Alternate (Cutting Room Floor)
Apr. 20th, 2007 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jheti
I'm half-assed moving files around to integrate them in my usual helter-skelter fashion.
In doing this, I found Shadows-verse snippets.
The view through the hole in the curtain is interesting, at least.
They’re in the rear corner, voices low, heads together. Brin has the biggest damned grin on her face you ever saw. He’s being so...Something. Not suave, exactly; not charming. Koteth is never charming. He hasn’t got the class for it. But he’s got this...rough glamour, this low power of attraction that hinges on the way he looks right through a girl, into her, somehow, without ever once touching her or even saying much of anything.
The way he does for me, now and then.
Only now, right now, it's for her, as they murmur at each other. She chuckles low in her throat.
I turn my head to the wall and wait for it to stop. Or culminate in the usual noises. It’s one of D’hete’s tiny mercies that neither of them are screamers.
Of course, I don’t say anything! And I don’t move. I even hold my breath, kind of, because I’m an invalid just now and invalids don’t complain. Not in Brin’s care, they don’t. And every noise is a complaint.
I’ve never been so quiet in all my life.
Koteth says something, and her voice leaps up an octave into squealing, girlish peals of laughter. But it stops there. It stops cold. There’s a swift, savage series of rustlings. A violence of laces and buckles and Saints preserve us; that sounded like a trouser leg...
It goes on like that for a bit before I figure out that it’s the sound of them putting their clothes back on. As if it made so much difference.
“Ismar,” she says clearly, “lighten up.”
I just look back at her. Last time I said anything, I definitely wished I hadn’t.
“Really should,” she goes on, in that soft, little-girl voice. There are two very, very different sides to Brin, though I wouldn’t have known it if I had never been stationed in Dal Felden. “Bad for you to linger on things, yeah?”
“Offered to share,” says Koteth.
Because that’ll solve everything.
“Here on my charity,” she says to me, “because I can’t trusting you alone. If you’re to just playing along, it’s over much more fast.”
“Your mother said to your father,” I say.
Because she’s the girl today, she stares at me with big, round eyes the color of grass, and her lips tremble as she shows her teeth.
I’m getting very used to violence from the other side of the curtain, only this time it’s his arm and not hers whipping past the cloth and clenching tightly around my neck.
“Apologize,” he growls. “Right now.”
I gargle out something about my bad manners, and he squeezes harder before letting go.
She slaps Koteth so hard that the bones in his neck crackle. He falls over and takes most of the curtain with him, clearly as surprised as I am. She lets out a long, hard hiss and swipes at him again.
“Crazy!” he yelps, dodging this time.
I’m not as lucky. Her hand is on mine, draped lightly over the careful bandages around and through the curled-up wreck inside.
Only, instead of that trick that feels like hot nails going in, it’s something serene and cold. Her touch is soothing, even pressure. There’s none of her usual arm-twisting or verbal jabs. Of course not. She’s the girl today, and the girl only wants to help.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You,” Brin says, gently, “are both selfish assholes.”
And an unused, unfinished, false-start version of Anything.
Their embrace knifed through her shoulder blades.
Baraka always did have a hell of a grip. Only this time it wasn’t her. It was never her. It was always his true love, his great and total love, that skinny bitch with the black hair. Hair that ran through his hands like liquid silk.
It made her fingers tingle.
Brin bit back a curse and fumbled at the rack on the wall to no avail. Her key was gone, it was nowhere to be found and Mileena was there, right there in her brain. It was like she stood in the room, soft and waiting and warm, smelling faintly of almonds-it was something in the soap she used. Delicate, tantalizing…
Brin was just starting to panic when there was the sharp jab of a sword point in the small of her back. Damned graveyard watch—a whole pack of eager sentries, dying to prove their worth so they could get promoted off the shift. She put her hands up, slowly, stifling a sigh.
“Hold it,” warned the guard. She blinked.
”Koteth?”
“Brin?” The blade vanished with a hiss. “What are you doing here?”
”What are you doing here?” she echoed.
“I asked first.”
”Getting into the cabinet. Trying, anyway.”
Koteth grinned. “Must be wanting it pretty bad.”
Apparently, getting some a few hours ago had done nothing to stifle his usual charming behavior. Brin rolled her eyes.
