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alovesongshewrote · 4 years

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Almost A Thousand Years - Trollhunters/3Below | Hisirdoux Casperan

Plot: You’ve known Hisirdoux Casperan for almost a thousand years. You’ve hated him for almost a thousand years. And for almost a thousand years, you’ve been cursed to feel each others pain. But somewhere in that time, things changed. [Hisirdoux Casperan x Mostly Gender Neutral but Probably Female Presenting Based on How Historical Men Treat Them!Reader]

Word Count: 1,445

Warnings: swearing i think?

A/N: Last chapter before we’re back to wizards

Tags: @furblrwurblr @rainningdoom @fluffydmonkey @blondie0458 @sitherin-mxschief

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Jim Lake Jr.’s mom was really familiar.

Fortunately, she didn’t recognize you, even as you studied under her at the hospital and watched out for her son in your free time.

Protecting the Trollhunter was something you had stumbled into.

After your return from a place you’d rather not think about ever again, you found Arcadia. A safe little town in California where you could hide for the time being.

Then the trolls found you.

It wasn’t your fault that you’d nearly killed Blinky. He snuck up on you, and you were very jumpy. Fortunately, you’d figured out that you weren’t under attack before you could do any real damage. It wasn’t too long after that when you found out your new mentor’s son was the Trollhunter, protector of trollkind and slayer of Gumm-Gumms, wielder of the amulet created by your first mentor, Merlin.

This kid was in way over his head.

You had to protect him.

So, you helped to teach him how to use a sword, how to fight and how to survive. You helped his friend, Toby, to throw a decent punch and knock out a human opponent with pressure points. You were a cool older sibling who they could talk to about the stress of the job. And girls.

When Claire joined the party, you helped her practice magic. You helped her learn to control it.

You were quite the gang. One immortal, who everyone believed to be a college student, and three high schoolers in charge of kicking the darkness back to whence it came.

You protected those kids and their troll dads. You made excuses, forged notes, fought off Mr. Strickler, the whole nine yards. Somehow, you’d avoided sharing your past with the prying teens. They didn’t know you’d once been a Gumm-Gumm spy. You were just a cool mage who hung around for fun.

That all came crashing down when Bular crawled out of the woodwork, revealed your identity, almost killed your friends, and got you in a chokehold for a solid two minutes.

Centuries of work were finally paying off, he would, at last, have his revenge! He would regain his honour after being so shamefully defeated the last time he fought you.

Then Jim killed him. Rip.

You got your old sword back though. That was nice.

The trollhunter may have saved your life and given you your sword back, but the damage was done. You all avoided each other after that.

That was a lie, you were still looking out for these damn kids. You owed it to Barbara, who had grown up to be a fantastic doctor and who still had a few plastic bones in a box in the attic. She had been so kind and welcoming to you, you had to make sure her son came home every day. It was a difficult task when said son was all too willing to yeet himself into the Darklands, but you managed for the most part.

And when you heard a voice that followed you for centuries talking to your kids, it was the Darklands all over again. There was nothing you could do but watch.

You could have laughed at how much Jim hated Douxie. The kid had no idea he was telling a centuries-old wizard to go back to where he came from. You kept your eye on the conversation, waiting until it ended. Then, with no other choice available to you, you followed after the wizard.

How Douxie had built himself a life in Arcadia without you knowing was incredible and you respected the hell out of him for it. But you didn’t know if you loved it.

You followed behind him, silent as the night. And then you realised just what was happening. You stopped and went home after that.

And when you got there you screamed.

You screamed, and threw a sword at the wall, and broke several plates because this wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to see him again. Now he was in danger, and it was your fault.

You didn’t leave your house for a few days.

Then the teachers at Jim’s school went nuts, and you figured you should get back in the field.

You’d been monitoring Claire’s sudden illness from afar when he showed up again, this time a waiter at whatever restaurant this was. At some point, Claire left, and came back, and was acting... weird. Something was very wrong.

But that didn’t matter because there he was again. It was like you couldn’t escape him.

It was an active struggle to keep yourself away. Literally, an active struggle.

You’d tried to put it out of your mind, but the more you saw him, the more you remembered. The things that took you hadn’t only tortured you, trying to turn you into their full-time servant, but they’d also put some kind of spell or curse on you.

It was after the third one left if you remembered correctly. The remaining duo had been so angry, specifically at Merlin for some reason, so they put some kind of curse on you, forcing you to make attempts on Douxie’s life whenever he was in your general vicinity.

Why they went after Douxie instead of Merlin himself you’d never know. The wizard was an easier target while he slept, but nope. They went for Douxie.

You were confused, angry, and hurt. At both parties. You had been tortured for ten years. Had he not felt any of it? Had he not cared enough to help you? Or even stop your pain which he must’ve been feeling? It felt like a betrayal of sorts. He kissed you and then didn’t come for you when you were in danger. Was that all he wanted?

Even though you were upset by your apparent abandonment, you didn’t want Douxie dead. This wasn’t the twelfth century anymore, and you had to admit to yourself, you were still in love with him. You weren’t going to kill him.

So you clung to the roof, even after Douxie had left for the night. You stayed in place until the sun rose, struggling not to go after him. Eventually, you let go, moving on with your day, avoiding Hisirdoux Casperan to the best of your ability.

You actually did a decent job until the Eternal Night.

It was a pretty nasty battle, but you were handling it pretty well.

Or you were until you got yourself backed into a corner by yet another Gumm-Gumm calling you a traitor, probably facing certain death when someone struck the thing with a guitar.

“Casperan!?”

“(Y/N)!? What are you doing here?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, crawling to your feet, trying to keep yourself from throwing the sword in your hand at Douxie’s head.

“I- you’re right. Are you okay?”

“No, I-” your voice broke and you backed away further, “I’m not. Get away from me,”

You ran before you could see the pain leak into Douxie’s eyes before you could see the heartbreak on his face.

Ten minutes later the fight was finished.

A little after that, Jim and Claire were off to New Jersey.

You stayed behind.

Why did you do that? You asked yourself the same question. Staying in Arcadia put Douxie in danger and forced you into close proximity with the man who’d left you for dead.

But still, you stayed.

Maybe it was to protect Toby and Arrrgh, maybe it was because you liked your small apartment, maybe it was because you knew there was more trouble on the horizon. Or maybe it was because you were still in love with that stupid wizard.

You lost a lot of sleep over it. You saw his face in your sleep, thought of him when you practiced medicine. Every time you woke up from a war-related nightmare, you remembered how comforting his presence was. You remembered every hug he’d ever given you, the jokes he made, and that kiss. You remembered that kiss.

All you had was memories because if you even looked at his face, you’d kill him.

You did your best to distract yourself. You teamed up with Toby, Arrrgh, Steve, Eli and the Akiridions to stop an alien threat. It still wasn’t enough.

And when the alien threat was gone, you felt pain all over your body. It didn’t belong to you. You weren’t too alarmed, usually, torture was worse than this, but it kinda felt like Douxie had been dragged down the street by something for six(teen) blocks.

You were about to mention it when your posse ran into a familiar familiar.

“Beware! You, you! Are in grave danger!”

“Archie?”

#hisirdoux x reader #hisirdoux casperan x reader #douxie x reader #douxie imagine #hisirdoux imagine #almost a thousand years #aaty #trollhunters #hisirdoux #hisirdoux casperan #douxie #toa douxie #toa hisirdoux

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

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September 17: 3x07 Day of the Dove

I am incredibly discombobulated today—usual weekend nocturnal shenanigans I guess! Anyway it’s somehow midnight. Gonna try to write up these note on the Classic episode The Day of the Dove in as efficient a manner as possible.

Hmm, a planet with wavy pink Fraggle plants. I like it already.

But where is Spock? Very suspicious.

I really appreciate Kirk giving a little speech to set up the overall question/issue for us. (I know he does this all the time with the Captain’s logs but this is out loud and so… more obviously expository.)

Oh no, it’s our old friends…the Klingons.

I will admit that this ONE TIME, the Klingon is being reasonable. Like, it is reasonable to think that Kirk and the Enterprise attacked his ship, given that his hip WAS attacked, and who else would it be?

Three years of peace between the Klingons and the Federation? That is inclusive of the show so all this tension must technically be “peace” and also implies there was something more like a direct war going on, like, right before Kirk got the captaincy.

Zoolander voice: What is this, a colony of the INVISIBLE?

“We have no devil. But we understand the habits of yours.”

No takers? No takers on the torture? No volunteers to be mercilessly tortured by the Klingons?

Star Trek Beyond could have had Kirk and Chekov bond over being brothers! I mean, to other people.

They’ll kill 100 hostages at the first sign of treachery. He does know there are only 400-some people on the ship right? Maybe you should pace yourself, Kang.

Kirk’s so badass he needs MULTIPLE guns trained on him just to use the phone.

Oh-ho secret message to Spock. Which version of the iPhone will be capable of doing THAT?

The Klingons are “suspended in transit” is an awfully nice way of saying they’re just dematerialized atoms in space. Philosophy major and/or Bones nightmare fuel.

How did Kang not see this coming, by the way? Like, he just says “I’m taking your ship now, me and my 6 men versus your 400-some men, and I’ll do this by simply declaring it to be so. Now let’s beam up to your ship, where I’ll be greatly outnumbered, and there are armed security guards all around me.” Guess he’s been reading The Secret!

WIFE AND SCIENCE OFFICER

Aka the most important part of this whole episode.

Kirk’s face is very ?????? You can have both????

It’s legitimately not even important for her to be the science officer tbqh. Like that is so gratuitous. That’s just in there to drive me insane.

"We're prisoners, somehow, after I demanded to come on the ship, assuming they'd just give it to me without any kind of fight. How DID this happen?”

Federation death camps lol—someone’s been watching Fox News.

I do kind of wonder… is this an actual rumor that goes around the Klingon homeworld or is it something that the alien entity put in her head specifically to make her angrier right now? I mean it really could be either.

I also appreciate this episode for being pretty much the only one to actually attempt to give the Klingons a reason for being as they are. The Romulans… maybe aren’t well-described, but they do have a sort of regalness to them, appropriate for being related to Vulcans, and you can kind of imagine that they are the way they are because they’re Vulcans without the intense self-control. Plus they’re literally only in 2 TOS eps and in the second, the Federation are the aggressors. But the Klingons show up a half-dozen times only to be depicted each time as just like Cartoonishly Bad, aggressive, violent, and selfish for basically no reason. And I mean, some people really are!! But TOS has so much nuance in other places, that it always seemed a little disappointing to me that the Klingons are really just like ‘well we’re just bad and we hate everyone and we really like killing I guess.” At least in this ep there’s a little more added to that: that there is poverty on their world, that they feel aggrieved, that they feel unprotected, that taking and conquering is how they look after themselves…

I think that’s later in the episode though.

He’s detaining them in the LOUNGE lol. With their favorite dishes available to them to eat. Absolutely barbarous conditions.

I can’t believe Chekov is hanging in the elevator with the cool kids. Like, one of these things really isn’t like the others.

Kang is officially sure of himself for someone currently imprisoned in the lounge, that most fearsome of Federation death camps.

Hmm, could the glittery light alien have taken over??

You know what, that's a lot of tasks for Johnson to do all by himself: search the whole ship, fix the engines, and free 400 people.

Sulu would love this: everyone gets a sword!!

“Bridge. I gotta show this to Sulu immediately.”

Klingons have maintained a dueling tradition. That’s interesting. Finally some characterization going on.

Spock is really living up to his logical nature today. Everyone else has gone off the emotional deep end and he’s like “have you considered this completely rational explanation that accounts for the actual, observed facts??”

Whoops Chekov is actually an only child. Scratch that previous Beyond headcanon. (Interesting that his dead brother does really resemble Sam though—killed on a research colony??)

Love that Sulu knows that about him though.

Oh, that’s a pretty schematic picture of the Enterprise. I want that on a t-shirt.

Lol the pan out to the armory, now filled with… swords!!

Do ALL of these men have a fetish for swords? Sulu and fencing, Spock displaying swords in his quarters, and Kirk in his San Francisco apartment, and Scotty salivating over this Scottish blade.

“Klingon units.”

Finally Sulu gets his sword! It’s what he deserves.

Love that the shiny light alien also has a fetish for swords.

Oh no, it’s our old adversary, an alien life force.

What is the alien’s purpose? Um, I’m pretty sure its purpose is to start shit.

“An appropriate choice of terms, Captain.” I don’t even remember what this is referring to but I think it’s pretty clear that Spock is enjoying himself during a crisis again.

Bones, being so dramatic. Were there atrocities? He’s talking about the Klingons as if they were literally hacking off limbs—it’s a few stab wounds here and there, chill.

Oooh, time to behave like military men—strong words. (But I thought it wasn’t the military?? @ S**** P****) (This might not even be my best argument, given the context of this episode, but I’m sticking with it.)

This is like a giant game of capture the flag.

AU that’s just about the Enterprise crew playing capture the flag with the Klingons.

Sulu in the background standing guard with his sword

Damn, turning on Spock with the slurs now!!

Spock was absolutely ready to kill him. Like he would 100% have taken him out with a blow to the head. And he’d been doing such a good job of not feeling the alien’s effects so far! Admittedly, that was a strong provocation though.

Honestly, I really like this scene. It’s uncomfortable and tense and you can really see how the alien is bringing out the worst possible influences of their respective races. And I liked how Spock was definitely full on pre-Reform Vulcan for a minute there. It was a more effective portrayal of what that might have looked like than All Our Yesterdays tbqh.

A result of… stress?

Kirk got himself out of it first. He’s so strong. He knows himself so well, he cannot be outsmarted by any alien.

“We’ve been taught to think in terms other than war.”

“The alien brings out the worst of us—patriotic drumbeating…even race hatred.”

He’s so sad; he can’t imagine thinking like that about Spock :(

Sulu in a Jeffries tube! A man of many talents. It’s okay bb, take credit for turning on the lights.

The alien must have been getting bored. The Klingons must have been doing too well, and the playing field needs to be leveled for maximum shit-stirring.

“Let’s find that alien.” That’s how I ALWAYS feel.

Oh, Kang, you’re so close—“What power supports our battle but thwarts our victory.” So, so close to getting it.

ALIEN DETECTED.

Spock takes his sword, of course.

“Jim.” Obligatory Jim moments hit differently when they’re not so obligatory.

“Jim—stop hitting my protégé. And put that sword down.”

Kirk looks so sad, picking Chekov up to carry him bridal style.

Also in addition to ‘race hatred’ I think we need to add ‘rape-y tendances’ to the bad stuff that the alien is inspiring here.

“A brief surge of racial bigotry. Most distasteful.” Spock winning for understatement of the year.

They're assuming the alien is trying to test out their relative powers but I think it just wants entertainment. I mean, doesn’t it look like a naughty little thing?

Mara’s outfit is… little shorts? Interesting. Usually not my style but she makes it work.

Spock doesn’t even look at Johnson as he falls lol. Another one bites the dust.

“It exists on the hate of others.”

What does this remind me of? Oh, the Vast of Night and the whole “aliens made us do every bad thing ever” conspiracy theory. At least this one makes more sense, in part because it is not quite so overwhelmingly broad!

All hostile attitudes must be eliminated, he says, and there's Mara right behind Kirk giving him a death stare lol.

Kang is so obviously posing. Google Earth, always taking pictures.

Only a few minutes before drifting forever in space becomes inevitable? Good thing Kirk works well under pressure.

“Well… do whatever you can, Scotty. You know the drill.” Doesn’t even bother giving real directions anymore. We’ve been in this scenario before.

“So we drift in space, with only hatred and bloodshed aboard.”

And the 392 people below just get to…live in Enterprise prison, I guess.

Star date: Armageddon. So dramatic!

I’m not even making that up; that’s an actual quote. Can you imagine being an Admiral listening to this?

“Stop the war now.” An actual line, really aired on television.

Spock wants to threaten the wife lol. That's the old pre-Reform Vulcan seeping through. Surak who?

Damn, Kang is cold. “Eh, she gets the concept of being killed in battle.” They’re gonna need marriage counseling after this.

“There is another way. Mutual trust and help.” Yes that’s my hero!!

“No one can guarantee the actions of another.” Can’t remember the context of this entirely anymore, but great line.

The entity is loving this—multi-person choreographed sword fight!!

"Those who hate and fight must stop themselves. otherwise it is not stopped.” Another baller line. Spock has a lot of deep thoughts today. And so does Kirk. And Kang.

Kirk tries to reason with the alien. Nice try.

“Shoo. Shoo, alien. Off the ship, go away.”

Omg that last moment—Kang slapping Kirk’s back way too hard, Spock’s completely ridiculous wide-eyed expression when he does, like some sort of combo of amusement and confusion, and then Sulu just passing on by in the background….

Then the alien just yeets itself into space. And that’s the end!

Always feels weird when there’s no wrap up on the bridge.

Also, what are they going to do with the Klingons? They have no ship. They really did come out of this a lot worse than Kirk and co. No ship, huge casualties—and no one to blame even, but the alien.

I feel like the alien messed up a little in killing so many Klingons. Like, it could have accomplished its purpose, angering the Klingons and turning them on Kirk, by attacking the ship a little less violently—you know they’d react to 5 deaths pretty much the same as 400, and then there would be many more people to fight forever and produce that sweet sweet anger!

Maybe the alien’s powers aren’t strong enough to influence 800 people though. Also it wants equal forces and 800 people wouldn’t fit on the Enterprise, one assumes. So it still makes sense.

That was, of course, an excellent episode. 100% agree with is classic status, even though the main things I remembered going in were the wife + science officer bit, and everyone laughing at the end in a really forced, fake way, in order to make the alien go away.

I thought the Klingons were a lot better/more interesting today than usual. First, I think Kang is a better character, or a better actor maybe, than the others; he has a certain way about him that is… more watchable, more sympathetic. And he’s always saying these really dramatic things that make it seem likely he writes patriotic Klingon war poetry in his off time. Also, including his wife made them seem more… not human obviously, but normal. Not just cardboard cut-out villains. And of course the actual lightly specific motivations I earlier mentioned helped too.

Also, the plotting was very good: it built up slowly but surely over time, so at first the alien’s influence wasn’t that obvious, and then it became more so, and then it became horrifically obvious and extreme. And then you had to re-evaluate earlier moments: was that the alien changing facts in their heads, or a real part of the animosity between humans and Klingons? And it wasn’t always clear, which I appreciated. The tension when the people were at their worst wasn’t overdone, like in that moment with Scotty, Spock, and Kirk—or even in Chekov’s assault on Mara, tbh. The various strategies of the different sides were very entertaining too; there was never a dull moment, and they fit in a lot of straight-up actions and twists into 50 minutes.

The possible threat was truly terrifying, also: stuck in a space ship, forever, unable to die, feeling the worst possible emotions all the time, besieged, angered, despairing, fighting a war that can’t be won, being injured and suffering only to recover and fight again, and it never stops… A perfect nightmare mixture of insanity and violence and pain. And the alien, in encouraging hatred and anger, doesn’t discriminate between sides: they turn on each other just as much as on the Klingons, breeding paranoia and infighting. For eternity.

The episode also felt much more strongly anti-war than I remember tbh. Like it was not subtle. Kirk literally says “stop the war” in so many words. He has a part in his speech where he talks about the possibility of other aliens out there, encouraging other wars. And while I do think “maybe the aliens are making us do it” is a cop out explanation, or would be if it were real, the scenario gave the show a lot of room to say, like, pretty ballsy things: to include “patriotic drum beating” along with “race hatred” in a list of corrupting feelings they were experiencing; to show how the same instincts that lead to warring also lead to sexual assault and the aforementioned ‘race hatred;” to reveal the true horror of an endless war by making the participants unkillable and sticking them in a singular space ship in the middle of nowhere; to imply that the combatants of war gain nothing from it, but outside or third-party entities will pull strings of their own design to profit from the conflict as long as possible; even to make an impassioned plea to camera to stop the endlessness of the conflict. Like I can’t even totally unpack this but it is a lot!

Finally, it was also a great Kirk episode, which of course is my most important factor. He’s smart; he’s strong; he’s so sure of himself and his values that he cannot be manipulated to mindless hatred, he represents the values of the Federation, and the show itself; he treats even his enemies with basic respect and humanity; and ultimately, he saves the day.

Okay I was not efficient in writing this up at all! It is very late!!

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #2021: fandom thoughts #star trek tos

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beauty-grace-outer-space · 4 years

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How can Bones tell when it's gotten bad?

YOU. You win ALL the points for this question.

Jim is, by nature and necessity, a damn good actor when he needs to be, and he can bullshit with the best of them. But as the old adage says, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and Bones has spent enough of his life miserable (not to mention the years of study for his PhD and medical license) not to know the signs of depression when he sees them.

