Rating: PG
Characters: Sheppard, McKay
Summary: Tag to Submersion. What is it like to fight a wraith queen? Part of a little fic exchange with
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reen212000, who wanted some queen mind-manipulation aftermath. Shep whump, with migraine ;) Sheppard/McKay friendship. Big thanks to wildcat88 for the beta. Resolve
“Imagine a path, as wide as you are tall, taking you anywhere you want to go, whenever you want to go there. The destinations are all you – the outcomes and consequences your own making. Freedom with direction.
Now imagine a wall popping up to block that path: in front of you or where the roads branch, forcing your directions, your destination, your outcomes and consequences. And the path you're being forced to walk will take you to where it hurts – pain, death - for yourself, yes, but more importantly for others. The people you've sworn and fight so hard to protect will die because that's what the walls want. But you can't let that happen, and like hell you will, so you fight and rage, beating against the walls until you're bloody. Words are like sledgehammers. You shatter brick, topple walls that crush your bones to baking powder, and it hurts. It hurts so bad you think, “Why the hell not give in? Just for now? Make the pain stop?”
Then you think about the one who is putting up the walls and why they're putting them up. You think about the people who will die if you let yourself be herded like a cow. You remind yourself of what giving in will mean and that what really matters exists outside of the self. The self means crap. The self is nothing.
So you spit words like hammers, fighting the pain until either you or the one putting up the walls wins.
That's what it's like to fight a wraith queen.”
Excerpt: Mission Report – Sheppard, J.
---------------------------------
John could feel multiple gazes pinpointed on his back like a dead weight. He ignored them, too tired to put any effort into forcing them to turn their sights elsewhere, and in all honesty he didn't blame them. The only time he'd ever acquiesced to letting someone else fly the 'jumper was when he'd been equally as exhausted after getting his ass kicked by a ten-thousand year old wraith. Even then, despite the pain of cracked ribs and a bullet to the arm, he'd taken over for the last half of the trip when McKay still couldn't get a handle on keeping in a straight line.
The shortest path between two points was not and never would be a zigzag.
Lorne knew how to fly in a straight line, even under water, so no compunctions about giving up the driver's seat this time around. Sheppard needed to keep himself physically prepared for what would eventually come next if this queen encounter was anything like the last. He had no doubts it would be, the way that queen had kicked some mental butt; Sheppard had had barely enough control to turn his head and spot Ronon and no control to put up his usual shielding backlash of witty retorts.
There would be a headache from hell, of that Sheppard was sure. They always crept in long after the fact, as though it took time for his brain to readjust, and when it finally did, to remember that it probably needed to be wallowing in pain right now. John sometimes wondered if even organs made plays for pity or revenge. Mind-control headaches were a bitch. John could only hope that his nap on the drilling platform had done something to lessen the effects.
John gave himself a one-handed neck rub where a tension headache was building. He glanced up momentarily to see Teyla giving herself a two-fingered massage between the eyes. If mind-control felt like having his brain ripped to shreds, he couldn't imagine what it was like for Teyla. Although Carson had once dropped the comment of suspecting Teyla's smidgen of wraith DNA probably had the perk of making her mentally stronger – like the difference between a long distance walker and long-distance runner. Teyla's brain would be, for lack of a better word, more muscular: strengthened little by little, perhaps, over the years of sensing wraith - and that meant having a better handle over her mind being invaded.
That strength, however, still wasn't adequate enough to fight against a headache. Both John and Teyla had already downed four Tylenol.
The trip back to Atlantis was heavily silent and melancholy, even with the bodies being transported in another 'jumper. John, keeping his head down, rolled his eyes in McKay's direction, sitting diagonal from him. The man's back was rigid as a board, the muscles of his jaw twitching and jumping, and the blue eyes distant and sharp with dark thoughts. John dropped his gaze back to the floor and breathed a quiet sigh.
He knew that look on McKay's face. The first time he'd seen it was in a similar setting, only it had just been the two of them, McKay pale and silent from having witnessed a man shoot himself in the head.
McKay was blaming himself.
John shook his head minutely so as not to aggravate his skull. He would need to talk to McKay, maybe over dinner... or lunch. John checked his watch: four thirty in the freakin' morning. Great. Breakfast then, or lunch, depending on when the headache from hell reared its ugly self. Sooner, of course, was always better, but in McKay's case it was a necessity. The physicist was a hell of a lot more sensitive than he let on, and the longer he wallowed in self-blame, the more room it made for self-doubt to slip in. Atlantis couldn't afford a self-doubting scientist.
