kat_lair | Character Sketches

***

So. I’ve been having a bit of a writing block for anything short at the moment. All ideas are for long ass epics but after having finished two long fics (the Hansel/Gretel one that is posted, and the Mission Impossible Ethan/Will one that is with beta) I am. burned. out. writing long fics ~~no one reads~~.

Anyway. About a month ago when I got very, very drunk I wanted to write something. So I asked

pushkin666 to give me some characters and then I rambled about them. I think ‘character word sketches’ are best way to describe the results. Or ‘Kat’s regurgitated head-canon’.

pushkin666 said I should post them, so here you go. I’ve only tidied them enough to insert capitals and punctuation and fix drunken typos.

I may get ~~drunk enough~~ inspired to do more of these so I'm saying 'requests open' but with no promises on delivery...

***

Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance, Bandom)

Gerard thinks in colour and drinks sunrises like cheap vodka, both of them going out of fashion, just like him. Each one a gift he hasn't earned. He's hungover and regrets nothing, the metal of the bus burning the back of his head as he leans against it, everyone else still asleep as he watches the day steal over the tents. He thinks it's a dream and he's going to wake up, but his shaking ink-stained hands feel real enough, guilty enough.

Today he'll do better, he'll be better, and it's a lie but it's enough to stop him from just walking away. Enough to take the pen and pad Mikey hands him silently, enough to make him stay and try even though he'll fail.

***

Brendon Urie (Panic! At The Disco, Bandom)

He's used to it, everyone getting him wrong, everyone thinking they got him sussed. That smiley Mormon kid, polite and sure can sing, praise god eh?

He knows the shape of it, the role he's born to play, suits and ties and books and 'have you heard the good news, our Lord and Saviour died for our sins' (except, except, except). He can say the words so well, weighty and perfect, pray for deliverance and mean it, oh yes.

You see, god sure made Brendon in his image and he's going to take it and plaster it on every billboard across the country, watch them flock to him like sheep looking for a shepherd. And every hallelujah will be like honey on his tongue, every amen a goblet of wine.

***

Gabe Saporta (Cobra Starship, Bandom)

Everything Gabe does is for his family, and his family is everyone he touches, meets, knows about, everyone, everyone, everyone, he wants them all, safe and sound and his.

Wednesdays are the best (the worst), mescaline clinging to his tongue like dust. Ryland asks if he's drunk and he says yes even though it's a lie, it's just him and the desert that follows him from dreams to waking, and he counts people like grains of sand in an hourglass.

His hands are so large, so very large against other people's wrists and waists and throats and Gabe is careful, he is, but they are sand and he is the storm, shaping dunes in his image

***

Bruno Tonioli (Strictly Come Dancing)

He looks back and knows the weight of every decision he ever made, sees the shape of each path travelled, each road abandoned, feels it like an ache in his body, muscles twitching with phantom pain of life never lived. It’s foolish, he knows, but inevitable at the same time. He'd like to think it's just his age but knows it's more intimate than that, remembers the way his nonna had spread her photos on the coffee table, faded black-and-white pictures covering the delicate lace of the table cloth as she went through her memories of this friend, that lover, the lost, the found, the abandoned.

The roof of his mouth tastes sour, lemon and alcohol and insomnia all clinging to his skin like ghosts. The week drags on and he lets the mail pile on the hallway floor, lets the messages gather digital dust, crowding around each other in the ether of his voicemail.

When the knock on his door finally comes he's sure he imagines it, holding dust particles in his hands as he stands in the hallway, looking at the shadow behind the glass. His fingers shake on the latch, on the lapels of Craig's jacket, helpless and grateful and ever so slowly colour bleeds back.

***

Harold Finch (Person of Interest)

Everything has a place and position and purpose. Everything is in order and order is everything. He holds on to his secrets (and what poor, pathetic secrets they are at the heart of it, what ordinary wants) like a drowning man holds onto to a piece of driftwood, white-knuckled and cold and so very tired. Save the number. Bring number to justice. Tick the task done. And another. And another and another and... 'Here's your tea,' John says and Harold drinks it because you don't waste a gift. You don't. Waste. A gift.

He writes code like breathing, line after line after heart beat, bringing order to chaos, bringing safety and deliverance, better than god, because he's not, never thought that no matter what the power whispered. 'Have a doughnut,' John says, 'Come walk bear with me' and Harold eats empty calories, gets dog slobber on his three thousand dollar suit because you don't. Waste. A gift.

You watch the world enough and you start shaping it. You watch the world enough and you save it. Harold pulls threads of knowledge and power together, knits a future out of them, one that holds safe everyone, even those who don't deserve them. Especially them. 'Harold,' John says, like an invocation, 'Harold, please' and he lets his fingers still on the keyboard, his shoulders slump under John's hands. Because you don't. Waste. A gift.

‘No you don’t’ John says, 'not one like you.’

***

Dean Winchester (Supernatural)

In the end it boils down to this: his hands on the wheel, dried blood under his fingernails, Sam asleep on the passenger seat and the road disappearing mile by mile by memory. There's an ache in his bones, a dull pain of a job well done that means somewhere down the line he's earned his rest, a greasy burger and a thin motel mattress. It’ll be good and if Dean was a better man, he'd consider it better than what he has right now.

But he isn't, has never entertained the delusion of being anything except exactly what he is and 'a good man' doesn't even enter the competition. So he takes this; the rusted nail taste of his fingers that he sucks clean while his brother sleeps, the way the new day lights the horizon, the pale line of tomorrow making him step on the gas more heavily. Perhaps, if he drives fast enough, he can leave himself behind.

***

John Mitchell (Being Human (UK))

The hunger opens in him like a fistful of knives, old and unforgiving. His mouth is so dry, so empty, the world a big grey nothing, the need to act normal chafing at his skin. Hendricks promises him a throne and Mitchell laughs in his face, not because it's a lie but because it's a truth he can't have, not if he wants to keep what he already has. Who he already has.

In the end he drives his fingers to Hendricks' chest, gauging out his dead heart, black and shrivelled and dripping with stolen blood. He laughs then as well, because it's not the promised throne but it is a crown of sorts this, a claim that will be recognised. Behind him, George and Annie smile, sharp and beautiful.

***