irynai

You know you are an avid writer when:

1.) You can spend all day lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and still consider it a hellishly productive day due to the plot lines running around behind your eyes.

2.) An endless supply of coffee is still not enough coffee.

3.) You panic in the middle of a meeting and/or class because the ultimate, most awesome plot twist just occurred to you and you can’t write it down.

4.) You almost put yourself into shock from forgetting to eat or drink anything while “in the zone” with a current story.

5.) You know what “in the zone” means and secretly applaud the fellow writer who forwent his or her food in order to not break out of it.

6.) Running out of paper, ink or computer time is tantamount to human torture in your mind and should be on the prohibited list per the Geneva Convention.

7.) You believe writer’s block is serious enough to be up there on the list of Worst Mental Illnesses of All Time.

8.) You have a specific drink of choice, a specific food of choice, and a specific place in which you do your writing. Anyone getting into said food, drink, or place should run very far and very fast in the opposite direction. Preferably in a serpentine fashion.

9.) You can’t find “the zone” without your food, drink and place.

10.) Loosing a chunk of story due to a hard drive crash or similar instance is grounds for mourning.

11.) Your friends and loved ones have grown used to you suddenly stopping in the middle of a conversation or hallway, getting this mad gleam in your eyes, and running for the nearest computer or paper.

12.) You carry your flash drive with you wherever you go and feel worse than naked without it.

13.) You break out into laughter or smile for no good reason (that anyone can tell).

14.) You start a list like this based on your own experiences. =P

I couldn’t breathe. I knew well and good that there was plenty of air to be found in room, and still I couldn’t get any of that life-giving oxygen to go down into my lungs. Or at least it felt that way. My arms were limp at my sides, my hands clenching and unclenching slowly. I didn’t feel them, didn’t realize what those digits were doing or what they wanted to grasp.

Hell, I didn’t even know what I wanted in that moment. No, that wasn't entirely true. What I wanted was to close my eyes and wake up from this nightmare. I wanted to be safe in my bed, in my tiny little apartment, surrounded by the empty trinkets that signified what was left of my personal life. I didn't want to be here, facing this... this truth...

( I wanted to be blind. I wanted to be stone. )

“Black-blooded creatures,” Lydia muttered, clenching her hands around her briefcase handle until she thought she would crumple the supple leather into nothing.

The day had not gone well so far. Only half the first session was complete, and already she was fuming, wanting nothing more than to rip off the heads of her fellow committee members. The outright stupidity of some of the requests had left her staring with mouth agape. How anyone with two brain cells to rub together thought that an add campaign to make people feel better about the prescription drugs they were taking—completely unnecessary drugs, or so it seemed to her—was more important than repairing and aiding their allies was simply beyond her. She ground her teeth audibly, thinking about the coming vote this afternoon to decide if the five hundred million dollar advertisement campaign was going to move up on the priority list.

( She glared at the closed double doors behind her, torn between walking away or walking back into the committee chamber and kicking Senator Glickson in the head. )

“GRIMLOCK!”

The shrilly yelled word was enough all on its own to have marines and Autobots alike diving for cover or reaching for weapons. Epps sputtered out the coffee he had been drinking, Lennox dropping the report from his fingers. Later, he would regret that action as the remainder of Epps coffee joined the report on the floor, soaking it through. It wasn’t the report he would regret. It was the waste of something so vital as coffee on something as frustrating as Liaison-what’s-his-nuts recent list of demands.

Both Lennox and Epps would later find the coffee and the report, shed tears over the coffee, and use the report as compost in the base’s new garden. But right at that moment, twin Sig Sauer automatic pistols replaced both coffee and paper in their hands, the guns aimed directly down the hallway in a two-fisted grip. What they saw made their eyes go wide.

“MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!” Epps screamed, diving behind a packing crate… just before the hallway literally exploded.

