"Hey, Shurley!"

( Please don't be talking to me, Chuck hoped. )

Chuck Shurley
Supernatural
523

It was the coldest night so far of the young year, and Robert was glad to be home. He slipped out of his clothing and into a simple t-shirt and pajama bottoms before adding another quilt to the bed, covering up his sleeping wife and their three year old daughter. Then he crawls beneath the covers to join them, the feeling of both of their bodies press against his warming his heart as well and his body.

Ten years ago, he'd have been alone, going home to a cold bed. He was a surgeon then, one of the best in Chicago, and he'd probably spent hours on his feet before finally being able to call it a night. Dinner would have been whatever he could grab from the fridge and he'd turn on the TV in the bedroom because he didn't want to outright admit he was lonely. There was another redhead in his life back then, one he couldn't have because she was very much married. All he had was his career.

Now he wasn't a surgeon anymore. He didn't even have two arms anymore. But he did have a beautiful wife who returned his love, a daughter that made him discover life all over again and now a new baby on the way. And for the first time in his life, he felt completely rich.

Muse: Robert "Rocket" Romano
Fandom: ER
Word Count: 277

I remember the night ten years ago I decided that maybe suicide would be the better option for me.

And you remember it too. It was the first day of a new Millenia. You were probably out partying, but I was where I had always been on New Year's Eve, at home. Watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve, and even though he had some very fine entertainment, Mr. Clark was not to personally provide me with company. It was the biggest day many of us will see historically, and yet, I cringe at the memory.

I remember picking up the phone and dialing that number where the operator gives you the time. I wanted to hear a human voice that badly. And once I did, I wept. It seemed like a very good idea then to end my life, end my suffering. I didn't think I'd ever move beyound that feeling of inertia. I even took a knife out of the drawer and looked at the place where my veins touch my skin. I almost did it. But something in me decided I couldn't do it.

I won't pretend that I had some ephipany or moment of divine inspiration. In fact, what I did next was take the bottle of wine out of my fridge and proceed to get totally intoxicated. I'm pretty sure I passed out under the coffee table. And then I woke up the next morning and started over again. There was no miraculous recovery, but every day it did get a tiny bit easier.

It was worth every moment of pain to be where I am now.

Muse: Jerry "Hands" Espensen
Fandom: Boston Legal
Word Count: 272

Time doesn’t run linearly, of course. Just because a Doctor occupies one point in time and space, doesn’t mean she can’t be occupying others simultaneously. Ten years is a long time.

He sits at her table, not the other way around. The reasons blur over time, but she thinks it was because she looked a little lonely. He smiles brightly, and chatters, and offers her a pastry. She buys him a cuppa, and the pastries, too, so he won’t have to steal money from a bank machine this time.

He chats with her for an hour, and then runs off to save the world (again).


)No.
Not quite.(

( every angel is terrifying. )



Muse: The Doctor (Eleventh)
Misc Fandom/Doctor Who OC
Word Count: 895
Comments go here.

What was I doing ten years ago? Well, ten years ago I was freezing my butt off in Marble Bay, covertly keeping an eye on a teenage princess much like I had been for the last fifteen years.

Oh, you want more? All right, fine. It was about a year after Sarah had moved Alex and herself from Montana to Marble Bay. Alex had pretty much settled in at the public high school and had made a friend in Lucinda Delegadio. She was still writing stories but it had been a while since she had written anything about Coventry.

To be honest I had mixed feelings about that. I knew that she wrote the stories as a means of escaping her life in Crow Creek. But that had been back then. In Marble Bay her life had improved considerably over what it had been in Montana: Alex and her mother shared a nice apartment on the lower income side of town, she had friends and was doing quite well in school. There was nothing to escape from. But on the other hand I feared that she was losing her connection to Coventry and that when the time came she wouldn't be able to help her sister save it from the Darkness. And I almost wished for something to happen so that Alex would start writing about Coventry again.

Then, not three years later Sarah was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Muse: Karsh Antayus
Fandom: T*Witches (DCOM version)
Word count: 239

What were you doing ten years ago?

What do you think I was doin' ten years ago? I was doin' the same thing I always do. As the First Evil... I was everywhere... in everyone. Evil was doin' its evil thing. And the good guys was tryin' to do their thing. Tryin' to deal with their own personal problems, and find the time to save the world. Same old, same old.

