Writing sample 1; short prose fiction, cyberpunk setting

“Hey.”

Sean looked up at the familiar voice. Garrett — scruffy, tired — stood blocking his path home. Sean frowned; Garrett didn’t usually seek him out these days without reason, and his guarded expression didn’t bode well.

“What’s up?” Sean asked cautiously.

“I should ask you that,” Garrett said. “What’s this rumor I hear about you and the HCorp scion?”

Kian.

Garrett’s bearing said only the truth would be tolerated and Sean’s stomach dropped. Affecting nonchalance, Sean stared into the scraggly trees lining the path and tucked anxiety-chilled fingers into his pockets.

“And?”

Garrett’s sharp exhale was tinged with disbelief. “It’s true?”

“If it is?” Sean challenged, sour anger settling in his chest.

“I just want to know why.”

Ha. Why. Wasn’t that the question of the fucking year. If only Sean himself could answer it.

Garrett went on: “Wasn’t it you just condemning HCorp two months ago? What the hell happened? If you just need to get your shit wet —”

“Don’t,” Sean interrupted coldly, and Garrett’s jaw flexed.

“I’m not here to fight,” Garrett said. The line of his shoulders was tense, but his voice neutral.

“Could’ve fucking fooled me,” Sean muttered, then ran a hand back through his hair.

“He doesn’t have something on you, does he?”

Sean’s hand stalled.

“Is that what this is about?” A dark, edged bark of a laugh echoed between them. “What use is someone only good against small fry? Improving peoples’ lives? HCorp has no interest in that. He’s just bored and slumming it on a lark — you know how those pampered princes are.”

His grimmest suspicions about Kian hit his ears, from his own mouth, and burned.

“As long as you can handle it,” Garrett said, fiddling with a piercing in a rare display of nervousness.

“What, did King send you up here as a wellness visit?”

Garrett’s brows lowered at Sean’s cold snark. “I heard the rumors myself and thought it’d be better to get the truth straight from you. The underground talks, but a lot of it’s bullshit. What does the King have to do with it?”

“Figured you’d be representing His Majesty’s interest in the ‘Gang-buster.'” Sean shrugged, though his mouth twisted on the stupid nickname.

“I’m here as a friend, not as a General of the underground.”

“He’ll fuck off eventually,” Sean said firmly, hoping it would be the final say on the issue of Kian.

Garrett contemplated the hazy lights of the city off to his left, then rolled his shoulders dismissively.

“We’ve been seeing more black cars around. In the industrial district, too. That altered corpse you dusted the other day — it was from a mass body dump. We got our hands on one with a similar profile. Our guy’s still working on it, but he said it’s got HCorp R&D written all over it. They’re up to some nasty shit again, so your boy may be acting a fool with other motives.”

“Think I don’t know that? And he’s not my boy.” To soften the harsh rebuttal, Sean added: “Thanks, though.”

“Yeah.” A ghost of a smile crossed Garrett’s face, there and gone again. “One last thing. How sure are you HCorp’s monitoring drones didn’t catch the fight?”

“Why?” Sean asked. Alarm spiked through him, electric and hot.

“Contrary to what you seem to believe, the King looks out for you, Sean. People with illegal cybernetics are part of the underground whether they want to be or not.”

“So your King keeps an eye on us in the hopes that we’ll get disillusioned enough to come to his side.”

“Stubborn ass,” Garrett exhaled. “There aren’t ‘sides’ in this. It’s the corporations against anyone who doesn’t want to live under their heel.”

“Methods differ,” Sean snapped back, a whole ethos condensed into two words.

“The King is brutal, but he’s not cruel to those who don’t deserve it.”

Sean’s only response was to hold Garrett’s gaze. Garrett clicked his tongue at whatever he saw in Sean’s eyes.

“Maybe it’d be good to keep him around,” he said, neutral once more, “the HCorp prince. See what you can get out of him. I’ll pass any updates along.”

Garrett turned, the retreating scrape of his boots on dirt the only sound for a long while. Sean ground his thumb into his temple, squeezing his eyes shut against a sudden headache.

***

“Did something happen today?” Kian asked, buttoning his shirt.

