Tofu and Turnips -X-Files

Challenge: Include the following words in a story: melange, knavery, velleity, intrepid, querulous, chartreuse, turnip, foreboding, saturnine, and pragmatic.

*****

It was Saturday night, and Mulder was sprawled on his couch, engaged in a fierce internal debate - Chinese takeout, or delivery pizza? Chopsticks versus finger food, General Tso's chicken versus extra sausage and bacon, fortune cookies versus... hmm... He was still trying to figure out the pizza equivalent of fortune cookies when his phone rang.

He flailed one arm toward his desk, but the phone was just out of range of his fingertips, and he only managed to send a pile of books, papers, and other miscellaneous items flying. A pile that, until a second ago, had actually been organized, at least by his standards.

"Shit," he muttered, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning forward to grab the phone out from under a few old newspaper clippings. ("Bigfoot sighted?" asked one headline, while another read, "NIH refuses to comment on disappearance of top researcher.")

Yanking the phone cord to untangle it, Mulder put the phone to his ear.

Love Is All You Need (but flowers never hurt) -Arrow

Being a vigilante came with a full schedule: bad guys to catch, bullets to dodge, and a city to save. Sometimes, when things got really crazy, days blurred together and Oliver would often find himself unsure what day of the week it was. After all, keeping track of the date was a lot less important than staying alive and relatively unharmed.

So when the current nutso trying to blow up a city block had flower petals and paper hearts sprinkled in among the blocks of C-4, Oliver just figured it was a case of obsession gone very wrong. He wasn't about to let the situation drag out longer than it needed to, so he tuned out the guy's crazy ramblings, and ten seconds later the detonator was on the far side of the room with an arrow through it. Roy started trussing up the nutjob, and only then did it dawn on Oliver why the guy had chosen that particular day to finally snap.

The One to Hold My Heart -Arrow

It was just after eight p.m. on a Wednesday when Oliver Queen finally decided that he didn't want to ignore the depth of his feelings for Felicity Smoak for even one more minute. For months, he'd been telling himself that being with her would put her at risk, that she deserved someone better, someone who could give her a normal life, but tonight, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

The mission that night was supposed to have been a simple one - get Felicity into a mob boss's home while he was away on vacation, let her work her magic on his bank of servers, and get out before anyone ever knew they were there. It should have been nothing more than breaking and entering, but things went south quickly when the mob boss decided to come back from vacation a night early, and the number of henchmen patrolling the grounds suddenly quadrupled.

He'd gotten Felicity out of there as swiftly as possible, but they'd been spotted just as they were clearing the surrounding wall, and bullets had started flying. A quick roll over the top of the wall had put them safely out of reach, but not before he'd watched a bullet drive into the wall only inches from Felicity's ear.

Here, at the End of the World: Masterpost -SPN

Summary: He isn't sure how long they sit there in the darkness, watching the heavens rip apart, the only noise the sound of Sam's labored breathing and the impacts of a thousand angels falling to the earth..
Rating: PG
Word count: ~1,300
Warnings: Major character death.

Part  1 | 2 | 3

Pushing Back the Dark -Arrow

It had been a typical evening for the Arrow - scare a few druggies into dumping their stashes, and deliver the dealer to the SCPD, neatly trussed up and deposited in the alley behind the police station. Digg had trailed him in case he needed back up, but no one really put up much of a fight, and with Felicity keeping a watchful eye out for the cops, the mission had gone exactly to plan.

Oliver watched from a roof as the police responded to an anonymous tip and found the drug dealing scumbag, then flicked on his comm.

"We're done for the night. Go ahead and go home. I'm heading back to the foundry now."

Digg's voice crackled across the comms.

"Sounds good, man. I'll see you in the morning."

Stand Up and Take the War -Fringe (PG-13)

"I'll be here in case any more come across."

He says it without thinking, because that's who he is. Agent Lincoln Lee, defender and protector, not of universes (because that's always been her job), but of people. The ones he loves - he would lay down his life for them in a heartbeat. And the ones he doesn't even know - he would sacrifice himself for them as well.

Saving a universe is too big, too abstract a purpose to drive him. But putting himself in harm's way so that others may live… That, he can do.

The tension in the hallway is high for several minutes after Olivia vanishes back to her universe with the boy, fingers twitching toward triggers at every sound, soldiers and agents positioning themselves to cover every line of sight. But nothing comes through, no bald-headed Observers stepping out of thin air to strike mercilessly at the human race.

"Maybe they can't cross on their own…"

Post-it Notes and Oil Changes -SPN

Ever since he'd returned to the bunker, Cas had taken to spending his spare time skimming through the vast collection of knowledge the Men of Letters had amassed. Some of it he knew already, and some of it was actually incorrect, but he was constantly amazed by how much these humans had been able to discern through guesswork and research. It was fascinating reading, all of it, and even though Dean mocked him for always having his nose in a book, Cas loved it. Sam said Dean was just jealous because Cas paid more attention to the library than to Dean. Cas hadn't been able to figure out whether or not Sam had meant this as a joke.