Trouble is, with Jim, everything is a little to the left. A little off, a little different, and a little unexpected.

Jim naturally has a dry and sarcastic sense of humor. One liners, little quips, snide remarks, and certain looks that let you know he’s amused. When he’s not doing so hot, his humor gets sloppy. He smiles too wide, he laughs a little too loud and too long, he makes subpar and far to obvious jokes that more often verge on immature innuendos instead of sly witticisms. That’s one of the tells.

Another more obvious one is that his dietary choices narrow down to a list of about five things. For all his allergies, Jim has an adventurous palette, and he typically likes his meals to vary when he has the time to enjoy them. But when things start getting bad, the choices grow blander until eventually he’s left with a very limited rotation of tried and true foods he knows he can choke down if he has to. He inevitably loses weight when he’s in a depressive episode-- something that fills Bones with no end of disappointment, the kid had trouble keeping weight on as it was.

Sadly, the only time the kid really truly sleeps, conks out for eight solid hours at at time and sleeps, is when he’s in a downswing. Even worse, for all that he sleeps more, he’s less rested. Jim Kirk has mastered the art of four to six hour nights, and it’s always suited him fine so far as Bones can tell. But sometimes, around anniversaries or seasonal changes, Jim’s productivity levels dip ever so slightly-- he would never let himself slide enough to compromise his captaincy, but like clockwork, he starts sleeping more, looking a little more drawn around the eyes and mouth, and his performance isn’t up to the usual excellence he holds himself to.

(Minor injuries also start adding up. Bones keeps a careful tally so he knows exactly when he needs to put Jim on medical leave. There’s acceptable risks and then there’s recklessness.)

He starts fidgeting in the captain’s chair. Not the to be expected shifting in his seat after sitting too long in one position or bouncing his leg while he works on something, but a nervous fidgeting with his hands, a stylus, picking at the arms of the chair. It’s hard to spot, but it’s there. Exhausted, smiles just a little too brittle and too big, and thrumming with anxious energy, even in one of his favorite spots in the world... that’s one of the more minor ones, but Bones sees it, when it happens.

Jim also tends to isolate. His whole life up until the Academy had been a study in going it alone, and it’s a hard enough habit to break without going to war with your own mind trying to convince you no one wants you around. Thankfully, his crew is more observant than Jim tends to give them credit for. They never fail to invite him to join meals, to play games, or simply to spend time together. Sometimes Jim accepts, sometimes he doesn’t. If he refuses more than three times in a row, Bones knows to start getting involved.

There are a lot of little tells that Bones knows to watch out for, but he’s well versed in both mental health and Jim Kirk. When the kid is on, he’s solar fire, bright and brilliant and lighting up the world around him. It’s hard to miss when his light dims.

#Jim Kirk #headcanons #depression

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mittiemoo · 4 years

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i am having a lot of FeelingsTM about mcspirk at this point in my life, please, let me show you my pain

i have extensive thoughts about what occurs at the end of the five year mission and through the first batch of trek films, right

so the five year mission is ending - mcspirk has been mcspirking for a while now, how they got together is its own separate thing that DON’T WORRY i’ll inevitably get to discussing another time, but the enterprise is landing soon and the boys are figuring out what’s going to happen next, right

and god. spock. poor, poor spock. he has a Dark Night of the Soul where the conflict between his human emotions (read his relationships with kirk and mccoy) and his vulcan upbringing and heritage and dignity come to a CRISIS POINT, and god bless spock, he just isn’t ready at that point in his life to pick anything other than All Vulcan All The Time. it hurts him, so, so much, but he is determined to go through with kolinahr, because that’s what Good Vulcans Do.

jim is, understandably, not jazzed about this decision, but in the end i think he comes to a sad, but grounded understanding that spock is doing what he thinks is best for himself, so he lets him go.

but mccoy. fuck. mccoy can not understand how spock could make this choice. after everything they’ve been through together, after watching them all grow and change together, after spock opened up to them and shared parts of himself with jim and mccoy that he’d never shared with anyone, mccoy can’t believe he’d make that choice. to him, it’s a complete betrayal of spock’s true nature (he’s not wrong) and he can’t accept it. mccoy confronts spock about it and it’s bad. spock is in so much pain that he can’t show mccoy, he is completely shut off from him and that is just the worst for mccoy. ‘at least tell me why, spock.’ and spock says it’s because he must, as a Vulcan, not addressing any of mccoy’s concerns about spock’s human half or their relationship or spock’s relationship with jim, nothing.

so spock leaves on sad, but relatively stable standing with jim, but as far as mccoy is concerned the spock he knew is dead to him. the sense of betrayal and heartbreak is just too much for mccoy to take. this puts stress on the mckirk dynamic as well, jim and mccoy get in to it about spock, jim’s position being ‘he’s his own man and has the right to choose’ and mccoy’s being ‘it’s not a choice when it’s Vulcan Dignity that’s making the choice for him.’

it’s very sad, and very bad.

mccoy quits starfleet because it’s all just too much for him. jim accepts the rear admiral position to stay earthbound to be with his boyfriend (so sweet), and then v’ger happens. jim gets bones back on his ship in an admirable show of pure finesse, and then,

SPOCK!

even mccoy, who hasn’t yet forgiven spock but has through time come to a begrudging acceptance that it is what it is, forgets his hurt and anger for the briefest moment and is just happy to see spock again

and spock gives him nothing (this scene is brutal in the movie, even without my shipping theory on top of it) and mccoy goes back to being Over It. he feels like a fool for letting himself think just for a second things might have changed.

then the rest of the movie happens and we get to T H I S S I M P L E F E E L I N G

it’s so good, but it’s also The Worst. of course jim and spock make up, they’re like, th’y’la or whatever, but for mccoy it’s just not so simple. he’s glad that spock’s finally gotten wise and has decided to maybe not sever all ties to the human experience inside his half-human body for christ’s sake, but the pain for mccoy is still there.

jim is Very Excited to get mcspirk back up and running, but mccoy just can’t do it yet. jim is able to forgive spock with no more questions asked, but mccoy isn’t. mccoy and spock are still both Very Emotional about this whole experience - spock is grappling with what this new choice means for him and how he ever made the choice to kolinahr in the first place, and mccoy just can’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t enough for spock, and still isn’t. as far as mccoy can see, spock doesn’t know or care to know about what this did to mccoy (which he’s wrong about, spock just isn’t ready at that time to do the work with mccoy to have that kind of understanding, spock’s still Going Through It, as it were).

so for a while, mcspirk exists in a strange, not great open triangle situation with spirk, mckirk, and Just FriendsTM spones.

mccoy spends this time trying to soften his heart for spock - he learns over time that spock’s just doing the best he can, man, and mccoy does love him and wants him to be happy, but as the years go on and neither mccoy nor spock reach out to each other to broach this gap the Kolinahr made between them, mccoy settles in the idea that this is just how it’s meant to be (it’s not).

then spock dies LMAO in the absolute most buckwild ‘please take me back’ move of ALL TIME, spock puts his soul in mccoy’s mind and sacrifices himself for the ship. WOW.

and yes. with spock’s death, mccoy is just, completely devastated, because of course he thought that maybe someday they’d work things out and be together and happy again, but now all mccoy has are the wasted years spent in unspoken strife, and that SUCKS!!

but because mcspirk is endgame, ohoho, mccoy, you can bring spock back, all you have to do is risk your entire human life!

and OH BOY is that something leonard h. bones mccoy is prepared to do!! absolutely!!!! no question!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so mccoy chooses the danger and spock is back now, hooray

and after all this, after ALL THIS SHIT you know what i think mccoy has a realization. i think he realizes he doesn’t need spock to apologize to him. the time mccoy spent with spock’s soul inside his brain gave him what he needed - the reassurance that spock’s essence is not only rational, but Loving and Good things mccoy’s always known about spock, but for a lot of their time spent together, has felt disconnected from.

and, god, after this, this is when mcspirk really starts going off

because spirk and mckirk have been relatively strong this whole time - the only unstable branch has been spones, and for the first time, mccoy and spock can be on the same page. you know, as much as they’re able to be.

spock loves mccoy, he’s loved mccoy this whole time it’s just been Difficult, but now mccoy is able to see this without the pressure and weight of a situation that happened years ago. he’s able to appreciate what spock is doing to show his affection toward mccoy now, and they begin a slow and sweet process of courting one another that honestly, as a die-hard spones shipper since 2013, makes me sick with how great its potential is.

mccoy isn’t worried about kolinahr, he’s not worried about how spock and jim’s connection is ‘‘‘‘‘‘‘‘better ’’’’’’’’ than his and spock’s, he’s just taking things as they are, and is having a grand old time with it.

and, of course, once mccoy is able to do this, once he’s able to get over his pain and just accept spock like jim’s been able to all this time, that’s when spock feels able to let mccoy back in, to let him see how he truly felt all those years ago and how he feels now.

and then there’s like, whales or something, they go camping, and it’s just smooth sailing for me as far as i’m concerned. the mcspirk is locked, loaded, and not going anywhere.

*deep sigh*

thanks for hearing me out it’s been a lot, thank you

#mcspirk #spones #star trek #star trek tos

77 notes · View notes

emachinescat · 3 years

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By Night My Mind

A Tales of Arcadia: Wizards Fan-Fiction

by @emachinescat

@febuwhump day 19 - sleep deprivation

Summary: Sequel to “Dying Is Easy.” In the aftermath of the final battle against the Arcane Order, Douxie is plagued by guilt and nightmares about his part in Merlin’s death, and decides that he’s better off staying awake, which his battered and weary body does not take well. Written for Febuwhump on Tumblr. Day 19: sleep deprivation

Characters: Douxie, Archie, Jim, Claire

Words: 4,719

TW: None

Notes: Sequel to “Dying Is Easy, Living (Without You) Is Harder,” and set in the same universe as “That I Could Fear a Door” and “Lest Back that Awful Door Should Spring.” In this version of events, Douxie doesn’t have to leave with Nari, and is trying to adjust back to life in Arcadia after the events of “Dying Is Easy.”

Keep reading here, or on AO3!

If you enjoy, please consider liking, commenting, or re-blogging, and you can follow me for more content like this! :)

- From “Sonnet 27” by William Shakespeare

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head

To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired…

Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

The night after his battle with the Arcane Order, Douxie slept more soundly than he could ever remember. His near-death experience had left him with a litany of aches, pains, cuts, bruises, a couple of fractured ribs and a lot of unanswered questions - it should have been impossible for him to survive a fall from that height; every bone in his body should have been broken, and no one knew how he was still alive - but still he slept, his final meeting with Merlin and the restored Morgana fresh on his mind and a soothing balm through the night.

The trouble came the day after, when he nodded off while curled up on his couch with The Sword in the Stone distracting him from some unpleasant thoughts and a nagging guilt that had begun to crop up, slowly but steadily, over the course of his day. No one knew that the hokey, mostly plotless Disney movie was his favorite, and he preferred to keep it that way. It had always amused him, Merlin as a bit of a crackpot and Arthur a poor young boy running around after a magical master who only halfway knew what he was doing at any given time - it reminded him of himself, and of home.

But he was exhausted from the muscle relaxer he’d been prescribed when Jim and Claire had practically kidnapped him and forced him to let Jim’s mom, a doctor, examine him, and he fell asleep right when Mad Madam Mim issued her challenge to Merlin and for a few wonderful moments, there was nothing, and he could rest.

He woke with a yell only minutes later (Merlin was now turning into a germ to outwit the atrocious purple dragon), fighting desperately against the effects of the muscle relaxers that were already trying to pull him under again. He couldn’t even remember what it was that woke him, what he’d seen in his dreams, but it didn’t matter. Whatever it was - and he had a good idea - it left him trembling, short of breath, on the verge of tears.

“Douxie?”

Archie padded into the room and hopped up on the couch beside his friend, eyes full of concern behind his glasses.

“I’m fine, Archie. Just a nightmare.”

“I miss him, too,” the cat said solemnly, reflective gaze compassionate and sad as he observed his human friend. “Perhaps we should talk--”

“Talking won’t bring him back,” Douxie snapped, and Archie flinched back the tiniest amount and fell silent, looking more like a chastised pet than Douxie had ever seen him. The wizard sighed. “I’m sorry, Archie. I just don’t want to talk, that's all.” He rubbed the furry head with distracted affection, then moved from the couch and pulled up a hard-backed kitchen chair, and sat in that.

He didn’t feel like sleeping so much anymore, even if the burning of his eyes told him otherwise. He turned off the movie - it suddenly held no appeal. The Disney+ main screen took its place, and he clicked on something at random. He was so caught up in his bleak mood and dark thoughts that he didn’t even realize for a solid ten minutes that he was watching Hannah Montana.

***

Dr. Lake called him at five and asked how the muscle relaxers were treating him - “Are they keeping the pain and back spasms at bay? Are you taking them with food? Have you been able to rest?” Douxie placated her with lies on all accounts, but the truth was that he was sore even with the medicine, he hadn't taken it with food because he couldn't bring himself to eat, and every time he closed his eyes he felt the unfathomable pain of being run through all over again, or, worse, he saw Merlin kneeling over him, sacrificing his life for Douxie’s stupid mistake, and that wasn’t worth any benefits rest gave him.

***

He did finally fall asleep that night around eleven, not by choice - he’d been forced to take another muscle relaxer when the pain in his ribs and back crescendoed to nearly unbearable levels, and the drug worked quickly despite his best efforts to stay awake.

The dream was, at the beginning, not good, but not nightmare material, either. He found he was reliving his final conversation with Merlin, in that Nowhere between life and death where his mentor had waited patiently for him to arrive before moving on at last, after 900 long years.

At first the conversation was much the same as it had been, and Douxie found a thread of comfort in Merlin’s reassurances - I told you, my boy, I chose to die for you. I want no part of a world without you in it. And I am happy, reunited with my dear friend and first apprentice, ready to step into the next chapter.

But this time, right before Merlin stepped through the door into the light, he turned and contemplated his grieving apprentice with a cold look. “Although,” he said, accusation seeping from every word, “it is true that I wouldn’t have had to give my life for you if you hadn’t bungled things up so much in the first place.”

Douxie felt his heart stutter to a stop and he stammered, “W-what?”

“Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Merlin hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously. “It was my fight. And if you were going to interfere, why not cast some other spell that kept us both out of harm’s way?”

Floundering for any purchase on solid ground, Douxie finally managed, “I didn’t know how - the magic, it just responded -”

“You were always good at making excuses, Hisirdoux,” the wizard snarled. “The faith I thought I had in your abilities was obviously misplaced.” A terrible, eternal beat of silence. Then - “Perhaps I should have let you die after all. It’s no more than you deserve.”

“But Master -”

“I’m done with you.” With a dismissive wave of his arm, Merlin stomped into the waiting light of the unknown, muttering, “Might as well enjoy your life since you ended mine to save it.”

And Douxie was left alone in the between-space, and the tower crumbled around him in time with his soul, and he let it bury him, book after book crashing on his head, and he hoped that this time, he wouldn’t wake up at all….

It’s all my fault.

He woke up crying, not screaming, and shortly after he flushed the muscle relaxers while Archie wasn’t looking (the wise familiar would most certainly have not approved), splashed his face with icy water, and grabbed his well-read copy of The Catcher in the Rye and forced his eyes across the familiar words in a vain attempt to distract him from the loathing and pain and guilt that screamed through his aching head and pounded out a tattoo of shame that persisted through the lonely, sleepless night.

***

Two days later, he returned to work, and his manager stared openly at his disheveled appearance. Douxie had slept a grand total of four hours since he’d tossed the pills, and those had been intermittent catnaps that his body had forced him to take. Eventually, though the thought of using his magic made his skin crawl now after what it had done to Merlin, he conjured a simple alarm clock that sensed when he fell asleep and screeched metal core at him every time it happened.

He knew he looked bad - he’d seen a glimpse of himself in the mirror before he left. His face was thinner than usual, pinched in pain that tylenol just wasn’t cutting through - but anything else would make him fall asleep. Although all of the bruising was centralized around his back and chest and invisible beneath his rumpled t-shirt, it looked like he’d been punched in both eyes, with the dark, puffy circles accenting each one. He’d been too out of it to properly bother with styling his hair, or brushing it, if he were honest, and he was pretty sure he was wearing two different combat boots. They were both black, though, so maybe no one would notice. He didn’t have the energy to care if they did.

“Damn,” said his manager, Jeff. “I think you came back from sick leave a little too soon, man. You look awful.”

Douxie shrugged, not trusting himself to speak. He’d been screaming from one emotion to the next with no warning ever since he woke up, and even though he felt rather empty at the moment, he knew it was distinctly possible that if he opened his mouth he might start crying against his will.

“I think you should go back home. Have you seen a doctor?”

Douxie grunted in affirmation.

“Go home until you’re feeling better, Douxie. Seriously, man, you have to take care of yourself.”

The hollowness inside of him filled with irritation at the dismissal. “I’m fine,” he growled sullenly.

His manager blinked, surprised at the tone. Douxie had always been a model employee, respectful and fun to be around.

“You’re going to scare customers away,” Jeff insisted. “You can’t wait tables like this - people will be afraid you’ll give them whatever plague you’ve come down with.”

With a snarl, Douxie spat, “Why can’t things just go back to normal?” He stormed out before his bewildered manager could answer.

***

The next afternoon, someone knocked at his door. He cast a suspicious side-eye at Archie, who sat innocently on the table, tail tucked contritely around his carefully arranged paws as he studied Merlin’s magic book, the one Douxie had refused to touch since returning home. Archie had disappeared for a short time earlier, flapping out of the window in dragon form and saying that he was just going for a short flight to clear his head. Now Douxie wondered if the dragon had actually gone out and told someone of his worries about his wizard familiar. After all, Archie had been on his case constantly over the past few days, practically begging his friend to sleep, to eat, to talk, and Douxie always ignored him and had even yelled at him on a couple of occasions.

Douxie was picking at a bowl of dragon-popped popcorn listlessly, the small desire for food that he’d felt earlier having been immediately usurped by a fresh waves of undulating guilt and devastating emptiness. A smattering of empty cans - soda and energy drinks - lay crumpled on the coffee table around Archie, and the dregs of his latest cup of coffee were still warm. He seriously considered just ignoring the knocking until whoever it was went away - they’d promised to give him some time to recover, after all - but then they started ringing the doorbell and his head already hurt so badly it made his stomach curdle, so he made the tremendous journey to his feet. He swayed, his limbs like pool noodles, head swimming with dizziness at the effort to stay upright.

Each step toward the door - that incessant, too-loud doorbell was going to drive him mad! - was a hard-fought battle, and by the time his hand reached for the doorknob, he felt like he was going to be sick, and his vision was blurred, and he was having trouble remembering why he had gotten up in the first place.

Then the doorbell rang again, and a muffled voice called his name from the other side of the door, and he remembered.

It was Claire and Jim. The moment they laid eyes on him, their expressions went from concerned to relieved to something Douxie couldn’t quite identify but that might have been a kind of shock, or even horror.

“Douxie!” Claire half-shouted, and Douxie fought the urge to cover his ears as her voice, normally pleasant and soothing, tried its hardest to split his head in two. “What happened?”

Douxie squinted at her in confusion. Shouldn’t she know what happened? She had been there, for parts of it, at least. She’d heard about the rest. He could barely stand up straight anymore, and his eyes started closing of their own accord. This had happened so many times before, but as soon as sleep started to stake its claim, the memories and nightmares and things that might have been memories followed, mixing up into a blur that he couldn’t navigate, and then his magic alarm clock would blare, and he would wake up, and drink another Mountain Dew or Monster or cup of coffee, and try to do something to take his mind off of sleep and pain and Merlin. Then the whole process would start over again.

This time, it didn’t look like he would make it back to the couch before he passed out - the arduous trek to the front door had drained him, made him breathless and dizzy - and he was toppling forward, trying to force himself to wake up, battling sleep and the panic of sleep, or worse, hitting his head and being knocked out and forced to sleep.

“Whoa!” He startled awake to a hazy reality as Jim caught his stumbling form and propped him up the best that he could given how much taller Douxie was than him. Distantly, Douxie heard, “Claire, help me get him inside.”

And then Claire slung his other arm over her shoulder and they half-supported, half-dragged him back into his house, and though his eyes were on his couch, he realized that they were taking him past it, further into the house, in the direction of his bedroom, and he began to struggle against them.

“No, not there,” he gasped, knowing that if he had a mattress under his body and a soft pillow under his bed, there would be no way he could resist the siren call of sleep. He’d been avoiding his bed for days now.

