Three 350 word drabbles for the 2011 White Collar Advent

[attackfish]

Along with running the whole show, I want to thank tj_teejay for posting each of these to whitecollarfic on the correct date, as my internet has been a little bit spotty.


Creepy Crawly Things


Given the number of things she had stolen, and the percentage of those that were ancient and valuable, she supposed it was only a matter of time before she managed to get her hands on something cursed.

"You have any idea what did this to you?" Moz asked, peering at her more curiously than she felt comfortable with. She pulled the flower pin out of her bag while Mozzie went to the bookshelf and started pulling books out, flipping through them and pushing them back into place. "Where did you find it?"

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Fine, fine, I'll figure out how to fix this without your help." He went back to the bookshelf and pulled another book out. His thumb keeping his place, he plunked it gown on the table next to the pin. "It says here you're cursed because you stole it. Apparently the French liked this spell a lot during the seventeenth century. If you had been given it, you'd be making pearls and rubies instead."

Alex nodded.

He looked up. "You have to give it back."

"No way!" she yelped, frogs, snakes, and spiders tumbling out of her mouth. "Do you know what I had to go through to get this?"

Mozzie jumped back and pushed himself against the wall on the other side of the room. "Well you could try working at a soup kitchen!"

Alex swallowed, and she swore she could feel eight legs climbing up her throat. She gritted her teeth sulkily and shrugged.

"Hey, it's not my fault you decided you just had to have a piece of jewelry with a curse on it."

"Thanks Moz." A thick, black snake dropped out of her mouth and slithered across the floor. Mozzie cried out and climbed onto a chair. She held one of the frogs up by one leg. "Hey, you mind putting this in Caffrey's bed for me? He still owes me for Copenhagen."

"Okay!" he stuttered, eyeing the wiggling frog like he thought it was going to fly through the air at him. "Please... Just keep your mouth closed."



The Body


The body, they discovered, had been in the morgue for almost as long as she had been missing. The ME just happened to recognize her face on a milk carton one day and called them. Sara bought a ticket and flew home to her parents the next day. The body raced her home, and when the three of them, her mother, her father, and Sara came to ID her, her sister had freezer burn on her lips.

Her mother didn't speak until they were almost home. "I think I'm supposed to feel some kind of relief."

Sara put her hand on top of her mother's.

"But I don't."

Her father started crying, and she wanted to tell him to pull over and let her drive so that he could sit with her mom and they could comfort each other. She wanted him to pull over so that they wouldn't crash. "I'll make dinner," she said pathetically. "Just don't worry about it."

"Oh sweetheart," her dad mumbled.

She drew a shuddering breath and lied. "I'm okay."

~*~

She stacked the clean dishes on the counter, the oven clock blinking at her balefully. It wasn't worth trying to go to bed anymore. After she closed the dishwasher door and slid the plates and bowls into the cabinet, her hand hovered over the phone. She put her hand in her pocket to steal herself, but it bumped against her cell phone instead. She pulled it out and punched in the number, the screen glowing in the dark.

She pressed send and listened to the dial tone, feeling strangely disconnected, like she had called into nothingness. But she hadn't, and Neal's voice came through the speaker to her. "Sara?"

She closed her eyes. "Hi."

"It's four in the morning." His voice was raspy and breathy with sleep, unguarded. For a moment, she wanted to pry, to ask him anything that popped into her head, about the Raphael, his past, anything and everything.

"I know, sorry," she whispered. "I'll hang up."

"No, it's okay." She could hear the sheets rustle as he stood up. "I'm awake."



The Bright Lights


The safehouse Mozzie called "August" was only used eight days of the year. There was an enormous west facing window, and a Chippendale desk on a silk Persian rug. Neal had never managed to get Moz to tell him if the desk was real, but either way, in his opinion, it was by far the nicest of his friend's safehouses.

"Okay," he said. "I've got smoke free no drip candles, potatoes, the new potato peeler, eggs, oil, apple sauce, those little chocolate coins, am I missing anything?"

Moz pulled the flour out of one of the cupboards and dug a mixing bowl out from under the sink. "You're late. It's past sunset."

"Come on, Moz, I had to run all over town looking for your special blue potatoes." He put the bag down on the kitchen counter. "Cut me some slack."

"You should have thought ahead," Moz told him sulkily. "I should send you home right now and light the candle myself."

Neal fought not to roll his eyes, and instead stuck out his lip plaintively. "You said you were going to feed me."

Moz stuck out his tongue. He opened the candle box and put one in each of the menorah's cups. "Start peeling potatoes. The shredder's in the drawer next to the sink."

"I know where the shredder is." Neal pulled it out. "Hey, you didn't rearrange anything in here the whole time I was away?"

Moz snorted and pulled out the lighter. "Next year, I'll put everything in a new place, just for you."

He did roll his eyes then. "I wouldn't want you to go through any trouble."

The bright, city lights twinkled below them and Moz flicked off the lights. The lighter wheel rolled and sparked, and the fuel caught fire.

"Come on, turn the light back on," Neal called to him. "I'm working with sharp things in here."

"Wait a second, just let my finish lighting the candles+." He lit the shamesh and picked it up to light the first candle as he mumbled his way through the prayers.

"Happy Hanukkah, Moz, Neal whispered.

Comments

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

AHHHHH!

These were lovely! I loved Moz in both of them and Sara ;_____; My heart broke for her.

GOOD JOB!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I hadn't really gotten into the holiday spirit until the last one, can you tell?