Thursday: What if?

[cghardy.livejournal.com]

*waves* cghardy here. Today's theme is What if? Let's change canon, people or  by suggesting just a small difference.

The rules still haven't changed:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
No spoilers in prompts.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space.

Prompts should be formatted as follows:
Fandom, Character+/Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ Eureka, Nathan/Jack, what if Nathan had gone after Jack, not Allison
+ any, any, someone went right instead of left
+ The Following, Joe+Mike, Joe told them to bring Mike to him

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Visit the lonely prompt archive and brighten someone’s day.

Have fun!

Comments

[cedara]

Warehouse 13, Artie +/ Claudia, Artie is about 30 years younger than in current canon

[cedara]

Star Trek AOS (first movie), Spock (Prime) + McCoy, It was McCoy who old Spock melded with instead of Kirk.

[cedara]

Castle, Ryan/Esposito, Ryan never got married - Jenny declined.

[langstonlover.livejournal.com]

Crossfire Trail, JT Langston, JT survives being shot by Bo Dorn

[langstonlover.livejournal.com]

Crossfire Trail, JT/Rock, JT goes with Rock when he goes off to Montana to find gold

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Marvel Comics, Steve, his side wins the War, not Tony's

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

X-Men First Class, Charles, is never paralyzed

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Dogma, any, they did walk through that door

[helsinkibaby.livejournal.com]

The Following, they get to Debra in time. (Bonus points if its Mike/Debra, but I'd be happy either way!)

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Disney, Arielle, if mermaids were predators from the sea, who eat people?

Delicious

[rett-chan.livejournal.com]

For a moment, one shining moment, Ariel thinks that she might not do it this time. The dark-haired human boy really is handsome. She could keep him, but he would drown and he would rot, and that just would not do. If she takes him up to the surface...

There is blood in the water. She stares at it and licks her lips. She looks to the human again, sees the splinter in his hand, pulls it out. More blood flows out into the water.

Ariel runs her tongue over her sharp, sharp teeth, and then licks her lips again.

She draws the human close. She kisses his wrist, gentle and tender, and then she bites. She tastes blood and meat, and it is delicious. She swallows it down, and then she bites again.

She eats and eats until she is left with nothing but some hair and cracked bones with no marrow inside. She kisses the edge of a rib, and then lets it all go. She swims away without looking back.

Maybe next time she won't do it, she thinks, or maybe...

Maybe she will figure out how to capture a human soul, and then she can trade it to the Sea Witch for, for...

She quashes the thought. Best not be foolish.

[mangacrack.livejournal.com]

Disney, Mulan + Mushu, Mushu can change into elephant-sized flying fire spitting dragon

FILL. (It's been many years since I've watched Mulan, apologies!)

[eneumann.livejournal.com]

Mulan had thought their cover was blown when Mushu started talking from her back; no one seemed to notice. Then, perhaps, when she magically had fire and no one had given her fire starter. Again, no one seemed to notice. Or care.

She got through training bruised, battered and, in the quieter moments where she might admit something to herself, half in love with Li Shang. It was when they discovered that they were the last of the troops to face Shan Yu that Mushu revealed the secret of his existence to all of them. He wasn't a tiny rat-sized dragon. Well, he was, most of the time... But if he was threatened? He was the size of two panda bears and he could fly..

Which certainly helped when Li Shang was nearly a dead weight and she had to get the two of them off the balcony. She owed the shrimpy dragon her life and he wasn't going to let her forget it.

[wrong-song.livejournal.com]

Dexter, Deb & any, Deb makes a different choice in last season's finale

[blondebabe800.livejournal.com]

(was going to post a similar prompt!)
Obviously, spoilers for 7x12. Also, from Deb's POV, so here be f-bombs.








"Put him down!"

"Do what you gotta do."

Deb looked from her brother to her captain, and back to her brother. As true as Maria's words were, Deb was still his sister. She'd been his sister long before she was a cop, and she'd still be even if she wasn't a cop anymore.

But this--to take the life of an innocent--was unforgivable. She had accepted it when it was only people who deserved to die. But Maria wasn't one of those people. No, this was one fuckin' line she couldn't let Dexter cross.

She aimed her gun at his stomach and looked through her sights, trying to pretend that it was just another target like the ones she had practiced on. No use. Yes, there was a murderer on the other end of her gun, but it was also Dexter. Her brother. As much as she knew it was the right thing to do, she couldn't go through with it.

In an instant, she crossed the shipping container and took Dexter's knife from him before dropping her gun and kicking it over to Maria.

"You fuckin' do it. I can't."

She ran from the container, crying tears that weren't loud enough to muffle the sound of the bullet.

[arnica.livejournal.com]

Torchwood, team, what if...Aaron Copley shot Tosh, not Owen.