But they didn’t listen, and soon they helped ease him onto his bed, perpetually unmade, and he scrambled up clumsily into a facsimile of a sitting position and shook his head to clear it of the gummy cobwebs that infested it. Archie, having followed the trio closely, literally hovering right over their shoulders, perched on Douxie’s desk and kept his lamp-lit eyes on his human, watchful and protective.

As soon as their charge was no longer in any immediate danger of hurting himself, Jim pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling my mom.”

“No, no,” Douxie said, forcing his burning eyes open as far as he could and making a feeble swipe at the phone in his friend’s hand. Jim hesitated, his thumb hovering over the send button.

“You are obviously not feeling well,” he said. “And you look sick. You need to see a doctor before --”

“I’m not sick,” Douxie explained, trying to project an air of wellness that he couldn’t even muster within himself. At their doubtful looks, he clarified, “Just a little tired.”

“You don’t look like you’ve slept in a month!” Claire exclaimed worriedly. “We promised to give you a few days to yourself to heal and rest, not turn into one of the living dead!”

“It’s only been a few days,” Douxie assured her. “I just need to sort some things out in my head, that’s all. Then I’ll sleep.” It was a lie, but he needed them to believe it, needed them to go home and go on with their lives and not sit here worrying about him - or worse, try to make him sleep. He appreciated their concern, and was touched that he had friends who cared so much about his well-being, but they had more important things to deal with - Jim’s transition from being half-troll to enslaved hulk troll to fully human and the loss of his amulet, for starters. And he had made this mess on his own, this was his fault, so if his punishment was to never sleep again, it should be his to bear alone. He didn’t deserve to be worried about, he suddenly realized - that was the crux of why he wanted to be left alone so badly.

“A few days without sleep will wreck you, man,” Jim said seriously, his blue eyes offering nothing but concern. He did pocket his phone again, though, for which Douxie heaved a sigh of relief. “Trust me, I know.”

Douxie didn’t know the details, but he had heard stories from Claire and Toby about how Jim had, over a year ago, willingly gone into the Darklands, a hellish nightmare-scape beneath the skin of this world, and Claire had told, her own eyes haunted, of how he had come back not himself, traumatized, and how he’d barely slept nor ate and had become a shell of his former self.

So he asked, voice far more unsure than he felt comfortable with, “How did you move on? How did you get back to normal?”

He hated himself for sounding so weak. He’d lived 701 years. He’d lost people he cared about so regularly that he’d eventually tried to avoid personal connections. Such was the curse of being a wizard, and being functionally immortal. The world around him would turn, but he would not age - or rather, he would age slowly, at the pace of his own choosing - and people would die, wars would rise up and die down, and still he would live, watching it all, alone. That wasn’t true. Even if Merlin had been entombed for much of that time, he hadn’t been dead, not really. The knowledge that he would see his mentor again had kept Douxie going during the loneliest of times, during the most devastating losses.

And, of course, he’d had Archie, a constant companion who even now had done everything he could to help his friend, and when that hadn’t worked, when Douxie had been too stubborn to listen, he’d taken it upon himself to gather more of Douxie’s friends and staged an intervention. If Douxie hadn’t been so exhausted and his mind hadn’t been so muddy, he might have been grateful or touched by the gesture and loyalty, but right now, he just felt irritated, like his privacy had been infringed upon.

Jim blinked. “Well, uh,” he stammered, glancing at Claire before continuing, “it took time, first of all. But, honestly, it was my friends. But it took talking to someone who had gone through the same thing as me, who understood what I was going through, to first start the healing.”

Douxie shook his head. “Everybody loses people,” he said slowly. “But this feels different.”

“Just because everyone deals with loss doesn’t make your experiences any less important, Douxie,” Archie said sagely. He was the only one in the room who had a true scope of all the heartbreaks Douxie had accumulated over his centuries of life in a world of short-lived mortals.

“It’s not that.” Douxie was desperate now for them to understand the truth. Then maybe they would stop being so kind to him. Dream-Merlin had been right. He didn’t deserve it. “Don’t you see? It’s my fault Merlin’s dead. I killed him.”

Jim froze at his words, looking like he’d just been struck across the face. For a moment, Douxie wondered why he reacted the way he did, but then remembered that Jim had been the one to hold Douxie down when Morgana was going to kill him. He hadn’t been in his right mind, had been enslaved by the Arcane Order, but still, he had, in a small way, been the reason that Douxie had been forced into doing the switching magic that he had. Still, Douxie could find no ill will in him against the Trollhunter. He’d not been in control of his own mind. Douxie had.

“I am so sorry,” Jim started, but Douxie immediately cut him off.

“It’s not your fault. You weren’t you. But me…”

“You have to see the truth,” Jim insisted urgently, now moving to take a seat on the bed next to his older friend. Sure, they hadn’t known each other all that long, but going through the things they had and saving the world together tended to bring people closer together rather more quickly than usual, in his experience. “It wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could to save Merlin. You took a sword in the gut for him.” Douxie flinched internally at the reminder of the agony, the feeling of dying, the cold and the dark.

“Yeah, Douxie,” Claire chimed in. “You’re a hero. You saved him.”

“If I’d had more control over that magic, if I’d channeled it a different way or done a different spell, then we might both be alive.” He was so tired, but the conversation held him in its grip, and he couldn’t sleep anyway, he’d go back to the sword and Merlin’s death and the wizard’s tower where Merlin would tell him again that he’d failed.

“Douxie, you’re the one who’s been teaching me more magic!” Claire reminded him. “One of the things I learned from my Shadow Staff - and that you’ve continued to show me - is that magic is emotion. You can’t always control what magic is going to do when you are in a moment of fear or anger or desperation. Magic reacts to your emotions. And Jim’s right. What you did was very brave and selfless.”

“That’s why Merlin gave his life to save you in return,” Archie added. “That, and because he loved you, very much.”

Douxie felt the sting of hot tears carving pathways down his face and didn’t bother to wipe them off. He felt like having a full-on temper tantrum, flopping onto his stomach and screaming and sobbing and slamming his fists into the ground and letting his magic explode out of him with all the force of the emotions and exhaustion that had built up inside. He knew if he did that, though, he would just end up hurting someone else.

So he asked a question he was ashamed to ask, because it made it sound like he blamed Merlin instead of himself, “If he loved me, why did he leave? Why didn’t he let me make my sacrifice? It was like what I did didn’t matter. I saved him because I don’t want to live without him, but that’s just what he forced me to do.”

Archie flapped off the desk and landed on the bed on the other side of his friend. Placing a paw on Douxie’s leg, he spoke gently, as if to a lost child, “Merlin was a great wizard” -- Douxie sobbed -- “but he was also very selfish sometimes. That comes with great power and an ego left unchecked paired with a very long life. Merlin saved you because he couldn’t bear to think of a world without you in it. Nor,” said the dragon, nuzzling Douxie’s elbow affectionately, “can I, for that matter.”

“But if I --”

“No buts,” said Archie. “This was not your fault. And I know Merlin told you the same.”

“He did,” Douxie admitted. “But then he didn’t. Every time I sleep, I see him, and he tells me… he tells me that I f-failed, that he’s d-dead because of me, and that I don’t deserve to live.”

“Oh, Douxie,” Claire breathed softly, sinking down into his desk chair.

“That’s not Merlin telling you that,” Jim spoke up. Something raw lingered in his eyes. “It’s the lies you are telling yourself. I know because for weeks after the Darklands, I…” He cast his gaze briefly at Claire, and even in his semi-conscious state, Douxie got the feeling that he hadn’t even told his girlfriend this before. “I had dreams every night of Claire, Toby, Blinky, Aaarrrgghh, everyone telling me I should have stayed in the Darklands. Should have died there, because I wasn’t strong or brave enough, and I went in alone and betrayed them, and that they were better off and happier without me. For a while, I believed them.”

Claire was crying quietly now, her hands pressed against her lips.

“But then,” Jim continued, “the more time I spent with my friends, and talked to them, I began to be able to separate their truth from my own lies. Like I said earlier, you really need to talk to someone who gets it, you know. And even though we’ve experienced a lot of the same things, it’s not me.” He looked pointedly at the small black dragon who was currently in the same place he’d always been - at Douxie’s side.

“I miss him too.” Archie repeated his words from a few days ago. “And I am here for you, Douxie.” He must have seen the doubt festering in Douxie’s eyes and he reassured, “I do not blame you for what happened. No one does. The Merlin in your dreams is not real. He is spitting your own self-doubts and guilt right back into your face, but deep down, you know the truth. The real Merlin told you. Jim and Claire told you. And I am promising you - Merlin died because he chose to in order to save you because after all he had seen and done and all the years he’d lived, the one thing he was terrified of was having to light your funeral pyre. And Merlin never did anything he didn’t want to do. No one could have stopped him from making that choice.”

The words struck something deep inside of Douxie, and he felt the tiniest fraction of weight shift in his chest. “M’be,” he slurred, so tired that his friends were all now blobs of blue, black, and purple. A giant bruise. He chuckled, a bit madly.

“Okay, Douxie,” came Claire’s voice, distant and very close at the same time. “I think you really need to lie down now. You’ve been awake for too long.”

She and Jim helped him lie down. Weakly, he protested, “I cn’t sleep.”

“You can,” said Jim. “Take Archie’s words with you if you end up facing that dream-Merlin again. Remember that we’re here for you. None of us will leave you while you sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, we’ll be right here when you wake up, and if you have nightmares, we’ll remind you of the truth,” Claire promised.

“And I will guard you,” Archie vowed, retaking his cat form and curling up protectively over his closest friend’s heart. “You are safe here.”

Douxie could resist the call of sleep no longer. He closed his eyes and let it take him, and he felt the warm weight of Archie on his chest and the presence of his friends around him and the slightest of smiles curved his lips as he drifted off.

***

Thirty seconds after Douxie grew still upon the bed, his three friends let out a collective sigh of relief.

Thirty seconds after that, Jim and Claire let out a collective yell of shock and Archie leapt to his paws, hissing and arching his back, as a giant, misty alarm clock appeared out of thin air and started screeching a terrible cacophony of wailing guitars and screaming vocals at top volume.

“What the--?” Claire shouted over the racket, slamming her hands over her ears.

“I forgot,” Archie called back, “he cast this spell to wake him up when he fell asleep.”

And yet, this time, Douxie still slept.

“Can you turn it off?” Jim yelled.

“No, only Douxie can undo the spell.”

Jim considered this for a moment and shook his head. “Let him sleep. He needs it.”

And despite the loud, jarring music, he, Claire, and Archie kept their promise and stayed faithfully at their friend’s side until, four hours later, he woke up long enough to blessedly vanish the clock.

Then, like a little boy with a teddy bear, the already fading Douxie pulled a startled Archie into his arms and held him tight, curling up on his side with his furry prize. Although uncomfortable in his new position and robbed of his draconian dignity, Archie snuggled in and purred, content to listen to the steady breathing of his deeply sleeping familiar.

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annathewitch · 5 years

Text

An Apple A Day

Summary: Leonard McCoy x Reader. An unexpected encounter with Leonard McCoy at the Academy leaves you with a poor impression. Will he manage to redeem himself when you encounter him again years later?

Word Count: 6,000

Warnings: Little bit of swearing, and a tiny bit of angst. Incidental o/c death.

A/N: My entry into @thefanficfaerie’s West Wing Challenge! I LOVE The West Wing and it has some really quotable lines. I chose “Nature, like a woman, will seduce you with its sights and its scents and its touch, and then it breaks your ankle, also like a woman.” It screamed cynical post-divorce Bones to me... This is the first thing I have written to completion in a long-while - I hope you enjoy it!

..........

Your training as a cadet is intended to prepare you for the unexpected and unexplained. After all, there’s so much out there in deep space that cannot be predicted. However, you’re more than a little startled by the man lurching out of the bushes with a shout, as you take your usual shortcut across the Academy grounds from the botany lab back to the dorms.

You find yourself assuming a defensive stance, noting with detached surprise that Lt Commander Ono’s persistence in teaching you basic combat skills has actually paid off. Still, it’s a relief when you don’t have to test your tenuous muscle memory further, as the man — another cadet judging by the reds — simply grunts a string of inventive obscenities and sits heavily on the path in front of you clutching a tree branch.

He’s most likely drunk, but, just as you’re thinking you should really check, you realise that you actually know him.

“Cadet McCoy? Is that you? You, uh, startled me.” You crouch down beside him and he squints at you, a little unfocussed in his gaze. You gesture towards yourself. “Cadet Y/L/N? We have an advanced xenobiology class together?”

He grunts again and you try not to feel too hurt that he clearly doesn’t recognise you. The class you take together is compulsory for all science track cadets and you’re not the type to draw attention by debating with your professor. Not like McCoy. It still stings just a tiny bit because by any standard, even in his less than pristine current state, he’s an attractive guy.

“Are you okay?” You wave vaguely around in the direction he came from.

He shifts a little and winces, and just when you think he’s not going to answer, he sighs. The whiskey scent of his breath confirms your initial suspicion that he’s had more than a couple of drinks.

“I’m fine. I just need a minute.” It seems like a dismissal, but as you stand he actually looks at you properly and bites out, “Dammit. Help me up would ya.”

“How could I refuse such a gracious request.” You roll your eyes, wishing that he had stumbled across some other poor unsuspecting cadet and that you could be back in your dorm. Still you stick an arm out and brace yourself as he uses it to lever his unstable frame from the ground.

It becomes apparent that he is less than fine the minute he tries to take a step away from you. He bellows like an enraged bull, and does what looks like an awkward pirouette before toppling towards you. It’s all you can do to catch him under the arms and stop him crashing to the ground again. Unfortunately, this means he practically faceplants in your boobs and you’re on the receiving end of another boozy exhale.

“Shit, McCoy, you’re no ballet dancer. How much have you had to drink?”

“No more than usual. It’s my damned ankle!” McCoy protests, righting himself on one foot. “Stupid fucking tree.” Turning pink around his collar, he glares at the fine specimen of an apple tree that was probably here long before the Academy built a dorm right next to it and long before an intoxicated cadet decided to take exception to it.

“What did the tree ever do to you? Besides produce perfectly edible fruit?” A single apple, presumably from the branch McCoy was wielding, is sitting at the edge of the path and you pick it up. “White Pearmain. Dates back to the 1200s.”

McCoy looks at you with a raised eyebrow as if you’ve grown an extra head. “What are you? Some kind of fruit historian?”

“Botanist, actually.” You pocket the apple. “Look, can you manage from here?” You ask, more out of hope than expectation.You’re vaguely curious about the situation and, before this evening, would have jumped at the chance of spending some time with the tall, dark and brooding cadet, but right now he just seems grumpy and ungrateful.

“There’s a satellite med-centre just around the corner. Can you help me there?” It takes a pointed look for him to mutter something unintelligible and growl, “Please?”

You smile as if to say ‘there that wasn’t so hard now’ and he huffs impatiently.

“It won’t be staffed at this time of night,” you point out.

“Doesn’t matter.” He does a kind of wobbling hop in the direction he wants you to go. “Are you gonna help me or not? Please?” He adds without any prompting this time. When he’s being polite, there’s a pleasing southern lilt to his voice.

You glance around, but there’s no one else in sight and by the time you could comm security you could have deposited McCoy where he wants to go. Even if it seems patently pointless.

“Fine. But I want to know why you were lurking in the bushes in the first place.” You stand on the cadet’s good side, and let him lean his weight across your shoulders. You reprimand the part of your brain that insists on making you aware that underneath the liquor he smells warm and spicy.

With you as a crutch, you make steady shuffling progress to the med-centre, mostly in silence except for McCoy’s occasional cursing when he tries to put too much weight on his injured ankle.

The centre, one of the daytime ones for check ups and routine treatment, is in darkness when you get there and you resist the urge to tell him ‘I told you so.’

“What now? You can’t just sit out here until morning?”

“Don’t intend to darlin’,” he grins crookedly as he places the palm of his free hand against the entry pad and to your surprise the door slides open. “Doctor’s privileges,” he stage whispers.

“You’re a doctor?”

“Got it in one Sherlock. On rotation at Starfleet Medical between classes.” He steers you both towards the exam room which also swishes open at the touch of his hand. “Physician heal thyself,” he announces with a flourish and a smug grin.

He hops around the small room leaning on the counter and furniture, rummaging in drawers and cupboards while you loiter awkwardly by the door unsure if you should just make your excuses. Doctor or not, surely this is breaking one of Starfleet’s many regulations?

“Uh, are you sure this is okay?” You ask tentatively. “Maybe I should just leave you to it?”

McCoy glances up from the cupboard where he’s going through vials of what look like hypospray cartridges. “It’s fine. Anyone asks, you had nothing to do with it.” He puts some medication on a little trolley next to the biobed, and hauls himself onto it swinging his good leg up then more carefully lifting his injured one up after. “You mind giving me a hand here?”

It’s not really phrased as a question, and part of you would dearly like to leave him to it, but for some inexplicable reason — maybe its the way he’s looking up at you from under his messy fringe — you find yourself asking, “What do you want me to do?”

“Play Doctor with me,” he drawls and you belatedly remember that this man is most probably drunk and not more than fifteen minutes ago jumped out of the bushes at you. You file away a reminder to reconsider your life choices when you eventually get back to your dorm.

Thankfully, McCoy seems sincere about the doctoring part, and all he wants is some assistance removing his boot. He administers his own hypo first, which he tells you is a painkiller, but he still muffles another string of curses as you ease the boot over his heel while he steadies his swollen ankle.

After a few breaths, he presses a few buttons on a tricorder and passes it to you. “Move this over my foot and ankle, slowly,” he instructs before tacking on a hasty, “please.”

You do as instructed, waving the instrument methodically up and down making sure that you don’t miss any spots. You can see an image forming on the display behind the biobed, but have no idea what it means.

McCoy is twisted around to look. “That’ll do, thanks.” He squints and mutters under his breath, something about a Jim or maybe a John.

“Is it bad?”

“Nah, just a sprain. An hour under the regen unit and it’ll be good as new.” McCoy has you bring over a piece of equipment sitting on the countertop, and talks you through setting it up around his ankle. He adjusts the settings himself though and it’s not long before he’s reclined comfortably with the unit gently whirring and bathing his foot in blue light.

There’s no other seats in the room, and so you perch on the countertop. Five more minutes, you tell yourself, and you’ll leave the doctor to it.

“You still haven’t told me why you were hiding in the shrubbery, McCoy.”

He glares at you, eyebrow raised and the pinkness creeping up around his collar again. “I was hoping you would forget about that.”

“If I’m going to get kicked out of Starfleet for breaking into a med-centre, an explanation is the least I deserve.”

You hold his gaze and eventually he huffs sulkily and looks away. “We didn’t break in. And I fell. Fell and sprained my damned ankle.”

You frown. Fell, not tripped. It dawns on you after a moment — the tree branch and the apple. “You fell? Don’t tell me you fell out of the tree?” His silence and flushed face is incriminating. “Why the hell were you in the tree in the first place?” A horrible thought crosses your mind. “Were you... spying on someone?”

“No!” McCoy protests, “I’m an idiot not a voyeur! My fool of a roommate managed to lock me out! I was trying to break in to my own damned dorm. Climbing the tree seemed like a good idea at the time.” He grumbles something about hypo-ing someone’s ass, presumably directed at his roommate.

His indignation seems genuine and you’re a little relieved that you haven’t managed to find yourself alone in a deserted med-centre with some kind of creepy stalker. Though on reflection he’s still a drunk who thought climbing a tree was a sensible course of action.

“You know you could have called security, unless you make a habit of breaking and entering?”

He props himself up on one arm to glare at you again, though you’re starting to think that perhaps it’s just his default expression. “I told you already we didn’t break in. And clearly,” he waves an arm in the general direction of his foot, “I’m not a very successful cat-burglar.”

Your lips twist in a wry smile. McCoy looks just a little bit self-satisfied and settles back with his head resting on his arms.

“So, you’re a botanist then?”

“Yup.”

“Rather you than me.” He chuckles a little as he says this and though a second ago you were starting to warm to him, now you bristle at his tone.

“You’re not a fan of nature then?’ you ask archly. “You seem pretty fond of trees.”

“Touché, darlin’.” He grins again at you, not seeming to register the coolness of your question. “Me and the natural world rub along just fine, as long as we maintain a respectful distance from each other. Trouble is, you botanists and geologists and biologists, you get all starry eyed at the thought of all those new worlds to explore, those billions of new specimens to examine — Vulcan vines, seventy different kinds of Denobulan phosphorescent moss.” He waves a dismissive hand. “Sure they look pretty, but you know what I see? A billion new potential bio-hazards that you scientists are just desperate to expose us all to, and it’s doctors like me that are going to have to pick up the pieces. People think that its red shirts who give doctors the most trouble, but give me a phaser burn or shrapnel injury over a blue shirt who’s inhaled a mystery pollen any day.”

