Lex pushed his way through the crowd, wanting nothing more than a nice tall beer. The club was hopping as usual, but somehow he found himself out of place. He used to come here all the time in college, but his visits had gotten fewer and farther between; after he’d met Jared they’d started to taper off altogether. The last time Lex had been here was almost a year ago, back when things with Jared had been getting serious. In that year apparently everyone here had gotten younger. Not that he minded skinny barely-legal boys in tight shorts; eye candy was eye candy, after all, but Lex himself was closer to thirty than to twenty, and the idea that he might be getting too old for this was rather distressing.
Author Archives: ssbb-admin
20
Feb
Black Hair and Bullets or A Matter of Honour
The shop was mostly silent that morning, save from the constant ticking of the mechanisms filling the shelves. Sometimes a voice would drift through the open windows from the Sunday market below, but today London’s usually crowded streets were almost empty. In the wake of the previous day’s celebrations, most citizens were still abed or resting at home.
Vincent Thorne didn’t blame them for being only too willing to take advantage of the national holiday generously granted by the king. The joint efforts of their army and air force had given the Empire a great victory in India, and it was only natural that everyone would be in great spirits. There had been dancing in the streets and a great display of fireworks and many pubs had offered a round of drinks on the house to anyone who wanted to toast the king and his men.
20
Feb
To Get a Ticket
Which was worse, Robert couldn’t say: the corset that pinched and squeezed his ribs and guts, making breathing difficult, or the clients who forced him up against the wall without regard to his comfort or safety. This most recent one had just pushed him, face first, his hand against the back of his head, hardly getting the pantaloons down before he had shoved his dick up his ass. Robert tried to keep his mind on his goal, but it was difficult to think about earning fare for an airship when his face was being shoved into a rough wooden house. He really should work better neighborhoods, he thought as the man thrust hard and quick against him. Somewhere with masonry and gardens he decided, a splinter digging into his cheek as the man behind him came.
20
Feb
Music Box (1930s) — In Need of Repair
Matthew found the shop with little trouble, but at first he entertained the possibility that he was mistaken. He paced the opposite side of the street, he watched cars pass by, he watched the lights change. When the sun dipped behind the buildings and foot traffic between the metro stations picked up, warm yellow lights were lit inside the shop and those that lined the street with it. It glinted off glass faces and gold buckles, and it slid down glossed leather like water. There were worse things to be mistaken about, he decided, and he crossed the street and entered the shop.
20
Feb
Aeroplanes
There was, as there always is, a boy. His name was Michel Valentine, and imagine for a moment if you will a tall, lanky figure with messy brown hair, a wide mouth with smiles tucked into its corners, and blue eyes that look far older and wiser than his nineteen years. He was on his way to Bytherand to look for work, as many do; he had apprenticed with the physician in his town for three years, and Doctor Louis had declared Michel ready for bigger things. Of course, he had only said so after walking in on Michel sealing a gash on an unconscious farmhand’s leg with nothing but his thoughts.
It hadn’t been easy parting with his mother, but Michel had carefully packed the reference papers from Doctor Louis, shouldered his bag and hefted his case, and walked bravely out into the world.
20
Feb
Duet for Tenor and Transradial Orthosis
The first thing I noticed were his hands, which were stained beyond all washing by brown-black grease hiding in the creases of his knuckles and beneath what little of his fingernails hadn’t been bitten down to the quick. They were delicate, though, I could see by the way that he set his glass on the bar and ran his fingertips around the damp rim where his mouth had just been; he touched it like he’d touch a lover, I thought, long before I knew he’d never in his life touched a lover that way. The scent of new money rolled off him, not in that flashy, obnoxious way tasteless barbarians turn gilded lilies with a few extra notes in their billfolds, but like a man who’d come to enjoy all the things that wealth could get him but still didn’t feel like he fit in any of the places you had to go to get those things. He waited until the starched-collared bartender had wandered his way to the other end of the bar before inclining his head in my direction and saying to me, “I’ll buy you a drink if you let me see that arm.”
My head throbbed from a high receding too rapidly, and all I could think was, I didn’t come to London for this.
20
Feb
Victoria’s Children
Jack Draper stood on the hotel’s balcony and watched the bright streaks of tracer fire from the Tower Bridge arc across the darkened sky. The dark was half a smothering dusk, low clouds, the threat of storm, and half stinking black smoke. London was burning. Three years of peace was too much to ask.
20
Feb
The Perks to Running a Clean Ship
When Clarence awoke, the first thing he registered was that his body itched terribly. He tried to roll over, to get away from the sensation, but he found his way blocked by a wall of some kind. There was a wall on the other side as well, and then one above him, just centimeters away from his nose.
As anyone would do, he panicked. Shouting, he threw all of his strength against the wood that formed the ceiling of the box—coffin?—and never had he felt more relieved than when the lid gave way, sliding to the side and allowing sweet, fresh air to touch his face and fill his lungs.
It was only when he scrambled out of it that he realized he had been contained in a heavy shipping crate. How the bloody hell he had come to be there, lying in hay and wearing nothing at all, he hadn’t the slightest clue.
20
Feb
The Sanguine Engine
After searching around his workbench six times, Nicholas came to the conclusion that his supply of #9 gears had escaped somewhere. Perhaps it was house spirits, or the work of a team of dedicated mice with plans for building a watch that would be, in comparison to their size, gigantic, but the box was assuredly empty. This left him with two equally dire options: either he had to go out and buy more, or venture into the basement to see if he had any stashed away down there. He took the option that involved him not putting on his coat, and headed down the stairs.
He’d never had the basement wired up for electric light, and he regretted that decision every time he went teetering down the staircase with a lantern in his hand. The pale yellow light it cast lit up the whole galaxies of dust swirls that danced up every time he moved so much as an inch. Nicholas kept the place reasonably organized, at least, which meant his #9’s would be in a box on one of the shelves on the left wall; when he looked, though, he noticed that his system of storage had been put into something of disarray. Boxes were shifted, crates moved. His mind wandered to an image of truly industrious mice who wanted to abscond with a suit from his crate of winter clothes, but that idea left quickly when he cast the lantern to the right and found a collection of dead rats piled up in a little heap on the floor.
“Ah, more strays,” he said, nose wrinkling a little. He frequently had problems with cats getting into his basement and his workshop, but as long as they were killing pests, he supposed he didn’t mind, and whichever ones had been romping through his storage seemed to be doing good work of that. He looked a little closer at the bale of rodents on the floor. It was odd; they didn’t seem to have been gnawed on or eaten at all, but they were most certainly dead. He poked at the pile with his shoe, knocking one dessicated corpse off of the top, and when it hit the ground there was a clatter from the back end of the basement. Nicholas lifted his light just in time to see the pale figure coming at him, fangs bared.
Hell’s bells, he had a vampire in his basement. Well, at least something was taking care of the rats.
22
Dec
Yeah, Merry Christmas to You Too, Asshole!
by Seiwa Kaiyura (mirrors http://s2b2.livejournal.com/157867.html) Love0
