DPP: Quick! What do you think of?

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

In lieu of thinky stuff, let's play a game today!

Scan the list of Pilots-related prompts below and choose one or more, and identify the first thought or concept related to it that comes to your mind. Then free write on the topic for five minutes, or make an icon or a macro, or post a 100-word (or longer) drabble, or rec a fic or vid that it reminds you of... ANYTHING GOES! The list includes some specific stuff but also some vague words that could have double meanings.

Apollo and Aurora (or Artemis)
beyond insane
close quarters
dance
eye contact
faith
guilty secret
hands 
"l missed you."/"I missed you too."
journey
Kobol
last time
missed chances
no takebacks
oxygen depletion
pulling rank
quarters
ring
survival
"This seems familiar."
unison
viper jocks
wings
"Except me."/ "Especially you."
yin and yang
Zak

Comments

Apollo and Aurora

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

For the first time in years, he is flying.

Or at least, Lee thinks he's flying. He's in the clouds again anyway, that much he knows. It's been so long. But the sky is blue and there's a bright sun shining on him and he wonders what happened to the dark of space.

But that's not right. Because his brain is suddenly telling him Galactica's been gone for years. For a moment, Lee loses all sense of time and place. After Galactica, there was Earth, he knows...or was it Kobol? His pulse races and his brain is fuzzy suddenly, like a picture that just won't come into focus, and he is alarmed.

Then he looks down and realizes he's not in a flight suit. More troubling still, he's not in a viper. Lee pushes back the sense of panic, and tries to focus. He seems to be in some sort of cart or carriage. A horse whinnies nearby and Lee looks up with shocked eyes to find a pair of stallions before him. The horses rear up suddenly in their harnesses and a familiar voice drifts to him.

"Come on, Apollo!" his head turns and his breath catches as he sees her face. It is not fuzzy, but distinct for once and achingly familiar. She's smirking, eyes wide and expectant, and she rolls them as he watches, her head tilting slightly. "We've been waiting for you," she chides, more gently than he's used to, and turns to a set of gates. She pushes them open and waits on the other side, beckoning him forward with pink-tipped fingers. He follows the line of her arm to her shoulder, bare and round and gleaming in the sunlight--and brushed by the feathery tips of a pair of enormous wings. Lee blinks. Those are new.

She catches him looking, like always, and winks, then turns her back to him and shifts her shoulders so the wings waggle. He laughs and Kara does too, the sound streaming back to him on the wind as she leads the way.

He follows.

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[buckeye94.livejournal.com]

Lovely! They totally dropped the ball on the Aurora element.

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I *love* the angelic wing waggle! Too perfect!

This was lovely :)

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

&hearts Kara is absolutely Aurora in my Personal Canon. **nods** What a fun little drabble!

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[kag523.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

I just love the voice of your writing. It's always so descriptive without being wordy. Mmmm... Nice! :>D

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[rdave1.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! Flying with wings in the sky like they are mean to!

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness... this was so achey... sweet but sad... and now I'm crying.

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[stripes13.livejournal.com]

Awww, beautifully done.

Wing waggles, and Kara and Lee together at the end :D

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

So good! She's saucy even in the afterlife!

This makes a weird connection in my brain with the recent Buffy comic and its pages of crazy!flying!sex with Angel. Plot bunny!

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous and bittersweet. I love it. *sighs*

For the first time, I can actually picture Kara as an angel. Well done.

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[eugis.livejournal.com]

Aw they're together again! As it should be. Always. ♥

Re: Apollo and Aurora

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Aww, this was bittersweet and lovely. Perfectly them. And the wing waggle! ♥ They will always be Apollo and Aurora (or Artemis) for me.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

What a fun idea! Here are a couple of quick drabbles, one sad and one not so sad:

Apollo and Aurora

~~~~

His name recalled the day, and hers the dawn.

No day without dawn, no dawn without day.

He felt heat in the flash of her anger, found light in the fall of her hair. This had always been true.

He hadn’t feared cycles. He thought they’d been born to this rhythm. Circles defined her life, as she defined his.

But dawn could not stay for day. She left him as he woke; she vanished on the cusp of touch.

He never saw her go.

