I had such a good time with the last one that I asked my Twitter friends for more prompts, and then spent a couple hours last night filling them. I got some really interesting ones, and I had lot of fun stretching my writerly muscles with fandoms and characters I've never written before.
This time I asked for two characters, a setting, and a word or phrase. I said I would write 5 sentences per prompt, but I occasionally got carried away. Yes, I know, you're shocked. Anyway, ficlets listed below!
@EmmyHildy: Cap and Alaric, Mystic Grill, "long-suffering sigh" (5 sentences)
Alaric’s forehead thunked onto the bar next to his depressingly empty glass.
“You don’t understand,” he mumbled into the smooth bartop. “He is impossible.”
"I live with Tony Stark,” Steve said, and signaled to the bartender for another round. “Believe me, I get it.”
@EmmyHildy: Dean, Damon, Tony, Shawn & shots. (14 sentences)
“I sense that while you are incredibly wealthy, you seek to give back-” Shawn stopped abruptly when Dean clapped a hand on his shoulder hard enough to make Shawn stagger.
“Dude, that’s Tony Stark,” Dean laughed. “Can the psychic crap unless you’ve got something not printed in every gossip rag this week.”
Shawn narrowed his eyes. “How bout a bet? If I can intuit something about you two chuckleheads,” he glanced between Dean and Damon, “then the next round of shots is on Mr. Moneybags.”
“Done,” Tony said.
“Dazzle me,” Damon added, leaning back in his chair with an indulgent smirk.
Shawn made a show of putting his hand to his head and grimacing before straightening, a manic gleam in his eye that might have been terrifying in a different crowd.
“The spirits tell me that you,” he said, pointing at Dean, “are a vampire hunter. And you,” he added, pointing at Damon, who had already started to rise from his chair, “are a vampire. Ta da!”
Tony’s laugh died at the look on Dean’s face and the shiny silver revolver he pulled from under his jacket.
“Whoops,” Shawn said. “I probably should have thought that through more.”
@rozfost: Charles, Tony, an airport, "fated to pretend." (5 sentences)
“Charles Xavier?” A vaguely familiar voice calls his attention away from his laptop, and Charles looks up into the smiling, handsome face of Tony Stark.
“It is you! How’ve you been, Charlie boy?”
Charles resolutely does not reach for the arms of his wheelchair, nor glance at the space beside himself that still feels achingly empty; rather, he forces a smile with weeks of practice and says, “Doing well, Tony, and yourself?”
@FoxyMsMoxie: Narcissa and Bellatrix. Younger years. Malfoy estate garden maze. "Red." (15 sentences)
“Bella! Come down from there, I want to speak with you,” Narcissa called. Her sister paused, halfway up the side of the exterior wall of the hedge maze.
“I figured it out!” Bellatrix called down. “If I just - ” But her grip slipped and she dropped to the ground in a tumble of skirts.
“Bella, no!” Narcissa cried out and rushed to her fallen sister.
Bellatrix sat up, laughing, leaves and twigs caught in her hair. “Oh bollocks, that was my favorite dress,” she said, still giggling. “Mother is going to be extra cross.”
“I’m more concerned with the state of your hands,” Narcissa said, clucking her tongue at Bellatrix’s scratched and bloodied palms. “Whatever were you thinking, climbing the side of the hedge like that?”
Bellatrix’s face smoothed out into an easy smile. “I just wanted to solve the maze, Cissy.”
@EmmyHildy: Ginny and the twins. The castle, spring break, "mischief." (7 sentences)
“C’mon Ginny, you know you want to stay here with us over break,” Fred said with a grin.
“We’ve got plans,” said George, in a way that made Ginny feel the need to stock up on medical supplies.
“I promised Mum I’d help her with -“
“She’ll manage,” the twins said in unison.
“And besides,” George added, leaning forward over his breakfast, “Harry’s staying, too.”
Ginny looked down the Gryffindor table to where Harry, Ron and Hermione had just settled in, discussing something urgently in hushed tones. She sighed, nodded, and said, “Would you hand me a quill? I need to owl Mum.”
@theonecorey: Mal Reynolds, Simon Tam. A companion training house, rotisserie chicken. (19 sentences)
Mal’s surprised bark of laughter rang out across the marbled halls of the training house like the crack of a gunshot.
“Son, you look as well-cooked as a chicken on a spit,” he said, forcing the words out past his continued chuckles.
