Works in progress

[yakalskovich]

Ganked from both misslucyjane  and athousanderrors:

This is something I've concocted primarily because I want confirmation that I'm not the only one with a folder full of half-finished fiction on my desktop that might never get written at this rate. So here you are! The Work-in-Progress Meme! When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.



The Wheat-Blonde Lady
A fragment from my more or less abandoned novel about the murder of Rasputin
Warning! Hard R!

The wheat-blonde lady had by now developed an almost independent existence. Felix had bought the dramatic mane shortly before the war, from the original owner, who’d straight away emigrated to America on the proceeds, clever girl. He hadn’t worn the wig he’d had made from it much, as it tended to dominate the whole composition; but then, when the new rules called for an identity he could use to get to Dmitri, he remembered it.

Really, how should he pass for a strange lady with the same servants who’d let him in often enough by the front door, as himself? The one chance he could see was acquiring such a striking feature that all else would pale before it, and his face would, as it was, be effaced beneath it. And for that, the wheat-blond wig was just perfect. Felix usually gathered the mane in loose, somewhat pre-raffaelite curls with wisps that hung sweetly into his face, while the sheer volume of all that hair totally changed his outline. Nobody would ask whose face it was under that. The lady usually wore ethereal, flowing dresses and dark velvet capes, with some locks of the dramatic hair prettily escaping from under the hood.

Officially – that is, as the explanation given to Dmitri’s staff – she was a merchant’s wife with some literary ambitions and a very rich, very old and very, very jealous husband, visiting Dmitri under the deepest cover of the night, after the hubby had taken his sleeping draught. Felix found the whole cover story a bit hare-brained, but then it perfectly tied in with Dmitris sometimes rather melodramatic tastes; just as the hair, it was striking enough to discourage any ideas of something entirely different hiding beneath it.

Felix would never have lied to his own servants like that; he had a few people whom he’d trust to the end of the world and then some. His valet Ivan, of course, knew him as the wheat-blond lady and had, in fact, opened the door at the crack of dawn to her often enough, without the merest comment or raised eyebrow ever. If he’d ever heard through the grapevine of the St. Petersburg servants that a lady of just that description occasionally turned up at the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich’s in the dead of the night, he never showed any sign of it. There wasn’t the slightest reason for worry that he could repay the Petersburg network of rumours by hinting at the true identity of that mysterious lady.

Oh no, it was the Petrograd network of rumours now, of course, on account of the war. Unlike in any former wars Felix had read about in the history books, this one had inspired in all nations involved to a paroxysm of hatred against the other side and everything connected with their language and their culture. This had resulted in a Great Renaming of heroic proportions: the ruling family of England that had been called Battenberg was now Mountbatten, and the Russian capital of St. Petersburg had been turned into a completely unholy Petrograd. Felix hadn’t heard whether the Germans had stooped to renaming their famous Sans Soucis to Schloss Sorglos, but he wouldn’t put it beyond them, as things stood.

Felix didn’t really have any opinion about the war, apart from definitely not intending ever to see it from up close. The Great Renaming, however, he found right-out silly. If you kept on randomly renaming people and places according to dominant politics, you’d very soon end up not knowing where you were and who you were talking to.

It was still warm for September 7^th, so he chose a light stole that didn’t quite cover up the flowing, dark-red dress of the wheat-blonde lady, instead of the more customary cape, and a large straw hat with a dark-red tulle veil arranged artfully about it, letting the mane escape all the more copiously from under it.

“Be careful in that get-up, Prince Felix”, an old kitchen helper he’d known all his life greeted him admiringly near the back door.

“Don’t worry, Afanassia”, he answered, giggling. “if someone tries to get fresh with me, he’ll have the surprise of his life!” The old woman laughed, and Felix slipped out the kitchen entrance. She had been slaving for a few kopeks in his parents’ kitchen for time out of mind, but she’d never ever betray him! Dmitri was really a tad too paranoid with his people – it certainly hadn’t been them who’d told on him back when. That had been cleared up completely: the unwashed guru had admitted to it himself, after all.

But Dmitri didn’t know that, of course. Hell, the whole mess had really become randomly complicated with time.

The hansom quickly brought him to his goal, the Sergei Palace’s back door. Dmitri had gained the reputation of a great womaniser, so the driver couldn’t be at all surprised at having to deliver a lady there in the middle of a night. Well, there was an improvised military hospital now in the upper storey of the palace, so if the driver was of a more patriotic mindset, he could just as well imagine that the lady he’d picked up near the Academy of Music was doing volunteer work there and coming on her night shift. His disguise was really watertight, he mused; even Dmitri, nervous as he was, wouldn’t be able find flaw with his cover-up story.

