None of the glasses had fallen off the tray, but they had been knocked from being right side up. With that came the realization a large stain was down the middle of his shorts. Okay, he hadn’t quite managed to not screw up.

Dean began to quake. “Ohnonononono!” he began to whisper.

“Calm down, Dean. Just get back inside and change into a new pair.” Brock said. Dean having wet his clothing somehow wasn’t exactly a new dilemma for him.

“Okay, but…” Dean began to mumble, when he looked away from Brock in fear. The girls were coming up! Did they notice him tripping? Oh golly, he needed to think up something to keep them from seeing him….

….”Dean?” Brock asked as Dean suddenly sidestepped and got up close to him. Then it struck him: he was going to have to be the bulwark against the girls’ eyes. Great.

…”Uh, hey guys. Are you going to come to the pool?” Triana asked.

Dean leaned over to his side, giving an overly nervous smile. “Soon! Uh…. just going to get ready in a minute, you know, get a towel…”

“I thought you had one out when I saw you a minute ago…yeah, there.” She pointed to the towel, slung over the door handle when Dean had went back in for drinks.

“Oh. Uh…”

“Hey, what's with the glasses? You spill them?” Kim asked.

“NO!” Dean suddenly pulled away from her prying hand, fear etched on his face, scrunching his legs together. “Uh, well, maybe…kind of! But I'll get you something new in no time flat! Like…lemonade! Maybe a refreshing glass of coca-cola! Mmm, mmm! I’ll…. go get some of that!” Before the girls could even say anything else, Dean had turned around as quickly as he could and was hurrying back into the compound.

The girls looked on for a minute. Then, up at Brock.

For another moment they just stared.

“Just go back to sunbathing, girls.”

------
Evening had finally come. Dean had managed to get through the rest of the pool fiasco mostly by suddenly claiming he felt too ill to go swimming, and Brock managed to get a couple hours for himself before Dean came in holding a football.

“…Dean, you remember what we told you happened last time. You got hit in the face trying to catch it and got knocked out.”

“I was a kid then, Brock! I’ll be better!”

“Fine. Want me to get the Nerf one then?”

“NO. I’ll do it with the real one! I’ll prove to you I can catch a football now.”

Minutes later, after both had went outside and Dean asked to be given a ‘good toss’, he was knocked out and with blood pouring from him just before he fell. Brock was already by his side, checking the bleeding. Realizing it was just a serious nosebleed and figuring all he needed was rest, Brock picked him up and carried him back inside.

He passed Doc on the way.

Thaddeus didn’t bother to look up from his book. “Football?”

“Football.”

------
Nightfall had finally come. Brock set the tray of milk and cookies on the drawer by Dean’s bed for when he woke up, when he heard mumbling.

“Dean. You okay?”

“Yeah…what happened?”

“Football.”

“Aaaaw, not again!”

“Yeah,” Brock replied, gruffly. Looking at Dean for a moment, he softened his look. “Look, sorry today sucked.”

“Well, it wasn’t too bad! Uh…I still got to see the movie. And the girls didn’t see my wet shorts.” Dean looked pensive for a moment. “I think.”

Brock just cocked an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, Brock! We’ll still have the best day ever sometime! Maybe I won’t even end up hurt again!”

Brock just sighed. “Yeah, next time."

Okay, so this took about half an hour to forty minutes total to write. Not counting the month and a half of procrastination. Also pretty sure my writing feels like it's devolving, but oh well, this was fun to write.

I like seeing how characters you normally don't see that often interact, and since everyone can figure out idolizing of Brock for Hank and Doc just getting wry looks and comments from Brock, that left H.E.L.P.eR. and Dean. The robot was going to be too easy to write on, so I chose Dean. Props to runcible for having a great-minds-think-alike moment with Dean and the football a while back-I had thought of it too and modified it for being a regular occurance in Dean's life for this story. Also, she read through much of this for me initially. Thanks!

Demise

khronos_keeper — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:10:15 GMT

Title: Demise
Words: 'bout 500 (again. o_o)
Rating: PG
Summary: The end of the road for Jonas Venture, and his thoughts and state when faced with his death.
Notes: Based off of this picture in Publick's production LJ. I was rather fascinated by it. We're so used to the untouchable, invincible Jonas Venture that to see him like this is almost strange.

Jonas Venture swallowed blood, attempting to clear his mouth to let him speak. "Please." His voice was still slurred, his face so swollen that it wouldn't allow him to be fully coherent. "Please, my son..."

A sharp, raspy laugh, and Jonas's heart sank, as he already knew the response that was sure to come. His large head hung, the light throwing his chiseled face into a dark relief, as the Rictus scoffed.

"Oh, please, Dr. Venture. Begging." He tutted and leaned back triumphantly, the brittle yellow light washing out the lines of his face, his chest thrust out. "You won't need to worry about your son. It's your death that I want. There is, after all, only one Dr. Venture."

Jonas didn't have the strength to lift his head to face this abominable man. His hot breath streamed down the chill cloth of his shirtfront. His voice had none of its usual comanding thunder; it was little more than a hoarse wheeze as he could barely more than mumble, "Please, my son needs me."

"A luxury he will have to do without." Jonas didn't need to see him to hear the gloating smile in his voice. His broad shoulders slumped, and he felt a rather peculiar and unfamiliar sensation.

Defeat.

He was getting old. Though certainly not incapacitated at his age, the numerous injuries he had sustained as a younger man were beginning to catch up to him, which was the predominant reason that he kept to his lab, as the years went by. He had toyed with visions of a relaxed retirement, fostering his son to become the next pioneer in the realm of science to man Venture Industries. He saw now it had been a hopeless dream. A bitter, and thouroughly crushed dream.

He should have known that it couldn't have ended any other way than this: at the mercy of one of the many men he had clashed with before; bleeding in a small, dark cave, with no hope of rescue nor companionship at his death. He was to die alone, in terrible pain.
His body may never be found. This seemed far too unbearable, and Jonas Venture clenched his already stiff jaw to keep from letting The Rictus see the anguish at this prospect writ across his face.

The Rictus laughed, sensing more than seeing this change. Jonas Venture's only answer to this was a deep rush of sigh.

The tall, skeletally thin man's mirth finally tapered off, but a smiled lingered on his face. He motioned to the two men behind him, and stepped back to allow them to get to work.

