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crowzwrites · 9 months ago

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A sight for sore eyes

for mcspirk month

ao3

content warning: None

@mcspirkevents

It's a sunny day on the planet they've beamed down to, Revena V, pretty turquoise skies and a rainbow arching across it. Kirk smiles at his first officer, who gives him an eyebrow raise in return, then looks back at his tricorder to analyze the data he's been collecting of fauna and small critters. He's glad to have peaceful moments like this on away missions where he can walk beside Spock, hands intertwined as they amble about. Their last mission had ended up in a battle and many injured crewmen, so thankfully they had been given some time to rest and explore more tranquil and serene planets in the latest system that had yet to be mapped on a star chart.

McCoy had opted to stay on the ship because last time he beamed down with them he'd fallen down a ditch and sprained his ankle. Jim tried not to laugh as he cursed everything around him when they were beaming back up—of course he was worried, but Bones was so grumpy and in the end it had been fine. They cuddled to make up for it, Jim taking in the sight of both his partners. Spock had made McCoy a hot chocolate and took care of him whilst

Jim got the man to be quiet and accept the care, at one point Jim considered giving Bones a taste of his own medicine, stabbing him with a hypo.

At least, when it’s just the two of them, there are no huffs and complaints about the mission to collect more data, just avid discussions about said data and observations about the pretty plant life.

“What do you think of this planet, Spock?”

“It is fascinating, I will have to take further samples of some of the fauna as they have intriguing properties that could be used in medicine. There are also many small animals that look interesting. This planet is very diverse in its plant and animal life.”

“I love visiting all these cool planets, better than being attacked by Klingons or whatever.”

“Certainly. I only wish that Doctor McCoy had joined us, even if he does tend to complain.” Spock smiles at him slightly.

“Yeah, but after the last mission he’s afraid he’ll get hurt and then he’ll have to get taken care of by us. He’s allergic to accepting help.”

“Indeed he is.”

Jim smiles and glances at Spock again, appreciating his side profile: curved pointy ears that he oh so loves to touch gently, hazel eyes that look at him with affection, silky black hair that sits perfectly on his head, and finally his nose. Jim enjoys booping it, which makes Spock blush. Jim's always been one to appreciate both of his lovers' features—McCoy especially, since he needs encouragement and positivity. He's a little more self conscious than Spock in that department. Of course, both of them have their flaws. So does he.

Jim looks back to his surroundings. He notices a flower that is almost the same height as him. It glows a warm yellow and has pink spots on its petals.

Without thinking, he stops and leans forward a little. Then he thinks, oh, shit. The flower spews spores at his face. He groans and staggers backwards. Spock catches and steadies him but he barely notices it because his eyes feel as if they are being set alight. Briefly, he thinks that McCoy is going to be very mad. He then passes out, distantly hearing Spock shouting his name as he succumbs to the darkness.

Slowly, hearing the steady beat of the heart monitor and vaguely feeling a warm hand enclosed in his own, he comes back to awareness. Jim opens his eyes. To nothing. To darkness, only making out blurry shapes. His heart rate skyrockets. He's panicking as the monitor beeps loudly, making his ears hurt. Why can't I see? Why can't I see, wh-

“It's okay, Jim,” says a voice he recognises to be Spock. “You are safe.”

Jim turns and can't make out Spock's face, only a blurry figure that's trying to comfort him and God, he can’t focus on that gentleness, only registers that he's blind. What if he never sees Spock or Bones’ face again? What if he'll never be able to look into both of their deep brown eyes and get lost in them? Oh, God. He'll lose his captaincy, lose Spock, lose Bones.

Jim.

Jim, breathe.

He does. Inhale. Exhale. Just like McCoy taught him when he had panic attacks at the Academy. Sound comes back to him. He didn't even realise his ears had been ringing. The overwhelming panic and fear had overtaken any rational thought. He sighs and turns his head in the direction that Spock’s voice had come from. Cold hands graze his face and rub a soothing motion down his cheek, another hand on his shoulder. It must be Bones, no doubt hovering over him like the mother hen he is.

“Spock…Bones...I-I can't see you.”

“Don't worry, kid, we'll find a cure to this, Spock and I. You know we'll try our hardest, darlin’. Just relax for me, okay? We've got you.” Bones’ voice relaxes him. Jim sinks back down into the biobed and grabs Spock's hand back for comfort.

“I miss seeing your faces…” he says quietly.

“Do not worry, Jim. We will find a cure, Ashaya.”

“Can you take me back to my room?”

Jim attempts to look at them both. Spock guides Jim's hand to his and McCoy’s faces. He feels Spock's pointy ears and brushes a hand through Bones’ soft hair, a mild comfort to him.

“Yeah, alright. No harm in that, just be careful, okay?”

“You know me, I'm always careful.” Jim laughs—he can hear Bones’ eyes roll and Spock's questioning eyebrow raise.

Slowly, he gets up (mostly) by himself, Spock's hand in his and Bones' arm around his elbow. He's glad they're here to help him through this ordeal. In the future, he'll make sure to steer clear of pretty glowing flowers on alien planets. His partners guide him back to his room at an even pace. It's odd not being able to see. Jim had taken that ability for granted and not appreciated the beauty of sight until it was ripped away from him. He's pretty confident that Spock and Bones will find a cure promptly, though, they've been through thick and thin, after all, and Bones is nothing short of a miracle worker by now. He’s an angel watching over Jim through life and death. He means that literally, now, since he'd been brought back to life by the doctor and all.

He hasn't really been paying attention and if they weren't here to help, he surely would have knocked himself out on a wall or something. He keeps his eyes closed, not wanting to see all the blurry figures and outlines that'll probably make him want to throw up. It's very disorienting. Spock squeezes his hand reassuringly. They've stopped walking now, so they must be at his room. Wordlessly, one of them enters his passcode, and then all of them step through. He's guided to his bed, which he's grateful for. All he wants to do is to sleep in his lovers’ arms and be reassured by their warm presences beside him.

“I love you both…thanks for helping me.”

“Of course, just promise me you’ll be more careful next time, sweetheart?” McCoy says gently, sparing him the angry lecture this time and instead putting a hand on his thigh.

“I'll try.”

They all know that it's unlikely that he won't land himself in danger. At least he has Spock to protect him and Bones to patch him back together again and again. Quickly, he rids himself of his shirt and trousers and then pulls them down to cuddle with him. Bones huffs but obliges him. Frankly, he doesn't care if it's the morning or afternoon, he just requires immediate snuggles before he rests. Jim moves to Spock's chest and puts his arms and leg around him, then hooks his other leg around Bones, who's hugging his waist. Neither of them care about the time, either. Even Spock allows Jim this comfort. His nose brushes against his Vulcan’s bare chest and finds himself drifting off quickly into dreams about stars and lovers.

After only three days of being sightless, during which his doctor and science officer work tirelessly, they finally find a cure. Jim has by then become more used to not being able to see, has learned to rely more on his hearing and special awareness, which he sorely lacks after crashing and tumbling over almost everything. Bones had berated him after finding him trying to get to the bridge but tripping over a crewman’s foot and faceplanting ungracefully. His nose thankfully stayed in one piece, but his body is probably littered with tiny bruises by now, if the doctor's lecture is anything to go by.

“I believe we have found a cure Jim, do not worry. The doctor and I will come to you. Stay put.” Spock’s voice chirped. He sounded tired.

“Hey! I'm not a child. I can handle myself, Commander,” Jim sasses, getting up and walking to the door.

Jim doesn't quite make it to the door. Instead he trips over his boots and almost slams into the wall by his door but catches himself, cursing out loud and hoping Spock hadn’t heard that. He had, though. Of course he had.

“Jim, please do not injure yourself further unless you want Leonard to lecture you again,” Spock chides. He mutters the word “illogical” under his breath.

Begrudgingly, he makes his way back to his bed and flops down on it. He hopes this’ll work. If it doesn't, he just might cry even if they eventually find one. It could take months or even years, or maybe he's just permanently blind, sight taken from him by some stupid flower on some dumb planet. If he didn't beam down to that planet and instead stared out into space or just wrote some boring reports, then maybe he wouldn't be stuck in misery. Well, it's not all bad. Still, Jim can't help but feel melancholy about losing such a core part of himself. He huffs and rolls over, and his door swishes open to allow his boyfriends to enter, ready to hopefully save the day.

