Day One - Pairing #9 – Corey & Mitch

Prompt: Regency AU

“Walk with me,” Mr. Corey said.

“Why, Mr. Corey,” Mitch replied, “Without a chaperon? It wouldn't be proper.”

“Just walk with me, ya smelly little goat,” Mr. Corey growled.

Mitch sidled up next to him,
satisfied at the knowledge that she'd gotten under his skin.

“How is the lateral pulsifier audit coming?” he asked.

“That's why you called me away, Mr. Corey? I expected something of import.” When he didn't respond, she sighed and said. “If you must know, it was going very well ... until I was interrupted by your comm. I think we'll only need two or three replacement inducer casings
this time. Not like last cycle when—”

“I didn't request this audience with you to speak of inducer casings,” he interrupted.

“You literally just asked—”

“What do you think your mother would most like for her birthday?”

She stopped cold in her tracks. She'd known of his interest—everyone who knew Mr. Corey knew that he was in love with Mother Quinn—but he'd always denied it, and often in the most abrasive way possible.

“You're admitting you like her!” She couldn't stop the broad smile from overtaking her lips.

“I am doing no such thing. She is captain of this ship and, technically, my superior, and I—“

“Yoooou like my mommy, you like my mommy,” she sing-songed, wiggling a funny little dance to express her glee.

“Oh, never mind!” he stomped off, his face red with anger. “I should have known I couldn't talk to you.”

“Anything having to do with Earth's oceans,” she said to his back.

He stopped and turned slowly. His expression was still stony but she thought she saw hope in his eyes.

“Even just the colors,” she said, shrugging. “Blues, greens, the colors of sand. Anything ocean or beachy, really.”

He looked at her for a long time, as though assessing whether or not she could be trusted. Apparently satisfied, he gave her a subtle, grateful nod, then turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the corridor.

“Yoooou like my mommmmmy,” she hummed to herself as she headed back down to engineering.

A friend told me about Ficlet February last week, and it seems to be perfect timing. Although I had a fun (and ultimately successful) NaNo last November, my writing chops have been languishing. I just haven't been feeling it lately. My stories are all there, clamoring as always to be told, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to put pen to paper. One of my biggest obstacles has been the character development for the ensemble cast  of Unbound Redemption. (Story was born a few years ago during NaNo.)

I thought I'd play with this Ficlet idea, but do it my own way and for my own purposes. (My understanding is that Ficlet February is usually done with Fan Fiction.) So I dragged out my eight characters and made a "pairings" list with all of them. It came out to 36 pairings. I only need 29 for this project, but I found myself wasting a lot of time trying to decide which seven pairings should be eliminated. So I decided to let chance decide all of it. I numbered the list and today went to a randomizing site and got the "9" back. On my list, that's Corey and Mitch. Should be fun. They pretty much can't stand each other.

Assuming I feel my Ficlet stories are appropriate to share here, I'll post them for fun. We'll see. At any rate, thanks to my good friend, Cognomen, for the inspiration and support as I try to pull myself out of this writing funk!