Monday DE: Flash Fic, AU edition

[bjornwilde]

I'm back, y'all. Last week was soooo long and the move isn't done. Ugg.

Anyway, let's do some fic! Comment with pups you'd like to write for, we'll then comment back with prompts from which you'll write a short fic. And since AU week is sometime in the near future, how about the fic is a preview of the world you might be thinking of playing from? 

Comments

[explosive_artist]

Lois in a Weird West, ala Wild Wild West or the like?

How about Tavi in a gunsliger world?

Or for prompts, how about "dining room, fragile" for Lois and "specifically sized" for Tavi.

[student_of_impossibility]

Super short for the two prompts, will think about the others:


Lois:
Sometimes being the big sister absolutely sucked, especially when your younger sister was being a terror and your mom was making lasagna--the best dinner in the whole world--but apparently five years old meant never-ending energy and with Dad away until dinner was going to be on the table, well. That's how I ended up being Lucy's babysitter even when I was way too young for her to even think of listening to me.

I wasn't that bad. I was pretty sure of that.

This time she kept trying to steal things from the table, and I was so glad that we still used the plastic safe plates for now. "No, Lucy," I snapped, yanking the plate from her hands and hurrying over to put it back in Dad's usual place at the table. In those few moments I made one critical mistake. I turned my back.

Some how--don't ask me how a five year old is a ninja--Lucy got her hands on a vase of flowers. No one had thought to unholy-terror-proof that.

I mean, it was an accident? Mostly. She wanted to look at it, or--in a sudden fit of generosity--decided to move it from the sideboard to the table itself. To make it prettier, I could guess without even asking. Instead, well. Not quite enough coordination there.

We just looked at each other and Lucy's eyes welled up with tears, and in an instant I made a decision. Mom came hurrying in, looking alarmed. "Girls, are you okay? What--"

As her eyes fell on the wet glass and flowers, I said hurriedly, "It was my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going." It sounded weak even to me, with Lucy hiding behind me, but hey, what are big sisters for?

----

Tavi:
There were most definitely perks, Tavi decided, to being captain. The private bath was easily the best of these, bar the entire concept of private apartment. Crows, other than the luxury level and a little less space, it wasn't that much different than his quarters in the Citadel. Not that he'd spent much time there, and Kitai had been given something entirely befitting an Ambassador and daughter of a foreign leader. It amused her, and she'd reveled in it, too, with absolute relish.

Tavi couldn't prove it, but he suspected Gaius was just as amused.

True, this apartment was smaller, and fairly bare and as businesslike as one could expect of a Legion, but there was room for bookshelves--oh, the plans he had for that--and a bedroom and bathroom, and it was just upstairs from the planning room underground. All in all, he'd lived under far worse conditions, especially lately. Another great part, though...

Kitai was lounging on the bed when he came in, hair still dripping. "I approve very much, Aleran," she noted. "This is far better than your other bed would have been."

He gave her a mock-affronted look. "I'll have you know that was the best available for a regulation Legion cot for a third Subtribune Logistica." Who was in disfavor with his commanding officer, he added mentally, meaning it was fairly terrible, not that regulation cots were good to begin with.

She rolled her eyes. "And I suppose this is regulation for a captain."

"Well," he hedged.

"Aleran."

"Captains have a little leeway..."

Her lips turned up. "Which, I would guess, your previous Captain did not use."

Tavi coughed. "Uh, no, but then, uh."

"But then he did not have a reason to ask for a specific size."

Some day, Tavi thought to himself, he would stop blushing. One day. "I didn't ask," he protested weakly. "They just sort of did this, I only found out after. I would have--"

Her eyebrows went up yet again. "Consigned us both to your narrow, uncomfortable, specifically-sized Legion bed." Tavi wanted to beat his head into a wall. He honestly did not know how he had walked into that one so neatly. At his expression, though, Kitai just broke into peals of laughter.

At least she was teasing, even if the teasing still worked.

"I really wouldn't have asked for this," he said as she calmed down. "I'm not complaining, but..." He left it hanging. He didn't like special treatment, especially when he wasn't sure it was the right thing or even entirely why they would go behind his back to ensure it. The rest of the command center he'd helped design, but this...

Kitai shook her head. "I know you have been uneasy. You saved their lives, chala. They wish to give back."

He looked away. "Not enough of them."

The creak told him she had sat up, and a moment later he felt her fever-warm hand grip his chin and turn it towards her. She was frowning, displeasure in her eyes. He had to force himself, even with that look, not to drown in those eyes. "This guilt does nothing," she said severely. "And insults their affection."

He took a long, slow breath, then nodded. After a moment, he added, "Though I'm not sure who insisted on the bath," he said wryly. "Probably Max."

Displeasure had turned to laughter. "Then you must find a way to thank him," she said mischievously. "Later."

As she leaned forward to kiss him, Tavi decided that later sounded good.

[explosive_artist]

Both of these were wonderful and both made me chuckle!

[skepticgirl1]

[[Lois doesn't need to be outside an AU her universe to be in Weird. So somehow this ended up being a crossover of YA Lois, Smallville, and Western. Sorry that the steampunk weirdness doesn't come out in this shot, but assume that there are promptly going to be Shenanigans. I have zero feel for proper idiom of the era, I'm just writing by the seat of my pants for the hilarity.]]

I sighed as I hopped down from carriage after Mother, my boots hitting the mud with a thump. Mud promptly spattered all over the bottom of my skirts, earning a rebuking, "Lois," from her. She shook her head as she reached behind me to carefully help Lucy over the mud.

