Five-Sentence Fics
A/N: Hello, all! I realize I've been MIA for a long time, but Life Happened. These are a series of ficlets I wrote almost two years ago now, inspired by some LiveJournal community I no longer remember where the goal was to create a fic in five sentences. Nifty little challenges. Anywho, the prompt words are taken from another forgotten LJ community, so I thank both places for the inspiration.
Prompt 001: Sky
The sensation of slick, warm blood against his fingers is not unfamiliar, but the delicate hand overlaying his own certainly is. She feels the life pulsing out of him, feels him teetering at the edge of the black. He hears the rallying shouts of the not-so-distant Alliance men and tries, for her own sake, to push her away.
"Time to fly, little albatross. Don't let them take my sky."
Prompt 002: Forgive
The slightest rush of air from his passage was enough to send her meticulously-wrought card house cascading to the floor.
"You destroyed my magnum opus!" she accused, dismayed.
"Yeah, well, you put a gorram gun to my head once, and you don't hear me whinin', do ya?" His frustration at the dead-end job made him caustic, but the crestfallen expression River wore left him no choice but to apologize.
"I forgive you," she allowed, smug and smiling.
Prompt 003: Alliance
Theirs was an unlikely alliance, he mused, staring covertly at the profile of the girl in the pilot's seat. A brain-twisted child and a bitter, war-ravaged criminal sounded like something out of a trashy pornographic novel. No, no, no, can't be goin' down that road. His back straightened and he cleared his throat, but he couldn't help imagining those lust-spattered pages and bringing their images to life in his mind.
She turned to look at him, smiling wickedly, and said, "You're wrong; I'd still call you Captain."
Prompt 004: Hollow
Instead of a heart beating in his chest, he had Serenity. Now, as he stood staring at the smoking, hazy wreckage of his most vital organ, he realized he was empty, hollow.
A smooth, soft hand brushed his arm. She was there with him, plummeting right alongside him into depths from which he may never return.
"You know, a river flows to fill every available space," she murmured as she curled her fingers around his.
Prompt 005: Alone
"Can I ever be alone in my own gorram mind?" he explodes, glaring at River and resisting the powerful urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her senseless.
She stares back, dark eyes throbbing with hurt. Her voice is deadpan, disconcerting and smooth as silk. "You could, if I went away. But you don't want to be alone."
Prompt 006: Missing
She is missing something. She feels it keenly as she roams, restless, through the dreams of the crew, embracing their nightmares and fantasies simply to escape her own. The box was opened too soon; all her puzzle pieces got jumbled up (and some scattered, lost in the darkness under the couch).
But now she thinks she's found those missing pieces. They're locked away in someone else, tucked behind a sardonic half-smile, wrapped in aged brown leather, and cupped in calloused palms.
Prompt 007: Home
She hangs onto the door, peering into the brightly-lit Infirmary with relief rather than her usual dread. A colorful patched blanket is pooled, forgotten, in a heap at her feet.
"I go someplace?" the Captain slurs, bleary-eyed and sluggish.
No, she reaches out with her mind though he cannot hear, you came home. We all came home.
Prompt 008: Believe
"You don't believe me?" There is amusement in his voice, a hint of lightness and challenge she has never heard before—it's intriguing.
"Light emission serves primarily reproductive and warning purposes; synchronization seems unlikely and unnecessary."
He merely laughs at her skepticism. "One day I'll show you the fireflies and you'll hafta eat all those fancy words o' yours, albatross."
Prompt 009: Coil
Simon doesn't think she feels it, doesn't think she'll ever be more than a little girl with a whole world of pain skimming across her mind. But it lies coiled in her stomach, warm and slumbering, waiting to ignite at the slightest provocation.
Her fragile embers can't compete with the mesmerizing fire of the Companion, though, and the dance of those flames makes her flinch. She can hear the faint skip of the Captain's heart when Inara glides through Serenity. She hears, and so she twists away, hiding her pitiful gleam behind a curtain of hair and drowning it in a pool of silence.
Prompt 010: Serenity
His hands rest on her shoulders, gently guiding as she tugs at the controls to lift the boat.
"I know what I'm doing," she insists, and she can tell he realizes she speaks truly. Still, his hands don't move.
"I know you do, but I'm none too keen on leavin' my Serenity in anybody else's hands, even yours."
She would point out that he's the one holding her serenity, but the smile she can hear in his voice tells her he already knows.
Prompt 011: Twinkle
"Got somethin' to show you, albatross."
She doesn't question as she rises from her bunk, but her hand finds his as she realizes he's leading her off-ship into the wilderness of a border planet. At first she thinks the stars have descended from the heavens to dance, pulsing and weaving around the drowsing ship in an intricate ballet she aches to join.
Peaceful, sweet pleasure emanates from him as she processes what she's seeing: not a host of stars but a horde of fireflies, twinkling in perfect unison. "You were right," she breathes, incredulous, and his low, smug chuckle threads through the night air.
Prompt 012: Abandon
She's spinning, twirling around the cargo bay to the tempo of Kaylee's laughter. He envies her freedom, her ability to surrender to every impulse (and be damn graceful about it, too). When she pulls up sharply to stare at him, he clears his throat and mutters something about collecting rent from Inara.
He supposes it ought to come as no surprise that night when she finds her way into his room and curls, still wide-eyed from some fresh nightmare, into his side. Bring on the Special Hell, he decides, and promptly falls asleep with his arms wrapped around her.
Prompt 013: Solitude
He didn't like a crowded sky. He preferred to be alone with his thoughts, to wrestle with them in silence until he was forced to condemn or embrace, moving on but leaving a part of himself behind.
With her aboard his ship, solitude was impossible. She read him with more than ease, finesse, and stared straight through the one-way mirrors of his eyes.
She even saw the Damn it all! that reverberated in him when he realized he didn't really mind.
Prompt 014: Broken
He thought he was broken, beaten beyond all recognition in a battle he carried with him every day. It wasn't until he looked at River, saw the fractures and fissures splitting her soul beneath her flawless skin, that he knew what the word really meant, and he ached.
The sudden lightness, lift in her after Miranda's hell relieved him beyond expression. She must've sensed the way his thoughts were going (damn that girl!), for her words came to him unbidden as they guided Serenity through the black.
"If I can be fixed, Cap'n, so can you."
Prompt 015: Mrs. (Writer's Choice)
"You're a thief," she says, but they fail to grasp either meaning, as always, and settle for the one she didn't intend at all.
It stings like a slap that he defends her, the bitterness that hides behind the petals, clasping the hand of the dismissal they all embrace. She clutches the pillow, fuming as more unheeded words slip out, sulky and spiced with disappointment. Of all of them, she thought the Captain might listen.
Well, it seems she really must settle for Simon; it's a good thing she doesn't mind knitting.