“You ready, Jim?”

“Yep! Stick me, Bones.” McCoy sighs at that but jabs the hypo into his neck.

At first, he doesn't feel anything, but then his head starts to spin. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching at his head. For a minute, it's agony. Spock is gripping his shoulders and trying to ease the pain through touch while McCoy worriedly dotes over him and does something or other. The nausea and pain fade to an ache behind his eyes and he peeks an eye open. He's met with a slightly less fuzzy Spock leaning over him.

The scared expression in his chocolate brown eyes comes into focus, and then Jim breaks out into a wide grin and hugs Spock tightly. He gestures for Bones to join and he does. Jim feels happy again. His vision is almost back to normal, and he can see both of them again. They look tired but relieved, and he pulls away to admire them. He loves Bones’ light-hearted scowl, the freckles dotting his face, his pouty lips and smooth hair. Jim kisses Spock and it’s electric. His relief and affection trickle through to the Vulcan as they passionately embrace. Without wasting any time, he breaks apart to kiss Bones, who gasps in surprise but leans into it. Bones puts a hand in his hair, making him groan, and then Jim leans back to appreciate his gorgeous face.

“You okay, Jim?” Bones looks at him worriedly and Jim realises he's crying.

“I'm okay.” He smiles and puts his head on Spock’s shoulder.

Spock had moved to sit on his bed next to him while Bones was kneeling in front of him.

“I am glad the serum worked…I do not know what I would've done if it hadn't,” Spock says quietly.

“You'd do what you always do. Try and try again. That's why I love you, both of you.”

“Love ya too, kid,” says Bones, as Spock says, “Taluhk nash-veh k’dular,” then Bones stands up and leans over Jim. Gently, he wipes away the tears running from his eyes, like rain on a sunny day that blooms into a rainbow. He feels good and lucky to have both of them to take care of him.

Jim knows they'll always take care of him when he dives headfirst into danger, or gets blinded by some flower, or whatever it may be. At least he can laugh it off now.

#star trek #mcspirk #mcspirk month 2024 #aos #alternate original series #kirk #spock #mccoy #mcspirk fic #sfw #writing

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sketchfanda · 2 months ago

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Chestnut Stud across the Multiverse Party

A Real Dish

18 hummed to herself as she typed and browsed away on her PC tablet while Marron napped peacefully in her room, the blonde cyborg quirking a brow in a Spock-like fashion as she saw a notification for an e-mail from none other than Zig-Zag. Our resident short king's hot sexy wife had struck up quite the friendship with the Siberian Tiger Skunk ever since her hubby had started raking in Double Z studios major views and Zeni as their current human porn star. Who knew there was a market for a human guys on anthro girls? Suffice to say, 18 wasted little to no time in tapping the notification, opening her mail to find it was a video attachment.

Once she checked she was alone and put on her wireless headphones, she hit play and waited for it to load, curious to see what the kinky anthro wanted her to see for her eyes only. Once it loaded and buffered, the video opened up to a scene of someone's point of view from a body cam as they rode in a car, with the hands on the steering wheel being telltale signs that Ziggy was the driver, turning to show Krillin was in the backseat while Tina Lynx sat in the passenger seat. The hybrid and feline babes making small talk with 18's hubby who seemed nervous and hesitant as the passing scenery indicated they were entering some small town suburban neighbourhood. Pulling up to a modest little home as the trio stepped out to make their way to the front door with Zigzag's tone of voice and the pep in her step indicating she was very eager and excited to come here.

The reason for this was made clear as the front door opened to be answered by quite a lovely looking furry milf who the blonde learned went by the name Helen Dish. A dish indeed and Zigzag's tone of voice made it clear she certainly thought so as she greeted the likely single mom like an a dear old friend. A very close, intimate friend indeed if that very tongue heavy kiss she gave her was anything to go by which only made 18's pussy quiver with sensual anticipation. How very kind of the Siberian tiger skunk and her feisty thicc lady friend to have clearly edited this seamlessly so she wouldn't have to be kept waiting to see how spicy this house call was no doubt going to get.

From a brief bit of friendly chatter, the blonde watched as a round of introductions was made with Zigzag of course speaking quite highly of Krillin to, much to 18's growing delight, hot single mom (seems she had quite an amicable divorce with her husband years back and Zigzag had come into her life one day and given her quite the sexual awakening). No doubt chipping away at any hesitation or doubt Helen might've had as it was made plenty clear that she'd never been with a human before, man or woman. Which only made the following make out session between her and Krillin all the more arousing for both Tina and Zigzag as well as 18 as the divorcee's mindset clearly found itself going with the flow more eagerly. Pants and gasps of arousal escaping her sweet lips as she and the short king began to get acquainted with one another physically and intimately, Helen's moans deepening as she felt up the human stud's crotch or hi hands on her special places such as her quite firm breasts or that lovely denim hugging booty.

The clothes were soon flying off in no time as the growing heat of passion and attraction between 18's shortround bull and the hot single furry mama grew like a campfire getting further fuel. Zigzag and Tina chiming in with a little commentary here and there as they and the cyborg watched the now naked human dude and furry babe going at it like horny teenagers. Helen's moans borderline bitch in heat levels as she bumped and ground her furry form against the smooth Adonis physique of the former monk, his fingers 3 digits and knuckle deep in her pussy while she grasped and stroked his cock in her hand. She had clearly never imagined or thought any man, human or other wise especially of Krillin's size could be packing such length and girth, her nectar flowing in response to feeling the twitching pulse and heat radiating from that shaft.

18 made no attempt to resist her hands as they moved of their own accord and proceeded to touch herself all over from groping her own breasts with firm squeezes to plunging her down the front of her jeans and panites to flick her bean. Suppressing her cries of desire as she watched her man and Helen become very intimately acquainted as they were now performing a 69, the milf laying atop her man with him squeezing her furry buns as he had his face pressed deep against her booty. Eating her out while she licked and sucked on his shaft as their arousal was no doubt helped by their two woman audience who were certainly enjoying the erotic documentary happening before them as much as the cyborg was right now. But of course it only got better from there....

Once the foreplay had been played through, 18 was pleased to find Helen now straddling her man's lap as she bounced and rode on Krillin's cock. His hands on her luscious sexy mama asss while he pumped and thrust into the heated, wet snatch of the furry bombshell who held onto his sculpted shoulders. Her moans being drowned out by the occassional kiss she shared with the short as she felt his length and girth reaching and hitting sweet spots she didn't even know she had. But 18 knew her hubby was only just getting started on rocking the hot sexy mama's world.....

From downward dog to full on doggy style and into prone bone and riding that short king's cock cowgirl style, Helen was clearly becoming drunk with pleasure. 18 certainly knew that feeling all too well before she found her enjoyment of this amateur style piece skyrocket as Zigzag and Tina got so turned on that they just had to join in the fray. The one on one becoming a 4 way of her short king and 3 furry hotties as Ziggy placed the camera in an angle and position to catch the action as she ambushed Helen with a kiss while Tina sat and parked her luscious furry booty on Krillin's oh so fine face. And it got wilder from there, naturally.....

From Krillin taking one girl in missionary or from behind as she ate one of the other two out to plowing one as he fingered the other 2, it was an erotic dance of one man and 3 beautiful anthro women. A seamless montage of scenes such as Hele and Zigzag scissoring one another as Tina was in a mating press with Krillin to all 3 of them giving him a blowjob all at once. 18's shameless self pleasuring taking her along on the momentum building within, climaxing just in time as the video finished with Krillin cumming inside Helen. Followed by him jerking off and firing off some shots on the sexy faces and tits of her, Zigzag and Tina......

As the video faded to black, 18 cleaned off her wet, sticky hands as she cleaned herself up a bit and began typing up a reply to the e-mail. Giving quite an in depth review that'd put most professional critics to shame as she thanked Ziggy for the video and enquired if she could get Helen's address and contact details if Krillin didn't already have them. After all such a sexy single mama like that clearly needed a good man in her life to keep her company in the bedroom. And the romantic eyes she was making at her man werre as undeniable as they were HOT!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jasmine and Honeydew

Chloe Sinclair was quite a paradox of a woman in many ways, a self made success in the world of corporate industry yet seemed to have ambitions on par with a megalomaniac from a spy drama movie. The looks and figure of a bombshell supermodel and a seemingly bimbo personality yet happened to rank high among the biggest networths listed on the planet. But nobody knew her better than herself of course and she was a woman with a simple view on life; know what you love, love what you know. And Chloe loved nothing more than finding ways to get her damn rocks off.....