( Grimlock, in his Tyrannosaurs Rex form, literally blew through the flimsy drywall that made up the human-sized hallways inside the main hangar. )

Optimus Prime stared down at the report in his hands, his optics traveling over the datapad again and again. The report itself had been committed to memory the first time he had read it. However, he was using the human gesture of rereading to buy some time. Time to decide which of the many and varied responses he should state to the assembled team before him. And time to let them sweat it out, to worry about what the Autobot leader was going to say to their proposal.

Optimus was not a cruel leader in any sense of the word, nevertheless in the grand scheme of the universe, he was a simple sentient like those arrayed before him. He had his flaws, his imperfections. He had a temper, one he locked down as hard and fast as he could. He knew his own limitations, knew what would happen if he let his temper run around unchecked. One only had to look at Megatron to understand why Optimus walked away more times than not. It was always in the forefront of his processors, that understanding that if he let go of his temper, he would be as bad as his brother.

( If not worse. )

He wasn’t quite sure what to expect when Lydia had suggested that the meet at the front of the base. More than a few scenarios drifted through his processors. There were a multitude of logical reasons for moving their negotiations out of the med lab. For one, it would eliminate the possibility of eavesdroppers and interruptions. It would also eliminate his need to weld a few slag-headed mechs together for being idiotic. If they thought he was ignorant to the current betting pool, they truly should have their processors checked.

For another, it would allow for a fresh perspective on the topic at hand. If there was ever one trait that both humans and Autobots shared in common, it was the need for visual stimulation. A change of scenery did just as much for the human mind as it did for Cybertonian processors. He could only hope it did the same for the temper.

( Ratchet set his optics to wide scan, those blue orbs passing over the desert landscape before him. )

The doors to the medical facility boomed closed with, what sounded like to Lydia at least, a deafening finality. Even Ratchet seemed to notice a subtle difference in the sound of the metal . While both were reasonably certain that nothing at all had happened to the entrance in question, there was still something so… somber about the quiet thud. She shifted her stance on her silver Jimmy Choo heels, her expression changing from one of outrage and surprise to contemplation.

No wonder he is their Prime, she thought. Optimus had come into the room like a tame thundercloud, all that potential for rage, for the thrill of a battle he had believed in progress. Fire, that was what it was. There had been fire in his blue, blue optics. It had charged the room with barely contained electricity, so much so that the hairs on the back of her neck had stood on end.

( Of course, she hadn’t noticed such things in the midst of her own anger. )

The headache started behind her right eye, pulsing just out of reach with every beat of her heart. It always started behind that eye, and Lydia tried not to frown too much in annoyance. Figures, she thought bitterly. The only good human eye she had left, and she was prone to getting headaches behind it. The last quack—err doctor—she had been to about it had informed her that the headaches were in direct proportion to her implant. The clarity of vision that came from the cybernetic eye was much greater than from her biological one. As a consequence, the weaker eye would constantly struggle to meet the standards of the greater.

( Like twins, the doctor had said, one will always strive to be equal to the other. The side effect of that striving was the headaches. )

A/N: I have no idea where this came from. I blame VNV Nation, personally. That song demanded a story. Well, it got one...

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For all his power, all the strength of eons of knowledge and existence, he had finally met one enemy he could not defeat. She lay broken, dying… the red fluid of life that carried the soul of the humans leaking from her mouth and ears. He was not a medic to know the internal workings of his own kind, and had never spared a bit of processor space for the anatomy of humans.

( He regretted that now. Regretted it so much that his circuits burned with it. )

It was the mention of her military past that did it, that brought the ugly memories back to the surface. The landscape of her dreams shifted and blurred, and no amount of screaming or denial on her part could stop it. She fell backward into the darkness, whimpering as it twisted and morphed around her, becoming the inside of an F-22 fighter. She could feel the tight fit of the mask across her face, the near claustrophobic rush as the G-forces slammed her back against the seat.

( And though she knew it was a dream, even as she fought to pull herself out of it, her hands worked the control stick with an almost effortless grace. )

Prompt: Death
Word Count: 1,639

( Dark Horatio Part 7 )

He’d been avoiding her, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, all things considered. It was Ratchet’s normal mode of operation to stay out of any section of NEST where the budget liaison could be found. Mostly it was his own decision, he reminded himself. He, Optimus Prime, and Prowl had decided that it was better for everyone involved if the medical officer found something else to do in some other part of the base when the liaison strolled in… unless another mech of equal strength and power to Ratchet was present. The last incident with Anders had turned the idea into a “suggestion.”

