Writing Challenge: Anti-Valentine!

[Admin!]

It's writing challenge time! To enter, just post a ficlet (300-4000 words suggested) in this thread. When the voting for this month's OTM winners comes around, a voting poll will go up for this as well.

The Challenge: The opposite of the graphics challenge this month, your challenge is to write a Valentine's day story where the lead couple does not get together at the end, or don't stay together if they started off as a couple. Whether or not that is a happy ending depends on the story and the couple, of course.

The rules:

• Ficlets are not site canon unless otherwise stated.
  
• Characters must be Hammel canon.
  
• You can enter no more than three stories. Any ficlets posted after the original 3 will not be considered for voting. If you want to post more, however, have fun.
  
• Ficlets must be titled.
  

[Carter Chevalier]

Of Monsters and Men - A non-canon Valentine's Day story

---

It wasn't exactly strange for Jacelynn not to answer her phone. By now, Carter knew the signs for when she was turning in and getting into the mentality of beating herself up. She had been messaging him earlier in the day; a quick text here and there. Her language was short, her sentences disjointed and her technical demeanour was vastly different to the normality he had grown used to. She liked to send smiley emoticons after just about everything.

Hell, even his name had one stamped after it in her phone. He'd checked. And the gesture, empty as it seemed, still managed to make him smile to himself when he realised.

But it had been almost an hour since she messaged him back. Carter hung around in his dorm room, mindlessly checking his phone every five minutes to double check that he hadn't missed anything, or that he hadn't sent something that might have upset her. Perhaps it was paranoia, but Carter had come to understand Jacelynn's self confidence issues. It was Valentine's Day, and she was alone. Despite his attempt to busy himself and his mind, he began to think the worst.

With good reason; the Chevalier men were used to their women being dramatic. Lancelot - Carter's father - was once ten minutes late for dinner and Evonne - his mother - threatened to stab his hand with the same carving knife as she plated his meal.

Carter shrugged a jacket on quickly, leaving his dorm room without an explanation to his brother. He got in his car and he drove the distance to where she lived.

On the drive, he sent her messages;

[Jacelynn (9:17:51pm): You're being awfully distant. Are you home?]

[Jacelynn (9:23:49pm): Did you get my messages?]

[Jacelynn (9:35:22pm): Are you home?]

Carter pulled up on the street, flicking the lights and the engine off instantly. He looked at his phone again, sliding it into his back pocket and staring towards the window. Well, the lights were on. And that was her car in the driveway. So it was safe to say she was home at least. Or was it safe? He almost hoped she'd decided to go out with friends. People like her didn't handle Valentine's Day well. He waited a little while before contemplating getting out. Instead, he reached back and sought after the sketchbook floating in the back seat. Leaning the thing on the steering wheel, he began to draw whatever was in his head as he checked his phone in intervals.

[Jacelynn (10:02:04pm): I'm trying to check on you.]

The drawing slowly ended up looking like her, but the lines were in their early stages; vague.

[Jacelynn (10:16:32pm): Did you end up going out?]

With a grimace, he tossed it aside and pulled the door open. But before closing it, he grabbed the book anyway. It might brighten the rest of her day to see that he was thinking of her. Locking his car, Carter walked towards her door. But he stopped and reached for his phone again. Instead of a surprise announcement, he opted for calling instead.

And this time, she answered. This threw him for a loop.

"Umm, hey. What's up?" Jacelynn asked, though her voice sounded a little more... Hushed than usual. Carter denoted that she hadn't been crying or anything like that.

"Oh. Hi." He replied sharply, remembering how rare it was for him to actually greet her on the phone with such a generic word. "Is everything alright?"

"What? Uhh, yeah..." A long pause. He determined that she was speaking quickly. Was she trying to get him off the phone? Was she trying to avoid him because she was struggling to cope with things again? He pushed off the ground with his back foot, pressing towards the door, until he stopped; "Aless is here."

"Who?"

"Did I forget to tell you?" She asked, and he heard shuffling as he assumed she moved away from whoever Aless was. "This guy I met. He just surprised me by coming over!"

She sounded excited. "Ah, I understand."

"So... Yeah. Sorry, were you looking for me or something?" She asked. Carter turned his back to the windows suddenly, glancing back to his car. Forgetting the sketchbook underneath his arm, he dropped it as his hand raised to run through his hair. He scrambled to pick it back up again. "Cart?"

"I hadn't heard from you in a while." He shot back, tucking the book underneath his arm again. "That was all."

"Oh, well I'm fine. I should probably get back to him anyway." She sounded excited, again. Her voice bright like the sun at the concept of whoever Aless was. "You must have some totally hot girl to get back to anyway. Don't waste your time talking to me, Cart!"

"You're right." He lied, and was fortunate then that he was a good liar. He exhaled a laugh, "Hopefully she's not too confused."

"Details for details tomorrow, okay? Bye!" And with that, she was gone.