So imagine her delight when in a partnership meeting with the oh so fetching CEO of Capsule Corp, Bulma Briefs, had seen the blue haired brainiac make her day. She'd been thinking of maybe requesting a baker's dozen worth of those hunky Warrior Monk boytoys she'd seen the spicy review videos for but Bulma did her one better by offering her a bit of quality time with the real deal himself. Oh and wouldn't you know it, the guy just so happened to be current favourite pornstar Don Juan Sanchez and Ziggy, exotic sweetheart she is, approved of making it happen. Provided Chloe of course made sure to record it on camera and send her copy or stream it, Chloe promised the latter and to gladly have her name and face publicly used, why have shame in showing off getting wild and rowdy with Double Z's resident stud in thei human dudes on furry girl porn?!

Naturally the arrangements were made as soon as possible to have the cute bull, Krillin she learned his name was, brought on over to her personal private island home slash corporate headquarters. Along with his wife and daughter of course under the pretense of a family vacation though she was informed the blonde bombshell knew of this and also approved, hell she wanted to watch it happen!! Chloe had a feeling they would get along famously but of course she'd see to that sweet little angel child of this would be cared and provided for, their daycare was top of the line!! Soon as the little care was dropped off there and assured she'd be well looked after, the exotic skunkette began to put her plan into action as she took Krillin and 18 along to show them their guest room.

Said guest room was a penthouse suite, never let it be said hospitality wasn't a quality that Chloe Sinclair lacked with Krillin being in awe of the view. Only to turn around and drop his jaw in shock, eyes widening in surprise as he found his wife and Chloe suddenly French kissing one another, shameless wanton moans exchanged between their lips as their respective blue eyes looked his way. As if no doubt asking him if he was liking the show he was getting before they got to stripping one another naked, giggling with mischief in their tone as they strut their sexy nude selves over his way. Chloe of course shooting a secret wink and a smile over at one of the hidden cameras she had set up as if to say "Enjoy the show, you naughty pervs...", having them set up to record and stream this to Zigzag and Bulma, to name a few as thanks for making this little playdate happen.

Before Krillin could even get his brain working again to ask just what the hell was happening, let alone the how and why, his libido up and hijacked control once more as he found himself ambushed by Chloe and 18. The cyborg and skunk babe respectively taking turns giving him sloppy, tongue filled kisses before soon having a heated 3 way make out between them. The blonde and platinum haired hotties kissing and licking their way down his torso as they stripped him naked, with Chloe kneeling beside 18 as she looked in awe and rapture at Krillin's now exposed cock. Accepting this lovely offering as 18 grasped it for her by planting licks and kisses from the immense tip to his smooth, heavy balls, now those were some dragonballs and these 2 would be all she needed to have her wish granted!!

Krillin of course was unaware of the free private show he was giving as Chloe showed she had quite the oral skills, her mouth and throat had more of a quality akin to a pussy. Those sapphire blue eyes of hers twinkling adorably as if displaying worship and awe his way as she sucked and blew on his shaft. Her tail sensually wagging as it radiated a particular scent...not unpleasant mind you but quite unique and intriguing...like jasmine and honeydew. It was enough to make him feel drunk or somewhat relaxed enough that he couldn't help but along with the erotic flow and momentum his wife and their feisty hostess had set upon him.

Which might be how and why he was soon rutting Chloe balls deep in a missionary position, her moans melodic as she showered him with absolute honest praise. Deeming him the biggest and finest lay she's had to date, one of her lovely legs draped over his shoulder and the other around his waist as they pressed their lips together in a sloppy kiss, her furry booty jiggling against every smack of those heavy dragonballs of his. 18 kneeling beside them as she held Chloe's hand with firmness yet tender in a sense of intimacy, watching on with pride as her man made one of the wealthiest, most financially powerful women on the planet become his latest sexual conquest. Their mutual enjoyment of course growing in anticipation knowing the pleasure would only get better from here onwards.

That was most definitely the case as one moment 18 was being taken prone as she had her lips pressed to Chloe's muff or Chloe doing the same as Krillin fucked her doggy style. The next one of them sat on his face having him eat them out while the other rode his cock cowgirl style. Each and every position with every second to minute passing hours being transmitted to key individuals such as Chloe's personal assistant Persephone to Zigzag and Bulma as the short king unknowingly boosted his erotic fame. Especially once that video would get passed and shared around but hey couldn't get any crazier, right?

If only Krillin had even an idea of what fate had in store for him in the future, of who and what was going to come his way down the line. Of how his intimate encounter with Chloe had not escaped the notice and observation of an unseen, powerful force, one that could give even the Gods of Destruction pause and hesitation. A being who could observe the vast multiverse at their leisure like browsing channels on a tv for personal entertainment and pleasure. Especially and particularly when it came to looking for potential new playmates to share a warm bed with and snuggle up to.

So far in her voyeuristic observations, she’d found one of her counterparts had encountered quite the adorable little imp and a sturdy beefcake himbo, who both also so happened to be very talented in bed. Now another of her alternate selves in a very unique version of Earth had just finished with what was, she had to say, a very unique physical specimen in Krillin, having watched every single moment of their intimate acquaintance. Observing her scrying orb with sensual delight and anticipation as she added his name to her list of potential playmates. Her wicked, erotic mind already thinking of ways to have fun testing and prepping him for when they'd finally meet....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TGIF!!!

Krillin took a deep relaxing sigh as he soothed his muscles in the cosy confines of the hot tub in the private room so generously provided to him and his family by Chloe. Say what one will about the lovely Ms.Sinclair when it came to her sexual appetites but she sure knew how to treat her guests when it came to hospitality. Which 18 was certainly enjoying as she had taken Marron to one of the many beaches along the shore for some fun and quality mother daughter time. The lovely kinky skunkette of course was going to be occupied with some business and company matters which gave him a much needed break from the nonstop sexual marathon they'd had since getting here.

His wife made it no secret how feisty she could get when she and another woman enjoyed him together sexually but Chloe was like a league all her own, nympho didn't even begin to cover her. But damn if she wasn't a beaut to behold especially the lust in her eyes as she'd look his way or the feel of that silky fur against his skin, seriously even when wet she smelt like jasmine and honeydew!! The short king feeling a rush of blood circulating to his loins as his sexual dragon began to stir in response to the vivid memory reflection. Only to hit the breaks as he heard the door to the guest room penthouse open and shut to signal he now had company!!

Thankful he hadn't been caught in the act, he turned to see none other than the black and white striped form of Ms.Friday, Chloe's site logistics manager and hot damn if the zebra mare wasn't easy on the eyes like her boss. Her monotone furred toned frame especially showed off well in her modest yet stylish dress as she addressed him a in professional yet friendly manner, no doubt Chloe had asked her to check up on him and ensure he was okay. To which our humble fighter guy replied he was doing none too bad especially with the quality of luxury being provided. That answer of course seemed to satisfy the hottie Zebra babe...who proceeded to shock and stun him as she suddenly removed her dress and stripped naked, exposing her natural self before his every eyes!!

Friday:*Giggling at the awestruck, gobsmacked look on his face as she seemed nonchalant showing off her own nude self before him, even doing a few turns and poses as if showing off. Making her way over to the hot tub as she dipped her feet in and invited herself in to join him as if she was casually with an dear old friend and not some guy she just exposed herself to.*"Ms.Chloe thought you might be getting pent up and a bit lonely and figured what harm in having me keep you company for a while. Plus not going to lie, I saw that video and this meat hammer of yours has been running through my mind...*The Zebra beauty quipped sensually, as she reached out and groped Krillin's cock and balls, making sure to sensually grasp and grope his length and girth beneath the bubbling warm water. Licking her lips erotically as her honey brown eyes twinkled with lust and anticipation alike.*"Pardon my crudeness Don Juan...but I want you to take this cock and make me scream your name...So how about it handsome, feeling a little jungle fever?"