“No, nothing,” Sean said as evenly as he could manage, pulling his own t-shirt back on. The fabric scraped the scratches on his back.

Kian pouted exaggeratedly. “No deflecting. You promised.”

“Funny, I don’t recall those words coming out of my mouth, but something did definitely come in —”

“Look,” Kian interrupted, not without humor. “I know it’s hard, but you’re a big enough boy to have this conversation without being an asshole.”

Sean thinned his lips. He wasn’t getting out of this one.

Kian seemed to sense he needed to think, because he didn’t press as Sean hiked his jeans up over his hips.

“I’m bad with this,” Sean finally admitted, engrossed in making sure the button got into its denim sleeve so he didn’t have to look up.

“You don’t really go in for relationships,” Kian guessed.

It wasn’t a question, so Sean didn’t answer. Just shrugged back into his jacket.

“I don’t really do them either,” Kian said conversationally. “Never been a point, really.”

Relief flashed like a lightning strike, the thunder of Sean’s chuckle rumbling out of its tail.

“I can’t even imagine how many NDAs someone dating you would have to sign.”

“A mountain,” Kian said with a grin. “But only if they passed the background and breeding check.”

“Wow, what the fuck?” Sean laughed.

With the tense moment smoothed out, Sean slid the balcony door open and posted up on the railing. He pulled a (now slightly-crumpled) pack and lighter out of his back pocket, tapping the little box against the heel of his palm.

“Mind sharing?” Kian asked, sidling up to him. He hadn’t put his slacks back on, so his thighs peeked out from under the hem of a dress shirt that probably cost more than Sean’s yearly rent.

“You smoke?”

“Only when I can’t get caught.”

With a left of one shoulder, Sean knocked two cigarettes out and tucked the pack away. He lit one while handing the other over — almost flinched back when Kian bent in to light his on Sean’s.

Silence curled alongside the smoke between them.

“I hate smoking,” Sean said, looking out over the city. “Picked up the habit how everyone in the slums does — desperation. But I’d give it up tomorrow if I could.”

Kian made a noncommittal noise. When Sean snuck a glance, he was staring blankly into the new night. Looking like a goddamn Dior ad or some shit, backlit by the lamp from inside. Even the dried sweat in his hair just made it look artfully tousled.

Sean inhaled the quickly-cooling air, gathering himself.

“You called me a big boy.”

Kian pinned him with a side-eye that invited him to continue, but didn’t offer an opinion.

“And I thought, am I really? I still feel fifteen, scraping along by the skin of my teeth. Just — taller now. And with more ink. Poverty doesn’t exactly give you the leeway to grow anything but jaded. And,” he gestured, irritated, with the hand holding the cigarette, “bad habits.”

Kian chuckled humorlessly.

“Desperation,” the word came out breathy, pained, “exists in the penthouses, too.”

Sean nodded and dropped his gaze. The unsaid hung between them.

“Is that why you come here?” he asked.

Kian stilled. Only the cherry of his cigarette moved in his silhouette, burning down like a timer.

“This sounds like a shitty excuse,” Kian said, slowly, “but I just — like hanging out with you. You take me as I am. You’re fun.”

“And you’re a masochist,” Sean retorted. “I don’t mind it, though.”

Kian snickered, crushed the well-smoked butt on the railing.

“So we’re in agreement?” he said casually, crossing his arms to turn his full attention on Sean.

“About?”

Kian gestured between the two of them. “I like hanging out with you, you want to marry me —”

“Oh, fuck off,” Sean groaned, was rewarded with a shit-eating grin. “But, yes.”

“Yeah?” Kian’s expression was such delighted disbelief that Sean’s stomach did a little unfamiliar flip. “I can keep coming around?”

The gentle swish of fabric was Sean’s only warning before a long-fingered hand thrust into his view. Above it, Kian’s eyes glinted with mischievous joy.

“Let’s start over then,” he said. “Kian Harris. Professional irritant, here to get under your skin and in your pants.”

Surprised mirth burst out of Sean — sharp, then rolling into his first belly laugh in recent memory. Kian’s grin stretched, like he’d just taken a hit of something dangerous. Sean slipped his hand into Kian’s, the space where their skin met warm, comforting.

“Sean Dunn. I’ll be in your care.”

