Ficlets, batch the first
Oct. 16th, 2006 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicRemember way back when I asked for sets of six words as prompts? Well, some of them are being used for a Super Secret Surprise that is taking longer than expected to get done. The leftover prompts are going into ficlets (because prompts are a terrible thing to waste). I was hoping to post everything all at once but impatience has won out, so here for your enjoyment is the first set of ficlets, written about a month ago. Three House and one Star Trek. Everything else to follow soon.
ETA: Aack, forgot to acknowledge![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
synn for helping with earlier drafts. So sorry.
ETA 2: The surprise is revealed!
Characters: Cuddy, Wilson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 150
Prompts: broken, leap, nails, red, please, write/written (forfallen_arazil)
Spoilers: "Meaning" and "Cane and Able"
"I think we've broken him." Her nails tapped against her desk.
Wilson sighed. "You know House wasn't exactly one to leap for joy before the leg."
"He got pretty damn close to it when he came back to work last week." She stilled her hand. "I don't like this. He's not himself. And he's going to find out about that guy eventually."
"And if 'eventually' turns out to be a week, or two weeks, we have that much more time to get to him. Cuddy, he had one cramp and wanted me to write him a prescription for Vicodin."
She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I just…" And her gaze was gone again. "I don't know what's right."
"Let's just give it a little more time. Please."
She nodded.
He smiled a little even though she wasn't watching. "We'll try our best. What's the worst that could happen?"
* * *
Characters: House, Wilson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 205
Prompts: rain, wish, bus, help, watch, hedgehog (formaddy_harrigan)
House was heating up dinner when Wilson came in from the rain. He could hear the squeak of wet shoes on wood over the hum of the microwave.
"A little help here?" Wilson called.
House peered out to find him dripping wet from head to toe, the bottoms of his soaked pant legs speckled with dirt. His lips twitched. "Lose a fight with your umbrella?"
"The 605 bus drove through a puddle next to me."
House tossed him a dish towel and leaned against the door jamb to watch as Wilson rubbed at his hair. It stuck up in damp tufts when he was finished. "You look like a hedgehog," House said affectionately.
Wilson knelt to untie his shoelaces. "Gonna take a shower and change. I'm freezing."
"Will you need help with that too?"
Wilson smirked and chucked the towel back at him. "You wish." He peeled off his socks with a grimace.
Winding and unwinding the towel in his hands, House watched his friend grab some dry clothes from his suitcase and pad out of the room. His smile faded. He touched the rough, damp cloth to his nose and lips and breathed in. After the bathroom door closed, he murmured, "I do wish."
* * *
Characters: Garak, Bashir
Rating: PG
Word Count: 350
Prompts: covert, stairs, mutiny, watch, red, stolen (forcatilinarian)
A/N: Almost everything I know about the Bounty came from this Wikipedia article. Sto-Vo-Kor is the Klingon afterlife for the honorable dead.
"Tell me again what we're doing, Doctor," said Garak as they started up the stairs to the holosuites.
"We are about to reenact one of the classic tales of betrayal and retribution at sea," Bashir replied. "I'll be the ship's commanding lieutenant, the courageous young William Bligh."
"And I am—?"
"Fletcher Christian, the master's mate and eventual leader of the mutiny."
"Ah yes, the hero of the story. That is," he acknowledged with a dip of his head (a move made comical by the Royal Navy hat he wore), "he would be if this were a Cardassian legend."
Bashir raised his voice over the noise on the upper level. "It's a tricky role. You'll need your talent for covert operations to convince enough crewmen to follow you and still catch me unawares."
"And when I succeed in overthrowing you, I'm rewarded with the opportunity to drift from port to port with the stolen ship until I'm murdered by a bloodthirsty island-dweller. Not a very noble end."
"That's why after the mutiny you'll switch roles to become one of my eighteen loyal officers as we navigate our way back to England on an open boat using only a sextant and a pocket watch." They reached the door.
"Is there a mutiny on the boat?"
"No, that part is about the challenge of traveling thousands of miles under extreme hardship."
"Is there cannibalism?"
Bashir paused in the middle of programming the keypad. "Pardon?"
"My dear naïve friend, it's quite understandable for two dozen starving men to turn on a member of the group for sustenance. In fact, in some cultures it's considered an honorable sacrifice." He sang in a rich baritone: "Thus our comrade speeds to Sto-Vo-Kor / While the blood runs red down our chins—"
"Garak, that's Klingon opera, not Mutiny on the Bounty!"