“Give me,” she growled, “my key. Or I’m hexing you with nineteen children. All Kara’s.”
He made a strangled noise and pressed the key into her palm. She wasn’t going to ask how he’d gotten it; she didn’t care. It was hers again. That was enough.
Under the circumstances, it would have to be.
Brin undid the lock with shaking hands, counted bottles, and nabbed the sixth one from the left. She wrenched it open and gulped down a third of its contents.
Koteth let out a low whistle. “Bad night?” He pawed at the bottle, tried to get ahold of it.
She swatted his hand, breathing hard. “Very.”
When she moved to shut the cabinet, he swiped the bottle and briskly drank the rest of it.
“Knowin’ the feeling,” he said ruefully.
She scowled at him, chose another bottle, and sat with her back guarding the cabinet doors.
“What you’re having to be moping for?”
”You kidding me?” He raised an eyebrow. “Lara--she--“ He shook his head and didn’t, wouldn’t, continue.
”What’d she do?”
“She--they--“ he looked both ways, leaned over and whispered something in Brin’s ear.
”With the bedsheets?” she hissed, eyes round with disbelief.
“Oh, that was just the start. Did you know Kara’s double-jointed?”
”The first and third fingers of her left hand,” said Brin with a nod. “You don’t mean she--?”
Koteth made a face. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she certainly did.”
This time Brin let him have the bottle without much of a fight.
“You poor thing,” she said.
He studied her with narrowed eyes. “Don’t mock me.”
”I wasn’t.” Kara could snap three boards one-handed without any trouble at all. “How bad is it?”
“I might stop bleedin’ sometime before my next birthday. If I can go commando until then.”
Upstairs, they were kissing. Hard. His tongue was like sandpaper from disuse, but so was hers and there was blood in her mouth from a hundred shallow cuts, hot and fresh--
It had nothing to do with her. She was not upstairs, and definitely not part of that tryst.
“Let me help,” Brin said, using it as a chance to get the bottle and take a long, deep pull. It was cha’teel, dark and rich and much harder than pale, grassy-flavored h’rret. She hissed a little in shocked appreciation and took another swig.
If she was very lucky, she’d pass out before Baraka and his lady love got around to having sex.
Done for the day. I must go study. *Makes face.*
In doing this, I found Shadows-verse snippets.
The view through the hole in the curtain is interesting, at least.
They’re in the rear corner, voices low, heads together. Brin has the biggest damned grin on her face you ever saw. He’s being so...Something. Not suave, exactly; not charming. Koteth is never charming. He hasn’t got the class for it. But he’s got this...rough glamour, this low power of attraction that hinges on the way he looks right through a girl, into her, somehow, without ever once touching her or even saying much of anything.
The way he does for me, now and then.
Only now, right now, it's for her, as they murmur at each other. She chuckles low in her throat.
I turn my head to the wall and wait for it to stop. Or culminate in the usual noises. It’s one of D’hete’s tiny mercies that neither of them are screamers.
Of course, I don’t say anything! And I don’t move. I even hold my breath, kind of, because I’m an invalid just now and invalids don’t complain. Not in Brin’s care, they don’t. And every noise is a complaint.
I’ve never been so quiet in all my life.
Koteth says something, and her voice leaps up an octave into squealing, girlish peals of laughter. But it stops there. It stops cold. There’s a swift, savage series of rustlings. A violence of laces and buckles and Saints preserve us; that sounded like a trouser leg...
It goes on like that for a bit before I figure out that it’s the sound of them putting their clothes back on. As if it made so much difference.
“Ismar,” she says clearly, “lighten up.”
I just look back at her. Last time I said anything, I definitely wished I hadn’t.
“Really should,” she goes on, in that soft, little-girl voice. There are two very, very different sides to Brin, though I wouldn’t have known it if I had never been stationed in Dal Felden. “Bad for you to linger on things, yeah?”
“Offered to share,” says Koteth.
Because that’ll solve everything.
“Here on my charity,” she says to me, “because I can’t trusting you alone. If you’re to just playing along, it’s over much more fast.”
“Your mother said to your father,” I say.
Because she’s the girl today, she stares at me with big, round eyes the color of grass, and her lips tremble as she shows her teeth.
I’m getting very used to violence from the other side of the curtain, only this time it’s his arm and not hers whipping past the cloth and clenching tightly around my neck.