The triumph in Kian’s eyes should have been a warning.

Writing sample 2: short prose fiction, modern setting

“That’s fucking classic, Lexy. Brilliant, really.”

Tina leaned back to clap slowly, and Alex was frying alive in his own humiliation. He glared at her through the phone screen.

He liked to consider himself relatively level-headed, just with a low tolerance for bullshit.

And the night he’d had at their local dive bar had been a metric fuckton of bullshit. The bathroom-headbutting incident had gotten around because of course it had — right to the ears of his gossipmonger best friend.

“How’d you know it was me?” Alex asked.

Tina waved a hand flippantly. “You hang out at Ribz on indie band nights. Just had a hunch, and you confirmed it. Remind me to never invite you over for poker.”

“Perfect. Please don’t. And, also … don’t tell anyone it was me.”

Tina’s brows raised.

“Gotchu, my lips are sealed,” was all she said. “And you can rest your pretty little head, even if Hunter spreads the story, you’re a campus ghost. The ‘skinny punk’ he described could be one of literally a thousand guys at our school alone, and you’re a hoodie gremlin in class anyway.”

“Fuck off,” he breathed out as a laugh, the last of the tension bleeding out of his muscles. He stretched his legs out, elbows rested loosely on the chair’s arms.

She watched him for a moment, then asked softly, “You okay?”

And chuckled at the grimace that pinched his face.

“I know, I know,” she said, “you’re a badass who eviscerates dudes in public bathrooms —”

“Oh my god it happened last night and I’m already over hearing about it —”

“But, you’re like a cat. You puff up and go feral when you feel threatened. So that sucked more than you’re letting on.”

Alex toyed with the ties of his hoodie. “I’m actually okay,” he said finally, and was surprised at the truth in the statement. But a sour thought made his lips twist. “You keep pestering me to date, but who would want someone with my shitty, violent personality?” It came out more vulnerable than intended, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Tina’s soft laugh made him look up.

“Baby, what he did was assault. I mean, you did kick the door, but if you’d called security, our little mensroom lovebirds would have been rounded up and escorted out half-naked. So they probably got the better end of the deal, rather than being the next viral edit.”

Alex snorted at the image.

“And,” she went on brusquely, “he grabbed you first. Anyone who would blame you for how you reacted isn’t someone you need in the first place.”

Alex blinked back the stinging hot press of tears behind his eyes.

“I guess,” he whispered wetly, quickly swiping his face with a sleeve-covered hand.

“I get it. I don’t like seeing you lonely, but if it’s more stressful to have me pestering,” she flashed another grin, “then I’ll back off. Just say the word.”

“I know you’re concerned,” he said slowly, blatantly avoiding addressing whether or not he was lonely. “And I do appreciate it. I think, maybe, I’m just not ready. But if I decide I do need to be set up with one of your four hundred friends, I’ll ask.”

“Loud and clear,” she said, still grinning. “And just FYI, there’s plenty of girls who would climb you like a tree. I get questions about you almost weekly.”

“How?” He gestured at all of him. “Campus ghost? Hoodie gremlin?”

“Last year’s runway,” she clarified, then cackled at the look on his face.

“I knew I should have refused until the bitter end,” he groaned. “I could have found another way to afford my tablet.”

“Yup, the pics still do the rounds. If not modeling, you ever thought about getting into cosplay?”

He reached for his phone threateningly, to the tune of her manic giggling.

“No no you don’t get the pleasure of hanging up on me this time! I actually gotta go. Meeting some models for the midterm show fitting.”

He waved, smiling as genuinely as he knew how. “Good luck.”

She blew him a loud kiss, then the call ended.

Sudden quiet settled on him heavily and he ragdolled on the computer chair again, arms and legs akimbo. His eyelids sagged. Muffled, a door closed somewhere else in the apartment. The reminder of his sister in the other room made a tiny smile tug at his lips.

Midterms were screaming up fast, and he should be cramming. But, given his hair-trigger after the last couple of days, maybe that wasn’t the best idea either.

He’d watch a movie, go to bed early and sleep for twelve hours. Then do midterm work tomorrow at the library.

Scrubbing his hands down his face, he pushed out of his chair, reaching for his laptop.