( Read more... )

Topic #316
Muse: The First
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Word Count: 902

Ten years ago, I had been stationed in Port Royal for perhaps a year or so. I was lieutenant, under the command of Commodore Thomas Ashworth on the ship of the line Augustus. Weatherby Swann was governor of Jamaica, and Jack Sparrow was barely a speck on my horizon, known to me only as a troublemaker branded by the East India Trading Company for his refusal to transport slaves. Elizabeth Swann was a spirited girl who I entertained with my war stories, and Will Turner was an ambitious youth who yearned to handle a sword as well as I did. I spent my pay on rent, books and brandy, and jealously kept the latter away from the two other lieutenants I shared quarters with.

Ten years ago, I was fighting in first and last war of my career thus far: the War of Jenkins' Ear, a conflict that soon became the War of Austrian Succession. Great Britain fought against Spain, and I learned that the Spaniards were tough fighters who were loathe to retreat from a battle. Their obstinacy meant that I saw much bloodshed inflicted on both sides. I had been about six years in the service of His Majesty then, and though I was not unfamiliar with the brutality and death that battles and skirmishes bring, I couldn't help but feel staggered by the theatre of war. I was no innocent to begin with, and yet the war improved my skills with the sword and pistol further. War made fast learners of all of us that wanted to survive it.

I am always mindful of the responsibilities of my rank....they weigh heavy upon my mind even in moments of peace and relaxation. When I was that young lieutenant, my greatest concerns were ensuring that I could appease my landlady with rent and ensure I was fulfilling my duties to the best of my ability. I spent my nights ashore with my roommates, playing cards, drinking and smoking. At sea, I played my violin and wrote letters to my mother and siblings (goodness, George and Victoria were still young children then). Life did not feel as easy then, but I yearn for the relative simplicity of it now, long before Jack Sparrow made his presence felt and Elizabeth was no more to me than a close friend who I wanted to protect. If I'd known what was to come, I might have savoured that time more.

Admiral James Norrington
Pirates of the Caribbean (films)

Fandom: Daredevil (comicverse)
Character: Matt Murdock
Word count: 730

We had lots of people on our street while I was growing up who fit that image of a big, loud, happy-despite-its-quirks kind of family you'd see in sitcoms. My family wasn't exactly like that. Looking back on it now, I wouldn't trade all those dinners I spent with just Dad, talking sports and eating sad leftovers, for anything in the world. But I must admit that there times when I was jealous of the things other people had that I didn't.

Occasionally, I'd be invited to a friend's house and get a taste of a very different kind of life. Tommy Pescante, one of the guys I used to hang out with in elementary school lived with his parents, two grand-parents, and enough brothers and sisters to make you think the Pope might change his mind on birth control. I think his mom felt kind of bad for me since I didn't have a mother at home, and for a couple of years I'd have dinner at Tommy's two or three times a month.

( Read more... )

Ten years ago people didn't know I existed.
( ten years ago... )

Really? Do we really want to go there? Fine. That would have been...January 2000, yes?

( Shall I tell you the pleasant lie? )

Muse: Adam Monroe
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 410

Ten years ago, I was seven.

( you remind me of a time when we were so alive )

Megan Gwynn/Pixie
X-Men
180+

He had called it her something borrowed.

In all truthfulness, it probably would have sufficed for something old.

But to her, it was so much more than that.


(cut for a few season 9 spoilers)


Chloe Sullivan
Misc. TV (Smallville)
[ooc: Please leave any and all comments at the above link.]

Derek looked down to the offered pack of cigarettes from Sean Juarez, his ‘in’ to the Chicago mafia, and shook his head. He pulled a pack of nicorette from his coat pocket and waggled it in the air. “Nah. You know I’m trying to quit.”

“Yeah, but in times like this don’t you just want a good puff?” Sean pushed the pack in Derek’s direction again. “C’mon Marcus. Have a smoke to calm your nerves.”

Marcus, it was the name he had gone by for the last seventeen months of undercover work where he was expected to get a look at the infamous and elusive Mario Juarez.

Read More…


Muse: Derek Morgan
Fandom: Criminal Minds

What were you doing ten years ago?

(Ten years ago, roughly, I was giving birth to my daughter Anna. I say roughly because Anna’s ten right now and she was actually born in February not January. I say it still counts anyway because my whole life at the time revolved around my brand new baby girl.)

