Wish Ficlet postage - part the first
So, I promise to write you fic and then life gets crazy and I don't get to work on it for several days. Sorry about that and don't hate me, please. Thank you. *hugs to the flist* But here's the first two, at last. The rest will follow.
Fandom: Bones
Title: Competition
Rating: PG-ish
Pairing: Booth/Brennan, sort of
For: emily_sheppard
Prompt: Bones, late night research
“I told you I don’t need you here, right?” she asked, looking up from the bone fragments she was examining closely.
“Only like five times, Bones.” Booth yawned, walking over to her worktable lazily. They’d been here for close to five hours. Five hours in which he’d been watching her work. She had just started on these specific remains twenty minutes ago and he was already bored out of his mind, but, he had decided, if she was staying, then so was he.
“Hands,” she reminded him curtly as he was about to lean against the table, and he pulled them back at the last minute.
“It’s almost midnight.” He checked his watch for the third time in five minutes, wondering if he was ever gonna see his bed tonight. Those squints worked until they passed out at their desks and Bones was the worst of them. The first thing he had learned over the course of their rather interesting partnership.
“I know.”
He knew he could just have gone home. Like she had told him to repeatedly since 9 pm. And there really wasn’t anything to do here for him. Yet he told himself he couldn’t leave, in case she found anything in the next few minutes that could finally put them on the trail of whoever had been killing all those women lately. In truth, he had to admit to himself, he couldn’t leave because this was a competition in so many ways. It always was with her. Always had been.
He had never before worked with a partner he so needed to prove himself to. He was good at his job and he knew it. Yet he also knew that she was able to totally kick his ass in more than one sense of the word. There was hardly anything she wasn’t better at, and sometimes he found it strange that it didn’t bug him a little more.
The only thing she really couldn’t do was talk to people, but he found even that strangely endearing. Interesting. He found it interesting. Shit. He was really tired.
“Found anything yet?” He stepped up behind her, breathing down her neck. There was just a random collection of dirty-white bones on the table in front of her, not even a complete skeleton. He never got tired of seeing how she was able to tell him about the killer by simply looking at this stuff.
“This would go a lot faster if you didn’t talk so much.” She looked back over her shoulder, sending a half smile in his direction, the look of complete concentration never leaving her face. “And find somewhere else to stand, I can’t move.”
“Am I making you nervous, Bones?” he leaned in a little closer playfully, his face nearly touching her hair that was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Look at this. These are the same marks I found on the other two. She seems to have been…”
He didn’t really listen. In fact, he rarely ever did. He tried to, but he knew that two sentences from now at the latest she’d forget who she was talking to and use words he hadn’t even known existed in the English vocabulary and he’d be lost. Luckily for him, Zack chose this exact moment to show up from whatever he’d been working on with Hodgins and immediately started examining the leftover parts of human on the table that Brennan pointed out to him.
Booth couldn’t help but grin as he saw the matching look of excitement on their faces. This was the part where he couldn’t keep up with her. This was where she would always win and where he couldn’t be of any help to her. He’d take what she found later and do his part. And he liked that they worked like that.
He also liked to know that however much one of them wasn’t able to keep up, they’d never stop chasing after each other.
Fandom: Voyager
Title: Pumpkin Pancakes
Rating: G
Pairing: implied Tom/B'Elanna
For: billy_red_ocean
Prompt: Voyager, red feather boa, eight-armed alien
“What the hell happened here?” B’Elanna stopped frozen to the spot, looking around the mess hall incredulously.
“Do you like it? I read it’s an earth tradition. I thought some of the crew might like to celebrate. Have some little fun since they’re all so far away from home.” Neelix showed up next to her, waving a hand around the room that was covered in dark candles and pumpkins with faces carved into them. “I figured keeping up traditions might make the crew feel a little more at home. I believe it is called Halloween. I even prepared some meals special to the-“
“I just came here for some coffee,” B’Elanna cut him off. “I really need to get back to Engineering, there’s a problem with the injector coils that I need to-“
“You need to eat, Lieutenant.” Neelix took her arm, dragging her into the mess hall towards and empty table. “You’ll love my pumpkin pancakes.” And with that he disappeared into his kitchen, where his new assistant, an eight-armed creature going by the name of Grawk who had run into them on a nearby M-class planet and asked for asylum, was already working on what looked like dinner, stirring something while chopping vegetables and washing dishes at the same time. Must be neat to have eight arms.
