chris, I love that!

And Anne, I couldn't help a reread--as good as the first read!

I meant to write something else today, but this came out. Part "Justified" part RPF... The Majority Leader looked angrily at the pretty young intern guarding his wood-panelled sanctum. Crowder had gotten past her and was sitting on the Leader's desk bold as brass. "You can't be in here," he said, but the tone that quieted his caucus made Crowder laugh.

"Vasily says hey," he said, picking up one of his desk toys. "At least, I reckon that's what he said. My Cyrillic, much like my computer skills, is woefully inadequate. I fear I'm something of an anachronism…much like yourself. However, I've got ten thousand dollars and a depth charger that says I can sit wherever the hell I want. Are we clear?"

The leader's voice quivered as he said "I'm not admitting I paid you…but you know, if I had, aren't we done?"

Crowder smiled a wolfish smile. "Glad we understand one another…would hate for you to spend the last years of your last-ever term in this life mired in a syntax discrepancy. I don't owe you this knowledge, but since you asked so nicely, yeah, you and Harlan for A Better Tomorrow are done.I stand before you as a humble Kentucky constituent."

The Leader snorted. "Right."

"Is something amusing you about that?Because, despite my unfortunate incarceration, I've been told I'm photogenic and have a hell of a way with a story. Even more since this one's true, Mitchell."

"My name's not Mitchell."

"Never mind. Basically, your man Brett is bad for my sex life."

"I beg your pardon? I hope you don't think those kinds of favors are gifts with purchase, Mr. Crowder."

"You should have warned me you'd say that…the thought's bad for my dyspepsia. Let me sum up slightly. I spoke out of turn when I asserted that I could be anywhere I want, as I've been barred from Ava's…Delta of Venus until such time as she restores her equilibrium from the…shall we say, truncated…confirmation process…say something so I know you got my drift there, Mitchell. "

"I think I understand." The Leader said, almost talking tough, but his skin taking on a greenish cast, combined with his absence of chin really combined to enforce that turtle image that even Boyd had heard about. He wasn't dumb…he was just pretending he was a lobbyist.

"I rely on her. More than your wife has relied on labor from right off the boat, but alas? Not more than you and Vasily. Gotta warn you, though. Last time I saw my wife this upset, there was a shotgun involved, and when I say that, I'm not overrating my appendage."

"She does that.and security would be here in fifteen seconds."

Boyd got down from the desk and flashed a grin. "Relax…it'll blow over."

SO wanted to stick "Loss of consortium" in here somewhere, as hearing that in Boyd's voice in my head was the germ of this idea...didn't fit, but maybe it's the title.

In case anyone here enjoys Entourage fic...got some new kudos on this one and didn't remember if Buffistas knew I'd finished/https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324780/chapters/2757427

For Halloween Buffy/Barney Miller

Halloween, sometime in the '70s The peroxided stranger didn't attract very much attention as Wojo brought him into the 1-2. Costumed characters had been in and out all night due to various minor offenses, and the squad was full of unshockable New Yorkers. Still, Stan wasn't quite prepared for an accented voice to growl "Watch the coat, yeah?"

Before he even knew what he was doing, Stan apologized, then mumbled "Worse than Harris," before looking down at his own wash-and-wear ensemble. He sat down at the balky old typewriter."Say, mate, I'm telling ya. Even for a pig, you've got the wrong end of the stick. I was looking for my girlfriend, Dru."

"Uh huh," That's what they all said, although Wojo had to admit, picking this guy up wasn't the kind of thing that got a guy points on the sergeant exam…it was more like a gut feeling about the way this guy looked at the young girls in their skimpy costumes as though he were a kid looking in his trick-or-treat bag. At the same time, though, he didn't fight coming in, although he seemed kind of underfed and scrawny and Wojo wasn't sure what kind of fight he'd put up. " Name?" "You could call me Spike, or maybe you know me as William The Bloody."Wojo didn't know what the blond was on about, but he was from New York so he'd heard the "Do you know who I am?" pause before. Maybe he was a lead singer for The Bloody. Stan missed bands named things like The Drifters, but the thought made him feel almost as old as Fish so he didn't say it. " Fun's fun, man…you know, I get it. I want the name on your birth certificate, though, right?"

Trying something new:

Red Sky at Night Part 1

One of the first things Kate had realized was that some of Gotham's problems were not the sort that a bat-vigilante could solve by punching. Fortunately, some of them were the sort that "Bruce Wayne's cousin, the new real-estate mogul" could take on.

Unfortunately, solving those problems frequently meant dealing with the sort of people she would usually either ignore or deck. Which was how she found herself stuck in a meeting room with one Kenneth Aldrich, a man who showed evidence of many extremely rich meals, but not much of caring about the people that money came from.

"Young lady, I do understand what you're saying, but I have to think about the consequences for my own property. Now these people-"

Kate interrupted, "It's 'Ms Kane', thank you. And by 'these people' you mean the tenants whose buildings haven't been bought up by your developers? The neighborhood is half the size it used to be, and it's lost most of its public facilities! They need something like this!"

Aldrich made a face. "Putting this...community center...on the edge of my development would just alarm the tenents of the new buildings! The chance of the undesirable elements gathering-"

"You might consider", Kate bit out, "that you're talking to a woman who's been considered an undesirable in multiple ways." Aldrich scowled and reached for his briefcase. "Ms Kane, if you're going to make this personal, I don't think we can do business. He stood up.

Dammit! Kate gritted her teeth and tried to think of something to get him to sit down that wasn't outright begging or putting him in a headlock. She surged to her feet -

And there was a short nok-nok-nok at the window.

Kate swiveled around and was rather startled to see Supergirl floating casually outside the building. She smiled at Kate and waved, then gestured at the window in a vaguely "open up" manner.