Jonas Venture did not indicate that he knew they were coming, though he heard their approach. He tried not to let the pain unman him entirely. He tried to make sure the men attacking him didn't derive any pleasure from any admittance by him of his pain.
He tried to focus on memories of his son in his head as he waited until their administrations allowed him to die. </div>

Ficbit

khronos_keeper — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 03:36:16 GMT

Title: Day at the Compound
Words: 'bout 500
Rating: G
Summary: A snapshot of a regular, pretty low-key day at the Compound. With weird happenings and whiny boys.
Notes: I liked the fics on here, and decided there weren't enough. D: Enjoy, and tell me what you think!

Brock snorted the last bit of smoke in a show of disinterest and flicked the butt of the cigarette to the concrete. Still listening to Dean blather on in the squeaky voice that reminded him of listening to a tape that was on play and fast forward at the same time, he ground the toe of his boot against the still glowing ember, and then bent to retrieve the debris from the floor, which he tucked into one of his hip pockets.

“- and… uh, Brock? What’re you doing?”

“Picking up. Don’t need the hangar filthy.”

“Uh, okay, so…. What’re you gonna do about it?”

Brock grunted lightly, scooping the handful of greasy black ash into his hand from the workbench, and started walking back to the compound while sifting through the ash.

As they rounded the door, Dean’s face still a caricature of concern, Brock deposited the now mushy ash into the trash, and fished into his pocket to dispose of the butt in the same manner. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Dean. Lots of things burn up around here.”

“But it was outside your room!”

“Hm. Weird.” He nonchalantly indulged in the boy’s worry, while thudding across the linoleum to get to the bathroom.

“Uh, Brock? You missed the sink.”

“Bathroom sink, Dean. Never wash crap off you where someone’s food’s eventually gonna touch.”

“Oh.”

The boy trailed after Brock in silence to the bathroom, and the older man could literally feel the terseness almost radiating off the boy. “What else, Dean?”

“Uh… well, nothing, I guess. Just… don’t see much ash sittin’ around, ‘s all.”

“Hunh.” Brock pressed his hipbones against the edge of the sink, and then glanced over his shoulder and motioned Dean in. “Turn on the faucet for me, would you?”

Dean compliantly wandered in, the concern and spark fading from his eye as his latest mystery was reduced to unconcern by his bodyguard. He twisted the faucet on, and pumped the hand soap dispenser for Brock, and leaned against the wall, washing as the black smears were washed off, the tendons and muscles visibly stretching and bulging in the massive, capable hands.

They stayed in silence as Brock toweled off, and then clapped Dean on the shoulder, making the boy bow slightly. “I’ll check it out, Dean. ‘S probably nothing.”

The Venture compound was unusually quiet that day- you could hear the different, mechanical clocks around the rooms ticking.

But even Dr. Venture, absorbed in a study of three different slides, heard Brock’s hoarse scream of, “Oh, sonuvabitch!!” Seconds later, it was accompanied by another scream of mingled frustration and pain. Dr. Venture stared at the door, non-plussed, as Dean and Hank both rocketed through, wailing in tandem about Brock.

Well… it had been a quiet day, anyway.

</div>

runcible — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:20:41 GMT

Title: The Incredible, Edible Egg
Words: 1,800ish
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A typical Venture family breakfast.
Notes: Links to my journal~~

Feedback is love

The Walking Eye.

umbricman — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 03:08:36 GMT

Hank would remember the day started out like so many others, after all. Birds chirping, bees buzzing, the sun high and shining and warming up the beautiful late summer day like it did so many others and that most of all it was-

-“BORING!” he yelled out loud in such an incredulous tone. Only his brother Dean was around to hear him, and per usual like so many days-as Hank remembered-he looked up from his well-read Jr. Boy Detective book (Jr. Boy Detective and the Case of the Mysterious Teacher’s Lounge), rolled his eyes, and sighed before burying his nose in the tome again.

Hank just stared back to his brother. “Uh, Dean? Surely, you do not agree it is boring.” Silence. “Dean. DEAN!” He stomped over and grabbed the book-“HEY!”-and flung it far out into the yard.

“Hank! I don’t know why you have to bring your gloomy moods to me, but it’s not-“

“Spare me, bro.” Hank waved his hand dismissively. “We’re Ventures! THE Venture brothers! Sons and grandsons of super-scientists and explorer-extraordinaires! Don’t you ever feel the need to DO something?!”

“Well, I WAS, until you-“

“-No, Dean, you were reading. Reading is boring and REAL people in our line go out and DO stuff for science, not just sit around reading boring old books all day.”

“Hank, I’m pretty sure scientists do a lot of reading…”

“Well, not always. Don’t you want to have at least one day to look back on and say ‘hey, I went out and DID something because I could, and I was darn happy!”

“Well…”

Hank smirked. “Come on, Dean. We’ll just poke around the compound and find something fun to do.”

“Oh, alright. But nothing that gets us in trouble with pop! You know how he is when we get to him.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hank gave another wave. “Nothing bad’ll happen. I promise.”

------

Okay, maybe that was the wrong thing to say. Because plain old nothing was happening.

Basement? Full of boring old clothes and books (“No, Dean, hats are NOT fun after trying them all on for the second time!”). Attic? Same. And so they were around the hangar, poking around the various machinery and half-baked inventions strewn about the area their father had made on a whim or time crunch.

“Hey, look! Remember when pop tried to make us those replicas of the action figures he said were a rip-off?” Dean said excitedly, holding up a broken muscleman figure clad in a green costume.

“Yeah, only five bucks per figure. And then he tried to give them springy weapons and you nearly took your eye out.” Hank rolled his eyes. “No wonder we never got any cool toys as kids.”

“That was an accident, and you KNOW IT!” his brother cried out angrily. “That was the point, to see what it could do!”

“Yeah, whatev…heeey. Dean. Check this out!” Hank had been at the farther end of the hangar, looking through some of their father’s bigger inventions. Some engine, boring, bunch of old robot parts, also boring (maybe they could give them to H.E.L.P.e.R. later!), and…. then he found it.

Some really big sphere of a robot. With a bunch of little spider legs at the bottom. The top of it was opened up, and there were a bunch of really colorful and long circuits and screws and machine bits and all. Cool.

Dean hurried over. “Heeey…this is that big round thing pop’s always working on! But why is it with the rest of the junk?”