Felix was let in at once, by an older servant with a long, doggish sort of face, whom he’d seen before, both at the front door and the back. “Good evening, madam”, the man greeted him unfazed, “I was told you were expected tonight and have orders to bring you through at once”.

“Very good”, Felix answered with a low voice, suppressing a giggle at the formal tones.

He was led up the back stairs from the basement to the first floor; then changed over into a formal corridor with high-backed chairs, and then a door was opened to him, and he was bowed in.

The door closed behind him.

Even though the rooms was covered by a soft semi-darkness, Felix knew exactly where he was. It was the grey salon: he’d not only designed this interior, he’d also contributed some of the furniture and decorations. The dark grey rococo sofa came from the stores of the Moika palace, same with the dramatic tiger pelt that lay in front of the fireplace which was carved from pale grey granite. Heavy grey silk curtains with coal-grey herons in the Japanese fashion embroidered on them hid the night behind the high latticed windows.

Dmitri lay on the sofa, head and one out-flung arm over the rounded armrest, fast asleep. From his coal-grey silk robe, one bare leg protruded.

Felix wouldn’t care at all for his people to let in visitors – any visitors – without making sure he was at least awake; but as the visitor in question, he found the situation quite charming.

He put the hat and the stole on a small chair covered in silver-grey velvet and sat on the sofa beside the sleeping Dmitri. He touched the leg and gently shoved it away to make himself comfortable, and still Dmitri didn’t stir. Been drinking all of last night, and now waiting up for wheat-blond ladies at all hours – small wonder he was tired. He looked so vulnerable, sleeping like this. As if he needed to be protected from the big, bad world out there trying to get at him.

Everyone who knew Dmitri by daylight would have thought this suggestion quite preposterous, but Felix knew him in the dark, and he’d learned that sometimes, it was true.

Tenderly, he allowed his hand to wander up the leg he’d been touching, and found that Dmitri was actually wearing nothing at all underneath, but even when his hand happened to encounter Dmitri’s sleeping manhood, he didn’t stir.

Felix untied the belt of the robe and pushed back the silk; his fingertips gently caressed chest and stomach while he bent to kiss Dmitri awake.

Dmitri woke with a soft sound, almost a purr, as if he was a big cat himself. “Felix?”

“Who else, my Dimochka?”, Felix answered with gentle mockery in his voice. The tender, sleepy situation justified the use of that familiar nickname. He kissed Dmitri, deeply and strongly, tickling an importunate nipple his fingers had happened upon.

“Felix!” Dmitri opened his eyes fully and looked into his face. “Come here!”

He turned in Felix’ arms to lie on his back. The robe fell open, revealing all. One long leg fished gracefully for Felix, pulling him all the way up on the sofa. Dmitri’s arms went around him, pulling and holding him down; Dmitri’s legs folded around his ribs.

“You’re in quite a hurry, huh, Dimochka?”, Felix murmured.

“Completely. Come on already!”

There was no stopping now: Felix hitched up his skirts, pulled down his knickers, and shoved right in.

This was on account of the war as well: every time Dmitri returned from the Stavka, the movable General Head Quarters made up from luxury railway carriages, he was totally hungry for Felix. Of course there were willing women discreetly to be had at the Stavka, but they were no help at all – he needed Felix to flush all the sabre-rattling, the bigoted male camaraderie, the pats and winks and conspiratorial nudges out of his system in order to be himself again.

Everyone who thought he knew them both and had heard the rumours would certainly imagine Felix to be the “bottom” – but that had never been correct. From the very beginning, they had both enjoyed the variations and combinations their shared maleness afforded them far too much to assign any permanent roles. But since the beginning of the war, Dmitri sometimes very much needed to be utterly passive. He lay back, Felix between his thighs, and just let it happen, as if he was totally fed up with the masculinity of military life.

He threw back his head, closed his eyes, and moaned, blissfully at first, then more demandingly; he lifted his chin to beg kisses from Felix; the arms of his robe fell back when his hands tried in vain to claw into the smooth silk on Felix’ back. One of his long and graceful legs hooked itself by the foot into the carving on the back of the sofa, using the leverage to push his lower body harder and more aggressively towards Felix.

