Friday: Lines From a Book

[mahmfic.livejournal.com]

Hello everyone. As you may know, I am mahmfic and today is my last day of pinch-hitting for the week. You guys have been fantastic!

I hope you have fun with today's theme Lines from a book. All prompts should be quotes from novels. Pick up the closest book to you and flip to a random page, Google your favorite novel and find some quotes from it, go to Goodreads.com, search for a book and find a quote that strikes you from the novel. Though not required, it would be nice to include the source of the quote you used in your prompt for others to see.

Have a great weekend!

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 above mentioned spoiler cut.


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...
+ Doctor Who, 12th Doctor/Missy, "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling)
+ Vikings (TV), Ragnar Lothbrok/Ahtelstan, "Is your modesty worth death?" (Irrevocable by Skye Callahan)
+ Cabin Pressure, Arthur/Any, "I love you above all things, even pie." (Fool by Christopher Moore)


We are now using 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 2014 collection. See further notes on this new option here.


Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Check out the just created lonely prompt spreadsheet. For more recent prompts to write, you can also use LJ’s advanced search options to limit keyword results to only comments in this community.


tag=linesfromabook

Comments

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

any, any, It's as if he has finally knocked at the right door. Cinderella answers, and the shoe fits, but he's in the wrong fairytale. His prince is supposed to wake up a sleeping beauty, not fit shoes on a waking one. (Yo! by Julia Alvarez)

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

DCU, Tim Drake(/+any) or any, Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. (John Steinbeck, East of Eden)

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

ROFLOL

fill

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

You were dead for a while, but then, so was he. You know he'd use that as an excuse if you ever asked – those gaps in both of your timelines, pausing and then pressing play and both of you skipping a little, unsteady with what's gone on in your absence.

Bruce pretends like he's got a hang of it; like Batman doesn't have time to adjust being back, but you can see it when he looks at you, that little waver – Batman may have gotten the hang of the Red Hood, but Bruce hasn't quite adjusted to you.

So you figure, okay, it's over. Once you were this thing, the two of you, but time didn't just stop while you were buried, gone, presumed dead. Bruce's life didn't stop with yours, even if you think it should've.

So okay.

You don't remember being dead. If there's peace, or hellfire, you don't remember any of it – just the bomb going off, and then your eyes opening again.

So maybe there's nothing, or maybe death is just something where once you're back, you're not allowed to remember. 'Cause you're willing to bet you, dead you, wherever you ended up –

You're sure you were waiting around for him.

Killing time, as it were.

Some part of you is still doing that, even now. You make your own rules, fight your own battles, live your own life, but some part of you, the part with scars from before, memories of his hands on you and his half-smile and the laugh you haven't heard since you crawled out of your grave –

You're still waiting.

Fill - Burn, Burn, the Fire 1/2(?)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Tony wakes in the hospital this time. It's a novel experience, as he's pretty sure he'd been in some massive fight with...with...well, all right, so his mind is blank, but he remembers a fight, and lots of laser-y type things and the Hulk, and someone shouting his name as he was falling and...

And nothing. A big, fat goose egg. And as he blinks and looked around (carefully, because his skull feels like that big, fat goose egg, with the gosling trying to peck and kick it's way out), he's surprised to see no one here in the room. Well, no one he recognizes, as there's someone who looks an awful lot like 'protection' by the sheer amount of muscle fighting the confines of what looks like a very expensive suit, probably tailored to hide at least one gun. Tony decides Nastasha would probably approve before he tries to clear his throat (realizing that's a terrible idea when his throat protests enough to nearly send him back unconscious from the sheer pain).

"Sir," the man says, in a voice that reminds Tony of gravel in a cement mixer, "you're awake."

"Mm." A hum is a lot easier than words, but Tony's got a lot of words, and some of them have to escape. "Where am I? No, hospital. Ow. Where's...scratch that. No, wait. Where's Pepper?"

Because, Pepper. She'd been there, Tony remembers. She'd been there, and fighting because of the Extremis, and...and...

"Sir, let me get a doctor."

"Get Pepper," Tony orders and manages to contain his wince until after the man vanishes through the door.