This outburst is unexpected, and you’re unsure whether you want to laugh or be offended. Maybe both. “Well that’s a remarkably cynical view of Starfleet’s scientific research programme,” you say drily. “And here I was thinking we were discovering the wonders of the universe.”

McCoy props himself up on an elbow again and jabs a finger at you. "Discovering the wonders of the universe my ass. Nature, like a woman, will seduce you with its sights and its scents and its touch, and then it breaks your ankle, also like a woman.”

You think the noise you make is a disbelieving snort. Any sense of warmth evaporates as the doctor incriminates himself as just another egotistical, opinionated ass. He looks so utterly cocksure it makes your blood rise. You pull out your comm theatrically and flip it open.

He frowns. “Who you calling?”

“The Cretaceous period. They want their dinosaur back.”

“Very funny. That’s cute.”

Cute? You snap the comm shut, and throw your hands up in the air. “I mean, seriously?” You don’t even know where to begin. “I help you and then you insult my profession and my gender. Is there anything else you’d like to criticise - my family perhaps?”

McCoy jerks upright, looking surprised. “I meant women like my ex-wife and her cronies. Not you.”

“Why thank you for exempting me from the seducing, ankle-breaking majority. Though I guess I’m still a reckless botanist.” You berate yourself for staying as long as you have, swayed by a pretty face, and hop down from the counter. “I think I should be going.”

“Come on,” he drawls, “we were getting on so well. You know this is actually the best date I’ve been on in years.” He winks at you. An actual wink. The man is delusional.

“You need to seriously rethink your definition of a date.”

“Okay. I’ll take you out for coffee sometime then.”

“It’s tempting.” You mime an exaggeratedly thoughtful pose. “I mean, what with you being an irascible divorcé with a ton of emotional baggage that you’re dealing with by getting drunk, falling out of trees and insulting women you barely know and all. However, I fear I must decline.”

“Ouch!” he clutches a hand to his chest. “A simple no would have worked.”

You remember the apple you stuffed in your pocket earlier, and throw it at McCoy who catches it awkwardly before it thumps him in the chest.

“What was that for?” he grumbles.

You shrug. “You know what they say. An apple a day...”

As you turn to leave, you imagine for just a second that a look of disappointment flashes across his face. He’ll get over it. A guy like him will forget all about you in a couple of days.

You don’t regret turning McCoy down, even if you pause for a moment when the flowers arrive a few days later, with a comm number and a request to let him make it up to you. You don’t regret it either when he catches your eye in class, while he’s defending the point you were trying to make to the professor, though you have to remind yourself that he thinks you and your colleagues are nothing more than accidents waiting to happen.

By the time you get your first posting on the science ship USS Intrepid, the night you had to help a cadet who fell out of a tree has become nothing more than an amusing academy anecdote, and you’re far too busy to ever think about what might have been, had Cadet McCoy been a little less of an ass.

...........

It’s amazing then, how clear your recollection is of that night years ago as you’re being wheeled through the corridors of an unfamiliar ship inside some kind of stasis tube. It’s the unmistakeable southern drawl, alternating barked orders with unexpectedly gentle reassurance, that sends you straight back to a long-forgotten exam room light years away in San Francisco. If you could focus, you know there would be a messy dark fringe and pair of serious hazel eyes hovering over you.

It’s getting harder to breathe and the tube feels more and more claustrophobic. The overhead lights start to flash by more quickly as you realise the medical team has started moving at a run.

“Don’t worry Y/N, we’ve got you,” you hear McCoy say gruffly. “You hang in there.”

It goes dark.

There’s unconnected flashes of things — a spray of warm water with the sharp tang of antiseptic, hooded faces, the feeling of a mask that pinches across the bridge of your nose, piercing beeps — but the first thing you’re really aware of is waking up in a biobed with the gentle whir of a tricorder being waved over your chest. You try to sit up and a hand presses down on your shoulder.

A figure in a familiar biohazard suit leans over you. “Well hello there.”

“McCoy?” Your voice is little more than a croak and from somewhere behind you another pair of hands swabs your cracked lips with something syrupy.

“Got it in one, Sherlock. How’s my favourite fruit historian feeling?”

His brow is arched expectantly. He remembers.

“Like an elephant sat on my chest.” There are bands of tightness around your rib cage, but you take a deep breath anyway. “Or maybe like I fell out of a tree.”

McCoy barks a laugh, and you attempt a smile. But he’s quick to resume his serious doctor demeanour. “Y/N, you were exposed to toxic spores from a fungal sample that an Ensign was working with. You started bleeding into your lungs. You had us all worried for a while.”

“I remember,” you whisper as it comes flooding back — the shrill of the bio-hazard alarms, Ensign Collet’s containment chamber not quite properly closed, and the quiet Frenchman coughing up blood. You remember triggering the containment protocols on your lab section and dragging Collet into a decontamination chamber while the rest of your team look on from the other side of the glass. “Collet?” you ask, already knowing what the answer will be.

The doctor shakes his head. “His exposure was more serious than yours. By the time the Enterprise team arrived planetside it was too late. I’m sorry Y/N. It was a miracle no one else was exposed, you were very brave.” His gruff sincerity is too much.

“Stupid and reckless more like,” you growl, as you squeeze your eyes tightly shut so you can’t see the ‘I told you so’ expression on his face. Tears drip down the sides of your face into your ears. “I think I need to sleep.”

“Okay.”

A hand presses your shoulder again, then there’s the clunk and hiss of an airlock and then silence.

The next time you wake up, everything seems a little less sore and your breathing is easier. You focus on the room for the first time. It’s a tiny little box, with an observation window on one wall and the biobed, a little table and two chairs. Apart from the airlock, there’s another smaller door, which you assume must be a bathroom. You sigh — it’s just like every other isolation unit you’ve seen.

McCoy comes in, still in the suit, and helps you sit up in the biobed. He checks your vitals, murmuring approvingly every so often. When he’s done he sits in the chair beside your bed.

You try and scrutinise his expression through the plastic visor. “Hit me with it McCoy. How long am in in quarantine for?”

“Until you’ve been asymptomatic for three weeks. Spock, Commander Spock that is, is ninety-nine percent certain that will cover the maturation cycle of any spores that might have survived decontamination.”

“Three weeks.” You blow out a breath and nod. “Okay, I can do that.”

“I’ll get you a padd to help pass the time and Uhura will hook you up with a comm link if you need to contact anyone. It’s going to be pretty dull though.” He reaches out a gloved hand and rests it on your arm. You stare at it mildly surprised at how nice McCoy is being, given, well... before. He seems to remember himself and pulls away, flexing his fingers.

“Will you come and talk to me?” you find yourself blurting out. “I mean only if you’re not busy. Of course you’re busy, but, I don’t know anyone else.”

“Me?” The eyebrow is doing its thing again. “I could find you someone a bit less... irascible.”

“Oh. Right. That. I was probably a bit harsh.” You’re surprised to find that you’re disappointed.

The doctor stands up and paces the few steps towards the window. He rocks back and forth on his toes a couple of times, before turning back to face you.

“No Y/N. I was an arrogant, self-absorbed, asshole, with a chip on my shoulder a mile wide, and within a hair’s breadth of becoming a drunk. You punctured my ego with ruthless efficiency. I was hurt at first, and determined to prove you utterly wrong, but the more I thought about it, the more obvious it was.” McCoy lifts a hand to his head as if to run his fingers through his hair until he realises he can’t and he just ends up smoothing the top of his hood awkwardly. “Dammit Y/N, I’m just surprised you want to even speak to me after what I said. It’s been years and I still cringe.”

You grin wickedly. “Come on. I thought we were getting on so well!”

The doctor groans. “Are you going to remind me of everything I said word for word? If you are I’m going to get Spock in to sit with you instead. You’ll be begging me for mercy after three weeks.”

“Not word for word...”

You’re surprised by how much you start to look forward to McCoy’s visits. He brings cards and you argue good-naturedly over the cheat rules of Ferengi poker and he teaches you the basics of chess. Sometimes you just talk. He asks you questions about botany and where you’ve been posted since leaving the academy and seems genuinely interested in your replies. In return he tells you all about the less glamorous side of serving on the flagship, with an unexpected flair for the dramatic. You wonder if he notices that neither of you talk about anything too personal.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t a tiny bit disappointed on the days where the doctor can’t spend more than a few minutes with you, taking vitals and swabbing for spores. Usually Christine Chapel comes and sits with you then, and you try and slip unobtrusive questions about McCoy into the conversation. If she notices, she’s too polite to say anything.

It’s one day towards the end of the third week, that the person in the suit is someone new. Though you’ve ever met him, you’ve seen his face in holo-form a million times and would recognise the Starfleet poster boy anywhere.

“I’d stand to attention, Captain, or salute or something, but I’d probably fall over.”

Kirk smiles dazzlingly, “Relax, this is a social call. Call me Jim.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jim. Take a seat.”

He sits, leaning back with one leg crossed, looking for all the world like he’s lounging in his quarters not sat in an isolation unit with a stranger.

“Bones sends his apologies, he was called away. I offered to come and keep you company and it’s past time I introduced myself to you as a guest on my ship.”

“Bones? You mean McCoy?”

Kirk grins. “Yeah, it started as a joke at the academy and kinda stuck. I don’t think he minds, much.” He sweeps a glance over the room and shudders. “I’ve spent my fair share of time in these units, but not three weeks. I’m amazed you’re not climbing the walls.”

The corners of your mouth lift into a half-smile. “I’m too tired to climb anything, Captain. Jim. McCoy’s been kind enough to distract me.”

Jim leans forward propping has elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. “So I hear. You know, when I’ve been in isolation he usually just visits me to stab me with hypos and yell at me that I’m ‘out of my corn-fed mind’.” He does a passable imitation of McCoy and you giggle. “I like to think grumpiness is his form of affection.”

He spots the chess set. “You play?”

“Badly.” You scrunch up your nose. “McCoy’s been teaching me, but I’m not as quick on the uptake as usual.”

He rub his hands together in a rustle of fabric. “Well then let me teach you a couple of moves to help you beat him.”

You play for a while, Kirk coaching you through a couple of Vulcan gambits. It’s only when you’ve begun to relax a bit that he turns the conversation back towards you and McCoy.

“You know I didn’t ever think I would get to meet The Botanist,” Jim says as he casually moves to take one of your rooks.

“What do you mean.” You eye the Captain suspiciously. He clearly knows more than he has let on so far.

“You’re her, aren’t you? The botanist from the Academy. The One That Got Away.” Jim wiggles his fingers in air quotes around the last part.

“That’s ridiculous,” you snort. The idea that your encounter had meant anything more than a bit of wake-up call to McCoy was madness, wasn’t it? You move a piece blindly.

Kirk shrugs. “All I know is that one night he met you, you turned him down — quite spectacularly by all accounts — and he couldn’t think about anything else for weeks.” He moves his queen. “Check.”

“But he got over it after that, right?” You hop a knight over one of his pieces and capture a pawn.

“Sure, he stopped crying into his cereal after a while. But I think you were always his biggest regret. There’s more than once when he’s in one of his more reflective moods that he’s wondered what if he hadn’t screwed it up with the Botanist. Checkmate, by the way.”

You’ve lost all interest in the game now anyway. Surely this is an exaggeration. “Why are you telling me this Jim?”

He stands and puts the chair back at the table. “I know McCoy. Even if he denies it, there’s a part of him that thinks maybe this is a second chance. His feelings run deep Y/N, I’d hate to see him get hurt if he’s wrong.”

“So you want to know if I plan to, I don’t know, seduce him, then break his ankles — metaphorically speaking?” This is a lot to take in, but it’s clear that you’re getting The Talk from Jim. It’s hilarious and mortifying at the same time.

“Metaphorically speaking, yes. He’s different than he was in the Academy Y/N, if you give him a chance.”

“I already know that, Jim. And I’ve never been the ankle-breaking type.”

“He’s still the grumpiest man I know.” Jim shakes his head.

“Irascible.” You smile. “But I think I’m getting to appreciate irascible.”

“Well... good.” As if a switch has been flipped, Jim’s serious expression is replaced by one of pure sunshine and he give’s you a jaunty wave as he let’s himself out of the airlock.

You flop back on the bed, hugging a pillow. There’s far too much to think about here when all you want is to sleep.

The final couple of days in quarantine drag. Something has shifted between you and McCoy, with the knowledge of what Kirk said hanging between you and you wonder how much of that Kirk has shared with his friend.

Though he visits as usual, the doctor seems more on edge, a little more watchful. It’s impossible to really tell anything, though, with the biohazard suit masking the truth of his expression. You’re itching to be out of this room, to have some privacy, to actually look into his face and tell him... tell him what?

Hi Doctor McCoy, I used to think you were an asshole, but now I want to jump your bones?

“Did you say something?” McCoy looks up from the biobed display and you realise you must have been mumbling. You feel heat rush from the tips of your toes to the roots of your hair.

“Nope,” you choke out. “Nothing.”

He regards you with his customary raised eyebrow. “So, we’ll being doing your final decontamination tomorrow and then you’re free to go. Everything looks normal here and all your swabs have been clear for weeks.”

“Oh!” You knew it was coming, but it’s only just hit you now that it means the end of your almost daily visits. “We should have an end of quarantine party or something!”

McCoy busies himself entering some data into the panel on the wall. “Well, actually, Doctor M’Benga is going to oversee your procedure tomorrow.” He looks up at you frowning a bit. “I’ll hope to check in on you later when you’re settled in your quarters though.”

Hope to. You nod, deflated. This is it then. You think you should say something. You thought you would have time to prepare, but he’s making his way to the door so it’s now or never.

“McCoy!” He pauses at the airlock and looks back at you, just as your mind goes blank. “Thank you, for everything. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better.” You kick yourself mentally at your brilliant choice of words, which convey exactly your strength of feeling towards the doctor.

“Me too. Uhm, you that is. Getting to know you.” He clears his throat. “See you tomorrow Y/N.”

Emerging back into the real world is a bit of an anti-climax. Sparse white rooms seem to be the norm on the Enterprise rather than a particular feature of the isolation unit, you realise when Christine wheels you into your quarters for the first time. Still at least you have more than about 90 square feet of space to explore, and not everything whirs and beeps at your every movement. Still, it could use some plants.

Christine gives you a quick tour, before retrieving a bag from the wardrobe. She looks at you knowingly.

“Doctor McCoy mentioned that you have nothing with you. So I thought you might appreciate some clothes.” She opens the bag and pulls out some comfy looking loungewear that’s positively luxurious after weeks of disposable scrubs. “Someone will replicate you up some uniforms, but I thought it might make you feel a bit more human.”

You rub the soft fabric between your fingers. “Thanks Christine.”

“I, uh, also threw in a bit of make-up and a hairbrush and stuff. I can help you get ready if you like?”

You’re only going to be sitting on the couch, and then the bed, at least for the next 24 hours, but the thought of looking a bit more presentable sounds nice, and you’d be lying if there wasn’t a small part of you hoping that if McCoy comes later he sees you as more than a patient. “Sure, why not.”

Christine takes it more seriously than you expected, and really ‘a bit of make-up’ turns out to be a full on beauty kit, but by the time she leaves you’re brushed and moisturised and subtly glowing like you’ve spent three weeks in a spa not in quarantine with dubious lung function. Now there’s nothing to do but wait.

Being shaken awake by a large warm hand is unexpected. As is the voice edged with concern calling your name. “Y/N, wake up for me darlin’.” After a beat, “Please.”

You crack open one eye, thinking how southern he sounds when he’s being polite. “M’awake McCoy,” you slur sleepily. He’s perched on the edge of the couch next to you in all his rumpled gorgeousness. “Been breaking and entering again?”

“Doctor’s privileges,” he says with a wry smile. He helps you sit up and you revel in the warmth of his ungloved hands. “You look different. Nice. Nice different not...” he stumbles and tails off.

Though he’s avoiding your gaze, you’re enjoying being able to see him properly again, to see the flush creeping up his neck. You take pity on him.

“Why thank you. I washed my hair in actual water. And Christine worked a bit of magic to make me look human.”

He nods and meets your eyes finally for a second, before jumping up. “I brought you something,” he says, retrieving an arrangement of brightly coloured flowers from the counter. “I checked them out with the botany lab, they’re officially the least dangerous plant in the Alpha Quadrant. Some kind of daisy from Risa. I thought you might be missing some greenery.”

“Leucanthemum Risaii — totally harmless. Thanks McCoy.” You fuss with the flowers a bit, smiling and put them on the table beside you. “So, do you want to check me over?”

He looks at you in confusion. “Um no. Unless you need me to? Dammit, I should have asked how you were feeling.” He reaches out to take your hand pressing his fingers against your pulse.

“No! No, I’m fine McCoy. I just thought you’d need to do some... doctory stuff.”

“Oh.’ His expression clears. “Right. So I, uh, passed your care over to Doctor M’Benga. He’s going to do all the ‘doctory stuff’ from now on.” He turns your hand in his to hold it properly, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. After weeks of restricted contact, it feels electric. Kirk just might have been right.

“Why?” you ask tentatively, trying to ignore the fluttering feeling in your stomach. If it’s true, you want to hear it from him.

He gazes at you with dark eyes and breathes deeply, like he’s steeling his nerves. You feel a little bad that he’s so uncertain, so much the opposite of the first time you met.

“Because I think you’re smart and beautiful. And so I could ask if this idiot doctor might take you out for coffee. Properly this time, not like a drunk entitled asshole. What do you say darlin’?” He squeezes your hand, smiling hopefully and your insides do a flip flop.

“No,” you whisper. His face falls and he swallows thickly looking down at your hands. You place two fingers under his chin and tilt his face until he has no choice but to look you in the eyes. “Coffee’s first date territory. I think we’re way past coffee, McCoy.”

“We are?” His voice is gruff and disbelieving.

“Are you kidding? These last few weeks we’ve had the best dates I’ve been on in years.”

McCoy growls. “Dammit Y/N, are you trying to kill me? You promised me you weren’t going to remind me of that!” He runs his free hand through his hair. “Okay then, not coffee. Dinner?”

“Yes.” You grin stupidly, and without thinking peck a kiss on McCoy’s lips to seal the deal. After a second of stunned silence he briefly kisses you back before leaning back on the couch with you in his arms. He smells warm and spicy just like you remember.

“Jim told me you’d changed your mind about me. He said you promised him you wouldn’t break my ankles. Hell, he couldn’t have made that up, but I hardly dared to believe it.”

“You know he gave me The Talk?”

“He didn’t!” McCoy looks down in horror.

“Oh he did,” you laugh. “It was sweet, but by then I didn’t need convincing.”

“He’s going to be insufferable when he finds out.” The doctor sighs. “Speaking of the infant that is our glorious Captain, he sent you a housewarming gift. It’s on the counter.”

You heave yourself up to standing with a groan and totter the few paces across the room and back again on unsteady legs. “I’m going to need that dinner sooner rather than later McCoy. I need feeding up.”

He chuckles and kisses your hair. “Sure thing sweetheart. Now come on, what’s in the box?”

It’s a plain box wrapped with a big blue ribbon, and it’s heavy. You pull the bow loose and lift the lid. It’s full of perfect red apples, and a scrawled note sits on top — An apple a day!

“Goddammit, Jim! That’s not funny!”

“You told him about the apple? What must he think — I was so mean to you!”

“He heard me call you my favourite fruit historian and wouldn’t let up until I told him the whole thing. He thought it was hilarious, said I deserved it. And I did.” He picks an apple out the box. “I told you, he’s going to be insufferable,” he grumbles.

“Are you not afraid I’m going to start throwing them at you again?” You ask putting the box out of sight on the floor and snuggle back in under McCoy’s arm.

“Are you?”

“No!”

“Well then, there’s your answer. Besides you forget, I’m not your doctor anymore. Apples have no power over me.” He takes a bite out of the one he’s holding and wiggles his eyebrows. “You can throw all the fruit you like at M’Benga.”

“Idiot.” You swat him playfully across the chest, enjoying this less serious McCoy. Something tells you if you can make this work you’re going to be very happy. “Okay so I have a very important question.”

“Fire away. I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of many things.”

“If apples keep doctors away, how do you get them to stay? Pineapples maybe?”

McCoy hums thoughtfully and the vibrations in his chest tickle your cheek. “How long are we talking?”

You prop yourself up so you can see his face, brushing a piece of his fringe out the way. “A good long while.”

His lips curve in a satisfied smile. “Not pineapples then. That’s gonna need kisses.”

“Kisses?” You lean in further so that your lips are brushing his. “Like this?” you whisper pressing your mouth against his more deeply than the pecks you gave him earlier so you can taste the sweet tang of apple juice. He responds with a moan, until you both break away slightly breathless.

