Quarantine is boring, especially when one of your main ways to kill time is playing music, but your downstairs neighbour thinks they are the only person stuck inside and has dedicated themselves to some impressive levels of sensitivity and complaining.

So, I called out for prompts for ficlets, and wrote a bunch. It was a hugely fun way to spend 24 hours. As with the Plane Chronicles, I had to fit the stories into four screenshots on my phone notes app, in order to post them to Twitter, which adds an interesting challenge from limited space.

A few people asked to have them all collated together, so here they are. They're in roughly chronological order. They're largely unchanged, just edited for spelling/grammar and clarity.

As always, reviews are hugely appreciated. A few of these will become longer pieces, so knowing what you loved and would like to see expanded is super helpful!

Also as always, massive shout out to the fandom who not only gave amazing prompts, but also such enthusiastic feedback and input. You guys are an absolute blast to write with and for.

Prompt from reeserixh: Pre canon. Donna is talking with Rachel about the other time at the office, and Harvey over hears from outside her office.

Rachel's forgotten to close the door to her office, and that's not unusual, she does it all the time, but Harvey doesn't have his phone on him for once and he's not distracted by text messages or phone calls, and so he hears the conversation that drifts out into the hallway.

It's Donna and it's Rachel, and they're gossiping, because they do, and he makes a mental note to tell Donna that she's meant to be at her desk, and then he hears the words Cameron Dennis, and that stops him, because why the hell is Donna talking to Rachel about Cameron Dennis?

He's just outside the office, close enough to the wall that he can't be seen by Rachel and Donna, and he fights the ridiculous urge to push himself up against the wall for extra invisibility, but he doesn't, because he's not a spy and because he'd look fucking stupid.

"Once," Donna says, and he freezes, because he knows, he just knows what they're talking about.

"Oh my god," Rachel says, and he can practically feel her lean towards Donna, and she's somewhere between scandalised and hopeful. "Donna, that's huge. Why didn't you…"

"Try?"

"Yeah."

Harvey knows Donna, and he can feel her turning her words over in her head. She's articulate and smart, and she won't say something unless it's what she wants to say, and that's why it stings when Donna says, "I would have wanted to. Try. But Harvey - he wasn't ready," because she's right, and because he thinks he still isn't.

"Would you still want to try?" Rachel asks, and it's a question he feels like he shouldn't wait for the answer to, but he finds his feet are rooted to the spot and he can't make himself leave.

"I try not to ask myself that," Donna says, and it's wistful, and it's sad, and not for the first time has he thought about him and her and called himself a coward.

"Mmm," Rachel says, and then, with a sparkle in her voice, says, "And, was he…"

"Oh my god, Rachel, was he." He hears her chair shift as she sits back. "He ruined me for my next three boyfriends."

"Really." The lilt in Rachel's voice is mischievous, and he never thought he'd enjoy being the subject of a gossip session between two best friends, but he thinks this might not be so bad.

"Really." Donna is probably leaning into Rachel, her eyebrows raised as if she's spilling national secrets. "You know when you're with someone, and you just know that this is it?" Rachel must nod, and Donna continues, "it was like that the first time he kissed me. It was like lightning, Rachel, I swear to god. It was like someone had drawn him a fucking map. He just…knew me. It was something else all together. I couldn't think straight for a week after."

"Could you walk straight?"

"You watch it, missy," Donna says, but she doesn't deny it.

Harvey feels his shoulders square, and he tells his own pride off, because Donna is sharing something so deep and so intimate and something she's tucked away for years and this isn't the moment for him to dredge up his stupid masculine pride, because she's not talking about fucking. She's talking about love and that he was it for her, and that's far more than he's worthy of.

It will take years before he realises that night twisted her around him the same way it twisted him around her, and he goes to her door, and they don't think.

end