The doctor is young, younger than Tony expects, and tiny compared to the guard. "Mr. Stark, so glad you're awake!" he chirps, and checks the chart. "That's very good."

Tony blinks, a little surprised. "Was there a chance I wouldn't wake up?"

The doctor stops and looks at him, his expression confused for a second, then it smooths out. "No, of course not!" His attempt at heartiness fails. "I'm Dr. Jones, I've been keeping an eye on you."

"You, him," Tony indicates his guard, "but I want to know, where is Pepper Potts? About three inches taller than you flat-footed, with strawberry blond hair, and likely to be sarcastic rather than worried unless she's really upset?"

Dr. Jones shifts from one foot to the other. "I'm afraid I can't - "

"Then find someone who can," Tony says. "Because I need to know she's all right."

Jones hesitates a second more, and Tony barks out, "Now!" That sends him scuttling out the door. Tony looks at his guard. "And you. Who sent you? Wait, I don't even have to guess, Rhodey, right?"

The guard is far more circumspect than the doctor, folding his hands behind his back, and staring straight ahead. Tony tries teasing more words out of him, but his throat's really hurting, so he finally lapses back into the bed, wishing he had his own.

After a while, the door bursts open. Tony doesn't hide his disappointment at seeing Rhodey, but at least he sees someone he knows. "Rhodey. Tell me what's going on, bud."

"Just got the word you're awake. You're awake." He grabs Tony's hand and squeezes it, hard enough it could hurt. "God, it's good to see you."

"Nn...yeah, well...what happened?"

"Oh, you and your superpowered friends saved the world, or at least New York. Again."

"And Pepper?"

Rhodey's smile dims a bit. "She, uh."

"Uh? I don't like the sound of that, Rhodes."

"She's...okay. Recovering."

"You're making that face. I don't like it when you make that face." Tony narrows his eyes. "I want to know about Pepper. I'll raise hell - you know I will - until I can talk to her."

Rhodey licked his lips, his eyes darting from side to side, like a rat in a trap. Tony starts to try to sit up, to hell with the pain, but Rhodey sighs. "She's recovering. Unconscious...she really...went nuts when you went down."

Every muscle - even the painful ones - went tense. "Unconscious? She's...Is she all right?"

"That Extremis thing." And Rhodey really didn't need to say anything else.

Tony fisted his free hand, banging it against the bed rail. "Damn. Damn." He takes a deep breath. “I still need to see her, Rhodey.”

2/2

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

“You were in a coma yourself, Tony.” Rhodey gives him a glare.

Like it has any affect. “Need to see her. Not seeing her is not an option.”

Rhodey sighs again. “I’ll see what I can do, Tony.”

“Do it. Do it harder.” He smiles. Kind of. “For me. For her.”

“Right.”

A day passes, all too slowly. Tony endures all the stupid, annoying tests, the bland food, the doctors and nurses and his guard changing shifts. Finally, he’s allowed into a wheel chair and very carefully pushed down the hall to another wing of the hospital.

Natasha is there, sitting in a chair outside a room. She rises, fluid as ever, but Tony spots a telltale hesitation in her right knee. A memory surfaces fleetingly, of Natasha falling – jumping – off a building, and landing hard. Still, he’s more interested in who’s behind door number one. “She’s alive, and conscious now,” Natasha says without preamble, “and no longer dangerous.”

Tony realizes the room has warning signs and appears to have been made fireproof. Or something similar, at least. “Thanks, Tasha.”

“You can go in,” she says, giving Rhodey a look that says he’s not allowed.

He raises his hands. “You’re the boss.”

Tony takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. So I’ve got this, and I’ll go in, and you’d sure as hell better not record any of this with your StarkPhone, either of you, or I’ll destroy your most favorite toys.” Natasha smirks and Rhodey rolls his eyes, and Tony thinks he has to work on his threats. Rhodey at least opens the door, and Tony manages to roll himself through it, and over to the bed.

Pepper’s eyes are closed, and she’s not bruised, but tubes run from IV bottles to her arms and the tang of urine bleeds over the typical sterile hospital smells. At the creak of his chair, Pepper’s eyes open, and she turns her head, so very slowly, to look at him.