[langstonlover.livejournal.com]

Crossfire Trail, JT/Rock, Rock gets shot instead of JT when he pushes him out of the way to save his life (But he survives. Because I love my Leprechaun to much to let him die)

[arnica.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter, Sirius/Remus, what if...Sirius fell sideways onto the floor and not backwards through the veil?

[arnica.livejournal.com]

Torchwood, Jack/Ianto, What if...Ianto woke up stretched out in a line of corpses on day 4 and wasn't very happy about it?

[arnica.livejournal.com]

Torchwood, Jack+Gwen, What if...she smuggled Jack's blood inside her body instead of Rex?

[samueljames]

Dexter, Dexter, what if Harry hadn't given him a code?

[thedevilchicken.livejournal.com]

Dexter washes his face in the morning.

It's the first thing he does, before anything else, before pulling on his clothes or heading to the head. He washes his face and he looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes have never really seemed alive per se but they've seemed almost dead for months, flat, like there's nothing inside him at all. Dexter's in there, of course, and his Dark Passenger has yet to jump ship, all the old urges remain, but even the glimmer of a hint of a spark that he used to see there has faded away now. He hasn't killed in months. If he ever felt feelings he'd be feeling them now; he'd be feeling frustration.

He washes his face and he dries his face and he goes down to breakfast.

They're scared of him there. They try to pretend that they're not but they are - they know what he did 'cause they saw it splashed all over TV. He was in all of the news shows for so many months, the newspapers printed each gory detail they persuaded a cop leak, and if he knew how to be sorry he'd be sorry Deb ever went through that. It was almost a relief at the time, being found, being able to drop the awkward pantomime humanity Harry said he had to have in order to survive, and then just be Dexter. It devastated Deb. She'd thought she knew him; she'd known what he'd let her know.

He wasn't worried - he'd always assumed he'd be caught in the end (if the cops didn't shoot him) because he couldn't stop himself and frankly he'd never want to. The Coastguards caught him in the boat with a dismembered body all sealed up in plastic. He killed his first lawyer with an uncapped fountain pen the idiot left on the desk; he was washing the blood off his face when the guards blustered in to lock him back up. Deb didn't hire him another attorney and the public defender kept him chained to the desk after that. He'd still be killing now if he could - if they let him go right now, he'd slash the guard's throat on his way out the door.

He supposes by most standards he really has issues: Harry knew, of course. He just pretended he didn't for the longest time and when he finally tried to help and to teach him, they didn't get past "don't let them know you're different" before he was shot dead in the head in the line of duty. Sometimes he wonders what it was Harry wanted him to know.

Deb doesn't come to visit. He knows the name of the emotion she felt when he saw her the day that they sentenced him to death. It wasn't shame or anger or betrayal and not even guilt; she'd gone through each of those in cycles in the months since his arrest. Across the courtroom, she looked at him and he looked at her and she was scared. He doesn't think she'll be there the day that they kill him.

Dexter washes his face in the morning and sometimes almost wishes he could feel regret. But it's morning, it's time to eat, and mostly he just feels hungry.

[samueljames]

Law & Order UK, Matt/Alesha, what if the shot hit Matt's leg instead?

Fill: A Day Like Today

[helsinkibaby.livejournal.com]

Ronnie can't help but grin when he walks into the hospital room, and surprisingly enough it's got very little to do with the fact that he's just spent half an hour on a different floor holding his first born grandson. It's also not got a lot to do with the fact that Matt is sitting up in bed, leg swathed in bandages, but everything to do with the fact that his aforementioned partner is holding hands with Alesha.

He'd known they were at it for the past year but it's nice to finally have it confirmed - for a bleeding heart romantic, Matt can be quite circumspect when he wants to be.

They startle when he comes in but they don't break hold and he doesn't comment on it one way or another. He does show them pictures of the baby on his phone though and they make the appropriate interested noises. That done, he looks down at Matt's leg. "They'll keep you in for the foreseeable, I suppose?"

Matt nods but he doesn't look as glum about it as Ronnie might have expected. "Looks like my dreams of playing in the Premier League have ended," Matt agrees, looking over at Alesha when she snorts. Something passes between them then, some look that Ronnie can't quite place, but when Matt looks back at him, he can't quite hide a grin. "I'll still manage to hobble up the aisle though."

Ronnie blinks, sure his ears are playing tricks on him but the identical grins that Matt and Alesha are suddenly wearing proves that they aren't. "Excuse me?" he says, just to be sure and Matt shrugs, still grinning.

"It was the first thing I did when they brought me in here," he says.

"And," Alesha interjects, "You're my witness that he's fully lucid and not drugged to the hills, just in case he gets cold feet."

She's teasing, Ronnie can tell by the smile in her voice, on her face, but Matt is completely serious when he says, "I've never meant anything more." Suddenly Alesha's eyes are suspiciously bright and Matt's voice is husky when he continues, "Nothing like a day like today to remind you life is short."

There's nothing Ronnie can say to that so he shakes Matt's hand, kisses Alesha's cheek and makes some comment about getting cracking on his best man's speech. If Matt blanches slightly, well, that's the effect that Ronnie was going for, but he doesn't call him on it, not on a day like today.