“Beats me. It looks like it’s finished anyway. I mean, why toss it out when it looks like it’s finished?” Dean just gave a shrug for his reply.

Hank stared at it….

…eyes narrowed….

….hmmm….

…then it hit him.

“DEAN! GET ME A SCREWDRIVER! I bet you it just needs like a tweak here and a bolt tightened there! I mean, dude, look at it, it probably just needs that and batteries to run or something.”

“Hank! We’re not supposed to do anything with pop’s inventions!”

“We’re already rummaging through them and I don’t hear you complain.”

“Well…” Dean rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. When did HANK get one up on him?

“See? Come on, we can fix it. And then pop will be all-“ Hank raised a finger up and placed his other hand on his hip-“boys, you did so great, I’m going to make you two my new co-owners of Venture Industries early!”

“Wooow…. you really think so?”

“Duh. Now come on, let’s get to work!”

------

And for the next couple of hours, work they did. Sometimes sparks flew (Dean ran away once when it happened, but ONLY once, he kept telling Hank over and over), and there WAS a lot of stuff to fiddle around with, but finally…

….it slowly began to rise.

For one brief glorious second, the boys stared in pure shock. Then the realization came.

”…. WE FIXED IT! DUDE! WE-” “HANK WE FIXED IT WE FIXED IT-” “I KNOW, POP IS TOTALLY GONNA LOVE US FOR THIS-“ and finally they calmed down a second to watch it stand up fully on all its legs.

Boy, it sure was big.

…. then suddenly the middle opened up and a big red round eye stared at them.

The boys screamed, until Hank realized that would attract unwanted attention from maybe Brock or Pop and shut up both him and Dean (eeew, putting a hand over his brother’s mouth was never fun).

“Dean. What is it? Why is it staring at us?”

“I-I…. I don’t know, Hank….”

The eye began to glow. Brighter. And brighter.

….

Hank managed to push his brother out of the way before the energy blast from the eye hit them. A millisecond later he looked at the charred crater in the floor.

“HANK, WHAT-“

“SHUT UP AND RUN!”

Both boys quickly began to dash away from the machine, The machine was now shooting many and multiple beams of scarlet energy from the red orb in the middle of itself now all around the hangar, causing loud booms as it made craters against the building and exploded various other items. More importantly, it was beginning to move…. if away from the boys, thankfully.

“Hank! It’s MOVING?! What are we gonna do?!” Dean whispered. Pure fear was in his voice.

“I…I don’t know…w-wait…” Hank pointed a finger at the machine.

The machine stopped at the wall. The orb began to glow, but even brighter this time…

A loud explosion.

The machine walked out of the giant hole it made in the compound wall and out into the open.

“Hank….” Dean began to say in his whiniest voice possible (whiny to Hank, at least) “You promised nothing BAD would happen!”

------
The Venture boys were soon on their hoverbikes and chasing down the thing as it went down the road-it sure wasn’t easy to chase after the robot when you had to dodge cars swerving out of the way and almost hitting you...

“Hank, it’s going too fast! We need to get ahead and make it stop!”

“But THEN, Dean, maybe you’ll forget that it’s still shooting big huge LASERS out from the middle of it! Maybe you do, but I for one do not want to get fried!” And so the boys were helpless, watching it move on to the city in abject horror.

------

They had come home just in time from grocery shopping (“God, Brock. You always take so long finding ingredients for the meals. Can’t we just order pizza for once and call it a night?”) for Doctor Thaddeus Venture to plop onto the couch to watch his soaps.

“I’m telling you, Brock. Marten’s going to hook up with Hannelore behind his girlfriend’s back. How can you not find that suspenseful!” Doc said, a wide grin on his face as he turned the TV on.

“Doc, come on, you know I’m not into those shows. I get enough drama in my life as it is. Besides, don’t you think that you have better things to do than to take a break for something you could like, youtube up or something?”

Doc just gave a good-natured sigh as the show’s theme began to play. Suddenly it was replaced with a serious-looking news anchor.

“Alert. This is a special emergency. I repeat, SPECIAL EMERGENCY. A large, orbular machine with arachnid-like legs has been spotted downtown, shooting beams of red heat energy randomly and causing massive chaos and destruction. We’re taking you live now via our helicopter…”

….

“Yes, Josh, it’s MADNESS down there. This thing keeps causing all the traffic to try to get away and whatever can’t just crashes into each other! And it’s STILL shooting lasers! Could it be from an enemy invasion force! God, I KNEW the Chinese would try to take us on! I KNEW-

-the camera shuddered violently and screams could be heard as the view quickly went closer to the street: after a few seconds of static it was obvious a laser had hit the aircraft.

Doc and Brock stared.

“Lemme get the car.” Brock mumbled, quickly running to the compound.

Doc continued to stare blankly.

….

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYS!”

------

Hank was trying his best to do crowd control. “SIR, DRIVE OVER THERE! I…” he saw the car screech and slam into a building. “Not that way.”

Dean was still on his hoverbike, doing his best to try to divert the machine towards him and hopefully away from the people (“think of how brave your girlfriend will think you are or something if you keep it away from everyone!”) but he was screaming bloody murder and Hank was kind of amazed he wasn’t burnt up yet. Honestly. Could anything make this worse?

“HANK!” a deep, angry voiced roared out to him.

Yes, yes it could.

He turned around. CRIMINY! Brock and Pop were in Brock’s car…. he pulled over to the sidewalk (he hoped he parked close enough to the curb) and went over to the adults.

“BROCK! I can totally explain, Dean and I were”

“Hank.” A simple glare shut him up.

“God. Brock, we need to figure out SOMEWAY to get that thing down so I can shut it off. I could never get the laser to work?! Why is it working now?!”

“Well, uh, see. Me and Dean tried to fix it so we could surprise you…”

Both Brock and Doc stared in complete and utter incredulousness at the boy for several moments.

“…how.”

“Well, we just kept tinkering, then it like woke up and all and-“

“Hank, shut up. If that’s all you did it won’t take much. Brock? You know what we could do to get that thing off its feet and…uh, okay, see you in a second.” Doc muttered as he turned and saw Brock heading back towards the car.

Samson was already wasting no time…he went to his trunk and grabbed a hook and the length of rope he kept in there. Spindly legs, got it. Should be easy enough to trip it then as long as he didn’t get hit.