Lt. Connie Murphy
The Dresden Files
334

They'd been in the air a little more than ten hours. Snake Eyes had never been a big fan of flying ever since the helicopter accident that had killed three of his friends and left him wounded and stranded somewhere deep behind enemy lines. That their new aircraft was completely enclosed and had only minimal windows for the pilots was no comfort.

For the first several hours of their flight, he'd tried to meditate. Meditation and those moments on the brink of wakefulness and sleep was usually enough to take his mind off anything. But it was impossible to keep focused while sitting strapped into a jump seat in the cramped cargo area with six other people for what seemed an eternity. Sleep, that light doze you never seem to get beyond while flying, helped a little, but he was getting restless.

At last the pitch of the thrusters changed in frequency, and his stomach lurched as their forward motion stopped abruptly and they began descending. The descent continued far longer than was necessary for how high they'd been flying. A brief, panicked thought of hitting the ground flitted through his brain, but he clamped his jaws tighter and refused to let it show.

The motion stopped abruptly and he felt the wheels touch down on a solid surface. Together with the rest of the passengers, he unstrapped himself from the five-point harness and stood; his legs felt like rubber after the long time in the air. Slinging his pack over his shoulder and careful not to squash his precious sword, he followed a short, balding man out the cabin door and down a short flight of steps.

They were in what looked like an underground bunker, the rough stone walls arching up to a high ceiling that seemed to stretch for a mile. He paused in front of a man wearing a beret and camouflage fatigues who nodded briefly to him before surveying the rest of the people coming off the aircraft. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said when they'd all assembled in front of him, "I'm General Hawk. Welcome to GI Joe."

Snake Eyes. GI Joe. 353 words.

Ten years ago, I was 12 years old and let me tell you, life was a lot simpler back then. I knew I was different, but it didn't seem to matter so much and no one knew about it. It wasn't that big of a deal unless Dad really needed my help on a big farm job. I had no idea what my heritage really was and there was definitely no pressure or stress over it. Sure, it was still annoying at times, like when Dad wouldn't let me go out for any sports team, let alone football, but most of the time I pretty much felt normal.

I was still in Smallville Elementary and Chloe Sullivan had just come into my life. Which makes that age pretty special. Not only did we become the best of friends, but I also got my first kiss on that day. I guess you could say back then I was a pretty lucky guy.

My favourite activities included camping out in Pete's backyard, growing out of my clothes faster than Mom could mend them and helping out at the Farmer's Market. My parents had just started letting me do that when I was 10, so it was still a pretty major thing for me at 12.

Everything was so much easier back then, back when I didn't know, when no none knew. But it couldn't have lasted, so I'm happy I've got the memories I do of that time.


Comments here.


Muse: Clark Kent
Fandom: Smallville
Word count: 246

I was fifteen. Fifteen is an interesting time. You're not really a little kid anymore so you can get into the parties with people twice your age who want to cling as hard as they can to their youth. You're not really an adult. You'll find fifteen is that year where people kind of waiver if they want to sleep with you because technically you might make them a sexual predator if they're caught by the local authorities with you. Of course it really depends where you're at, and the smart people don't get caught anyway.

I did a lot of drugs at fifteen. A lot of drugs. Enough that I could pull out my MRI scans from fourteen and now and show you what your brain on drugs look like. Fifteen was like living every day as if it was your last. The world was just full of new and exciting ways to land you in places you really shouldn't be. I'm pretty sure I was on boarding school number four at fifteen. It was three or four. My father could probably answer this one better than me. He wrote a lot of checks to bribe people to forget I was ever fifteen.

I tried suicide attempt number two at fifteen and spent that summer in luxury rehab number three, but let's not discuss that.

I'd say I was a punk at fifteen who lived recklessly and stupidly, and took for granted there would always be time on my side. Bruce would say I'm a punk at twenty-five. Maybe we're both right. I have learned time isn't always on my side. There are no guarantees that you'll live to see another day, or that if you do the people you love will be there beside you.

It will be two years tomorrow since I took a baseball bat to every window in my old house in Gotham. Wow, time really flies. I still miss you, Connor, you selfish son of a bitch. I still miss you, love you, and hate you and Darla for what you've done. Two years. That's just insane.

Harry Osborn
Spider-Man
349 words

( Altered neural pathways snap themselves back into line, reshaping themselves into form they should have always held. )

Muse: Angela Petrelli
Fandom: Heroes
Words: 503
Notes: Quote from Heroes episode 3x08 "Villains"