#drouble

Some friends (Teland and Petra) and I were musing over what a BBC reboot of the NBC Hannibal series would be like. Our thoughts naturally turned to casting; Petra, who Doesn't Even Go Here™, nominated Ben Whishaw as Will Graham, and then Idris Elba as Hannibal, and then the odds of me not writing something in this non-existent fandom dropped to nil.

83. And So It Begins - "Truce be damned."

They didn’t arrive fast enough. Their failure was evident in the darkened red smears along the wall that led to the aftermath of the slaughter. There was a traitor in the midst, but by the time they received word of the traitor’s plan, it was too late. The traitor had wiped out the coven’s guardians, one by one. Or, from the way the bodies were gathered just at the back of the room, all together…

Not sure if this is the first part of a fix-it or a standalone fic-it but the image formed in my brain and I needed to make words of it. Vaguely contemplating making this a connected set of droubles (double drabbles) either based on the five basic tastes or based on chemical compounds. Suggestions welcome, but not requests per se, because I don’t know how this week’ll play out, work-wise.

Salt

Hotch catches her before she can get her card out, his hand grasping her wrist as he stares, as though he has any semblance of authority over her. “Don’t even think about it.”

She grins, cheeks flushed from the tequila and the company. “You can get the next one.”

It’s only then that she tells them she’s got some time off, and she’s sticking around. When Garcia’s eyes light up and she asks for how long, Emily leans forward to sip her drink, hair falling loose and catching on the rim of the glass. “Until you all get sick of me.”

“Not possible,” Rossi reassures her.

She straightens, dislodging salt crystals as she laughs and sprinkling them across the tablecloth and the flat of Hotch’s hand that’s laid inches from hers.

It takes everything he has not to bring his hand to his mouth and taste the brine, and to chase it with the flavor of tequila that he imagines lingers on her lips.

Whoever Mark is, he can’t possibly comprehend what he has or how lucky he is to have her.

Characters: Rose Tyler; Tentoo

Rated: safe for all audiences

Tags: Angst; Hurt/Comfort

Summary:  Rose tries to reassure the Doctor, when he is frustrated at his failed attempts to shatterfry the TARDIS coral.

Read also at: AO3; FF.net; Teaspoon

Notes: A double-drabble (Drouble) this week: proudly 200 words!

For the prompt from Timepetalsprompts: exhaustion.

“What if it never works?” The Doctor dragged his hands through worry-spiked hair. He scribbled figures across a sheet of paper, already crammed with similar gibberish, before crumpling it and hurling it across the room.

“It will. You’ll do it.” She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But not if you don’t get some rest. A bit human now, remember?”

He scoffed. “Imagine me having to give in to exhaustion! Having to live, rotting, on this one planet for the rest of my life.”

Rose retracted her hand, feeling more alone than she ever had during their years apart. She left him sitting by the dormant TARDIS coral, and went to bed, curling herself around her sorrows, gasping out her tears.

She felt his weight shift the mattress, and stiffened as his arms encircled her. His body shuddered against hers, his sobs a discordant accompaniment to hers.

“I was going to take you to so many places… What good am I if I can’t even do that?”

She stilled in realization, and touched the damp stubble of his cheek. “That don’t matter. Got everything I need, right here.”

“Yeah?”