He was in a terrible hurry; not long, and he had to arch his head to one side and screamed with pleasure, in a rare lack of inhibition, a strangely soft, almost feline tone to his voice; the heel of his other foot kept kicking demandingly into Felix’ shoulder blades: Faster! Stronger! Harder! Deeper!

Dmitri’s hunger pulled at Felix, sucked that fiery power out of him that his beloved so urgently needed.

It wasn’t far now: his back arched in Felix’ embrace, his legs gripped around Felix’ ribs and stopped the heavy pounding, he screamed, and screamed, and screamed with that almost unearthly voice, pulling Felix with him right over the rim on the force of his pleasure. For a moment, Felix couldn’t see anything, hear anything, couldn’t sense whether he was lying down or kneeling up or flying, feeling nothing except that one, all-encompassing power he was pouring, heavily and boundlessly, into his beloved Dimochka.

He returned to reality when Dmitri moved under him, and opened an eye to look at him. Dmitri’s arms had let go of him, he was pushing his fists far over the armrest and stretching luxuriously in Felix’ embrace, eyes closed.

“Oh how urgently I’ve needed this!”, he sighed, contented and relieved. “This was really good”.

He opened his eyes, looked at Felix, grinned unexpectedly – and broke into laughter. “Just look at you!”

Felix didn’t quite understand the amusement; perhaps he was just too tired to make sense?

“I look like I always do when I come to you”.

“That’s just it”, Dmitri began, but the laughter cut off all further explanation.

Then Felix understood, and started laughing as well.

“A spider under the table would just have seen a wheat-blonde lady in a red dress nailing you most thoroughly to your sofa!”

“I don’t have spiders under my table, my people work properly”, Dmitri snorted.

They went on laughing till they were out of breath.

Felix lay still for a moment, the blond, slightly deranged wig flowing prettily over Dmitri’s bare chest, but there wasn’t a moment’s rest for him: those long and graceful legs threw him off the sofa with practised ease.

“Take off your things, Felix! I want more!”

Telling Harry
The only piece of HP fanfiction I ever tried to write.
Sirius/Remus, of course!

The kitchen fireplace was crackling calmly, and Remus took off his glasses for a moment and closed his eyes to listen. His books could wait.

With the soft incessant murmur of history gone from his attention, and with just the pops and cackles from behind him for company, he was struck by all t e weariness he had been keeping at bay, and astonished at how much it hurt after all.

He kept telling himself that Padfoot was under enormous strain these days, cooped up here with just that foul servant and the Hippogryph for company, forced to stand idly by while the world was coming apart at the seams, never seeing the free sun over his head or feeling the wind in his air as he was flying at Remus’ side as he should be.

Instead, Remus was often gone – never for long, always returning as soo, as long and as often as possible to where he belonged – with Sirius. Even if it was in this foul house.

No, Sirius had all the right in the world to be irritable, moody and short-tempered, and Remus knew better than to take it personal when he occasionally vented his frustration even on his mate. He’d always be gentle and apologetic, or gentle and demonstrative, or just demonstrative, later on.

Things had been going deeply wrong for Sirius for many years now, and it was a wonder he was holding up as well as he did.

Still, the things Sirius sometimes said to Remus when his black moods took him could hurt worse than he’d expected, worse than he’d ever admit.

No, what really hurt, Remus corrected himself while listening to a log hissing as if with fury, what really hurt was how little he himself could do to help.

Not being able to do much was unpleasantly new to him. He’d always known how to stand up for himself, and how to do so quietly and without fuss. He’d always been the one the others turned to for help when it really mattered, and he’d give it, gladly, amply and hands-on.

And now he found himself utterly unable to truly help the one he cared about most in all the world. And that hurt a lot. Even more than the actual words that Sirius had spat in his direction before stalking off, ostensibly to see Buckbeak.

But he couldn’t just stand by quietly and say nothing when he found Sirius drunk – again – on unexpectedly coming home last night. He’d had at least to say once that he thought the company of a bottle and nothing else was a very bad idea, on the long run.

“On the long run”, Sirius had retaliated, “I’d rather be in bed with you than on the sofa with a bottle, but you weren’t there, so I could at least have that to take my mind off how useless I am. Jealous of the firewhiskey, Moony?”

Remus knew he was so much more than a cheap diversion, a fleeting pleasure to make Sirius forget, but it still hurt.