~~~~


Last time

~~~

“I would like to announce my candidacy for the interim Vice Presidency,” said Captain Thrace.

The roomful of reporters blurred into a collective flurry, but that was hardly out of the ordinary.

“What political platform do you propose?” asked Ill-fitting Maroon Suit – no point wasting memory cells on their names - whom Kara had provisionally designated the fifth most obnoxious one.

“Find Earth, shoot the Cylons out of the sky, and don’t die again in the process – I hate repeating mistakes.”

“Any specifics?”

“The words ‘out of the box’ and ‘beyond insane’ will definitely be on our campaign posters. And acting President Leland will look a lot less boring once I’m standing next to him.”

“What are your qualifications for this office?”

“I regularly save your collective…”

“Thank you all so much for your time!” Lee gasped, plunging through the curtain that divided his office from the conference center. He’d apparently worked through her knots in record time. His black eye was just beginning to be visible, though.

Smiling politely, he took her arm and ushered her away from the cameras.

“That’s the last time I let you talk to the press,” he growled.

“This is gonna be fun,” she told him. “Trust me.”

~~~

[buckeye94.livejournal.com]

Your second drabble is most amusing and very true to form.

[aurora-0811.livejournal.com]

Oh man, the Apollo/Aurora drabble squeezed my heart and made it ache. Oh Pilots!

He hadn’t feared cycles. He thought they’d been born to this rhythm. Circles defined her life, as she defined his.

This is so very beautiful. *sniff*

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Oh I love the concept of cycles! The first is such a poignant little image. Sad but lovely.

And the second made me laugh aloud! :>)

Sweet!

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

The Apollo and Aurora drabble is beautiful and achy. The Last Time is making me giggle. Funny!Kara is Funny.

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Sorry guys - crunch time today (post-production)... to say nothing of my own ongoing fic... so I'm going to give you a piece I wrote YESTERDAY entitled (dun dun dun DUN!) "No Takebacks". What timing, huh?

http://kag523.livejournal.com/25307.html


And then, 'cause I feel guilty for cheaping out yet again, here is a teeny tiny reworked pic I did at lunch, with a quote from the chapter.

(http://s931.photobucket.com/albums/ad159/kag523/?action=view&current=NoTakebacks-quote.jpg)

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

That's an intense chapter. And I like the image, too. Nice job.

Quarters

[ecstaticdance.livejournal.com]

Quarters, she thought, bouncing the small round metal disks in the palm of her hand. Everything here was so alien. The clothing, the music, the language. Even the currency was strange. It had been Lee, of course, who had figured out the language first. They'd found the 13th tribe, all right, but as it turned out a few thousand years did a lot to change things. Kara eyed the machine in front of her and rolled the coins in her hand a little more.

She felt, more than heard, Lee walk up behind her. After a moment of silence, he said, "It's a vending machine, Kara. Just like we used to have in the Colonies. I don't think it's going to bite."

"Yeah, someone said that about the Cylons once, too." Her mouth twisted into a bitter line, and she heard Lee let out a long, slow breath. He was trying not to sigh at her. Let him. He wasn't the one the Gods had yanked around mercilessly, refusing to answer questions or show any kind of clear path.

"Well, we know better now, right? So we can teach them what our mistakes were, and maybe avoid it this next time around." She felt his left hand land gently on her hip as he reached around her with his other arm to guide her hand to the coin slot. He helped her drop the quarters in and then pressed the combination of buttons that told the machine to give her trail mix. Dried fruit and nuts. For the crazy lady. Perfect.

She twisted out of his grasp and snatched the small plastic bag. As she turned, Lee caught her by the waist and pushed her back against the clear safety glass of the archaic machine.

Kara's nostrils flared as she tried to break out of his grasp. She was adrift, had no idea what she was doing or where she was going. She wanted to just float away into the ether, but the Gods wouldn't let her, so she might as well just float here. "What are you doing, Lee?"

His face hovered dangerously close, and she could feel his breath on her face, feel the heat of his body so close to hers. His eyes searched her as if he could see straight through to her soul, assuming she still had one. "I'm not loosing you again." And then his mouth on hers and it was perfect and horrible and exactly what she was most afraid of. It was exactly what she needed.

When their lips finally parted, Kara let her head fall back heavily against the glass, and Lee followed her, resting his forehead against hers, and brushing her cheeks with his hands. "I love you, Kara Thrace. And I'm not letting you walk away from me again." She felt his thumbs smoothing dampness into her skin, but couldn't tell if the tears were his or her own.

It was a new world. They'd gotten another chance. Maybe this time, it didn't matter who the tears belonged to. Kara clung to Lee, to the one who always called her soul back. Maybe this time, she could learn to be whole.

Re: Quarters

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

"Maybe this time, it didn't matter who the tears belonged to."