Either way, the library had become his favorite place, and while Sam and Dean slept (because they were human and needed their four hours - he understood that now, having been human), he would pour over book after book.

Traders Wild: Fic Masterpost -SPN

Summary: Space AU - So far as Dean remembers, he's always been a Trader, moving from world to world, with no attachments and no real purpose to his life. But sometimes it feels like there's something missing, like he should be living a different life, if only he could remember what it was. Turns out his memories were wiped, but when Dean winds up in the middle of a trade dispute, working alongside a telepath, those memories start to return. (Written for the 2013 SPN Reverse Bang.)

Artist: glasslogic
Author: keslei
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~8,400
Warnings: Occasional mild language.

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Ch. 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Art Masterpost

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The Story Never Ends -Fringe

She's woken that morning by an overly-energetic four-year-old jumping up and down on the bed. It's got to be very early, because it's just beginning to get light outside, and she wonders for the hundredth time how on earth Etta does it. Yes, Olivia's a morning person too, but not like Etta is. Swiping her hand across her face, she reaches over to Peter's half of the bed, and is mildly surprised to find it empty - he is most definitely not a morning person, so for him to be voluntarily up this early… it's odd. She isn't given a chance to dwell on that thought, though, as her tousle-headed little girl plops down beside her on the bed.

Today, Etta is chattering happily about maybe having waffles for breakfast, and, "Momma, can we go to the park?" followed by a confusing story about the neighbor's dog, and Olivia can't keep up, not at this hour, not before a cup of coffee.

So she simply smiles and nods and, after Etta pauses to take a breath, tries to direct her daughter's attention elsewhere.

"Etta, honey, why don't you ask Daddy to make you some breakfast?"

"L'Chaim" -SPN

The Winchester boys have never really gone in for holiday celebrations, but New Year's Eve… well, that's always been their one exception. It's their own private thing though - raising their glasses to another year, celebrating making it through the last one alive (or least being alive at the end of it). Even when they've been at each other's throats, even when the world is literally ending around them, they've taken that one night off from hunting, from arguing, and just appreciated that neither of them, at that moment, is dead.

It's never been a big party or anything - last year they barely spoke to each other, downed a few beers, watched the Times Square insanity from the warmth of their shitty motel room. And at midnight, they lifted their bottles, tapped them together with a dull clink and a toast to coming back from the dead, again.

This year, though… this year was supposed to be different. No musty motel, no cheap beer (or at least some actual champagne for the toasting - Dean wasn't gonna forgo beer entirely), and there was going to be an epic party.

The Best Heroes -SPN

They're chilling in the Batcave, halfway through an uneventful day in the middle of an uneventful week, Sam absorbed in his books, only turning away to type up notes on his computer, and Dean glued to the small TV he'd acquired somewhere, getting caught up on Dr Sexy MD. It's a peaceful sort of day, one where they can almost forget about monsters and trials and how awful the world outside that bunker can be, especially since Sam's coughing a little less at this particular moment.

And then the "Breaking News Bulletin" flashes across the TV screen, and the world comes crashing in.

Dean's eyes stay on the screen, as he leans forward to focus more intently on the television, waving a hand in Sam's direction to get his attention.

"Sam. You need to see this."

God's God, and Easter Sucks -SPN

Warning: This is Dean's take on Easter, so it may be offensive to some people. And for the record, this is also very far from what I believe.

*****

Easter was always one of those weird non-holiday holidays that Dean never really got. Sure, the chance to pig out on chocolate bunnies and jelly beans was real appealing when he was a little kid, back when his mom was alive and they still celebrated holidays at all, but when he found out that Easter meant more than just the Easter bunny to some folks... Well, that was when he decided he really just didn't get it.

Because who the hell would actually want to celebrate their particular deity getting offed and then coming back alive again? Sounded like a haunting for sure, and he just couldn't understand why people would want to commemorate something like that.

It probably didn't help matters much that he didn't believe in their God in the first place, but unlike Sammy, who wanted to believe in something else out there to balance out the evil, Dean was pretty damn sure there wasn't.

One More Empty Night -Fringe

I spent so long imagining going down that path with you, imagining what it would be like to wake up in a bed next to you, to sit around, just the two of us, having a cup of coffee, reading the paper. And then, finally, I had it. I've seen what the two of us together looks like. And it's beautiful.
- Peter Bishop - 6B

*****

It's been a week since he found out the happiness he had was all a lie, since he discovered the woman in his bed was not really her - a week where he has gone back to sleeping alone.

But tonight is the first time his bed has felt so cold and empty, the first time he's wondered if he'll be sleeping alone for the rest of his life.

The Sum of One and One is Everything: Masterpost -Fringe

Summary: A collection of scenes from Peter and Olivia's perspectives, centered around their daughter, starting with her birth.
Rating: PG
Word count: ~13,000
Warnings: Spoilers through Fringe Season 5, Episode 8.

Part One - Beginnings

Part Two - Loss

Part Three - Reunion

Part Four - Finality

A Life Remembered -Fringe

Memory is not so brilliant as hope, but it is more beautiful, and a thousand times more true.

