#Surprisingly this doesn't have lasting consequences but it does make things tense for a while

[cupcakeshakesnake]

Something walks the house, and Peggy Hodgson has failed to kill it.

[1-800-c0sm1c]

꒰snooze !꒱

after an intense match in the apex games, there's only one legend crypto would even dare let his guard down around.

character x legend!reader

includes crypto !

warnings : none.

word count : 1268

a/n : can you tell i've been streaming lovejoy's music recently with the cmwyl lyric i shoved in there ? yeah i'm obsessed sorry not sorry 🫶

crypto was not one to let his guard down, ever. on the dropship, he was notorious for his silent and cold personality. how you managed to get him to warm up to you, let alone have an actual friendship with him was a mystery to your fellow legends.

after finishing a particularly rough match, you had offered crypto to come back with you to your apartment for a celebratory evening. he usually would be quick to decline, after all he always had work outside of the apex games that needed his attention. however, he's noticed he has a hard time saying no to you, especially when you look up at him with excitement in your eyes. crypto is sure he'd bang his head on any doorframe you seemed suitable for you two to go through if you looked at him the same way you always do.

he pretends to seem annoyed when agreeing, attempting to make the other legends around you on the dropship assume that he wasn't actually this quick to give in. although he highly doubts that anyone else's doe eyes would have the same effect on him that yours do, and he's not sure whether that's a blessing or a curse.

crypto's now relaxing on your couch, or at least, what he would consider relaxing. it's rare he gets a chance away from his work outside of when participating in the apex games, but he always can't help but feel a sense of guilt rush over him whenever he neglects it. so, even though it may not look like it, him sitting with his muscles tensed and brows furrowed, is his idea of taking a break.

you try your best not to laugh at him, the last thing you'd want to do is make him uncomfortable. but sometimes his awkwardness is amusing, and you choose to enjoy it while it lasts. "you look like you have a lot on your mind." you state, jumping up onto the couch next to him. "i always do." he replies, nonchalantly. you shrug in response, "yeah, i guess that's true. i just meant, you know, like you need a break." crypto pauses for a moment. he can't think straight when you're staring at him like that, like you see through him. was it that obvious how pent up he was? he guesses if it was obvious to anyone else they wouldn't have the courage to bring it up. not like you, never afraid to speak your mind, and incredibly stubborn.

"...아니, i'm fine." he finally answers, you don't look convinced in the slightest. "your eyebags look like they're working overtime at the local grocery store. when's the last time you got a full night's rest?" he looks away again, not sure whether he should answer honestly or not. he's probably gotten about 5 hours this week, and that's being generous. "it doesn't matter, i hardly notice when the time is passing anyway." he tries to play it off, hoping you wont press further, and surprisingly, you drop it. "yeah, sure. if you say so. if you're functioning i guess i can't get on your case about it." he lets out a breath of relief he hadn't even realized he was holding, and instantly regrets the answer he just gave you.

shit. maybe sleep was important. untensing his body even for such a short amount of time made the consequences of crypto's lack of sleep catch up to him real quick. he holds back a yawn, before attempting to strike up another conversation with you so he doesn't completely shut down. "you said you wanted to celebrate, what did you have in mind?" "oh, i don't know. i usually just end up with some cider in the hot tub by the end of the night. what do you think?"

he thinks its a horrible idea, but maybe if you begged him enough he'd think about it. just, not in his current situation. there'd be nothing more embarrassing than passing out in a hot tub and potentially drowning. plus, depending on who was around, removing his jacket was off limits for crypto. he's hoping you'll realize on your own how dumb of an idea that really was, and you'll be okay with just watching a movie or something. whatever gets him home the fastest.

you pout at him dramatically, "you wanna go home already? but you've been here for less than an hour. you'll have all the time in the world to be a boring nerd later, okay?" oh god, did he say that out loud? maybe it was too late for him, he was already totally delirious. he plays it off by looking annoyed, but with how exhausted he obviously looks it comes across more as a cranky toddler who's been woken up from their nap earlier than they'd like. you'd never tell crypto this as you value your life, but his grumpier side is actually really cute.