“Apologize,” he growls. “Right now.”
I gargle out something about my bad manners, and he squeezes harder before letting go.
She slaps Koteth so hard that the bones in his neck crackle. He falls over and takes most of the curtain with him, clearly as surprised as I am. She lets out a long, hard hiss and swipes at him again.
“Crazy!” he yelps, dodging this time.
I’m not as lucky. Her hand is on mine, draped lightly over the careful bandages around and through the curled-up wreck inside.
Only, instead of that trick that feels like hot nails going in, it’s something serene and cold. Her touch is soothing, even pressure. There’s none of her usual arm-twisting or verbal jabs. Of course not. She’s the girl today, and the girl only wants to help.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You,” Brin says, gently, “are both selfish assholes.”
And an unused, unfinished, false-start version of Anything.
Their embrace knifed through her shoulder blades.
Baraka always did have a hell of a grip. Only this time it wasn’t her. It was never her. It was always his true love, his great and total love, that skinny bitch with the black hair. Hair that ran through his hands like liquid silk.
It made her fingers tingle.
Brin bit back a curse and fumbled at the rack on the wall to no avail. Her key was gone, it was nowhere to be found and Mileena was there, right there in her brain. It was like she stood in the room, soft and waiting and warm, smelling faintly of almonds-it was something in the soap she used. Delicate, tantalizing…
Brin was just starting to panic when there was the sharp jab of a sword point in the small of her back. Damned graveyard watch—a whole pack of eager sentries, dying to prove their worth so they could get promoted off the shift. She put her hands up, slowly, stifling a sigh.
“Hold it,” warned the guard. She blinked.
”Koteth?”
“Brin?” The blade vanished with a hiss. “What are you doing here?”
”What are you doing here?” she echoed.
“I asked first.”
”Getting into the cabinet. Trying, anyway.”
Koteth grinned. “Must be wanting it pretty bad.”
Apparently, getting some a few hours ago had done nothing to stifle his usual charming behavior. Brin rolled her eyes.
“Give me,” she growled, “my key. Or I’m hexing you with nineteen children. All Kara’s.”
He made a strangled noise and pressed the key into her palm. She wasn’t going to ask how he’d gotten it; she didn’t care. It was hers again. That was enough.
Under the circumstances, it would have to be.
Brin undid the lock with shaking hands, counted bottles, and nabbed the sixth one from the left. She wrenched it open and gulped down a third of its contents.
Koteth let out a low whistle. “Bad night?” He pawed at the bottle, tried to get ahold of it.
She swatted his hand, breathing hard. “Very.”
When she moved to shut the cabinet, he swiped the bottle and briskly drank the rest of it.
“Knowin’ the feeling,” he said ruefully.
She scowled at him, chose another bottle, and sat with her back guarding the cabinet doors.
“What you’re having to be moping for?”
”You kidding me?” He raised an eyebrow. “Lara--she--“ He shook his head and didn’t, wouldn’t, continue.
”What’d she do?”
“She--they--“ he looked both ways, leaned over and whispered something in Brin’s ear.
”With the bedsheets?” she hissed, eyes round with disbelief.
“Oh, that was just the start. Did you know Kara’s double-jointed?”
”The first and third fingers of her left hand,” said Brin with a nod. “You don’t mean she--?”
Koteth made a face. “Oh, yes,” he said, “she certainly did.”
This time Brin let him have the bottle without much of a fight.
“You poor thing,” she said.
He studied her with narrowed eyes. “Don’t mock me.”
”I wasn’t.” Kara could snap three boards one-handed without any trouble at all. “How bad is it?”
“I might stop bleedin’ sometime before my next birthday. If I can go commando until then.”
Upstairs, they were kissing. Hard. His tongue was like sandpaper from disuse, but so was hers and there was blood in her mouth from a hundred shallow cuts, hot and fresh--
It had nothing to do with her. She was not upstairs, and definitely not part of that tryst.
“Let me help,” Brin said, using it as a chance to get the bottle and take a long, deep pull. It was cha’teel, dark and rich and much harder than pale, grassy-flavored h’rret. She hissed a little in shocked appreciation and took another swig.
If she was very lucky, she’d pass out before Baraka and his lady love got around to having sex.
Done for the day. I must go study. *Makes face.*
