Close your eyes and jump for the skies (Inevitable short) PG13

[mhalachai]

Am in a mood.

Close your eyes and jump for the skies
An Inevitable short (AB/HP)
by mhalachaiswords

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. Anita Blake belongs to Laurell K. Hamilton. No profit made, etc.
Rating: PG-13
Words: 300
Note: Inevitable future-fic. Set four or five years down the road. No spoilers, just swearing.

~~~~~

Years of living in a war zone (for that is what Anita's life is now) hypes her senses the moment anyone new walks into a room; skimming the malls is near on impossible now; too many people, too many invisible threats and she's halfway to jumping out of her skin the moment she walks into a supermarket.

Harry sees it too; Harry lives the same life she does (lives in her damned hip pocket; if she trips over any more of his shit in the hallway one more time they'll never find his body) and if Harry's got a goddamned magic wand to solve all his problems, it brings him as much fucking relief as the gun in her pocket.

Can't shoot first. It's dirty pool.

Her senses are sharp and her reflexes are on a hair-trigger some days, and Jean-Claude can't understand because he's fucking dead, and Nathaniel and Micah and Richard can't understand because they have animals living under their skins, living breathing weapons they are, and all she has is a gun and a knife and the ability to raise the fucking dead and it eats at her that it's all she can do to hold it in.

Harry might be the only one who gets it; holding magic inside under a pressure-cooker, knowing that one day, she will not maybe will lose hold on the locked and bound doors inside her head and the magic will leak out and she will raise the dead without meaning to, and people will die.

Again.

Because history repeats itself, and she's spent years living in this fucking war zone and the only person who understands is Harry, and some days she thinks that he's afraid of what she can do.

Will do.

But not today.

end

Comments

[rhianona]

Very, very intriguing. I like this view and makes me want to know what has driven Anita to think this - and at the same time I can completely understand it all. Love connection between her and harry.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

See, this little experiment in rambling is stemming from what happens next in the main story, and I'm dragging myself back kicking and screaming to writing it. Because it's not easy, what happens next, and it's not nice or fun, and I'm terrified that it's going to come out wrong. Which is all sorts of justification to letting it sit.

I am aware that I have Some Issues.

And Anita and Harry are totally the same person. I mean, have we ever seen them in the same room together? (Oh right, we have ;)

[silverblade219.livejournal.com]

Interesting piece. Is it supposed to hint that she doesn't really raise the dead anymore or am I overreading it, and it's just saying that she is more afraid that she is losing control?

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

More that she's afraid of losing control. The girl has some issues.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

Oooh... shivery. I really love this glimpse of what could (should, really, though LKH won't apply any kind of valid human psychology, so likely it will remain a 'could') happen to Anita if she keeps going the way the path seems set at the moment.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Really, the way Anita's life has been going in recent months/years just screams out as a precursor for PTSD. She's been shot, knifed, mauled, otherwise attacked and almost killed, seen really horrible things, done some really horrible things... this does not all add to ice cream and puppies.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

this does not all add to ice cream and puppies.

Except in LKH's head, where they all land in a puppy pile on a ginormous bed and lick icecream off each other, because OMG SHE CAN'T KILL ANYONE OFF OR HAVE THEM BE SAD WITHOUT FEELING REALLY BAD ABOUT DOING IT!!!

I am constantly amazed that Anita isn't some kind of nervous ball of insanity yet. Anyone in the real world would probably be in a padded cell by now. O_o

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Bit of a tangent.

I had a charming idea for a House/Anita Blake crossover about a year ago, where Anita's in talking to House in the clinic and going over all the AB stuff, and then House leaves the room to talk to Anita's dad (who brought her in) and tells him that yes, his daughter is crazy and needs to be committed (in a serious way, not crackfic) but I never got around to it because the whole idea was too fucking depressing.

But some days.

I like to kill off characters. It keeps things on edge. Not that that means anything for Inevitable. Just wanted to say.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

That? Would be an unbelievably awesome fic. But yeah, for it to be a serious fic, that would be pretty damn depressing - to both write and read. It would also be depressing knowing that while it's realistic and should happen... it never will.

Killing characters off makes things more interesting, because there's a chance to shock and to mix things up a bit. The way LKH keeps everyone alive makes it get really boring at times, because everyone is safe and there's no suspense.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Testify.

Although, there is something to be said for a judicious use of character killing -- it's an art, to carefully walk the line between "story tension" and a cover of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

I am in a very odd mood today. I'd blame it on the weather, but I haven't left the house all day.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

I now have the strange urge to read fic in which Sigmund goes crazy with a chainsaw and RPIT let him off because he'd obviously been pushed too far and wasn't in his right mind. Zerbrowski would then adopt him.

Not left the house? Evidently you have a form of cabin fever, then. :D

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Has that fic been written or are you just insane? Cuz if the latter, I likes :)

Maybe it is cabin fever. But if I go outside then I'll have to be around people. Maybe i'll go buy myself some lunch and get on with my day.

And then I'll come back and attempt to write. I have like 30 comments I need to reply to on my past big story and it's hard to focus. Yeah, I know, I live a life of woe.

[kira-snugz.livejournal.com]

oooh this is wicked. i just love it

[dotty8608.livejournal.com]

Yikes. That made me a little twitchy myself. Very cool.

[dhark-charlotte.livejournal.com]

What an awesome teaser you are!

[askani.livejournal.com]

ooo, this gave me chills. I want to know why Anita is freaking out so bad and why they seem to be in a war zone that she can't calm down at all.

I see that you are maybe attempting to get back into writing Inevitable? :)

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm trying to get back into Inevitable. Anita's mindset is the hard part right now -- I have all the action and plot and that stuff, but it's been so long since I wrote Anita, that it's very hard to get back to her.

But this is life :) I'll get there.

[penyn-1600.livejournal.com]

Very interesting...and it makes me wonder what has happened that she thinks she's in a warzone.

[sweetinsanity90.livejournal.com]

Gah! You are an evil genuis - I had all but forgotten about the lack of ending to Inveitable, and then you write this, and I feel the need to reread it!

Great piece though, I can't wait to see how you get from point A to point B.

[(Anonymous)]

I worry that my reaction to this short is far too happy for the really grim subject matter ... but I'M JUST SO HAPPY YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT INEVITABLE!!!

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

That was me. I wiped all my browser cookies, and then forgot to log back in.

[neviditelny.livejournal.com]

Very nice.

Inevitable update soon? Please? Or Physics of the Spin? Please?

*gives wibbley lip*

[(Anonymous)]

I just woke up, and Im a bit croggy so when I first read "Jean Claude is dead"...I was thinking, hey, but thats a spoiler. Thankfully my brain reset itself, and I continued reading this lil tale.

[romyra]

In a totally off track beat I've just tagged you to participate in one of those Meme things. Its in honour of my first ever being tagged so like the never ending Pokemon train...I choose you. See my lj for details. Obligations?..Nope just enjoy the info.

[(Anonymous)]

As always Anita sees only her own threat and not those of the ones she's sworn to protect. While it's a different type, Harry has just as much power as she does is just as likely to lose control. As a child he performed amazing feats of magic with an unused and unknown magic. How devastating could it be now that it has grown with age and he has exercised it?

If Harry lost control, and he probably will with the situations he gets into, he could crush everyone by bringing down a building, strip the flesh off their bones, rip their skeletons out of their bodies, the possibilities are endless.

But of course, Anita will never admit it, will she? She's a danger to him, Harry would never do anything like that.

[alydhe.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me, for some reason it didn't acknowledge I was logged in. *kicks lj*