It also wasn't fair to McKay, who hadn't done anything wrong. Sheppard was the one who had the directional sense of a stoned monkey, making his timing suck and costing two men under his protection their lives.
This was his fault.
“Colonel?”
John jumped and looked up into the worried face of Elizabeth.
“We're home,” she said gently.
John blinked dazedly at the open hatch and the people making their somber way off and out of the 'jumper bay. He let Elizabeth grip his arm as he pushed unsteadily to his feet, Ronon doing the same for Teyla.
Rodney was nowhere to be seen.
The moment they walked through the doors of the infirmary Keller swooped in, hustling Teyla and John off to the back to be scanned, Teyla first while John had blood drawn, blood pressure taken, and his heart and lungs listened to. Then it was his turn to lie flat as the machine passed over him, the image of his bones and organs fading onto the screen, focusing on his head when the scanner reached it.
“Looks okay so far,” Keller said. “The usual tension headache. But Carson's notes said the headaches like to pop in when you least suspect them.” She had Sheppard stand next to Teyla after the machine was wheeled away. Keller dropped two pill-packets into their hands.
“The best way to fight a migraine is to catch it early,” she said. Sheppard managed not to roll his eyes and mutter about preaching to the choir. He'd never suffered from migraines until coming to Atlantis and having his brain frapped and flipped on more than one occasion (jumping in and out of that VR world had left him light sensitive for two days).
“So I want you to rest,” Keller continued. “Get some food - something easy on your stomachs - go straight back to your quarters, keep the lights low, a cool cloth on your forehead and a warm one on the back of your neck. Got it?”
John saluted while Teyla said a more reasonable, “Yes, doctor.” The two of them left the infirmary, parting ways to clean up with the promise of meeting back at breakfast.
In his quarters, John set the pills on his nightstand with the intent to take them after he ate. They were the heavy-duty knock-out brand, which always killed his appetite with fatigue. He stripped on his way to the bathroom and the shower.
A tiny spark of light flickered in John's vision as he adjusted the water temperature. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping the darkness would make the light fade.
It didn't. Instead, the light doubled in size.
And John hadn't had the chance to get any damn breakfast yet.
John tried for a quick wash down which was made next to impossible by the expanding light obscuring his vision, making him grab the bottle of soap instead of shampoo. When he finally finished scrubbing down, rinsing off, and locating the shampoo the light vanished, and the pain slunk in like a dog making for the table scraps. It turned the lights of the room into skewers through his eyes and made his brain feel like it was getting a ten-man kicking with steel-toed boots. John barely kept that Power Bar he'd had on waking up on the platform in his stomach as he dried off, dressed, and practically crawled to his bed. The lights, thankfully, he'd thought ahead of time to turn off.
He didn't crawl under the blankets until he'd tossed back the pills with some water. He then curled up beneath the covers, squeezed his eyes shut, and remembered Keller's instructions about wet washcloths but didn't think any further motion worth the agony.
------------------------------------------
The pills weren't working. They weren't even making a dent, the headache from hell now a headache from the tenth level of hell. The pain wasn't just pounding John's brain, it was pulverizing it, stomping it into bloody mush that was trying to leak out of his ears. It pulsed down his spine into his shoulders and upper back to pull the muscles like taffy so they could be tied into knots.
And the nausea - it was like being booted over and over in the stomach, and John curling into himself seemed to only make it worse. Probably because to so much as twitch made fireworks go off in his head – the big kind, like what they used for the Independence Day show in Washington D.C. John couldn't even groan without paying for it. He was a ball of agony, pain the only tangibility in this narrowed little world.
Then his stomach bucked hard forcing him into a lurch over the side of the bed. He heaved, and it was confirmed that the pain could get worse, the fireworks brighter, the explosions louder. He barely managed to push himself back onto his bed when his vision, thankfully, faded into black.
Just not the pain.
John awoke to it and the perk that if he held perfectly still, it wasn't so bad. He just needed to stop shaking and hope his stomach didn't do another back flip.