B’Elanna looked up as Tom Paris dropped into the seat opposite hers. “Hey.” He leaned forward across the table so he could kiss her, grinning at the expression on her face. “You look like you’re not a big fan of Halloween.”
“Neelix is making me pumpkin pancakes.” She didn’t sound exactly enthusiastic about it.
Tom merely shrugged. “Knowing Neelix, they won’t probably even taste like pumpkin.” He turned his head, looking around the room. “I like it.”
“Coffee?” Neelix came over to their table, setting two cups down in front of them. “The pancakes will be another few minutes, Grawk is still learning.”
“How’s he adjusting?” Tom asked, more to keep B’Elanna from saying something nasty about the pumpkin-flavoured coffee than out of interest.
“Oh, he’s fine. Still a little confused by the fact that everyone on board has only two arms, though. He finds it disgusting. I guess he has never really seen anyone not from his own kind before. Must be hard for him to-“
“Harry?”
B’Elanna followed Tom’s gaze, understanding the look on his face as she saw their friend entering the mess hall.
“Oh, you’re back. How did it go?” Neelix gave him a cheerful pat on the shoulder, which didn’t make the Lieutenant look any happier.
“Why are you wearing a dress, Harry?” Tom sounded like he was gonna suffocate any minute since he tried so hard not to laugh. “And that’s what, a red feather boa?”
“Shut up.” Harry dropped into an empty seat at their table, glaring at Neelix’s back as he disappeared into the kitchen again to check on his pumpkin pancakes. “Neelix made me go trick-or-treating with all the children on board and the little monsters insisted on dressing me up.”
“I think you look great,” B’Elanna said, hiding behind her coffee cup.
“No, Grawk, you don’t put it directly on the stove, you put a frying pan in between,” they heard Neelix’s voice, slightly exasperated from the kitchen.
Tom grinned, while Harry continued to look miserable and B’Elanna tried to empty her cup into one of the carved pumpkins without being seen. “At least we’ll be safe from leola root for a while, right?”
Fandom: Bones
Title: Competition
Rating: PG-ish
Pairing: Booth/Brennan, sort of
For: emily_sheppard
Prompt: Bones, late night research
“I told you I don’t need you here, right?” she asked, looking up from the bone fragments she was examining closely.
“Only like five times, Bones.” Booth yawned, walking over to her worktable lazily. They’d been here for close to five hours. Five hours in which he’d been watching her work. She had just started on these specific remains twenty minutes ago and he was already bored out of his mind, but, he had decided, if she was staying, then so was he.
“Hands,” she reminded him curtly as he was about to lean against the table, and he pulled them back at the last minute.
“It’s almost midnight.” He checked his watch for the third time in five minutes, wondering if he was ever gonna see his bed tonight. Those squints worked until they passed out at their desks and Bones was the worst of them. The first thing he had learned over the course of their rather interesting partnership.
“I know.”
He knew he could just have gone home. Like she had told him to repeatedly since 9 pm. And there really wasn’t anything to do here for him. Yet he told himself he couldn’t leave, in case she found anything in the next few minutes that could finally put them on the trail of whoever had been killing all those women lately. In truth, he had to admit to himself, he couldn’t leave because this was a competition in so many ways. It always was with her. Always had been.
He had never before worked with a partner he so needed to prove himself to. He was good at his job and he knew it. Yet he also knew that she was able to totally kick his ass in more than one sense of the word. There was hardly anything she wasn’t better at, and sometimes he found it strange that it didn’t bug him a little more.
The only thing she really couldn’t do was talk to people, but he found even that strangely endearing. Interesting. He found it interesting. Shit. He was really tired.
“Found anything yet?” He stepped up behind her, breathing down her neck. There was just a random collection of dirty-white bones on the table in front of her, not even a complete skeleton. He never got tired of seeing how she was able to tell him about the killer by simply looking at this stuff.
“This would go a lot faster if you didn’t talk so much.” She looked back over her shoulder, sending a half smile in his direction, the look of complete concentration never leaving her face. “And find somewhere else to stand, I can’t move.”