( Prowl hadn’t exactly made a rule out of it; however Ratchet could always see the idea floating in the other mech’s optics. )

A/N: Posted to fanfiction.net

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It was Ironhide that found them, and the big mech rolled cannons forward silently, his optics narrowing.

Skids and Mudflap, the wonder twins of trouble as the humans had taken to calling them, were stacked on top of each other on hands and knees. Carefully, they peered around the corner and down the hall that lead to Rachet’s medbay. That wasn’t what made Ironhide hesitate, though. It wasn’t even the fact that the twins were stacked on top of Bumble Bee, who incidentally was also on his hands and knees, also scanning carefully around the corner.

The three of them looked like some kind of wacky Autobot totem pole, and Ironhide had to fight back the impulse to send a non-lethal sonic burst at the three of them. Just something to knock them down like human bowling pins without causing too much damage. It might even knock some sense into their processors, if that, by Primus, was possible.

( Instead, the black-armored mech slowly crept up until he was right behind them. )

Prompt # 05—Outsides
Word Count: 2,170

It was early evening when I woke, the brilliance of a Miami sunset just beginning to chase away the crisp blue of the summer sky. The light played through the cut-crystal windows, scattering the refracted light into a million tiny rainbows across the room. Part of me found it disturbing that all the windows were cut in such patterns, never allowing a clear view to the outside, and yet not affording the same view from the same. Yet another mark on the why-I-shouldn’t-have-done-this list.

The fact that the man couldn’t even permit an unobstructed view of his own backyard showed just how dangerous he was, and just how much danger everyone around him was in.

I pushed myself upright, palms sinking into a mattress too soft to be real. It probably cost more than I made in ten years. No wonder I had been content to fall asleep. Sex, the soul-emptying kind like we had had, mixed with a bed softer than a cloud and the fact that I hadn’t slept in anything other than my office in, like, forever, was enough to knock me out for the count. Now my body let me know just how much of a pounding it had taken.

I hurt. There was no hiding that fact. What we had done had stretched and tore me, my core stinging and aching. And yet I wasn’t going to complain about it in the slightest. I actually smiled a bit.

( I hadn’t felt anything like that in my entire life. I wasn’t going to regret it. )

OOC NOTE: Inspired by the great and wonderful works of Hummergrey on Fanfiction.com

“What’s Rachet up to?” Epps asked.

Captain Wil Lennox paused, looking up from the schematics in his hands. The latest designs for the NEST security system had just been delivered, and while he was still rusty with his Cybertronian, he had to admit that he liked what he saw. Well, save for the few symbols he couldn’t quite figure out on his own. So long as they had nothing to do with Wheeljack and an “experimental security component,” he was fairly certain he could live with the changes.

The budget committee, on the other hand, might not like it so much. And speaking of pain-in-the-ass committee members…

Lennox eyed the towering yellow and black Autobot as he stood in the doorway. His hands were balled into fists the size of a Buick, planted heavily on his hips. Though no weapons were presently visible, he still gave the impression that he was armed to do battle. Even Ironhide had found an excuse to do something inside the main hangar rather than risk walking in front of the imposing medical officer.

“We’re getting a new government liaison today,” Lennox commented.

“Oh, isn’t that grea-—wait,” Epps cut in, eyes going slightly wide. “What does that have to do with Rachet?”

“Well, remember the last guy that was here?”

“What, the pencil neck that Rachet almost flattened, regardless of his oaths about respecting all life? The government isn’t stupid enough to send him back, I hope. We’re still digging parts of his car out of the pavement.”

Lennox laughed, remembering how Wheeljack and Ultra Magnus had captured a live Decepticon anti-seeker explosive containment device, and then somehow, in the course of trying to disarm the thing, had set it off. Thankfully the two had managed to hurl the thing out harm’s way. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on which Autobot or NEST member you asked—it had landed on the liaison’s car.

