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dragonsarecool · 4 months ago

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Febwhump Day 14 - Becoming the Monster

A/N: Meeting Joran was the one part of the zhian'tara that terrified Jadzia. Sisko was frightened too, but no one else needed to know that. Set during 'Facets'.

He hadn't expected the transferral to be so…anticlimactic.

He was expecting a big cloud of consciousness to come flying through the air, and his body would react as his thoughts and willpower fought for dominance.

Joran's consciousness appeared gradually in his mind, manifesting in the same image Benjamin had seen in his file on the Trill homeworld. He gave the incoming man a nod, his own consciousness being gently pushed aside as he graciously allowed the visitor to enter. Joran.

Benjamin.

"Benjamin?" Jadzia asked hesitantly.

Better let her know you're here. Sisko voluntarily took a step back. And don't try anything stupid, mister.

"Hello, Jadzia," Joran's voice was higher than expected, even through he was using Benjamin's vocal cords. He made his voice sound melodic, and Benjamin realised this was probably some sort of sick irony.

"If you need me, I'll be right outside." Odo said quietly.

"As will I." The Guardian chimed in, both men taking a swift exit.

As much as Benjamin had initially protested their decision to leave the two of them alone, he'd allowed Jadzia to have final say on the matter. It was her zhian'tara, after all. He was merely a vessel.

He realised Joran was staring intently at Jadzia, moving his eyes up and down her body repeatedly. He probed the musician's thoughts and came away with a sense of disgust. What a creep.

I can still hear you, Benjamin.

Then take note of my thoughts, Joran. Sisko was already feeling uncomfortable. I expect Jadzia won't let this conversation go very far if you keep this up-

"It's good to see you again, Jadzia. Tell me," Joran asked in a sickly sweet tone, "Have you been practising your music?"

Jadzia's face was unreadable, bordering on stony. "Yes. When I have the time."

You interrupted me! Sisko allowed his shout to reverberate around his mind, despite the discomfort it brought.

Joran ignored his protest, twisting his mouth into a smile that made him nauseous. "Good. Do you think of me when you play?"

Benjamin could tell Jadzia was nervous. She kept her hands firmly tucked behind her, her eyes darting between his own and the floor of the cell. "…Sometimes."

"I'm glad. You're a very pretty girl, Jadzia. Very pretty. But unfortunately that's all you are." Joran's delight was evident, his true desires practically dripping from his tongue.

Stop it right now. Benjamin stepped forward, intending to retake control if things got out of hand, only to be halted by Joran's own defences. He struggled against the mental barrier the Trill spontaneously created, his panic rapidly building as it refused to budge. The Guardian said I should be able to take control! What's going on?!Jadzia!

"You're nothing compared to Lela, Torias or myself. A pretender," Joran taunted, relishing in the younger Trill's visible distress. "You must realise that by now."

Stop it, Joran!

"You don't know anything about me." Jadzia's voice took on a sharp edge, her gaze narrowing.

Yes, Jadzia! Don't let him intimidate you!

"Only what I can see. A little girl not worthy of the noble creature nestled inside her. You're overwhelmed by it. You're in over your head. And they said it was a mistake choosing me for joining," Joran let out a delicate laugh before resuming his serious demeanour. "But there is one hope for you, Jadzia, and that's me. My strength is within you. You don't have to be afraid of it."

"I'm not."

"Then use it let me show you how to use it. Lower the forcefield, Jadzia. Lower it, and you will never be afraid of anything ever again."

No! No, Jadzia!

"No."

Benjamin threw himself against the barrier, slamming his fists in frustration. Dammit, Joran, let me in! This has gone too far!

I disagree. I'm quite enjoying this.

He realised a second too late what Joran had in mind, unable to stop as his forehead was slammed repeatedly into the forcefield surrounding the cell. Electricity rippled through his body with each blow, and although Joran was unaffected, Benjamin continued to scream silently. JORAN!

"Joran! Stop it, you're hurting him!" Dax's voice climbed in pitch. "Benjamin, take control! Now!"

I'm trying, Old Man! I'm trying!

He barely registered Jadzia deactivating the force field, his body spasming uncontrollably.

You know what? Joran waved his hand and the barrier slid aside, allowing a small gap for Benjamin. I'm feeling generous.

He prepared himself to squeeze through, only for the barrier to close as he was halfway through, pinning his hips firmly in place. Pounding his arms against the wall, he desperately tried to throw himself forward. Joran, no!