"what do you want to do then? since all my ideas are horrible.." you ask, heavy sarcasm in your tone that would make anyone else think you've spent too much time around crypto, but that he finds to be quite amusing. you're rubbing off on him too, just in hopefully less noticeable ways. he thinks about your question for a second, realizing he actually doesn't have any better suggestions and huffs a sigh and shrugs. "i don't know.." he mumbles.

you laugh under your breath and quickly clear your throat when he glances back at you, "well.. what do you usually do in your free time? outside of all the extra… stuff… you do?" he shrugs again nonchalantly, "i don't have time for other stuff." glancing down at his watch, he tries to pretend like the minutes aren't passing slower than ever. he can't even use the excuse that he's wasting his time. and even if he could, he wouldn't use it to guilt you.

"if you did have time, then. what would you do with it?" "sleep." crypto responds almost immediately. his eyes have started to get much more difficult to keep open, and he knows once they're closed they won't open again for a bit. you've noticed this, and subtlety move closer towards him until your shoulder touches his. you're not sure if it's the padding in his jacket or if he's really that out of it but he doesn't react at all to the distance between you being much smaller than it was before. "i mean, nobody's stopping you. i have a spare room or you can crash here on the couch if you want."

crypto quickly shakes his head, feeling slightly lightheaded afterwards. "that won't be necessary." you decide to test the waters by gently laying your head on his shoulder. this time he flinches, but he doesn't push you away. "are you sure? you look exhausted, i don't think you could make the walk back to your apartment." he scoffs, but doesn't deny his tiredness anymore. "whatever." crypto mutters.

you lift your head up to let him adjust on the couch, and he seems insistent on falling asleep sitting up perfectly straight. "that cannot be comfortable.." you laugh as you place your head back down and gently move his to lay on top of yours. crypto almost sputters out a protest but finds he's too tired to care anymore and instead simply says "wake me up in an hour." as he yawns. "yeah right. i'll see you in 8." you smile at your own remark, and crypto smiles too before closing his eyes finally and falling asleep.

[thegeminisage]

it IS. star trek update time. i am so behind because my fucking schedule got fucked. wednesday we watched "meridian" and "defiant," thursday we watched "fascination" and "past tense" part i (i know), and last night we caught "past tense" part ii and "life support" even though we were gonna do them in release order and start voyager first.

rip. we couldn't start voyager with like 30 minutes left. it hasn't been the first time we've had to go slightly out of order and it probably won't be the last. anyway, we've officially made it to 1995! 1994 ended with a string of surprisingly mid ds9 episodes, some i might even go so far as to call duds...

meridian:

had the summary of this one ahead of time ("quark attempts to use kira in the holosuite") and was braced for the worst. i was braced for deanna-barclay's-sex toy 2.0. at one point i was like "if they do it in this episode it's worse because they KNOW it's wrong. in tng they acted like they didn't know better."

thankfully they did not do it. the one thing i can say here is that they did not do this to my girl kira. and, you know, she had odo's support! it's always nice to see them together.

actually, the first scene of this episode sent me to fucking mars. first, kira asking odo about food. i've been wondering about this too so i'm glad she did. SECONDLYYY, kira pretending she and odo were lovers and then her calling him sweetheart again even though they were alone. odo looked like he was going to think about that every day for the rest of his life. i gotta say he does "gruff pining man who refuses to admit his feelings" very very well. could ANYONE really deserve kira? no, except someone who looks at her like she's hung the moon every time he think she's not looking back. bareil who. get out of here.

i just can't believe she touched his hand. maybe odo DOESN'T make hands to touch people with maybe he makes hands specifically so major kira can touch them. AAAAAAAGHGHGH

i absolutely HATED quark in this episode. i am trying so so hard to like him and prior to this i'd gotten up to a "slightly more positive than neutral" but we set back a lot of hard work here. maybe i'm the one racist against ferengis, not sisko, but it sure would help me be less racist if quark wasn't trying to put major kira in a holosuite. it was particularly cruel i think to tell her she'd won some kind of prize when "i've never won anything before."