As if to spite him, it did a double flip, and John was back over the side, choking up bile that left him even more spent, shivery and so weak all he could do was hang there, panting. Darkness faded in then out, sunrise and sunset buying him energy enough to inch his way back onto his pillow.
Crap, how it hurt doing that.
Blackness was a tide this time, rolling in then out. It receded to hushed voices and the careful tread of footfalls. Not careful enough, however, as the lightest tap of rubber on metal floor nailed his brain to his skull, making him cringe.
“I don't remember it being this bad the last time.” That was McKay's voice. “I mean, he was in pain but he was mobile... kind of. Kept squirming around a lot.”
As gentle and hushed as Rodney's voice was, the noise still hammered, and John still groaned.
“Shhh, Rodney, keep it down.” Dr. Keller.
“I'm trying! I'm barely talking above a whisper here.”
John groaned again, with a little added whimper at the end. He dug his fingers into the mattress imagining it was McKay's ever-moving mouth. Then something soft and cool touched his forehead, and soft and warm his neck.
“I know, Rodney. But like you said, it's really bad this time around.” John's next whimper produced a breathy apology from her.
“Colonel Sheppard?” she said next. “Listen. I'm going to hook you to an I.V. All right? You're a little dehydrated. So just a quick pinch in your hand....”
John flinched on feeling said pinch on the back of his hand. Tape was smoothed over the site and seconds later something cool and heavenly flowed up his veins toward his skull.
“There,” Keller whispered. “I gave you something stronger that should help.”
And, oh, how it did, slowly but surely dousing most of the flames in John's skull and smothering the crushing pain into a more tolerable ache. The darkness he slipped into was cool and sweet, accompanying the distant voices that drifted away into blessed silence.
---------------------------------
John's next return to consciousness didn't make him want to tear his eyes out. He did, however, long to toss out the window whatever was making that high-speed clacking sound. He pried open his eyes to soft shadows and a lumpy blur of beige and blue. A few rapid blinks morphed the blur into Rodney sitting in John's desk chair, feet propped up on the end of the bed and a laptop in his lap. One hand typed while another held a bottle of Yoohoo.
John furrowed his brow, wondering how McKay got his hands on a commercialized, non-generic drink. He opened his mouth with the intent to ask, but all that came out was a high, pathetic croak. Cotton-mouth and soured-breath made it impossible to work up any saliva to coat his throat. Then, suddenly, a plastic cup with a bendy straw hovered just within reach of his mouth. He took a few heavenly swallows – although he would have preferred the Yoohoo. Non-generics were such a torturous commodity thanks to minor “budget-cuts”. Anything that didn't say “compare with this brand, they taste just the same!” you paid for yourself via a small deduction in your paycheck.
“Better?” Rodney asked.
John nodded, wincing from the throb that rippled though, thankfully, didn't spike.
“Need anything else?” Rodney asked next.
John moved his gaze to the half-full bottle of chocolate milk now sitting on his nightstand. Rodney noticed and, after setting the cup down, snatched the bottle and held it rather possessively against his chest.
McKay scowled. “I don't share, Colonel. You know that.” Which was a big fat lie or he would have put up more of a fight when Ronon made a grab for his collection of desserts at dinner two nights ago. Or was it three nights? What day was it anyway?
“Besides,” Rodney went on, “like hell I'm going to let you ruin the bliss of consuming this fine chocolate drink by puking it all over the floor.” As if to emphasize the point of it being blissful, he took a long, deliberate swallow. The jerk.
John glared at him, or tried to, but his throbbing brain didn't let him hold the expression for long.
“Feeling better,” he mumbled instead. And he was. His head still felt stuffed with cotton and pressure, but his stomach was cooperating. In fact, John was starving, hunger like a gaping hole in his gut.
Rodney set the bottle on the floor well out of John's reach. Double jerk. “I'll let Keller be the judge of that. Go back to sleep until she gets here.”
“Bite me, mother,” John said, squirming deeper under the covers. Tired of sleeping, he watched Rodney instead so he didn't miss it when the physicist stopped typing while his gaze turned distant and pained, only for his body to twitch out of it and his fingers resume their marathon run over the keys.
John knew that look. “McKay? You all right?”
Rodney stopped typing and gave John a bewildered stare. “What?”
“You. O. Kay?” John emphasized.
Face going neutral, Rodney went back to typing. “I'm not the one being held hostage in a bed by the headache from Hades. Of course I'm all right.”
