Title: Swimming Like Peter Lorre
Author: frea_o
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Clint/Natasha
Summary: An afternoon of whale-watching takes a deadly turn.
Warnings: Language, nudity, life-threatening situations
Word Count: 3,641 words
Notes: This story is part of my Zoologist AU (where Clint is a zoologist studying chinstrap penguins and Natasha studies orcas and the Avengers are all doing a stint at the SHIELD base on Point Heli Portaaviones in Antarctica). It’s a sequel to Talking Like Peter Lorre (with a companion piece about Darcy and Tony here). You should probably read those first if you want to know what’s going on.

Story @ my journal.

Hello, patrons of This Bar!

Today being Wednesday, brings us a snippet of unfinished fic from alphaflyer!

(To be featured on unfinished fic Wednesday, sent 100-1000 words of fic to bc.unfinished@gmail.com, which your LJ name, warnings and a rating!)

Anyway, Alpha (Ms. Flyer if you're nasty) has this to say:

Usually once I start something I finish it, but this one .... has been eluding me. I started it based on a prompt by Anuna_81 for the Valentine promptathon; the quote intrigued me to no end, and so I decided to expand on a little blip concerning a past mission that I mentioned in at least one story. The link will be obvious, I think.

Here's Anuna's prompt: "That is the problem with people today. They've lost faith, and in that loss they don't know who they should fear any more."

And here's the line from my story that was to be the basis for the mission: "She’s thinking of the time they’d found those half-starved girls chained to a pipe, in the basement of a cult leader they’d taken out in Montana. After that, he’d shot arrow after arrow into a dead tree, because the one he’d put into the wannabe prophet’s eye just hadn’t been enough. Natasha had watched, then gone and printed out some photos off the internet and pinned them to the tree. Later, she’d pulled out all the arrows and stuck them back in his quiver. Reduce, reuse, recycle. No point wasting well-fletched ammo on scum."

Dark and cynical, a bit like bits of "In the Service". But since an indictment of the false prophecy business isn't really Valentine material, I tried to lighten it up -- but then the tone wouldn't do the theme justice. Or could it?

For now the thing is trapped in a twilight world of too dark/too light/and do I actually want to write this anymore? Any suggestions (including "drop it!") would be gratefully appreciated.

rating: likely M, albeit not for sex
warnings: none for this snippet, later probably violence and darkish themes -- non/con will likely be referenced but not depicted
( Clint's voice, which can grate at the best of times... )