Thank you to everyone who took part in the last Short Affair challenge.  We had some wonderful stories, and it's great to know there are tales still to be told.

Here are the prompts for the next two weeks.  You can post your story any time between now and August 20th.  

All the rules, plus the prompts themselves are down below, but the basic idea is simple. Write us a gen story, based on one or both of the prompt words, plus the colour, which is between 300 and 1000 words in length. (If you go over a little, no worries.)

Just remember, that wherever you post it (e.g. AO3), leave us link to follow.

Have fun everyone.

-Prompt Word 1 - Fence

-Prompt Word 2 – Hear

-Prompt Colour -  Black

-Last Posting Day –  20 August 2023

Challenge Rules

-Your story can be built around one or both of the prompt words plus the colour. I.E.- Word 1/Colour, Word 2/Colour, or Word 1/Word 2/Colour.

-Word Count - must be between 300 and 1000.

-All stories should be headed with ‘Short Affair’ Challenge, the due date and your title.

-Please state at the top of your post which prompt combination you are using.

-Tags - please use short_affair, gen, gen-mature or het.

-Section VII is a Gen community, so stories should be appropriate, i.e. nothing explicit or overly-graphic. However, there is the Gen-Mature tag for anything containing violence, torture or mild Het.

Two smiles of recognition appeared on their faces, which quickly faded as both men raised their weapons and aimed in the direction of the other.

Two fingers quickly squeezed the triggers and fired their bullets.

Two agents felt the projectiles fly past their heads and they each turned to see an enemy fall behind them.

Two friends smiled once again.  Each knowing he could rely on the other to protect him when needed.

AO3 has temporarily been shut down as they try to deal with a hacker attack. The mods are asking that people don't go to the site at the moment, as this adds to the traffic and makes things harder.

In the meantime, if you have a story to post, you can do so here, or on LiveJournal, (and, of course, there's always fanfiction dot net)

Hopefully they will get this resolved soon.  Not even our guys can help with this one.

“Visiting time is up,” U.N.C.L.E. head nurse, Maisie Redfearn stated, as she entered Napoleon Solo’s room.

Long-term vigils were only allowed when a patient was in serious trouble.  Once the danger had passed, partners had to abide by the rules; including sticking to scheduled visiting times.

“Napoleon needs his sleep,” she continued.

“Sleep is for the weak,” Solo replied.

“It is also for those who are recovering from injury,” Kuryakin told him, standing up to leave.

Both CEA and nurse stared open-mouthed at the Russian.  He was not known for following medical advice.

“What?” he asked. “I am not weak.”

The PicFic challenge has always been hosted by mrua7 in the past, so I hope she doesn't mind me treading on her toes with this.  The premise is simple.  Write a story based on the photograph below.  For the time being, there will be no rules for this challenge. Make it whatever length you like, and post it whenever you like.  (Hopefully, we'll be able to get back to our proper schedule, but until then we'll make do.)

The only thing you need to remember is that Section VII is a gen community. 

Here's your prompt image, and I look forward to what comes from it.

(Cross-posted to LJ and FB)