“DOC. Com’ere.” He had tied part of the rope to the bumper. “I’m going to need you to toss this at at least one of the legs. Preferably more. Got it?”

“ME?! I don’t want to be by it when it’s shooting plasmic energy at us! I know you have a death wish and all, but get Hank to do it.”

Hank beamed. A chance to play the hero!

“No, he’s just a kid, Doc.”

Hank slumped. Maaan!

“Fine. Don’t blame me for, you know, not having extra copies of us around when we go up in smoke.” He got into the passenger seat and in a second they were racing towards the robot.

“So anything else about this you didn’t bother to alert anyone to, Doc?” Brock asked as he sped ahead.

“Yeah, it tries to shoot at the closest thing giving off warm energy and all. Typical defense mechanism procedure.”

“Great. Try not to lean out too far then when you toss the rope.”

“What! I…”

“GET READY NOW, DOC!”

“FINE!”

Thankfully, for once, the plan went splendidly. The charger barely missed the shot of plasma aimed and shot at it, Doc managed to get the hook around a couple of legs (“YES! Who’s totally useless NOW, Brock?!”) and the thing finally began to crash and slam onto the ground.

They kept speeding.

“HEY! Why are you going? We got it down!”

“Security guarantees.”

“Well stop! You’re smashing up the road and some cars!”

“Security guarantee, Doc.”

“…fine.”

A mile down the road they stopped. The robot was attempting to get back onto its feet-“Jeez, it didn’t just go to pieces after that?!”-but it was turned onto its front now…thankfully; the legs were now too busted or broken off for it to get back up.

“Doc, I got like a couple tools and some other stuff in the trunk. You think you can shut it off?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the one who built it. Of course I can.” He took the toolbox Brock handed him and headed over to the walking eye. A flip up of the top later, and…

“Jeez…”

“Doc?” Brock was coming up.

“Whatever the boys did, I can’t figure out. They really mangled this thing.”

“I thought you said you could shut it off”!

“Well, if we SMASH it, yeah, but imagine what I could do now with it actually working! The military would go nuts over-whoa….!”

The eye had begun to roll around, and it was probably by sheer dumb luck that Doc was pulled away by his bodyguard in time. They looked at it as it finally stopped, dead flat on its back and shooting lasers into the sky.

The boys meanwhile had slowly come up. “Think it’ll hit an airplane?”

“Hank, shut up. Doc, you should probably call your brother for help.”

“WHAT!? No! I refuse to have that overexposed media harlot come up and take the glory for stopping this thing.”

“Doc, you can’t get it fixed, you gotta get help.”

The two men exchanged glances for a second, and then Doc threw up his hands in defeat.

“Fine. I’ll get him.”

------

For Hank, it was a most uncomfortable rest of the day, to say the least.

Uncle JJ had come by and angered pop (“There. That was simple,” he had said as the orb’s middle finally turned a darker red and stopped firing off beams. “You couldn’t just get that, bro?”). Pop and Brock were angry at him, especially once stupid old Dean started crying and spilling the beans on everything and blaming HIM for the entire fiasco. And things only got worse once they actually got a tour of all the damage that the robot had caused to their home and the bill from the city. Pop said he wished he gave an allowance to him just so he could take it away for life! That was totally harsh.

And so Hank found himself the next morning with his brother, scrubbing up the floors best they could as Brock and Pop had been picking through and tossing most of what was now ruined garbage.

“Man, why do I have to do this?! It was Hank’s fault! He said he’d not get us in trouble and all!”

Doc looked back to Dean from the box of junk he was carrying. “Young man, you’re judged by the company you keep, and you obviously kept the wrong people around. Now hush up and get back to work.”

“But I don’t WANNA! It’s no fun! And…”

Hank tuned out his brother’s whining. Despite everything…well, now that all the scary stuff was over, he couldn’t help but feel blank again. He figured if anyone looked over at all of them right now, they were just doing a family clean-up day or whatever. Despite yesterday, this morning had started out like so many others, after all. Birds chirping, bees buzzing, the sun high and shining and warming up the beautiful late summer day like it did so many others and that most of all it was-

“-BORING!” Dean yelled out loud in such in an incredulous tone.

******
Okay, so it is probably OOC and the plot is rather incredulous. What the hell, this was making me chuckle like a madman when writing it and I had fun anyways. Plz be reviewin' k thx.

Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone...

flight__ — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:32:34 GMT

As requested by runcible, the conversation in which Dr. Venture and Brock agree that Tawny Kitaen is responsible for breaking up Whitesnake.

“Brock! Brock, have you seen this?”

Brock stops dead in his tracks through the living room to stare at the television, which Dr. Venture is currently pointing at. “Yeah,” he answers. “Whitesnake, ‘Here I Go Again’, right? Why is this even on television, it’s like twenty years old.”

“It’s one of those VH1 countdown things, something about greatest songs sung by David Coverdale or greatest songs remixed by a Polish bubblegum pop singer or something equally retarded. Brock, I think this video stands squarely as immortal proof that women are evil.”

Squinting, Brock glances from the TV to his boss. “What?”

“Look at her! I bet she planned it all along!” Dr. Venture holds his hands out to the screen, where Tawny Kitaen is rolling on the hood of a Jaguar.

“She planned... what, exactly?”

“I totally bet she had it all planned out to break up Whitesnake, probably got together with Yoko Ono or something and hashed out all the details over Ben and Jerry’s.”

Brock rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Doc, I really don’t think there’s like a support group for that kind of thing.”

“Are you saying that you don’t think Miss Tawny is the reason there is no more Whitesnake?”

“I don’t know, I guess she is, but seriously, Doc, women don’t sit around trying to figure out how to break up bands.”

“Of course they don’t,” the doctor says haughtily. “That’s programmed in their DNA.”

For several beats, Brock is silent, trying to wrap his head around that. “What?”

“Okay, well not how to break up bands, exactly, but women are creatures of destruction, Brock! All they do is screw stuff up for men! It’s just our cross to bear that we can’t live without their beautiful, curvaceous forms.”

“... That waitress from last week wouldn’t go out with you, huh?”

Dr. Venture makes a noise of dissent. “Brock, I... okay, no, she wouldn’t, but really, that’s hardly involved here. All I’m saying is, the reason we don’t hear anything about Whitesnake anymore is because Tawny Kitaen stepped into the picture and ruined it! Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, I guess it was her,” Brock answers, rolling his eyes. “Not that it was like a huge loss or something. You need anything else? I gotta go screw around with the X-1’s landing gear, I think there’s a body stuck in there.” He leaves the room without waiting for an answer.