And then it exploded.

The liaison, one Mr. Jeffery Anders, had just come from slashing Rachet’s budget once again. His parting shot to the mech had been a brave and arrogant “Use duct tape for repairs. I don’t care. Just get the numbers down.” When he had screamed about the destruction of his car, Rachet and very calmly told him to “use duct tape” to put it back together.

The liaison in question had sent a claim ticket to NEST for the cost of the car. Lennox, himself, and Optimus Prime had gleefully denied the claim, citing that: a) the car had been parked in an illegal area to begin with (a fine of up to three hundred and three dollars), b) an additional bill of forty thousand dollars due to the fact that they just couldn’t pave over the crater considering the car had been present. EPA and Environmental laws required safe removal of all car parts, fluids and the like before paving could take place. And, finally, c) a bill from Rachet for twelve thousand dollars for time and the expense of cleaning up car parts so as to not puncture or damage Autobot tires.

NEST had not heard a word from that liaison since the issuance of the bills, or from the liaison department in general, up until two days ago. When they were told to expect the replacement.

“I don’t think that guy’s coming back,” Lennox assured his second-in-command. “However, we have to give the new guy a warm welcome.”

“I think Rachet’s got that end all worked out,” Epps replied, a touch of pity worming its way into his voice. “That mech looks like he’s ready to chew the head off of Megatron if given the chance. I really feel for the new guy.”

~*~

The car was cherry red, sleek, small, and purred like a jungle cat when it hugged the turns in the road, which somewhat surprised Rachet. He’d been expecting another colossal waste of machinery that these government bureaucrats like to call automobiles. In his experience, the higher a human moved in the chain of command, the larger and more useless a vehicle they chose. The last one had been no exception to the rule. That Mercedes had been all flash, but less power and protection than a day-old sparkling.

But this… this was a pleasant surprise, indeed. The 1964 Porsche 911 came to a smooth halt just inside the designated parking area. It seemed almost a crime to hear the engine offline as the driver pulled the key from the ignition. Black windows, tinted so dark even his powerful optics had issues piercing, mostly obscured the driver from view. He caught the shifting of the form inside, the grabbing of what he could only assume was a slick briefcase, and his processor set for maximum stubbornness.

He hated the sight of a briefcase now, knowing that what was contained within those cow skin covered bags was never good news. At least for him. He stood his ground, fought the desire to simply scream “go home, you black-blooded creature, I don’t want anything to do with the likes of you!” but held that one in check. There would be plenty of time to hurl insults at the human once he was inside the building.

Then he could claim the human started it first. While that was petty, even to his thinking, it would at least shave off a touch of Optimus’s annoyance over such an exchange between his chief medical officer and the liaison from his host government.

The door of the Porsche opened, and Rachet’s optics started that slow fade from blue to red…

… and then back to blue in a flash as the red alligator Manolo pump—the same red as the Porsche—touched down with a light click onto the hot asphalt. A second pump joined the first, and Rachet found his optics traveling up a pair of lean, tan, and shapely legs. The human in question stood, dressed in a pinstripe pencil skirt and a matching tight vest. Beneath was a white dress shirt, modestly buttoned down to the wrists and up to the throat. A bright red tie matched the shoes… and also the nails on her hands, apparently. Her jet black hair was pulled up and away from her face in what was called a French twist, her eyes hidden behind red sunglasses.

He couldn’t make out her expression behind those dark glasses, but it didn’t take a military veteran to tell that she was sizing him up in probably the same manner as he had done to her.

“You must be Rachet,” the human said, her red lips—-again, the same shade as everything else—-curving in a mischievous smile. “I’m Lydia DeMarco, the new and hopefully last liaison to the NEST project for a long time.”

It took him a couple of seconds for his processor to switch gears. He had expected yet another middle-aged, balding human with a paunch who probably lacked the spine to look at a weapon, nevertheless listen to an explanation about repairing one. The American government seemed to have an endless supply of those to go with the useless cars and the standard black-and-white suits they wore. He hadn’t expected a young, physically fit and attractive woman. One who apparently liked colors other than silver, black and white.

