excerpt

This is a rawfeed story, which means that it’s coming direct from my brain to the computer screen. There may be word usage errors and editing problems.

THAT TIME I TOLD YOU
by Sol Crafter

They met for the first time in the lunchroom when they were 10 years old. It wasn’t an instant connection–it took two weeks of sharing a table before they got to talking–but they became best friends after that.

To Conrad, meeting Jamie was the first time he felt alive. It was as though color flooded into an otherwise empty world.

It had never been great at home. His parents were always fighting, always yelling, always looking at him with resentful eyes as though to say “It’s your fault all our dreams are dead”. Going to school was his chance to get away from the tension and the loneliness. He did okay in his classes.

Until Jamie came, he only went to school to get away from home. The other kids were just the kids he played with at school–he wouldn’t call any of them a best friend.

Jamie was his best friend.

And so, because Jamie played the guitar, Conrad learned to play the bass. Because Jamie loved singing and music, Conrad learned to carry a tune and even started writing songs in a spiral bound notebook.

He would spend the night at Jamie’s house with Jamie’s doting mom who always tried to get Jamie whatever he wanted, even though she was a single parent without much money. He might have been jealous if she hadn’t been so nice to him, welcoming him into her home as though he were another son.

He became part of their family.

*

“We should start our own band.”

They were in Jamie’s room, each taking up an opposite … Read the rest “WIP: That Time I Told You (working title)”

Title: $85 Dry Cleaning Bill
Author: Harper Kingsley

PROMPT: I need to wash my blanket. It smells like dirty girl.

FILL: I need to wash my blankie, Holden thought, wrinkling her nose.

The dark cream colored rectangle of fake fur smelled of dirty girl and rancid powdered Corpse. Her own familiar smell had been completely wiped away by her cousin. Her terrible, terrible cousin. The would-be necromancer and part-time necrophile.

Her blanket felt tainted now. And the smell made her want to gag. If she didn’t love that scrap of fabric so much she would have thrown it away. As it was, she’d have to take it to the Dry Cleaners and hope they could save it.

Holden bundled the blanket into a garbage bag and tied it shut. She tossed the bag in the backseat of her car and drove to a coffee shop where she enjoyed a black coffee sweetened by two sugars and a croissant sandwich for lunch. While she was there she ran a quick Internet search for highly rated Dry Cleaners.

She chose and saved the directions to Happy Harry’s onto her phone. She ignored the notification that said she’d had five missed calls (This is my day) and finished her coffee. Then she drove to the Dry Cleaners, who told her it was going to cost $85 to save her blanket.

By the time she was home getting ready for the evening’s Entertainment, she was simmering over the amount of the bill. Her cousin hadn’t even apologized when she’d made such a big mess at Thanksgiving. (That selfish bitch. She only thinks about herself. She didn’t even look sorry when she got Uncle Raymond’s fingers chopped off. It was all about her. Never mind our family.) She’d swooped in, dropped angry criminals on them … Read the rest ““$85 Dry Cleaning Bill””

Octavia remembered the way they’d looked at her pile of blankets. Half a dozen scraps of cloth in various fabric types. “Those synthetic fabrics don’t breathe” they would cry, as though she was committing some great sin.

They didn’t understand that that was the point. They didn’t breathe.

Blankets, towels, heaps of fabric–they may have been something to keep her warm and dry back during the old days, but they developed hundreds of uses after the end of the world.

She could wave a white towel to show she gave up. She could clog a drain with a microbial, moisture wicking blanket lining.

She could hold onto the soft comfort of the velour blanket someone had gifted to her. She couldn’t even remember his name, just the fact that he’d been a truly nice guy and not a predator in drag (Kang-soo*, that dirtbag). Blanket-guy had bought her the camel colored blanket while they were at some outside venue. He’d gotten her a coffee too, and the way he’d looked at her had made her start thinking that he was falling in love with her.

She couldn’t remember his name and his face was a blur, but his kindness had remained with her for all the years after the end of the world. He’d become one of her sweetest memories of her life before.

She wondered what he would be like now if he had survived. The thought had entered her mind with a Terminator fanfic, one where Clair Dane’s character from the original timeline never ended up locked in a bunker with John Connor.

She ended up falling in love with him because she didn’t meet him again until after the end of her world. She’d met him at the lowest point of her life and he’d … Read the rest “Don’t forget to bring a towel to the end of the world”

1 comment on "Centrifical, by Sol Crafter – Chapter One"

Rereading some old stuff. I really do have a fondness for this story. There may be some Marty/Jim shorts in the future.

* * *

Title: Centrifical
Author: Sol Crafter
Pairing: Marty Sheer/Jim Sheppard
Genre: mm, contemporary, rockstar, movie star
Rating: mature

Summary: Marty is one of the stars of a cheesy sci-fi show. Jim is a rock superstar. They’ve been friends forever, though now it’s turned to something more.

CHAPTER ONE

He was sitting on a bench with a paperback spread open on his lap, the spine strained to breaking. He’d come to the park with the idea that he was finally going to finish reading his mystery novel. Except the sun was warm on his skin and he was distracted by the sounds of distant laughter and the elusive scent of barbecue.

Finally he gave up even the pretense and folded the book closed, shoving it into the pocket of his navy blue hoodie. He just sat with his head tipped back and enjoyed the light on his closed eyelids and the way fingers of breeze stroked through his hair.

Hanging out, down the street, same old thing we did last week...

Not a thing to do, but hang with you...

This song's so catchy I don't know what to do.