3SF ficlets!
Jan. 17th, 2022 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
presumenothingI know this wasn't actually tailor-made to my interests, obviously, but it certainly feels like it is. Prompt open season, yay!
Anyway!I'll tidy this up later (read: when not on my phone mid-commute to work) but 3 Sentence Ficathon is ongoing and I figure I should archive my fills somewhere before I lose them like my marbles.
ETA: Collected all eight(!) fills so far with links below the cut, enjoy!
ETA 2:More new fills linked in the comments! Second set of fills now compiled here! All Guardian except one… surprise crossover, let's just say.
"Dixing doesn't have holidays?!" Zhao Yunlan exclaims, words slipping out aghast before his brain catches up with the (unhelpfully late) reminder that up until relatively recent history Dixing hadn't even had an agreed-upon calendar.
Shen Wei doesn't point out the obvious, only says, "There isn't much to celebrate, as a rule," – but he's wrong in that, at least.
Zhao Yunlan would know; he's looking right at the proof of it.
The benefit of cooking for Zhao Yunlan is that he never leaves Shen Wei alone in their kitchen to do it.
The problem with cooking for Zhao Yunlan is also that he never leaves Shen Wei alone in their kitchen to do it.
("Do not accidentally finish this bar of chocolate too," Shen Wei says as sternly as he knows how to, never mind his earlier foresight in keeping the spare chocolate under a dark energy lock, "I won't have enough for the cake otherwise and we are not going to portal across the city just to buy more.")
All things considered it's fortunate that Wei has gotten used to depending solely on himself by this point.
Not that it makes things any less disconcerting, having people to count on him that aren't the brother he still hasn't found, but it does mean he has no habit of turning to anyone else for assistance; that probably wouldn't do much good for the already-uncertain morale.
(Taken together with the mask and cloak it means everyone else gets a fearsome hero, at least, to cower from or follow behind, and that's… enough, he has to think?)
Shen Wei hasn't even stepped out of the Dixing portal yet when he realises something is wrong.
The grass blanketing the park is still verdant green as ever, the sun still bright, but the silence – Haixing has never been quiet like this in all the millennia he's known it, a hush so absolute it's almost like he hasn't returned to the surface at all.
A second tear in space opens without much conscious thought on his part, driven solely by the ice rushing through his veins; he needs to get back to the SID, now.
Zhao Yunlan sounded exhausted, in a way Kunlun hadn't been even returning from open battle to a lack of every modern comfort he'd ever known (a way Shen Wei hadn't even begun to understand until thousands of years later). "I'm not some kind of duty for you to see through to the grim end, Xiao Wei."
"I know," Shen Wei said, and meant it because it was true; he could never be done with Zhao Yunlan entirely, even if it would be kinder to nearly everyone concerned.
It's not until Da Qing slips back through the window into the apartment that he sees the messages, written not in words but the shape of everything else: the careful lack of anything perishable in the fridge, clingwrap with "do NOT eat after" dates labelled neatly by marker in Professor Shen's handwriting. (The third hidden stash of lollipops that really isn't much more secret than the first two, missing even the lime ones that Zhao Yunlan hated even though his favourite brand only ever came in assorted packs.)
It's ridiculous, all of it, burning in his throat like the words that won't escape even in a yowl: why didn't you tell me you were never coming back?!
"Seriously?" Shaw asked the general air, incredulous, but gave Bear a generous helping of pats anyway after removing the pair of scissors carried carefully in his mouth.
Whoever who thought AIs were gonna lack a sense of sarcasm (or the ability to communicate with dogs) had clearly been out of touch with reality, an oversight Shaw would be all too happy to rectify with percussive maintenance.
(At least the Machine pinged her phone next with a notification of food delivery scheduled just past noon, which was damned right; if she was going to the trouble of actually trimming her hair there had better be steak for her – and Bear – later.)
Human-inhabited areas do tend to rather resemble each other after a while, ART commented while I was downloading the city's transport gridmap, because it was not at all above complaining about boring scenery even when it was my visual feed it was riding on.
At least that gave me something to include in my subvocalisation routine aside from the usual archived dialogue: Pretty sure you think that about everything that isn't also a hyperintelligent overequipped ship.