it is kind of fun to watch odo do his kira thing and his quark thing at the same time, like him or not i respect that quark is one of odo's love interests. in one scene he got to be protective of kira WHILE bullying quark so that must have been a good day for him. i wish it had been a good day for me also

i had seen gifs of quark in the nightgown and when i googled "quark in a dress" i got entirely different sets of pics so it was fun to see where this finally came from! it was decent revenge, also, but i feel like quark never suffers any consequences when he actually does cross a line (vs just doing petty crime). like when he was dating that maquis vulcan or whatever it was. it makes it SO hard to like him and i am TRYING SO HARD. i like ds9 so much. i want to like the entire cast.

anyway, the actual plot. jadzia dax...........i am also trying so hard with her but GIRL you are gonna run off with some guy you met two days ago?? he is gonna leave his whole planet and age 60 years without them for a girl he met two days ago?? can y'all calm down???

it's even more damning because it's jadzia especially; she's very young, and if you ignore what i know about season 6 spoilers she would likely still be very much alive AS JADZIA when the planet comes back, but if not she'd still be alive in a new host. if friendships can run multiple lifetimes, why not romances? she could literally wait for him. instead she is gonna throw her whole life away

that said, the two of them WERE incredibly charming. they had great chemistry and jadzia being nervous in the tree because of curzon's tree trauma was extremely cute. i thought julian was a good sport about it too, considering - i was so worried he'd be a freak.

but my FAVORITE part of this episode was dax and sisko saying their goodbyes. they're both really good actors, especially the guy playing sisko, that i welled up even though i knew jadzia wasn't going anywhere and wouldn't have been THAT upset if she was. i love when sisko calls her old man and I LOVE when he loves people. it was such a sweet scene.

also, sisko with the kids was so cute. he's got the dad energy 24/7 and he's such an easygoing guy. i could watch him do anything. play with kids. mess around with his little baseball. yell at admirals. brush his teeth. literally anything. he's so fucking talented he could pull everything off.

ultimately, with a horrible b-plot and an only barely passable a-plot, this ep was a dud, but even ds9's duds are better than tng's mids

defiant:

SPEAKING OF TNG.............

okay wait first i have to comment on kira's little burnout scene. i can't believe she fucking yelled at julian and instead of getting mad he was like ah okay i see you're overworked i'm ordering you to have a day off. HE'S SUCH A GOOD PERSONNNN he makes me crazy i love him so much

i DO think it was a little mean to have quark be kira's babysitter and offer kira a holo program considering. you know. but i assume the episodes were written in isolation of one another

anyway, RIKER?? i always kind of wished riker and deanna could come to ds9 with worf because they were WASTED on tng, but NOT LIKE THIS!!!

he totally tricked me. i didn't pick up that he was shady until kira was showing him around the defiant and even then i thought maybe there was a hostage situation or some alien was controlling him......NO! it was the RANDOM ASS CLONE from a random ass tng episode!!! girl, WHAT??

him peeling off the sideburns was so funny. like, this riker doesn't have those. and at first i was like the difference is so minimal NOBODY would notice but then i couldn't stop looking at his beld little cheeks. horrible.

i love when dax and kira almost had girl talk about fucking riker but then she didn't even fuck him. sad. i mean it would have been under false pretenses which is kinda sketchy (which is probably why they made time to point out they DIDN'T fuck actually, good job ds9 staff), but still. it could have been fun.

i never did figure out why evil riker (sorry for calling him evil but he kidnapped kira my best friend) had beef with o'brien...was he just trying to get him to leave? does he hate everyone who ever worked on a transporter? i forgot the details of that other ep, and i remain mystified.

i love whatever sisko and dukat have going on. they hate each other but they love to flirt with each other. sisko should be allowed to flirt more often ESPECIALLY with men.

kira did a great job sabotaging that fucking ship after only being on board for .5 seconds. you can take the girl out of the warzone but you will never take the warzone out of the girl. they're lucky she didn't have their fucking heads i love her SO MUCH

i was sad about evil riker having to go to a cardassian labor camp...nobody deserves that. maybe vedek winn deserves--no, nobody deserves that. i like that kira promised to get him out, but i checked for spoilers and apparently we don't hear anything else about him until lower decks. which, good for them for providing closure, but i'm still not looking forward to that show.

also like HE WAS RIGHT. this is the second time someone from starfleet has been like "those cardassians are up to some shady shit" and everybody called them crazy BUT THEY WERE RIGHT. the cardassians are always up to something shady!!!

