Fic: Small Troubles (S&S Prompt fic)

[thisbluespirit]

Title: Small Troubles
Author: thisbluespirit
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 651
Characters/Pairings: Jet/Ruby/Silver (sort of)
Warnings None.
Summary: Jet, Ruby and Silver are in a tight situation and there’s only one thing left to do… (Pre-canon, 1950s)

(Prompt 26: ruby & silver & jet - Unresolved Sexual Tension & We're all going to die!)

***

“This is it, then,” said Jet, as the room around them shrunk by another two millimetres in all directions. “It really is.”

Ruby nodded. She was standing directly opposite her colleague, so close there was barely any distance between them. “I think it must be. Jet –”

Yes. Jet kissed her fellow Element on the nose and took both of her hands in hers. “And there are some things we have never tried –”

That is tragic.

Humans can be very inventive, Jet agreed. And if we’ve nothing else to do –

“Excuse me, but there is something,” said Silver, looking down at them from where he was standing on the dining table. It was positioned at the centre of the room – the cubic of space of which had shrunk yet again – and he was working on the cable the light bulb had been hanging from before he’d removed it. “Jet?”

Ruby ignored him and kissed Jet. And then… whatever do they do next?

“I’m sure Silver would know,” said Jet solemnly, and the two of them looked up at him.

Silver raised his eyebrows. “Or, Jet, you could help me get us out of here. Come on!”

“This place is sealed,” said Ruby.

Jet leant against Ruby. “I checked, Silver.”

“You and I don’t look for the same things,” said Silver, and held out his hand to her. She gave a quick smile and leapt onto the table beside him. “If the statue – or whatever’s inside it – has us trapped here, then we must still be connected to it – perhaps in the same room. And this cable is real, so if you can provide me with a small electrical charge it should be enough for me to get us back. That should give it something of a shock as well.”

Ruby appeared on the other side of Jet. “Oh, Jet can certainly do that.”

Of course. Jet glanced at the walls, which were fractionally nearer again and abandoned her apparent frivolity, taking hold of Silver’s hand even as Ruby reached out to grab hers. There were suddenly sparks about them, and then, a brief blackness, before they found themselves back in the room of the old house, sitting semi-tangled together on the worn floorboards with the statue in pieces around them.

“Oh, well done, Silver,” said Jet, and then looked over at him, and grinned. “Ruby, he’s all singed at the edges. We must be too much for him.” She pushed against him briefly, before pulling away, and standing.

“Jet –”

“Don’t worry, Silver,” said Ruby, and kissed his head, before she moved away, too, crawling forward to pick up one of the shards of pottery. “You’re still our favourite technician.”

“That’s going a bit far, isn’t it?” Jet said, turning back.

“Well, for today, then.”

Silver twisted about to look from one to the other, and attempted a stern expression, and failed. Those two, and their games… “You were trying to distract me, weren’t you?”

“Oh, I would have said if you hadn’t spotted the cable,” Jet assured him. “And, Ruby – this time I win.”

Ruby inclined her head and gave a small smile of acknowledgement.

“Well,” said Silver, “shall we make sure this little problem really is finished?”

Ruby nodded and tightened both her hands around the largest remaining piece of it. She was entirely serious now. Yes. Whatever is inside it… Her eyes darkened from brown to black at the thought of what she’d touched before. It mustn’t be allowed out.

Jet put a hand to her arm. “And is it gone? Did we destroy it?”

“Yes,” said Ruby, and shook herself, the moment of gravity passed again. “It is. Which means –”

Jet laughed.

“Yes,” Ruby said, as she decided to stretch herself out on the old rug behind her. “Jet had a very good question, before. I believe it’s still in need of an answer…”

***

Comments

[john_amend_all]

Jet and Ruby seem to be very bright young things, as Elements go.

[thisbluespirit]

:-) With seem being the operative words, obviously...

[john_amend_all]

I hope they're more restrained in the company of humans. Or maybe not. "We're afraid your cousin was eaten by sinister manifestations *giggle*." "And you must never touch hawthorn for the rest of your life or the same thing will happen to you. *flirt*."

Hmm... I think in my head they're turning into Nyss and Emmy from TTR.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, that would explain it. I was worrying about how I'd written them for a minute... They flirt and smile and tease, but don't giggle much. As yet. ;-)

[wytchcroft]

i like your Jet; seems better defined than the original.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! Although, what with Jet never having actually been seen, I suppose that's not all that much of a compliment after all! ;-)

I think about five minutes after she was mentioned I cast Josette Simon in my head (really what she went off to do after Dayna, obv.) and she stuck.

