comment_fic | Friday: Masterpiece Theater

Hi! I’m

brumeier, and this week we’ve been filling TV-related themes. Thank you to everyone who participated with prompts and fills this week, we had an amazing turnout! Our final theme of the week is Masterpiece Theater. This is the land of the historical drama, so your prompts should be historical in nature. Anything from the Big Bang up through the 1990s (or maybe early 2000s?) would qualify.

Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and fandom's full name for ease adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers (+/ any), time traveling to find Bucky

+ Hawaii Five-0, Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, detectives in the 1950s

+ Supernatural, Sam Winchester + Dean Winchester, popular monster hunting team in 1940s creature features (please no Wincest)

+ Stargate Atlantis/Any, Evan Lorne +/ Any, meeting on the commune in the 1960s

We use AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2016 collection. See further notes on this new option here.

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Check out Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 1 (not very current), Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 2, or the Calendar Archives, or for more recent prompts, you can use LJ's advanced search options to find prompts to request and/or fill.

While the Lonely Prompts Spreadsheets and LJ's advanced search options are available, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching for in the future.

tag=masterpiece theater

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From:

sherlockian-syn.livejournal.com

I do want to write this though. I don't know if I will get to it tonight, but I should hopefully have it done sometime this weekend. :D

From:

nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com

Intense. Grim and dark but also full of mystery and determination. Well done.

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

I'm ridiculously excited about this, since it's not even my prompt. LOL!

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

Steve sat on the low stone wall that ran along the Porte des Étoiles promenade, sketchbook in his lap. He’d never been much for landscapes, preferring the more dynamic human form with its infinite variety and expression.

He was sketching Evan at the moment, who in turn was doing a portrait of a pair of young girls who couldn’t stop giggling. Quick sidewalk portraits and beautifully painted landscapes were how Evan made money, but Steve was sketching just for himself.

It had been a while since Steve could indulge in the scratch of pencil on paper, lines and shading, form and perspective. He liked how easy it was to lose himself in it, all his focus on the subject of the sketch while the sounds and smells of Paris moved around him like water around stones in a river.

Steve’s decision not to go back to Los Angeles with Tony after their tour of Norway had been difficult, for both of them. But they’d always known the score, known what was between them was merely temporary. Pepper would look after Tony, and Steve would look after himself, and they’d still be friends.

“You make me look better than I really am,” Evan said, startling Steve out of his thoughts.

He was standing beside the wall, leaning over just a little to see what Steve had gotten done.

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Steve teased. “David not showing you enough appreciation?”

Evan blushed, but there was no hiding the dimples. Steve was a little jealous of his new friend, and the solid relationship he was in. Being alone was hard. Sleeping alone was harder. Steve had gotten accustomed to having Tony in his bed and missed him fiercely most nights.

“I’m packing it in for the day,” Evan said. “Give me a hand?”

Steve obligingly shut his sketchbook and slipped it into his bag, which he then slung across his chest. He helped Evan pack up his easel and put all the paintings back in the carry box.

“Come back with me,” Evan said. “David’s making a cassoulet. We’ll have more food than we need.”

Steve readily agreed, even though Evan was the real chef of the two. But David’s cooking was getting better, and it was hard to mess up a cassoulet.

It was a pleasant walk back to Rue de Pégase, where Evan and David’s apartments were. Steve carried the easel and Evan carried the paintings box, and they talked about this and that as they went. There was an art exhibit coming up at the Galerie d’art contemporain Boivin, which Evan was keen to attend.

David greeted them at the door, taking the box from Evan and pushing a glass of wine in his hand.

“I’m glad you could join us,” he said to Steve. “Can I get you something to drink? We still have that bottle of bourbon.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

Steve had brought the bourbon on a previous evening, and either David and Evan didn’t like it, or they saved it for the times Steve came for dinner. Either way, he was glad to have it.

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

They had a half hour or so to kill before dinner would be ready, so Evan took Steve back to his studio to show him the new piece he was working on. Steve, whose own apartment was little more than a glorified closet, promised himself he’d have a space like that someday – light coming in from a bank of window, which offered a view of the Seine, and room enough to stretch canvases and mix paints.

Evan’s latest canvas was still mostly sketchwork, with some color coming in along one edge as he tried out different shades. Steve knew Evan’s favorite subject was the Seine, but this one was Parc Monceau at the height of summer, full of people.

“David says my landscapes are excellent, but also a little sterile because I never paint any people into them. So I’m practicing. I’m better at drawing them than painting them.”

“That explains all this,” Steve said, gesturing at the wall opposite the windows, which was covered in sketches of faces. Men, women, and children. Young and old. Beautiful and…and…

Steve forgot how to breathe.

He pulled one of the sketches off the wall, and when his knees buckled, Evan was there to steady him.

“Steve? What is it?” Evan asked, alarmed. He led Steve over to the faded, bedraggled couch in the corner.

“How did you draw this?” Steve asked, his voice sounding like a rusty hinge to his own ears. “Did you know him?”