I just ignored the General's look. It happened a lot, mostly when he wasn't teaching us to shoot. Not always lady-like shooting, but he believed firmly we needed to defend ourselves. Mother agreed completely. Sadly, they also agreed completely that we needed to respect society. Thus my skirts, and the bonnet, which at least wasn't one of the pretty ones I grudgingly liked (much less comfortable).

I missed being back east--I'd loved Metropolis--but there was little to be done when the General got his assignments. Mother hated being separated from him enough up 'til now, so up we all packed and followed him to, of all places, Kansas. Yes, the fort might be needed, but... still. It wasn't home. Still, what little I had been able to overhear by listening at doors or beneath windows--when I wasn't caught--told me that my father had been reassigned here for a reason, and coming from pretty high up. Something was not what it seemed.

A scant few days before, I wondered if I'd found what was so strange. Late that night, our last stop before reaching the fort, my father and I had been up looking at the stars long after Mother and Lucy were asleep. I will swear to my grave I saw a man fly, that night--that I saw a huge stack of boulders, that we nearly died, and a flying man saved us. The General didn't have to say anything for me to know I was forbidden from speaking of it. It didn't change that I was determined to find out the truth.

Today, though, now that we were settled in, we had an invitation that night to the mansion of one of the local successful entrepreneurs, Alexander Luthor. Him we'd heard of even back east. But for today, my mother had decreed it time to go meet the locals in town, as we three, at least, would likely have a great deal to do with them during our stay.

I heard a thump and looked over to see a bag hitting the back of a wagon. I didn't really know what it was, but maybe one of the local farmers? It didn't look like something a townsperson would have. The man was busy with it, but the woman with him happened to turn and look at us, and smiled a little. She touched her husband's arm, and the two made their way over.

Before my father could raise his eyebrows--much--the man gave him an entirely proper salute. He had dark brown hair and lines around his eyes--weathering from work in the sun, I decided--which only served to make his smile even more real. He had come over with a slight limp, and I saw a little more respect enter the General's expression. "You served?"

"No, but my father and grandfather did. Accident when I was young kept me from it," he added wryly, without self-consciousness. "Jonathan Kent, and my wife Martha."

My father grunted a bit. "Sam Lane, General, US Army. My wife, Ella."

Mrs. Kent, who looked about my mother's age, had the same lines around her eyes, and the same sense of undiluted pureness that radiated from her husband, though her hair was some shades lighter than his. It was astounding, really, just how much someone could give off so much kindness without even speaking a word. I'd never met anyone like that in Metropolis, at least. "We heard you were arriving, but we hadn't hoped to see you in town quite so soon."

Mother laughed a little. "Well, especially with our girls, best we start fitting in sooner rather than later. Lois, Lucy?"

We chorused greetings to the Kents, and Martha smiled at us. "They're lovely," she told my parents, and I could just see the internal thought--not really visible to anyone else, and certainly not spoken--that she had not met me before. I sighed. It was true, though. I didn't really fit anyone's definition of 'lovely.' "I don't know where on earth our boy's gotten himself off to."

My parents began to talk to them more, Mother with Mrs. Kent and the General with Mr. Kent, with Lucy hanging shyly onto Mother's skirt. I noticed both Kents seemed inclined to try to urge Lucy out of her shell, which bought them a great deal of good will from me--but as for me, I had already started to edge away. As long as we were in town, I did want to see more. Absently, I took off my bonnet as I made my way around the cart to peek into the general store it was in front of.

I was really quite surprised when I ran directly into someone. I didn't think anyone had been there a moment before. Luckily, I didn't fall, or get too much more mud on my skirt. Instead, warm, strong hands caught my elbows when I stumbled. I did, however, drop the bonnet. Mother was not going to let me hear the end of this, when we were home. I tried to remind myself that if I actually told them what I thought, in so many words, it wouldn't just be Mother, it would be Father, and I really really shouldn't.

I heard a boy's voice--in that incredibly awkward stage between childhood and adulthood, cracks and all--say, "I'm so sorry, miss. I didn't mean to. Here, let me help you." Despite his age, it was a remarkably nice voice. I looked up, still fighting not to tell him what I thought for appearing out of more or less nowhere, and abruptly stopped.

He stopped too, his ears starting to turn bright red with embarrassment. With my footing regained, he awkwardly shoved the spectacles--far too thick for sanity, really, I saw those so rarely in Metropolis--back up his nose. Even the black hair that fell across his forehead as he ducked his face a little wasn't enough to hide eyes far more blue than I'd thought possible. He had the nicest face I'd ever seen, and the most open.

I could feel my own face heating up.

"Clark, land's sakes. Where have you been."

He swallowed hard and stepped away from me, handing me back my bonnet. I couldn't remember when he'd picked it up--or, seemed to have caught it before it hit the dirt. I hadn't realized that before, but I gave him silent thanks. "Sorry, Ma--I just had to finish some work in the barn that I'd forgot, I promise I ran here as fast as I could--"

"Clark." There was a warning note in Mr. Kent's voice, and the boy winced and ducked his head again, mumbling something abashedly.

I heard a heavy footstep behind me and winced. "It would seem wayward children are universal to parents," I heard my mother say wryly.

Mrs. Kent laughed a little and put a shoulder on her son's shoulder. He seemed like he'd grow to be much taller than either of them, if his current height was any indication. "Oh, I'm sure our parents all said the same thing once. General, Mrs. Lane, my son, Clark--about your age I think," she added to me.

Before she could introduce me, though, I offered my hand to him as he looked up shyly. He was still red, and I tried to ignore the heat in my own face. "Lois," I told him, trying to cover for before.

He took my hand shyly and, instead of shaking it, bobbed a little. Oh. Right. Different manners here, I thought as my face grew hotter. "Clark Kent, miss."

It fit. His name, I mean. Not our hands.

Really.