Garak's eyes sparkled. "You must know that choosing me as your companion on this adventure invites a multicultural reinterpretation of history."
Bashir laughed despite himself. "Come on, we start out in Tahiti: sun, sand and beautiful women."
The doors swept open and they stepped inside.
* * *
I started out trying to incorporate all six prompts into the shortest stories possible. This one, however, took on a life of its own.
Characters: The whole House crew
Rating: PG-13 for smooching
Word Count: 720
Prompts: fleece, nightmare, tinsel, eventually, waiting, innocuous (forthewlisian_afer)
A/N: A little bit of crack won't cause permanent brain damage, right? Except now I kind of want to do a Seuss-style House holiday parody. "You're a mean one, Dr. House...dum dum dum..." ETA:mer_duff, I swear I didn't steal that from you. Great minds, etc.
Cuddy strode out of the elevator and around the corner on her way to Nursing Administration only to be confronted with the worrisome sight of a crowd gathered outside the Diagnostics office. "What's going on here?" she called.
One of the Oncology nurses answered first. "We're waiting for the trumpets and thunder to officially announce the Apocalypse."
Stone from Radiology chimed in, "I knew he'd go crazy eventually, but I figured it would involve guns, not garlands."
Most of the staff hadn't looked away from the glass wall. Increasingly apprehensive, Cuddy took a look for herself.
A Yuletide tableau greeted her. Paper snowflakes dangled from the ceiling, strings of colored lights blinked merrily along the tops of the blinds, and a snowmen-patterned fleece throw covered the conference table. Two of the three fellows sitting around it wore matching green elf caps (Foreman's lay rejected in front of him). Against the shelves in the corner next to the whiteboard—which bore a wreath as well as a red "Happy," a green "Holidays" and a red exclamation mark—leaned a bona fide Christmas tree, its base wrapped in burlap. Gifts littered the floor around it. Sporting a floppy Santa hat, House was stringing silver tinsel on the tree and…singing?
To Cuddy's surprise, the question that came out of her mouth was, "How did he get that up here?"
"Dr. Chase and Dr. Foreman carried it," said a woman next to her.
She noticed, now, the trail of soil and pine needles leading across the carpet in the office, under the door and into the hall. The path ended where the fourth-floor janitor stood staring with the rest of them, the mop still in his hand.
"Right," she said, and pulled open the door to the sound of some hideous customized version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." "Dr. House," she said, loud enough that he stopped caterwauling and turned around. "I don't know what inspired this Grinch-saves-Christmas epiphany, but—"
Before she thought to move out of the way, House had crossed the room, pulled her to him with an arm around her back, and kissed her.
When he let her go, she stood with her fingers to her lips, eyes not quite focused.
He gave her a terrifying grin. "Welcome to Whoville."
She stared, mouth working silently.
"Look up," said Chase.
She did, and saw—too late—the sprig of mistletoe.
"House—You can't—This is completely—"
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm pretty sure it's not sexual harrassment if I do it to everyone who comes in."
Still at a loss for words, she glanced over to the table, where Cameron wore a slight, dreamy smile, Foreman glowered, and Chase sipped his coffee.
The door opened and Wilson walked past her wearing a headband with fuzzy antlers.
"You wore it!" House exclaimed.
"Yes, your threats left me little choice," Wilson replied as he placed a menorah on the table. He reached into his lab coat pocket and tossed a box of Chanukah candles beside it. No sooner had he done that than House turned him around, pinned his lower body against the chair beside Cameron, tilted Wilson's head up and covered his mouth with his own. Wilson's hands went to House's waist. Cuddy thought she saw a flicker of tongue.
"His is definitely longer than mine was," Chase said after a few moments.
Foreman muttered, "God, this is a nightmare."
When they broke apart, Wilson brushed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand and walked over to the coffee maker as if nothing had happened. "You already planted one on me this morning when you hung up the mistletoe," he said, taking a mug from the cabinet.
"But the Rudolph chic is irresistible. And I have to make sure I compensate for your dejection in the season of Jesus-love."
"Oh, well, I appreciate your thoughtfulness."
"Dr. House," Cuddy finally managed. The pair of them looked at her with identical innocuous expressions, evil Santa and his faithful reindeer. She gave up before she even started. "Just…don't kiss any patients."
