Prompts and Drabbles
Jul. 6th, 2015 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scribblemynameI'm getting ready to read about 100,000 words of canon review for the collaboration, which is no small chunk, and before I do, I kind of wanted to write some drabbles. Any prompts?
- fandom or canon - tagset of fandoms
- character(s)
- fluff or angst
- one to three word prompt
Mothers, cats, and kisses
Date: 2015-07-10 04:17 am (UTC)Zoya opened the door to a cat in her face. Small, furry, and mewing, it put out a paw toward her face and made her almost jump back. The woman holding the kitten frowned, and Zoya would have sent her on her way, but this time she didn't have to guess or wonder about the stranger's identity. Other than the eyes, which were so much like Alexei's it was uncanny, she was staring at a woman who looked like a slightly—and only slightly—older copy of Khrystyn. Their mother. Had to be.
“Khrystyn is out—”
Two loud squeals interrupted Zoya, and soon mother and daughter had collided in a hug, the mother combing back Khrystyn's hair and touching her face and fussing over her with a bunch of signs that Zoya couldn't keep up with even as Khrystyn answered them back.
She looked down at her hands. When did she end up with the cat?
“So, so sorry. So rude,” Mrs. Samarin said, coming back toward her but not taking the cat. “Too long since I saw my little girl.”
Khrystyn laughed. “She acts like it was years when it was only months. Ah, Mamochka, what is this? I am not so old and single I need a cat because I'm lonely.”
Her mother gave her a look that was so like Alexei's Zoya wanted to laugh. “Cat is not for lonely people. People are for lonely cat. I found him, saw those little eyes so like my Lyosha's, and I could not leave him behind, poor little thing.”
Khrystyn looked at Zoya. “You like cats, right? Not allergic?”
“What? We're not keeping a cat,” Zoya protested even as the thing started to lick her. Khrystyn and her mother laughed, and Zoya grimaced. She had a feeling she wouldn't win this battle, not unless she did claim to be allergic, which they would all know was a lie.
“Animals know when people need them,” Mrs. Samarin said. “He has claimed you. He stays.”
“I think he is a she,” Zoya said, mouthing half her words because she couldn't sign with a kitten in hand. “And no. It's not happening.”
“Come now, Zoya. Let me have one pet I can keep since you refuse to let me have the others,” Khrystyn said before picking up the kitten and cooing at it. “Mamochka is right. Kitty has Lyosha eyes. Couldn't send away a cat with Lyosha eyes. We are doomed.”
Zoya rolled her eyes, but her reaction was overshadowed by the other “pets” Khrystyn wanted to keep coming in the back door. Brown had a rather mangled kite in his hands, and he seemed pretty dejected about it.
“I'm telling you—it was a question of air speed, not a design flaw. It just wasn't ready for the sudden gust of wind that carried it off,” Alexei said, picking up a corner of the kite and shaking his head. Mrs. Samarin clapped her hands over her mouth, tears at the side of her eyes.
“Yeah, well, I'm still trying to understand how I let you talk me into flying a kite,” Brown muttered, shaking his head.
Alexei shrugged. “I think I'm just one of those people you either have to embrace the madness with or run headlong into the hills. You embraced the madness, buddy. There is no hope for you.”
Brown smiled, a bit rueful, still turning the kite over in his hands. Zoya thought he was reliving a bit of childhood nostalgia there, courtesy of hurricane Alexei.
Mrs. Samarin said something that reminded Zoya of the food, golubtsi, though Zoya doubted that was what she'd called her son. His head jerked up, and she was on him faster than she'd gotten to Khrystyn, hugging and kissing him in a way that put Khrystyn's show when he first came to shame. She had happy tears streaming down her face, her words coming in a mix of what Zoya assumed was Russian, despite Alexei's claim that she didn't speak it, English, and signs with her hands, in between kissing his face and hugging him over and over again.
“Ew, Mom,” Alexei said, wiping at his cheek. “That was all slobbery.”
She rolled her eyes, stepping back and cupping his cheek, her words sounding stranger than before, but then Zoya was used to Khrystyn who rarely spoke with her voice, just her hands. “I can't help it. I missed my baby.”
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously? I haven't been a baby in almost thirty years—shut up, Khrystyn. I don't care if you don't want me telling Brown how old you are—and I really hate everyone calling me that. No more. Please. Or I will hitch a ride with Brown over there and not come back.”
Khrystyn shook her head, but she kept on smiling. She didn't believe it, and neither did Zoya. Alexei said he would go every day and never managed it. He wasn't leaving today. Mrs. Samarin took Alexei's hands, leading him into the kitchen as he put on a show of groaning and protesting, but Khrystyn bounced excitedly, coming back to Zoya's side and pulling her over to where Brown was.
“This is going to be good. And I'm not just saying that because the two best cooks I know are in the kitchen,” she said, clapping as Alexei and his mother started arguing about which pan to use and Alexei kept taking the spatula away from her. Khrystyn smiled. “I love watching them do this. I could do it for hours.”
“Why?” Zoya asked, but her answer didn't come from her friend. It came as Alexei smiled at his mother, throwing dough at her, and she just laughed and caught him for another “slobbery” kiss on the cheek before ordering him to get the fruit.
“They're adorable, right?” Brown asked. Both of them looked at him. “What? I can't say what everyone is thinking?”
“You can,” Khrystyn said, smirking at him in a way that had him frowning. “It makes you almost as cute. Too bad you just can't handle the competition.”
She pinched his cheek. Brown glared at her, and she laughed, prancing away to join her family in the kitchen. He shook his head, frustrated. Zoya almost felt sorry for him, but he'd chosen this. He could have walked away from all of it if he'd wanted to, but he'd chosen to befriend Alexei and his sister. His sticking around had nothing to do with the case and was all about them.
“You miss it.”
He nodded. “Haven't seen a greeting like that since my mom died. She wasn't quite as bad, but that reminded me of her.”
Zoya knew other people would have given him a hug or some other form of sympathy. She held the cat out instead. “Kitten?”
Re: Mothers, cats, and kisses
Date: 2015-07-17 02:49 pm (UTC)Re: Mothers, cats, and kisses
Date: 2015-07-18 03:42 am (UTC)It got complicated, but I did want to have a bit where Alexei and his mother interacted and I think he got a lot of his habits from her, so she'd be a similar hurricane that Zoya would just sit back and watch.