A FRIGHTENINGLY FRACTURED FAIRYTALE: AN FKFIC CHALLENGE AND THE FRACTURE BECOMES SHATTERED BONE... Standard disclaimers apply. These characters aren't mine, I'm just messing with their lives a bit. Permission is granted to archive on fkfanfic.com, and the ftp site. This story is in response to Kyer's Frighteningly Fractured Fairytale challenge. And boy, is this one fractured... Just to warn you, this has not been beta read by anyone except myself, and I do believe that my warped sense of humor has gotten away from me on this one... Oh well, the product was... interesting :) Comments, questions, feedback, and all that good stuff may be sent to Diane Harris at aria5@vt.edu! AND THE FRACTURE BECOMES SHATTERED BONE... (1/1) 'Once upon a time...' He stared down at his laptop and groaned. That was sooooooo bloody clichéd... Jamming his finger down on the delete key with such force that it was surprising the poor thing didn't squish into a pile of electronic scrap, he tried to think of something that wasn't so damned predictable. 'It was a dark and...' NO!!! He snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to get SOME inspiration. Any inspiration at all... 'It was the best of times...' But he failed to get it. What to say? What to say? He pinched the bridge of his nose, completely absorbed in thought as needed circulation was cut off from the appendage. He needed... motivation. He needed... "LaCroix... I need help..." Yes, help. He needed help. Help would be good... He had never been much of a writer... Oh!!! Someone was speaking to him... "Not now, Nicholas. I am in the middle of writ..." LaCroix paused as he looked up at his blond protégé. Waaaait... This might be all right! "Nicholas, I require your assistance..." "But..." Nick looked confused. Silence reigned for what seemed like an eternity until finally LaCroix's protégé spoke, quiet and hesitant. "I don't get it..." Sigh... Did he _ever_? It was a debatable question... "I need your help," he rephrased his words evenly, hoping that eventually Nick would get it on his own. A whole weird string of emotions flickered across Nick's face until finally, there was at least an inkling of understanding... "Help? You?" he asked incredulously. "Yes, help," LaCroix confirmed, quickly becoming irritated. This was not how he'd imagined spending the night... In fact... before this bloody inspiration to write something literature-like struck his mind, he'd fully intended to sit back and give a nice long depressing monologue on CERK about why buzz cuts were good for aerodynamic flight... "Well..." Nick paused. "Ok," he said with a shrug. "There isn't some catch to this," he asked suspiciously, "is there?" "No," LaCroix replied. This was getting tiresome. "Uh huh..." Nick said warily, crossing his arms over his chest in the perfect, 'HA! I defy you!' stance. "Fine," he said finally, "What do you want..." "Help. I thought we had already gone over this," LaCroix growled in response. Damn, but that boy was dense... "No! I meant, what did you want help on?" Nick clarified, quickly saving himself from LaCroix's menacing glare of death. Even so, he retreated backwards a few steps. "Well, see, I am trying to convert this script into a story, and I'm just not seeing anything here. I need motivation!" LaCroix cried, his fists in the air, suddenly quite emotional. Well, it was his first writing experience, he was bound to get excited. Gosh, he'd never written anything before that would qualify as intellectual. This was an experience! Nick looked perplexed. "Ok... So what the heck am I supposed to do about your writer's block?" LaCroix snapped back to reality and stared at Nick. "Well, do you think that maybe we could act it out? You know, so I can get a feel for the dramatic overtones..." he gestured frantically between them as he explained. Nick rolled his eyes in response. "Sure... sure why not... It's not like I've got homicides, a crazy captain, and an overcaffeinated partner to deal with already..." he grumbled softly, snatching the script from LaCroix's firmly clutched hands. His eyes darted left to right as he read the page over. And over... And over... He apparently doubted the literary content of such a fine work. "LaCroix... you can't be serious?" he asked, his eyes questioning. "I'm absolutely serious! It's an admirable work of symbolism and art! I want to do it as much justice as I possibly can!" LaCroix exclaimed enthusiastically, hovering behind him. "Could you read for that part? I'll do this one..." he said. "But..." Nick protested. "Look, you have acting experience, it seems logical to me that you get the bigger part..." LaCroix explained, trying to get Nicholas to see the big picture. The dramatic picture. The literary picture! "Fine... fine! Jeez... I swear though, if you ever breathe a word of this..." Nick threatened. "If you do it I promise not to torment you for at least a week..." LaCroix was not given a chance to finish, however. Nick put his hand up and silenced him. "Ok! All right... Let's see..." Nicholas looked over the script for a few moments and then placed it down beside them on a nearby table. He cleared his throat several times, seemingly dislodging any and all mucus that could've possibly been there to prevent him from entering his... "Nichola! LaCroix! What are you doing in here?" Janette asked as she entered the room. LaCroix visibly deflated at the interruption, and his jaw slackened in disappointment until he realized... "Janette! Here, look at this," he said, grabbing the script off the table only to shove it hastily into her hands. "Read that part..." he said, pointing. Silence. Janette cocked her head, her eyebrows raised in