He caught himself before he started to scan her without her permission. “Yes,” he said, trying for the clipped and stern tone in which he was famous. Even to his own receptors, it sounded like a poor imitation. “I’m Rachet, and I’m only going to say this once. I will NOT use duct tape to fix my brethren, regardless of what your budget committee says.”

“Wonderful,” she replied, her smile widening as she clicked forward on those eye-catching shoes. “Then we’re in agreement on one thing at least. I hate duct tape. Not only does it look tacky as all hell, it isn’t the miracle worker most make it out to be. Now, would you be so kind as to point out Captain Lennox? I would very much like to get the tedious security protocols out of the way.”

Again, he found his processor grinding to a halt at the unexpected reply, and wordlessly he watched the human female click her way into the base.

Prompt: #57—Lunch
Word count: 463
Pairing: Megan Donner/Rick Stetler

The food smelled amazing, a layout of cold cuts and cheeses, chips and dips, and, of course, a fruit and veggie tray. Megan felt her mouth water. Just looking over the array of smoked turkey and honey ham had her stomach doing its impression of a circus clown: flipping end over end and making funny noises.

“Is this your way of trying to get back into my good graces?” She asked, her casual tone belying her intense interest in the spread. Good god, was that fresh baked bread he was pulling out of that basket?

“Maybe,” Rick Stetler replied, his tone just as casual as hers. Unlike her, however, his lips were drawn up in an amused smirk.

Oh, he knew he had her, dammit. He knew it, and so did she. Which was why she was torturing herself by staying in the doorway of the break room, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, when all she wanted to do was descend on that food and devour it. How long had it been since she’d had a meal that wasn’t from the vending machine? Two days? Three?

“What if I said it’s going to take more than a light lunch and smirk?”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’d have to call bullshit.”

Megan’s mouth twitched. “You know you’re a royal pain in my ass, Rick.”

Rick took a step back and gave a flourished bow. “We aim to please around here, ma’am.”

She couldn’t help it. She snorted out a laugh and walked into the room, sitting at the table. “So I’m waiting,” she said, popping a cherry tomato in her mouth.

“For?”

“The six words I need to hear from you.”

Rick sliced off pieces of bread, putting them on a plate and handing them over to her. “And those would be?”

“I. Will. Never. Do. That. Again.”

It was his turn to snort out a laugh. “Like hell.”

“I mean it, Rick. There’s only so long I can forgive you for stepping on my investigation.”

“And there’s only so long I can talk about work before it ruins my appetite,” he replied, lifting a finger and placing it on her lips. “Let’s just agree to disagree this once, okay? I’m IAB. You’re CSI. We’re going to clash every time we work together. But let’s try to leave that at work and not bring it home with us. I love you. Now shut up and eat.”

She could have argued more. However he did look so cute when he was sincere. And he was being sincere, and adoring. So Megan shut up and enjoyed her lunch, knowing that later on down the road they would fight again over the same thing again. But for now, there was peace.

( Prompt #15--Wind / Word Count: 837 )

( Haley and Horatio... Part 12 (word count: 1046) )

Title: What Dreams May Come
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Megan Donner, Horatio Caine, Janie Thompson (OC)
Prompt: #56 - Breakfast
Word Count: 1940
Ratings: PG - 13
Summary: Not all the dreams a person has are meant to come true. Those that do usually carry their own unique price.
Author's Notes: Inspired by “Thank You for the Venom” by My Chemical Romance. / This is an ongoing story arch involving Megan Donner (of course) and Horatio Caine, told from the point of view of Janie Thompson (my OC).

( Thank you for the Venom… Part 7 )

Title: All that Glitters
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Megan Donner, Tim Speedle
Prompt: #48 - Diamond
Word Count: 468
Ratings: PG - 13
Summary: Megan and Speed learn a lesson.
Author's Notes: don't own 'em. Just playing with 'em.

( All that Glitters )