“You’re alive,” she says, almost at the same time he does.

Tony takes her hand in his and her fingers are cold. He kisses them, breathing warm air over them. “God, I wasn’t sure.”

“I wasn’t either,” Pepper says, and there’s a catch in her voice that makes him look up and meet her eyes.

“Can you tell me what happened?” He smooths his thumb over her knuckles before pulling her hand to his mouth again, holding it to his lips.

“I thought they’d killed you,” Pepper says. “I lost my temper. There was a lot of fire. I burned things.”

“Honey, you’re a redhead. Of course you’re going to lose your temper over me.”

That coaxes the tiniest smile from her. “You always make me lose my temper.”

“Uh huh.” Tony sighs, pressing his lips against her knuckles. “As long as we’re around to help each other afterward.”

“Deal,” Pepper says.

“Deal,” Tony agrees.

Re: 2/2

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

*happy 'shippy feelings*

This is so adorable. I love Tony's single-mindedness, once he realizes Pepper is not right beside him, and you had me worried there for a second, wondering whether he'd be the one to flip out (and with good reason).

Lol.

Fav line: Need to see her. Not seeing her is not an option.

SQUEE!

Re: 2/2

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Tony always gets to flip out. Pepper's a ginger, she's gotta have a temper to go with her red hair and nickname of 'Pepper'. :D

Re: 2/2

[scribblemyname]

This. Exactly this.

[ciaranbochna.livejournal.com]

Any, any, He doesn't understand the subtleties of slights and pains, that it is not the big events that hurt the most but rather the smallest questionable shift in tone at the end of a spoken word that can plow most deeply into the heart. - Shopgirl - Steve Martin

[tieleen.livejournal.com]

:D :D :D

Re: fill

[falkner]

Ah, this is so nice and a little sad ;w; thank you for writing it!

Re: 2/2

[classics-lover.livejournal.com]

So much this :D

Fill: Here's to Second Chances (The Last Ship, Mike Slattery/Rachel Scott)

[helsinkibaby.livejournal.com]

The world may have changed while the Nathan James was sailing the Arctic seas but Mike finds it comforting that some things haven't. Mainly that his father somehow managed to survive, that the family farm is still there and most importantly, the family still is still there. 

It took a long time for him to come home here but when he sits on the front porch, Pop by his side, a Dixie cup of moonshine in his hand, he knows it was worth the wait. 

Pop catches him up on all the local news he missed, which mostly amounts to who lived and who died. Same goes for the family news and they both well up when the talk turns to Mike's son. "Hell of a thing," his dad says, "that an old dog like me makes it through and a baby like that doesn't get a chance."

They don't mention Mike's wife, soon to be ex, both knowing the marriage had been far from perfect even before the disease taking their boy and his absence during it put the final nail in the coffin. Mike is surprised, though, when his dad, three cups in and that shit is strong,  turns to him and says, "So... tell me about your new girl."

Mike doesn't ask how he knew; Pop had always had a sixth sense for things like that. "She's something, Pop," he says. "She's a scientist..."

"I've seen the news, boy." His dad's tone is somewhere between amused and impatient. "Tell me about her."

He thinks about all the times he saw her on the Nathan James, before and after they became them, thinks about her tenacity in the struggle for the vaccine, her bravery in going over to the Russian ship, the set of her jaw as she battled to save the world. 

"She's smart as a whip... stubborn as Mama ever was. Won't take second best and she ain't shy 'bout letting you know it either. Knows what's right... knows how she's going to get it." He takes a sip of his drink, shakes his head as he pictures her out of the lab, hair loose, lips and eyes smiling. "She's not so hard to look at either."

Pop gives him a hard look, eyebrow raised and this look is all amusement.  "Sounds like you're punching above your weight there."

Mike doesn't deny it. "Hell, Pop, she's so far out of my league that we're not even playing the same sport. But she's lovely." He hears the word from the lips, snorts with sudden laughter. "She must be some sort of somethin', making a good ol' boy use a word like lovely and mean it." He downs another sip. "Either that or this is really good stuff."

