Ab Antiquo

Friend of mine sent me some writing prompts and drabble challenges, so I thought I'd share. Pick a word and post your drabble in this thread, including the word you've used. You can go down the line or use a number generator to pick. Drabbles are between 100-500 words. No more, no less. It could be about RBC, another fandom, or something you make up off the top of your head. This is meant to get your creative juices flowing. And if this goes well, I'll post more challenges and prompts.

Have fun. :3


1. Morning
2. Rivalry
3. Pure
4. Patience
5. Selfish
6. Haunting
7. Separation
8. Sacrifice
9. Exhaustion
10. Advantage
11. Family
12. Warm
13. Secret
14. Embrace
15. Need
16. Want
17. Mine
18. Hot
19. Longing
20. Faint
21. Smile
22. Feel
23. Complicated
24. Passion
25. Unbreakable
26. Claim
27. Satisfaction
28. Entwined
29. Diamond
30. Old
31. Naughty
32. Happy
33. Silly
34. Angsty
35. On Vacation
36. Horny
37. Changing
38. Excited
39. Book Reading
40. Dancing
41. Jealous
42. Turned On
43. Caring
44. On His Knees
45. Obedient
46. Dominant
47. Naive
48. Drinking
49. Greedy
50. Daring
51. Exploring
52. At the Beach
53. Bath Time
54. Disheveled
55. Exhausted
56. Well-Shagged
57. Playing With Kids
58. Kickass
59. Falling Down
60. Blind
61. Daydreaming
62. Cuddling
63. Under Stars
64. Colorful
65. Frightened
66. First Time
67. In the Rain
68. Happy Birthday
69. Surprised
70. Covered in Flowers
71. Cunning
72. Stuck
73. Lonely
74. Cleaning a Mess
75. Disorganized
76. In Love
77. Charming
78. Homeless
79. Angry
80. Feeling Sick
81. In Costume
82. Sleeping Like Babies
83. Flirty
84. Musical
85. Strutting His Stuff
86. Playing With Animals

I love thisss

It starts in your chest. Always, it starts in your chest. Like a flower blooming, its petals unfurl and fill up your veins, uncurling from its protective stance around your bleeding, tender heart. Those vines slither through your arteries, crawl down to your trembling fingertips; they knot and twist in your belly til it aches.

Sometimes, it's a sunflower. It turns your body to the light in your life, blossomed and open and alive, grounds you to the earth so you feel strong and tall and steady. It makes you more than a decoration, more than a centerpiece; it makes you wild and free and untamed, a splash of beauty along a deserted highway intersection, a reminder that life isn't always bleak, that life can grow between the cracks and it can grow strong.

Sometimes, it's belladonna. The Naked Lady lays you bare for all to see, stripped raw and weeping poison. Your battered heart aches, rattling in your chest; your tears show the wounds it carves along your insides. It makes of you ribbons. It wraps its vines around your throat like a noose, and you are hanged. You are a slave to your green thumb, toiling hot days to cultivate a garden that turns on you any moment. You make a greenhouse in the atrium of your heart, but no glass can contain such a vicious crop.

You are a wild botanical garden, and you wear the fruit of your labors on your open wrists. You open your soul to whatever blooms plant roots, because you know to feel savagely, to be frightened by the force of the life in you, is better than to feel nothing at all.

These prompts are amazing because I can't write much of anything over 500 words these days. tyty <3

6. Haunting
284 words

She awakens with a hypnic jerk. An involuntary muscle spasm that throws her from her mind’s images and back to her body with a start. She’s dreaming more often these days but never remembers it for long.

Laughing in unison, a brunette, a blonde and a redhead walk into a bar. It sounds like the intro to a bad joke and the kicks don’t stop there. The floor is coated in a thick layer of blood so black it could pass for varnish. The sounds of the patrons are drowned in a static that appears to have no source. A Category-5 storm rages and beats its way inside by shattering all the windows. Through it all, she sits, and she watches – she never says a word. One by one the shards of glass and wood begin to fly and somewhere she knows it’s only a matter of time before they come for her. She slides quietly from her seat, flattening herself against the sticky crimson floor to avoid the higher-flying pieces. There is a bird on the ground beside her; perhaps it had the same idea. It begins to squawk over the static and for a moment she becomes distracted. Otherwise she might have seen it. The booted foot of a giant, dripping from the floor, crashing down on the back of her head…

She knows they will be gone soon, these things that keep haunting her sleep. She hoists herself to sit and blinks the moving pictures away. They will come again tomorrow, and she will repeat the same routine. A few minutes pass before she accepts it’s time to move. Her feet finally touch the floor, smooth and dry to the touch.