"Benjamin?"

Joran began imitating hyperventilation, placing a hand against Benjamin's chest as he attempted to put on a panicked façade. "I think that's enough of Joran for now."

"Are you all right?" Jadzia asked worriedly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Joran smiled wickedly. "Surprise."

He growled as he wrapped Benjamin's hands around Jadzia's throat, forcing her back against the wall of the cell as he pushed on her trachea. Benjamin was glad that Joran had greatly underestimated Jadzia's true strength, and cheered silently as his body was thrown backward. Fight him, Jadzia!

The flurry of punches to the face was the distraction that Benjamin needed. He managed to finally push himself out of his trapped position and threw himself at Joran, tackling the Trill's consciousness. Get the hell out of my mind.

He grabbed Joran's shoulders with the tightest grip he could muster, pushing the Trill to the farthest point of his mind. He felt his nerves and muscles come to life once more as they began to obey him, and he threw his arms up in surrender. "It's all right, old man! It's me."

It took an agonisingly long moment before Jadzia believed him, immediately kneeling by his side. "Are you alright?"

Benjamin nodded, panting as he rubbed at his face. "Thanks, old man."

Jadzia did a double take. "For what?"

He gave her a relieved smile. "For not breaking any bones."

#star trek #star trek ds9 #star trek deep space nine #star trek deep space 9 #fanfiction #whump #febwhump #febwhump25 #febwhump2025 #febwhumpday14

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foreveralwaysanauthor · 4 years ago

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The Reality of It All

December 18, 2021

Prompt - Movie Day

Characters - Cabin Crew

Notes - I've been wanting to write this one out for ages and, even though it took me ages to finish, I'm happy it's finally here.

December 18th,

Uncle Brady decided this morning, since there’s so much snow on the ground, that we’re having a movie day today. He even invited over Vivien’s family since we’re not far from them and Vivien texted me saying she’d see us later so I guess they’re coming. I can’t deny that I’m excited to see her. She’s so much fun to hang out with and we get along really well. She’s just amazing... Anyway, Bentley’s excited because if Vivien comes, her younger twin siblings, Oliver and Abigail, come too and they’re the same age as Bentley so he’ll get to show off his favorite movies at some point. They get along about as well as Viv and I do, which is great. I hope we can watch Titanic again - I love that movie.

“Alright, everyone!” Brady called as the last movie - Lela’s pick of High School Musical - came to a close. “We’ve got pizza coming out of the oven in a few minutes. If you’re hungry, come get it.”

Vivien’s father, Damien, stood and sighed, “Sadly, we’ve got to be going.”

“What?” Royce and Bentley asked.

From her spot next to Bentley, Abigail let out a grumble of complaint. “Why can’t we stay?”

Damien smiled, reaching down and ruffling his daughter’s hair. “You know you’ve got to get to practice, Abby.”

Abby stared at her father for a moment before raising an arm and faking a cough into her elbow. “Oh no,” she said dryly. “It appears as though I’m sick. Can you call the rink and let them know, Daddy?”

Damien turned to his wife, Chelsea, with a pleading look. In return, Chelsea shook her head and sighed, “Abigail Marie, stop pulling the ‘Daddy’ card on your father and go put your boots on.”

With a resigned sigh, Abby turned to Bentley with a smile. “It was worth a shot. I’ll see you after practice.”

“See you later,” Bentley replied, getting a hug from the girl before she stood and took off for the mudroom to grab her coat and boots.

“At least I’m not going anywhere,” Oliver sighed happily, leaning back against the couch and popping another piece of popcorn into his mouth.

Oliver was quickly corrected as his mother stood from the couch. “Nice try, mister.” Chelsea’s arms were crossed over her chest as she turned to her only son. “Don’t think that I forgot about your parent-teacher meeting that easily. Go get your coat on.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Oliver huffed and groaned, pulling himself from the floor as Bentley snickered at him, earning Bentley a swift shove as Oliver passed him. “Oh, shut it. I’ll see you later, man.”

“Later,” Bentley replied as Oliver left the area. Royce and Bentley turned to Vivien expectantly, waiting for her to be summoned by her parents. The girl with the glasses shrugged at them in response, unsure if she had anything planned that day.

“Can I stay?” Vivien asked, sending her parents a hopeful smile.

Chelsea took out her phone, examining her calendar for a moment before nodding. “You have nothing on the schedule so, if Brady and Mack will let you stay until we come back, that’s fine by me.”

When the sixteen-year-old quickly whipped her head around to the couple on the couch, Mack waved a hand with a grin. “That’s fine. We’re not going anywhere.”

Vivien beamed, turning to her parents again and thanking them before standing and giving them each a hug. “I’ll see you guys when you get back.”

Not long after, the rest of the O’Brian family left and the pizzas were pulled from the oven. After claiming their slices, Royce, Bentley, and Vivien returned to the living room to talk about what the next movies could be. Royce took in a bite of food before smirking. “Why don’t you pick the next movie, Viv?” he asked. “It’s my turn next and I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Vivien replied, brushing crust flakes from her fingers before taking a sip of her soda. “It’s your turn, not mine. Besides, I don’t even know what movies there are to choose from.”

Royce gently argued that he didn’t mind giving her his turn and that he’d go after. Vivien politely refused once again, adamant that she didn’t want to skip his place in line. As the friendly argument continued, Bentley stared between the two before shaking his head with a smirk. He scooted his way across the floor to the fireplace, grabbed a box filled with DVDs, and dragged it back to where they’d been sitting around the coffee table. Shoving it next to Vivien’s leg, Bentley grinned. “Here you go. Pick away.”

Vivien looked between the two boys before shaking her head and sighing, “Thanks, Ben.”

Bentley simply nodded with a hum before subtly high-fiving Royce between the beams of the coffee table. Vivien sifted through the films, chuckling softly at a few of the names before pausing toward the back of the box. “Wow,” she breathed, “I think I’ve finally found one I’ve never seen before.”

“Do you want to watch it?” Royce asked.

Vivien flipped the case over, reading the summary of the movie before shrugging. “Yeah, why not,” she said with a grin before opening the case, pulling the DVD from it, and making her way to the DVD player. She swapped out the DVDs, placing High School Musical back into its case before placing the new disc into the open player and pushing it into the machine.

“What’s the movie?” Bentley asked as Vivien placed the empty case on the mantle and made her way back to her seat.

“Some beach movie from the sixties,” she replied as she took up her cell phone and checked some of her notifications. “It’s probably like Beach Blanket Bingo or something.”

As the DVD player loaded the disc and the main theme of the movie began playing, the cabin became almost eerily quiet. Royce and Bentley’s eyes widened in panicked horror as the screen displayed the title of a movie they knew all too well. Clips and pictures of Tanner, Giggles, CheeChee, Lugnut, and - oh, no, no, no! Was that Miles standing between Lela and Butchy?! - the rest of the gang began flitting across the main screen of the movie in time with the music.

Vivien glanced between the boys as she tucked her cell phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Royce and Bentley exclaimed, their eyes flitting to Vivien before Bentley tried to sneakily lean around the small table, aiming to retrieve the remote by Vivien’s leg but it was just a hair out of his reach.

With a slow, skeptical nod, Vivien took the remote, adjusting her glasses over her nose as she turned back to face the TV. Bentley deflated in defeat and Royce let out a quick, but soft “No!” and reached across the table for Vivien’s arm as the girl’s gaze met the screen. Vivien smiled at the screen and the boys let out heavy breaths they’d both sucked in as a picture of Tanner and Seacat came on, replacing one of Lela and Butchy at Big Momma’s.

“Okay, this could either be awesome,” Vivien began, turning to Royce and Bentley with a grin, “or amazingly stupid. Place your… bets. Why do you guys look, I don’t know, concerned? Maybe scared?”

The song began playing again, making Vivien turn back to the screen, allowing her to see a short clip of Lela and Tanner talking while Butchy stood between them. Vivien blinked a few times as she tried to register what she was seeing. The green-eyed brunette took her glasses off and swiped at her eyes, placing the round frames on her face once more before staring up at the TV screen again.

Bentley turned to Royce, watching his brother’s almost perfectly stoic expression with concern as the hurried footsteps of the rest of their family entering the room registered in the back of his mind. Vivien slowly stood from her spot on the floor, stepping toward the TV as the main menu continued to play. Green eyes glinted with curiosity and confusion as she used the remote in her grasp to select a scene from the menu, clicking on one that had Butchy, Lela, and Tanner up on the stage at Big Momma’s. Vivien fast-forwarded until she found the exact moment the three of them were on the screen and paused it there, examining the image with scrutiny as the sound of deflating sighs could be heard from the rest of the family as they realized what had happened.

After a while, Vivien turned to face the group before turning back to the TV, letting it play for a moment before pausing again and examining the scene. Once again, she turned back to the group and made her way toward them, taking Lela and Butchy by the wrist and pulling them toward the TV and leaving them there before taking Miles and guiding him over in the same manner. The brunette took a few steps back, owlishly observing the three who stared back at her with mixed emotions.

Vivien turned to Mack, Mick, and Brady who only smiled back at her. “Are they…?”

“From a sixties beach movie?” Brady asked. “Yes.”

Vivien nodded slowly before grabbing the DVD case from the mantle and pulling her phone from her pocket, typing the name of the movie into the search bar. “‘A surfer Romeo and a biker Juliet fall in love, but tensions between their respective gangs build as they duke it out over Big Momma’s, the most primo’ - wow, ‘primo’? Seriously?” Vivien shook her head with a snicker of laughter before continuing, “‘The most primo spot in town. However, with Les Camembert, a wealthy real estate developer, wanting to change the favored spot to a resort, will the couple be able to convince their respective gangs to join together and save their beach?’”

“That about sums it up,” Mack muttered, fiddling with the flower necklace Lela had given her.

Vivien continued to read the movie’s informational page, scrolling down to the cast listings and reading a few names off. “Butchy, Lela, Tanner, Miles, Giggles, Lugnut, Seacat, CheeChee. Okay, who comes up with these names?”

“Our parents,” Butchy claimed with a teasing grin.

“Wait,” Vivien began, turning to Mick, Mack, and Brady with a confused look. “How is this possible?”

“It’s a long story,” Brady explained.

Mack nodded. “A very long story. But, we’ll answer any questions you have.”

Vivien thought for a moment before speaking, “How did they get here?”

“A machine I built,” Brady stated. “It takes us between this world and theirs.”

“How is that even possible?” Vivien questioned.

“Not a clue,” Mack said with a small laugh as she sat on the couch, “but it does. Brady claims it must be ‘movie magic’.”

Mick crossed the space between herself and the younger girl and placed her hands on Vivien’s shoulders, rubbing up and down the girl’s arms with a smile. “I know it’s a bit outlandish and completely absurdyq, but it’s a hundred percent true. Maybe we can show you how it works sometime.”

Green eyes met brown and Vivien smiled at the genuine happiness in the older girl’s eyes. “It’s a lot to think about, but thank you.” She glanced around for a moment before her eyes landed on Royce and Bentley who were sitting so close together now that they were practically conjoined. “What about you guys? Your names aren’t on the cast list. Are you, I don’t know, ‘real people’, or are you just made-up characters too?”

The younger two Murphy brothers shrugged. The idea of them not being “real people” had been a bit of a struggle point for them mentally ever since they’d found out about all of this a few months prior. At the time, they’d been able to settle on the fact that neither of them cared about whether they were what others considered “real” as long as they were happy. Now, however, it was increasingly difficult to remain happy when one of their closest friends questioned their existence.

Vivien took another deep breath and slowly made her way toward the boys, sitting on the edge of the coffee table. “I’m sorry, guys, I’m just trying to figure everything out. I mean,” Vivien laughed softly, “this is a lot to take in and you guys know I always ask a lot of questions.”

Royce gave the girl a small grin as Bentley laughed, “We know.”

“Stop me if I come across as rude, but I have another question,” Vivien began, turning to the rest of the group who had begun to make themselves comfortable on the couch. At their collective nods, Vivien sighed before speaking, “Are any of you guys even related? I mean, you’re all played by a bunch of random actors in real life, does that change anything?”

Before anyone else could answer, Miles spoke up, “We are family no matter what world we’re in. Regardless of whether we’re characters in someone else’s movie or real, physical people, we are family.”

Vivien nodded. “I get it.”

Bentley inched himself away from Royce, leaning toward Vivien and extending a hand out to her. “Are we still friends?”

With a smile, Vivien reached out and latched hands with the fourteen-year-old. “Absolutely. After all, who else is going to show me around the beach and to that restaurant in the movie? What’s it called?”

“Big Momma’s?” Royce offered with a smile, taking Vivien’s other hand as she offered it to him.

“Yeah, that!” Vivien said before laughing. “But, yeah, we’re still friends no matter what world you’re from. You could be aliens from some planet in another galaxy and we’d still be friends.” Vivien leaned forward, wrapping her arms around both Royce and Bentley’s shoulders and pulling them close. “I love you guys and that will never change.”

#nelle's christmas prompts 2021 #foreveralwaysprompts #writing #writing prompt

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