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1. Write down the names of ten characters.
2. Write a fic of fifty words or less for each prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do Step 1.
1 - Nathan Stark (Eureka)
2 - Duke Crocker (Haven)
3 - Harold Finch (Person of Interest)
4 - Amanda Darieux (Highlander)
5 - Nikola Tesla (Sanctuary)
6 - Illya Kuryakin (Man From UNCLE)
7 - Jack Vincennes (LA Confidential movieverse)
8 - James Norrington (Pirates of the Caribbean)
9 - Pepper Potts (Iron Man movieverse)
10 - Cho Hakkai (Saiyuki)
A/N: Ficlets are definitely NOT under 50 words long. *sheepish* Length varies, but none of them are quite that short. Because I have control problems, obviously -_-; Also, I'm trying out some new fandoms, and some old ones I've never written in before/haven't written in a while, so. You know. Warning for shaky writing ahoy!
2. Write a fic of fifty words or less for each prompt, using the characters determined by the numbers. Do NOT read the prompts before you do Step 1.
1 - Nathan Stark (Eureka)
2 - Duke Crocker (Haven)
3 - Harold Finch (Person of Interest)
4 - Amanda Darieux (Highlander)
5 - Nikola Tesla (Sanctuary)
6 - Illya Kuryakin (Man From UNCLE)
7 - Jack Vincennes (LA Confidential movieverse)
8 - James Norrington (Pirates of the Caribbean)
9 - Pepper Potts (Iron Man movieverse)
10 - Cho Hakkai (Saiyuki)
A/N: Ficlets are definitely NOT under 50 words long. *sheepish* Length varies, but none of them are quite that short. Because I have control problems, obviously -_-; Also, I'm trying out some new fandoms, and some old ones I've never written in before/haven't written in a while, so. You know. Warning for shaky writing ahoy!
11 Ficlets This Way:
1) First time, 4 and 6 (Amanda Darieux and Illya Kuryakin)
"I feel I should point out," the Russian murmured as she pushed him back onto the bed, smiling faintly, "I do not trust beautiful women."
Amanda laughed. "Only beautiful ones?" she husked, biting at his grin. "But nevermind, darling. You can always leave a pistol under the pillow."
His responding smile was seraphic. "Nyet," he said. And then: "Too dangerous. Behind the headboard is better."
She laughed, and declined to mention the dagger beneath the mattress.
2) Angst, 7 (Jack Vincennes)
"What about you? Why did you become a cop?"
And it's so simple a question, just a matter of memory, but the answer ... The answer just doesn't come. He feels for it, gropes around the edges of his memories, looking up at this hardened, bitter, but still so youthful man, and ... can't find it. All the reasons it could have been, all the flippant or politic answers he's given to reporters over the years, and still ... There's nothing there. No remembered hope, no lost dream. Nothing.
And Exley, for some reason, demands honesty, so he answers, softly and with vague wonder: "I don't remember."
3) AU, 1 and 8 (Nathan Stark and James Norrington)
"I don't suppose it would do me any good to point out the approximately five thousand natural laws that thing is breaking?"
James looked from the still somewhat haunting sight of the ghostship to the dark-haired scientist at the railing. Taking in the expression not so much of fear, but of supreme annoyance, and permitting himself the smallest of smiles. "Not particularly, no," he opinioned, as drily as manners allowed. Lord Stark shot a piercing look his way regardless, temper and arrogance and humour flashing between them, before the scientist looked back at the magical monstrosity that bore down on them.
"Well then," Stark murmured, with a predatory grin. "Shall we see how far it can run, before natural science catches up with it?"
James blinked, and then allowed himself his own small, matching smirk. "Yes, sir."
4) Threesome, 3, 6 and 9 (Harold Finch, Illya Kuryakin, Pepper Potts)
He doesn't watch. They don't let him. He's watched enough, Harold, caged behind his screens, helpless and shaking with the desire, the need to act. He's been stilled too long, forced to watch too long, desperate too long.