Simon raised a hand to rub awkwardly at his neck, then drew it away with a grimace. “It seems I fell asleep on the grounds by the lake,” he said. “Why didn’t anyone come to wake me?”
“Ain’t your keeper, doc. And I figured I’d hear your well-heeled screams for help if anything called for a gun hand.”
Simon frowned, then made a small noise of discomfort. “I’ll just go and fetch my dermal regenerator, that should take care of the worst of it-"
“Aw doc,” Mal said, putting a hand to his chest in mock outrage. “Are you sure you should be using our scant med supplies for a non-emergency situation?”
Simon hesitated, seemingly torn between his responsibility to his patients and the intense uncomfortableness resulting from a long afternoon snoozing in the desert sun.
“Oh, Simon, there you are!” Kaylee called from the far end of the hall. “Inara found that aloe gel I told you ‘bout. Why don’t you settle down and let me rub some on your poor shoulders?”
Simon flushed an even darker shade of red, and Mal let a slow smile spread across his face. He made a shooing motion with one hand and settled back in his chair, putting his boots up on the rickety antique table in front of him.
“Well go on, then,” Mal said, still grinning. “Even the good doctor occasionally needs seeing to.”
@_SydneyReeves_: Mickey Smith, Rory Williams, a bar outside London. "You think THAT'S bad..." (5 sentences)
“Just swoops in out of the sky, big blue box and a leather jacket, how am I supposed to compete with that?” Mickey grumbles, staring down into his pint glass. “Was like I turned invisible the moment he showed up.”
Rory shrugs, he gave up trying to compete with the Doctor somewhere between vampire fish women and waking up as a Roman. “Invisible, that’s one I’ve never been, but I was plastic once, for a bit.”
“No way, me too!”
@LAOuimet: Rose Tyler, Kara Thrace, Delphi Museum, Arrow of Apollo. (5 sentences)
The tour guide wandered away from the glass case, leading the rest of the tourists along behind her like a mama bird leading her chicks, with only Kara remaining behind, hoping for a chance to see the arrow without a dozen sticky-fingered children in the way.
“Apparently this arrow was used to save mankind,” said a blonde girl Kara was sure hadn’t been there before.
“I know the legend,” Kara said, bristling under the woman’s bright grin. “Apollo used this arrow, the last in his quiver, to pin the sun the in the sky before it could turn Kobol into a cinder, and it’s one of only a handful of artifacts that made the trip to the Twelve Colonies.”
“Fantastic story,” the blonde girl said, “but not what I meant.”
@EmmyHildy: Hulk/Jan, rooftop, "loneliness." (5 sentences)
“Hank is a giant jerk,” Jan said miserably. She kicked off the overpriced, uncomfortable heels she had bought exclusively for tonight’s date-that-wasn’t with a bit more force than was probably necessary.
“Hulk smash?” Hulk asked hopefully.
“Maybe later,” Jan sighed, and settled next to him beside the rooftop pool, dragging her toes through the water. “Can I have a hug instead?”
@EmmyHildy: Hawkeye & Hulk, watching sports, "bros." (5 sentences)
“Don’t forget the nachos!” Clint called. Natasha didn’t even turn to glare, just gave him the finger over her shoulder as she sauntered down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Nachos?” Hulk asked, trying to scoop chips out of a bowl smaller than one of his hands.
“Snacks are crucial for maximum World Series enjoyment, buddy,” Clint said, taking pity on Hulk and dumping the bowl of chips out onto the table. “As is - yeah, there’s the beer, finally, geez Thor, did you fly home to Asgard for that six-pack?”
@EmmyHildy: Steve/Tony, Tony's garage, "time spent well." (5 sentences)
Steve Rogers is a busy man. Not nearly so busy as Tony, who seems to view sleep as an option for lesser mortals and gets irritable when he’s not working on at least seven things at once, but there are obligations and duties that go along with being Captain America beyond the occasional world-saving.
Some of them are annoying, or embarrassing, and Steve still gets tongue-tied when called to give speeches if he hasn’t practiced with note cards, but he enjoys getting to meet people and feels slightly awed that so many of them want to meet him.
But the quiet afternoons he spends in Tony’s garage, handing him tools and watching him tinker with engines or pieces of the armor, are far and away his favorite. And he knows, from the way Tony pushes up his grease-smeared goggles and grins at him over the scattered bits of machinery spread across the workbench, that they’re Tony’s favorite too.
Thanks again for playing, everyone! I'm hoping to make this a regular thing, either when I'm stuck on a longer story or when I'm bored at work. It's good exercise.