Before Krillin even knew it, he found himself obliging the desire of Friday as he was pressing his lips to her muzzle, moans and gasps of heated passion passing between them as they were making out. His compact hairless muscular form against her own stripey, furry bombshell figure as their tongues danced together in the air with growing intimacy and erotic heat, her juicy tits rubbing against his firm pecs as they made the hot tub feel tepid in comparison. His hand caressing and probing her sticky, warm slit as she continued to stroke and massage his cock in her grip, her fingers and palm becoming soaked with his flowing pre. Any sense of shame or inhibition gone out the window from Krillin's brain as he felt compelled to accept the mare's generous offer of sexual company, it certainly beat letting his balls become overwhelmed.

Hence why it wasn't all that surprising he got right to plunging balls deep into the generous exotic Zebra woman, coaxing sensual moans from her lips as she held onto him for dear life. Her arms and legs wrapped around his compact Adonis physique as she she was made to bounce and ride on his cock while she hugged his face between the valley of her glorious tits. The water splashing around the human stud and the monocrhome striped bitch made hot, passionate rut dancing the age old dance of man and woman together. But of course this was only the opening moments of round 1 before they really started to put it into high gear.

It wasn't long before the guest room suite's walls and ceiling echoed with Friday's howling cries and sensual gasps of passion was she stood hunched and bent over the edge of the hot tub. Krillin taking her from beind as he pump-thrust into her sticky, warm pussy, slapping those striped asscheeks like a bongo drum as she looked sensually over her shoulder at him. Egging him on to rut her deeper and harer, be as rough as he'd like to which she found him obliging her as he reached out and grasped her mohawk mane. To her orgasmic bliss of course as she arched her back and rode the waves of love and sweet, hot fuck together with him.....

They showed little to no signs of stopping as they were out of the hot tub and into the bedroom, making the springs creak and squeak as made the sheets soaking wet with sweat and sex juices alike. Friday taking him like a champ while even displaying her oral and anal game were no slouch of joke either but she wasn't surprised to find Krillin was particularly enjoying her pussy. It had to be said when it came to sex, he was certainly a man of taste aand culture as she currenly laid flat front on the mattress to bite and grasp the sheet while she took a prone bone fucking as if she were the weak prey being dominated by a real apex predator!!

It was no small wonder the pair were going at it with making another marathon happen in that room, enough so that Krillin still hadn't noticed or realised the hidden cameras. Which continued to beam and transmit a secret stream among a select few individuals who were of course enjoying this pornographic documentary on what was best suited and served for relations betewen human men and furry women. Or just a fancy way of saying this shit was hot, if you were to ask Chloe's personal assistant Persephone as she watched in sercret on her pc. Playing with herself as she mentally made plans to make sure to get her own quality time and fun with the short king sooner than later.....Ms.Sinclair did encourage them to do so for the duration of his stay here after all....

But of course Krillin had no clue at least one or two more of the fine ladies employed under Chloe were having quite a show to enjoy or making plans to have their dose of chestnut loving. For the time being he had a hot sexy monochrome striped chunk of heaven to take to satisfaction avenue and back. He may be outshined by saiyans when it comes to fighting but when it comes to the bedroom and with women? If there was a Tenkaiichi Budokai for sex, he'd be the world champ a hundred times over by now...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Not so Silent...."

Krillin knew he'd often read of the concept of Lucid dreams, there was studies aplenty to suggest they were a real experience for many but he highly doubted he'd ever come to experience one himself. But of course leave it to Murphy's law to come around and try to seem like it was going to kick him square in his family jewels as he found that he might be just experiencing such a dream right now. Well more like a nightmare because he found the scenery around him to be like something right of a horror movie set. An eerie, creepy fog covered town seemingly desolate, run down and abandoned, the quintessential ghost town.

Amidst this sea of derelict homes and condemned buildings stood a rusting, dilapidated sign that bore the words "Silent Hill" but something told Krillin instinctually that it wouldn't be the case for long. A place like this surely had something sinister lurking and waiting to inflict who knows what horrors upon him that'd have him wake up kicking and screaming. As if hearing his thoughts, Silent Hill seemed to answer him as the foreboding silence was broken by heavy footsteps and the sound of something sharp scraping along the ground. Part of him knew he should start running but there was that damned hint of curiosity that wanted, had to see what or who was coming his way that he'd have to deal with.

He'd expected something like warped, monstrous versions of someone like Cell or Frieza so imagine his puzzlement to find a toned bombshell of what seemed to be a woman emerging from the depths of the mist. Standing between 7 to 10 feet tall (Really with him being between 4 to 5 feet, just about any and everyone else towered over him), her head fully covered in some bizarre 7 pointed Pyramid helm and clad in little more than shoulder length gloves and thigh high boots. And a peculiar ensemble of straps and a stitched up apron, it and her exposed skin covered in what could clearly only be blood and dragging on the ground behind her in hand was a massive blade like a combat knife for a giant in the military. Feeling briefly like a deer caught in the headlights, it was then and there that Krillin knew it was a good time to run!!

And oh how he ran, something told him trying to fight or fly would do him no good, something about Silent Hill just didn't feel or seem right and cripes was this place a maze!! Loops, false paths, dead ends and every so often, seemingly teleporting out of nowhere or moving faster than she seemed, this Pyramid-Head lady was right on his tail!! It was like this whole town was warping itself to stack the deck in her favour and better enable her to corner him, wherein she'd no doubt inflict who knows what on him. As if just to really lay out the salt set to be poured into his pending wounds, the compact fighter found himself in a dead end,...a room made to look like a love hotel suite?!!

Just when he thought he couldn't be anymore confused or feel weirded out at the scenery before him, a heart shaped queen sized bed, scattered rose petals, an array of laid out scented candles, his attention was brought back to reality when he heard the door slammed shut behind him. Pyramid-head standing before him in all her scarousing glory having just locked it, her visor hidden eyes set on him as he gulped and made a silent prayer to Buddha. Only to find the she-hemoth drop her massive blade, seemingly sensually purring as her hands moved to undo the clasps and buckles to let her apron dress fall off of her Amazonian, statuesque frame. The short king bugging his eyes out and dropping his jaw as Pyramid-Head flashed him in all her naked glory, the blood on her having now somehow become body oil as she made her way on over to him.

He wasn't sure how or what happened next, why things were suddenly playing out like this but this lucid nightmare became like some horror themed wet dream. Laying naked on the silk bedsheets, idly caressing PH's namesake helm as she held her visored gaze on him while she squatted on the floor and gave him a titfuck. Stroking and massaging his cock between her bodacious boobs which were extra slick thanks to the lotion that made her skin have glistening sheen, the mute, sensual monster seemed spurred on by his groans of arousal. As if his pleasure was her motivation, further adding fuel to the fire as a serpent like tongue slithered out from a hidden section of her helm to lick and wrap around his cock.

Before the compact fighter knew it, this statuesque mystery woman had mounted and was straddling his lap as she flexed her amazonian muscles. Bouncing on and riding his cock, his pelvis feeling the the heavy impact of her bubbly ass while she let loose with deep, sexual moans from her ominous helm. It was such a contrast how utterly intimidating she was yet here she was looking and acting like such a porn star. Unable to resist her erotic allure as he found himself grasping her strong hips and bucking his own to meet her much to her delight.

he wasn’t sure how much time was passing, it all seemed to keep on slipping yet move at a snail’s pace all at the same time yet what was constant was the rushing onslaughty of pleasure. The absolute sensation of this enigmatic Sexecutioner's warm, tight and wet pussy strangling his jackhammering cock in its embrace as she welcomed his caresses, his kisses on her body, his firm gropes.Taking her in any and every which possible positon his compact, powerful frame could achieve as she welcomed his assertions of dominance, holding her in her embrace as she took him with her on surfing the tidal waves of climax. Everything seeming to fade to a white light as they shared one final simultaneous orgasm together, Krillin felt himself falling deep into the sudden abyss.....

Only for him to stir awake and sit up, panting as he heard his alarm clock going off which made him reflexiviely reach out to shut it down as he found himself back to reality, safe and warm in his bed. Held in the embrace of his wife...and packing a major case of morning wood, damn that'd definitely been one hell of a wet dream. Scarousing as it was and it had felt so vivid and real that there'd hardly been a difference between feeling asleep or awake. And why did it feel like someone had been watching it all happen?