Evan looked confused. “No. I’ve just been making quick sketches of people in between portraits. He was just someone I saw on the promenade. Why?”

Someone Evan saw on the promenade. Just another face in the crowd, no different from any of the others pinned to the wall.

Till the end of the line, Stevie.

“It’s Bucky,” Steve whispered, the lump in his throat making it almost impossible to swallow.

“What?” Evan gently tugged the sketch out of Steve’s hand. “Your best friend? But…Didn’t he die at Argonne?”

“I saw him go down.”

But there’d been no body to send home to his family. The fighting had been brutal that morning. The air had been thick with fog, and smoke from the guns and mortars, and the Germans had kept cutting them down even as they advanced. Steve used to wish he’d caught a round that day, because watching Bucky go down and know there was nothing he could do, knowing there was no time to stop and help the wounded, or retrieve the dead, had been unbearable.

The best part of Steve had died that day.

“We’ll figure it out,” Evan promised. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

If Bucky was back from the dead, Steve didn’t think logic entered into it. Not at all.

*o*o*o*

Steve haunted the promenade for two weeks, searching in vain for the face he knew better than his own. He sent telegrams to Bucky’s family, discretely trying to find out if they’d heard from him. They hadn’t. Evan made duplicates of his sketch, and kept one pinned to his easel while he was working, asking everyone who sat for him if they knew Bucky.

The man was a ghost. Maybe literally. Or maybe Bucky had a doppelgänger that had passed through Paris and now was in London or Barcelona.

Not knowing was driving him mad.

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

When news finally came, it was delivered by Evan’s friend Rodney, an often-cranky man who loved science the way Steve loved art. He turned up at Steve’s door well after midnight, pounding loudly and not caring about any of the other residents who might be disturbed by the noise.

Steve put on his robe and yanked the door open, blinking at the light coming from the sconces in the hall.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. And the only reason I came all the way over here was to let you know that your man is with John back at our place. I assumed you’d want to know.”

Steve grabbed hold of the door frame with one hand. “Bucky’s with John? Are you…Are you sure it’s him?”

Rodney gave him a baleful look. “Would I be here otherwise? Get dressed.”

Steve had no memory of putting on his clothes, no memory of the three-block trip to get to Rodney and John’s rooms above the Atlantis Café. When he saw Bucky sitting on Rodney’s couch, thin and solemn but most definitely Bucky Barnes, Steve was pretty sure he forgot his own name.

He dropped to his knees before Bucky, like a supplicant, and his hands hovered between them, afraid to touch. Afraid it wouldn’t be welcome.

“Buck?”

“I remember you,” Bucky said hesitantly. “I know you.”

“I thought you were dead,” Steve whispered.

He’d left Bucky in Argonne. How could he have done that? He should’ve gone back. Should’ve made sure.

“I think I was.”

“The Germans had him,” John said quietly. Steve had forgotten he was in the room, perched on the arm of the couch. “Prisoner of war. He escaped right before Armistice. I don’t know for sure where he’s been since, but I suspect he’s been living rough.”

Steve didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t need to know how John had found Bucky, or how Bucky had stumbled across John, or where he’d been these last few years, or why he hadn’t tried to get back home.

All that mattered was Bucky was alive. Nothing in Steve’s life had been simple since the war, during or after, but how he felt about Bucky, that was the simplest thing in the world. He’d loved him since they were boys together. He’d love Bucky forever.

“Welcome back, Bucky,” Steve said.

He tentatively put his hands on Bucky’s knees, breathless from the solid feel of him. Real. Not a ghost.

“Sorry it took so long,” Bucky said.

When he started to cry, Steve gathered him up and cried with him.

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

Tony brooded.

It wasn’t easy to do considering the festive air in Midnight in Paris. The band was playing a lively jazz tune, the illegal booze was flowing freely, and if Tony had shown the slightest bit of interest he’d have had his pick of any of the women present, regardless of whether or not they were already spoken for.

“You gotta be a wet blanket tonight?” Rhodey asked. “These people didn’t come to see morose Tony Stark.”

“I’m buying drinks, aren’t I?” Tony countered without any real heat. “Shut up.”

“Stark, you’re an actor. Can’t you at least fake being happy for a while?”

“No.”

The break-up with Steve hadn’t been unexpected, but Tony was taking it harder than he thought he would. Maybe because Steve hadn’t been with him on account of his Tinseltown fame. It had been both deeper and more shallow than that. Complicated. That’s what it was. Complicated as hell.

Maybe he should’ve taken Steve to Venice instead of Oslo.

If Tony was going to be alone, he’d rather it be in a room full of people. Even if that room was in Rhodey’s stupidly named blind pig, which was full of flappers and jazz musicians and men who’d stripped down to their shirtsleeves to cut it up on the dance floor.

Tony tipped back his glass, finishing his drink. “Another,” he said.

“You looking to empty a whole bottle tonight?” Rhodey asked, even as he pulled out the champagne.