“I didn't mean physically, McKay.”
Rodney hunkered low over his laptop and said a bit too snappishly, “I'm fine.” It was a “the matter is now dropped” tone that stated clearly Rodney had no intentions of answering any further questions, no matter how many times John asked.
Except John didn't have to ask. He stared at Rodney, waiting, as the typing increased in speed and McKay's brow bunched in a mask of forced concentration that wasn't cooperating. Then abruptly, as though someone had flipped a switch, Rodney stopped, going perfectly still.
“I should have listened to Teyla,” he said. “There, I said it. Happy now? Will you leave me alone?”
John sighed. “I asked if you were all right, McKay. Not for a confession.” He sighed again, which sounded more like a rough groan. His head may have been free of the skewers, but it still didn't make talking pleasant.
“If I'd listened to Teyla, I wouldn't have sent those two guys out,” Rodney said in a voice made hoarse by self-reproach. He still wouldn't look at John. “If I hadn't sent those two guys out, they would still be alive. Oh, and you wouldn't have had your brain turned inside out. So what part of any of that makes you think I could possibly be all right?”
“The part where we're all still alive.”
Rodney's face remained expressionless, though his hands were gripping the edge of the laptop tight enough for the knuckles to go white. “Except for the two men I sent far away from our little den of safety. Sorry, Colonel, but your positive outlook isn't packing enough of a punch this time around. Two men are dead – two men I picked for this expedition... although I'm pretty certain that Graydon guy wasn't even supposed to be here... and it's my fault.”
John rolled onto his back, flopping his arm over his eyes to shield them from the soft, gray light filtering through the useless gauze curtains. The Ancients could seed galaxies with life and build flying cities yet had the decorating sense of a yuppy who thought form over function got you invited to more parties. Muted as the light was, it still stabbed into John's over-sensitized eyes, which in turn was wearing his patience to a thread.
“Get over yourself, McKay. Yeah, so you sent two guys out there to repair the mess her dark majesty – who we had no idea was even on the damn platform - made. I'm the one who didn't get to them in time. I'm the one who couldn't save them.”
“Only because I couldn't get those damn fields down... okay, maybe that was more Zelenka's fault. Mine and Zelenka's. That doesn't matter. What matters is I didn't listen to Teyla. I brushed aside her highly accurate spidey-senses because the sensors begged to differ. Ronon was right - machines don't know everything. But because I like to think they do, two men are dead.”
When the back of John's skull began to pulse from the pressure against the pillow, he returned to his side. “Nothing wrong with playing Devil’s Advocate from time to time, McKay.”
“Uh, I think this situation would beg to differ.”
John grunted a non-committal reply. He really wasn't up to this. Pep talks he barely managed when he was whole and healthy, and even the remnants of a killer migraine increased the chances of putting his foot in his mouth more often than not. But the floodgates had been opened, and it was either deal with the deluge now or fight a bigger deluge later when Rodney avoided the topic all together.
Unfair as it may sound, the best moment to get Rodney to dump a few burdens was when he was at his most emotionally vulnerable and in a position where busy work couldn't be his ticket out. And that moment was now.
“Wonder how Teyla is?” John said.
“Moody,” Rodney replied. “Her headache didn't last as long as yours, but it's lingering. Yesterday I asked if she wanted her apple cobbler, and she about swallowed my head whole biting it off. And it was a fair enough question. She wasn't touching the stuff, and I was still hungry -”
“I wonder if the wraith queen taking her over is still bugging her.”
Rodney lifted his chin thoughtfully. “Mmm, I would assume some part of it is still on her mind.”
“More like nightmares.” John shuddered. “Listen, Rodney. The entire mission was one big ball of unpredictable FUBAR. As much as you would like to consider yourself the sole bearer of all the guilt, it's universal this time around. How much you want to bet Ronon's kicking himself for not seeing that something was wrong with Teyla? You know how much the big guy likes being hyper-aware.”
“I would think more like kicking himself over Teyla having kicked his ass so easily,” Rodney said, scratching his chin.
John pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Yeah, probably.”
Rodney closed the lid of his laptop in order to make room to cross his arms stubbornly over his chest. “Okay, then. We all feel guilty. We all think we're at fault. What do we do about it then, huh?”
