Fic: Between the Covers (S&S)
Feb. 15th, 2013 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritETA: Whoops, somewhere in the edits I lost this note, but I scribbled this out ages ago and only came to type it up last weekend - and was rather amused (given the upcoming ficathon just started) that I'd apparently already got around to trapping S&S in a romance novel...
Title: Between the Covers
Author:thisbluespirit
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 663
Characters/Pairings: Sapphire, Steel, Silver (if I was a different writer it would also be all the Sapphire/Steel. It isn’t. Sorry about that)
Warnings None.
Summary: Sapphire and Steel, trapped inside the pages of a book.
Prompt 88: steel & sapphire - Breaking the fourth wall & Everyone thinks they're doing it. (I’m sorry. Silver wouldn’t be left out for this one.)
***
They are nothing but words now, he and she, mere paper and ink. The book had been blank when she had opened it and the two of them had been drawn in and caught on its pages. Words and letters that can be endlessly shifted, rearranged and rebuilt into new patterns and meanings.
The story that had escaped them now had reshaped itself around them – a tired old story. Sapphire wishes it could be something more interesting, if they’re going to be here as long as the volume survives.
She searches through the words, looks past the text and its surface meanings to find him. Steel. He’s still here; she knows it’s him no matter how the letters confuse her. She can reach him when she tries.
The story tells itself again and again; she and he lost in one scene, wrapped in uninspired words. The only amusement even Sapphire can find this time is Steel’s distaste for the subject matter.
(“There’s nothing romantic about history,” he’d said, before it happened, when they’d been chasing the story. “Nothing’s changed that much.”
“That’s not the point,” she’d told him, but she’d agreed. The past is only what was once the present, nothing more or less wonderful than the current ‘now’. The past as the past is dangerous as they both know.)
They try inhabiting the characters themselves, but there’s not much life beyond the words, not in these two.
“Release me this instant,” Alice said haughtily. “Otherwise I shall – I shall scream!”
The dress, thinks Sapphire, is beautiful at least. Historically inaccurate and terribly impractical, of course, but she likes it all the more for that. It’s not her colour, though.
Henry only sneered at her. “It’s what everyone else thinks, my dear. Why shouldn’t it be true?”
“How dare you make such assumptions -!”
Sapphire, is there any point? Steel asks, as the story reaches what Sapphire feels is the only interesting section. We know what happens. We’ve been through this enough times. Try something else. Can you adjust the text – create some words of your own?
Sapphire considers that. Yes. She can. Of course. She can create a message of her own and insert it into the story.
It escaped, Steel reminds her. So can we. As long as somebody ever wants to read... this again.
Whatever there is of her here, smiles inwardly at his disgust. Then she makes the attempt and shapes her own words out of the letters available:
Dear Reader, my name is Sapphire. My colleague and I are trapped inside this book. Please read the following words aloud. This is very important…
***
This particular reader closes the book at those words and kisses its cover before slipping it inside his pocket. He has been searching through the library for hours, and even he had begun to wonder if there had been some mistake. He pats that pocket again with a satisfied smile and then walks away from the shelves.
“Sir,” says the librarian, catching him on his way towards the door. “Excuse me, but –”
He turns and gives her his best smile. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I forgot. Thank you for your help – very kind of you.”
“Sir…?” she says again, suddenly unsure.
“That’s quite all right,” he adds, touching her arm lightly, and then makes his escape through the main doors.
***
Silver’s careless with the words as he reads silently, trying to extract them with a little more precision than Sapphire’s message allows for, but he’s only concerned for his colleagues, not the tiresome story.
The end result is one hundred percent less Sapphire and Steel inside the battered paperback, but any future readers will search in vain for commas and wonder at the ice-cream, the pelican and the large red noses.
And, just to be on the safe side, he pockets the final page. He thinks it’s better that way.
***
Title: Between the Covers
Author:
thisbluespiritRating: All ages
Word Count: 663
Characters/Pairings: Sapphire, Steel, Silver (if I was a different writer it would also be all the Sapphire/Steel. It isn’t. Sorry about that)
Warnings None.
Summary: Sapphire and Steel, trapped inside the pages of a book.
Prompt 88: steel & sapphire - Breaking the fourth wall & Everyone thinks they're doing it. (I’m sorry. Silver wouldn’t be left out for this one.)
***
They are nothing but words now, he and she, mere paper and ink. The book had been blank when she had opened it and the two of them had been drawn in and caught on its pages. Words and letters that can be endlessly shifted, rearranged and rebuilt into new patterns and meanings.
The story that had escaped them now had reshaped itself around them – a tired old story. Sapphire wishes it could be something more interesting, if they’re going to be here as long as the volume survives.
She searches through the words, looks past the text and its surface meanings to find him. Steel. He’s still here; she knows it’s him no matter how the letters confuse her. She can reach him when she tries.
The story tells itself again and again; she and he lost in one scene, wrapped in uninspired words. The only amusement even Sapphire can find this time is Steel’s distaste for the subject matter.
(“There’s nothing romantic about history,” he’d said, before it happened, when they’d been chasing the story. “Nothing’s changed that much.”
“That’s not the point,” she’d told him, but she’d agreed. The past is only what was once the present, nothing more or less wonderful than the current ‘now’. The past as the past is dangerous as they both know.)
They try inhabiting the characters themselves, but there’s not much life beyond the words, not in these two.
“Release me this instant,” Alice said haughtily. “Otherwise I shall – I shall scream!”
The dress, thinks Sapphire, is beautiful at least. Historically inaccurate and terribly impractical, of course, but she likes it all the more for that. It’s not her colour, though.
Henry only sneered at her. “It’s what everyone else thinks, my dear. Why shouldn’t it be true?”
“How dare you make such assumptions -!”
Sapphire, is there any point? Steel asks, as the story reaches what Sapphire feels is the only interesting section. We know what happens. We’ve been through this enough times. Try something else. Can you adjust the text – create some words of your own?
Sapphire considers that. Yes. She can. Of course. She can create a message of her own and insert it into the story.
It escaped, Steel reminds her. So can we. As long as somebody ever wants to read... this again.
Whatever there is of her here, smiles inwardly at his disgust. Then she makes the attempt and shapes her own words out of the letters available:
Dear Reader, my name is Sapphire. My colleague and I are trapped inside this book. Please read the following words aloud. This is very important…
***
This particular reader closes the book at those words and kisses its cover before slipping it inside his pocket. He has been searching through the library for hours, and even he had begun to wonder if there had been some mistake. He pats that pocket again with a satisfied smile and then walks away from the shelves.
“Sir,” says the librarian, catching him on his way towards the door. “Excuse me, but –”
He turns and gives her his best smile. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I forgot. Thank you for your help – very kind of you.”
“Sir…?” she says again, suddenly unsure.
“That’s quite all right,” he adds, touching her arm lightly, and then makes his escape through the main doors.
***
Silver’s careless with the words as he reads silently, trying to extract them with a little more precision than Sapphire’s message allows for, but he’s only concerned for his colleagues, not the tiresome story.
The end result is one hundred percent less Sapphire and Steel inside the battered paperback, but any future readers will search in vain for commas and wonder at the ice-cream, the pelican and the large red noses.
And, just to be on the safe side, he pockets the final page. He thinks it’s better that way.
***
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Date: 2013-03-31 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-31 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-15 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-02-15 08:42 pm (UTC)I love the story. It's so cute - Steel's distaste at the whole thing, Sapphire's straightforward message (imagine coming across that in a book!), and Silver to the rescue.
Thanks for sharing.
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Date: 2013-02-16 01:13 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-02-16 06:50 pm (UTC)