no more barricades, slowly diffusing

2016-05-01 21:41[personal profile] biochemistry
biochemistry: (don’t live your life like a movie)
[At first glance, it seems like nothing is right in the world. Daisy is still out there, still infected by that creature. Said creature, who is inhabiting a body that has manipulated and abused and hurt and harassed quite literally everyone that Jemma holds dear and a dozen more she could name without a second thought, was millimeters away from Jemma herself earlier this evening and all she did was shoot it in the gut and flee, crying like a child. She's tipsy enough from whatever glowing blue thing she drank to keep up appearances that every mood seems twice as strong and she's so damn scared that something more is going to go wrong because it always does and she's been pacing this hotel room since Mack left, feeling anxious and jumpy and too much in her own body and not enough at once.

At second glance, well.

Fitz returns and there's kissing and he's being so kind and they're being playful in a way that she'd all but forgotten and she's just hoping she isn't being pushy about this because that would be the worst possible thing, and clothes are starting to come off and there's laughing and touching and -]

I don't know how much time we have.

[That's true in the metaphysical sense, of course - which accounts for a lot of why they're even here, because of the way that Jemma knows anything could happen and she doesn't want to have any more questions.  But what she means is in the very literal sense, of they might be summoned to work at any minute and if that has any bearing on things for Fitz she wants to be considerate.]

◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2014-09-04 23:57[personal profile] mendacium
mendacium: (will bring the sun once more)
It wasn't as if Nora was going to be in town for too terribly long this time, and the more she thought about it the more she realized that involving another in her and Jack's playtime was courting danger; her Andrei was a sweet boy, make no mistake, but he was a baby and he was new to this lifestyle and what's more there was always the slight possibility that something might go wrong.  While her bodyguards were disposable, her carefully-picked seconds were not, and he was in the latter category.

But she was Nora Gainesborough, and she didn't get nervous, not really, so after making the appropriate arrangements, she had Jack summoned to her place.  Until all was well and settled, it'd just be the two of them, and it was in that spirit that she moved to the door, swinging it open before Jack had even finished knocking.
◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2014-07-25 14:35[personal profile] mendacium
mendacium: (shortcut down the beaten path)
One of several conclusions that Nora came to almost immediately: this new life of hers was freedom.

Freedom to go where they like, freedom to do what they like, freedom, the sort that as a human she had never truly known.  It wasn't just the new rules that accompanied her new state (though those have taken some learning) but the ones that came with her new station.  She wasn't a proper girl, proper lady, unless she chose to be, and that was something she hadn't even realized she wanted but that she took such joy in.

As tonight: they'd gone northwards, nearer to the land her new brother once called home though not in it, there was nothing to worry about but feeding and finding someplace to rest when day broke, and while their father went in search of such a place, it fell to the children to find their own dinners, find their own amusement.  They hadn't landed in a city or even a town as they so often did, so instead Nora and Eric were hunting between the cottages and the nearby forest -- or anyway, that's what she was doing.  In her impetuous baby way, she'd run off by herself, determined that she wouldn't need any help, and if he came across her now, he'd find her sitting beneath a tree with legs sprawled out in the most unladylike way, happily and rather messily drinking from some hapless village fellow.
◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2014-04-20 03:50[personal profile] wayoutsidethebox
wayoutsidethebox: (Oh no you didn't)
One bad, very bad, decision, two bullets, a miracle cure, all of it seemed to be the beginning of a non-stop whirlwind with them in the eye of the storm. Even with her body quickly mending, it had taken her a bit of time to get back on her feet, and then there had been emergencies, cases. Skye had never even been able to tease the blonde about playing doctor. Maybe because in a game, she wouldn't have been quiet so strict.

Now, it was no different. They didn't have the time, not really, but they had no orders, either, nothing they could do until they heard from their contact. What they - Skye - did have, was a burning desire to feel someone close, to get that physical connection. Not just someone, but the beautiful, and funny, and smart, and adorably nerdy Jemma Simmons.

So, she had unhatched the dastardly plan to get the doctor to her room - "Hey, can I see you in my room for a sec"? - and so, now they were there, the door closed behind her. It didn't take many steps for Skye to close the distance. Her grin over at the doctor was fun, ready.