“Am I making you nervous, Bones?” he leaned in a little closer playfully, his face nearly touching her hair that was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Look at this. These are the same marks I found on the other two. She seems to have been…”
He didn’t really listen. In fact, he rarely ever did. He tried to, but he knew that two sentences from now at the latest she’d forget who she was talking to and use words he hadn’t even known existed in the English vocabulary and he’d be lost. Luckily for him, Zack chose this exact moment to show up from whatever he’d been working on with Hodgins and immediately started examining the leftover parts of human on the table that Brennan pointed out to him.
Booth couldn’t help but grin as he saw the matching look of excitement on their faces. This was the part where he couldn’t keep up with her. This was where she would always win and where he couldn’t be of any help to her. He’d take what she found later and do his part. And he liked that they worked like that.
He also liked to know that however much one of them wasn’t able to keep up, they’d never stop chasing after each other.
Fandom: Voyager
Title: Pumpkin Pancakes
Rating: G
Pairing: implied Tom/B'Elanna
For: billy_red_ocean
Prompt: Voyager, red feather boa, eight-armed alien
“What the hell happened here?” B’Elanna stopped frozen to the spot, looking around the mess hall incredulously.
“Do you like it? I read it’s an earth tradition. I thought some of the crew might like to celebrate. Have some little fun since they’re all so far away from home.” Neelix showed up next to her, waving a hand around the room that was covered in dark candles and pumpkins with faces carved into them. “I figured keeping up traditions might make the crew feel a little more at home. I believe it is called Halloween. I even prepared some meals special to the-“
“I just came here for some coffee,” B’Elanna cut him off. “I really need to get back to Engineering, there’s a problem with the injector coils that I need to-“
“You need to eat, Lieutenant.” Neelix took her arm, dragging her into the mess hall towards and empty table. “You’ll love my pumpkin pancakes.” And with that he disappeared into his kitchen, where his new assistant, an eight-armed creature going by the name of Grawk who had run into them on a nearby M-class planet and asked for asylum, was already working on what looked like dinner, stirring something while chopping vegetables and washing dishes at the same time. Must be neat to have eight arms.
B’Elanna looked up as Tom Paris dropped into the seat opposite hers. “Hey.” He leaned forward across the table so he could kiss her, grinning at the expression on her face. “You look like you’re not a big fan of Halloween.”
“Neelix is making me pumpkin pancakes.” She didn’t sound exactly enthusiastic about it.
Tom merely shrugged. “Knowing Neelix, they won’t probably even taste like pumpkin.” He turned his head, looking around the room. “I like it.”
“Coffee?” Neelix came over to their table, setting two cups down in front of them. “The pancakes will be another few minutes, Grawk is still learning.”
“How’s he adjusting?” Tom asked, more to keep B’Elanna from saying something nasty about the pumpkin-flavoured coffee than out of interest.
“Oh, he’s fine. Still a little confused by the fact that everyone on board has only two arms, though. He finds it disgusting. I guess he has never really seen anyone not from his own kind before. Must be hard for him to-“
“Harry?”
B’Elanna followed Tom’s gaze, understanding the look on his face as she saw their friend entering the mess hall.
“Oh, you’re back. How did it go?” Neelix gave him a cheerful pat on the shoulder, which didn’t make the Lieutenant look any happier.
“Why are you wearing a dress, Harry?” Tom sounded like he was gonna suffocate any minute since he tried so hard not to laugh. “And that’s what, a red feather boa?”
“Shut up.” Harry dropped into an empty seat at their table, glaring at Neelix’s back as he disappeared into the kitchen again to check on his pumpkin pancakes. “Neelix made me go trick-or-treating with all the children on board and the little monsters insisted on dressing me up.”
“I think you look great,” B’Elanna said, hiding behind her coffee cup.
“No, Grawk, you don’t put it directly on the stove, you put a frying pan in between,” they heard Neelix’s voice, slightly exasperated from the kitchen.
Tom grinned, while Harry continued to look miserable and B’Elanna tried to empty her cup into one of the carved pumpkins without being seen. “At least we’ll be safe from leola root for a while, right?”