fascination:

i am sighing so deeply.

okay, right off the bat, i was at LEAST relieved jake finally got dumped by his FULLY GROWN ADULT GF. that was maybe the high point of this episode??

lwaxana troi is back. this is the first time we've seen her since i decided no one is allowed to be mean to her anymore. i do maybe perhaps wish she had touched odo a LITTLE less.

very sad when iodo thought he and kira were going on a little holiday date and she was like yeah remember my boyfriend? get out of here!

the bit with julian and obrien talking about how much racquetball they played was pretty good actually. like it was a good set-up to the thing later where julian was like oh buddy i know i said i was getting sick of racquetball before but i am actually down for HOWEVER many games it takes. he's such a good person. kill meee

jake falling for kira first was HORRIBLE. i was starting to wonder if he had an older woman complex. it was starting to get upsetting!!! someone put a stop to this!!!

"the office has changed winn" i don't think it has i think she's still an evil bitter old bitch. actually i got proved right later in fascination. so.

okay, actually, it was a little funny when dax fell for sisko and then he started nervous laughing about it thinking she was joking because this is NOT like fucking twins together and then she was no im dead serious lets fuck and he got out of there like the road runner so he could take her to sickbay. he's a good person too

also when kira and bashir started going at it, mostly because both of them were equally embarrassed/horrified/begging someone to get them apart with a cold water hose. i bet they were like let us NEVER speak of this again

however most of this episode was VERY uncomfortable and unfunny.........like, quark going after KEIKO? gross. i hate him. and, love and light, of COURSE it was lwaxana's fault...she was so toned down in this ep i almost forgot she was there

final note, it was absolutely miserable watching obrien and keiko fight...i want them to be happy! i can't believe they almost got divorced and there wasn't even a spell or anything happening. obrien was NOT at his best here and he's lucky he's good at apologies. in his defense on one point she DID ask him to decide what to do and got mad about his decision...but like, was he wrong? the red dress DOES look fantastic.

past tense parts i & ii:

I WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS............

ok some bg explanation required. ever since seeing this art and this art i became a little obsessed with an aos version of city on the edge of forever where they visit the 90s. the 90s would have about the same level of nostalgia to a modern audience as the 30s did to tos's original audience, right? it's one of those things i always thought about writing but will probably never seriously get around to. but in my mind palace, the aos version would HAVE to be in san fran - the geographical opposite of new york, and also the climate opposite (socal in summer vs nyc in winter). like i have half a plot sketched out in my head, this is a thing i have given SERIOUS thought to - i just don't know much about this era in trek's history

SO WHEN I REALIZED. THEY HAD TIME TRAVELED. which i did as soon as i saw the guns. i was BESIDE MYSELF with joy

and how absolutely fitting that it's 2024 in that show and in real life! i want to rewatch these episodes on august 30th.

also, sorry, if it's august in san fran why are they so cold...we looked up temps and the LOWEST low is 55, which IS chilly, but they were acting like they were freezing to death lol

this episode is ABSOLUTELY the spiritual sequel to city on the edge of forever. back to a dark period in earth history, stranded there, a good person has to die to uphold history, etc etc. it was SO GOOD.

it aged both poorly and fantastically. every time they were like well the deaths of these innocent people made the world pull their shit together...uh, no, we passed that opportunity several school shootings and one pandemic ago. on the other hand, every time they basically turned to the camera and shamed us for letting it get this bad...what was that line, "causing people to suffer because you hate them is really terrible, but causing people to suffer because you don't care is worse." so true the news has numbed us into total apathy at even the most horrific of injustices "they'll remember how to care, in this century" WILL WE?? absolutely spooky and uncanny

references to the internet were really good. we gotta log on to the net. it won't let me in without my ID. ok are you in a republican state??

julian fighting his own internal nature every time he had an opportunity to save someone and couldn't. i was getting nervous even when he gave that woman a chocolate bar to treat her blood sugar. HE'S SUCH A GOOD PERSONNN

wah. sisko bring julian breakfast

i KNEW that guy who jumped in the fight was bell the second he did it. i knew he was gonna die and sisko was gonna have to replace him. absolutely over the moon about it. sorry to bell of course but we don't get nearly enough sisko content. the other characters in these episodes almost felt like afterthoughts, except for dax and julian a little bit.