[wytchcroft]

oh dear, i could have sworn... so much my audio memory then... let's just pretend i was being ironic or something or *scarpers to next assignment*

[thisbluespirit]

Well, Jet is mentioned in Assignment 1, she might be mentioned again in the audios - I haven't heard them all yet. Ruby's in them, but I understood the only new Elements were Gold and Ruby.

:-)

[wytchcroft]

that is a fine icon i must say, almost worth my earlier mealy-mouthed back-peddling.
i do peddle, and i can sell you a back maybe.
maybe not eh, thinking about it, nah, you're right, looks better on me.
i do love your icon though.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, well, my ungracious reactin to a compliment probably warrants a good icon at the least. (Did you just randomly like it, or do you like Ruth/Nicola Walker?)

:-)

[kaffy_r]

Ah, playful and invigorating; what a pleasure to read!

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! :-)

I'm amused by your icon - it does look like two people in a v S&S like pose.

[kaffy_r]

I'm amused by your icon - it does look like two people in a v S&S like pose.

Heh - that's why I decided to use it - it's actually a very nice icon done for me by kerravonsen. It's a picture taken from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga books (from one of the book covers, actually), of Miles Naismith Vorkosigan and his wife Etkaterina Vorsoisson Vorkosigan (I think I missed one of her last names there, but you get the idea.)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Heehee...

Oddly enough, I'm listening to a Sapphire & Steel audio with Ruby right now!

[thisbluespirit]

:-D

Heh, I do feel a bit bad about my impatience. What is the real Ruby actually like?

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

She's great - but then again, Lisa Bowerman's a great actress...

[eve11]

Ha, this was quite fun :D I'm getting, here, that part of the deal of S&S is never actually "getting" tne metaphysics involved in S&S, and just focusing on the characters... yes?

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thanks! :-)

And it's hard to say - these fics are probably really not representative because, yes, they are entirely an excuse for me to play with the characters, the various Elements (some of which we've only heard about)! I haven't really written a proper missing assignment fic yet.

But, yes - everything's a mystery, nothing quite makes sense (although in a very deliberate way, just as the camera angles are 'wrong' - blurred focus, looming items in near shot, bits of people quite often) and we don't really know who or what the characters are, either, which is much of the fascination.

What they say is that Time is like a corridor and there are things that try to get in through cracks or breaks in the corridor; also that Time itself wants to break in, and is somehow malevolent. Investigators (never seen in the show) find the breaks, presumably, and then Sapphire, Steel and various other Operators are "assigned" to stop them. Time breaks are caused usually by 'triggers' - such as juxtaposition of old and new things, old things generally, memories and strong emotions, and sometimes 'things' trying to use/make a deal with humans.

The only things we can really say about Sapphire and Steel is that they probably in some way actually are sapphire and steel, that they're not human, they've been working together for about 90 years, and do answer to some kind of authority. We never quite know how much they behave like humans, and how much they merely play at it. There is a beautifully chilling and inhuman quality to them. And they're each very different and mysterious to each other.

So, basically, it's a lot of fun to play with in fanfic.

[thisbluespirit]

I'm sorry... any excuse to start theorising about Elements... *sheepish*

[eve11]

It's appealing to me because of the flexibility of the metaphysics. I really love coming up with "technobabble" that is internally consistent if not always externally understandable. A lot of my rules for writing stuff like that is, "the characters understand it better than I do, and that's perfectly okay". :) I see echoes of that here as well, and I do like the way it gives a feeling that you are getting a glimpse into a much bigger picture.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, that's a very good way of putting it. The characters know all this stuff, they don't need to explain and it's quite uncompromising about not telling us anything it doesn't have to. It makes them very unusual "other" POV characters - they're on the outside, looking in with a very different take on things - or you have the option of a human POV character trying to make sense of them.

Given how much you love TARDIS-centric stuff, I could imagine might like it - or certainly would enjoy the fanfic possibilities! If you did want to try any time, it is all up on YouTube, has been for a while. (aralias says starting with Three might be best, and I can see hwat she means entirely, but I find it hard to imagine watching such a tiny amount of canon out of order, especially since the only explanations we ever get are in A1. It is slow, though - mostly quite deliberately, but it is, Assignment 1 especially so.)

:-)