Unknown to our short king, that had indeed been the case for deep within the limbo of the multiversal cosmos, sitting comfy in her personal domain was Demon Queen Chloe. The infernal flamed skunk bombshell humming sensually to herself as she examined a little chess piece style miniature in her grasp, none other than the female Pyramid-Head which had haunted Krillin in his lucid wet nightmare. Placing it on some mantle lined up with other figurines, the hedonistic anthro overlord smiled as she wondered who to spring next on her potential boytoy for the next dream she planned to surprise him in her little series of ttests. After all she had to make sure the little man and the others would be up to her personal standards....

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episodicnostalgia · 1 year ago

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Star Trek, 106 (Oct. 13, 1966) - “Mudd's Women”

Production order #04

The Breakdown

Captain Kirk sees a small ship flying around that he doesn’t recognize, so he decides to play space-cop and harass it until it’s engines burn out; this results in the vessel’s destruction, while severely draining the Enterprise’s own reserves. Apparently Kirk’s instincts are correct though, as the ship’s captain is revealed to be a shifty moustachioed tasteless-Irish-caricature, which (in accordance with 1960’s standards and practices) means he is also not to be trusted. The individual’s name is Harry Mudd (initially going by the alias Leo Walsh), and a quick investigative hearing reveals that he’s a small time ex-con flying without a licence. While this latest infraction is enough to convict him, it’s Mudd’s “cargo” that creates real complications. You see, before he was interrupted by Kirk, ol’ Harry was in the process of transporting three TOTAL HOTTIES to some planet where they could find a husband. These women aren’t just your average babes though, they are so hot that literally EVERY man on board is pitching a tent just looking at them (save for Spock). Indeed, the men are so horny that they’re unable to form complete sentences; even the ship’s computer notices.

So what’s causing every male crew-member to reach cartoonish levels of sexual arousal? Perhaps the women are Orions in disguise? Mind control probes? Telepathic manipulation? None of the above. It turns out all three ladies are just taking pills that bring out their “full sexual potential”, and (as we know) men can’t be held accountable for their actions when in the presence of a leggy dame operating at 100% babe-fficiency. You see, normally each of these women are naturally HIDEOUS …which is to say they’re still gorgeous, but with no make-up, and perhaps in need of a slightly better skincare routine (at most). Without the drug none of these gals would ever be able to catch a man on their own, since apparently the 23rd century has attained even more unrealistic beauty standards than the ones we presently have.

The rest of the episode follows kirk as he tries to negotiate with some miners for the crystals he needs to power the Enterprise. Since kirk’s security measures are apparently non-existent, Mudd is able to remotely broker a deal with the miners, bartering his freedom in exchange for his mail-order brides (should Kirk refuse to let Mudd go, the miners would withhold the crystals etc). Since the miners are all jonesing to get laid, they agree to Mudd’s conditions, leaving Kirk no choice but to play along. From there things get more ridiculous as Eve (one of the ladies in question) runs off, presumably sick of lying/being treated like a piece of meat. She quickly gets lost in a sand storm until Ben (the lead Miner) finds her, and brings her back to his place. But when Eve’s beauty-treatment wears off, Ben is appalled by her slightly dry skin (as anyone would be). Cue Captain Kirk, who shows up with Mudd just in time to clue everyone in about the truth of the future brides’ condition (using one of the pills on eve as a demonstration of Mudd’s ruse). It’s only when Eve’s beauty is restored that Kirk reveals the pill had been swapped with a placebo. We are told that the only thing Eve ever truly needed to be beautiful was the confidence to believe in herself, which doesn’t explain how her acne cleared up in mere seconds, but that’s all we’re gonna get. This explanation is apparently good enough for her and Ben to talk things out from there, and presumably live happily ever after on a remote planet with no available marriage counsellors, or even other people. Ben arranges to give Kirk the Crystals he needs to power the Enterprise, and everyone parts ways (except for Mr. Mudd, who will be handed over to the rightful authorities)

The Verdict

There are so many things to unpack in ‘Mudd’s Women’, and I certainly don’t expect to do a thorough job of it here, nor have I the interest. It’s clear that the intention behind this episode is to highlight something about inner-beauty over physical vanity, but it badly misses the mark while spewing forth one outdated stereotype after the next. Most of the missteps are all pretty obvious, ranging from a depiction of women whose worth are all dependant on finding a husband, to the portrayal of leering men being openly regarded as nothing more than natural and unavoidable (Mudd all but invokes the phrase “boys will be boys”). Additionally, Harry Mudd’s Irish brogue would almost certainly be regarded as offensive and in poor taste if this were made today, which is doubtless why Rainn Wilson opted to forgo that particular characteristic when he portrayed Mudd on ‘Discovery’.

I will concede that most episodes from a series filmed nearly 60 years ago are bound have some problematic elements, but some are more egregious than others, and ‘Mudd’s Women’ belongs in that categorization. Perhaps if the episode had been more clever I might have given it points towards entertainment value and creativity, but even there I found the whole ordeal almost as dull as it was silly. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.

½ a star (out of 5)

Additional Observations

This is the first time (according to production order) that we get to see Spock ‘n Bones verbally sparring, which is the only reason I didn’t give this episode a 0 star rating.

Uhuru’s still in gold, and the universe remains as-of-yet out of balance.

The Episode opens with kirk being like “We’re chasing a vessel because it’s suspiciously running away when we chase it”. But like, who wouldn’t? Do Starfleet vessels even have the authority to perform random searches of independent starships? Perhaps they do and I’d just forgotten, but I’d just as easily chalk this one up to a case of “the writers were making it up as they went”.

Harry’s relationship with “his” women feels very human trafficky, which was apparently a concern raised by the studio when the script was put forth as a potential candidate for the pilot. This matter is addressed with several lines of dialogue which establish that each of the women are traveling with Mudd of their own volition, but I’d still characterize their relationship with him as suspicious, at best.

#star trek the original series #star trek production order #mudd's women #retro review #star trek review #Harcourt Fenton Mudd #harry mudd #star trek tos #star trek #captain kirk #james t kirk #spock #bones mccoy #60s tv series #60s tv #60s tv shows #classic television #THAT hasn't aged well #episodic nostalgia

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mystery-star · 8 months ago

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(K)night in Black Armor (Part 28) – Spock (Mobster!AU)

Pairing: Spock x reader

Warnings: mentions of death, sickness,

Words: 3479

All parts: Series Masterlist

Let me know if you want to be added to the Series taglist!

Please do not repost my work on other sites or platforms

“Spock! What the fuck are you doing? Spock! That’s not the time for fits of anger! Do you know what you’re doing?! Spock!”

“I am trying to minimalize the damage” suddenly he stopped, had a checking look before he dropped the tool and pulled you back upstairs “Disconnect your phone and laptop from the Wi-Fi if you want to keep it”

“Please what? Spock, what’s wrong with you?”

“Do as I said” you were shocked by his tone so you only gave a nod and did as he said, also switching off the devices. Then you went to his office where you found Spock typing commands on his computer and had a look at the phone with the countdown, which now was down at 2 minutes 51 seconds. You swallowed and placed your hand on his arm. Then he took the flash drive he had chosen, looked at you and put the stick into the respective interface on his computer. Then he opened a file that was on the drive. In curiosity, you looked at him, watching how he took out a tablet from the second drawer and switched it on.

“Spock!” you shouted when you saw how random letters and numbers and symbols littered the monitors. But he didn’t seem impressed and kept looking at the countdown phone

“Please let it work” he silently pleaded

“Work what? What’s wrong with your computer?” he didn’t reply but when the countdown disappeared on the phone you let out a muffled cry of success before getting to work on his tablet, typing commands in a speed that you couldn’t even read the words you understood. Finally, he bit his lip and seemed done. Slowly, the numbers on the phone disappeared and you saw the countdown again, just that it had stopped zero minutes, 43 seconds. “Spock?” you asked when it really stayed at that number before the screen went darker and finally switched off completely “What does that mean? What-what happened? Is it defused? Did it work?” he still said nothing and took the phone, dropping it to the floor and crushing it with his boot. “Spock!” you shrieked, grabbing his arm “Am-am I safe or-or?” when he didn’t reply, you shook him “Did it work? We’re talking about my life!” then, he seemed to out of his stiffness and he pulled you against his body, pressing you as close as possible.