Pepper knows what that feels like. She remembers shaking months, watching Jarvis cycle channels endlessly, watching desert sands in a constant wash of cool, air-conditioned air. She knows what it's like, to clench empty hands together and wish, wish they had something to hold, just for a second. She knows, and she won't let it happen. Not to him. Not for this.
And Illya, smiling, imperturbable Illya, pulls Harold close with killer's hands, bears the other man up to pour him shaking into Pepper's mouth, and whispers silent apology for every scar he bears that they could not help but watch.
5) Hurt/Comfort, 5 and 10 (Nikola Tesla and Cho Hakkai)
Hakkai watched mildly as the other man, some as yet unfamiliar manner of youkai, paced, and snarled, and waved black claws. Nikola practically shook with rage, and frustration, and the kind of black pain that Hakkai recognised all too well. He wondered, briefly, who Nikola had lost, and how much blood had been spilled in recompense.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked lightly, brushing casually past Nikola and heading for the kettle. The youkai stopped, momentarily confused, or perhaps simply annoyed, and snapped darkly at him.
"Do I look English to you?" Nikola huffed, shivering faintly with temper. "Unless you have wine somewhere in this shack, no thank you."
Hakkai blinked, a cool, warning arch of his eyebrow actually stilling Nikola for a second, before tilting his head consideringly. And smiling.
"Not wine, no," he murmured. "But something ... a little stronger?" A dark little smile. "I'll match you drink for drink, until one of us passes out. How about that?"
Nikola blinked, suddenly cautious, still challenging, still angry. "You realise vampires can't get drunk, yes?" he asked, moving nonetheless towards Hakkai, curiosity as much his weakness as ever. "You'll die of liver poisoning before I even get started."
Hakkai only smiled, bland and lightly interested, and set a bottle on the table. "If you say so," he agreed, smiling into Nikola's bristling challenge.
One of them would have drowned their pain by the end of the evening, at least. And it was highly unlikely to be him.
6) Crack, 1 (Nathan Stark)
Nathan Stark squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in a somewhat desperate attempt to ward off the impending headache that he, as a member of the recently deceased, should not be capable of having, thank you very much.
"You must be joking," he growled acerbically. "I've just spent the past few years of my life trying to shepherd people who couldn't resist a big red button literally to save their lives, not to mention people who can, in all seriousness, use the term 'invisibling' as a verb. And ... you want me to spend the rest of eternity guiding idiots who give science a bad name, who make the previous idiots look smart, to their very undeserved rewards?"
The being in front of him managed to give off a distinct air of smug satisfaction, despite remaining utterly impassive. "Think of it as ... karmic balancing? For all those dreams of global domination, for example?"
Nathan managed a growl worthy of Lowjack. He thought even Carter might have been impressed. "Your accounting sheets must be more crooked than the NSA. And also? Fuck off." He stalked back into the ether. Even haunting Jack Carter held more appeal than this. At least those idiots were his idiots.
Behind him, the impassive facade finally cracked. Into a very impressive grin.
7) Horror, 10 (Cho Hakkai)
His mask does not slip. Mild and smooth, calm as an unruffled pond. His mask never slips, or not all the way. Some small cracks, here or there. In extremis. But not all the way. Never that. Or they might see.
Gojyo, Goku, they leap to the fight for joy, and skill, and in Gojyo's case the chance to give the world the finger. In Sanzo's too, though in his case with some more deadly edge, some darker yearnings, and some purer, too. Some brighter. But the fight for them is temper and necessity, exuberance and skill, some darkness, some joy.
Not he. The bone snaps under his hand, clean and calm. His smile remains unchanged, an unruffled pool, still water over the blood of a thousand corpses. He needs no passion for this.