“Wait, Brock!” Dr. Venture calls down the hall as he goes. “What do you think about Nancy Spungen?”

runcible — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:34:06 GMT

Title: Mad Science
Words: a little over 1,500 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Dr. Venture creates life.
Notes: Links to my journal. :D

The sky was becoming the color of steel

runcible — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 01:57:13 GMT

Title: How Mol Lost an Eye and Other Tales
Words: a little over 2,000 words
Rating: R
Summary: Exactly what the title implies. Warning for blood.
Notes: Most def gonna post this to Deathmance if anyone wants me to. ;) And lolisodapop and others who posted: totally going to reply to posts, am kinda behind on comments right now.

The Charger sped through the night, aided by its twin beams. Moths danced in front of them, flitting in and out like balls of light themselves and it was as if the darkness were nothing and the headlights matter, everywhere they shone trees appeared. It was that dark, that kind of dark moonless night. Trees and trees and trees; the landscape was nothing more than trees on either side of the winding road, bristled pines gleaming but opaque, illuminated for an instance and then gone.

Brock didn’t care at the moment and steered the car at a reckless pace, not thinking, driving with instinct as if the car was part of himself. He lit a cigarette and forgot it was in his mouth. He only realized his naked hands were freezing because the window was rolled down, billowing chilly air in great gulps. With numbness he rectified this and rolled the window up. It was the last bit of detail to reality to he partook in for the moment. Every single thing, from the smell of smoke, to the blossoming scenery, to the fact that the clouds were so thick tonight it appeared clear but starless, became nothing and he was engulfed solely in the past.

The past hour. The past hour and he couldn’t believe he was here. The realization that he was here, driving, minus a shirt, and cold snapped him back to the present long enough to take stock of the important things: he was bleeding, from his right eye and he had a stab wound in his back. The remaining bits of his shirt formed a tourniquet on his leg, which had been nicked with a bullet. He needed to get that checked out. Last thing he needed was to die bleeding somewhere in Eastern Europe.

It occurred to him he had no idea where he was, just what section of the continent he was on. He couldn’t remember. He didn’t even feel the pain, he’d separated himself from that. He felt nothing, no memories until the last hour, no feelings. Emotional gangrene.

And there was that thing, that thing he needed to take care of … .

He wasn’t stupid. Hunter wouldn’t have called it stupid, he knew Brock better than that. He probably would’ve just found it … maybe he would’ve found him being stupid. He didn’t know; Hunter was dead. Hunter had been dead for months and Brock had watched him die. He could never know what Hunter would’ve thought.

Only that the entire night, all of it had been a bad idea.

Brock lit another cigarette and taking a drag, felt a sudden soreness in his chest where he was sure there would be an impressive bruise tomorrow. He didn’t seem to be losing a lot of blood, but it was enough that there was cause for concern. There was one person in the world who could spill so much of his blood and he still wouldn’t be angry at that.

*
“You’re late,” Molotov had said.

She was sitting on the old bed, in that leather get-up, but her hair tied back tightly, no-nonsense, no smile on her lips. He was used to her indifference, but something in the way she tossed her hair when he shut the door, the way she threw her head back to draw attention to that one detail … she knew he loved her hair in a ponytail. It now coiled on her shoulder and her tongue was poised at the corner of her mouth in thought.

“Yeah, it’s a little hard, this being not even on the map.”

“Are you sure you’re alone?

Brock folded his arms.

“Look, why am I here?”

In the blink of an eye, she had snatched out her gun and focused it with surgical precision on his groin, still sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at him coolly.

“Are you alone?” she repeated .

Brock unfolded his arms and held up his hands.

“Jeez. Pretty sure. Kinda hard to follow someone out here.”

Molotov did not move the gun. She merely smiled and said, “You know I must ask.”

She cocked the gun now.

“How armed are you?”

“Why the q--”

A bullet zinged through the air and punctured the thick walls of the shack, not before it grazed Brock’s calf.

“Jesus!” he roared. “What the hell?”

“What the hell, nothing, Samson. I ask the questions.”

“Fine.” Wincing, but keeping his eyes on hers, he held up his knife. “This armed.”

“Good.”

There was a tense moment as she surveyed him silently. He sheathed his knife and returned her stare, hard. The wind outside howled. It could snow soon. He wondered how she had arrived here and how she was leaving. And honestly, what the hell he was doing here. The latter seemed to matter the most at the moment. But he had an idea.

She’d left him breadcrumbs for the past few days leading to this shack, the invitation only, “Finish what we started.” He wasn’t afraid, he could handle her. He went with something not unlike excitement. There was a lot of things to finish. He could count at least three and four if you included what happened last time they’d had a collision. He’d been waiting on edge, tense for years, for this to come up again. He wondered, but not worried, if it would come to a head tonight.

“Why is that good?”

She glared. “Questions, Samson.”

“All right, ma’am,” he said dryly, “may I ask you a question?”

She motioned with her gun in a bang gesture.

“What the hell is this all about?”

He’d arrived here with several scenarios in mind, all of them ending with no clothing and post-coitus cigarettes. He obviously knew that wasn’t the case and knew in the back of his mind, in an indistinct manner, what the case actually was. He had been on his guard and not lost his head completely. He knew who she was, knew how deadly she was, but couldn’t help but hope.

It had been so long.

Of course he’d come.

She slid off the bed and walked towards Brock, never letting the gun stray.

“That is a good question,” she said. She bit her red lips, paused and continued as she came face to face with him. “I am so glad you asked.”

She looked away for a moment, out the window where a few flakes of snow drifted past. She closed her eyes. The gun never left its target.

In an instant her eyes had snapped back to his.

“Don’t you remember?”

There was something in her voice now, like a snake coiling. Something that long to bite, hiss, sting, but instead kept in the grass or the shallows of a pool, waiting for the right moment. Sinister. She was enjoying drawing this out, that much was obvious. It was obvious because it was Molotov.

“It’s been three years,” he said quietly.

“You fool!” she hissed. “Do you remember what happened the last time we met, don’t you remember? It has been three years but I will never forget.”

“What,” he said directly. “That I killed your father?”