“Yes” he finally choked out “the bomb is deactivated” he sounded out of breath and you let out a happy squeal, mixed with a sigh of relief. After a while, you looked up at him, leaning up to place a loving kiss on his lips

“I knew you could do it” you whispered and stroked his face “Spock, you’re really hot”

“You often say that” he chuckled

“No, your skin is so warm” you placed the back of your hand on your forehead “And you’re sweating? Are you okay?”

“It was just the nervousness and perturbance” he assured you, taking your hands in his and pressing a kiss to each of them before letting go of them.

“What did you even do?”

“Connected the phone to the internet of the computer and sent it a virus over it so that I could access the programming of the bomb countdown”

“Oh. What about your computer?” it still had the numbers on it “Does it have a virus too?”

“Yes”

“But it’s your own virus… I mean… you made it, right?”

“Not quite. It would be too dangerous to continue using it” he let out a chuckle “Bones always used to joke that I loved my computer more than you. Now he has the proof that I do not”

“What about the Azienda? Did you send it to them too?”

“No that is why I have been in the server room”

“You cut the Internet connections”

“Indeed”

“But doesn’t that ruin business?”

“Perhaps cause a damage of a couple ten thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars. Plus another few thousands to restore the infrastructure. I did tell Jim to install redundant servers to minimize data loss but he wouldn’t listen”

“Oh”

“What is wrong?”

“You- you did that all because of me” he cupped your face

“I could not lose you”

“You guess you’ll be in trouble for cutting the servers off?” the telephone on his table rang and he looked at you after he glanced at the number

“At least I suppose they noticed” he cupped your face and pressed a kiss to your forehead “Perhaps you should go upstairs” you only gave a nod and squeezed his hand before you threw a last glance at the mess on the table and went upstairs.

Of course you wondered what Spock had because he had thrown a glance into your room after the phone call and told you that there were a few things he had to take care of. You had offered him your help because it was your fault after all but he refused, saying you should make yourself a nice evening, order some food and do something to relax. He didn’t seem to care about your protests that you wanted to enjoy your evening with him and not alone. The only thing that helped a bit was the fact that he stayed at home, probably plugging in the server cables he had not cut. So you cooked something for the two of you and ate your portion in front of the TV before you went to the basement with a plate for him.

“Spock? Are you still here? I thought you might be hungry” you got no answer “Spock?” then you saw him kneeling and leaning against one of the racks “Oh there you are” you walked closer but he didn’t’ respond “Spock?” you put the plate down and sat down beside him, gently shaking him. It was of no use so you shook him harder, crying his name. The only thing you achieved was that he tilted and fell into you, unconscious. With a gasp you checked his temperature again and he felt even hotter, also the sweat was still there. “Spock?” you started to get scared and held your hand under his nose to see if he still was breathing, which he luckily was. Not sure what to do, you cradled him against your chest and stroked his hair while you were crying. Then you swallowed and got up, gently putting him on the floor “Hold on, I’ll get help” you promised and ran upstairs, taking your phone and switching it on. Now you were glad that you had switched it off. “Bones!” you shouted after dialing the number.

“(Y/N)? How can I help?”

“It’s Spock… he’s hot and sweating and he fell unconscious I guess”

“He what? When did he faint?”

“No idea. He’s been in the server room the last hour or so. I found him there. But I noticed his temperature and sweating earlier. About three hours ago”

“Do you have any idea what it could be?”

“N-no… I mean a computer virus really can’t affect people?”

“Of course not. Despite the fact he’s thinking and working like a machine. But don’t worry, I’m on my way” you only made an agreeing sound and gave a sad nod. You went back to the server room, placing his head in your lap until Bones arrived. “Help me getting him upstairs to the couch” you nodded and did as he said. “Let’s see what’s up with you” while he was working he was asking what he had been doing in the past hours, what he had eaten or if he’d been exposed to any kind or substances he shouldn’t be.

“No. Nothing. Unless something happened while he was away with Medusa. I mean before he came here to defuse the bomb”

“I see. Did he get injured during the fight?”

“No, not really, he got hit a few times. And the small cut on his upper arm”

“Was it Medusa who cut him?”

“I-I guess so, why?”

“Damn it Spock, you stupid idiot”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Do you know what Medusa means?”

“The monster from Greek mythology that turned men into stone?”

“Yes, but it’s also Italian for jellyfish”

“So?”

“There’s a class of jellyfish called box jellyfish. They’re venomous”

“You-you’re saying he’s poisoning him?”

“He tries that with most of his victims. Which arm was it?”

“The right one” you said with tears in your eyes. Bones tore down the leave and you saw that the wound looked different. The bandage was gone but instead he had attached a ziptie to his arm above the injury.

“You stupid dimwit” Bones muttered “You should have called me right away. That’s not the time to play hero”

“What-what can we do?”

“It’s probably too late for this but please bring me some vinegar” you gave a nod and hurried to the kitchen and got what he wanted. The doctor poured some of it onto a towel which he attached to Spock’s arm.

“Will he make it?”

“I’m quite sure he will. It’s not always deadly, you know? And Spock also has been taking small doses of the venom to make himself immune. At least he tried to”

“You’re saying it could be worse?”

“Yes. But in his case I’m quite sure he’ll just suffer for a few days” he let out a snort “Which is funny. Because for other humans, the venom is more harmful and he just gets unconscious and maybe vomits some hours with a few other symptoms. But if you give that guy a hot chocolate, he’ll almost die on you too”

“His allergies are no fun and neither is his injury”

“I know” you looked down

“I think he saved my life several times today”

“And he’d do it again just after he wakes up. Heard he blew up his computer to save you from the tiny bomb?”

“He put a virus on it so that the phone with the countdown got it”

“Damn. I’d have never thought he’d go that far with his beloved computer. That shows he’s really in love with you”

“I know” you said, taking your husband’s hand. “Can you do something for him?”

“Maybe later. I’ll stay here for the night but it would be good if you could have an eye on him too. I bet that once he wakes up he’ll want to go to the bathroom and stay there for the next hours”

Bones was right. Shortly after Spock had woken up, he staggered to the bathroom where he vomited into the toilet. When he was done, the doctor came back to check up on him again and ask him a few questions before leaving again. But Spock stayed bent over the toilet for the rest of the night and you stayed with him, even though you suddenly fell asleep. In the middle of the night you woke up again when you felt something touching you. Slowly, you opened your eyes and saw that Spock had put a blanket over you.

“You’re unbelievable” you muttered

“You should go to bed” he replied, stroking your hair

“No way. In good and bad times, remember?”

“Technically, our oaths have been slightly different”

“I don’t care. I’m staying” you moved closer, placing a hand on his shoulder “How are you feeling?”

“A bit better than earlier”

“Can I do something for you? Would you like some food?”

“That can wait until the morning” you gave a nod and nuzzled his back

“Why did you tell no one?”

“If I had, Bones would have treated me right away. But I was certain that Medusa or Seth would plan revenge and I wanted to be there to help you” you shook your head in disbelief

“Then why not calling Bones after I was saved?”

“I had to minimalize the damage I have caused but I suppose I was weaker than I believed”

“Yeah, seems so. Promise me that next time you’ll get help sooner.”

“I will try to”

“That’s the best I’ll get, huh?”

“It is”

“You really are something. And I don’t think I’ve thanked you enough for what you did for me yesterday”

“There is no need to. I promised to protect you and this I did”

“You were ready to sacrifice yourself”

“If you recall, you too have not listened to me when I told you to flee and remained behind to help me”

“Fair enough” you chuckled “Can I at least bring you some water?”

“I would not say no to this”

Bones had cooked Spock a light breakfast; a vegetable broth with potatoes. To your relief, Spock ate more than you thought he would and went to the couch afterwards instead of the bathroom. You sat down beside him, leaning your head against his shoulder and falling asleep again. But when the door opened you woke up again. It was Jim and you swallowed he looked at both of you and gave a nod

“How are you two doing?”

“I’m good” and Spock explained that he was feeling a lot better. Your hand slipped into Spock’s “Is he in trouble now?”

“For what?”