inquiry. "Is this a game?" Nicholas coughed, an odd look on his face. "LaCroix needs... uh... inspiration..." "Ah..." she responded. "All right then..." Janette took a deep breath and turned to Nick. "Grandma is ill," she began, a questioning look on her face. "Take her this basket of cakes, but be _very_ careful. Keep to the path through the wood and don't ever stop. That way, you will come to no harm," she cautioned, but then she turned to LaCroix. "LaCroix... this does not seem like a logical play..." she began. "Why would I want to give a sick person cakes? I thought the mortal standard was chicken soup..." she explained, suddenly confused, but LaCroix just waved her off. "Never mind that. Just keep going..." he prodded. Janette nodded, however reluctantly, and turned back to Nick, recomposing herself. Nick again did that funny 'clearing of throat ritual' before he began in what had to be the cutest little falsetto LaCroix had ever heard, "Don't worry! I'll run all the way to Grandma's without stopping!" he cried enthusiastically, and then despite the smirk on Janette's face, Nicholas gave Janette a peck on the cheek and skipped off to the other side of the room, where he bent down, peering at an imaginary object that only he could see. "What lovely strawberries! And so red..." he claimed, picking up a 'strawberry' in his hand and plopping it into his mouth. While Janette was trying furiously not to laugh, Nick continued to bounce around the room as if suffering a stronger than normal sugar high, going this way and that, pointing out everything off the path that he had so earnestly promised his 'mother' that he would stay on, until he literally ran right into LaCroix. LaCroix, normally, would've been exceedingly annoyed. But he merely smiled a sly smile. "Where are you going, my pretty girl, all alone in the woods?" LaCroix asked, smoothly. "Um... to Grandma's; she lives at the end of the path" Nick replied nervously, looking this way and that, anywhere but into LaCroix's eyes. LaCroix smiled. "Does your grandma live... _alone_?" he asked, trying desperately to keep the menace out of his voice. "Oh yes! She _never_ opens the door to stran," Nick's voice cracked back into his normal tone, but he quickly fixed it and continued. "Strangers," he finished. "Ah then. Goodbye. Perhaps we shall meet again..." LaCroix whispered forebodingly and then bounded off. "I will eat the little girl's grandmother!" he cried, explaining his sinister plan. "LaCroix?" Nick asked hesitantly in his regular voice. "What???" LaCroix snapped, suddenly annoyed. Things had been going quite well until this interruption... "I believe the correct line is 'I will gobble the grandmother first, then lie in wait for the grandchild'" Nick said matter-of-factly. LaCroix growled. "Perhaps _you_ would like to be the wolf? Hmmm?" He tapped his foot. "This is a HARD role! I can't relate to it..." Janette coughed. "Well, I can't!" he whined. "I've never been a furry carnivorous quadruped..." Nick shrugged. "Hey, two out of three..." he said reasonably, raising his hands in defense as he backed slowly away. LaCroix raised an eyebrow. "Are you implying that I'm a quadruped?" he asked, his voice low and angry and very dangerous all-around. "No..." Nick replied honestly. "That I'm furry???" LaCroix cried incredulously. Nick said nothing, and LaCroix was about to pounce on him in a fit of rage. "ANYWAY," Janette interrupted loudly, saving Nick from certain dismemberment. "Why don't we start again here? Everyone knows this part..." she stated reasonably. "Fine..." LaCroix grumbled, settling down once again to act out the scene. Nick nodded and cleared his throat again. "Grandma! What a deep voice you have!" he exclaimed, bouncing up on his tiptoes as he brought his clasped hands to his cheek in the classic, 'I'm a dainty little girl' maneuver. "The better to greet you with..." LaCroix replied mysteriously, his voice oozing low and smooth from his lips. "Goodness, what big eyes you have!" Nick exclaimed, his falsetto tone so high it was probably up in the rafters somewhere communing with the local insect inhabitants. "The better to see you with..." LaCroix said, growing more agitated as the conversation wore on. "And what big hands you have!" Nick stated, awed. "The better to hug you with..." LaCroix replied, his voice low and irritated now. "What a big mouth you have!" Nick exclaimed. "THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH!" LaCroix cried, leaping forward. He snarled and grabbed Nick, chomping down hard on his supple neck. Ecstasy followed as his protégé's blood flowed into his mouth and down his throat. It burned him; his entire body shivered in intense feeling, until Nick slumped lifeless to the floor with a loud hollow thunk. Seconds past. Minutes... LaCroix merely stared intently at the floor where Nick lay motionless as if he expected something to happen. "Um, LaCroix? We forgot to cast a hunter... the hunter is the one that saves him by killing you..." Janette said hesitantly. "I think he is stuck there until then..." LaCroix looked up at her, surprise marring his usually stony gaze. Janette flipped through the script, reading it over, mumbling softly as she went over it. "Yeah... no hunter means no Little Red Riding Hood..." Oops... "Ah well," LaCroix said, "I suppose that is enough anyway. I think I have inspiration for now..." he said, stepping spryly over Nick's lifeless form and back to his laptop, which was still waiting patiently on the table for him to type something of import. Janette shrugged. Oops, indeed. THE END **This is the end of part 1/1. Any and all comments may be sent to Diane Harris at aria5@vt.edu**