I was gonna hold off on posting these until I had more, but B is sad, so hers gets posted now. And Amy's, 'cause it was done too (and Amy is awesome too!).

Title: At the Edge of a Petal
Fandom: Newsies
For: queenitsy
Prompt: This was supposed to be baseball stuff, but I started blathering about wooing!fic and B said I could write that instead, and quite frankly the baseball one was SUCKING (and not in the good way), so this happened instead. It is the least drabbly drabble I have ever done. Er. Threw the nod to Huck in there for you too, B. 'Cause I loves ya. ;)


Matt had never claimed to be the sharpest member of their little group – that position was most definitely held by David or Tony, depending on what definition of “smart” you used – but even he could tell something was up when the poetry started.

At first it had seemed like Ryan was just being extra nice for some reason. Holding doors open, sharing an umbrella, smiling a whole lot more than usual. Matt had figured that the ever-suspicious Ryan was stocking up on good karma for the baseball season, and anyway it wasn’t like Matt exactly minded Ryan’s smile. He’d been so soppy with that smile, in fact, that it had taken him nearly two weeks to realize that the last game of the season had been three days before Ryan’s niceness campaign began.

Then came the gifts, just as Matt started to wonder what was going on. A Broadway concert DVD, “just because.” A beautiful new hardcover edition of Huckleberry Finn – “It’s your favorite, right?” A mix CD of songs “that remind me of you.”

It had classical music on it.

This was getting weird.

Matt finally decided to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and headed over to Ryan’s suite when he knew Jack and Tony would be out. As he knocked, he wrinkled his nose at the foul smell in the air.

The door opened and a cloud of black smoke billowed out as the stench doubled in intensity. Through a bleary-eyed fit of coughing Matt could see Ryan frantically and ineffectually waving the smoke away.

“Hey, Matt, what’s up?” he asked, as if huge clouds of smoke came pouring out of his apartment every day.

“What the – hakk – hell is going on?” Matt demanded, wiping his streaming eyes.

“Huh? Oh, the smoke.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Yes – hkk hakk – the smoke.”

“Well, uh.” Ryan looked…shifty. “I was baking you cookies and they, uh. Went a little…wrong?”

“Is this ‘wrong’ meaning ‘on fire’?” Matt asked, and then, “Wait – you were baking me cookies?”

“Uh. Yes?”

Matt frowned. “Okay, Ryan, this is getting a little weird. What’s going on?”

“Well – ”

“I mean, did my dog die and I just don’t know it yet?”

“No, I – ”

“Did you do something that’s going to get me pissed at you and you’re just covering your ass in advance?”

“Not exactly – “

“The doors, the smiles, the presents, now cookies…it’s kind of freaking me out, Ry.”

Ryan’s brow furrowed. “Freaking you out.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He had a smudge of flour on his cheek, Matt noticed pointlessly. “I…sorry.”

Something was wrong. “Ry…?”

Ryan ducked his head. “Look, I’ve got to clean this up. I’ll talk to you later. Sorry to freak you. Won’t happen again.”

“Ryan, I…”

“Gotta go.”

The door shut. Matt stared at it for a moment in befuddlement before turning and walking back down the stairs and out of the building.

He didn’t think he’d said anything wrong. Baking, presents, umbrellas…it wasn’t the sort of thing one guy did for another guy. At least not another guy who was his friend. It was something people did for…

Oh.

Oh.

Ryan still looked cranky when he opened the door again, but the expression changed to inscrutable when he saw the solitary pink rose Matt was holding out. “…Matty?”

“You dope.” Matt smiled. “Why didn’t you just say it with flowers?”



Title: Parenthetical
Fandom: Cowboy Bebop
For: jedinewsie
Prompt: "Dude, I would love you muchly for Cowboy BeBop-ness!...*cough* Erm...Spike/Vicious? Tell me that isn't ohsoprettyandevil." This turned out a lot pr0nier than I thought it would. Naughty Vic! Title is MAD CHEEZY YO.


There are scars on Spike’s back that he can’t see and never feels, except sometimes when he stretches or showers and reaches in exactly the wrong (right) way. The skin pulls tense over his muscles, and it doesn’t exactly hurt so much as tells him that isn’t how he was made, he isn’t quite right (wrong) there.

He forgets them when he has his shirt off and only remembers when other people notice: Jet, part of the general concern over his various wild animal markings, strange coming from a patchwork man; Ed, with those huge spooky eyes and surprising silence; Faye with a red smirk he knows is because she can tell what they are.

Even she’d probably be surprised to learn that when the skin pulls wrong (right) he doesn’t remember blond curls but hair white as ash, as death; doesn’t remember soft suppleness and smooth pink skin but lean, wiry hardness, twisting and rough and cruel as winter. Even now when he sees Vicious’s fingers – twisting around (Spike) his sword, curling inside (Spike) a trigger guard, slick with (Spike) blood – he can see that if they spread just right (wrong) they’d fit perfectly into the scars on his back.

It’s good they’re somewhere he can’t see all the time.

He relaxes his arms, and starts to stretch again.