Pairing: Corbin and Aspen

Title: Subdued

Prompt: Guarded

Word Count: 100

Summary: He’s never acted like this before.

He’s not acting like he should. And he hasn’t been for a day or so.

Corbin’s too quiet; he’s never quiet. Usually, he yammers and babbles and cracks bad jokes. But he’s never quiet.

And he’s too still; he’s got his camera in hand but he’s not using it. Normally he’s bright and animated, snapping off tons of pictures and jumping about, eyes always moving to find the next shot. But he’s never still.

Now, he’s still and quiet, walking quietly alongside me and I don’t know what to do, say, think because I’ve never seen him like this before.

Title: The Worms Crawl Out

Prompt: Worms

Word Count: 125

Summary: A slow spiral into madness at the slip of a knife.

“Shit,” he snaps as the knife cuts clean through the apple and into the meat of his palm. He clamps his free hand on the cut and winces at the duel pains in his hand and head. He knows what’s coming and doesn’t like it, doesn’t want it.

Staring at his hand, he sees the blood gush through his fingers and tries to tell himself it’s not real. He bites his lip hard to keep from screaming when the blood stops and the small wiggling night crawlers begin to squirm from beneath his uncut hand. For a moment he forgets it’s just a hallucination and screams.

Beneath the madness, the lucid part of him is glad that Aspen’s not here to see him like this.

Title: Shocking

Prompt: Gasp

Word Count: 100

Summary: She should have expected it from him by now.

It wasn’t so much the click of the camera that shocked her—she’d been with him long enough to know he was rarely without a camera in his hands, snapping off a picture of one this or another—but the time and place that she heard it.

“Dammit, Corbin!” She clutched the towel closer, shooting him the most scathing glare one could muster when wet and nearly nude.

He simply smiled that off-putting goofy grin of his and waved the Polaroid. “I think this one is going to into the personal collection,” he laughed with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Title: Calming the Storm

Prompt: Kiss

Word Count: 100

Summary: She grounds him with something so simple.

His mind is chaotic at best these days, a whirling storm of hallucinations and disembodied voices telling him to do unspeakable acts towards the people he’s close to. He hates himself for hearing it all, for seeing it all, for being so weak.

And she sees when he’s succumbing to the pain and the pressure and is right at his side, attempting to calm him, bringing him back from the raging hell within him with something as ordinary as a kiss.

But that kiss grounds him, giving him something real and pulling him back to what he knows is true.