8) Babyfic, 5 and 9 (Nikola Tesla and Pepper Potts)
You could say Pepper has had some experience in shepherding eccentric and not-very-safety-conscious geniuses (genii?) around. If you're fond of understatement, you could say that. And one could certainly argue that Tony has all the emotional maturity of a five year old, thus, in theory, making her years as his PA more than adequate preparation for dealing with an actual child. Actual children theoretically being far less difficult to deal with than a determined Tony Stark. In theory.
In actuality ... Faced with a tiny, vampiric, electrically powered toddler seemingly determined to dismantle her employer's workshop (with said employer gleefully in tow, pointing out the especially lethal equipment for a de-aged Nikola Tesla's edification and delight), faced with what seems for all the world like the unholy lovechild Tony Stark and Loki produced via arc-reactor (actually via magic and some small degree of time-travel) ... Pepper decides that, for once and for definite, she is not getting paid enough for this shit.
9) Dark, 2 and 8 (Duke Crocker and James Norrington)
Ghosts are not unheard of, in Haven. Actually, very little of anything is unheard of, in Haven. Even the pale figures of impaled 17th century navymen appearing on the docks, silently watching the boats both moored and heading out, pale eyes fixing themselves with wry amusement on very, very specific ones. Like, for example, Duke's. Nathan and Audrey can't really be blamed, for thinking it some manifestation of the Troubles, for thinking it a purely Haven thing.
Duke knows better. So does every smuggler and illegal fisher on this coast, for that matter. On any coast from here to French Guiana, really. Haven is not the world's only haunted shore. And the sea has more ghosts than even the Troubles can claim.
He smiles queasily as those pale eyes turn towards him, shrugging his shoulders in a wry, what-can-you-do gesture, and very carefully doesn't make too much show of standing shoulder to shoulder with Nathan, who looks the quintessential law enforcement officer and always has, and Audrey, who could not look more like a hero if she tried. Just enough to show his (sort of, more or less) allegiance with the law, not enough to seem desperate.
And the Commodore, the navyman's ghost, smiles back at him. Just a knowing curve of one thin lip, and a particularly wry gleam of pale eyes. The Commodore smiles, and sets his sights on some other vessel.
10) Romance, 4 and 7 (Amanda Darieux and Jack Vincennes)
Los Angeles, 1947:
Things weren't for keeps in this world. In this city. Nothing was for keeps. No-one knew that better than Jack. Here in this so-called City of Angels, under the glittering lights of Tinseltown and through the shadows they cast, he lived in a world where smiles slipped and slid like water from faces clinging to beauty with desperate determination, even the most dazzling of them only fleeting, even the most beautiful only temporary. There for the flash of a lightbulb, gone again the moment the camera looked away. Not for keeps, not ever for keeps. He knew that better than anyone, his own smile brighter, more fluid, and more temporary than any.
She baffles him a little, therefore. All the flash-and-dazzle he's used to, all the shadows into which smooth hands slip pilfered gains, decadent, exotic and damned, just like all of them. She's something he feels he should understand, something he feels he should know. Something that will smile for him for a day, and a diamond, and disappear again afterwards, slip through his fingers, never for keeps. She should be that. She is that.
But there's something ... different about Amanda. Something that seems ... older, and timeless, and untouchable in a way nothing else he knows is. Something that seems eternal. Something that seems real.
And for some reason, for those few days she's his, for those few days she smiles at him in the shadows, away from the flashbulbs ... his own smile, for the first time in years, feels a little more real. A little more permanent. A little bubble of inexplicable happiness, tugged in the wake of her sly laughing, that maybe, just maybe, might be for keeps, even if she never was.
For those few days, for maybe longer, it's enough. And more.
11) Death fic, 2 and 3 (Duke Crocker and Harold Finch)
The numbers the Machine throws up are all in New York. At least, so long as that's their base, they are. Those are the lives he culls from the endless stream of promised violence, the lives a few keystrokes and lines of code draw into his net, for him to keep safe if he can. He doesn't look at the others. Doesn't look at the hundreds, maybe thousands more, scattered across the country, waiting to kill, or be killed. He can't afford to look at them. For Ingram's sake, he looks at all those he can bear, but no more. It's too much.