He had work to do in any case, and that would take his mind off things better than any firewhiskey ever could; so he opened his eyes on the gloomy kitchen once more and reached for his glasses.

There was a sound by the door.

So soon, Remus wondered.

Usually took him a bit longer to come out of his sulks. Perhaps he was learning after all.

Chiding himself for that somewhat heartless thought, Remus stood to face his lover leaning in the door frame, looking unkempt as usual, and rather contrite.

“Moony?”

“Yes?”

Remus took a few steps towards him and smiled to show he wasn’t angry. How on earth or below it could he have been angry at his poor tormented mate who had enough on his emotional plate as it was?

“Moony, I hope you’re not too pissed at me. I know I’ve been a pain in the ass lately.”

Daring him to frown at all that language. Well, he could answer that in kind, Remus grinned to himself.

“Not so much of a pain, Padfoot; more of a good thing, speaking of that.”

Sirius guffawed. His mood shifted, lightening-quick and utterly, as it had been wont to do lately. His eyes shone with glee, and he took a few steps towards Remus.

“Am I forgiven, then, for being such an utter oaf? Do I deserve a pardon on account of my better qualities?”

Remus couldn’t quite follow his mood so quickly, but he smiled at his lover and opened his arms to him.

Sirius closed the remaining yard or so between them and took Remus in his arms, surprisingly gently, sweetly insinuating, as his hands slid over Remus’ back and his face hid in Remus’ hair.

Sighing deeply and relaxing into Sirius’ arms, Remus than lifted his head to collect the first apologetic kiss, so sweet after the quarrel. A gentle nibble followed by a tentatively possissive thrust and a welcoming parry, only to be broken all too soon by a cute little peck to the nose and a glitter in those deep-set eyes.

“How much work left?” Sirius asked, with a glance at the kitchen table and a gleeful undertone to his voice.

“Nothing urgent, Paddy”, Remus reassured him. Yes, they should put the time to good use, having the house all to themselves like this. A bout of frantic, thorough lovemaking would soothe the savage beast in Sirius, ease off his almost physically palpable frustration at his forced inactivity. And, to be quite honest, Remus felt the effects of the waxing moon as well and needed his mate.

He lifted his head again and stared unflinching into those powerful eyes before he was given another surprisingly tender kiss. He let his head sink onto Siriu’s shoulder, melting against the bony strength in his arms.

“I know I make your life difficult, Moony. I am so sorry. But I need you so much.”

“Life with you can be a bit complicated”, Remus conceded. “But life without you, frankly, was bleak. I’d rather have complicated than bleak any day.”

Sirius laughed softly. Remus lifted his head again to kiss him, more forcefully now, full of demands, promises, and delicious threats.

“I need you, Moony!”

The fire hissed quietly to itself, and Remus was utterly lost.

“Ahem. I haven’t all day, you know…”

A sarcastic, scornful voice trailed the sentence from the fireplace into the kitchen.

Remus turned around a bit, not letting go of Sirius, to look at Snape standing between fireplace and kitchen table, all black billows and hook-nosed disdain. He could feel almost a growl building up in Sirius’ body in his arms.

“OH, thank you, Severus; I’d almost forgotten it was time again. Just put it on the table, can you?”

Snape regarded him unblinking, the smoking goblet held in both hands like a chalice from some dark, unholy cult.

“I really appreciate your help, you knw”, Remus added pleasantly, his left arm letting go of Sirius but still holding on with the right; he was not going to jump apart from his lover in their own kitchen just because of Severus Snape.

“Stop gawking, Snivellus”, Sirius added loftily. “Put your evil concoction down and just go, there’s a good boy. Don’t you have your hair to wash, or some students to torment, or something?”

That finally unfroze Snape.

“I need to take the goblet back with me; you can interrupt yourselves long enough for that”, Snape said with withering calm.

Remus held out his left hand, smiled sweetly, and didn’t budge.

Snape took a cautious step towards them and ceremoniously placed the goblet in Remus’ hand, all the while never turning his haughty gaze away from them.

The brew was horrid as always. Remus drank as fast as he dared while Sirius never let go of him, not in their own kitchen just because of Severus Snape.

Long before the potion was downed, though, the situation became too much to bear for the short-tempered Severus.

“You can wipe that grin right off your face, Black”, he sneered. “I don’t find it at all pleasant, or even remotely interesting, to catch you snogging eveybody’s favourite werewolf.”

Remus tried to drink faster. The potion was infinitely vile, as always.