Hardly – what would be the point of scientific research otherwise? came the immediately affronted reply, and right, of course that would be ART's main objection here.
Anyway!
ETA: Collected all eight(!) fills so far with links below the cut, enjoy!
ETA 2:
GUARDIAN
"Dixing doesn't have holidays?!" Zhao Yunlan exclaims, words slipping out aghast before his brain catches up with the (unhelpfully late) reminder that up until relatively recent history Dixing hadn't even had an agreed-upon calendar.
Shen Wei doesn't point out the obvious, only says, "There isn't much to celebrate, as a rule," – but he's wrong in that, at least.
Zhao Yunlan would know; he's looking right at the proof of it.
The benefit of cooking for Zhao Yunlan is that he never leaves Shen Wei alone in their kitchen to do it.
The problem with cooking for Zhao Yunlan is also that he never leaves Shen Wei alone in their kitchen to do it.
("Do not accidentally finish this bar of chocolate too," Shen Wei says as sternly as he knows how to, never mind his earlier foresight in keeping the spare chocolate under a dark energy lock, "I won't have enough for the cake otherwise and we are not going to portal across the city just to buy more.")
All things considered it's fortunate that Wei has gotten used to depending solely on himself by this point.
Not that it makes things any less disconcerting, having people to count on him that aren't the brother he still hasn't found, but it does mean he has no habit of turning to anyone else for assistance; that probably wouldn't do much good for the already-uncertain morale.
(Taken together with the mask and cloak it means everyone else gets a fearsome hero, at least, to cower from or follow behind, and that's… enough, he has to think?)
Shen Wei hasn't even stepped out of the Dixing portal yet when he realises something is wrong.
The grass blanketing the park is still verdant green as ever, the sun still bright, but the silence – Haixing has never been quiet like this in all the millennia he's known it, a hush so absolute it's almost like he hasn't returned to the surface at all.
A second tear in space opens without much conscious thought on his part, driven solely by the ice rushing through his veins; he needs to get back to the SID, now.
Zhao Yunlan sounded exhausted, in a way Kunlun hadn't been even returning from open battle to a lack of every modern comfort he'd ever known (a way Shen Wei hadn't even begun to understand until thousands of years later). "I'm not some kind of duty for you to see through to the grim end, Xiao Wei."
"I know," Shen Wei said, and meant it because it was true; he could never be done with Zhao Yunlan entirely, even if it would be kinder to nearly everyone concerned.
It's not until Da Qing slips back through the window into the apartment that he sees the messages, written not in words but the shape of everything else: the careful lack of anything perishable in the fridge, clingwrap with "do NOT eat after" dates labelled neatly by marker in Professor Shen's handwriting. (The third hidden stash of lollipops that really isn't much more secret than the first two, missing even the lime ones that Zhao Yunlan hated even though his favourite brand only ever came in assorted packs.)
It's ridiculous, all of it, burning in his throat like the words that won't escape even in a yowl: why didn't you tell me you were never coming back?!
-
PERSON OF INTEREST
PERSON OF INTEREST
"Seriously?" Shaw asked the general air, incredulous, but gave Bear a generous helping of pats anyway after removing the pair of scissors carried carefully in his mouth.
Whoever who thought AIs were gonna lack a sense of sarcasm (or the ability to communicate with dogs) had clearly been out of touch with reality, an oversight Shaw would be all too happy to rectify with percussive maintenance.
(At least the Machine pinged her phone next with a notification of food delivery scheduled just past noon, which was damned right; if she was going to the trouble of actually trimming her hair there had better be steak for her – and Bear – later.)
-
MURDERBOT
MURDERBOT
Human-inhabited areas do tend to rather resemble each other after a while, ART commented while I was downloading the city's transport gridmap, because it was not at all above complaining about boring scenery even when it was my visual feed it was riding on.
At least that gave me something to include in my subvocalisation routine aside from the usual archived dialogue: Pretty sure you think that about everything that isn't also a hyperintelligent overequipped ship.
Hardly – what would be the point of scientific research otherwise? came the immediately affronted reply, and right, of course that would be ART's main objection here.