He's not sure how this number escaped the code. How the social security number of a smuggler of exotic goods, currently residing in Maine of all places, slipped through the cracks of his window to the Machine to stare accusingly out at him from his screen, hundreds of miles too distant to help.
Finch doesn't know how Duke Crocker's going to die. Maybe he's not. Maybe he'll be the one to kill someone. But Harold thinks not. He thinks it's going to be this young man who bleeds, in the end. Maybe soon. Maybe now. Maybe he's already dead. The Machine tracks lethal intent, premeditated violence. The cybertronic echoes of a net closing on some distant target. Somewhere, somewhen soon, Duke Crocker's number is up.
And, like so many times before, as the Machine appears to want to remind him, there's nothing Finch can do to stop it.
1) First time, 4 and 6 (Amanda Darieux and Illya Kuryakin)
"I feel I should point out," the Russian murmured as she pushed him back onto the bed, smiling faintly, "I do not trust beautiful women."
Amanda laughed. "Only beautiful ones?" she husked, biting at his grin. "But nevermind, darling. You can always leave a pistol under the pillow."
His responding smile was seraphic. "Nyet," he said. And then: "Too dangerous. Behind the headboard is better."
She laughed, and declined to mention the dagger beneath the mattress.
2) Angst, 7 (Jack Vincennes)
"What about you? Why did you become a cop?"
And it's so simple a question, just a matter of memory, but the answer ... The answer just doesn't come. He feels for it, gropes around the edges of his memories, looking up at this hardened, bitter, but still so youthful man, and ... can't find it. All the reasons it could have been, all the flippant or politic answers he's given to reporters over the years, and still ... There's nothing there. No remembered hope, no lost dream. Nothing.
And Exley, for some reason, demands honesty, so he answers, softly and with vague wonder: "I don't remember."
3) AU, 1 and 8 (Nathan Stark and James Norrington)
"I don't suppose it would do me any good to point out the approximately five thousand natural laws that thing is breaking?"
James looked from the still somewhat haunting sight of the ghostship to the dark-haired scientist at the railing. Taking in the expression not so much of fear, but of supreme annoyance, and permitting himself the smallest of smiles. "Not particularly, no," he opinioned, as drily as manners allowed. Lord Stark shot a piercing look his way regardless, temper and arrogance and humour flashing between them, before the scientist looked back at the magical monstrosity that bore down on them.
"Well then," Stark murmured, with a predatory grin. "Shall we see how far it can run, before natural science catches up with it?"
James blinked, and then allowed himself his own small, matching smirk. "Yes, sir."
4) Threesome, 3, 6 and 9 (Harold Finch, Illya Kuryakin, Pepper Potts)
He doesn't watch. They don't let him. He's watched enough, Harold, caged behind his screens, helpless and shaking with the desire, the need to act. He's been stilled too long, forced to watch too long, desperate too long.
Pepper knows what that feels like. She remembers shaking months, watching Jarvis cycle channels endlessly, watching desert sands in a constant wash of cool, air-conditioned air. She knows what it's like, to clench empty hands together and wish, wish they had something to hold, just for a second. She knows, and she won't let it happen. Not to him. Not for this.
And Illya, smiling, imperturbable Illya, pulls Harold close with killer's hands, bears the other man up to pour him shaking into Pepper's mouth, and whispers silent apology for every scar he bears that they could not help but watch.
5) Hurt/Comfort, 5 and 10 (Nikola Tesla and Cho Hakkai)
Hakkai watched mildly as the other man, some as yet unfamiliar manner of youkai, paced, and snarled, and waved black claws. Nikola practically shook with rage, and frustration, and the kind of black pain that Hakkai recognised all too well. He wondered, briefly, who Nikola had lost, and how much blood had been spilled in recompense.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked lightly, brushing casually past Nikola and heading for the kettle. The youkai stopped, momentarily confused, or perhaps simply annoyed, and snapped darkly at him.
