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kinkfestTitle: Look and See
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sophiap
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: Sapphire&Steel, Sapphire/Steel: testing boundaries; exploring the attics; discretion
Word count 1,200
Summary: What does Sapphire see when she looks at her partner?
"You've peeked, haven't you?" Silver teased.
Sapphire simply graced him with one of her usual smiles, a smile that could mean anything or nothing at all.
"Trust is necessary for a good working relationship," she said.
He sighed. "Which means that if you did peek, you'd never tell me, would you?"
"No. I would not."
Silver thought about that for a moment, nodding as he did. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. Ah, well. Just so long as you don't tell him anything about me." Pause. "You haven't, have you?"
Lead thought what she could do was great fun. He cajoled and joked and all but begged her to look at him and tell him what she saw.
Sapphire looked, and his past and future opened up in front of her like an elaborate paper sculpture, all angles and folds and bright colors. She focused on one bright, pattered piece at a time, reciting what she saw in each one, her mild and bubble-light amusement echoed and amplified in Lead's laughter.
"You can look at anyone like that?" he asked her, still marvelling.
"Nearly anyone. Humans are simple, and for the most part, quite linear."
"What about me? What about Jet? Or Steel?"
Sapphire thought for a moment, wondering what--if anything--she should say.
"We are all far more complicated. Complicated, but interesting." This time, her smile showed fond amusement. It was a familiar expression for her, but this time it shielded nothing. "Interesting, and all very different from one another."
Lead told her to go on, go on...
"I'm not sure I can explain properly."
Actually, it would have been more correct to say that she wasn't sure she should.
Their histories were complicated, and they were personal. They all had different shapes, different colors, different feels.
Silver. Thin, fine, cutting lines, always in motion, flaring in light and disappearing in shadows. Half spiderweb, half maze. Ever-changing.
Lead. Bright, primary colors, bold shapes, surprising angles, and a sort of lightness that somehow did not seem at odds with his grounded, grounding nature.
Ruby she heard rather than saw, with elaborate harmonies and surprising dissonances. Jet was clouds in motion, slowly shifting shape and color as the light changed.
Her own patterns she knew too well to describe properly, and besides, there was no point in looking at a past she had already lived through.
And then there was Steel.
Just because she had not deliberately looked at Steel's history didn't mean that she had not seen it.
If a person's eyes were open, that person saw.
Every bit of data would come in, and much of it would be ignored. That sort of ignorance was necessary to everyday functioning.
Her power worked that way. Sometimes. After a fashion.
Looking was seeing with intent. It implied deliberate putting aside of polite boundaries, pushing one's way in where one might not be welcome, being a snoop...
But sometimes, those pieces of data that were unconsciously ignored would sometimes--equally unconsciously--begin to form patterns. Shapes. Ideas.
Sometimes, looking had nothing to do with intent. Sometimes, it just happened.
Lead, of course, asked Steel if he had ever had Sapphire look at his history and tell him what she saw.
"Why would I do that?" Steel asked, cold as ever. "I know my own past. It would be a waste of time."
Lead scoffed, and then laughed, and then it was back to work again, same as always.
Although--and it may have been Sapphire's imagination--Steel seemed even more irascible than usual.
"A waste of time," he repeated, even though no one had said anything for the past several minutes.
Later, when there was nothing to do but sit and wait for a rescue that might never come, Steel eventually asked her. He asked it under the guise of trying to find out if she saw anything that could help them in their present situation, but he asked it all the same.
"Do you see any change in me? In my history?" he barked.
"Seeing a change would imply that I would have something to compare the present against. That I had already looked," she pointed out.
"Sapphire..."
She graced him with a nod and a patient smile that hid growing concern regarding their situation. "While I have never pried," though she had been very tempted to, when they were first partnered, "I believe I have picked up enough during our time together to piece together a good impression. I should be able to tell if something has changed."
"Good." He held out his hand. It was not necessary, and he should have known it was not necessary, but she closed her eyes and laid her hand over his all the same.
She had seen, but she did not know what to expect. If asked to guess, she would have said something about cold, clean surfaces and stark expanses of gray. Right angles and regular spacing. Order. Inhospitability.
When she stopped and actually looked, there was a breath-halting moment when she wondered if their being taken to this place that was nowhere and forever had negated her power. But that was not it.
Looking at Steel was like trying to look at herself. To describe the voice she heard in her own head.
It was too close. Too familiar.
"I see nothing," she said. Her eyes remained closed. "No difference at all."