"I've missed you." Since then, she had.
◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2014-04-02 16:06[personal profile] ungentle
ungentle: (this body can only cry for so long)
King's Landing had not truly suited Daenerys when she was half-welcome there, and it suited her even less in the time that had followed Ned Stark's execution.  He had been her only protector (and perhaps a grudging one at that) and his guardianship of her the only thing keeping her from being turned fully into the pawn she so dreaded being.  It wasn't, she supposed, quite so horrible as the situation poor Sansa found herself in: she had gone through as many horrible things as balanced out the lovely ones she'd been promised when her family was still in the Baratheons' and Lannisters' good graces.  She had never been in anyone's good graces, she had been in part a prisoner from the start, now the keys had just been given to a different, admittedly crueler, jailer.

It had always been hers to be polite and demure and apologetic, prove that her blood did not define her loyalty.  It had always been hers to pretend where that loyalty did lie (and she had never truly been bothered by the Starks, they had always been, if not warm, then decent to her, but the withering glances she got at court -- to say nothing of the wild-eyed lustful ones -- were not a surprise either, and were not so hard to deflect).  She had always been treated with suspicion, she had always been moved around.  The talk nowadays was of marrying her off to a lord of the Lannisters' choosing, someone true to them who would temper any mild rebellious instincts that may appear (Lord Eddard had always been wary of allowing this, but now he could not stop it).

Until she was played, though, she stayed at court with the others.  She wasn't often allowed to be properly alone, and she wasn't often allowed to keep private company with Sansa (who knew what they, daughters of a traitor and a madman, would dream up if unsupervised).  She wasn't pampered (she was never pampered) but she wasn't kept uncomfortably.  She also wasn't ignorant, though she was good at playing that up.  As such, she knew it was only a matter of time before she received an invitation to be entertained by the new queen-to-be, the lithe and beautiful Rose of Highgarden.
◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2014-02-12 00:12[personal profile] ungentle
ungentle: (you won't believe that i am sorry)
They have been a few days in the Red Waste and have who knows how many more ahead of them when Daenerys first breaks down.

Not where anyone will see, of course.  It wouldn't do for the people now following her -- that she is now leading -- to be made aware of her doubts, her fears, her anxieties, her loneliness.  She must be strong for them, and it is this resolve that causes her to keep her head up all during the hours of traveling, the meals that are already becoming meager.  She smiles, she makes decisions, she passes time with the dragons and thanks whichever god is listening for them.

It's not till night has fallen and everyone has begun to drift off to rest, till she is alone (something she is so unused to now, after sharing her bed; it's funny, at least in a tragic sort of way, because she was alone for most of her life but now, after what amounts to so little time elsewise, she dreads it), that she lets at least some of it wash over her.  She's quiet, it is not her intention to alarm anyone, but she has not let herself do this and she thinks, if dimly, that perhaps she needs to.

When she hears a voice outside her tent, though, she does her best to calm herself, sitting up and wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, steadying her voice as she calls, "Hello?"  Anything else, anything belying her emotion, wouldn't do.

◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share

(no subject)

2013-10-21 15:50[personal profile] ungentle
ungentle: (oh we're black and blue)
Daenerys knew the North very well by now, as much as she knew it wasn't hers.

She'd spent practically her whole life in Winterfell, under Lord Eddard's -- protection?  Care?  Watchful eye?  Possibly some combination -- and truly, she was grateful of it.  Surely her life could have taken other, less civil turns: exile, perhaps, or being killed like the rest of her family.  She wasn't a Stark, she had always known she didn't quite belong, but she was looked after by the Starks, this for reasons she was only just beginning to understand.  (It fascinated her that not killing children was considered a matter of politics and not of basic decency, but then, she was only a young girl, she wasn't meant to understand these things.)

It wasn't uncommon for the once-princess to seek out privacy and quiet when her day's work was done.  She'd been a striking girl and she'd grown into an even more striking woman, and even despite the whispered worries about her lineage, she had always received a great deal of attention; she was as good and polite as she could be when approached, but this tendency to run off and hide, though not entirely ladylike, stemmed from a desire to avoid such attention.  She often retreated to the godswood, though not from any particular religious inclination so much as that she knew it was unlikely she'd be disturbed there, at least by anyone who wasn't welcome to disturb her.

Today's earlier raven from King's Landing, though innocuous enough, had sent Daenerys into a mood: carefully disguised, hardly noticeable to most, but nonetheless one she felt she needed to be alone, or mostly alone, to sort through.  If anyone were to look for her, or just to stumble across her, they'd find her in the godswood, bundled in a cloak and deep in thought.
◾ Tags:
  • Memory
  • Share