“Perfect darlin’,” he murmurs. “Plenty of kisses just like that.”

..........

Taglist: Tagging Urban Shitposters and a few other people I think may be interested. It’s been so long since I tagged I’m not sure who is on my general list. Just ask if you want to be added, or taken off!

@musikat18 @bkwrm523 @bookcaseninja @queenmismatched @outside-the-government @space-helen @starshiphufflebadger @yallneedtrek @feelmyroarrrr @mad-girl-without-a-box @kawaiiusagichansan @bonesmccoybones @thefanficfaerie @janeykath318 @fear0fdeathkeepsusalive @goingknowherewastaken @star-trekkin-across-theuniverse

#leonard mccoy x reader #bones x reader #star trek reader insert #west wing quote challenge #star trek fanfiction #leonard mccoy #star trek aos

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ladyideal · 4 years

Text

Get Well Soon

Pairing: Leonard McCoy x Reader

Word Count: 1829

Summary: You help a colony pack up from a planet, and caught a rather nasty bug on the way back. After nearly two weeks, a cure was finally found. A particular doctor became rather reluctant in giving you it, as there were side effects that could be rather life threatening.

A/N: First off, I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense. Not entirely sure what I was trying to write. Was trying to get as close to the symptoms of the coronavirus, and ended up adding some of my own. Stay safe everyone, and remember to WASH YOUR HANDS. :)

(gif wouldn’t load. Credit to @discoveringenterprise, who’s taking up requests!)

“Sweetheart, you’re burning up,” Leonard mentioned, placing the back of his hand against your forehead. You had try to dodged away, but he was too fast. “You’re showing the same symptoms as the others.”

“I just need sleep, Len,” You argued. “’m not sick.”

The Enterprise was ordered to evacuate a Federation colony immediately. Planet 52XX was promising for some time, until the larger than life hurricane was spotted a year or two after the first settlement. Yet, the colony held out until the very last minute. With the hurricane larger than Jupiter’s own and encroaching onto the colony within two days did the Federation finally called it quits.

The planet was slightly more arid than the climate on the ship. In response, the lower decks were cleaned, and the second, more smaller Medbay was stocked ready for the colony members to come through for increase fluids. Temperature was raised, and the humidity was lowered to copy the planet’s climate. Steadily, they would be acclimated to the rest of the ship.

Other than that, the colony were thin, but healthy.

As Captain, you and two teams were beamed down to the surface of the planet to help with the evacuation. Well, it was mostly you and one team speaking with the adults, and the other team herding the kids towards the shuttle. In just the five or six hours needed to get everyone on shuttles, a thunderstorm passed through, soaking literally everyone within its vicinity.

Everything went seamlessly. Life aboard the ship continued.

Three day passed before the two members of the two landing teams was found unconscious, and immediately quarantined within hours after being brought down to the Medbay. Then another the next day, and another. Within five days after the original evacuation, everyone that was involved in the landing party were isolated.

Len had messaged you the notice earlier, but you’d ignored it for the most part. Being friends with him since the Academy, and dating for a solid two years now, you’d learned to never question him on his medical expertise. However, you had other plans. Command was hailing you every other hour, demanding for reports on the status of their failed colony.

Your boyfriend observed you in concern, as you played around with the peas on your plate. “Then you wouldn’t mind coming to medbay with me, so I can take a look.”

“It’s just a waste of time, Len,” You insisted anyways. “It’s just a low fever and a slight cough.”

Leonard raised an eyebrow. “Humor me.”

You sighed, reluctantly chasing after the offending peas with a spoon and eating them. “Let’s go, I guess.”

It didn’t take long for Len to settle you in an isolation room. One hour being quarantined, and finally away from work, your exhaustion returned in full force, sending you into bouts of coughs and the beginnings of a rather nasty pneumonia. Your boyfriend gently brushed away an errant hair, affectionately tucking it in behind your ear.

“Get some sleep, Y/N.”

In a day, your health spiraled out of control. Your fever soared into the dangerous zone, and the pneumonia worsened, puzzling all the doctors on board. The colony members were fortunate enough to not have encountered any significant diseases, and none ever had any symptoms like you did. It was just a brief mission; get them ready, and back up the ship. There was minimal contact with them, and yet both landing parties were afflicted with a life threatening disease.

Your joints ached, and you felt as if every inch of your body was on fire. It was becoming a fight for your life. Even Chris’s gentle touch as she cooled your forehead with a cool washcloth was too much for your senses to take. The medication dripped steadily from the IV was helping, but it was going to be a long recovery ahead.

“Leonard,” You whimpered weakly.

Christine sadly shushed you, humming tunelessly in an attempt to soothe you. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Jim join your boyfriend, standing outside the isolation room.

“Still nothing?” The blonde spoke.

The CMO crossed his arms across his chest, but shook his head. His face was expressionless, but Jim knew better. He knew having you in the isolation room and severely ill was taking a toll on the doctor. There was a significant weight on him to take care of you, and all he felt was a failure in keeping you safe.

“It doesn’t look good,” Leonard paused, briefly glancing up at the monitor that displayed the numbers to your vitals. “We’re doing all we can for her.”

“She’s a fighter,” Jim assured his best friend. “She’ll pull through it.”

The doctor was silent for a minute, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t lose her, Jim. I can’t.”

“And you won’t, Bones. She’s got you. She’ll be okay.”

A week and a half went by before any good news came around. The fever had loosened its grasps on you, but you were still warm, and everything absolutely ached. It was selfish you knew to keep your boyfriend by your sides at all times, especially since he still had other patients to take care of. So as much as your soul ached for the skin to skin contact, you kept quiet. Leonard, on the other hand, did his best to stay with you as long as he could. He would catch you up on the recent ship’s gossip, how Joanna was, and how Jim and the rest of the Bridge had sent you Get Well messages.

Today was no different.

You were curled up on your side, mindful of all the monitor leads and IV tethers. Resting your eyes, you didn’t realize a presence beside your bed until the figure heaved out a heavy sigh. Despite the cannula nestled in your nose delivering a steady stream of pure oxygen, it was still hard to breathe.

“Len?” You croaked, cracking your eyes open.

Your boyfriend met your gaze. Even though he’d donned on his protective gear, you could still see his red rimmed eyes, and the dark circles beneath them. Almost instinctively, you reached out for him, only for him to grasp your hand in his gloved ones.

“I’m here, sweetheart,” He sounded strained, even to himself.

“You look awful, love,” You admonished gently, rubbing little circles on his hand in a futile attempt to get him to relax. “I’ll have you know that your office isn’t a place for you to sleep in.”

Leonard didn’t answer immediately, dropping his gaze to the vial rolling in his free hand. Curiously, you followed his attention too. With the joke falling flat, you figured out that he was wound up and too serious. All business, and no fun.

“What’s that?”

“A cure,” Your doctor flatly replied.

You brightened up at his words, but frowned since he wasn’t feeling the same. For now, you reserved judgement.

“Then?” You propped yourself up on an elbow.

Leonard sighed again, making a show of reaching the hypospray and loading the blue tinged liquid vial into it. Once he readied it, he caught your gaze again. This time, instead of happiness, there was apology swirling within his eyes.

“Science pulled through late last night. There’s a lot of side effects to this. Nausea, headaches, chills, and a significant chance of having seizures. In your current state, I’m not sure if we can pull you back from that.”

Your frown deepened.

“But if I take it, I’ll have a chance, right?”

“Yes, darlin’.”

“Then let’s do it,” You watched as your boyfriend got to his feet, and paced in front of your bed. “I already feel worse then I did before I went to nap earlier.”

“Sweetheart, please. You’ve still got a fighting chance with all the immunity boosters we’ve given,” He cursed afterwards, shaking his head.

“Len,” You spoke after a pause. “C’mere.”

Your boyfriend obediently shuffled back towards your bed, and sat back down on his stool. Reaching out for his hand, you kept your gaze on him and pouted.

“Please?”

He looked like he was going to argue, but thought better of it and stripped one of his gloves off. You spent the next few minutes reveling at the skin to skin contact, and briefly closed your eyes. It was awhile before you spoke again.

“I know you’re not ready to let me go, and I-I-I don’t want to either. But this is my one and only chance to stay with you, Len. I don’t want to go anywhere, but be by your side,” You breathed out, rubbing tiny circles with your thumb on the back of his hand. “I know the risks, love. This is me giving you my informed consent to go ahead, to give me a fighting chance.”

Leonard continued shaking his head.

You caught his gaze, observing the swirl of anger, desperation, sorrow, apologetic, and most of all, love in his. Gently squeezing his hand, you smiled slightly. The muscles in his neck were strained, and the way his hands clenched and unclenched, as though they were itching to do anything, was a sign of his desperation.

“For us.”

“Y/N, you’re the captain of this goddamn ship. What if-?”

“Leonard, listen to me,” You interrupted. “There is a long list of what ifs that could happen. We won’t be getting anywhere if we start into those questions. However the fact still remains that giving me that is the only logical choice.”

“Logical?” The doctor rounded on you again. “Sweetheart, please don’t tell me that Spock’s been giving you lessons.”

You sighed, shaking your head. “Len, it’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

For the first in a long time, you could see the hurt and the fear flicker across his face. The entire time you were severely sick, he was careful in not worrying you for as much as he could. Rounding towards your bed again, he made a show in readying the hypo and priming it.

Gently, he splayed a hand across the column of your throat, and glanced back at you. You nodded your consent one last time, as though you would have changed your mind in just a short amount of time. There was a slight fear, but you were ready to fully fight off this damn disease and get back into Leonard’s arms once more.

Without much flair, he pressed the hypo to your neck, and injected the slightly blue substance. Tossing it aside when done, your boyfriend sat back down on his stool, head in his hands.

“One hour,” He declared, voice muffled by his hands. “If you’re not having any seizures, we can talk about bringing you out to the main wing soon.”

You settled back against the biobed, and waited alongside him.

Star Trek Tags: @mournthewicked Join the taglist!

#umm #not my best writing #lmao #but I imagine this would happen #leonard mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #bones mccoy #leonard mccoy x reader #bones x reader #leonard mccoy imagine #star trek #star trek aos #deb writes

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coll2mitts · 3 years

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Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Thanks to the awesome people who donated to Extra Life (you still can, btw!) y'all will now be treated to a retrospective on the 1993 classic movie, Super Mario Bros. When I took on this milestone, the first (and only) person I messaged for ideas on terrible (but wonderful) films based on video games was my friend Max, who has a history of viewing and talking about bad movies. He suggested this, and while I was aware of this magnificent piece of cinema history, I had not had the pleasure of viewing it myself. He hooked me up with a copy, and to say this film lived up to my expectations would be an understatement.

I couldn’t help but be charmed by this movie. It is filled with so many questionable creative choices that were fucking ridiculous. Mario and Luigi not being blood related? Sure. Cheesy Italian accents replaced with a New York ones? Yeah, why not? Having all the enemies in Super Mario Bros. be canonically dinosaurs? I mean... It's a choice informed by the great media dino wave of 1993, but whatever. Yoshi is a dinosaur, if we want to extend that to goombas and Koopa for whatever reason, I'm down. Having these dinosaurs live underneath New York City in a parallel dimension? It's based on a video game, why the fuck not? Everything is so goddamn bonkers.

The opening credits roll, and we’re told that 65 million years ago, a meteor created said underground parallel universe dinosaur land. We witness a human-looking woman, who is really a dinosaur, leaving an egg baby on a church doorstep. Don’t think about it too hard, the logistics of a human giving birth to an egg that size are just... it’s gross to think about.

We’re then introduced to the titular characters, Mario Mario and Luigi Mario. Yes, their last names are Mario. Making them the Mario brothers. Because this movie is interested in answering the important questions. Mario is the owner of a failing plumbing business, while Luigi is a conspiracy theorist who would have really enjoyed modern-day YouTube.

While they’re out trying to find work, they run into Miss Amy March herself, Daisy, who is an archeologist in charge of digging up dinosaur bones from a New York City construction site. She’s being forced off the property by the mob, who apparently are annoyed that a blonde lady in cargo shorts is coming between them and whatever the fuck they’re building.

They try and intimidate her, she storms off to use a payphone to call for security, and is almost picked up by two inconspicuous bozos in a cab who apparently are stealing Brooklyn women off the street for no reason. Their plan is quickly thwarted by a random moving pane of glass.

Instead, Daisy runs right into Luigi, who forgets how to human once he sees her pretty face. He asks her on a date, where she reveals even more exposition. She believes the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs landed in New York City. Oh, and also, she’s the abandoned egg baby. Luigi is also an orphan, and this shared trauma apparently gets them both hot and bothered. They wander off to the dig site, because an underground pit attached to a sewer is so romantic, and it is also where Daisy feels the most comfortable.

What if we made out at the bone pit?

Their touching moment is cut short when the mob sabotages the plumbing in the sewer and water starts flooding the area. They run to get Mario, because he is a plumber, to fix the pipes, which is so fucking clutch, I love it so much.

While the Mario brothers are distracted, Daisy is captured by the weirdo twins and dragged into the alternate dinosaur universe. Mario and Luigi follow, and we’re treated to the most fucking amazing transition scene of Bob Hoskins spinning wildly through colorful rocks.

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Turns out, parallel dinosaur world, or Dinohattan, is fucking lit as hell. I am convinced that Futurama based their sewer city on this movie.

King Koopa, who is a dinosaur with badly bleached hair gelled back in an effort to look like Michael Douglas in Wall Street, has taken over Dinohattan. He is the one who asked the goons to kidnap Daisy, because of the tacky crystal necklace she wears. Apparently, it is a piece of the meteorite that crashed into earth, and once he puts the piece back into the original space rock, the dinosaur world will merge with the mammal world after 65 million years of his people being sequestered underground, and Koopa will have endless resources at his disposal. Also, Daisy is a princess, and her dad is a giant fungus taking over the city, so that’s totally normal and not at all weird.

Problem is, the two idiots he sent to grab her didn’t think to check if she was wearing the necklace. Turns out, Luigi has the necklace, or had the necklace, as they are quickly mugged by a granny, who is then robbed by a lady with a bright red spiky latex coat and springy robot feet. The brothers are then arrested by the dinocops and are grilled by Koopa for the whereabouts of the rock. When they play dumb he uh... reacts in a proportionate way.

I am not even going to attempt to explain the devo process... It is a combination of insane and fucking disgusting. Whoever in the costuming department looked at the cute fucking mushroom Goombas in the video game and decided to translate them into this scaly, jagged-teethed nightmare fuel deserves to be committed.

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Also, there’s only one lizard king, and that’s Jim Morrison, so back off, buddy.

What is hilarious to me is this is the story the screenwriters came up with. Super Mario, as a video game, doesn’t have much lore, right? You slide down pipes, you jump on mushrooms, and you save the princess from a spiky turtle. They took that game and created... This. A parallel underground dinosaur universe that has a sentient fungus as a king, taken over by a human-like t-rex that devolves other lizards into tiny-headed night paralysis demons.

The middle of this movie alternates between a slog of expositional scenes about Daisy being a princess, and pretty entertaining action scenes of the Mario brothers running from Goombas while trying to find and save Daisy. Mario and Luigi steal a cop car and drive it off a cliff Thelma and Louise-style; They cosplay as Ketchup and Mustard to steal the necklace back from Big Burtha while asking her to stomp on them; They jump off a bridge into a garbage truck; They break the pipes in Koopa’s building to freeze everything, and get past an elevator full of Goombas by making them dance.

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Watching Daisy damsel-in-distress-it in Koopa’s high rise office building and fend off advances by a long-tongued dude who devolved her father into a mushroom was pretty boring and disturbing. Alternatively, witnessing Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo pretend to jump on giant sheets of fungus really sold this movie for me. It succeeds when it tries to be ridiculous and fun, and fall flat when it attempts to integrate any sort of drama that I’m assuming was added to make this story more appealing to adults.

Mario and Luigi eventually find Daisy, and she introduces them to her father - a giant dripping blob suspended from the ceiling. Luigi wants in her pants badly enough that he pretends this is a reasonable thing to do. Mario heads further into the building to free the other ladies kidnapped by tweedle dee and tweedle dum that they initially thought were Daisy, but weren’t. The newly assembled group are able to escape by sliding down the frozen pipes on a mattress before they are green-screen launched out of the pipe and back into the greater Dinohattan area.

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The amount of times Mario and Luigi use their plumbing skills to overcome obstacles may be my favorite part of this movie. The plot goes out of its way to justify a really bizarre character trait for the original game.

Anyway, the end of this movie comes at you fast. First, the sentient fungus king gives Mario and Luigi a bomb, and they decide to wind it up and aim it at Koopa. This takes about 10 minutes of screen time to matter again.

Koopa’s second-in-command tries to merge Daisy’s stolen necklace with the meteor, and instead gets skeletoned to bits, prompting the best line delivery reaction from Daisy, a deadpan “Yikes”.

Because the necklace has now been returned to its resting place, the worlds start to merge Infinity War style.

“Mr. Koopa, I don’t feel so good.”

Koopa and Mario end up back in Manhattan, and Koopa just starts shooting his devo guns at human mobsters, turning them back into primates, and giving their wardrobe a whole new literal definition of monkey suit.

Luigi uses his super plumbing powers to drill the necklace back out of the meteor, separating the worlds again. The bomb finally goes off, they devo Koopa into slime, and the citizens celebrate by immediately painting over his ever-prevalent propaganda.

The king evolves back into a mushroom person or something, and Daisy stays in Dinohattan to get to know her father better. Mario and Luigi return to their lives in Brooklyn as plumbers, and their heroic acts make them conspiracy community famous, as they now refer to our heroes as the Super Mario Brothers. Roll Credits.

Except not, because Daisy returns to ask for the help of a couple of great plumbers, setting up a sequel that will never, ever happen because there is no god and we’re not allowed to feel joy.

Honestly, Super Mario Bros. is great. It owned every bold plot and visual choice it made, and I have to respect it. I could listen to John Leguizamo say Mario like 700 more times. Y’all are missing out if you think you’re too cool to watch this movie.

I’ll be back to musical reviews later this month. I have a few seasonally appropriate movies in my big red sack waiting to be placed under the tree... Yes, I meant to phrase it that way.

#unwarranted opinion

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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penman47 asked: Your pages on Stirling Moss and Graham Hill have brought back fond memories of my passion for Formula 1 racing and the Grand Prix races from 1963 through1972. Mechanical failures often plagued Stirling Moss, Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark as man put machine to test. My question would be who of the three would come out on top driving the same mechanically perfect car at say the British Grand Prix Silverstone.

Thank you for your question @penman47

I received this question just before the sad news about the recent untimely death of the legendary Sir Stirling Moss. It feels prescient to respond now after a bit time to pass to reflect with a more sober perspective rather than let sentiment and emotion cloud any judgement.

In my family we are, it is fair to say, racing nuts. My grandfather had the racing bug and drove classic cars at amateur meets like Goodwood through his friendship with Freddie Richmond and was involved heavily in the RAC Club. He was fortunate to see all three of these racings icons race. He saw all of Jim Clark’s five victories at the British Grand Prix and regularly went to Monaco to see Graham Hill win there five times. He saw Stirling Moss race too and he was there for the Glover Trophy at Goodwood in 1962 when Stirling Moss had his career ending accident. Without taking anything away from the modern era drivers like Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, and Lewis Hamilton - all of whom he thinks are a credit to motor racing - he is very much of his era. As a proud Scots, he thinks Jim Clark was the best he ever saw.

My father got the racing bug too but was more of a Le Mans fan when he was growing up because spectators were closer to the action than F1. He had inherited and also built up his own classic car collection that he sometimes races at Goodwood. He was a wee laddie when he saw Clark and Hill race but he doesn’t fully recall because he was too young to fully remember. He loved watching James Hunt, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost but had a grudging respect for Nikki Lauda. He never saw Stirling Moss race but knew him quite well through Goodwood and at the RAC Club in London. I know his head says Jim Clark but his heart says Stirling Moss was the best British driver.

For one of my older brothers, who has a thing for speed as I do, he was always a big Ayrton Senna fan. Again as a small boy he saw Ayrton Senna race and was part of the converted to consider him as the greatest driver of all time. Senna’s bravery was his own inspiration to take part in the Dakar Rally and other endurance races.

It’s indeed one of my unmet ambitions to ride in the Dakar Rally but it’s always been on the back burner. I would like to ride with my brother because he has the experience but he and I are too competitive and we would fight over who was the better driver - for the record, I know I am.