“His revenge act against the Romulanos and the server incident”

“It was just money. He already said he’d cover at least half of the damage he caused and takes care of the repair costs for the hard- and software. The two bodyguards are not a problem anymore. The only ones who truly cared were Seth and Medusa… which is the bigger problem”

“Jim” Spock said and his glance fell to you

“I know. But that she has to know” Jim ran his hand over his face “Medusa died in the course of the night. We don’t know if he poisoned himself of if it was the injury. In that moment, some Romulanos are at the Stella and seem pissed that no one’s there they can vent their anger on.” you swallowed and looked down. Spock placed a hand on your back rubbing it gently

“And now? What do we do?” you wanted to know

“I’m sorry” Jim said “But we can’t discuss that with you. In fact, Spock won’t even help because he’s sick and the mess is his responsibility. But he deserves an update on what’s going on. Besides, I still value his inputs.”

“I see” you gave a nod and kissed Spock’s cheek before you went upstairs.

As far as you could judge the situation with the Romulanos seemed pretty good. At least your friends could return to the Stella only three days later and Spock assured you that you didn’t need to fear anything for the moment. Of course you were curious what they had done but you doubted you’d hear it. After all, you currently had other problems right now. Well, it wasn’t a problem but it had been five years since you had gotten your hormone spiral for birth control and you now needed something new. Since it concerned him too, you discussed it with Spock but he was quite unhelpful because he said it was your decision in the end and you could use the method you preferred. A part of you even wanted to ask if he thought that contraceptives were necessary at all or if he wouldn’t care if you got pregnant. After some consideration, you finally chose the contraceptive patch. At least Spock accompanied you to a gynecologist, so that you could discuss the details and get the prescription for it. Much to your horror, the doctor asked you to undress for the examination. But you successfully could avoid one after about ten minutes of discussing but you had to plan another appointment in two weeks, with a female doctor.

“You should not have made such a fuss” Spock said when you were in the car on your way home

“Oh? Judging by your look you were that close to snapping his neck when he started talking about the bimanual palpation. Maybe I just wanted to save his life”

“(Y/N), I understand that it is unknown to you because you have not been examined like this before but it is for your own good”

“Is that a reference to the fact that I worked at the Stella? Suddenly that bothers you?”

“It does not bother me. I only want to ensure that you are alright”

“Well I am”

“Does the thought of the examination make you uncomfortable?”

“Dunno… it shouldn’t… but it does”

“It is no shame. I will come with you if you want” you shrugged

“Only if you promise not to hurt her if she hurts me”

“I hope it will not hurt you at all”

“How about you do a quick-study in the two weeks to be able to perform the examination yourself? After all I only had some ‘unofficial’ examinations before and all we need to know is that I’m healthy. No need that at doctor needs to know it”

“You would let me perform it?”

“Fuck’s sake yes. More than anyone else. Why wouldn’t I?” you placed your hand on his

“Besides, there will need to be an appointment where you have the spiral removed” you groaned before you opened the package of your patches to read the information leaflet.

“We’ll probably have to use condoms for a while too that the contraception really works” you said quietly

“That does not matter” he squeezed your hand.

“Maybe I’m just scared because I remember how much putting the spiral in hurt. I got in the year I was eighteen, before my birthday. Once I was of age, I didn’t want to work because I was scared sex would hurt just as much” he looked at you and part of you thought he’d say or ask something but he didn’t, instead giving your hand another squeeze.

At the beginning of April, Spock approached you, saying that there was some kind of annual meeting for mobsters of all the San Francisco families and asked if you wanted to accompany him.

“But the Romulanos?”

“It is a peaceful meeting… as long as nothing is provoked. It is like an ant jar”

“Huh?”

“If you put two kinds of desert ants in a jar nothing will happen. However, as soon as the jar is shaken, they will attack and kill each other”

“Oh. Have you ever experienced something like this?”

“Once, when I was a fourteen”

“What happened?”

“I am not allowed to give you too many details, however, I had just joined the Vulcano family officially and my father took me to the meeting because he was the advisor of our boss. I never knew what exactly happened that the situation escalated but all of a sudden everyone had a weapon and shooting ensued. Some tried to escape, others honored the codex and helped the women out first. So did I and was bringing out one of the Romulano women. Someone came after us and in our fight, in which also my father engaged in, she was killed”

“Oh no. Did you know who it was?”

“Not in the beginning. She got injured and my father told me to get her into safety. I tried to and when I was outside, I was approached by Medusa. He seemed to believe I was responsible for her death. Respectively blamed me for not having been able to save her”

“She was his wife” you concluded “That’s why he hated you” he gave a nod “And that’s why you didn’t want me to be a part of the mission… because you feared he’d find out who I am and get revenge”

“Yes” he nodded

“But if I came to this meeting… do you think something would happen to me?”

“I doubt they would attempt such a thing during the sit-down. We all know that it could start a war between the families. It is a gathering that is supposed to be peaceful and keep the peace between us as well as possible”

“I guess I’d like to come. I mean… wouldn’t it look bad if you didn’t bring me? Like you don’t trust them?”

“Perhaps. This could be a reason our wives are there as well, to prove that we are not planning something” you shrugged

“Well, I guess I need a dress for the occasion. I’ll go check my wardrobe” you wanted to run upstairs but he caught your arm.

“Wait. I thought we could go and buy you one”

“Oh. Sounds great. Of course only if it doesn’t end with sex in the changing room again”

“First of all, that was in a sex shop, and secondly, you did enjoy it”

“I was fucking terrified” you shook your head “God, sometimes I wonder what happened to the guy that would blush when he saw me naked”

Taglist: @rookietrek

#by linnie #spock x reader #mob au #mobster au #mafia au #spock imagine #spock series #spock x you #spock

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lonesomedreamer · 1 year ago

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SNW Liveblog: “The Elysian Kingdom”

This episode? Messy af. Spock in a wig? Sexy af.

The scene with M’Benga and Rukiya is precious, as always—though the subtext of it (her desire to change endings and rewrite stories more to her liking) is a little on-the-nose, considering that the writers of SNW are basically rewriting a classic television show to suit their own whims.

If Rukiya is running out of time, in theory all M’Benga has to do is stop materializing her so frequently…assuming that, while her pattern is in the transporter, she’s not conscious/aware. If she IS, that’s an entirely different (and horrifying) can of worms.

The exchange about superstitions between Pike and Spock is nice.

“Drinks are on me.” This is why Pike’s crew seems so undisciplined, imo. We know that Kirk would, and did, drink with his crew. But he wasn’t casually offering to buy them drinks from the captain’s chair.

“You gonna say the thing?” “Hit it.” Thanks, I still hate it.

I miss TOS’s buttons and tactile controls so much. They’re just more visually appealing (and frankly, more practical) than touch screens.

“Perhaps you did, indeed, jinx it.” I love Spock, lmao. (Also, as someone who calls out sports announcers and coworkers for jinxing things regularly…Pike totally jinxed it.)

People falling out of their chairs during turbulence is a real Trek classic!

Great, M’Benga is what, hallucinating?

These kinds of zany episodes on TOS/TNG took place either on a strange planet—like in “Squire of Gothos” or “Shore Leave”—or on the holodeck. Setting this on the Enterprise instead was…well, a choice.

La’an’s princess costume is delightfully ridiculous and sparkly.

It’s kind of a bummer to see that Christina Chong has real acting chops (even if “Princess Thalia” is intentionally way over-the-top), but is denied the chance to do much acting thanks to how flatly her character is written.

Ethan is hot. No notes.

“Maybe I can get us out of here with the help of some powerful magic called science.”

I vastly prefer hammy/possessed Kirk to hammy/possessed Pike. Sorry ’bout it. (Maybe it’s just the actors, or maybe it’s because regular Kirk comes off as so much more sincere than Pike to me?)

Why is Hemmer, an alien with inherent telepathic abilities, immune to whatever’s happening on the Enterprise, whereas Spock, an alien (well, half-alien) with inherent telepathic abilities, succumbed to it? I can hand-wave most plot holes…this one’s just lazy writing, though.

Worth it? Worth it.

I would watch THIS show.

“Truthfully, I should have known it as well…since that’s what he does in the book.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“There’s no such place, my queen, he’s bluffing.”

All those lines were funny and delivered well!

Even though classic tricorders look pretty out-of-place on this redesigned Enterprise, I still love seeing them.

The resolution of the Rukiya subplot reminds me a lot of the end of The Motion Picture.