John lifted his shoulder in a shrug that, thankfully, his head didn't mind. “Nothing.”
Rodney glared. “Nothing? Oh, yes, very helpful. Whatever you do, don't quit your day job to become a motivational speaker -”
“McKay!” John growled, groaning when the throb became a brief, heartbeat long stab that made him flinch and Rodney's arms drop to his sides in preparation to help.
“Sheppard, you okay?” McKay asked, looking positively helpless in his worry.
“I'm fine,” John slurred. “ Jus' leftovers.”
Rodney slumped in the chair, his arms back around his chest though the stance was less defiant and more timid. He shifted, making the chair squeak, as he stared at John in open concern and a touch of curiosity.
“So, um... what – what's it like? When the queen... you know?” McKay freed up one arm to tap the side of his head.
Swallowing, John shuddered then replied, “Like having a foot long and three-inch thick metal spike shoved into my brain.”
Rodney gaped. “Oh, gosh. How the hell do you survive something like that?”
“Well, if it was a literal three-inch spike, you don't.”
McKay's eyes narrowed. “And not literally? How do you stop yourself from becoming her obedient puppy?”
Again, John shuddered, harder this time, his heart and head pounding in time. “Ain't easy,” he said. “She was a tough bitch. Tougher than the last one. If Ronon hadn't come when he did....” Another swallow made his suddenly dry throat stick together. He reached for the cup only for Rodney to grab it and hold it in front of his mouth. After a swallow, John was able to continue. “I don't like being told what to do.”
“Says the man who joined the Air Force,” Rodney said, setting the cup aside.
“Small price to pay to fly,” John said. “I don't like being told what to do by people – things – that don't have a right to it. By people, or things, that are telling me to do what I know is going to hurt other people.”
“Or other things,” Rodney interjected.
“Mostly just people,” said John, his minuscule amount of energy waning. “Flying a super wraith queen back to take command of her people... so she can lead them on a feeding-frenzy toward Atlantis... is good incentive to be the biggest stubborn ass that you can be. Yeah, it hurts, but... it was pain. Pain doesn't last forever.”
There was a moment of silence then Rodney said, “She could have killed you.”
“She would have killed me,” John replied. “After I did what she asked. But if Ronon hadn't come....”
Rodney's face paled. “Do you really think... you would have?”
John stared past Rodney's shoulders at the shapeless shadows on the other side of the room. As much as he wanted to deny it and reassure Rodney, as much as his gut clenched admitting to a weakness that could have cost the lives of hundreds - even millions - John couldn't deny the power of that queen's control: sharper than the last queen's, like a fist crushing his brain, the pain almost as bad as being fed on by a wraith. He remembered not being able to breathe or use his arsenal of words to push back and buy himself more time. All focus, all energy, had been poured into keeping his knees on the floor and his body away from the controls.
He remembered the terror of his slowly dissolving resolve when the spike was driven deeper and deeper.
If Ronon hadn't come, John couldn't say what would have happened – hopefully an aneurysm, but more than likely something else.
“Wow,” Rodney said. “It, uh... it kind of freaks you out, doesn't it.” Statement, not a question.
“Yeah,” John admitted. “It kind of does.”
“But Ronon came,” Rodney said.
“Teyla tricked the wraith queen,” John said.
“You got her to turn off the self-destruct...”
“You shot her ass to death...”
“And we're all still alive,” Rodney finished.
John grinned. “Now who's thinking positive?”
“Whatever,” Rodney muttered. He poured the remaining water in the cup back into the water bottle. “You can't argue with being alive. It just doesn't make you feel any better when you think about the ones who aren't.” He filled a quarter of the cup with Yoohoo and, this time, let John hold the cup in his shaky hand. Rodney tapped the bottle against it, and they drank.
The cold chocolate was even more heavenly than the water. “The Dead don't suffer the living, Rodney,” John said when he'd drunk the cup near-dry. “It's the other way around.”
“With nothing you can do about it,” said Rodney pointedly.
“Except learn from your mistakes and keep on living. Besides, I'd personally rather feel guilty – even if it wasn't my fault and there was nothing I could do about it – than not give a damn. Once you stop caring, that's when you need to worry. If you don't care, you don't learn. If you don't learn... then it might as well be your fault, even if it wasn't. You stop caring, think it'll make the pain stop if you do... it's the same as quitting. The good guys die for nothing. The bad guy wins. And the pain's still there.”
