Sunday Snippet: The Zipper Incident

So, first week of April in Ohio and we had a wintry mix of sleet and snow yesterday. *shakes head* Come on, Mother Nature, cut us a break. LOL

On the television front… The Walking Dead set everything up for the finale tonight. I'm actually thinking I won't watch it live. It's been a rough week and my brain might just break if one of my faves doesn't make it out alive.

Missed Gotham on Monday and haven't caught up yet. This plays into the rough week angle. My teenage daughter had her first track meet Monday night and badly sprained her ankle during the warm-ups. The poor kid didn't even get to compete. The good news is she cleared all the hurdles. The bad news? She needs to work on the landings. LOL Needless to say, she's on crutches and miserable but gets to see the orthopedic guy tomorrow. Whew.

The Flash and Agents of SHIELD had great episodes. I liked seeing the fallout from previous episodes on both shows. Time travel always kicks my interest up a notch and The Flash usually pulls off nice twists when it happens. Henry Simmons is terrific at playing Mack and I'm glad he's on Agents of SHIELD.

Arrow added some new layers to relationships and it was cool to see a Flash villain show up in Star City. I kind of liked having Felicity save the day and Curtis was a total riot in the Arrow cave / bunker. I love his character so much.

Legends of Tomorrow surprised me with revealing how Mick survived his encounter with Snart. Very cool to see Sara back in Nanda Parbot and being introduced to Talia. I loved the little seeds / references to Nyssa, too.

I checked into The Magicians and love the kind of twisty things they're doing with the relationships there. Bitten also had a great episode, but I'm truly sad another pack member met his end. I'm very ready for Elena and company to kick ass and end the menacing presence in their lives.

I'll be catching up with Wynonna Earp and Banshee sometime today. Will probably be adding little bits to next week's post on both.

And that's it for television this week.

Tonight's post is from The Zipper Incident, a sexy short that found life from a prompt I completed for a fanfiction piece. The prompt asked for the same incident to be told from three or four points of view, which was fun to write, but ultimately not the way I like to present a story. But I loved the premise enough to rewrite from the hero and heroine point of view only.

Here's the mini-blurb:

Layne Donaker makes a grave error when she mistakenly uses a super adhesive on Hyde Scarlotti's zippers—all of them, including his flight suit. Hyde is beyond done with her stupid pranks and calls her out in front of the entire crew, which Layne doesn't take kindly.

And a sneaky peek…

Layne Donaker stumbled into the bunkroom and flopped back onto her berth. "Damn Hyde, saying I needed adult supervision." Okay, she might be a wee bit drunk, but she handled her alcohol better than he did.

Always. Even when the drinking celebrated Hyde Scarlotti's new rank of lieutenant, something she should be thrilled about. Except he already started pulling back and away by ordering her to slow down and take it easy.

Rolling over on her side, she heaved a sigh. "As if his promotion suddenly makes him all authoritarian." Well, his bump in rank did make him a superior officer. "Shit. I have to salute him now." Didn't that suck balls?

Not for him. But she'd been up for the same promotion. Two slots, four people. Hyde made the grade, Layne didn't. Something about her lack of by the book decision making. And, yeah, she liked to challenge standard operating procedure. Sometimes the status quo got stale and needed a good shake-up. Of course, Hyde tried to tell her she needed to consider her answers carefully when she took the oral exam. Did she listen?

Hell, no. Layne shot straight from the hip and always would. Even if it cost a move up the chain of command.

But the price also included losing the one person she'd been with since basic training.

Hyde.

Didn't matter if he said nothing would change. Everything would. And Layne didn't like ripples. Not when it came to her personal relationships.

She growled. "He's already thinking like an SO, telling me not to down so many shots and to go easy because I've got first watch." A snort escaped her. "Maybe I traded shifts with someone. Did he think to ask me? Nope." She flung an arm out to make her point and knocked a picture of her and Hyde from the interior wall of her space.

Picking the image up, she frowned. "He's so confident he's got this all figured out." She stashed the frame under her pillow. "Methinks I need to show him he doesn't." A very bad idea formed in her mind and her lips twisted in a smile.

Sitting up, then waiting for the room to stop spinning, she slid off the bunk and wobbled her way to the set of lockers on the far wall. Layne didn't open hers. Instead, she thumbed the combination to Hyde's lock and yanked hard on the door. Fumbling around inside, she dragged out all his clothes—uniforms, flight suits, fatigues, and civvies. Dropping them on the deck, she gave a drunken chuckle at the crazy-wicked prank she intended to pull. Layne crossed over to the community storage area and rummaged around until she found what she wanted. She made her way back over to the pile of garments, stumbling over the heap and crashing to the floor on her knees.

She winced, then laughed. "Serves me right. Shoulda been paying attention." Sorting the pile, she pushed all the shirts aside.

She had no need for those.

Next, she went through the remaining items and found anything with zippers. Grabbing the tube of glue, she popped the lid off and spread a long strip down the first notched length. She picked up the next pair of pants and repeated the process.

Her lips twisted in a sneer. "Mr. Superior thinks everything is going to be the same. But he'll find out it's not going to be. This should get the point across." She glued every single zipper on each piece of clothing—including his flight suit—together then put the garments back in his locker.

She capped the adhesive and stashed it back in the storage area then crawled back into her bunk. Her head throbbed and she already had the beginnings of cotton-mouth from too much alcohol consumed. Rolling over to her side, she let sleep claim her, praying the hangover wouldn't be killer in the morning.

Kind of longish, but this sets up the story, which ended up being so much fun to write.

That's it for this week. Catch everyone on the flipside.

ML Skye