“I’m the one who supplies it,” Tony reminded him. “May as well enjoy it, too.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. He poured the champagne, poured the orange juice, and garnished with an orange rind before setting it in front of Tony.

“What are you drinking?” asked the man who slid onto the stool next to Tony’s.

“I call it a Paris Sunrise,” Rhodey said.

“You’ve never even been to Paris,” Tony said, just to be contradictory.

“I’ll take one of those.”

The man slapped some money on the bar, and Tony couldn’t help noticing the tremble in his hands. He was also wearing a high-end suit, blue with a bold herringbone pattern, and the money clip he’d pulled out of his pocket was gold with a sizeable emerald affixed to it.

“Little ostentatious for a blind pig, aren’t you?” Tony asked. “You a stoolie?”

“A surgeon, actually.”

“I played a surgeon once,” Tony remembered. “You ever see Dr. Watson’s Secret? I got a lot of good press from that one.”

“I don’t care for motion pictures,” the surgeon replied. He took a sip of his drink and made a face. “This is disgusting!”

Tony grinned. “More for me!”

He picked up the man’s champagne flute and downed the fizzy drink all in one go and followed it up with a modest belch.

“Real classy,” Rhodey said with a frown.

“I’ll take a Brandy Alexander, please.”

Tony studied his new drinking companion with renewed interest. He didn’t like movies, which meant he probably didn’t know how famous Tony was. And Tony’s wealth wouldn’t matter much to a man sporting decorative gemstones on something that spent most of the time unseen in his pocket. It was almost enough to make Tony regret the belch. Almost.

He wanted to ask about the shaky hands, and how a surgeon could be expected to slice people open with such a tremor, but he wasn’t quite drunk enough to cross that kind of line. Tony could see some scars, thought maybe –

“Car accident,” the man said. He took a sip of his Brandy Alexander and nodded appreciatively.

“What’s that?”

From:

brumeier.livejournal.com

“You were staring at my hands. I was in a car accident. No, I don’t operate anymore. I’m more of a consultant. Was there anything else you wanted to know?”

That recitation had come devoid of any emotion as far as Tony could tell. How often did people ask the shaky doctor about his injury?

“I broke my pinky finger once,” Tony said, holding up the slightly bent appendage. “Stunt gone wrong. Hurt like a bastard.”

“Yes, I’m sure that was just the same as what I went through.”

The man’s lip twitched up in the briefest approximation of humor that Tony had ever seen. That was promising.

“Do you have a name, ex-surgeon, or should I think one up? I’ve come up with some real zingers for my movies, you know.”

“Stephen.”

“Very respectable. I would’ve gone with something edgier. Julian, maybe. Or Vincent.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m Tony, by the way. Not that you asked, but it’s easier than thinking of me as ‘that handsome fellow with the luxurious hair’.”

Stephen looked away for a moment, and Tony was certain he was hiding a smile.

“And here I was thinking of you as a Royce.”

Tony snorted. “As in Rolls? No. No fancy names for me. What you see is what you get. Except when I’m acting. Which I usually am.”

Stephen turned, giving Tony a look at his full face for the first time. The man had striking features, all cheekbones and the interestingly shaped lips and supercilious eyebrows.

“Are you acting right now?”

“Yes.”

“To what end?” Stephen asked.

“I’m drowning my sorrows. I’ve recently suffered a nearly debilitating heartbreak.” Tony polished off the other Seine Sunrise. “Rhodey told me to act happy or I’d scare all the guys and dolls away.”

That wasn’t entirely true, though, because Tony was feeling much better about his lot in life at the moment. Pepper had given him the whole spiel about fish in the sea, but apparently he’d needed visual reinforcement.

“Would you like to come and see the set for my new movie?” Tony asked. “It’s a pretty accurate dungeon setup.”

Stephen leaned in close, murmuring in Tony’s ear. “Not the ambience I was hoping for.”

Tony’s skin flushed so hot so fast he thought he might burst into flame.

“On the other hand, I have a magnificent mansion not far from here.”

He didn’t usually take people back to his house, not after just meeting them. But a high-end guy like Stephen would probably never get on his knees in an alley. No anonymous blow jobs, then. Tony was filled with anticipation and suddenly he couldn’t sit still.

“Rhodey! I have to see a man about a dog. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

Rhodey just waved him away.

Tony followed Stephen out the side door, admiring the cut of his suit. Particularly in the rear. It wasn’t love at first sight – he didn’t believe in that smarmy garbage – but Tony did feel a sort of tender curiosity.

He wondered if Stephen would look as good out of the suit as in it.

He was not disappointed.

From:

nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com

I'm not crying you're crying. This is beautiful. Such a wonderful addition to the 'verse. Love Steve joining in the little Stargate family, and then the twist of Steve spotting Bucky in Evan's art was just masterful.

And then Rodney and John rescuing Bucky was just perfect. Thank you so much!

From:

nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com

I like this! Tony is emotional but still so very Tony, and Stephen is bold and flirty but still so very Stephen. Another wonderful addition to a seriously awesome 'verse.