Author/Artist:
sophiapRating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: Sapphire&Steel, Sapphire/Steel: testing boundaries; exploring the attics; discretion
Word count 1,200
Summary: What does Sapphire see when she looks at her partner?
"You've peeked, haven't you?" Silver teased.
Sapphire simply graced him with one of her usual smiles, a smile that could mean anything or nothing at all.
"Trust is necessary for a good working relationship," she said.
He sighed. "Which means that if you did peek, you'd never tell me, would you?"
"No. I would not."
Silver thought about that for a moment, nodding as he did. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. Ah, well. Just so long as you don't tell him anything about me." Pause. "You haven't, have you?"
Lead thought what she could do was great fun. He cajoled and joked and all but begged her to look at him and tell him what she saw.
Sapphire looked, and his past and future opened up in front of her like an elaborate paper sculpture, all angles and folds and bright colors. She focused on one bright, pattered piece at a time, reciting what she saw in each one, her mild and bubble-light amusement echoed and amplified in Lead's laughter.
"You can look at anyone like that?" he asked her, still marvelling.
"Nearly anyone. Humans are simple, and for the most part, quite linear."
"What about me? What about Jet? Or Steel?"
Sapphire thought for a moment, wondering what--if anything--she should say.
"We are all far more complicated. Complicated, but interesting." This time, her smile showed fond amusement. It was a familiar expression for her, but this time it shielded nothing. "Interesting, and all very different from one another."
Lead told her to go on, go on...
"I'm not sure I can explain properly."
Actually, it would have been more correct to say that she wasn't sure she should.
Their histories were complicated, and they were personal. They all had different shapes, different colors, different feels.
Silver. Thin, fine, cutting lines, always in motion, flaring in light and disappearing in shadows. Half spiderweb, half maze. Ever-changing.
Lead. Bright, primary colors, bold shapes, surprising angles, and a sort of lightness that somehow did not seem at odds with his grounded, grounding nature.
Ruby she heard rather than saw, with elaborate harmonies and surprising dissonances. Jet was clouds in motion, slowly shifting shape and color as the light changed.
Her own patterns she knew too well to describe properly, and besides, there was no point in looking at a past she had already lived through.
And then there was Steel.
Just because she had not deliberately looked at Steel's history didn't mean that she had not seen it.
If a person's eyes were open, that person saw.
Every bit of data would come in, and much of it would be ignored. That sort of ignorance was necessary to everyday functioning.
Her power worked that way. Sometimes. After a fashion.
Looking was seeing with intent. It implied deliberate putting aside of polite boundaries, pushing one's way in where one might not be welcome, being a snoop...
But sometimes, those pieces of data that were unconsciously ignored would sometimes--equally unconsciously--begin to form patterns. Shapes. Ideas.
Sometimes, looking had nothing to do with intent. Sometimes, it just happened.
Lead, of course, asked Steel if he had ever had Sapphire look at his history and tell him what she saw.
"Why would I do that?" Steel asked, cold as ever. "I know my own past. It would be a waste of time."
Lead scoffed, and then laughed, and then it was back to work again, same as always.
Although--and it may have been Sapphire's imagination--Steel seemed even more irascible than usual.
"A waste of time," he repeated, even though no one had said anything for the past several minutes.
Later, when there was nothing to do but sit and wait for a rescue that might never come, Steel eventually asked her. He asked it under the guise of trying to find out if she saw anything that could help them in their present situation, but he asked it all the same.
"Do you see any change in me? In my history?" he barked.
"Seeing a change would imply that I would have something to compare the present against. That I had already looked," she pointed out.
"Sapphire..."
She graced him with a nod and a patient smile that hid growing concern regarding their situation. "While I have never pried," though she had been very tempted to, when they were first partnered, "I believe I have picked up enough during our time together to piece together a good impression. I should be able to tell if something has changed."
"Good." He held out his hand. It was not necessary, and he should have known it was not necessary, but she closed her eyes and laid her hand over his all the same.
She had seen, but she did not know what to expect. If asked to guess, she would have said something about cold, clean surfaces and stark expanses of gray. Right angles and regular spacing. Order. Inhospitability.
When she stopped and actually looked, there was a breath-halting moment when she wondered if their being taken to this place that was nowhere and forever had negated her power. But that was not it.
Looking at Steel was like trying to look at herself. To describe the voice she heard in her own head.
It was too close. Too familiar.
"I see nothing," she said. Her eyes remained closed. "No difference at all."
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