Her eyes widened and she gasped. She honestly didn’t think he remembered and he knew instantly his inkling was correct.

“You bastard!” she cried, then calmed herself by drawing a deep breath and moving the gun to his heart. She pressed the cold metal as hard as she could and leaned forward on the tips of her boots until their faces were inches apart. “You bastard, you killed him,” she whispered. “And now, I’m going to kill you.”

“You really think that’s gonna work out for you?” Brock asked.

“Questions!” She leaned back and stepped away from him, stowing her gun.

“I will allow you to fight for your life, to die with honor and then I will shoot you in the head and send that head back to your OSI.”

She moved into fighting stance, the tiniest indication with her finger signaling him forward. He backed against the door and held up his hands.

She was the first to strike; her boot pierced his eye and through the film he saw well enough to grab that boot and slam her into the crude table in the corner. She fell through it as if it were paper. This shack was obviously incredibly old and very abandoned.

From her place on the floor she shot out a leg and tripped him, and in an instant had her boot on his chest, blood pouring from her mouth onto his leather coat, a chunk of the table in her hands. Moving her foot before he could react, she hit squarely in the chest with the block, knocking out his breath.

Still bleeding from the eye, he wheezed and made to grab for her leg, but seeing through one eye was difficult; she transferred the block to another hand and hit him again on the chest.

Recovering quickly the second go around, Brock grabbed her hand and hit her in the head with her own hand still clutching the wood. She shrieked and in her momentary distraction, he pulled his knife and pressed it against her neck.

“You want revenge for revenge?”

She looked down at the knife and went for her gun. He was quicker this time and kicked her shin, her legs toppling from under her and pinned her to the cold wooden shack floor.

She spat in his face.

“Your partner,” she said snidely and laughed. It was an utterly joyless sound and Brock had only heard one laugh before like that and it had come from her.

“Yeah.” Holding her with one hand he pressed the knife into the back of her neck, drawing beads of blood.

“Not a fair trade,” she said quietly.

“Have you had enough?”

“Have you?”

“Are you really going to kill me?”

With a fluid movement, she lifted her leg and stabbed Brock through the back with the sharp tip. He dropped her and she spun out from under his grip, kicked him in the mouth and pulled the gun once again.

“What did you really think I brought you here to do?”

Brock stood under the barrel of the gun.

“Not kill me.”

“And why not? Why not kill you?”

Her hair had fallen from the ponytail and blood smeared her face. “Why, Samson?”

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes. Every breath he took, he could feel the blood gush from the wound on his back. And he was panting.

“Because … you love me?” She sneered as she said this. “Then you are a fool.”

It had happened quickly, but not quickly at all.

He had not known why he had done it. There were so many other things he could’ve done at that point. As he sped through the night later, safe in his car, he recounted them. But at the time, it seemed the only thing to do.

He could’ve kicked the gun out of her hand, tied her up and threw her in the snow.

He could’ve kissed her and then kicked the gun out of her hand, tied her up and threw her in the snow.

Instead, before he knew what had happened, his hand shot out and his fingers plucked something soft from a socket. There was a second’s pause as the blood ran down her face, and blood slime ran down his fingers before either of them realized what had happened.

In her confusion, her gun wavered and he kicked it out of her hand.

She let it fall clutching the spot where her eye had once been.

“You … my eye!” she screamed. “You pulled out my eye!”

He surveyed her coldly, as the blood poured over her gloves, over those red lips, into that red hair. Blood, red the color of their relationship.

He’d left her and she had said nothing as the door banged loudly behind him.

*

He turned the heat on in the car, as the snow had began to fall, undistinguishable from the moths dancing in the headlight. He pulled around another corner and felt around on the seat next to him and recoiled slightly. It was still there. His trophy.

He hadn’t looked at it since he’d plucked it but now, steering with one hand, he glanced down at the green iris, staring into his own face and thought of Mol still screaming in a shack somewhere.

He’d need to put this on ice. And find a jar.

lolisodapop — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:39:55 GMT

Well, it's a fine Wednesday morning. The birds are chirping, cicadas buzzing, ect.
Guess where I am! That's right, sitting at my desk, giving drug tests to sweaty, hungry iron workers. My desk is covered in saliva. My office manager has been telling offensive mexican jokes and playing Statler brothers ALL MORNING. Please distract me. Prompt me, I will write a drabble and then I will prompt you back.

deborak — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:21:33 GMT

Title: Crush
Author: Debora K.
Rating/Warnings: PG
Format: Drabble, 100 words
Summary: Triana has an interest in Brock Sampson.

Dean didn’t mind when Brock interrupted their 'date.' Nor did Triana.

“You kids want a drink?” The shoulder Brock burled into the doorway extended into a bicep, then a hand extending a six-pack of pop. Triana’s lips parted, but the words in the air were Dean’s.

“We call that a carbonated refreshment here at Venture Laboratories,” Dean said, puffing up importantly.

Brock snapped one can from its brothers, opened it, and downed the soda. Triana watched his incredible throat pulse around the liquid. Finishing, he crumpled the can easily as paper. “So, you want this or what?”

“Definitely,” she sighed.

runcible — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:57:59 GMT

Thought I'd post a fic I wrote the other day to break in the community. :o Feel free to use this header or make up your own relevant to your fic.

Title: A Little Pity Now and Then
Words: 2600ish
Rating: R
Summary: New to the bodyguard job, Brock gets pretty much the shock of his life ... so far.

“Oh, great, not again, is the cable out?”

Dr. Venture had just walked into the den. He now sighed, his head resting on his shoulders as he placed his hands on his hips. “It is, isn’t it?”

Brock took a sip of the beer he’d been holding between his knees. It was slightly warm now. With a swallow he raised his eyebrows at Dr. Venture. “What was your first clue?”

“Well, you wouldn’t watch public television if it wasn’t, I know that.”

Brock looked up in time at the muted television to see a lion rip out the throat of a zebra. Blood spilled over the dust silently. He yawned. “You don’t know that.”

“Nice set up.” Dr. Venture nodded to the rabbit ears and tin foil cocked just so to pick up anything that happened to be less fuzzy.

“You know if you don’t pay the bill, they cut off the cable. That’s how it works.”

Dr. Venture’s mouth twitched in annoyance. “It’s five o clock.”

“Why does it matter if it’s five o clock?”

“I’ve been in my lab all day! You know, dinner.”