She stepped back into the hall, where the crowd had grown. Several people stared at her. "Don't you people have work to do?" she asked. Straightening her blazer and smoothing her hair, she headed once more for the admin offices.
ETA: Aack, forgot to acknowledge
synn for helping with earlier drafts. So sorry.ETA 2: The surprise is revealed!
Characters: Cuddy, Wilson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 150
Prompts: broken, leap, nails, red, please, write/written (for
fallen_arazil)Spoilers: "Meaning" and "Cane and Able"
"I think we've broken him." Her nails tapped against her desk.
Wilson sighed. "You know House wasn't exactly one to leap for joy before the leg."
"He got pretty damn close to it when he came back to work last week." She stilled her hand. "I don't like this. He's not himself. And he's going to find out about that guy eventually."
"And if 'eventually' turns out to be a week, or two weeks, we have that much more time to get to him. Cuddy, he had one cramp and wanted me to write him a prescription for Vicodin."
She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I just…" And her gaze was gone again. "I don't know what's right."
"Let's just give it a little more time. Please."
She nodded.
He smiled a little even though she wasn't watching. "We'll try our best. What's the worst that could happen?"
Characters: House, Wilson
Rating: PG
Word Count: 205
Prompts: rain, wish, bus, help, watch, hedgehog (for
maddy_harrigan)House was heating up dinner when Wilson came in from the rain. He could hear the squeak of wet shoes on wood over the hum of the microwave.
"A little help here?" Wilson called.
House peered out to find him dripping wet from head to toe, the bottoms of his soaked pant legs speckled with dirt. His lips twitched. "Lose a fight with your umbrella?"
"The 605 bus drove through a puddle next to me."
House tossed him a dish towel and leaned against the door jamb to watch as Wilson rubbed at his hair. It stuck up in damp tufts when he was finished. "You look like a hedgehog," House said affectionately.
Wilson knelt to untie his shoelaces. "Gonna take a shower and change. I'm freezing."
"Will you need help with that too?"
Wilson smirked and chucked the towel back at him. "You wish." He peeled off his socks with a grimace.
Winding and unwinding the towel in his hands, House watched his friend grab some dry clothes from his suitcase and pad out of the room. His smile faded. He touched the rough, damp cloth to his nose and lips and breathed in. After the bathroom door closed, he murmured, "I do wish."
Characters: Garak, Bashir
Rating: PG
Word Count: 350
Prompts: covert, stairs, mutiny, watch, red, stolen (for
catilinarian)A/N: Almost everything I know about the Bounty came from this Wikipedia article. Sto-Vo-Kor is the Klingon afterlife for the honorable dead.
"Tell me again what we're doing, Doctor," said Garak as they started up the stairs to the holosuites.
"We are about to reenact one of the classic tales of betrayal and retribution at sea," Bashir replied. "I'll be the ship's commanding lieutenant, the courageous young William Bligh."
"And I am—?"
"Fletcher Christian, the master's mate and eventual leader of the mutiny."
"Ah yes, the hero of the story. That is," he acknowledged with a dip of his head (a move made comical by the Royal Navy hat he wore), "he would be if this were a Cardassian legend."
Bashir raised his voice over the noise on the upper level. "It's a tricky role. You'll need your talent for covert operations to convince enough crewmen to follow you and still catch me unawares."
"And when I succeed in overthrowing you, I'm rewarded with the opportunity to drift from port to port with the stolen ship until I'm murdered by a bloodthirsty island-dweller. Not a very noble end."
"That's why after the mutiny you'll switch roles to become one of my eighteen loyal officers as we navigate our way back to England on an open boat using only a sextant and a pocket watch." They reached the door.
"Is there a mutiny on the boat?"
"No, that part is about the challenge of traveling thousands of miles under extreme hardship."
"Is there cannibalism?"
Bashir paused in the middle of programming the keypad. "Pardon?"
"My dear naïve friend, it's quite understandable for two dozen starving men to turn on a member of the group for sustenance. In fact, in some cultures it's considered an honorable sacrifice." He sang in a rich baritone: "Thus our comrade speeds to Sto-Vo-Kor / While the blood runs red down our chins—"
"Garak, that's Klingon opera, not Mutiny on the Bounty!"
Garak's eyes sparkled. "You must know that choosing me as your companion on this adventure invites a multicultural reinterpretation of history."