12. Warm
230 words.


Have you ever watched a candle flame?

They are small, twinkling fires that do not act like fire. Not truly. Fire is alive. It spreads, it devours. It follows a predictable path from point of ignition until it meets its end as the oxygen flees, choking the life from it. To a point, and to a certain point of view, it is a perfect analogy for your average lifespan. Birth, childhood. The awkward phase in the middle where we seek acceptance and things that might help us grow into the adult we wish to finally be. The eventual, stuttering end of life; alone and silent, leaving only memories and deepening shadows in our wake.

But a candle flame is not like this.

A candle flame springs into existence and dances until it can dance no more. A delicate yet insignificant star burning out its existence in a vacuum. If a fire is an average human life then a candle flame is James Dean. It’s Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. You sit up, you take notice but it’s gone too soon. But you always remember that it was there, how it looked and what it did while it burned. The shadows it cast on its surroundings. What it illuminated, and how it it illuminated it.

Funny what you think about when the blood is slick and warm on your hands, isn’t it?

15. Need
201 words

Comfort is a privilege, one that is not beholden to the mere substance of existence. Oxygen, proteins; these things are necessary to life. Life continues, as it ever does, with or without baser desires. Warmth, clothing, companionship - they are not vital. Existence without them may be uncomfortable, but it exists regardless. Until it does not. Nature is uncaring in that way. She does not regard your sentience as a priority, and as a human must breathe to live, so must their corpse return to the soil and breathe its finality into something larger.

You died, once. It wasn't so bad. For a time after, there was confusion as to what existence demanded. As the rolling hurricanes of nature though, immortality itself is an inflexible and ruthless beast. Existence, life (or what passes), continues without blood. It thrives (and rots) even when consumed by eons of shadows. That is the terrible truth of agelessness: it does not need. Its autonomic function is an impassive flow, spiraling as continually as the ouroboros - immolating and reviving in a never-ending rotation. There is no comfort to be had from the cycle. Pain, though, can serve a callous purpose. That much, at least, you have learned.

04. Pure
206 Words


Drip.
It really is a remarkable thing, it pools, and courses as if it has a mind of its own.
Drip.
Deep red, and churning black in the dim light.
Drip.
With each drop the puddle grows wider, and wider, covering the floor and filling the crevices.
Drip.
There was something almost entrancing about watching the blood fall. It was life, and it was death.
Drip.
He wanted to dive in, to feel it sticky slick against his skin, covering each of his flaws, hiding all of his weaknesses from even his own eyes. For so long he had fought against the instinct that had burned at his core. You can't do things like that. You can't see what is on the inside. You can't split the skin and spill the blood. You can't collect the rubies that lay hidden in the miles of veins. The more he drank the less he thought in crimson... but he couldn't drink forever. He couldn't live in a hang over. He couldn't hide from his nature forever. He was hungry for it the way an infant hungered for its mother's milk. It was nourishment, and it was strength. It was a gift. It was their gift to him.
Drip.

17. Mine
147 words

Mmmmmm. This is better than I could have ever imagined. Having you. Here. Within my grasp. At my control. From my Want and Desire of you. At this very moment. Spontaneous, stronger than imaginable, yet extremely delicate after what I've just done. I never knew another masculine creature could make me feel so...so...warm? fuzzy? full of lust?

Your throat. It was soft. WAS soft. Moments ago though, it was something else.

It now sits rather crumbled and torn. Within my clenched fist. Still clenching with full rage. Fury. Complimented with bits of flesh and bone. Other mystery bits. No idea. Several trickles of your sanguine fluids now spilling and shooting in designless ways. I smile. I...

I awaken. It was all but a daydream. Infinite moments of your demise pass. Your villainous smile while finishing your body shot. Off my Wife. MY Wife. Mine.

Mine...

Miiiiiiiiiine...

MINE.

(OOC: great idea. really need to work on my creative writing rather than boring sciency/medically stuff that I suffere through)

It consumed everything and everyone in its path, burning bright and pulsing with insatiable thirst. It was explosive and, much like fireworks on the Fourth of July, could still be beautiful to behold when it would eventually explode into a million sparks and bright colors. Because it doesn't last. It can't. Something that burns that hot, for so long, doesn't have a chance. She had learned that the hard way. Passion, in its all enveloping grasp and breath-stealing glory, was born to die. She believed she had felt it, once, but it had slid through her reaching fingers, like sand. Looking back, she knew she had tried to force it, to convince herself it was real. That the inevitable reality would be worth it. It had left her broken, confused, and angry. It had left her wanting more more more. She was a twitching and clawing addict, searching for her next delicious fix. That's the thing about passion - it left its aching victims needing, needing to feel that fire alight in the heart and flesh. Yet after all that warmth, all it left behind was the chill. The chill of distrust, disgust, and self-preservation. Passion is fleeting, and she is fleeing.

