astolat

These all seem to be growing past drabble-length. *g*

everysecondtues asked for HP, Neville:

Double-Edged

Neville didn't know what to do with the sword. He'd known somehow to reach into the hat, and pull it out, and somehow he'd known how to swing it, with the rubies like a fistful of pebbles in his sweaty grip helping him keep hold. He'd known what to do in all the fighting, against the trolls, the dementors, the Death Eaters. But now all of that was over, and the fires had been put out, and the sword was still here.

He'd tried to shove it back in the Sorting Hat, but it wouldn't go. Harry had stared at him and said, "No!" in an almost savage way, when Neville offered it to him. And he couldn't just leave it lying around.

So for the moment he was carrying it around with him. Luna had wandered over to him earlier that afternoon and given him a scabbard for it, and a belt, although he felt a right prat wandering around with the thing slung at his waist like something out of King Arthur. It dragged at his shoulder and hip, so he had to walk straighter, work to keep his shoulders level.

He was starting to get used to it.

---

le_mousquetaire asked for SGA, McKay/Sheppard:

Inhibitions

"I'm scared," John said. They'd found a small cave, full of soft dead leaves. The two of them were buried underneath the heap, panting quietly.

"Don't say that!" Rodney said. His mouth felt strange and rubbery, like half an hour after a dentist visit when the novocaine was mostly worn off but things still didn't work right. "I'm scared too! If they catch us, they're only going to shoot you. I'm the one who's going to be enslaved for the rest of my life, possibly tortured on a regular basis, unless I get rescued, which admittedly is a reasonably good possibility, except you'll still be dead and I'll still have post-traumatic stress disorder and get shipped back to Earth to spend the rest of my life cowering under my bed, so that still doesn't exactly make for an appealing scenario. Also there are probably slugs in this pile of leaves. I hate slugs. My sister stuck one in my bed when I was twelve and I screamed so hard I wet myself."

John looked at him. "They didn't bother actually drugging you, did they?"

"Yes, they did!" Rodney said. "What, you think I'm confessing bedwetting occasions to you of my own free will? I am seconds away from telling you stuff I would never tell anyone, which is exceptionally humiliating given that I've had a crush on you for four years now."

"Huh," John said. "I hadn't noticed."

"Yes, there's a revelation," Rodney said bitterly.

"I'd sleep with you," John said, after a momentary struggle where he tried to keep his mouth from moving. There was a pained expression on his face.

"Oh," Rodney said. "You would? Actually, that's affirming to an embarrassing extent—"

"Well, except for getting fired," John said.

"In case you hadn't noticed, we're probably going to be caught and killed-slash-enslaved any minute now," Rodney said. "Worrying about your career seems pretty secondary."

"Rodney, we're in a pile of leaves in a cave hiding from people who are trying to kill us," John said. "You want to have sex here and now? Because I'd go for it," he added, and frowned.

"Look at it this way, at least it'll keep us from talking," Rodney offered, squirming closer.

"Good point," John said.

---

And Melanie C. asked for DC Comics, Tim/Kon, and this came out, which is a mashup of the Reconcilable Differences universe with a bit of the post-Infinite Crisis storyline, which is a bit of a warning if you know what happened in that storyline, and if you don't, you can highlight here: Kon has been killed saving the world, and Tim is trying to bring him back to life.

Lazarus

LexCorp security was as good as it came, but fortunately nobody was paying a lot of attention to this facility, not anymore. The projects here now were small-time, mostly agricultural engineering, research into sustainable crops. Tim wasn't interested in any of those. All he wanted was down in the closed-off lower levels, way down in the old subterranean labs. Once he'd gotten past the mechanical security, and slipped down the elevator shaft, he didn't need to worry about guards.

It was weirdly quiet, this far underground, with nothing living anywhere near. The ventilation system breathed softly overhead, and electronic equipment clicked and hummed as he walked by. He'd programmed a video into the security system, so he didn't bother hiding from the cameras. He just walked down the hall, checking one dusty room after another, until he found the lab with the samples in it.

Lex Luthor, March 14, 2006, quadriceps femoris
Lex Luthor, March 14, 2006, flexor digitorum longus
Lex Luthor, March 14, 2006, gracilis

Superman, March 19, 2006, iliopsoas
Superman, March 19, 2006, sartorius
Superman, March 19, 2006, extensor retinacula

It went on from there: hundreds of vials, all preserved in the clear-front refrigerator. Tim opened the nitrogen-cooled case he'd brought and started loading them in, one after another.

"You might have some trouble extracting the DNA from the Kryptonian samples."

He jerked and looked around. Lex was standing in the lab doorway.

It'd been six months since Tim had seen him, at the funeral. Clark had come over to talk to Tim after. Lex hadn't, though. He hadn't said a word to anyone, and nobody had said anything to him. He'd stood through the service and the burial, and then he'd walked back to his limo and driven away. Mercy had been at his right shoulder the whole time, running interference.

"I know how close you were," Clark had said, his voice hoarse. "If you ever want to talk—I'd like that."

Tim didn't remember what he'd said back. Enough then and in the last six months, anyway, to keep Clark from looking more worried. Enough to get Bruce off his back.

"I was going to add trace amounts of kryptonite to the buffer," he said after a moment.

Lex shook his head. "It causes too much damage. You need to put the kryptonite into the ice used for incubation instead. The indirect exposure is enough."

Tim looked down at the samples in his case, and closed the lid. He double-checked it was secure before he stood up. "If you—why haven't you been working on it already?"

Lex raised an eyebrow. "I've been waiting for you."

---

*beams*

And speaking of flashfic, spnflashfic has reopened with the carpe diem challenge! It only lasts for one week, so come over and seize the day and write something! *waves pom-poms* :D