elaby | Drabblish things

Ah, internets! I have barely known thee for the whole of November, and I have missed thee!

Someday, I swear, I'll catch up on all the wonderful things you lot have posted in the past month and which I've tagged "to read". But Nano is over, and Yuletide is looming (holycrap, how many days do I have left? O_O), and I'm back fresh from the far reaches of Michigan with new fandoms pinging around in my brain.

As our mission when visiting

_melisande_ was to do everything possible to give her a break from schoolwork, we watched a lot of television. And, I hardly need say as it's

_melisande_ we're talking about, it was mind-bogglingly awesome television.

I now have under my belt:

- All four seasons of the new Doctor Who
- The first season of Rome
- The first season of Torchwood, plus a disc or two of the second season

We didn't watch all of this over Thanksgiving (I'm not sure we were there for as many hours as that would take XD) but we did finish several milestones: the last episodes of season four of Doctor Who (which means I'm caught up with everything released outside the UK!), the last episodes of Rome's first season, and the last episodes of Torchwood's first season. I feel a great deal less frightened of being spoiled by the internets now, although that doesn't mean I'm going to go recklessly wandering around. There's still a whole season of Torchwood to see, not to mention the miniseries, and another season of Rome, and season five of Doctor Who, whenever that comes out over here.

But anyway! I am sated with ridiculously good storytelling and characters and dialogue and OMFG I love television. And in commemoration, I wrote two thingies. One is a double drabble for Rome, and the other is... I don't know what you'd call 250 words, but it's Doctor Who. I wanted to do one for Torchwood, but I find that I am not yet good enough to come up with the kind of lines worthy of Jack Harkness.

Fandom: Rome
Characters: Pullo
Words: 200
Warnings: Spoilers up through episode 11, "The Spoils," the second-to-last episode of season one.

When Titus Pullo awoke, there was not an inch of him that didn't hurt. He didn't understand why he had woken up at all; he should be dead. Death, he thought, couldn't possibly be this painful, so alive it was, then.

The last thing he remembered had been a dream. He was in the arena, blood in his eyes so he could barely see, blood pumping so violently through his heart he was sure it would burst. And then it did, because Vorenus was in the arena with him, shouting thirteen in answer to his own. It had been a dream, and a very cruel one: Vorenus never would come to his aid now. Not after what Pullo had done to him.

He opened his eyes and the blurry ceiling looked frighteningly familiar, and he suddenly became aware of the smell of bread: Niobe's bread. Nobody else he knew made it like that, with fennel. Somewhere to his right there was the rumble of a masculine voice he would have recognized in death's river itself. But life opened its arms to him now, all bleakness gone with that voice, and the dream was no longer a torment, but a treasure.

Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: The Doctor, Donna
Words: 250
Warnings: Reference to "The Parting of the Ways" (not sure I'd call it spoilers, as it doesn't exactly tell you much). Set sometime in the fourth season.

The Doctor was wedged in an open compartment in the TARDIS's floor, his yellow trainers propped directly in front of him and one elbow between his knees. With that hand, he held open a hinged panel, and with the other, his sonic screwdriver. His glasses had slid down, so he'd tilted his head back in order to see the contents of the panel. He put his tongue between his lips.

Footsteps sounded on the floor above, and a fall of red hair came into his vision, followed by a curious face.

"What in heaven's name are you doing down there?" Donna asked conversationally.

"Chameleon circuit," he said. "Needs to be fixed. Everybody knows the blue police box by now. They see it and hear vworp vworp and I might as well hang a neon sign on the front saying 'Here's the Doctor.' Defeats the purpose of camouflage, don't you think?"

Donna put her head to one side thoughtfully. "I rather like it."

"You may, but it's not practical when there's folks about trying to kill you."

Donna hunkered down. "You do realize that, on occasion, people are very glad indeed to see this blue police box?"

The Doctor blinked at her.

Donna stared back in disbelief. "For all your cleverness, you are terribly stupid sometimes. Get out of there; something's blinking on the console."

Later - after the Medusa Cascade - he knew how to fix the chameleon circuit. Donna had given him that. But he didn't. And he wouldn't.

Why the heck do I have no Doctor Who icons? This one will have to do as a Rome substitute *pets Saturninus*