*meep*

So lovely.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd like to add that in looking at the prompt words a fic sprang to mind that I associate with "hands" and "Artemis." I'm sure most of you have already read it a million times, but if not, enjoy!:

One Taste of the Apple, by brynnmck

http://brynnmck.livejournal.com/32749.html

I think it's one of the most beautiful Kara POVs out there :)

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Brynn's pre-mini fic is so wonderful.

That "You're Artemis, except when you fly. Then you're Starbuck." exchange is so lovely.

no takebacks

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I'm still awed that one of the most magical pilots moments ever came out of improvising. After Lee does is little speech, I think the line in the script was for Katee to just say, "I'm gonna have to write that one down." For whatever reason she thought it needed to be more playful, and then Katee and Jamie pull this exchange out of their asses that reminds you of a couple silly twelve-year-olds dancing around their crushes on each other. In my mind, Kara's "You can't take it back" thing speaks worlds about how happy she really was to hear it. It's almost like she's snagging an opportunity to tell him, "If anything happens with us, it's your fault. Just saying. You gorgeous moron."

Re: no takebacks

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Oh nice! I did not know this was an improvised bit. Makes sense though.

I enjoy all their improvisations I must say. (Ahem esp. Jamie's suggestion that Lee should kiss her.)


***why does brain now want RPF of them trying to out-improvise each other? Oh dear.***

ETA: I just read today that apparently Harrison Ford improvised the "I know" response in Star Wars. That too totally makes sense given Lucas's later crap writing.

Eye Contact

[rayruz.livejournal.com]

Kara catches him looking at her more often now.

She’s sure everyone’s seen her before—privacy’s not a luxury they get in the Fleet—but seeing is different from looking.

Lee looks. Always has. In the head, in the bunkroom, sometimes even when they’re fully dressed and he just looks at her. Sometimes, she looks back, and he holds her gaze.

Normally, it wouldn’t matter. It never used to matter. But now it does.

She remembers back in high school, learning about some psychologist guy that said when you slip up and say something you didn’t mean to say, it’s because it’s something you’ve been trying not to think about. Something like that. Shrinks are crazy.

And ever since he said it, she sees it when he steals a look at her. Sidelong glances when he thinks she doesn’t notice him. Sometimes he keeps watching, oblivious. Other times he whips his head away so fast, she’s surprised he doesn’t end up with whiplash. But he doesn’t catch her eye, anymore, like he’s thinking about what he said.

And then he’s in a towel, and she’s pantsless, and it’s clearly the best time to prove Lee’s smug face wrong once again. She can’t really blame him for that dumbstruck look on his face. He also looks like he’s never been more turned on in his life, she can’t really blame him for that either.

She smirks. Won that round.

Luckily, they never have to talk about it. There’re screaming nuggets and a camera crew. Another win.

Kara can tell he doesn’t like the reporter from the get go, so she knows reaching out to shake that Biers woman’s hand is a calculated act. A calculated act that lets his towel slip, exposing his backside to her.

She’s pretty sure he’s smirking. He wins; and now it’s her turn to look.

Re: Eye Contact

[callmeonetrack.livejournal.com]

Heee! I enjoyed this. Oh Season Two! I miss you!

Guilty Secret

[ninjamonkey73.livejournal.com]

Kara was daydreaming, again, when she suddenly realized all the eyes in the briefing room were on her. Frak. Lee must have asked her a question and she had no idea what he'd been nattering on about. There was no graceful out, so she went for honesty.

"Sorry, sir. You lost me back at the schedule swaps." She smiled, a lopsided affair that she hoped was charming enough to let her off the hook.

Lee narrowed his eyes and huffed out a breath. "Fine. You can stay for a private recap, Starbuck. The rest of you are dismissed." Once the room cleared out, leaving him alone with a still-distracted Kara, he closed the hatch and started talking before he'd even turned all the way back to her. "You want to fill me in on where your head's been? I called you three times before it even registered and you had such a goofy grin on your face."

"Goofy?" A brief look of panic flashed across Kara's face before she pulled herself together. Great. He wants to talk. This won't be awkward. "I don't know what you're talking about. See, my CAG is this total windbag that just drones on and on sometimes. He completely lost me today." Kara squirmed under his searching eyes, trying to look busy retying her flight boots.

He squatted down on his haunches in front of her chair to try to catch her eyes. "Today isn't the first time. And that grin was... I don't know. Wistful? What's got you so preoccupied, Kara?"

Well. He'd come right out and asked. How in the worlds was she supposed to dodge that one? Nothing much. Just having these completely distracting sexual fantasies starring you. Yeah, no. She couldn't really come right out and say it, could she? That would be weird. Wouldn't it?

