meme sheep-ery

[elspethdixon]

The first TEN people to comment in this post get to request a drabble or a sketch of any pairing/character (from one of my usual fandoms). Original fic is also allowed--you can toss names, photos, descriptions of personalities at me--with the provision that none of the characters be from any works in progress. In return, those ten people have to post this in their journals, regardless of their ability level.

meme taken from ani_bester
(crossed out the orig fic one because I can't do drabbles for characters I don't know).

Usual fandoms= Avengers, Daredevil, PotC, Three Musketeers, Mag7, bookverse!Bond, DCU toonverse, Tombstone, Watchmen, Lonesome Dove: TOY, and anything else you can think of that I've written or that you know I've read.

Comments

Okay, so Dakota's not actually interacting with anybody in this, but she's present...

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Hospitals, like subway stations, were places Matt generally tried his level best to avoid. The smell of disinfectant burned his nose, harsh and sterile, the fluorescent lights hummed maddeningly, and all around him were the sounds of people suffering, people in pain.

It was like going to visit Mila, in the hospital that she was probably never going to leave, the one she was trapped in because of him, and that only made the guilt worse.

Foggy's hand was on his shoulder, steering him down the hallway in that high-handed way that Foggy does sometimes, and Matt was grateful for it. The touch grounds him -- the sound of Foggy's breathing, the smell of his aftershave, of the coffee he'd gulped down for breakfast, the scent still present on his breath.

"She's out of surgery already," Foggy was saying. "They say the bullet went straight through."

She'd asked too many questions, Matt thought. Or asked the wrong ones. He should never have gotten Dakota involved.

He should never have gotten involved with Dakota. Elektra, Karen, Foggy, Mila; everyone he gets too close to suffers for it.

Sounds echo off the tile floors and cinderblock walls, just like in Rikers, making it hard to judge distance, to tell how far away things are. When they reach Dakota's room, he can hear machines beeping, whirring, hear her breathing and smell antiseptic and wound dressings and blood and the heavy taint of anesthetic and painkillers in her sweat, and it makes the whole thing real.

Blood is very red, he remembers that. Matt doesn't dream in images as much as he used to when he was younger, but when he does, his dreams are always entirely black and white except for the blood, which is always bright, deep, primary-color red. It doesn't smell red, though. It smells like raw meat and metal and pain.

"She looks good," Foggy said. "A little pale, but good." He squeezed Matt's shoulder, and added. "The doctors say she ought to wake up any time now."

Touching would have been inappropriate, so Matt closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Dakota's breathing, of her heartbeat, and tried not to wonder when he'd learned to pick that particular rythym out in a crowd. The way he could with Foggy's. The way he'd been able to with Mila's. With Karen's.