even dax just spent the whole episode seducing and then radicalizing a capitalist though. which, good for her, but her scenes were SO BORING compared to everything my best friend sisko was doing

i did have a good laugh and kira and obrien landing in various wrong eras though. "i broke my nose" ma'am your hand in marriage

fun surprise of this episode was the really, really annoying mouthy guard also getting radicalized. i didn't see it coming, because he seemed really determined to get himself killed (to the point of sisko having to manhandle him to get him to shut up even a little lol) and i thought he was just there to make sisko's job harder. but then you hit the end and he has this come to jesus moment in real time before your eyes...i don't believe we'll remember how to care on a global level in this century, but THAT i did believe. it was SUCH a fun nice surprise, i really enjoyed that

my only complaint is that i wish they had played up the danger to sisko more - like we all know he can't die, but i wish the characters had worried about it more. i think the implication was that webb didn't have to die here, but someone did, and since it wasn't sisko, it was him? mush as i love kira and o'briens gag, i feel like we could have spent more time on the fact that sisko was willing to die - and leave his own son behind - if it preserved the timeline, and there was a very real danger of that happening. i really like julian staying behind when he didn't have to, and i felt like it was BECAUSE of this specific reason - he was desperate to prevent sisko's death. which he sort of did indirectly do, but i feel like that danger hanging over everyone would have for a more satisfying conclusion

oh wait final note. the fact that sisko read up on the fucking rules of acquisition because quark accused him of being racist a few episodes ago. KING behavior. i absolutely love that

life support:

...because it turns out he WAS racist against ferengi! i had nearly forgotten but jake reminded us that sisko once said ferengi and humans were too different to be friends. damn. tng is always forgetting its own episodes but ds9 remembers stuff that even i forgot

anyway. was this one EVER rough.

first of all, the b-plot of "nog doesn't know how to act around women" does not go well with the a-plot of "kira loses her lover one inch at a time while modern medicine turns him into a zombie in the name of politics"

i think the b-plot was bad because nog and jake's issue isn't "we had a moment of culture clash" it was "nog is treating women like property when they don't want to be treated that way." like, it doesn't matter if that's what ferengi do, he's NOT DATING FERENGI so he can't expect them to ACT like ferengi women. this was not about the ethics of "can we really protest sexism if it's a cultural thing" it was about nog failing to read a social cue. jake wasn't the only angry one, the girls weren't about it either

that said, this would never have happened if jake hadn't tried to ditch his friend for a girl. at least the girl was finally his own age i guess

i do like that he asked odo to fix it though. he was like odo i need you to be SUCH a huge bitch to nog and me for a little while and odo was like say no more sir

a-plot of this episode was somehow even worse. firstly, the OFFICE did NOT change winn. she is still a power-grubbing heartless old bitch, as evidenced by her outright refusing to lie to bareil for his own health when all she did in season 1 and 2 were lie to get her own way. she CHEATED to get this job and now she doesn't wanna fucking do it, she wants to use a dying (zombified) man as her scapegoat and tool. i can't wait until this bitch dies

and look. i never liked bareil. that first sex vision he and kira had in the orb really put me off. it seemed to make her deeply uncomfortable more than flustered-embarrassed the way you'd get if you'd seen your crush naked in the orb, you know? like i thought they were setting him up to be a bad guy. by the time i realized that wasn't the case it was too late. he always just kinda rubbed me the wrong way

but not even bareil deserves this!! me at the beginning of the episode yeah he's going to hell for touching kira in her orb vision me by the end can we please let him die already PLEEEASE please please

julian in this episode was so sad...he wanted to help, and instead he was being forced by literally everyone to use his doctor powers for evil. i think he was relieved near the end when he (and his patient) finally got to be finished with the torture.

kira's scene at the end was amazing, of course. she's already gone through so much and this is just one more shitty thing!!! she's so strong and i wish she didn't have to be. PLEASE treat her really niceys.

i can't say i'm sorry to get done with bareil's scenes, though, since i never liked him much. but i MUCH would have rather winn died instead.

whew!! that was a long one. NEXT TIME.....................we begin voyager. please please please please be good