She inhaled deeply and looked past his shoulder. Given the visions that had dragged her attention from the briefing, involving a hot shower and cold tiles, she was already at arousal DEFCON 4. The smart thing for her to do would be excuse herself. Come up with an illness and go pretend to get fixed in sickbay. Anything but the one thought rampaging through her fantasy-addled brain. Just tell him and see how he takes it.

"I've been having this... problem," she started, trying to sound serious.

And wouldn't you know, but the bastard reached out and took her hand. Offering silent support so she could unburden herself. His thumb trailed lazily across the side of her thumb and a shiver ran through her. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Kara half coughed, half laughed. The whole situation would be funny if it wasn't so very frakked up. She muttered under her breath, "Oh, I'm not sure you want to hear this," before barreling on. In for a penny, in for a pound. "I keep having these very distracting, um, daydreams."

Lee arched an eyebrow and smiled weakly. His voice wavered as he asked, slowly, as if he couldn't stop himself from asking a question he might not want to hear the answer to, "What kind of... daydreams?"

An evil grin spread slowly across Kara's face. He clearly didn't know how cute his eye-of-disbelief was. She purred, "Hot ones. Sir."

His adam's apple bobbed, once, deeply. "Wait. Involving..." Lee's eyes widened as he realized the implication in her eyes that he was a costar in the fantasy. A flush crept up his neck to his cheeks. "Oh."

"Yeah," she glanced, by accident, at his mouth. Just a brief flicker of her eyes to his lips and suddenly the room was a very small space, and Lee was all she could see and smell, and Godsdamn if she could remember why she had thought it was a bad idea to bring it up. Her tongue slid slowly across her lower lip, and when her eyes came back up to meet Lee's, she was undone.

With his hand already in hers, it was all too easy to pull him off balance where he crouched and crush her mouth to his. He was on board immediately, kissing her back, pressing her into the seat as he settled into the space between her thighs on his knees. He breathed, "That makes two of us, then."

Re: Guilty Secret

[kag523.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness! That is just frankly too much fun, and wonderfully sexy! WOW!

Part I

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

Apollo and Aurora (or Artemis) - Epic epic epic
beyond insane - kara's outrageous behavior most of the time
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=minivipers-1.jpg)
close quarters - where I want them to be all the time. VERY CLOSE quarters.
dance - Kara in a dress is a once in a lifetime opportunity (and my fic Opportunities (http://sci-fi-shipper.livejournal.com/22305.html))
eye contact - UST UST UST
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=lovehate-1.jpg)
faith - what kara loses in herself sometimes
guilty secret - that she loved lee even when she was with zak
hands - touching, handshakes of love
"l missed you."/"I missed you too." - finally reunited
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/bsg2020/?action=view&current=ALT18.jpg)
journey - how badly it ended - the poof
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/bsg2020/?action=view&current=sky.jpg)
Kobol - the hot of the jealous punching
last time - just before the poof
missed chances - Kara won't divorce, Lee decides to stay with Dee
no takebacks - they love each other no matter what
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/bsg2020/?action=view&current=CAT-4.jpg)
oxygen depletion - giggles
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/bsg2020/?action=view&current=happy2.jpg)
pulling rank - what lee could do to get kara to frak him anytime or anywhere
quarters - where kara frakked baltar while she was thinking of lee
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=guh.jpg)

Part II

[scifishipper.livejournal.com]

ring - drama drama drama (stupid un-necessary over the top drama) feh.
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=choiceleering.jpg)
survival - surviving is not enough - don't settle.
"This seems familiar." - RDM screws them over AGAIN.
unison - how they fly
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=twoviperswatchtowerbysyliasyliasyli.png)
viper jocks - the pilots' Starbuck/Apollo frak pool
wings - what Zak didn't earn
"Except me."/ "Especially you." - How lee could never say no
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/bsg2020/?action=view&current=CAT-3.jpg)
yin and yang - Kara and Lee
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=leekara.jpg)
Zak - the thing between them
(http://s784.photobucket.com/albums/yy126/scifishipper/BSG/ICONS/?action=view&current=marry3.jpg)

Apollo & Artemis

[nazkey.livejournal.com]

Hey guys!

No time, rushing out the door, but I'm gonna come back and read all of the wonderful stuff you people just pour out of your amazingly creative brains and comment *hugs you all*

In the meantime, here's my fic rec for Apollo & Artemis. Love the Greek mythology references. Interesting AU

State of Delusion (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3425834/1/bState_b_of_bDelusion_b)

PS A million thanks to coffeesuperhero for teaching me how to link properly.