My mother - being Norwegian - is left to make dry sarcastic remarks about boys and toys whenever my grandfather, father and us siblings talked about racing. But she’s not immune to the glamour of F1 racing either. I’ve been told by my aunts that when my mother was at her Swiss boarding school, and later learning to be a ski instructor in the Alps, she would descend upon Monaco during the Grand Prix with her friends and enjoy the social side of racing i.e. the partying side of Formula One racing. But she’s quite buttoned up about her partying past. Meanwhile she and my other siblings continue roll their eyes when the subject of racing comes up.

But speaking for myself, speed has been my drug of choice and flying combat helicopters in the army for a time helped satiate that need. When I left I felt empty and bereft. But if flying single craft planes and gliders gives me weird sense of peace these days (when I can make the time to do so), I get a decent rush from riding motorbikes hard and fast on the open country roads (forget about the urban traffic congested cityscape). Racing the odd fast car I managed to get my hands on through pliant boyfriend or good friend has given me a brief thrill too but it’s been spoiled often with my driving companion screaming in my ear or pissing their pants as I take the turn hard. With my penchant for crashing - tsk, more like a graze - I’m not allowed any where near my father’s classic cars.

I have been to Grand Prix races, including ones at Silverstone, Spa-Francochamps, Singapore, Shanghai, Suzuka, Yas Marina, Monza, and Monaco, from the time I was at boarding school. I would either go as a guest of my grandfather or father or even with some school friends who lived in Monaco and had links to get entry into the drivers’ paddock. But these days it’s more likely because of wrangling a corporate hospitality invitation that I would have the chance to go - sometimes if I plan my calendar fortuitously and Lady Luck smiles upon me I can catch two birds with one stone e.g. do a business trip to Shanghai and stay on to see the Shanghai Grand Prix. So I follow racing avidly if I can. For me of course the amazing Lewis Hamilton is the driver of our generation along with Michael Schumacher’s imperious reign at the top. And I do like the cut of Max Verstappen’s gib too.

Of course it’s hard for me to credibly assess who was the better driver between Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, and Jim Clark because I wasn’t a direct witness but not many today were either. But I consider myself a racing fan and I have seen old footage. I have also read about the history of Grand Prix racing and listened to others whose expert views I respect. So I hope what I offer is just an educated opinion at the end of the day but I recognise the heart will come into it because racing - at least in the vintage years - was quite romantic even as it morphed into something more glamorous in later decades.

Anyway, your question just added more fuel to the fire in our family discussions over our recent Zoom calls.

I have to say upfront that I consider Jim Clark as the greatest British driver of all time. I’m with my grandfather on this one and I always enjoy playing contrarian to my father(!). But all things considered Jim Clark was on a different level to both Stirling Moss and Graham Hill. And why I think so I hope I can lay that case out below.

It’s important to put all three drivers in their racing context.

Firstly, they all didn’t race at their peak at the same time and in the case of Moss in a different era. But there was some overlap between Moss and Clark and Hill. Stirling Moss had active career from 1951-1961. Graham Hill had his active years between 1958 to 1975. And Jim Clark was only active for eight years from 196O to 1968.

Secondly, unless you’re a racing fan or have seen old film footage, it really is hard to convey to our present times just how dangerous driving was in that era. It was known as the Killer Years in Formula One history. Back in the days when the British government leached up to 97 per cent from a race driver’s income, a racer had at least a 40% chance of dying at the wheel, so tragedies were commonplace. Some prodded the tiger once too often and ran out of luck. It really is hard for us to fathom the extreme danger Grand Prix drivers put themselves under when they hared around the track as one mistake might well cost them their life or a body of broken bones.

And thirdly, it may sound simple to say this, but they drove extremely fast at very high speeds. The temptation again is to look at vintage racing cars in the light of modern super engineered racing cars and think they were easy to drive.

Few drivers in the history of motor sport can prove they’ve won the elusive Triple Crown. Only Graham Hill can. Formula One world champion in 1962 and 1968; winner of the 1966 Indianapolis 500; winner of the 1972 24 hours of Le Mans and five time Monaco GP winner. An incredible achievement that underlines the fact that Hill was one of the most complete drivers of his time. He was fast, but not the fastest. Talented, but not the most talented. The best, but not always and everywhere. Explosive, but predictable. Professional, but with enough self-mockery to pull his pants down at dinner parties, running up and down the tables. Hill drove his cars throughout the most dangerous years of the sport. Calmly and reserved, while he tried to fight off virtuoso's like Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Jackie Stewart.

When Stirling Moss drove on the track, he was there to race, not to eke out championship points. And to do it fast, faster than anyone else. For a driver whose competitive peak coincided with one of motor racing’s most dangerous periods when death regularly stalked all drivers, a time when average lap speeds escalated while safety precautions stood still, Moss’ courage and achievements were even more astonishing. Moss knew all about that: witness the serious leg injuries he suffered during practice for the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, a race in which compatriots Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey both died, or the career-ending aftermath of his accident during the 1962 Glover Trophy at Goodwood.

But for his own unswerving sense of fair play, he could have pipped Mike Hawthorn to become Britain’s first world champion in 1958. Moss won four races to his rival’s one, but the latter benefited from greater reliability and consistency. The pivotal moment came in the Portuguese Grand Prix, from which Hawthorn was initially stripped of second place for receiving a push-start after slithering off the track. Moss was among those who came to his defence.

To this day Moss has won more world championship grands prix than any other driver never to have secured the championship, despite the ever-escalating number of such races. He has always maintained that he’d like to remembered as “a driver who preferred to lose while driving quickly than to win by driving slowly enough to get beaten”. For a few years, after the retirement of the great Juan Manuel Fangio in 1958, he was the finest and most famous racing driver in the world. He was so good that Ferrari not only wanted him to drive for them but were prepared to have the car painted blue, the team colour of his friend Rob Walker. And it is worth remembering that Enzo Ferrari rated Moss ahead of Fangio and placed him alongside Tazio Nuvolari. He is, perhaps then, the ultimate proof that raw racing statistics sometimes mean very little when you are natural racer.

Jim Clark’s raw racing statistics spoke volumes for his achievement and the astonishing records he set, a few of which still remain unsurpassed. More than that he has been hailed as one of the top three drivers of all time in any reputable survey. His achievements were a reflection of the awe and admiration many of his driving peers and others since his untimely tragic death have held about the man and the racer.

Clark began matching Stirling Moss’s speed in the second half of the 1961 season, and took over the Englishman’s mantle in 1962 when Moss was injured in a crash at Goodwood on Easter Monday. Clark narrowly lost the World Championship that year to BRM rival Graham Hill, after his Lotus developed an oil leak while dominating the finale in South Africa. Two years later he lost another championship to an oil leak, literally on the last lap of the season-closing Mexican GP. The honours fell instead to John Surtees. But in 1963 and 1965 Clark was unstoppable in Colin Chapman’s green and yellow Lotuses, and their driver/engineer relationship was symbiotic.

Jim Clark not only won his second title in 1965 but he did so by leading every single lap of every race he finished in the 1965 season. Therefore, he won every race he finished with what we now call lights to flag victories. It was an incredible feat which has been unmatched by the other truly greats of the sport, Fangio, Senna, or Schumacher.

In 1963 only some obfuscation by the establishment at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in favour of the traditional front-engined roadsters prevented him from beating Parnelli Jones to victory on his Indy 500 debut in Chapman’s rear-engined Lotus ‘funny car’. He led the 1964 Indy 500 race before his rear suspension broke, and in 1965 dominated the event and became the first Briton to win this iconic race since Dario Resta in 1916.

Clark remains the only man in history to have won the Formula One World Championship and the famed Indianapolis 500 in the same year (1965).

His tally of 25 victories was a record at the time. It has since been surpassed by several other drivers, but none in so few races. Clark's came in just 72 starts, a win ratio surpassed only by Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Likewise, his tally of 33 total pole positions was first passed by Sebsatian Vettel, with only Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton ahead of Clark. But in percentage terms, Clark is ahead of them all. He was on pole for 45.2% of his races - only Fangio, on 55.8%, did better.

Those numbers give a sense of how Clark towered over his era, a period when he made many grands prix mind-numbingly boring, so completely did he and his Lotus dominate them. Yes, the Lotus was often the best car, but Clark's supremacy was not in doubt. His two titles in 1963 and 1965 were exercises in crushing superiority, and he would have won in 1964 and 1967 as well had it not been for the notoriously poor reliability of Lotus's cars.

But does any of this tell us which of the three would have won between the three of them at the British Grand Prix as you suggest?

Graham Hill may have been the monarch of Monaco - his nickname was after all ‘Mr Monaco’ with his magisterial six wins between 1963 and 1969, a record only bettered by the great Ayrton Senna - but much to his regret he never won a British Grand Prix race.

Stirling Moss won two British Grand Prix races in 1955 driving a Mercedes car and in 1957 where he shared a drive in a Vanwall car with Tony Brooks.

Jim Clark won the British Grand Prix an astonishing five times. In 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965 he won driving the same Lotus-Climax car and in 1967 he won with a Lotus-Ford car. His five victories were a record that stood through the subsequent decades until Alain Prost equalled Clark’s tally in 1993 (Prost won on and off between 1983 and 1993). Clark’s record was only surpassed in 2019 when Lewis Hamilton won his amazing sixth victory at the British Grand Prix (with perhaps more to come). Even more remarkable was how peerless Clark’s domination was as he won four British Grand Prix races consecutively. It was yet another amazing record that belonged to Jim Clark until Lewis Hamilton joined him in the record books with four straight wins (2014-2017).

It might be churlish to point out that Stirling Moss, like Graham Hill, never won at Silverstone even when he raced there. Clark won three times.

In those days the British Grand Prix was not always held at Silverstone. Between 1926 and 1986 the venue track chosen rotated between Brooklands and Silverstone, then Aintree and Silverstone, and later Brands Hatch and Silverstone. Only from 1987 onwards to the present day did Silverstone become the established venue race track of the British Grand Prix.

Moss’ two British Grand Prix victories were both achieved at Aintree (1955 and 1957). The British Grand Prix races that Moss did compete at Silverstone he retired due to engine or axle trouble.

In contrast Clark won his first British Grand Prix victory at Aintree in 1962, and another one at Brands Hatch in 1964 but the other three victories were at Silverstone.

So one would have to give the win to Jim Clark on paper.

But some may argue yes, that’s all well and good but who was the fastest driver and who really was the better driver?

Here again the stats speak for themselves. The all time list of fastest laps set during their respective careers gives us some clue because the tracks they drove on were the same during their eras. Graham Hill is 34th on the all time fastest laps set with 10 fastest laps in the Grand Prix races he drove in a 17 year career (1958-1975). Stirling Moss is 15th on the all time fastest - one position above Ayrton Senna - where he set the fastest laps in 19 Grand Prix races in his 10 year career (1951-1961). Jim Clark is 7th on the all time fastest laps set by a Grand Prix driver. He recorded 28 fastest laps in Grand Prix races in his 8 year short racing career (1960-1968). Only Mansell, Vettel, Prost, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Schumacher as 1st stand ahead of him. What makes Clark’s achievement staggering is that he was competing in an era where technology was in the Bronze Age compared to the modern marvels of technology, aerodynamics, and speed. It’s also worth noting all the other drivers had much longer racing careers than Clark did before his untimely death. At the 1968 South African Grand Prix - his last before his death in Hockenheim ring in Germany 3 months later - Clark won way ahead of the pack led by Graham Hill who came in second. He was comfortably on his way to another world championship with more records to be smashed.

Clark still holds the record of eight Grand Slam race wins - that is winning pole position, putting in the fastest lap, and leading every lap of a race to the win. Only Lewis Hamilton comes close with six and Schumacher and Ascari with five. He achieved this twice at the British Grand Prix in 1962 (Aintree) and 1964 (Brands Hatch). Again it needs to be emphasised that Clark did all this while driving in the most dangerous era of Formula One - The Killer Years - where death of drivers and lack of driver and track safety was all too common. This is simply astonishing.

Of the three, Jim Clark was the fastest. I think this isn’t just about stats it’s also the they way they drove that made all three such great racers. All three certainly had limitless courage that even now demands total respect and awe. In particular it’s breath taking watching old film footage of Moss driving his most famous and greatest victory of all was the 1955 Mille Miglia in which he covered 1,000 miles of open Italian roads at an average speed of 97.96mph in 10 hours, seven minutes and 48 seconds.

But the fastest doesn’t make you best of course. When it comes to judging who was the best I think what their peers and contemporaries thought of them counts a lot in coming to some conclusions as to who was the best driver.

Sir Jackie Stewart, three times world champion and a team mate of Jim Clark as well as friends with all three drivers, is worth listening to.

Many think that Graham Hill wasn’t the most natural driver. This isn’t said to slight him or doubt his abilities but to acknowledge his approach to driving. As Jackie Stewart said, “Whereas Jimmy [Clark], Stirling, to a certain extent myself, would drive around a car’s handling problem, Graham would fiddle with the car until it was right. Graham would take very different lines around a corner to others, and I know because sometimes I was following him.”

Sir Stirling Moss has echoed Stewart’s comments. “I’d go along with Jackie and say that Graham didn’t have a natural ability to drive a car extremely quickly. But having said that, when I was to choose a partner for a sports car race at say, the Nürburgring, I would always choose Graham because he was so reliable. Quick, but unlikely to do anything stupid.”

Jackie Stewart’s comment unearth one of secrets of why not only was Jim Clark the fastest but also the best of the three. Simply put Clark knew how to take corners and know when to brake.

It must be stressed that both Moss and Clark knew how to take corners and mastered the art of breaking to a level very few drivers reached whatever car they were driving.

Moss was certainly a pioneer in taking corners and knowing when and when not to brake. Moss - especially at his peak in the Lotus - would cut into the corner early and with the brakes on.

Most drivers run deep into a corner before turning the wheel. In this way a driver could complete his braking in a straight line, as is the standard practice and one everyone did and still do, before setting the car up for the corner. But natural drivers like Moss (and Clark) preferred to cut into the corner early and even with their brakes still on to set up the car earlier. In this way such drivers almost make a false apex because they get the power on early and try to drift the car through the true apex and continue with this sliding until they are set up for the next bit of straight. In other words, the result is a smooth line as you come out of the turn and race on at faster and more seamless speed.

Clark would take this to the next evolutionary step from Moss - also in a Lotus - as cars became more mechanically challenging to handle. Clark placed a big premium on braking. In his book At the Wheel (1964) he expounded on this belief, "The most important thing you can learn in racing: how to brake. Often, if I want to go through a given corner quicker I don’t necessarily put the brakes on any later than usual, but I might not put them on very hard, and take them off earlier. Where you are led into the trap is leaving your braking too late and having to run deep into the corner and brake at the last moment, you might certainly arrive at the corner quicker, but there is a psychological tendency to brake much harder than you need to and therefore over-brake."

A good example of this is looking at footage of the 1965 French Grand Prix in Clermont-Ferrand where Jim Clark won from pole position and set the fastest lap around this new track that no one had driven on before (see below)

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Fast forward to the 9 minute mark you will see all the top drivers of that era tackling a fast downhill left - unfortunately you don’t see Graham Hill, who had an off day and ended up 13th I think - but the point remains valid.

Jim Clark drives a Lotus in this 1965 French Grand Prix race and is bombing away from the rest of the pack as was his usual MO. The interesting thing to notice is the turn. Clark’s Lotus is 2-3 feet inside the painted white line as he turns into the corner. It’s really more of a smooth elegant sweep into the corner. Clark clearly turns in much more earlier with the brakes - as we now know - are lightly caressed. Clark smoothly glides through out of the turn as he disappears from view carrying crucial extra speed. Then the rest come and the difference is soon clear. Jackie Stewart’s BRM P261 car grazes the line and grappling with more understeer than he might have liked finds himself to the right of the dotted line when he comes out of the turn. The V8 Ferrari of the great John Surtees also grazes the line with a similar result. Dan Gurney’s Brabham BT11 car crosses the painted line and he pays for his aggressive stance by sitting cross the road’s dotted centre line. On this track at Clermont-Ferrand there were forty-eight corners in its five sinuous miles to perilously navigate and Clark using this MO had the nonchalant confidence and consistency as well as the driving artistry to increasingly pull ahead of the chasing pack to victory.

Analysing the Clark technique, Peter Collins (a former team manager at Team Lotus and Williams, and an avid Clark fan), who knows more about what makes great drivers than most, made a key observation, “His driving was incredibly fluid even in dramatic moments. Watching the first laps of various races you got a very strong impression that he was mentally more ahead of the car than was the opposition. Watching him leading at the ’Ring in 1967, for instance, the impressive thing was that there were no dead moments in transition from braking to turn-in, to throttle on. He was able to drive an understeering car in a four-wheel drift and judge the exits to perfection.”

Graham Hill, who was a good friend of Jim Clark’s as well as being a fiercely competitive rival on the track, knew better than most and so I shall let him have the final say on this. Hill in his penned eulogy to Jim Clark noted his mastery of taking the corner, “For a driver, the excitement of racing is controlling the car within very fine limits. It's a great big balancing act, motor racing. It's having the car broken away and drifting and doing exactly as you want it to do and getting around the corner as quickly as you can, and knowing that you've done it, and hoping that it is better than anyone else has done. You are aiming at perfection and never actually getting it. Now and then you say, "That's it. That's how I want to do that corner. Now beat that, you bastards." This is the essence of racing, and at this, Jimmy, in his era, was unsurpassed.”

A word must be said about the cars these drivers drove. Racing cars in that era were extremely fast but also extremely unreliable. One can only lament how many world championships Moss, Hill, and Clark would have won if not for some mechanical car failure that did cost them dearly. In the case of Clark, he agonisingly lost the world championships in 1962 and 1964 due to oil leaks in the final race both times.

Of the three Hill was the most technical, not surprising given that he started life with the Royal Navy as a technician specialist. When he was racing Hill took notes of every test, every practice, every race and how his car handled specific track conditions and setups. He was constantly on top of his mechanics with these early versions of telemetry and his expertise on engineering meant that the difference between mechanic and driver was nothing more than a grey area. According to some of the mechanics who worked with Hill, it was sometimes impossible to please him. Both Moss and Clark by contrast didn’t really bother with that side but rather they just jumped into the car and worked around the problems on the track relying on their natural flair and genius. That’s how brilliant they both were.

So how would Moss and Clark fare if they both had the same car and barring any technical issues. There are no certainties but they did both briefly overlap in their careers, as Moss was coming to the end of his and Clark was about to start his ascension. The race that most would point to is the 1961 South African Grand Prix. Stirling Moss was the undisputed world's best in 1961, pulling off some famous victories in inferior equipment, but Clark's performances at the end of the season showed that things were changing. Clark's Lotus Climax 21 car had beaten the slightly older Lotus Climax 18/21 model of Moss in the Natal Grand Prix earlier in the month, but the East London race stepped things up a notch. Clark was fastest in qualifying and started on pole position with Moss +0.2 seconds behind.

Both Clark and his Team Lotus team mate Trevor Taylor led the way at the start but but Moss was soon into second and took the lead when Clark spun avoiding another car. Now Clark charged, despite sustaining gearbox damage, lapping faster than his pole time, and Moss was powerless to stop him coming through to win."Moss pulled in behind Clark and tried to stay in his slipstream but could not keep up with Clark's fast and furious driving and fell slowly, but surely, behind," read Autosport's report. "Clark demonstrated that the world championship is no pipe-dream for him." Clark was a little more circumspect, though beating Moss was clearly a watershed: "I had the satisfaction of beating Stirling twice in two weeks, although, in all fairness, my car was newer than his," he wrote in his 1964 book, Jim Clark - At the wheel.

That Clark was being characteristically modest and magnanimous isn’t the main point to take away. The point is made by Colin Chapman the iconic genius behind Lotus who said of Clark, “when there was no mechanical trouble, Clark absolutely blew away the opposition. One prime example of that was the 1967 German Grand Prix when the Lotus was not an easy car to drive but still Clark got pole in it by a staggering 9 seconds. This also brought out another of Clark’s skills – to drive around problems. He was capable of driving a car with any given setup – he never asked to change the setup to make it to his liking, he went out on track and tried to make the car go faster by adjusting accordingly at corners, which was very easy for him as he had a very smooth driving style and it never looked like he was trying to muscle the car across the corners.”

Once Clark was in front he was almost unbeatable. No matter who you were or how good you were, Clark was quicker and relentless. It was almost game over once Clark took the lead and slowly pulled away from the rest. Graham Hill said in his eulogy to Jim Clark, “He was also particularly competitive, particularly aggressive, but he combined this with an extremely good sense of what not to do. One can be overthrusting—aggressive to the point of being dangerous. Well, this Jimmy was not. But he was a fighter, a fighter that you could never shake off. He invariably shot into the lead and killed off the others, building up a lead that sapped their will to win.”