“I’ll order pizza,” said Brock flatly.

“All right, Mr. Surly,” said Dr. Venture walking out of the room already. “Do not know what your problem happens to be.”

There wasn’t a problem, Brock had been empathetically telling himself.

“By the way,” said Dr. Venture poking his head back in. “It is five o clock. Where are the boys? Lose them watching PBS?”

“They went out for a … hover bike ride,” said Brock.

“Make sure they’re back before you order pizza.”

Brock leaned back against the couch and watched the rest of the lions take out another zebra for the cubs. He didn’t mention it to Dr. Venture, but he was getting a little worried. They went out for a bike ride at two o’clock. Around four he started getting suspicious. They wouldn’t answer their communicators and it was like 100 degrees out there so he’d figured they’d get hot and be back in ten minutes.

He drained the rest of his beer and turned off the TV. It was making him feel nostalgic and he had other matters to reluctantly attend to.

*

“Boys!” Brock turned his two-way on again, frowning and searched. No answer. “Boys, what the hell?”

It was five twenty five before he decided to go searching. Too immediate action would confirm his feelings that something was wrong. Either way, he was pissed. Pissed at Dr. Venture in particular because if something had happened to his sons he would blame Brock. Brock was the bodyguard. But how the hell would something happen on a Saturday afternoon? Inside the Compound?

He felt that niggling suspicion he’d felt since he’d come to work here the past six months … the feeling that he wasn’t being told everything.

It was a terribly lonely and annoying feeling.

“Boys!” he called again. There seemed to be absolutely no sign of them anywhere. A sensation was rising in his stomach like swallowing heat in reverse, his heart pounding, his blood boiling. Exasperation, worry.

It was still hot outside, despite the sun going down to some extent. Hot September. The grass, clipped two days previously, was soft under his shoes. He paused and in the sunset’s glow received more static on the two-way. He tried Hank, then Dean. Then Dr. Venture.

“What, is the pizza here?”

“Are you sure the boys aren’t in their rooms?” Brock was avoiding looking Dr. Venture in the eye and instead stared at the terrain surrounding the Compound. Nothing could happen inside it on a Saturday afternoon.

“I -- uh why?” Dr. Venture’s voice became sour. “Are they lost?”

Brock wiped sweat from his nose with his already sweaty palm. “No. I just can’t find them.”

Dr. Venture didn’t seem concerned so much as annoyed, but in the opposite way Brock would’ve expected. “Dammit, did they leave the Compound?”

Brock glanced at Dr. Venture’s face on the screen. His eyebrows were raised and Brock could tell he had something on the tip of his tongue. He ducked out view hurriedly, muttering something like, “Hope not again” and the feeling Brock had been suppressing for so long he’d nearly forgotten it until now came creeping back.

“What again, Doc?”

“Nothing.” Dr. Venture’s face had changed now that he in view again, his mouth a line. “If you find them, tell me uh right away.”

“Doc --”

Dr. Venture had ended the channel.

Sighing in a way that made his chest ache, Brock opened his mouth to call out again, but instead wrinkled his brow and went around to the back yard. It was obvious but he hadn’t checked there yet, because … that it was too obvious. And really, he was on the side of the house, if they were in the backyard they would’ve answered him.

Buzz. A thin sound.

He paused for mere seconds, but then kept going.

He wasn’t sure, but the closer he moved around the house, the more distinct a sound became. It was a low buzzing, like electricity. More like static to his ear and less Tesla coil.

The sun was sinker deeper and deeper into the distance, the darkness aided by the hills surrounding Venture compound. The entire backyard was already thrown into dusk, the air itself grey and filled with the trilling of mosquitoes and that sound. That buzzing.

He didn’t know he wanted to know what it was, but the gut feeling was that it had something to do with the boys. It was a bad feeling to have as the sound itself wasn’t exactly good. It got louder and Brock slowed his walk, shuffling in the short grass now, approaching the pool.

And that was when it saw it. Rather he heard it first, the loud electricity sound which had grown like snapping now. A series of electric snaps. Now more Tesla coil than static.

There was the satellite dish, floating ominously in the pool, wires surrounding it floating and hissing. It seemed every line from the power line to the line connected to the dish had been brought down and was being pinioned by something in the pool. Those lines not held down thrashed like snakes, emitting sparks.

He couldn’t approach it directly without fear of electrocution, backing up instinctively lest there be water in the grass. He took another step back, turned on his heel and ran, knowing abruptly exactly where he was going.

“Doc.”

Running, Brock slid a bit on the grass, touching his fingers to the ground to steady himself and ran into the house.

When he brought his wrist back to his face, he saw Dr. Venture looking unusually apprehensive. “What, did you find the boys?”

“I don’t --” He skidded into the kitchen, his shoes full of grass clippings and ran down the hall and down the stairs. He was panting but not from the effort of running. He could feel the heat rising and with it a feeling of sickness.

“Brock, did you find --”

“I don’t know!”

He slammed into the guest bedroom’s door with his shoulder.

“Dammit, it’s locked.”

“Where are you trying to -- Brock what the hell is going on?”

Brock slammed into the door again and with a creak it gave way.

The room was quiet and covered in a thin layer of dust. Light, but he knew it was the light from the pool reflected on the opposite wall and Brock muttered into the two way.

“I’m turning you off for a minute, okay?”

“Don’t pan--”

Brock spun, walked into the room backward and noticed instantly odd shadows in the pool reflection on the wall. He didn’t want to turn around because he knew. Sickly. But slowly, one foot behind him, he did.

“Oh my fucking God.”

He didn’t think his anxiety could peak anymore, but he was at a loss for anything anymore.

“Oh my God. What -- oh --”

Hovering at the bottom of the pool, holding down the submerged wires were two hover bikes and what was clearly and of course obviously, dead Hank and Dean.

Their floating corpses. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours since they had died, but there was no way in hell they were alive. He’d seen too many dead bodies not to recognize one right away, not matter how much he did not want to be right.

For a few seconds Brock didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go into the water or … he couldn’t call Dr. Venture … he couldn’t. He simply backed against the wall, a part of the shadow cast, his hands shaking.

It took him roughly two seconds to reach Dr. Venture’s lab. Dr. Venture was sitting on a stool, trying in vain to look casual.

“Why the hell did you screen me? Where --”

“Doc.”