Carter took the steps back to his car, falling into the driver's seat and tossing the sketchbook into the back. He sat for what he thought was a moment or two. Time that dragged past him as his eyes searched the windows for a smile light of recognition. Or a sliver of acknowledgement that she was lying. Whoever this guy was, maybe he was a figment. Perhaps she... Made someone up; not for her own relief, but for his.

That was it, she was trying to deter him from coming to look after her. With his hand on the door, Carter moved to push it open once more. But he caught a brief sighting of a figure through the window, obscured by the curtain and yet clearly extending out and flicking a light switch off. Carter pressed his hands firmly to the steering wheel, turning his gaze from the window towards the road ahead. He took a deep breath in, holding it at the brink.

The ground beneath the car shook with a tremour as he held his breath, extending throughout the earth and gradually building to a threatening crescendo before he let it go; exhaling slowly through his lips. Like the final note of an orchestrated performance, is slowly drowned out into the calm silence of the night. He turned the key in the ignition, flicked the lights on and drove away.

His phone, nestled in the nook of the empty passenger seat attempted to alert him of a message through the heavy tones of the now loud music that spilled through the speakers;

[Cart :) (10:34:18pm): Was that you? Were you here?]

And true, or perhaps simply reverting back to his usual form, Carter responded;

[Jacelynn (10:35:01pm): No.]

---

Here's hoping my depiction of Jacelynn Heron was accurate! If not, this will be rectified!

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The Dangling Conversation

You’re a stranger now unto me.
Lost in the dangling conversation,
And the superficial sighs
In the borders of our lives.

In the weeks and months since Cobalt Weaver had been introduced to Ben Rhodes. Their initial meeting had been nothing short of disastrous. Cobalt, always prickly, had taken particular offense to seemingly everything about the child psychologist. His optimism, his sense of humor, his smile; all of them irritated Cobalt beyond what he thought possible. Everything Ben said only managed to make matters worse, only managed to infuriate the shorter man all the more.

Yet, they had the same circle of friends; future interaction was inevitable. Between holiday parties, lunch meetings, and other gatherings, the two of them saw enough of one another to make amends and get over the initial hurdles. Then, bit by bit, they became friends in their own right. They began to meet without Josh and Riley or their other friends as intermediaries. Lunch meetings, visiting one another at work, spending time together on the weekends.

Pilot Ridge was a small community; even smaller was the community of adults, as opposed to students attending Hammel. Everyone within their social circle noticed the increasing amount of time they spent with one another.

Even Joshua Bernstein noticed, even though he wasn’t always the most observant person. It was difficult not to notice when their plans were shifted around, if not also outright canceled. The older attorney had a wide social circle, and plenty of friends to meet for lunch, but he still noticed.

“I’m sorry for the short notice,” the bespectacled man said to the taller man who joined him at the booth in the back of the sandwich shop. “I’m glad that you were able to meet me.”

The telepath waved off the apology before sitting down across from Josh. “It’s fine. I was just surprised you called; you aren’t usually free on Mondays.”

The attorney’s expression became sheepish. “Cobalt had plans with Ben the past couple of weeks. Usually, Riley and I still meet up, but he’s away with Stephen...”

“So I’m last choice?”

“No!” Josh rushed to assure with a fervent shake of his head. “Of course you aren’t! I always-”

“I was kidding.” Sean smiled at him to underscore that point and in an effort to prevent the younger man from tripping over himself in his attempt to backpedal. He knew that Josh had other friends; the telepath did as well. It was important for them to each have their own social circles, and it was unhealthy for friendship to contain elements of jealousy. Moreover, Sean wouldn’t know what jealousy felt like.

In between receiving their coffee and waiting for their sandwiches to arrive, the attorney mused, “Cobalt and Ben have been spending a lot of time together recently.”

“I’ve noticed.” Cobalt didn’t particularly care for Sean, but they ran in a similar social circle. The psychiatrist was friends with Ben and also volunteered with him, and they had other friends in common, such as Josh. It was hard not to notice.

“I’m glad that they’ve become good friends,” Josh added. “They didn’t hit it off at first.”

The telepath stirred sugar into his coffee. “Sometimes it takes a while for people to warm up to one another.”

“True.”

Josh was thoughtful for a moment, deliberating over what he wanted to say and how best to express it. Finally, he asked, “Do you think anything will come of it?” He expected that Sean would know what he meant by that.

Sean did. “Probably.”

“Do you think they already are?”

“There’s a good chance of it.” The telepath sipped his coffee and said nothing more on the topic. It wasn’t his place to divulge what he sensed with the telepathy, not when he wasn’t an involved party. After all, it wasn’t his secret to disclose.

Josh was thoughtful for another moment. “Friendships make for the best romantic relationships.”

The telepath nodded in agreement. “They do.” But then he heaved a small sigh. “Unfortunately, friendship isn’t always enough.”

The attorney didn’t know how to respond to that. Fortunately, he was spared by the arrival of their sandwiches.