This is one main reason with all things being equal, Clark would beat Moss and Moss would beat Hill. The really scary thing about Clark’s complete mastery of driving was what Colin Chapman said years later, "I think Jim never drove really 100% - he was so good, he didn’t need it to beat the others. Perhaps only in Monza 1967 he had the knife between his teeth...."

Moss is rightly celebrated as an icon of motor racing. Moss had a fantastic 15 year career on the track and just as importantly he had an even longer one off the track as the fantastic ambassador of Grand Prix racing. Moss lived to be 90 years old and he used that time to deservedly cement his legendary status as a Formula One great. He was a very charismatic and convivial personality. He is revered by contemporary drivers and racing fans because his presence was anywhere and everywhere. No racing event would be complete without the vintage stardust of the great Sir Stirling Moss. At Goodwood and at the RAC Club racing enthusiasts would mill around him and listen to his endless yarns. At race circuits during the Grand Prix season his presence in paddock would stop everything as racers and technical crew were in awe of him.

In contrast Jim Clark’s racing career was tragically cut short to a mere 8 years and yet he had achieved so much at the age of 32 years old. Arguably his death had the greater impact because it was more keenly felt by his peers and those within the racing world. So when he was killed by a puncture during the wet Formula 2 Deutschland Trophy race at Hockenheim on 7 April 1968, after his Lotus crashed into unforgiving trees by the side of the track, race drivers around the world felt death’s hand on their shoulder, and asked themselves, “If it can happen to Jim Clark, what chance do we have?”

The consequence of Clark’s death cannot be stressed enough. Clark’s death was the sacrificial blood price for the more modern era drivers to race with greater driver safety measures in place and safer tracks for spectators that these days we today take for granted. A lot of credit is due to Clark’s close friend and team mate, the great Sir Jackie Stewart, who at the risk of his own personal reputation, pushed hard for the racing world to take driver safety seriously. A lot of danger - and perhaps even the excitement - has been taken out as Moss used to say. But there is no question racing - whilst still relatively dangerous because of the higher speeds they are pushing for those micro margin of victories - is much safer than the dangerous era of Moss, Hill, and Clark.

So why isn’t he more well known or revered by the general public (as opposed to hard core racing fans and those within the racing world)? I suspect it was due to his shyness and aversion to publicity. Clark grew up on a Scottish farm and he was clear to many that this was his roots that he always returned to. While he couldn’t entirely avoid the glamour of the racing world with its hedonistic side effects of women, sex and fast cars - as personified by Graham Hill or James Hunt - Clark eschewed all that in favour of simple living on his Scottish farm. His only indulgence was an airplane that he used to piloted into race circuits in Europe - Hill could fly too and it cost him his life in 1975 in a tragic plane accident. Clark simply loved racing. The proud Scot was a gentleman with self-deprecating charm and modesty to match. He was simply a good and decent man revered by his own peers in his own time.

At Clark’s funeral, Jim Clark Snr, beloved father, confessed to Dan Gurney, a racing rival, that he was the only man his son had feared. Gurney, who died in January 2018, spoke of Clark thus: “It is certainly an honour to have had the opportunity to know him as a team-mate, a friend, and to have competed with him on so many memorable occasions. Jim whipped us so many times that we all sort of got used to it. Naturally, we didn’t like being whipped, but, it is probably a testimony to Jim’s integrity and stature among us, his peers, that we couldn’t help loving the lad in spite of it.”

Elizabeth ‘Widdy’ Cameron, whom Clark nearly married in 1960, and with whom he stayed close despite rising fame, said: “He was very shy. And he was a terrific gentleman. I didn't hear him say bad things about anybody. He was a good, good man and I hope everybody remembers that. He was very special.” Sir Jackie Stewart, the three time world champion and another great British driver, still sheds a tear when he’s asked about Jim Clark. The two Scots were close friends, and three years earlier when Stewart had arrived in F1, he played the Robin role to Clark’s undisputed Batman. “Jim Clark,” he says still, “was everything I aspired to be, as a racing driver and as a man.” When Jim Clark this humble man as a product of his upbringing on a Scottish farm in the Scottish Borders insisted that inscribed on his tomb stone would be, ‘farmer and world champion’.

Of course I never saw Moss, Hill and Clark race but I’m definitely in the camp that considers Jim Clark as not only the greatest British driver of all time but also arguably the best driver in the world of all time alongside that other most naturally gifted racer, Ayrton Senna. There’s not much to differentiate their greatness and genius.

It’s fitting that the final judgement of who was the best driver of the three should rest with their peers and contemporaries. Juan Manuel Fangio, the Argentine great is one of my favourite racers and one who is also considered one of the greatest of all time, said this about Clark in 1995: "He was better than I was - the greatest driver ever." Even the great Ayrton Senna when he went to Clark’s old Scottish boarding school, Loretto, confessed to the schoolboys, "After all - Jim Clark was the greatest driver ever."

The wonderful thing about arguing about who is the best with British icons like Moss, Hill, and Clark as examples is how the past can inspire the present generation of drivers to aspire to greater heights than the peers of the past. Who knows perhaps one day we will be talking about Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen in the same hushed tones of reverence and awe. Then as racing fans we should count our blessings that we can witness their special racing artistry on the track first hand while we can in the same way past generations were in awe of such special talents as Moss, Hill, and Clark.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #grand prix #racing #driving #stirling moss #jim clark #graham hill #formula one #britain #british #sports

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wwwafflewrites · 4 years

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To Jump Again

@rosaren2498 Requested: Sherlock X Reader: Reader goes on a date with Jim and he drugs her. She wakes up on the top of a tall building. When Sherlock gets there, Jim threatens to drop reader over the edge, using a gun to keep Sherlock at bay. John, on the roof of another building, ends up shooting Jim in the shoulder and Sherlock just barely catches the Reader. Sherlock thinks that because John technically saved Reader, that she'll want to be with him but she tells him she's been in love with him for several years.

My notes: It's not exactly what you requested—very very similar—but not exact. This kind of just came out and I didn't want to stop it. I think you'll like it anyway. Enjoy! :)

...

Sherlock was practically bouncing off the walls. He was anything but calm, going through some sort of tantrum only a brilliant consulting detective would undergo. His fingers twitched and ran along the fabric of his trousers and then would curl into fists. He searched for another letter and threw an encyclopedia over his head, not caring where it landed. His Belstaff coat waved and fluttered as he paced the flat, muttering to himself. He itched for a good case, but there were none to find. For once in his life, London was quiet.

Just as Sherlock stormed out of the living room, John strolled in with a coffee cup in hand. He sent a curious look back before approached you. “I figure he’ll be at it for a while. You planning on going out?”

You were prepared to say no, but you caught your tongue. What would a little you-time hurt? You could get a drink, maybe relax for the rest of the evening. You deserved it. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I might do that." You stood from your chair, grinning at the army doctor.

John smiled and clapped a hand on your back. "You enjoy yourself. I'll stay here and make sure he doesn't tear the flat apart."

You laughed.

///

Going out for the evening made you realize how often your world revolved around Sherlock Holmes.

The man always had a case to keep you and John on your toes. And when the day was through, the two of you had made a routine of making hot chocolate and watching the telly until you both fell asleep on the sofa. You tried to invite Sherlock, but he was quick to excuse himself. You figured he wasn't interested.

John was nice. You had a hunch that he liked you. He was overly kind and would ask questions spontaneously, curious in your responses. Again, John was nice, but your heart just wasn't clicking. It didn't click like it did with Sherlock.

Tonight you had decided on Speedy's Cafe. It was a typical choice of yours, but the fish and chips were calling to you. And a childish grin pulled at your face when the plate was set in front of you, steam rolling off the chicken as you tore it.

A man strolled up, hesitantly smiling. He was well dressed; his clothes sang classy. After hanging out with Sherlock so long, you began to notice small details, like the expensive wristwatch or the way he held himself. This was a confident, rich man. Possibly dangerous, but somewhat enticing. What's the harm in a little danger?

He gave you a lazy smile, cool as a cucumber. "I just saw you from across the diner. And I couldn't help but notice your beauty. Could I buy you a drink?" His voice was smooth. Flattery. That's one way to get the girl.

Is he date worthy? You examined him. His black hair was slicked back and his suit was elegant and dark. Like a raven or a silver fox. And the dimples that formed when he smiled were rather charming. His eyes were dark and he was the night.

Wow. Okay. That was poetic. 10/10. He's dateable.

Rats. You're staring at him too long. You still need to answer his question.

Habitually, you would skip out on alcohol. It made it hard to focus on difficult or dangerous cases, and hangovers the day after were rather discouraging. However, you decided to treat yourself today. "That would amazing. Thank you!"

"Not a problem." He turned, catching your eye before slinking off to the bar like a panther.

You sunk into your chair a bit when he was out of view. You were posing like some sort of house plant. Idiot. You might as well leave right now before you embarrass yourself. It's why Sherlock doesn't care for you.

You stayed. At least give him a chance. Let him decide if you're an idiot or not.

As these thoughts sunk in, you saw him approaching again. Too late now. The man set the drink in front of you, settling himself in the chair across from you. He put out a firm hand, grinning at you. "Jim."

You told him your name, beaming back at him.

The date was nice. Refreshing, even. You could feel the alcohol working in your system. It made you a bit floaty feeling, but in a pleasant way.

After a little while, however, it turned on you. The room spun about you and you shut your eyes. It was the lights. The lights burned. You felt a headache forming. Why..? You shook your head, standing. You were tipsy and almost wiped out onto the floor if a hand hadn't caught your arm.

It was Jim. "Sorry," he apologized to a nearby family, who was sending concerned looks. "She got ahead of herself. Completely wasted."

The hand pulled on your arm, leading you out of the building. Why was it pulling? What was going… You crumpled as you vomited on the pavement near the diner. With a clumsy hand, you wiped your mouth. You felt disgusting. What had been in..? Why were you so..?

What?

///

John got a call at 10 o'clock.

He sighed, getting up from the sofa and abandoning his late night telly to find his phone.

He did a double-take at the caller. He stared for a small second before muttering. "Mr.Chatterjee?" He was the owner of Speedy's Cafe.

"Mr.Chatterjee?!" Sherlock bellowed from his bedroom. John listened as the detective flew down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. He burst around the corner, marching over to where John held his phone. He took it from John's hands to inspect the screen.

John nodded. "Yeah, not sure why he's calling us so late."

The phone stopped ringing, and then began ringing again as Mr.Chatterjee called a second time.

They both stared at it.

"It must be urgent."

Sherlock hummed. "Yes, it must." A quick finger allowed the call. He put it on loudspeaker.

"John?"

"It's Sherlock."

"Oh. Well, hello. I was concerned about your lady friend tonight. I thought I'd call and make sure she arrived home safe."

"Mmm, no. She hasn't shown up yet."

"Oh, dear."

John sent an alarmed glance to Sherlock as he said evenly, "Why? What's wrong?"

The sound crinkled through the phone, signifying movement. "Well, there was a gentleman with her tonight. Said he'd take her home. She was half-awake when they left."

"And you just let them leave?"

"He was very convincing, mind you. A waiter here actually told me about it. She was worried for her. Said he spun quite a tale…" He sighed, clearly distressed about his decisions. "It gnawed at me for a while. I figured I couldn't be too careful. I guess I'm glad I called."

John breathed, "I am too. What'd he look like?"

"I didn't see him, unfortunately. Waiter said he had black hair, dressed nice. A real fox of a man, she said: clever, handsome, but also deadly. That reminds me. He left a note on his tip." There was some more choppy background noises, like he was opening drawers in search for something. "Oh, here—it says 'IOU'. Now whatever could that mean? I mean, I know it's—"

Sherlock pressed 'End Call'.

John observed the detective, who refused to remove his eyes from the phone screen, stuck in a memory. The color in his face had blanched to a pale grey. He patted Sherlock's shoulder. Sherlock's bright eyes were dull with fear, finally linking with John's. "It's him."

John blinked in bewilderment. Mr.Chatterjee? "H—". No. Moriarty? He blinked some more, denying the idea. "Moriarty? He's dead. He's—"

"It's him." Sherlock ran his hands through his hair, pulling and tugging like it would plant solutions into his brain. He shook his head. "It's him, John. It's Moriarty."

///

Most of it is a whirlwind of fading memories and feeling miserable. You just wanted to lie down. Why wouldn't this man let you lie down?

The sky was a blurry shadow with grey splotches where stars should be; granted, your vision was unfocused. It was night now and you just wanted to sleep. This man was intent on bringing you somewhere.

You were packed into a car. Now that your were lying horizontally, your eyes began to droop and your neck fell back with the weight of your head. But before you could pass out, you were quickly escorted out.

Or… they tried. Your legs gave out, resulting in arms sweeping from underneath you. The wind was bone-chilling. You curled into your sweater and, though a feeble effort, tried to preserve some warmth. Your muscles in your arms had gone completely lax and your legs trembled. You were paralyzed and just barely able to observe what was going on. "What…" you slurred.

When you opened your eyes again, you were staring 4 stories down at London. You were sedated, therefore all you could do was watch the cars pass as you distantly remembered how dangerous this was. Why couldn't you..?

The man, what was his name? Jim. He held your collar and forced you to lean just enough over the edge of the building so you peered down at those on the sidewalk.

Huh.

A noise shuffled behind him. Jim sang, "Oh, Sherlock Holmes. You're late."

"Let her go, Moriarty."

Jim gave a dark laugh. "Poor choice of words there." He faked a push, to which you flailed, and then grabbed your collar tighter so that you would wheeze when you breathed, like a chained dog.

Sherlock took a cautious step forward.

"Maybe… there isn't anything you can do. Maybe… I just want you to watch her fall because you couldn't save her." Jim laughed to himself. "Oh, do I love to watch you flounder. So helpless when it comes to the lives of those you love." He hummed. "But, I guess that's not what you came here for. So tell me, Sherlock Holmes, would you jump again?"

Sherlock watched him. His face was unreadable.

Before Sherlock could answer, a gunshot sounded and Moriarty crumpled.

Sherlock managed to grab your sleeve before you toppled off the roof. You were completely limp in his arms.

"John Watson! My, what a good shot you are!" Moriarty cackled turning to face the army doctor behind him. "Wow!" Blood seeped through his hands.

Sherlock couldn't move.

John took over, checking your pulse and prying open your eyelids to take a look at your pupils.

"It's Rohypnol," Sherlock finally said.

John didn't look up. "I'm a doctor, Sherlock, I know."

Sherlock was silent.

///

“I don’t remember anything.”

"Rohypnol. You were drugged last night." He fluffed your pillow and laid a blanket over your form.

Your muscles were tense and aching, while your skin tingled and itched and numb in random patches. You shook your head. "But the… but the thing… he..." Your head hurt really bad, like a hangover without the nausea. You were restless, and so confused. What happened? Headaches. Headaches happened. "I don't remember anything." You were angry.

"That's normal."

Your mind was slow to process everything still, but when you looked around the room, you noticed an absence. "Where's Sherlock?"

John shrugged. "Around. Probably tripping over himself trying to find another case."

You frowned. "He didn't visit me?"

"Mmm, not that I know of. He's been sort of distant lately." He stared at the smiley face spray painted on the wall. "Very distant…" He stood. "If you'll excuse me for a bit. Here, I'll put on the telly." He quickly passed the remote to you and left the room.

He peered in the kitchen, finding no one. He made his way down the stairs and to the door. He opened it, walking outside. It was snowing.

"Sherlock."

Sherlock didn't look to John. He stood at the side of the door, staring at the light traffic that drove by.

"You can't punish yourself, Sherlock. You froze up. It happens. Get over it and get in there! She wants to see you."

Sherlock didn't bother denying John's accusations. It was true. There was no use lying to John Watson; he saw right through the detective's facades. "She almost fell."

"Yes, she almost fell. It could have been me, and if you'd been just a little less brilliant, it could have been you." John berated him. He was clearly angry. "I just don't understand it."

Sherlock finally looked John in the eyes. "What?"

John kicked at the snow. He scoffed, "What. What. You're oblivious, that's what! You can read a man's story by the stain on his tie or the scar on his cheek, but you can't even see it, can you?"

The blank stare Sherlock gave him answered his suspicions.

"For a genius, Sherlock, you're an absolute idiot."

Their silence was masked by the howling of the winds and heavy snowfall.

"She loves you. And I don't get it. I try to get her attention. I really do. She's not interested in the slightest. You—you ignore her and she still loves you. She loves you." John glared in frustration. How could Sherlock not see? "She loves you and you even try to love her back."

Sherlock continued to stare. John suspected his brilliant mind finally short-circuited.

John breathed deeply, calming himself. His tone became gentle, possibly disappointed. Maybe sad. "Now get in there. She's asking for you."

///

You perked when the detective walked in, beaming at him. "Sherlock!" You muted the telly, more interested in the man before you. "Well, don't be shy, come on—"

"I'm sorry."

That was unexpected.

You let out a snort. "Come on, it's not your fault. I got myself in a stupidly dangerous situation." You grinned. "Sounds like someone I know, eh?"

Sherlock did not smile. "You almost fell because of me."

You stubbornly shook your head. "Nope. Nope. We are not playing the blame game. Come and sit. Watch some telly."

Sherlock did not go and sit. "John’s the one that saved you."

"We're really going to do this? Sherlock, it's not your fault."

"I froze up."

"And I forgive you. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? Now, come here—"

"I love you." Sherlock was very serious. "I didn't realize it before. I took you for granted."

The fluttery feeling in your stomach eased some of your pain. "Well, I love you too, for the record. Maybe I could have a better date?"

And Sherlock softly smiled.

#sherlock #sherlock holmes #sherlock x reader #sherlock fanfic #sherlock fanfiction #john watson #jim moriarty #fanfic #fanfiction

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hecohansen31 · 4 years

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Will you write more about the foursome where reader's Duncan's soulmate ? Please, I need more drama and fluff with them !! I need to see Michael and Jim trying to be nice with her (and failing like idiots), Duncan trying to please everyone, Reader finally having the chance to know them better and... get closer in every senses of the term (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(A/N): Hello there, lovelies!

So I have been having an hard time finding time for writing lately and I am very sorry about it, because... a lot of the prompts you sent me are beautiful so... I can’t help but feel sorry, but things are getting in the way!

Still... I should be able to publish something more this week!

Sorry again lovelies and thank you for your patience!

I am going to tag @angel-langdon, because I know she enjoyed the first part of it, but if I am wrong, I am sorry I tagged you and with this being said, I am leaving you to the fic!

WARNINGS: Sexual Themes, Idiots, Slight Mention of Trauma and Fights.

Since the revelation that Jim and Michael didn’t hate you, your relationship with them had surely gotten better, mostly due to the fact that they had started treating you with less coldness and much more gentleness, although they both had still their limits when it came to you.

Still, it was nice to actually not have to deal with them in awful and fighting moods, mostly so that you could relax and have truly fun with them and Duncan, who was literally the happiest man alive.

You had started taking surfing lessons with Jim in the weekend, although you sucked terribly at it, but you didn’t mind it, even when the boy would tease you endlessly, mostly because the same boy would appreciate completely the moments spent together, showing it to you in a much affectionate way than Michael.

It wasn’t that with Michael it was more difficult, because Jim with his abandonment issues wasn’t definitely the easiest of the two, but you had much less interests that you could share, mostly because not only the man was pretty closed off, but he still held some kind of distrust in you.

Still, talking with him about either Jim and Duncan was an amazing experience to bond over, mostly because he would soften up a bit and if you took care of his favorite boys, he would be the one to take care of you, pampering you at home or outside.

That period, the one under the Christmas’ months, you and Duncan had been pretty busy since it wasn’t easy for either of you to pull off your jobs, mostly in such an active period, although you wished no more than to crash in bed with your lovers.

You had been surprised that Jimmy and Michael hadn’t tried to stop you and Duncan from going to your respective job, as they always did with Duncan when they were feeling like he was neglecting them, like two spoiled children, but you just guessed they knew and understood that you were both struggling to give them best you could.

What you and Duncan hadn’t taken in account was the fact that those two weren’t being respectful of your jobs and lives, but were secretly plotting something in silence, to bring you together.

And it all started working when you received a rather cryptic message that morning, about Jimmy having felt sick t the airport and Michael needing a help with him.

Hadn’t you been so worried about Jimmy Boy you would have probably questioned why you had had to go to the airport, but you had been simply too worried and when Duncan came out of the car in front of you, also warned by a similar message, you knew that there might be trouble on your way.

You and Duncan both rushed to the position in the airport where Michael and Jimmy were supposed to be, the departure lounge where you found your boys… completely fine and with two sets of luggage each, in vacation attire and flowery shirts.

