#microfic meme

"You told Mark, but not me?" Ivan asked.

And Miles answered: "I could trust Mark... to do what I asked of him. I could only trust you to do what you thought was right."

Well, that's a laugh. Mark is only the most bloody-minded, contrary person Ivan's ever met. Trust Mark to follow orders? The guy who stole Miles's mercenaries not once but twice, whose haring off on his own without consulting anyone got Miles killed?

But Miles had trusted Mark to follow orders, and what's more, Mark did.

Whereas he trusted Ivan--loyal-donkey Ivan, Ivan-you-idiot--Miles apparently trusts Ivan to think for himself.

Huh.

Still thinking on #12, but here’s #41. My apologies for taking so long to get around to it! Hope it was worth waiting for. ;)

~*~

The kitchendoor stood ajar, light beaming out around the edges into the midnight dark ofthe hall. A savory aroma, too, and laughter, though Belle couldn’t place whose,despite a note of familiarity. Curious, she leaned in, but the crack was too slimfor her to see anything. She placed her palm against the rugged oak grain andgave the door the slightest push to widen the gap…

A man workedat the stove–not Cuisiner–stirring a steaming pot in just his shirtsleeves, waistcoatunbuttoned and hanging loosely from his lithe frame. He wore no wig, and althoughit might have been colored by the flickering firelight, a shock of whatappeared to be fiery gold hair stuck out untidily from his head. Belle had to clapher hand over her mouth to keep from giving herself away with her laugh. Of course Lumière was a redhead.

Heturned his head so she could see his face in profile, teeth flashing white and eyescrinkling as he laughed again. Not the raucous laugh she was accustomed to hearringing from his wide-open mouth, but low, rumbling. Reserved for an audienceof one. Warmth prickled across Belle’s cheekbones with the realization that shewas intruding on a private moment, yet she couldn’t look away, hypnotized as bya flame.

Theruffle of Lumière’s cuff danced about his hand as he drew the spoon out of thepot and turned. He cupped his other hand beneath it as he extended it. Belle’sstomach gurgled as the smell of vegetable ragout, rich and comforting, filledher nostrils. He murmured something she couldn’t hear, but his smile widenedand then Plumette joined him in the narrow viewing field between the door andits frame. She, too, had abandoned her wig, her natural black curls bouncingabout her graceful curving neck as she leaned in to sample Lumière’s concoction.

Hiseyes never blinked as he watched her lips close over the tip of the spoon,though his forehead puckered in concern. Plumette’s dark lashes flutteredclosed as she tasted the ragout, the tapered tips of her fingers coming up todab a drip of errant broth from her lips, which curved in a smile. When sheopened her eyes, Lumière’s eyebrows went up and his head bobbed. “It’sgood, chérie?”

“Havea taste yourself, mon amour,”Plumette urged.

Lumièrereturned the spoon to the pot, but not to ladle himself a sample. Instead, he tookPlumette’s hand, fingers curling so delicately around hers, drawing her to himlike a swan gliding over serene waters, and tasted it from her lips.

Of the ficlets I’ve written in this universe, so far, I’d say this is the earliest in the timeline. (Also, @andsoshepaints just requested the same one, so this is for both of you!) (Also also, this is not as ‘micro’ as intended.)

15. Trembling hands

Patrick was pretty sure he was gonna puke. He was sweating and his vision had gone a little blurry - and he couldn’t blame either on the heat or the fact he’d taken his glasses off. He’d made a dignity dash down the rear steps of the stage and propped himself against the back wall of the restroom trailer, taking deep, careful breaths.

It’s something you ate, it’s something you ate, it’s something you ate.

(a/n: No pressure, huh :P)

I open my hands. I close them. "Operating at eighty-seven point three percent capacity and falling," I say.

I can feel adrenaline flooding my biological parts, and my drones dash down the corridor looking for the threat, but there isn't one, nothing I can see.

"Operating at fifty-two percent capacity. This unit recommends--" I clamp my mouth shut on more words, because I'm not garbage, I'm not disposable, and Amena is here and I can see that the way I'm acting is freaking her out, because sometimes some humans aren't completely stupid. I've got to get myself under control.

The shuttle passes between threads with the barest whisper, the loudest noise that Irene makes as she sits in the corner, weaving. Conversations wash over her like waves in the harbor: which barons her husband-to-be will murder, and how, how he and his father and their friends will divide the kingdom between them when they're done.

Either they think Irene isn't listening, doesn't care, can't understand--or they've forgotten she's there altogether.

Blues, light and dark, for sea and sky. Green and gray for olive leaves. Irene snips off one thread; takes up another.

46. Shimmer

Evenings were always the best time at Warped, as far as Joe was concerned. The heat of the day would begin to fade and the lights hanging in strings around the fences and the merch tents would shimmer in the lingering warmth rising from the asphalt. The roof of the bus, their favourite place to hang out, by now, would get so hot they’d have to bring up towels to sit on. They’d found you could get up through the skylight, too, if you climbed on Pete and Charlie’s bunks and lifted yourself through, which meant Patrick no longer had to dangle between the trailer and the bus and risk death by falling on to the hitch.

Tonight, Patrick was sprawled with his head resting on Joe’s leg as Joe sat back, propped on one hand, smoking idly, careful to lift his chin and exhale away from them as much as possible. They didn’t have many dates left, on this tour. In less than a week, it’d be over and they’d be back in Chicago. It’d be like leaving summer camp with promises to keep in touch with all the kids they’d made friends with, knowing they probably wouldn’t.

39. is Accursed, which @awake-atnight cheekily also asked for, for her second picks.

This is set before the last one.