“You didn’t exactly catch us at anything”, Sirius retorted. “We’re out in the open, and everyone knows about us. You should have taken a good look to see what you were missing out on.”

Thankfully, Remus had reached the last of the potion.

“Thanks again, Severus”, he said, handing back the goblet. Snape looked down into the steamy cup, as if suspicious whether Remus had drunk it all up, and turned away in a billow of black robes – only to look back as if he’s just remembered.

His eyes narrowed disdainfully as he spoke. “Out in the open, are you? So your precious godson knows all about you and still admires you as always, does he, Black? Good for you.”

With a dry little laugh, Snape turned towards the fireplace, absentmindedly throwing a handful of dust onto the flames, never breaking his stride as he vanished.

“A silly git for life”, Sirius declared, taking Remus fully into his arms again. “Where were we?”

“You were needing me,” Remus suggested playfully.

“Oh yes, I really do need you, all the way deep down”; Sirius answered huskily, kissing him with renewed fervour, only shuddering briefly at the taste that lingered in Remus’ mouth.

Before losing himself to his lover’s needs and demands, Remus spared a glance for the clock – was it late enough for no more visitors to disturb them on legitimate business? Late enough to call it an early night?

It was a digital wall clock that Arthur Weasley had proudly built for them from Muggle components after Sirius had thrown out the old clock with its skulls and hourglasses.

Excellent opportunity, Arthur Weasley’s clock now said in glowing red letters.

Later, much later, when the early December dark outside had grown quiet and the din of the big city had dwindled to single separate noises, Remus lay on Sirius’ chest, exhausted, spent and sated.

They had done everything to each other that was humanly feasible, and then a few things, in the heat of the moment, that were not.

Well, what were they wizards for, Remus smiled to himself, feeling all filled up deep inside, and utterly content.

But before he finally dozed off, Sirius moved under him once more. For goodness’ sake, did he still not have enough?

“Much as I hate to say it, I fear the git was right”, Sirius announced to the darkening room.

Remus tried to rally his flagging spirits. “He sometimes is, I know. Strange, though, for you to think so, Paddy. What about in particular?”

“Harry.”

“What about him – whether he knows, or how to tell him?”

”Both, really”, Sirius answered. “Do you think he really doesn’t know? I mean, we haven’t exactly been discreet or anything. Short of snogging on the living room sofa with everyone present.”

Remus laughed an repositioned himself to a more comfortable speaking position, lifting his head to look at Sirius.

“I really don’t know”; he answered honestly. “I guess he was far too busy with his own problems to notice anything beyond his immediate need to know.”

“I thought I was part of that”, Sirius said.

“You are, but I am not. And, really, I don’t think he’d mind if he knew. It would be more of a realisation in hindsight; he’d add together what he’s seen so far, then be a bit astonished for a moment, and then move on to more important things.”

“Do you think he’d be that accepting?”, Sirius wondered. “I believe he’d be a bit more put out at me being with a man – even if it’s you whom he admires in an absentminded sort of way when he’s got a moment.”

Remus laughed at the description. “Yes, I know that Muggles have the oddest prejudices about that, even worse than your usual bigoted pure-blood wizard lamenting the loss of good breeding stock.”

“Worse than my mother when she got to hear about me”, Sirius supplied soberly.

... And now all the Star Trek fans among you ought to be terribly disappointed that the sequel to 'Lieutenants', abandoned more than ten years ago, which has two young sehlats on DS9, exists only in German so there's no point in posting it here...



Have the tiniest, tiniest shred of an original work of Science Fiction instead which never got further than this tiny, tiny shred:

In dark and mysterious Prinan, every woman has a mirror set in an icon of the Goddess, so she is reminded who she really is.

In dark and mysterious Prinan, the old ways are defended fiercely. They are attacked as well, but tamely and within the bounds of decency. Party ships come and go, but the Prinese Earth will always be the Goddess who accepts the seed and creates miracles out of her body.

In dark and mysterious Prinan, every woman, man and child has their own combination of skin colours; a crowd at a party glitters and shines like the jewels in a queen's treasury, all on their own. If you lose the shine, you are exposed; if you are forced to cover all your skin, you lose your identity.

In dark and mysterious Prinan, the men prove their manhood, prove they're worthy of serving a Goddess in the flesh, by watching soccer, drinking beer, brawling, throwing heavy things, and wanking off while looking at the picture of a naked woman. With large boobs. Oops.-

Sounds familiar after all?