janedavitt

Title: Wish I May
Word count: 498
Type: Gen
Rating: G

Wish I May

Cascade just didn't get snow. It fell; it turned to slush; it melted. It didn't lie deep and crisp and even, and so it wasn't worth buying Daryl a sled.

The boy still wanted one.

Year after year, it made his wish list, incongruous, as time went by, against all must-have gifts Joan and Simon lined up to buy along with other exhausted, irritable parents.

Each year, Simon thought about it, looked at the forecast over the Christmas break (rain, with a possibility of wintry showers usually) and shook his head.

The first Christmas after he'd moved out, he did more than think about it. He bought the sled, sleek, fast, red, and he found a place in the mountains where snow was guaranteed. It was a long drive, sure, but he'd gotten Daryl for the weekend (not the day itself, no, but you couldn't expect -- and he'd eaten at the Taggarts' and spent the evening with Jim Ellison and a buzzed-on-eggnog Sandburg, so it hadn't been as -- no, it had, it'd been hell, but still…)

They got to the ski slopes, Daryl slumped in his seat the whole way, words doled out grudgingly, the scenery around him sniffed at, and Simon took out the sled from the trunk and handed it over, his smile wide, expectant, feeling like Santa himself.

Daryl looked at it and for a moment, just a moment, his eyes lit up, but then he glanced away and said, his voice flat, "You're joking. I'm not a kid, okay?" Simon's face must have shown his hurt, because Daryl cleared his throat. "There's a place over there I can rent a snowboard. They're cool, I guess. Got some money?"

Numb, Simon dug out some bills from his pocket, his fingers chilled, and Daryl took them with a nod of thanks and disappeared, lost in the crowd of bright hats and bulky, colorful jackets.

Simon stared down at the sled and kicked it in an excess of pain that needed an outlet. It slid obediently, smoothly, over the hard-packed snow, the crunch its runners made strangely enticing.

Simon picked up the nylon rope that doubled as a handle and a way of steering, and walked over to a slope that was too short to be worth skiing down, too steep for a beginner to use.

It had been a long time…

The lurch as the sled began to move tugged a yell from him, a whoop of surprise, and then the wind was screaming around his head and the tears in his eyes were whipped away, gone. He was flying, skimming the snow like a flung stone on water, steering through instinct, not memory, guiding his sled -- his! -- toward the gap between two trees and coming to a slow stop just beyond them.

He sat still for a moment and then craned his head back to look at the tracks the runners had made.

He'd come a long way.

This was written for the sentinel_thurs challenge of 'discipline' and is G rated, featuring Simon.




Procrastination and Equivocation

Simon looked longingly at the cigar waiting for him and then back at the pile of paperwork on his desk.

Nothing there was urgent, but he'd told himself that the cigar, cool fragrant smoke filling his mouth, the weight of it in his hand, the beloved ritual of preparation, all of it, would have to wait until he'd cleared his desk, and Simon Banks was a man of his word.

He reached out for the luscious pineapple Danish which was resting on the files.

No sense in letting it get stale and technically, it was first in the to-do pile…

Title Key Player
Characters Simon and Daryl
Rating G
Length 300 words
Spoilers None

Written for the 'It was a dark and stormy night' challenge at sentinel_thurs


( Key Player )

Another one for the 'clueless' challenge at sentinel_thurs, featuring Simon, for once.

Title Playing it Safe
Pairing None. Gen.
Rating PG
Length 450 words
Spoilers Set post TSbBS

( Playing it Safe )

Here's a Simon vid, set to what I'm assuming is the Stealers Wheel version of 'Stuck in the Middle With You' but if anyone knows differently, just say.

It's around 22 MB wmv and here are two links to it:


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IO0VTTUS

or on my site:

http://www.janedavitt.com/Vids.html#The_Sentinel

It's not a story vid as such; just poor, beleagured Simon dealing with life and two sometimes annoying friends as best he can.