“Dammit!” Patrick hissed, pushing at Joe’s chest until he’d clumsily knelt back on his heels and done his jeans back up, while Patrick wriggled to yank his own pants back to decency. They’d both heard the steps bounding up the bus’s stairs, and nobody bounded like that, except - 

“Yo! How’s it going homies?” Pete was grinning as he yanked aside the bunk curtain. Joe was pretending to get something out of the cubby hole at the foot up the bunk, carefully angled so Pete could only see him from behind, while Patrick sat up and dropped his cap into his lap nonchalantly. “Busy?”

“Nope,” Joe muttered, pointedly, “never busy around here.”

“Great, well, I was thinking that maybe tonight we can get Ken to stop the bus on the way through town somewhere, pick up a couple of pizzas and do a movie night, kind of? We’ve spent a bunch of time hanging out with everyone else, and I figured maybe we could do some band hangs, or whatever.”

Patrick glanced at Joe, wondering how long he could spend pretending to rifle through a cupboard smaller than the glove compartment in his car, and shrugged. “Uh, yeah, sure. Sure, Pete, that sounds good.”

“Sweet, I’ll go find Andy.”

“He’s probably, like, still sitting at the last venue, wondering where everyone is...”

Pete winked and finger gunned them, “I’m on it.”

They waited just long enough for the bus door to click closed before Joe finally turned and flopped onto the mattress beside him.

“Fuck. This.”

Laughing a little, Patrick caught his fingers in Joe’s hair, gently, and rubbed affectionately with his thumb. “The time will come.”

“Yeah, well, it feels like I’ll never actually get to, on this accursed fucking tour!”

“It’s not like you expected this to be easy, right?”

“No, but I feel like two M&Ms trying to bone in a candy tube.”

Patrick chuckled and bit his lip, quietly pleased by the fact that Joe so eager to progress their two-week old and still-sort-of-secret relationship, even if it meant sneaking around to find a time when all eleven other members of their tour party were out, and more instances of blue balls than his grandma’s bingo nights.

“Our options are kind of limited, y’know? Either we keep trying until it works out, or we stop caring what people think. God knows Pete didn’t care about people knowing he had someone in his bunk, two days ago.”

For a moment, Joe remained face down on Patrick’s comforter, wedged between his thigh and the side of the bus, then he pushed himself up onto his elbows, frowning pensively. “Well, I mean, like... I don’t care if they know. I thought you did...”

“Well, not really, I just -”

Sunbathing, candles and accost. I know you don’t ship Patroh, so I’ve tried to make this one gen-ish, although it’s set in the same universe as the others. It’s set very early in the tour, before the other fics posted so far.

There was a highway running way too close to today’s venue, in Joe’s opinion. It made the air thick in the heat and irritated his lungs as he ran around on stage, taking great gulps of it in his leaps. It was utterly gross and he’d found himself complaining to at least three different Warped staff about the choice of venue, during the day. He probably sounded like an entitled dick, but he was pretty sure he was entitled to air to breathe, like it was a basic human right or something.

He didn’t bother changing after the set, either, he just peeled off his soggy shirt and flopped down onto the grass outside the bus to let himself gently roast in the southern heat. The dry, yellow grass prickled at his back and somewhere a generator was whirring gratingly. This was totally not The Life.

“Sunbathing?” Patrick’s voice asked, as he dropped onto the ground beside him.

Joe opened his eyes to squint at him in the bright afternoon light. His cap was pulled low over his face, sweaty, reddish strands sticking out from beneath it, stuck to his forehead and cheeks; his shirtsleeves were unrolled to protect the pale skin on his arms; still, he looked pink in the face and faintly flustered. “Yeah, bathing in my own sweat,” he snorted. “It’s actually pretty gross and I think I’m lying on a bug’s nest.”

“I am not designed for this,” Patrick nodded resignedly, tugging at the shirt sticking to his belly and shaking some air in to cool down.

“I’m like, dreaming of a Chicago winter, right now, dude. I will take my car buried in, like, six feet of snow any day of the week, rather than this crap.”

“You’re a Floridian, shouldn’t you be able to deal with it?”

“Don’t you curse at me, jerk. Floridian! How dare you?”

Patrick grinned and dropped a handful of dead grass on Joe’s face in response.

For a little while, they sat, not quite enjoying the weather, but tolerating it peacefully together, watching the rest of their tour mates wandering around in varying degrees of misery and sweaty disarray. There was a distinct solidarity with the My Chem boys, their fellow Not Southerners, watching Gee stoically remain in his stage jacket in 102°F heat, his make up smearing itself into the overheated redness of his cheeks as he dragged on a cigarette in the thinnest sliver of shade on the site.

But it was Frank who strolled over to them, his hair plastered to his face with either sweat or pomade, the remnants of black smudged all around his eyes and down his face.

“Hey,” Patrick said, grinning up at him and giving his habitual half-wave. “How’s it going?”

“I’m melting like a fucking candle, man,” Frank told him grimly. “You seen Pete?”

“Pete?” Joe asked, opening one eye to peer up at him curiously. “Like. Our Pete?”

Frank frowned and glanced around them shiftily, shrugging. “Well, yeah - is he around?”

Patrick glanced at Joe pointedly. “He’s on the bus, I think.”

“If not, look for the horde of screaming girls if you feel like getting accosted,” Joe offered, watching as Frank nodded a thoughtful thanks and made his way to the door.

“Hey, you don’t… you don’t think…?” Patrick asked, under his breath.

The splutter of laughter slipped from Joe’s lips before he could stop it. “Seriously?”

“Well, I mean… stranger things have happened.”

Joe scrunched up his nose and grinned at the thought. “It can’t happen, dude. It’d be like dividing by emo.”