"Do I look English to you?" Nikola huffed, shivering faintly with temper. "Unless you have wine somewhere in this shack, no thank you."
Hakkai blinked, a cool, warning arch of his eyebrow actually stilling Nikola for a second, before tilting his head consideringly. And smiling.
"Not wine, no," he murmured. "But something ... a little stronger?" A dark little smile. "I'll match you drink for drink, until one of us passes out. How about that?"
Nikola blinked, suddenly cautious, still challenging, still angry. "You realise vampires can't get drunk, yes?" he asked, moving nonetheless towards Hakkai, curiosity as much his weakness as ever. "You'll die of liver poisoning before I even get started."
Hakkai only smiled, bland and lightly interested, and set a bottle on the table. "If you say so," he agreed, smiling into Nikola's bristling challenge.
One of them would have drowned their pain by the end of the evening, at least. And it was highly unlikely to be him.
6) Crack, 1 (Nathan Stark)
Nathan Stark squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in a somewhat desperate attempt to ward off the impending headache that he, as a member of the recently deceased, should not be capable of having, thank you very much.
"You must be joking," he growled acerbically. "I've just spent the past few years of my life trying to shepherd people who couldn't resist a big red button literally to save their lives, not to mention people who can, in all seriousness, use the term 'invisibling' as a verb. And ... you want me to spend the rest of eternity guiding idiots who give science a bad name, who make the previous idiots look smart, to their very undeserved rewards?"
The being in front of him managed to give off a distinct air of smug satisfaction, despite remaining utterly impassive. "Think of it as ... karmic balancing? For all those dreams of global domination, for example?"
Nathan managed a growl worthy of Lowjack. He thought even Carter might have been impressed. "Your accounting sheets must be more crooked than the NSA. And also? Fuck off." He stalked back into the ether. Even haunting Jack Carter held more appeal than this. At least those idiots were his idiots.
Behind him, the impassive facade finally cracked. Into a very impressive grin.
7) Horror, 10 (Cho Hakkai)
His mask does not slip. Mild and smooth, calm as an unruffled pond. His mask never slips, or not all the way. Some small cracks, here or there. In extremis. But not all the way. Never that. Or they might see.
Gojyo, Goku, they leap to the fight for joy, and skill, and in Gojyo's case the chance to give the world the finger. In Sanzo's too, though in his case with some more deadly edge, some darker yearnings, and some purer, too. Some brighter. But the fight for them is temper and necessity, exuberance and skill, some darkness, some joy.
Not he. The bone snaps under his hand, clean and calm. His smile remains unchanged, an unruffled pool, still water over the blood of a thousand corpses. He needs no passion for this.
8) Babyfic, 5 and 9 (Nikola Tesla and Pepper Potts)
You could say Pepper has had some experience in shepherding eccentric and not-very-safety-conscious geniuses (genii?) around. If you're fond of understatement, you could say that. And one could certainly argue that Tony has all the emotional maturity of a five year old, thus, in theory, making her years as his PA more than adequate preparation for dealing with an actual child. Actual children theoretically being far less difficult to deal with than a determined Tony Stark. In theory.
In actuality ... Faced with a tiny, vampiric, electrically powered toddler seemingly determined to dismantle her employer's workshop (with said employer gleefully in tow, pointing out the especially lethal equipment for a de-aged Nikola Tesla's edification and delight), faced with what seems for all the world like the unholy lovechild Tony Stark and Loki produced via arc-reactor (actually via magic and some small degree of time-travel) ... Pepper decides that, for once and for definite, she is not getting paid enough for this shit.