Bashir laughed despite himself. "Come on, we start out in Tahiti: sun, sand and beautiful women."
The doors swept open and they stepped inside.
I started out trying to incorporate all six prompts into the shortest stories possible. This one, however, took on a life of its own.
Characters: The whole House crew
Rating: PG-13 for smooching
Word Count: 720
Prompts: fleece, nightmare, tinsel, eventually, waiting, innocuous (for
thewlisian_afer)A/N: A little bit of crack won't cause permanent brain damage, right? Except now I kind of want to do a Seuss-style House holiday parody. "You're a mean one, Dr. House...dum dum dum..." ETA:
mer_duff, I swear I didn't steal that from you. Great minds, etc.Cuddy strode out of the elevator and around the corner on her way to Nursing Administration only to be confronted with the worrisome sight of a crowd gathered outside the Diagnostics office. "What's going on here?" she called.
One of the Oncology nurses answered first. "We're waiting for the trumpets and thunder to officially announce the Apocalypse."
Stone from Radiology chimed in, "I knew he'd go crazy eventually, but I figured it would involve guns, not garlands."
Most of the staff hadn't looked away from the glass wall. Increasingly apprehensive, Cuddy took a look for herself.
A Yuletide tableau greeted her. Paper snowflakes dangled from the ceiling, strings of colored lights blinked merrily along the tops of the blinds, and a snowmen-patterned fleece throw covered the conference table. Two of the three fellows sitting around it wore matching green elf caps (Foreman's lay rejected in front of him). Against the shelves in the corner next to the whiteboard—which bore a wreath as well as a red "Happy," a green "Holidays" and a red exclamation mark—leaned a bona fide Christmas tree, its base wrapped in burlap. Gifts littered the floor around it. Sporting a floppy Santa hat, House was stringing silver tinsel on the tree and…singing?
To Cuddy's surprise, the question that came out of her mouth was, "How did he get that up here?"
"Dr. Chase and Dr. Foreman carried it," said a woman next to her.
She noticed, now, the trail of soil and pine needles leading across the carpet in the office, under the door and into the hall. The path ended where the fourth-floor janitor stood staring with the rest of them, the mop still in his hand.
"Right," she said, and pulled open the door to the sound of some hideous customized version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." "Dr. House," she said, loud enough that he stopped caterwauling and turned around. "I don't know what inspired this Grinch-saves-Christmas epiphany, but—"
Before she thought to move out of the way, House had crossed the room, pulled her to him with an arm around her back, and kissed her.
When he let her go, she stood with her fingers to her lips, eyes not quite focused.
He gave her a terrifying grin. "Welcome to Whoville."
She stared, mouth working silently.
"Look up," said Chase.
She did, and saw—too late—the sprig of mistletoe.
"House—You can't—This is completely—"
"Don't worry," he said. "I'm pretty sure it's not sexual harrassment if I do it to everyone who comes in."
Still at a loss for words, she glanced over to the table, where Cameron wore a slight, dreamy smile, Foreman glowered, and Chase sipped his coffee.
The door opened and Wilson walked past her wearing a headband with fuzzy antlers.
"You wore it!" House exclaimed.
"Yes, your threats left me little choice," Wilson replied as he placed a menorah on the table. He reached into his lab coat pocket and tossed a box of Chanukah candles beside it. No sooner had he done that than House turned him around, pinned his lower body against the chair beside Cameron, tilted Wilson's head up and covered his mouth with his own. Wilson's hands went to House's waist. Cuddy thought she saw a flicker of tongue.
"His is definitely longer than mine was," Chase said after a few moments.
Foreman muttered, "God, this is a nightmare."
When they broke apart, Wilson brushed the side of his mouth with the back of his hand and walked over to the coffee maker as if nothing had happened. "You already planted one on me this morning when you hung up the mistletoe," he said, taking a mug from the cabinet.
"But the Rudolph chic is irresistible. And I have to make sure I compensate for your dejection in the season of Jesus-love."
"Oh, well, I appreciate your thoughtfulness."
"Dr. House," Cuddy finally managed. The pair of them looked at her with identical innocuous expressions, evil Santa and his faithful reindeer. She gave up before she even started. "Just…don't kiss any patients."
She stepped back into the hall, where the crowd had grown. Several people stared at her. "Don't you people have work to do?" she asked. Straightening her blazer and smoothing her hair, she headed once more for the admin offices.