[wrong-song.livejournal.com]

Doctor Who, Ten, "The laws of time are mine, and they will obey me!"

[samueljames]

The Following, Mike/Ryan, what if Mike Weston was just a badly chosen alias and Ryan figured it out after watching Michael Westen on Burn Notice. (Could be Mike as a follower or just someone trying to escape his past.)

Fill: The E doesn't make much of a difference. 1/2

[cghardy.livejournal.com]

The motel had a crappy selection of channels. Ryan kept flipping through the networks before setting on a channel that just had commercials. It took a couple more minutes for station to start on the next show on its lineup. He didn't recognize it and it became the center of attention. He learned it was a spy show, and normally he didn't like those things, but it was the only half-decent thing on.

The main character introduced himself as Michael Westen.

He stared at the TV as the show continued. He wasn't paying attention to it anymore. It sounded too close; it was too close. How the hell did this get past him? How the hell could he trust 'Mike' or whoever he was? Who the hell was he? He was out the door and up to the other room before he even thought it. He kept knocking on the door until 'Mike' came over to answer it. “Ryan? What-” he tried asking.

“Who are you?” he demanded, shoving his way in. “Who the hell are you?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

Angry, he forced him up against the wall, holding his wrists and folding his arms so he couldn't fight. “Your name is not Mike Weston. Who are you?”

“That is my name. What-”

“Mike Weston is a fictional character on a spy show. What the hell is your actual name? Who are you?” he shouted.

“Mike Weston,” he repeated.

“Stop lying to me,” he growled, squeezing his wrists more.

“You're hurting me. Stop,” he told him. The pressure didn't let up. He tried pushing him away and getting his wrists back. “You're hurting me.”

“Who are you?” he repeated.

“I'm telling the truth; it's Michael Weston,” he reiterated. The pain from his wrists were radiating up and it was harder to ignore. Ryan pulled him off the wall and slammed him back into it. He yelled at the shock more than anything. “Call Turner.”

“What?” he questioned.

“Call Turner.” Ryan let go of one of his wrists to go for his phone. He pushed the man off and made him release the other one before moving over to the bathroom and locking the door behind him.

“Get out here,” he commanded.

“Fuck you, I'm waiting here until Turner comes,” he shouted. He called said man, hoping that 'Mike' wasn't going to just kill the both of them when he got here.

[clwilson2006.livejournal.com]

SGA, Lorne/Parrish, What if Lorne had really died while held captive by Ladon Radim...

[clwilson2006.livejournal.com]

SGA, Any (NOT MCShep), The wraith are their Allies, the Athosians the "big Evil" in pegasus

[moetushie]

The Silmarillion, Fingon/Maedhros, what if the Nirnaeth Arnoediad had gone better for the Noldor? (Well, its name would be different, for one thing.)

[lastinthebox.livejournal.com]

Star Trek Into Darkness, any, what if McCoy had been the one to save Enterprise instead of Jim?

Fill: Wrapped in Darkness and Silence

[nevcolleil.livejournal.com]

He wouldn't have even been there if anyone ever thought to call the Sickbay, now and again, to tell him whether or not they were dead. Leonard had to rely on scuttlebutt to tell him when Jim was back on the ship, and he followed it all of the way to Engineering, reminded with every terrifying, world-tilting flux of the anti-gravs exactly why he'd avoided space travel before the divorce, when the subsequent loss of Jo's custody gave him something of a self-destructive streak.

But regardless of the reason that Leonard found himself present for Scotty's explanation of just how incredibly fucked they all were, the fact remained that he was - in fact - present. And he rather resented having that be forgotten.

"Damnit, Scotty! I'm a doctor, not a warp core physicist!" he yelled at the end of the Engineering chief's regurgitation of technical gobbledy-gook. " What the hell is all of that supposed to mean?"

"It means there isn'ae a way ta do wha's ga' ta be done from outside th' warp core chamber itself!" Scotty told him, despair obvious in his tone and in his eyes.

While Leonard was still reeling from what that meant - that this was a crisis that even Scotty's somewhat miraculous skills couldn't solve - Jim calmly (too calmly, Leonard thought), said, "So we'll just have to eject the core from inside the chamber."

"And just how're we gonnae do tha'?!" Scotty asked, like he might laugh at the mere suggestion. But Leo knew better.

"Jim..."

"We're not," Jim told Scotty, cool as a fucking cucumber. Then he knocked the poor man out cold.

"Jim!"

Jim didn't even look back, although the taught lines of his shoulders spoke clearly of apology and regret - at least to Leonard. Leo looked over Mr. Scott as quickly as he could and then raced for the warp core chamber himself.

Jim was seconds away from opening the chamber's secondary hatch when Leonard grabbed him by the wrist and made Jim pause.

"Damn it, Jim, stop! You can't-"