9) Dark, 2 and 8 (Duke Crocker and James Norrington)
Ghosts are not unheard of, in Haven. Actually, very little of anything is unheard of, in Haven. Even the pale figures of impaled 17th century navymen appearing on the docks, silently watching the boats both moored and heading out, pale eyes fixing themselves with wry amusement on very, very specific ones. Like, for example, Duke's. Nathan and Audrey can't really be blamed, for thinking it some manifestation of the Troubles, for thinking it a purely Haven thing.
Duke knows better. So does every smuggler and illegal fisher on this coast, for that matter. On any coast from here to French Guiana, really. Haven is not the world's only haunted shore. And the sea has more ghosts than even the Troubles can claim.
He smiles queasily as those pale eyes turn towards him, shrugging his shoulders in a wry, what-can-you-do gesture, and very carefully doesn't make too much show of standing shoulder to shoulder with Nathan, who looks the quintessential law enforcement officer and always has, and Audrey, who could not look more like a hero if she tried. Just enough to show his (sort of, more or less) allegiance with the law, not enough to seem desperate.
And the Commodore, the navyman's ghost, smiles back at him. Just a knowing curve of one thin lip, and a particularly wry gleam of pale eyes. The Commodore smiles, and sets his sights on some other vessel.
10) Romance, 4 and 7 (Amanda Darieux and Jack Vincennes)
Los Angeles, 1947:
Things weren't for keeps in this world. In this city. Nothing was for keeps. No-one knew that better than Jack. Here in this so-called City of Angels, under the glittering lights of Tinseltown and through the shadows they cast, he lived in a world where smiles slipped and slid like water from faces clinging to beauty with desperate determination, even the most dazzling of them only fleeting, even the most beautiful only temporary. There for the flash of a lightbulb, gone again the moment the camera looked away. Not for keeps, not ever for keeps. He knew that better than anyone, his own smile brighter, more fluid, and more temporary than any.
She baffles him a little, therefore. All the flash-and-dazzle he's used to, all the shadows into which smooth hands slip pilfered gains, decadent, exotic and damned, just like all of them. She's something he feels he should understand, something he feels he should know. Something that will smile for him for a day, and a diamond, and disappear again afterwards, slip through his fingers, never for keeps. She should be that. She is that.
But there's something ... different about Amanda. Something that seems ... older, and timeless, and untouchable in a way nothing else he knows is. Something that seems eternal. Something that seems real.
And for some reason, for those few days she's his, for those few days she smiles at him in the shadows, away from the flashbulbs ... his own smile, for the first time in years, feels a little more real. A little more permanent. A little bubble of inexplicable happiness, tugged in the wake of her sly laughing, that maybe, just maybe, might be for keeps, even if she never was.
For those few days, for maybe longer, it's enough. And more.
11) Death fic, 2 and 3 (Duke Crocker and Harold Finch)
The numbers the Machine throws up are all in New York. At least, so long as that's their base, they are. Those are the lives he culls from the endless stream of promised violence, the lives a few keystrokes and lines of code draw into his net, for him to keep safe if he can. He doesn't look at the others. Doesn't look at the hundreds, maybe thousands more, scattered across the country, waiting to kill, or be killed. He can't afford to look at them. For Ingram's sake, he looks at all those he can bear, but no more. It's too much.
He's not sure how this number escaped the code. How the social security number of a smuggler of exotic goods, currently residing in Maine of all places, slipped through the cracks of his window to the Machine to stare accusingly out at him from his screen, hundreds of miles too distant to help.
Finch doesn't know how Duke Crocker's going to die. Maybe he's not. Maybe he'll be the one to kill someone. But Harold thinks not. He thinks it's going to be this young man who bleeds, in the end. Maybe soon. Maybe now. Maybe he's already dead. The Machine tracks lethal intent, premeditated violence. The cybertronic echoes of a net closing on some distant target. Somewhere, somewhen soon, Duke Crocker's number is up.
And, like so many times before, as the Machine appears to want to remind him, there's nothing Finch can do to stop it.
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