Both you and Duncan threw a look at each other, wondering in which strange reality you had wandered in, the moment you had entered the airport, but were quickly ushered in by your lovers, and meanwhile your “sick boy” literally welcomed you with kisses and hugs, Michael stood beside him, happy to see you both but a trace of uneasiness showed in his face.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Duncan, meanwhile you were too taken by cuddling Jimmy who literally purred against you, trying to slip a hand in your jeans “… Jim?! Michael told us that you were sick!”

“… yeah sick of you being apart from us!” he commented as if it was the most obvious choice ever, gaining a dreadful look from Duncan, meanwhile Michael shifted from the side of his lover to yours, clearly ready for Duncan to debunk the entire plan Jim had brought him into.

Duncan took his head in his hands:

“Jim, I have told you…!” he mumbled annoyed, since one of the most obvious causes of fights between Jim and Duncan was how much time the latter spent on his job, instead of spending it with him.

‘You know that I have to go to work to make the money you and Michael spend, don’t you?’.

‘But you just spend any second you can on your work, even when we are together! You always take calls and never make time for us!’.

And although you understood that Duncan was a busy man, you had to agree with Jimmy about Duncan needing some kind of rehab from work that he could spend with you, which you and Michael had discussed many times, having similar ideas on this.

‘I just wished that he would be less… tired from his work… I know that he can take some time off, but he just doesn’t think that those things can work without him, but we can’t also work without him’.

You had comforted both the boys and had tried to talk on your way with Duncan, explaining that, although your work took much less time than his, you understood what he was going through, but this didn’t oblige him to constantly work himself up to the bone, mostly neglecting others.

‘… I am trying, it’s just the most difficult thing ever to balance my relationship and work… I honestly wish that I could stay with you, but I am also worried that something will blow up my empire and who will want me without the money…’.

You had acted as a mediator between them, and you though you were making some progress since Duncan tried to use the phone less and less when he was with you, meanwhile the boys could count on your attention, when Duncan was away.

But then Jimmy decided to throw the entire thing away.

“And you think that giving me and (Y/N) a heart-attack was a perfect idea to get our attention?” Duncan was trying to keep his tone low, mostly because he didn’t want to give a scene, but Jim didn’t seem to care about anything.

“... it was the only way I could get your attention! You constantly are away, huddled up in your office and thankfully there is (Y/N) or we would just be alone for the entire time…!”.

What was the worse thing was that Jimmy looked close to crying and Duncan close to an emotional outburst.

Michael was the one who had the coldest blood and tried to bring some kind of peace:

“What Jimmy did was wrong, I am not going to lie, but we wanted to have your attention, and to make you relax since we know how much time you spend to make money for us to have a nice and comfortable life and we wanted to give you some kind of break”.

Jim immediately pushed himself so that he could side with Michael to reinforce the proposal, meanwhile he looked at you expecting to do the same, but you couldn’t help but be slightly conflicted: Duncan was your soulmate, but you were slowly learning to love those two idiots.

“… you organized a vacation on your own for me?” Duncan mumbled surprised, his voice little, almost as a shy kid receiving a gift.

“Yeah, we did!” giggled Jimmy, meanwhile Michael muttered darkly, sending you an obvious look.

“… but it isn’t simply for you, we also did it for (Y/N)” mumbled the blonde man, turning to you with a shy glance, that got your heart to lightly beat faster, meanwhile you blushed.

“Ah, that is too nice, sweeties!” you didn’t know what to say, because you were speechless due to the fact that they went from literally ignoring you to buying you a vacation in the span of a few weeks “… I am honestly… I don’t know what to say”.

Which meant that you honestly felt like crying a bit, and Duncan, recognizing your emotion immediately, hugged you close to his chest. Kissing sweetly your forehead, before he sent a look to your other two lovers, inviting them to join the hug.

Which they did with no hesitation, immediately hugging you closer with extreme gentleness, squishing you lightly and making you laugh through your tears, meanwhile Jimmy muttered something about ‘not wanting to make you cry for his stupid ass’, meanwhile Michael mumbled about the fact that he couldn’t believe that he had fallen in love with three idiots.

A few minutes later you were boarding in first class for an unknown location since the boys wouldn’t tell you and Duncan where you were going, but it was nothing that champagne couldn’t soothe.

In the end you ended up reaching a tropical island in a five star resort, with a beautiful sight on the beach and even more beautiful room service that you and Jimmy took immediate advantage of, mostly ordering fruit and some other delicacies, starved after the journey.

But Jimmy didn’t seem tired in the least and dragged you and the others, who were barely able to put on your swimming costumes, to the beach, and Duncan had no choice but play volleyball with him, meanwhile you and Michael researched whether this place was perfect for surfing or not.

It was more a cover mission not to be dragged in the “hurricane Jimmy”, meanwhile you two looked at your boys playing heavenly in the water, with you blushing and with Michael having that smug smirk of his which was like ‘Well, he is all mine’.

You both gossiped sipping on your drinks, meanwhile the boys tried to tire each other out in the water, trying to dunk each other, and to steal each other the ball, till they got tired of each other and in the end moved to annoy you and Michael, with cold hugs and splashing you.

You were more cooperative and accepted to immerge in the water, with your hands around Duncan’s neck and Jimmy linked on your back, trying to steal a piggyback ride.

Michael kept, as a cat scared by the water, to himself, till all your stomachs grumbled, and the brats of the relationship had already helped themselves to booking for an entire night the main room in the hotel you were staying, so that you could have a rather romantic and private dinner.

Michael and Jimmy helped you get ready, although it was more Michael, since Jimmy only ate up all the snacks in the minibar and “booed” any dress that he thought was too conservative (which was everything to you), meanwhile Michael gave you some suggestions about what to do with your hair and make-up, even applying your eyeliner, since you simply couldn’t.

Duncan had been waiting outside, although he hadn’t wanted you to know, he was probably phoning some of his companies to let them know he was on vacation, and when you all walked on him, his phone literally fell from his hands, as it happened in the movies.

Michael coughed pointedly to make Duncan close his open mouth, meanwhile Jimmy just thought about snapping a picture at his cute face you just blushed compulsively, and as you moved to get Duncan’s offered arm, both the boys brought you back, grabbing an arms of yours each.

“Brats” he mumbled annoyed, making another attempt, but both the boys growled light.

“… you don’t get (Y/N), because you are a meanie”.

“Can you not treat me like a toy?” you whispered, not wanting to be caught in this war, and they all seemed to settle for a truce.

… till you all settled down and ordered and meanwhile you were waiting for your food, you felt a leg brushing lightly against yours.

You didn’t mind it too much attention, mostly because accidental brushes weren’t uncommon, and although Duncan was pretty affectionate with you, “the brats” hadn’t tried to make a move onto you, in that sense, although Jimmy could get pretty handsy and, more time than not make-outs, with him were messy.

But you had never been all together with the four of them.

You didn’t mind it too much thought, when it happened again, talking calmly with Duncan about work, meanwhile Jimmy sometimes intervened and Michael mostly nodded, listening softly to the both of them, his hand gently caressing Duncan and Jimmy’s back, since he was settled between them and in front of you.

But the third stroke was definitely much more intrusive and clear in its intention, caressing the entirety of your thighs from your ankle to the inner part of your thighs.

You almost bumped your knee against the table at the pleasurable sensation, definitely not expecting it, and all the eyes were on you, and you couldn’t help but feel like it had been Jimmy, because he was at your left and smirked like he knew what was going on, but the next time the stroke happened, Jimmy was turned to Duncan, who you thought was the culprit.

And you sent him a pointed look: couldn’t he stop acting like a horny boy, just for a romantic dinner?

He looked confused, after receiving your glare, but you knew all too well that your soulmate was sneaky, but he was also ruled out as Michael’s hand moved onto your thighs and his legs caressed you again, this time making it clear it was him.

When you turned to chastise him, he just had this beautiful smile on his face, completely smirking at you, knowing what was going on and worst of all, that you were unable to do more, and as he reached down the skirt of your dress, he sneaked his hand into the slit and onto your panties.

He had been the one to suggest the dress with the slit and now you understood why.

Michael had been the most cold to you, so you definitely weren’t expecting it, as he pushed himself through the fabric of your panties and brushed your most intimate place, gently caressing your folds in a distracted way, meanwhile he involved himself in the conversation.

The pleasure going through you was gentle and soft, but it kept you distracted and when Jimmy asked you if what the waiter had brought you was yours, you had to almost get him to repeat the phrase, but worst of all as you were answering it, Michael inserted one finger in you, making you feel every inch of his thick finger, and you were unable to hide a moan.

Thankfully the waiter was graceful enough to disappear, but as he went away Jimmy ducked his head under the table to see what was going on, immediately grumpily mumbling:

“You little shit, Michael!” he screamed, meanwhile Duncan understood what the heck was going on, smirking at you, probably understanding the horrendous teasing that you were going through, right now “… we said we would wait till tonight”.

And Michael, although heartbreakingly, retreated his finger from you, sending Jimmy an annoyed look, before he showed you a teasing smirk, gently enveloping his fingers stained with your juices in his mouth, making you not only blush but molten heat was immediately poured again in your center.

“I just wanted a little taste” he mumbled, almost as child caught with his hand in the cookie dough.

“Well I can’t blame you… lovely (Y/N) here tastes just like cotton candy” mumbled Duncan, sharing an intense look with Michael, a light smile on his face, meanwhile Jimmy just pouted, before he drifted down under the table and before you knew it, your dress was brought up to your hips and your panties down.

“Then it’s only fair that I take my taste”.

#michael langdon #duncan shepherd #jim mason #michael langdon reader #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon moodboard #michael langdon ask #michael langdon drabble #michael langdon blurb #duncan shepherd reader #duncan shepherd x reader #duncan shepherd imagine #duncan shepherd moodboard #duncan shepherd ask #jim mason reader #jim mason x reader

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thegeekerynj · 4 years

Text

DCeased: Dead Earth # 2-3

Writer: Tom Taylor Pencils: Trevor Hairsine Inks: Gigi Baldassini

‘Your father wasn’t a hugger.

‘Oh, believe me, I remember. But I’m not as emotionally stunted. We’re just lucky Scarecrow never realized Bruce’s greatest fear was intimacy.

‘Batman could have been chased out of Gotham by a supportive pat on the shoulder’

——————————————————————————————————

Gentle Readers, I promise to be better.

Two months of reviews in one is bad. To cram two months of this book together is inhuman.

Tom Taylor is killing me. Not physically, although at times, it does feel that way… he is wringing the heart out of my chest, one super strong twist at a time, the pain just receding as the next twist grinds bone and cartilage into organ and nerve ending.

I feel every gut wrenching reveal like a gut punch, and wince as I see the fates of so many favorite…

Dear lords, I love this series!

We pick up with Arsenal in Chicago, patrolling outside the bunker where those uninfected humans he is protecting are holed up, hoping for salvation. As he talks to Gracie, a little girl who is a resident of the bunker, the Anti - Life infected move in.

Led by Fire.

Arsenal goes up like last 4th’s fireworks, leaving Gracie staring at a leather clad funeral pyre.

And Shadowpact arrives ten seconds too late.

So, Roy Harper, who survived being Oliver Queen’s ward, Green Arrow’s sidekick Speedy, heroin addiction, alcoholism, death seeking depression and suicidal tendencies, losing an arm and being cloned by CADMUS, gets taken out by a zombie attack.

A true Romero ending.

Somewhere, Tom Taylor is gigging, as he gnaws on my heart…

This is the first THREE PAGES!

Things we learn through these issues:

Cradle robbing is no longer frowned upon.

Wearing the Bat makes such things forgivable

Damien Wayne is more well adjusted after being raised by the League of Assassins than Bruce Wayne was, being raised by Alfred and vengeance

Jim Gordon is a snarky old man

Jason Todd is not as big a jerk as he has played

Constantine is

Maxwell Lord is just as big a tool in this universe as he was in others

He dies just as easily, too

Harley Quinn has more of a conscience than we’ve seen

The biggest badass in the world is a plant

The smartest badass is a chimp

Ivo is back

So are Amazo

Etrigan is back

The infected have souls, and can be cured

Trigon is coming

To collect the souls

Game On!

Taylor’s story has been tight, MTA Rush Hour Subway tight. No loose ends, the plot is well thought out, every Chekov’s Gun has been fired, so far. The characterizations are wonderful, extreme in some cases, and in some cases they prove that, at times, Less is definitely More.

Need an example? Three panels, Dinah Lance, Black Canary, the new Green Lantern of Sector 2814, will not leave her one true love Oliver Queen behind. She carries him in a force bubble, to both keep others safe, and protect him.

When told to make a choice, hit the road with a carrier of the Anti-Life virus, or dump him outside the Garden Zone, and remain inside in safety, she doesn’t hesitate. She leaves. This is Strength. This is Love. **tear** (I hate you all, Tom Taylor, Trevor Hairsine and Gina Baldassini!)

Which, in fact, brings us to the art team. Trevor Hairsine and Gina Baldassini have created an incredible world in these books. The artwork is so sharp, so detailed, as to make the reader a part of the story. It has a Barry Windsor Smith feel, so fine lined and expressive, so very detailed, and SO GRAPHIC!!! Thank the gods this is a Teen+ book…

We have setups for the next few issues, the Australian Compound / Ivo and the Penguin, and Scott Free / Constantine / Bobo, off to find Metron, the Anti - Life vs the Gotham Green Zone, Alec Holland and his quest to free his opposite, Jason Woodrue, the Floronic Man. The next big question, who will complete their tasks first?

More importantly, do the Variant covers predict who is going next… How will the Helm of Fate work with an Anti - Life Kent Nelson???

Out of 5🌶 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶

#DCeased #Tom Taylor #Trevor Hairsine #Gigi Baldassini #DC Comics #comics #DCeased Dead Earth

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

Text

November 18: 1x24 This Side of Paradise

Today’s ep: the first, but not the last, instance of Spock’s inner hippie coming out.

Also another ep where Spock is wrong, again. “Absolutely zero chance of survival,” he says, minutes before they find survivors.

I see Spock just volunteered himself for the landing party.

Kirk is such a romantic. “Ah, there’s nothing sadder than a dream that’s died...”

Omicron Ceti III... that reminds me of something... could it be Futuruma?

(It is Futurama.)

“He’s alive, Jim.”

Sulu asking the important questions: is it possible they’re not alive? I mean given some of the ship’s prior adventures, it’s a valid possibility.

Ah-ha, Spock’s old... “friend.” Another hussy he’s cheating on T’Pring with. I guess he’s into blondes.

Kirk is so suspicious. He knows a romantic interlude when he sees it.

This settlement would be very popular today. Simplicity. Gardening. Happiness.

“I wouldn’t know what was right or wrong with a farm if it were two feet away from me,” Sulu says, while sitting right next to the danger plant. I love Sulu. He has such an easy, good-natured humor about him that I really don’t think is appreciated enough.

Spock’s still a Vulcanian, I see.

So he knew Leila 6 years ago... Only six? What was he doing on Earth then?

“It is said he has no feelings to give.” People love to gossip about Spock.

Kirk giving Bones the disk like “Ta-da, friend, I have anticipated your needs!”

I want to know how Bones broke two ribs. Barroom brawl?

“I missed you.” / “Logically, you should be dead.” Wow, what a romantic.

I think it’s interesting that he related his lack of emotions to being a scientist, not a Vulcan. He did that in the Naked Time, too, drawing on his identity as an officer when the space disease made him feel weepy.

Even though Leila is also a scientist.

“We’re vegetarians.” Lol Spock will fit right in.

I find it interesting that Starfleet has the authority to evict these people from the planet.

“It gives life, peace, love”--that doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Is it a drug?

Spock getting hit in the face with the spores is HILARIOUS.

She’s so surprised that suddenly feeling emotions hurts him--duh, he’s not human, so it’s different for him!

So is this Spock’s “inner face”? Ready to declare his love all at once?

“Would you like to use a butterfly net on him, Jim?”

I can’t believe Jim was halfway through his sentence when he was suddenly like “Where’s Spock?”

Spock’s seen a dragon? I bet he liked that.

I really like this romantic theme music.

This is absolutely the attitude adolescent Spock took with Sarek. “I don’t think so Sir.”

“I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little.” First, I love when Kirk and McCoy do this like ‘you said this’ ‘no I didn’t...’ thing. And second, they talk about Spock in their off time!

“The frequency is open but he doesn’t answer.” Leaving Jim on read I see.

Jim does not like this weird Spock, swinging from the tree limbs.

Lol Spock wants to “straighten out” Jim. That raging bisexual? Unlikely.

Spock is under arrest: the charges, silliness while on duty.

I love the creepy music they play over the plants. The music + the look of the plants is very invasion of the body snatchers. They just look alien.

Interesting that Jim is (partially?) immune.

I love when Bones gets really Southern. You can tell he really worked on toning down that accent, but this is his true self.

Oh no, Uhura took out communications, now it’s unfixable.

Plant on the bridge!!! So creepy.

Captain’s log: I’ve been bested by spores.

Spock is very interested in this “mint julep.” He knows what it is! It’s a drink! (He definitely had to ask.)

So the plants are, in fact, aliens. Traveling to space to reach this planet that they like very much.

“It’s a true Eden, Jim. There’s belonging... and love.” The two things Spock wants most!!

“I don’t know what I can offer against paradise.”

I can’t believe that after that long, sad soliloquy, Kirk gets hit in the face with spores lol. It’s just a funny visual!

Kirk’s little suitcase. Full of shirts. All the essentials.

And then... a random medal? I guess it’s there to show that even spored, Kirk still cares about his accomplishments and still has pride in them. Personality-wise, he just doesn’t seem as susceptible.

The getting-over-the-spores thing is a little...weak. Like I guess he just cares so much about the ship he can’t abandon it? The thought makes him angry and that kills the spores? A little weird.

And of course, he goes straight to Spock as the first person he wants to save, eve though that involves poking him to anger, which is risky. “Aroused, his great physical strength could kill.” Interesting choice of words lol.

“My mother was a teacher.” Spock doesn’t like mean references to his mom.

Also I guess this is the ep that canonically establishes Sarek as an ambassador.

Kirk has to work really hard and say a lot of very mean stuff to get Spock angry. (Unlike AOS Spock who just hears the words ‘your mom’ and is ready to throw hands.) (In his defense, she did just die.)

Also omg his parents are still alive! Stop talking about them as if they were dead!

“I don’t belong anymore.” Yes you do bb! On the Enterprise!

“Well if we’re both in the brig, who’s going to build the subsonic transmitter?” Impeccable logic. I feel like Spock set him up for that one on purpose.

“Enterprise” in McCoy’s thick Southern drawl.

I like that Spock changed back into his uniform first.

Jim is definitely jealous of Leila.

This Spock and Leila conversation... Really makes me curious to see Spock attempt a romantic relationship.

Saying “that man on the Bridge” is so much more dramatic than just saying “the Captain.” Like... so much more!!

“You couldn’t pronounce it” lol. I’m so glad this scene exists to make it clear that he has a last or family name and also that we will NEVER know it. I completely reject that dumbass fanon name, you know the one. It’s pronounceable! That means it’s wrong!

Hilarious that that’s the note they end on.

I guess Leila was over the spores there for a bit. But I still don’t really have a firm grasp on what her actual personality is. Everyone else’s seemed to change a lot while under the influence.

I feel like they kind of did start a 500 person brawl.

Glad Bones got his mint julep!

“Would you like to see how fast I can put you in the hospital?” I think you already put him in the burn unit!

I can’t believe he throws the mint julep away when the spores go away. Does he not actually like them?

This episode is very judgmental lol. Also, I know they’re humans, but it doesn’t seem in the spirit of the Prime Directive either.

What my mom calls Kirk’s Puritan work/strife values. True. He’s a Midwesterner but he’s a little Puritan too clearly. “Maybe we were meant to struggle” says the man who lives in a post-scarcity utopia.

I kind of feel like Spock DOES want to stroll to a lute.

And of course this whole “poetry” interlude is itself incredibly Dramatic.

“For the first time in my life, I was happy.” What?? No, stop being such a drama queen. Wasn’t seeing a dragon cool? Meeting Jim??

I don't know if I think the concept of just being happy and gardening to survive is so bad tbh. Like... I guess a part of me (the Puritan part?) does rebel at the idea of just being....blank and placid all the time, and never striving for anything. But like that was really the worst the spores did. There's no real explanation as to why it's bad, other than, well, it makes you not so ambitious. I'm very torn about the moral of the story.

Still overall, a very good ep. A good Spock ep--lots to think about re: his characterization, when I’m more awake. A very good Kirk ep, too.

Next is The Devil in the Dark. YET ANOTHER absolute classic. Season 1 really just keeps going at 100mph.

#the year 2020 #2020: star trek #2020: fandom thoughts #star trek tos

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