"So...", Kate gave Aldrich a sidelong look. "Do those windows open?"

Aldrich sputtered. "Of course not, we're on the fourteenth floor!"

Kate looked back at the window, where Kara had obviously heard him. She made a face at the window, then suddenly grinned as her eyes started to glow.

Kate heard a yelp, and looked back just in time to grab Aldrich's shoulder as he tripped over his own feet trying to lunge for the door. "OK, settle down. She's not going to do anything dangerous while we're here."

"Not do - !", he broke off as a pop sounded from the window. Kate turned again to see Supergirl flip a perfect circle of glass out of the window, zip inside, and and fit the glass neatly back into the window. Aldrich started to sputter a protest, then broke off again as she switched the heat-vision back on and began fusing the window back together.

Kate eyed the hovering woman. This was a little more carefree than Supergirl usually acted, and something seemed off about her appearance as well. In a moment, she finished fusing the glass and turned round with a flourish. "And done!"

"Done!?" The lack of energy beams in the room seemed to bring Aldrich back to himself. "Who do you think is going to pay for that!"

"What?" Supergirl looked offended. "It's fine!" She knocked sharply on the window again. "I have lots of experience fusing stuff together."

There was a pause where Kate thought all three of them were waiting to see if the glass circle would pop loose but nothing happened. After a moment Supergirl gave them both a smug look, then landed on the carpet with a soft thud.

"Hey Kate!" She beamed sunnily. "You busy?"

Kate eyed her, ignoring Aldrich as he started sputtering again. "Little bit, yeah." She flapped a hand at the conference table where the contract she'd brought lay askew. "I'm trying to get this guy to help with some development for an underserved area, but he's being a mule."

"I beg your pardon-!"

Supergirl gave the contract a dubious look, then swiped it off the table and flipped through it at super-speed. She considered a moment, then gave Aldrich a sour look and held out the contract. "The only way you're going to lose money on this is if Gotham City is hit by a huge earthquake and cut off from the outside workd." She paused. "Which isn't impossible, but the odds of it happening before construction is complete is pretty low."

"Young lady, it's not just about the money being invested in the - !"

"Also," she ran on blithely, "I'm fairly sure my friends at Catco would love to run a story about a developer who had the chance to help a poor community, and passed it up for fear of - what was he saying when I flew up, Kate?"

"The undesireable element." Kate intoned dryly.

"Yeah, I think we all know what he means by that." She gave Aldrich a bright, brittle smile and held out the contract. "Or..."

He gaped at her a moment, then at the contract. Sputtering, he snatched it out of her hand and stared at Kate.

Kate just shrugged.

Aldrich glared at both of them, then slapped it down on the table and yanked out his pen. "Fine." He signed with a jagged flourish and held it out to Kate. "But I expect it to be followed to the letter."

She gave him her best cheery smile. "All 100% above-board, I guarantee."

"It better be." He snatched up his briefcase again and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

After a moment, Kara raised her eyebrows at Kate, who promptly burst out laughing. After a second, she sputtered out, "Uh, thanks?" then dropped into a chair and grinned up at her. "You know, I really need to learn to do that on my own."

Kara gave her the puppy eyes. "But Kate! Poor children with no place to play!" She paused. "Actually, that really is awful when I say it out loud."

Kate snorted and took a breath. "OK, but seriously. Why are you here?"

"Well," Kara said, and leaned backwards to sit on the conference table. At this point, Kate suddenly realized what was bugging her about the other woman's appearance: Not only had she apparently ditched the unitard-style costume she'd worn recently and switched back the version with a miniskirt, she'd also ditched the leggings she wore with the old suit. As a result, Kara's bare legs were now crossed less than a foot from Kate's nose.

Kate stared at this for a moment, her mind trying to think several things at once, including What the heck? and Huh, those are some really nice legs and I wonder if she's wearing-.

She mentally stomped on all the trains of thought at once and dragged her eyes upward, only to see a smirk on Kara's face that looked suspiciously like she knew what Kate had been thinking. "Um! I'm.....listening?"

The smirk deepened for a second, then Kara went on, "So when I went out to check the city before heading to work, I didn't find any trouble. What I did find was Lena in early at Luthorcorp, so I went inside and had a massive screaming breakup fight with her." She grinned like she'd just told the juicyest gossip ever.

I started my present-day "Grosse Pointe" fic.

Martin found Grosse Pointe weird and soulless on its best day, but it was just eerie holed up in his in-laws' house with no people on the streets. He was pretending to work(Marcella had turned out to have a real flair for investing, and had given him some great tips, but the unrest was threatening to affect everything.

He swore, but he wouldn't even be alive right now if he couldn't keep his cool. He wondered if it was the ghost of an old instinct that made him tense when a nondescript sedan turned around in the cul-de-sac and hoped he'd not succumbed to some suburban prejudice by tensing up while watching the black driver.
(He was pretty sure that downloading NextDoor had been a miscalculation, but he had enjoyed still feeling like he was in the mix.) he flicked channels on the television, watching briefly, but nothing really captured his attention for more than a moment.

Besides, Debi was pretty much the main breadwinner, both from her successful eighties-nostalgia podcast and because she sold a carefully-elided memoir of their relationship to a women's cable channel. She came out of the guest bedroom, laptop in hand, with that glow that he loved when she thought she did something great.
"Hey, babe," she said. " Did you call and check on Dad today? What bad luck for him to tear a ligament just when nobody can visit." She blew him a kiss.(Neither of them was sick, but somehow touching didn't seem appetizing. Still, when he "caught" her kiss, her heart still beat a little faster at his quick action.

"I'll take care of it."

"Do I want to know what that means?" Debi asked.

"Don't worry…I have my binoculars." "Very reassuring, like a thing that's not."