Really lovely drabbles this time, Deb, as usual. I very much like this theme though. It's nice and you've done nice things with it.

You'd better.

Hunh? Um. I'll post a link, then. t writes mental note

Te just broke me with Flash/Batman. I'm so glad she's in my special hell.

I'm so glad she's in my special hell.

Isn't it just wonderful? Mmmmm...

Isn't it just wonderful? Mmmmm...

Please, stop taunting and link. It's not *quite* my fandom, yet, but for Te's writing...

Yeah, Te is The Shit.(That's a good thing!)

Possibility by Te.

Please note that this link leads to Justice League slash (the animated series) of the NC-17 kind, and that it is, indeed, Batman/Flash. (Don't clicky if that's squicky, yo.)

t still amazed that people could be squicked by batslash

t notes that the first slash/fic I ever wrote was Batslash, and I was 14.

Yes, well. I just don't want any poor Buffista to wander by mistake, is all.

t makes note to stalk Te for Batman/Batman smut

Progress

”In the city there’s a thousand things I want to say to you…” -The Jam

Part One: Afterward

This was not her city.

Up and down the alleyway, small bonfires burned. She’d run for miles, it seemed, block after block engulfed in flame. She ventured from the shadows to the street, where men wept openly, with their heads in their hands.

They had lost something. She had lost something.

She was surrounded by small sobs. The sound of shrieking echoed from all directions. She pushed forward. Cars were overturned. Someone had tossed a lit trashcan into an electronics store. Forward. The windows of a Mexican restaurant exploded into a million shards. Forward. Someone was firing bullets into the air. Forward.

Stop. She was suddenly still. Beyond her, beyond the mass of humanity filling the street, beyond the flame and shattering glass, she heard a scream, saw a woman dragged into the alley’s shadow.

Without another thought, she was running toward the alleyway, pushing past the parade of misery, leaping over the bonfires.

Vampire, she thought, and the word seared into her brain. She scarcely recalled the previous days, now, where she’d not thought the word at all. She’d been at peace for a moment, but that was then. Now, there was the hunt.

She hit the shadows and followed the sound of screams. The girl was kicking and flailing her arms. There were three of them, struggling to hold her down. Why were they having such trouble?

She didn’t stop to think, her fist instead plowing into one of their faces. She heard bone being crushed, she thought, and blood was leaking from its head. Forward, she thought, and swung her leg into another one’s midsection. She heard ribs crumple, she thought. She heard it gasp for breath. Why is it gasping…

“You’re. Human,” she said, and realized it was the first words she’d said out loud in days. The third man leaped at her, smashing a beer bottle down on her head. She fell to the ground. Her head felt wet. She heard the girl scream again, saw the other two stagger to their feet.

“Human,” she said again, as their blows began to pound on her, as the light began to twinkle out. “Human.”

And then it was black. And then she saw something, an army of monsters beneath the earth, an army of women standing fast against them. She saw an axe being passed from hand to hand. She looked into the axe’s glimmering surface, and saw herself reflected in the blade.

Her eyes snapped open then, and with new energy, she flipped upward to her feet, her fists connecting again with her assailants. She heard one fall, then spun and swung. She heard his skull fracture. As her vision returned, she saw him fall.

Her eyes were clear now. She saw the third attacker stumble back against the wall. He was blubbering. She sneered at him.

“Don’t… don’t hurt me,” he said, and she could see him clearly now, see how small he was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl huddled against the wall, frightened out of her mind.

She looked at the man again, and without a word, she kicked him hard in the head. She didn’t bother to check if he was still breathing.

She stooped down to look at the girl, her face stained with tears, her whole body quivering with fright.

“Are you all right,” she asked, feeling her mind clear for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

“You… You were incredible,” said the girl, and she realized the girl was a bit older than she thought. Maybe fourteen. “Who… who are you?”

She hesitated, like she wasn’t sure. So much had happened.

“My name’s Justine,” she said. “I’m here to help.”