- George Dennison Prentice

*****

"I know who Donald is... Donald is September."

Walter delivers this stunning pronouncement with startling serenity, given the level of intensity with which he'd been pursuing this answer.

But Peter can tell that there's something more, that the boy showed him something beyond the identity of their mystery man, something that has shaken him greatly. So when Walter takes the ECOG device off his head and wanders off to his room in the back of the lab without elaborating further on what he had seen, Peter follows him, worried for his father's well-being.

A New Favorite Color -Fringe

It's a beautiful morning, just a week before their wedding day, and she's flipping through some paperwork in the office in the back of the lab while she waits for the Bishops to arrive at work, since their current living arrangements require someone to pick Walter up each morning. She is just finishing the last of this month's inventory reports when he barges in and throws himself down onto the chair across from her, clearly extremely agitated by something. She looks up as he makes his entrance, and immediately jumps to the conclusion that something terrible has happened, though she hasn't gotten a call from Broyles yet.

"What is it? What's happened?"

"What's happened? Walter is what's happened. I mean, I know he's crazy, but this? How can he possibly believe this is a good idea?"

The Greatest of These is Love -Fringe

"Take my hand, and lead me to salvation; Take my love, for love is everlasting; And remember the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God."
- Finale - Les Miserables

"I believe you could not be fully erased because the people who care about you would not let you go, and you would not let them go. I believe you call it 'love.'"
- September - A Short Story About Love

*****

Their love has always defied the odds. It has traversed universes, weathered the ultimate betrayal, survived when it shouldn't have ever existed in the first place. And tonight, as cold rain pours down and the strength of that love is tested one more time, it proves its power yet again. Love is what brings her there to fight for him, and that same love brings him back to her, as it always has.

And as he collapses into her arms, simultaneously filled with love and sorrow and peace, he revels in the feelings, in the paradoxical emotions that flood his soul. His eyes fill with tears as he realizes what he almost lost, what he would have lost if she had not saved him. Without her, he would have lost her and lost Etta, and he knows now that holding on to the love they share, to the memories of what they had and the hope of what might be, is more important than anything else. His family is everything to him, and he can't believe that he almost allowed himself to lose sight of why that is, to forget that it is love that holds them together.

Legacy -Fringe

"I needed to see her."

He knows what Olivia thought he meant, that he was grieving her and didn't want to let her go. That he wanted to be reminded one last time of what had been theirs, to see her face and say goodbye, to take a moment away from saving the world to mourn her.

But that isn't the truth.

It wasn't some desire for closure that brought him here, to watch a distorted hologram repeating the same message over and over again. No, he came here to stare into her eyes and convince himself that she would not be ashamed of him for the choice he has made, that she would understand why he has to become more than just a man.

After all, he did this for her.

And as he sits in the darkness, looks at her face, thinks of what he knew about the woman she became, he finds the answer he was looking for.

She would have done anything to defeat them. Used any means to accomplish that end.

She was the Resistance.

And his vengeance will carry on her legacy.

Sink Like Stones -Fringe

There are some things you can't undo. He knows that firsthand, in so many ways. And he has quite the list of things he would love to go back and change, things he would do differently if given the chance. Not explain away the differences in her, for one. Or, better yet, not run away from this universe in the first place. Choose to believe her that she didn't just have his Olivia's memories but was his Olivia, and not leave her standing in the rain. Play board games that afternoon rather than going to the park. And the one that's really weighing on him at this moment: stay with her no matter what the cost.

It really shouldn't have been that hard a decision to make.

After all, he had always done anything for her before. You'd think that if he could give up his universe for her (and he's done that multiple times, even destroyed it once for her, though that didn't work out so well), he'd have been able to give up one person so he wouldn't lose her.

Probably, if it had been anyone else, the choice would have been simple, maybe even easy, but then it wasn't just anyone, it was his daughter. And that was the problem. That was the reason he made one of the worst decisions of his life, the latest of a long series of things he's really not proud of.

Always and Forever -Fringe

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees his dead, the specters that live behind his eyelids, that walk his dreams. Olivia, his wife, with a bullet hole in her forehead, unseeing eyes staring up at the sky above Central Park. Olivia, the love of his life, again with an identical bullet hole, crumpled on the floor of William Bell's boat. His mother, dead from a broken heart. Peter from this side, wasted away from the disease. Peter from the other side, drowned and frozen under the ice of Reiden Lake. Henry, whom he unknowingly wiped from existence. And now Etta, with a bloody hole in her chest, slumped against the warehouse wall.

They take their turns speaking to him. Sometimes, it is the Olivias, reminding him of the times he has failed her, of the times he left her alone, of the times he was too slow or too weak to save her. Sometimes, it is his mother, telling him again to be a better man than his father, to take care of the people he cares about. Sometimes, it is the Peters, making sure that he does not forget that he lives for all three of them, that his life has to mean something, because he has the chances they never got.

But tonight, as he paces in the hallway... tonight it is his children who call out to him.