Hong Kong, 1998

There had been something in his eyes tonight, self-aware and almost dangerous, even in its gentleness, like Cheung remembered he was Cheung - if he'd ever forgotten in the first place. Maybe it's been a farce this whole time, and this is just the first moment that he's let it slip up. But he hadn't looked - or felt, for that matter - like he'd wanted to hurt Elijah.

Then again, of course he hadn't. He's a marvelous actor, was probably plotting Elijah's demise behind his eyes this whole time, even as he stroked him and pressed soft, ragged, breathless kisses to his forehead and temples. Even if he wasn't, even if there had been a hint of sincerity in the softness of his hands, it doesn't matter. Err on the side of caution, Elijah thinks, and watches the ceiling fan above him move with the sort of disconnected, unattached interest he does everything else with.

Cheung is Cheung. Elijah is Deneve. Sometimes letting Cheung touch him is unpleasant - sometimes it's less so. And that's okay, or at least it can be. He's phenomenally good at his job, after all, and there's no reason why he shouldn't enjoy it. It's not like he hasn't, before - certainly, considering how their titillating association had started in the first place, but that had been some time ago and this was... unquestionably different.

There's a sick kind of quietness between them, not stretched taut with either awkwardness or distrust, but loose and easy, like they've been sharing a bed for years. Elijah likes to think it's a simulated emotion, something he's projecting onto Cheung due to the blatant similarities between himself and the darling of the PLA from he start, from the blade of rejection still embedded into his ribcage, drawing blood still even after his teenage years have been gone for so long, but then he's not so sure. He doesn't like the idea of some hypocritic, sanctimonious boy who thinks entirely too well of himself being his kindred spirit, but there it is. Elijah doesn't even like the idea of having a kindred spirit - the concept is both kitschy and overly sentimental but, above all else, it just rings false.

"Hey," he hears behind him, and he glances over to see Cheung blinking at him with eyes still fresh from sleep, pretty face awash with dazed exhaustion. He smiles at Elijah, some, and the expression makes Elijah's stomach twist with how genuine it looks, and he shifts his eyes elsewhere, tracing the lines of the shadows at the corner of the wall behind Cheung's head.

"Good evening, Cheung," he mumbles back, half his face squished against the pillow, voice muffled.

Cheung glances at the clock behind him. "It's morning," he says.

No man is an island, but Elijah is a fucking continent, a perilous land mass of his own, and there's an ocean to be crossed to be able to reach. Few people have tried, and fewer still have succeeded. Cheung isn't trying, though, not really - he's playing at trying, putting on a show of affection, but he's a child in a man's body, and not half the liar he thinks he is. Not in this respect, anyway. So it's discomfitting how close Elijah feels to him in this moment - like his ocean has dried up.

"Oh," he says, softly. Pointlessly. He's not sure what else to do.

"Are you alright?" He's leaning closer. He smells like warm skin and sex, and Elijah wouldn't mind if he kissed him, and he very much minds that. There are things he wants to say, but that he doesn't want Cheung to hear, and he really should just stick to fucking Carmen on the side to avoid the hellish mess that this - whatever the hell it is - is. She's still by no means a simple idividual, but he understands her, and that, he can get on board with: knowing what the fuck he's dealing with.

Elijah feels like a man lost on uncharted waters.

"Have I ever mentioned that I like your hair?"
He does, actually. It's a nice color - strange, considering his genetics, but then he is an abnormality in more ways than one. It hangs over his eyes, makes him look boyish and young, even though he's neither of those things anymore. His hair is beautiful. He is beautiful. But Elijah says it just to fill the silence, another facetious, empty-headed remark, same as he always uses to throw people off when they're getting too close, when they're asking the right questions.

Cheung shakes his head and slumps, but he's smiling. "You're full of it," he says, rolling over to face away from Elijah. "I'm going back to sleep." His voice is kind, and it spears through Elijah like something sharp and ominous.

Elijah wishes he could sleep, too, just so he doesn't have to be awake.

"Good morning," he says, quietly, as Cheung nods off again.

It's complicated, is what it is.
He will regret this in a couple of hours, like he does every time this happens, but for now, he lights another cigarette and watches the sun rise above the Hong Kong skyline.

[OOC: Sorry, I know it's a bit longer than the norm, but I got a little carried away 8(! Please feel free to remove it if it breaks the flow of things!]