“Deep,” Rodney said, slightly impressed. “Sort of.”
John set the cup on the table so he could pull the blankets up to his chin. “I'm a veritable well-spring of wisdom when I'm sick.” He wanted to say more – keep talking until Rodney felt better or, more likely, became too distracted to stay guilty - but his last crumb of energy was gone and he could barely keep his eyes open, let alone force his abused brain to think. He wasn't quite asleep enough to miss the sounds of movement: the squeak of a chair, footfalls, running water then more footfalls. A warm cloth was placed on the back of his neck and a cool cloth on his forehead.
“Thanks McKay,” John mumbled. Then furrowed his brow. “Where'd you get the Yoohoo, an'way?”
Rodney dropped back into the chair that protested with a loud creak. “I'd tell you, but then I'd have to knock you over the head and hope you suffer amnesia.” He picked up his laptop from off the floor and balanced it on his lap. “Because there is no way I'm going to prison over chocolate milk.”
John chuffed then groaned.
“I'll bring you one later,” Rodney said. “It's the least I can do for getting your brain hard-boiled.”
“McKay...” John growled.
“Look, will you just milk the guilt like a good little sick and obnoxious friend? I don't share, remember? Making this a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
John grinned. “Very... generous... of you.”
“Damn straight it is.” Rodney said.
The end of the bed shifted when Rodney propped his feet back up, and John drifted away into a pain-free darkness on the chaotic rhythm of a clattering keyboard that didn't break in stride.
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 08:30 pm (UTC)From:I'm glad you gave us more insight about what it 'felt' like to deal with such a powerful mind and how John admitted he didn't think time he could have held on mentally until Ronon arrived. Very cool comfort piece.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 08:39 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 10:38 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:35 am (UTC)From:This story was fun to think up as there really is so much potantial to the mind-control. Not just whump but angst as well, because Sheppard did seem to have a lot less fight with this queen than the last.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-25 10:48 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:39 am (UTC)From:Yoohoo is basically glorified chocolate milk. Turth be told, though. I'm actually not that big of a fan of it. I feel it a little too rich and thick compared to normal chocolate milk, but it seemed like something both McKay and Sheppard would be into.
"Nice detail with the generic vs. name-brand stuff on the supply runs."
Heh, I can just so see the SGC going for generic just to save a few bucks. Poor Atlantis ;)
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Date: 2008-04-25 10:49 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:41 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 12:28 am (UTC)From:Love the John and Rodney talk. Loved how he knew he had to talk to Rodney as soon as he could for it to do any good. Nice job with the Yoohoo. Chocolate is love!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 01:33 am (UTC)From:Love the Yoohoo. :)
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Date: 2008-04-26 03:42 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 02:10 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:44 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 02:21 am (UTC)From:This beautifully defines Sheppard in so many of his
adventures.....
This was a great story, but then all of your stuff is
that way.
:-)
I just finished reading Jabberwocky which was a real
roller coaster ride. I never thought I would make it...
but at least no Morticia to hang around outside on my ledge
or inside my bedroom.....
I am now delving into Hound of Hell You Cry, and it is
starting out that way too.......
no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 03:47 am (UTC)From:Heh, a little advice when reading Hound of Hell you Cry - don't read with the lights off. Especially when you get toward the last couple of chapters.
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Date: 2008-04-26 04:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-26 06:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-27 02:29 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 07:05 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 09:28 pm (UTC)From:I liked the 'me helping you helping me'; it's so what their unlikely friendship is about. Neither admit to much, and they've called each others' bluffs.
“I'm a veritable well-spring of wisdom when I'm sick.” Hee!
Thanks for coming up with something so quickly! You rock! I'll have yours soon. Brendan was nagging me a bit lately.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-28 09:38 pm (UTC)From:Brendan's been whispering ideas into my head as well, just nothing concrete yet. :/
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Date: 2009-06-19 08:15 pm (UTC)From:no subject
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Date: 2008-08-29 11:39 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-06-19 08:16 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-02-21 07:07 pm (UTC)From:“Like having a foot long and three-inch thick metal spike shoved into my brain.” That's it exactly. The next time I have a migraine, I will try to imagine I'm fighting a wraith instead.
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Date: 2009-06-19 08:17 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 01:00 am (UTC)From: