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protective-potato replied to your photo “I don’t know what my fortune is trying to tell me but I am somewhat...”
Collect them
I still don’t know which them! What am I collecting! Am I collecting numbers? People? Angry marmots? “those good” is terrifyingly non-specific!
leepala replied to your post “protective-potato replied to your photo “I don’t know what my...”
the Good ones, though
Good by what objective measure, I ask thee
You are wonderful. That is all. <3
<3 Thank you! This is very sweet, and very appreciated.
Varek and Whiskey, #10: desperately
Varek thinks, not for the first time, that he truly does not understand certain aspects of Mercury’s design.
He picks his way down the corridor with care, the task made more complicated than it needs to be by the flashing of the emergency alert lights- everything is alternately dark and bright, and the rapid adjustment makes his head throb, the appearance and disappearance of shadows making pinpoint details seem to shift. He wonders if T’len and Cassie have this problem, or if the Nar’aan have developed a visual range that better overlaps with that of the human crew.
Not that it’s relevant at the moment; he can’t afford to let his mind wander, no matter how worried he might be for both T’len and Cassie.
There is a loud hiss behind him, and a wall-panel begins to bubble. Varek abandons caution to bolt for the next junction, slamming his hand down on the controls to deploy the emergency bulkhead only a moment before he feels the sharp jolt of a section decompressing.
His hand shakes as he draws it back. Too close.
And he has to move; it takes far too little time for the long, low-slung aliens that the humans have taken to calling damselflies to cut through Mercury’s frame, and he can only hope he hasn’t attracted the attention of the one behind him. He wishes the lights would stop; it’s disorienting, and he’s already turned around- half of this deck appears to be compromised, and Varek hasn’t had much reason to visit this portion of the ship.
He taps his comm again, and it makes another uncooperative chirp; the system is still down, and Varek has no means by which to demand an update from Eli or Whiskey without the comm system.
All in all, he is finding this situation entirely unpleasant.
He makes it another dozen meters down the corridor before he finds himself at a dead end. An emergency bulkhead has blocked off the turn he’d hoped to make. He curses quietly, and turns back. There has to be some path-
-he’s barely had the thought when there’s a very different hiss, and a section of the corridor wall clicks out. It sweeps smoothly to the side, and Varek knows there have been a few occasions when he’s been happier to see Whiskey, but not many.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the bridge?” Whiskey asks, and there’s just a hint too much waver in his voice to carry off the teasing bravado he’s shooting for, and Varek does not care. He grins anyway, and heads for the hatch.
“That’s where I’d intended to be, but I had to make an unscheduled detour,” he says, allowing Whiskey to help him into the ridiculously small space. There’s barely space for him to slip past Whiskey into the slightly-wider tunnel behind him, and he’s not entirely sure how Whiskey turns around once he’s pulled the hatch closed behind them. “And the comms are down, I couldn’t exactly ask for directions. How did you find me?”
“Comms are down, but the internal scanners are still working,” Whiskey replies, moving up to occupy the same stretch of tunnel as Varek. He brushes against him as he does- unavoidable, really, but Varek can feel the pressure of a hand left a moment too long, knows Whiskey is taking the opportunity to steal a moment of contact. Reassuring himself, Varek thinks.
He understands the impulse. He resolutely does not dwell on how many people he’s come to care for, and how few of them he can be sure are safe; he just presses a little closer himself, and nods when Whiskey motions with the tablet he’s just retrieved. It isn’t as though there’s anywhere to go; it looks like Whiskey has the fire-suppression system active, the tunnel is sealed before and behind them.
“How bad is it?” Varek asks, and the look Whiskey gives him is the furthest thing from comforting.
“They haven’t made it to the bridge, yet,” he offers, but his tone is as grim as his expression. “I need to get to the secondary control nexus, the primary’s trashed, and we’re bleeding atmosphere. We need to get the internal bulkheads deployed.”
“All of them?” Varek asks, a chill rolling down his back. Anyone still trying to get to their stations would be trapped.
“All of them,” Whiskey confirms, shaking his head. “They broke through two of the cargo bays and the stabilizer supports. That’s a lot of surface exposed to vacuum.”
“Which direction is that from here?” Varek asks.
“That way,” Whiskey says, motioning forward. “Bridge is that way,” he adds, gesturing behind them. “You have a tab?”
“Not at present,” Varek says. He hadn’t had his tablet on him when the alarms had sounded.
“Take this one,” Whiskey says, pressing his tablet into Varek’s hand. “Like I said, the sensors are still on, you’ll be able to see where you’re going. And it’ll tell you if any of the compartments have been breached. You may have to backtrack a little, but you won’t get lost.”
“What about you?” Varek asks. It’s a practical question, really- Varek is well aware that his presence on the bridge is significantly less likely to change the course of this encounter than Whiskey getting to the system controls- but the part of himself that still hears the sneering of his instructors over his sentimentality knows that’s not why he’s asking.
“I don’t need a map,” Whiskey replies, shrugging one shoulder and offering a wry smile. It’s a thin disguise for his nerves, but Varek appreciates the effort. “Think I’ve spent more time in these tunnels than in the corridors, as it is.”
“Not when there’s something boring holes in the ship,” Varek counters. He’s never been the nervous type, but he can admit he’s rattled; Mercury has survived past odds that strain credulity before, but there’s nothing quite like the horror of knowing that vacuum is creeping in compartment by compartment.
Space is, after all, very unforgiving.
“I’ll manage. Get to your station, give Eli trouble for me until the comms are back up,” Whiskey says, and he reaches up, tapping the control to open the next compartment. There’s a hiss of pressure equalizing, and the bulkhead lifts. When he moves, Varek will have the room to turn around, to head in the other direction. To try and get to the bridge, to do whatever he can from there.
When he moves, they will part ways, put wall after wall between them in their wakes, and without the comms up-
-Whiskey starts to move, and Varek fists a hand in his collar to stop him.
“You’d best be there, when the comms come back up,” Varek says, and he’s not managing teasing bravado, either. “I don’t want to have to go looking.”
“I’ll be listening for you,” Whiskey says, reaching up to tap his comm. “You have a map, no excuses.”
They need to move; Varek knows every second matters, knows that he’s kept Whiskey too long already. Doesn’t know how far out of his way Whiskey diverted, to get him out of the corner he was trapped in. Still, he hesitates; he’s made many friends on Mercury, but Whiskey was the first, and remains the dearest.
This is not an easy goodbye.
Whiskey reaches up, closes his hand around Varek’s wrist- a gentle reminder, and no less reluctant, and Varek does not let go. He pulls Whiskey in, instead, and kisses him.
Whiskey startles, but doesn’t pull away; he kisses back, and it’s sharp and it’s desperate and it’s not a promise, they both know better.
Varek is the one to pull away, to press his forehead to Whiskey’s for an instant before he lets go. Whiskey nods, short and sharp, and there is a world left unsaid in the dark shadows of his eyes, and then he’s moving, and so is Varek.
They will talk about it later, if there is a later. If there isn’t, well. There are worse goodbyes.
grey-haven replied to your post “[[MOR] On my way to urgent care. Hope they can actually help.”
*sending more gentle hugs*
whitneylj01 replied to your post “[[MOR] On my way to urgent care. Hope they can actually help.”
ugh, hope you are feeling better soon!
queenbookwench replied to your post “[[MOR] On my way to urgent care. Hope they can actually help.”
*sending good wishes and soup*
<3 <3 <3 Thank you guys, I appreciate it. I have been thoroughly walloped with antibiotics and have instructions to go back tomorrow to see if progress has been made.
Mads and Mark, #39: because time's run out
I see what you are doing with this prompt, but the last one hurt, so this one is Soft. Because I said so.
“We really do have to go, Captain,” Mark says, a note of exasperated affection in his voice.
“I know, I know, just-” Mads starts, and she doesn’t bother finishing, turning to rummage through yet another drawer. She doesn’t have that many drawers, she doesn’t have that much stuff, how can she not be finding what she needs?
She briefly considers the notion that it’s been phased out of existence. Maybe they have parasites, maybe there’s a tiny burrower on board.
She wonders if they come that small, or planetside, and decides that’s an awful idea that she’s going to hand over to the science department to worry about.
“They’re waiting for us,” Mark chides gently, and Mads pauses, eyes narrowing. She turns around, and fixes Mark with a stern look.
“What did I tell you about calling me Captain?” she asks, and he rolls his eyes even as his expression goes soft.
“Not while we’re parked,” he recites, and Mads lifts an eyebrow expectantly. “Sorry. We really do have to go, Mads.”
“Better,” she says, favoring him with a soft look of her own. “Now stop rushing me, it’s not like we’re going to miss anything.”
“Not sure about that,” he teases, crossing over to her side. “You know how Cassie is about schedules. The ladies’ performance begins at 21:00 precisely. They’ll start without us. What are we looking for?”
“My pin,” Mads says, a hint of frustration creeping into her tone. “It’s our first celebration here, I want to dress up.” And she wants everyone to see her wear it- wants Whiskey to see her wear it. Mark’s expression goes knowing, and he lifts a brow and touches the top of the built-in. She nods, and he starts rifling through the scattered handful of things that have begun to pile up.
She’s surprised how much there is; she hadn’t brought much with her. She’s never been one to accumulate things.
She lifts a pile of wide, leathery leaves- Tamara thinks they might be useful for textiles, Mads isn’t sure how they wound up in her quarters, thinks she might’ve just gathered them up with everything else last night before heading back aboard- and makes a satisfied sound. The box isn’t much to look at, but the pin inside is delicate and smooth, carefully crafted and shaped like a moonflower.
“Great. Let’s get out there before-”
There’s a pounding on the wall next to the door.
“Your absence is being noted, oh Captain-my-Captain,” Alex calls, voice raised to carry through the closed door. “Do I need to come in there?”
“Do not,” Mads calls back, feeling a bubble of laughter- exasperated but fond- rise up. “I needed to find something, we’re on our way.”
“Oh,” Alex says, managing to sound arch even on the other side of the door. “We. I got it. Catch you two outside,” she says, and Mads can picture the deliberate wink. She turns to Mark with an imploring expression, looking for sympathy, but Mark is grinning at her, eyes sparkling.
“I told you they were waiting,” he says. “We better get moving.”
He leans in, and Mads goes up on her toes to meet him partway, catching the front of his shirt and pulling him down. He’s still smiling when their lips meet, and Mads likes how it feels. It’s not what she’d expected, this thing between them- it’s lighter, softer, than she’d imagined it would be.
She likes how that feels, too.
“You know,” she murmurs, still close enough that their lips brush with each word, “Alex probably doesn’t actually expect us out there immediately.”
“True,” Mark says, tilting forward just enough so that his forehead is pressed against hers, “but she’ll probably come back if we linger too long.”
“Later, then,” she says, because he’s right and she knows it, but she’s loathe to give up this moment.
“Later,” Mark agrees, a promise, and she kisses him again, harder this time, a silent assurance that she’ll be holding him to that.
They may have run out of time for the moment, but they’ve got all night.
worldofbeancraft replied to your photo “speckeltail: tag yourself i’m chaotic au”
You definitely should ;p
I’m not sure I know /how/ to write a coffee shop AU. I don’t /read/ them, and everything I know about coffee comes from the perspective of ‘I order one specific drink at Starbucks, only one, always’.
But, y’know, it’s not like I haven’t started every single other AU that has ever flitted across my thoughts, so we’ll see. XD
grey-haven replied to your post “Six Sentence Sunday”
Auuggghhh yeah, I can see why you can't go back to that one. Unresolved angst is Not Fun when it comes to Haven. I still love this snippet though :)
I mean. Technically the simplest solution is to just say to hell with keeping it canon compliant and let it resolve differently. Which, given the givens of how it was playing out, I could probably do. They were more or less at the drunken-accusations-slash-confessions stage anyway, I could just give it a small nudge into ‘and then cuddles’. We’ll see if it feels like it’s worth it to go back to, at some point.
(It might be nice to at least clear one thing out of my giant pile of things, anyway.)
