Christmas Challenge

[spydacarnage.livejournal.com]

Okay, so this is my first post here, so if it's crap, tell me, and I'll give up now...  Apologies on the word count not being high enough, but hey, what can I say, I'm a novice...

This sort of fits with one of _crimsonearth's requests, but it's also in keeping with chronicle...

( Christmas Wishes )

[Lost] The Night Before Christmas

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

A Christmas gift for viking42, although this is an hour, not a year. It also falls under the general Christmas challenge and family. Apologies, as always, for any liberties taken.

( The Night Before Christmas )

(Forsaken) Christmas challenge for _crimsonearth

[akonken.livejournal.com]

The Pure have always been my bogeyman. They loomed, invisible, in every corner. Any time I did something my father thought was unwise, the same warning would come: "You'd better watch out, or the Pure will get you."

The Pure kill Wolf-Blooded out of hand.
The Pure lock Wolf-Blooded in basements, using them as feral baby-making machines.
The Pure slaughter whole packs, along with their families.
The Pure destroy everything they touch.

The Pure are after you.

Somewhere along the way, like with the bogeyman, I stopped being afraid of them. They lost their power.

This will probably screw me over someday, when I need to be afraid and am not.

When I had that stupid sword, I refused to let the threat of the Pure stop me from working. And they didn't come.

Just like when I ran away from home for one day (well, two hours) when I was seventeen, they didn't immediately find me and snatch me off of the street to be lost to the rest of the world forever.

And when I refused to eat baked beans my father prepared for a meal when I was six, the Pure didn't materialise me and eat me for being so cheeky.

I know they're a real threat. I do. A serious threat.

But I'm incapable of taking them seriously.

And that's going to bite me in the ass. Possibly literally.

[Mortals] Physician

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

He packs things away carefully, methodically, finding some vestige of peace in the measured action of preparation. Clothes taken from the wardrobe, folded and boxed, the boxes stacked carefully in the spare room. Papers the same; his notepad and scrapbook on top. It takes several hours, but in time the house is cleaned; everything of his gathered together out of sight.

He locks the spare room door and hangs the key on the handle.

Memory stings; the time she caught him in there, coating the walls in dry-wipe paint. His first breakdown. The silver scar on his hand is a permanent reminder.

He checks the living room, the bedroom. More memories; the happy and the troubling. Her face flushed with passion and joy while the burn on her leg oozed blood. The best news in the world. The door slamming as she left.

He locks the door, posts the key. He won't return uninvited.

The ambulance is waiting; kind of them to send it. An orderly helps him into the back; respectful. They know he is a doctor.

He glances back once, then on to the future. He knows that there are people he is abandoning: Anna, Val, Rowan. He knows he can't let that stop him. He is not Atlas; the world is not on his shoulders.

His future is two people: His wife and his unborn child. He will be there for them; he must.

He lies back and sighs.

"Physician, heal thyself."