Brock brought his hand to his mouth in disgust.

He didn’t consider himself a weak man in any sense. Ingrained in him from the time he entered the OSI until this very second was an unshakable lack of shock. He’d seen a lot. He’d seen worse than he was sure Dr. Venture had. He’d even seen worse than this. But something about this whole thing and Dr. Venture’s oddly anxious and now slightly exasperated face was worse in feeling than anything. He’d seen a lot; he hadn’t felt this.

“I checked on them.”

Brock’s voice was hollow. He opened his mouth to say something. Anything. He was a tough guy slowly loosing his composure.

He wasn’t sure which combined bits that rendered him speechless but he had a good idea it was just the shock coursing through him.

“I did,” he said again. “They were -- they just went for a goddamned bike ride!”

“What did you find?”

Dr. Venture’s voice was low, abnormally calm now. He crossed his arms.

“Doctor --”

“Are they dead?”

Like a flick to the skin the word hit Brock. He knew they were dead but it was the tone in which Dr. Venture said it. Casual, businesslike … almost like he’d said it before. And with more interest.

“They’re in the pool, Doc. They’re -- in the pool.”

“Damn, not again.”

“Not a -- what the hell are you talking about?”

He opened his mouth to repeat himself when met with silence but Dr. Venture just said, “Damn it, not again.”

There were two options at this point for Brock. An explanation which he felt was months overdue or he would go freaking crazy.

“Again?”

“Yes, again. They’ve.” Dr. Venture coughed uncomfortably. “This has happened about three times before. No four.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Yes, yes, four.

Brock just looked at Dr. Venture.

“No, no, I’m deadly … serious.” Dr. Venture’s somber look was lightening up. “Bad word choice. Um, incredibly serious.”

“That’s just not possible!”

“Of course it is,” said Dr. Venture. He spread his arms indicating the laboratory. “Super science.”

“You just bring them back to life? You can just bring them back to --- what the hell?”

Brock felt the heat in his stomach rising to every bit of him, his hands especially.

Dr. Venture was surprisingly not smug at the moment -- incredibly out of character for what little Brock obviously knew -- and matter-of-fact.

“No, but they aren’t the first. You can … bring people back to life if they’re clones.”

“Clones?”

“Of course,” he repeated, “they weren’t the first.”

“And you --” Brock felt his voice rising again. “Do this regularly?”

“Not incredibly regularly. I mean not every week. But pretty often yeah.”

Dr. Venture hunched his shoulders defensively in Brock’s quiet. “Oh, like you haven’t seen anything like this! You were -- you’ve done plenty worse.”

“I’ve never … cloned children!”

“You’d do it too.” Dr. Venture began to coolly clean his glasses on the end of his shirt. He squinted as he looked through and frowned at Brock’s suddenly visible face. “Stop being noble, Samson, come on. They died once, I cloned them. I figured it would happen again. So I uh I keep spares.”

Brock unclenched his jaw. “You just keep bringing them back?”

“Yes! Of course I do. What kind of father would I be otherwise.”

Brock felt his eyebrow raise.

“Don’t --” Dr. Venture reached into his pocket swiftly. “I have something to show you.” He held up a key.

“What? Do you have something else you’ve never told me?”

“I couldn’t tell you up front!” said Dr. Venture, pushing past Brock and out of the lab door. He began to walk down the hall and Brock followed.

“What would I say,” Dr. Venture said over his shoulder. “Oh hey, by the way, my sons are clones?”

“You might’ve mentioned it before I found them dead floating the pool!”

“Come on.” Dr. Venture didn’t turn around but was walking down a darkened hallway, turning to places Brock had never been and assumed he wasn’t allowed to go. It would’ve helped. Definitely helped.

The hallway was pitch black.

“It doesn’t pay,” said Dr. Venture, “to keep the lights on in here. They are on in the room.”

“I didn’t have to find them dead in the pool, you know.”

“Yeah, you probably did,” said Dr. Venture slightly brusquely.

They had arrived at a metal door, which Dr. Venture unlocked and opened with some difficulty. It was a little rusted.

They’d entered what looked like a lab straight out of a horror film. A chamber. Brock was trying not to let anything else punch him in the gut.

There was a glow coming from the center of the room and the punch came anyway when Brock realized with a shudder what that glow was. Chambers, liquid filled chambers containing naked … bodies. Suspended bodies. Hank and Dean, hairless, half-formed.

“Clone slugs,” said Dr. Venture, straightening his glasses. In the glow he looked slightly sinister, like a mad scientist in old movies Brock watched on TV as a kid on Halloween. But instead of black and white, Dr. Venture was next to him sighing. “It’ll take a bit, but they’ll be back good as new. You see, I grew these quite a while ago and as I said, I keep spares. These will gestate for a while and their memories and other things I’ve recorded while they sleep -- yes, the beds -- will supply the rest.”

Brock was finding this horribly and, bit by bit, believable. It was slow, creeping but it was all becoming horridly real. He crossed his arms.

“And they’ll just be back?”

“Yes, genius hmm?”

Brock bit back a response to that and instead said, “Do they know?”

“Of course not. The only people who do are in this room.”

He paused.

“Except them.” He pointed to the clones.

“This is just effing crazy,” Brock muttered.

“But genius,” said Dr. Venture, “you have to admit.”

“They won’t remember dying?”

“I can pick and choose,” said Dr. Venture. He leaned his head side to side, thinking. “Like, you know, them dying for example.”

“Even little things?”

“Anything. Like what?”

Brock frowned and said slowly, “Can you make them forget me running over their cat?”

Dr. Venture laughed. “What cat? Super. That’s good.” He patted Brock on the arm. “You should ask them how many dogs they’ve had. You’ll notice three missing from their memory.”

“This is all twisted,” said Brock, as Dr. Venture walked towards the door. His insane boss’s mood and ego was inflating visibly.

“You’ll learn to get used to it,” was all Dr. Venture said before leaving Brock standing alone in the clone room.

Weirdly, a word he’d come to know all too well, he didn’t believe him at the time.

WELCOME

runcible — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 01:21:30 GMT

Welcome to Super Science Fic! We don't have many strict rules, but everything we do have is in the userinfo!

No tagging just yet and submissions are unmoderated, so have at it! The community only works if everyone posts. :)

Any comments/questions or requests for affliation/linkage can be directed at this post. Ask away.

Have fun.