"Maybe both." Pop holds up his drink in salute. "Here's to second chances, son... and to taking them when we get them."

Mike doesn't hesitate. "I'll drink to that."

Re: Fill: Here's to Second Chances (The Last Ship, Mike Slattery/Rachel Scott)

[bk_forever]

A completely unfamiliar fandom, but this is terrific. Sippin' moonshine on the front porch... I can picture the scene so clearly. Relaxed, laid back and beautifully written. Thank you for this.

Re: Fill: Here's to Second Chances (The Last Ship, Mike Slattery/Rachel Scott)

[helsinkibaby.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[(Anonymous)]

The Red Room didn't allow tears.

Not the kind that most people knew. There was no joy in the Red Room, so no one cried out of happiness. They did not even cry out of relief. They knew sorrow and sadness and pain, but they knew not to show it. Tears were weakness, and they were strong.

Later, tears were a weapon, a tool she learned to exploit. She used them in interrogations, in gaining access to what she wanted, but they were never real. She did not cry over what she had lost, what she had never had, never known, or did not remember. She did not cry unless she had use for her tears.

S.H.I.E.L.D. took her in, and they thought she would cry. With relief, with the memories, with what she had now, but she did not need the tears. She did not have to use them unless she was on a mission.

S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and her world crumbled, but she did not cry. She was Russian. She did not weep over the fall of regimes.

Then, when they were free and done and no longer spies, when they were safe, when the unexpected happened and Clint's blood was rushing past her fingers with no way to stop it, that was when she cried.

fill (drabble)

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Veronica Mars

They have to get out of here. Now. Trina's appearance proves that Lianne is dead, and Logan's reaction will be explosive. Whatever he breaks, better that it happen out of public view.

But only Logan's composure breaks down.

Too soon he is gasping and sobbing, his whole body folding down. Veronica stands by helplessly, watching. How would she reach him, anyway? He needs someone who cares.

An awkward pat, that's all she gives him.

He takes it as an invitation to cling to her, and cling hard.

Soon she'd holding him tight, and perhaps she does care. Just a little.

fill (drabble)

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire slayer

Robin scowled when he noticed the vampire sitting on the comfiest couch of the common room. Spike looked up at his entrance, and seemed ready to dismiss him when he suddenly broke into a mischievous smile. "For someone who just got laid by a Slayer, you don't look too happy."

He was starting to hate having no privacy, especially when a semi-permanent resident had supernatural senses.

"Trouble in paradise? Or, not enough trouble, perhaps?" Spike said, hitting too close to the problem. And he knew it too. "Been there, done that. Word of advice? Enjoy the ride while you can."

fill (drabble)

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Boston'verse)

"I will not be stopped!" the man yelled, twisting against Angel. "The hellspawn must be hunted!"

"You're no hunter," Buffy spat. "You're just a murderer."

"What will you do to me, demon whore? I'm not afraid to die!"

She let the insult slide, though a pained gasp said that Angel wasn't as forgiving. "Oh, you haven't been dead yet, or you'd know how peaceful that can be. No. You're the idiot who went after half-breeds with perfectly legal identifications. You're getting a life sentence, buddy. And if you ever break out," Buffy added seriously, "I'll set the widows after you."

Re: fill (drabble)

[bk_forever]

Brilliant! Great fill, thank you!

fill (drabble)

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

Firefly

She told him, "Are you crazy? How can you think of marriage? How can you think of marrying me?"

("How can I not?" he said.)

And she told him, "Haven't you seen what I do around here? Any moment, any mistake, and it'll be a bullet through my heart."

("You're too good for that," he said.)

And she told him, "Are you sure? I cannot promise forever."

("Just promise that you'll take care.")

And she promised.

Now Zöe looks around their room - her room, after Miranda - and wonders why she never thought to make him promise not to die instead.

Re: fill (drabble)

[leni-ba.livejournal.com]

If there was a club for Slayer-exes, it would be quite crowded. ;) Glad you liked!

Re: fill (drabble)

[likewinning.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh. I'm not familiar with the show, but this is really lovely. Thank you so much!

Re: fill (drabble)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Oooo, that's an excellent threat. Love it!