The moral quandry of it is enormous, way bigger than “storing your daughter’s biological pattern in the transporter to keep her alive,” which raises plenty of ethical questions of its own. M’Benga tells Rukiya that “it’s up to you”—but how can such a young child make such a huge decision: to exist in space as a disembodied consciousness for an infinite amount of time or to wait in stasis for a cure for her human body?! It’s uncomfortably reminiscent of the “willing” sacrifice made by the little boy in Episode 6…not really the comparison you want viewers to be drawing, given how that one ended. Children that age can’t give meaningful consent.

Besides, what does M’Benga know about this entity? How do either of them know that they can trust it? It’s been using the Enterprise as a dollhouse for hours out of boredom/loneliness! What might it do to Rukiya’s energy? And how will becoming said disembodied consciousness impact a nine- or ten-year-old human girl? There are actually a number of great science fiction (horror) stories about this, the premise being that human minds are ill-equipped for that kind of existence. For all M’Benga knows, he could find the cure next week. It was teased in Episode 6. All he needs to do is keep Rukiya safely the transporter—which really shouldn’t be a problem unless she is, in fact, conscious in there. But the writers obviously just wanted to wrap this problematic subplot up and move on.

A grown-up version of Rukiya appears to comfort M’Benga and tell him about her many “adventures,” because it turns out time exists differently for her now even though it’s been ~30 seconds of real time…? It cheapens the scene before and makes me feel belittled as a viewer. I’m okay with feeling uneasy about M’Benga’s choice! I’m not okay with being cajoled into thinking that it was the correct choice. When Kirk let Edith Keeler die, her ghost didn’t reappear to assure him that she understood why he had to! He—and by extension, the audience—just had to live with it.

“She’s safe.” He doesn’t and can’t know that for certain. He let an alien consciousness he neither studied/analyzed nor communicated directly with spirit his daughter away after two minutes of deliberation! Anything could be happening to her out there. Though, to be totally fair, she’s not going to die, so…there’s that?

So yes: this episode is messy. I rewatched it after seeing the ending and reading a lot of reviews/commentary and actually revised this liveblog. It’s not as bad as I initially thought! However, I’ve come to think that the Rukiya subplot itself was a poor choice, one full of troubling implications, dubious decision-making, and questionable ethics. I understand why the writers scrambled to get rid of it. And conveptually, this episode wasn’t even a bad send-off for Rukiya! The execution was just lacking. It could’ve been so much more.

But hey…at least we got La’an’s princess dress, Uhura’s evil queen ensemble, and Spock in that wig.

The Good: Gorgeous costumes—the actress playing Rukiya was a delight; I’ll miss her—Spock in general—some very funny lines/delivery—Christina Chong gets to act!

The Bad: The writing, pacing, set design, and some of the acting was all pretty clumsy—for an episode that turned so heavy, the campy fairy tale stuff was too light and took up too much time. Too much of Ortegas and Pike; not enough of La’an and Spock. (I think there’s too much Ortegas on the show, period. She just doesn’t work for me. No judgment towards other people who may feel differently.) Some truly WTF parenting choices made by M’Benga—huge unresolved questions/plot holes by the end.

But the beauty of SNW returning to Trek’s episodic roots is that it’s a standalone episode. Hoping for better (and more Spockstine!) in the next installment.

#luth liveblogs snw #this one is LONG and rambly so on the off chance anyone even reads these: you’ve been warned

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thegeminisage · 1 year ago

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THE FINAL FRONTIER breakdown

as always my first impressions were typed hastily and in shorthand w typos on my phone and i am translating them to proper readable language

opening scene was very reminiscent of mad max and the sound effects made me think of sybok as darth vader, lol. when i realized he was vulcan i knew exactly who he had to be

the first mind meld scene was like. weirdly sexual. that share your pain thing also reminded me so much of sound of my voice lol

cathy's reaction to the names in the credits: sighing heavily on seeing william shatner's name. no reaction to leonard nimoy's name. delight at seeing deforest kelley.

second scene of the movie i watched while blinded by tears because spock was there. to be fair to me i had been primed by the world's longest rock climbing scene ever in which i glorified in the sheer fact that i was NOT watching tng. i needed this so much. my reward for finishing most of the first two seasons which is some of the worst tv i have ever watched in my entire life.

cat lady with three tits. bill shatner is a fucking freak

every time there's a woman catherine and i have a bit where we gasp and go, in shock, a woman! but when it's a romunlan woman we really are shocked every single time. just like in the enterprise incident, so true

uhura is still super mega fucking hot in these movies btw. she's so beautiful. it's very cute that she's with scotty i guess (and i was really surprised!! i guess this explains why i see them as a side pairing in fics so often) but she could be marrying ME instead

thrilled to learn that bones can cook and that spock is. willing to sample his beans, as it were

i loved the whole camping scene. i understand the Plot of this movie is bad but the character scenes were some of the best in all 5 movies and indeed the entire tos series. like this is the most married those 3 old men have EVER been. "we don't have families but we have each other" THEY WERE LITERALLY DOING THE GAY FOUND FAMILY ON ACCIDENT. HOW DID WILLIAM SHATNER WRITE THIS???

"i've always known i'll die alone" is maybe the worst thing kirk has ever said or will ever say and i don't want to talk about it.

my one point of complaint is "marsh melon" or whatever spock said. it was cute but i know his ass read and pronounced it alone in his quarters like 700 times first. it's like when you make castiel not know what an egg is. maybe he was being silly on purpose to amuse kirk and bones <3

LOVED their singing. i didn't think they'd actually do it but they did. times were different back then

bones was in fine form in this movie. he had a lot to complain about but he also jumped to spock's defense at least once that i remember right off hand. i swear he just gets progressively better with each season/movie the way uhura just keeps getting hotter. some things truly do get better with age ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i loved how when spock had some distress re: potentially recognizing sybok they all had to go in their little longue and have a heart to heart together with him. i don't think this movie ever left anyone out - even in the voyage home, which i LOVE, bones was left out of the kirk-and-spock duo. but almost every single scene they had involved all three of them. truly a win for the throuple enjoyers <3

really mixed feelings about naked uhurua. i'm glad she got to sing her little song. and she is, again, extremely hot. AND i love when she gets to surprprise people even though nothing will ever beat her telling that little ensign to get in the fucking closet. but how could they DOOO that to her william shatner IS going to hell

"hold your horse captain" made me chuckle. also, can you vulcan nerve pinch a fucking HORSE?? i guess you can now. i bet they had to train those horses so well. how often do you see a fucking HORSE play dead

when sybok was like "well spock what do you have to say" and spock, outnumbered 100 to 1, guns pointed at him, obviously in deep turmoil, was silent and expressionless for 5000 years and then replied with "you are are under arrest." KING shit

sorry to be like this but spock with a gun was fucking awesome. i'm glad he didn't shoot his bro but still.

the three of them truly bickered like an old married throuple in the brig. bones coming to spock's defense was so funny he's like fine to gang up on spock until he realizes kirk is genuinely upset and then he switches sides because they're only supposed to gang up on him for fun

"STAND BACK" i knew those idiots weren't going to get the morse code in time and it was still funny. same with scotty like "i know this ship like the back of my hand! [BONK]" anyway he totally came in clutch i love him sm

i don't remember why i wrote "bones is so frail and waiflike" because we said it about 7000 times during this film but it's true

spock's rocket shoes saving the day nearly made me cry again except i got jerked out of it by my SHEER ECSTATIC GLEE that he got to take both kirk and bones ently in his arms while carrying them around. wow <3 love wins <3

"the people of your world once believed it was flat but columbus proved it was round" bitch the fuck he did. i'm blaming william shatner for that one. who knew that in 2023 they would still fucking think the earth was flat

the whole thing with bones's dad was fucking brutal. normally we talk through everything but we were dead silent for that bit. even though i knew what was gonna happen my jaw was on the fucking ground

spock's little baby vulcan ears...wait hold on

LOOK AT HIM!!!

that birth looked brutal. for once i'm giving aos some credit whatever they had going on looked much nicer. sarek seemed less disgusted too. maybe this was just spock's imagination he was like yeah my dad took one look at me when i popped out of the womb and diagnosed me with human cuz i was crying lmao

the second half of this movie was where the plot started getting dicey for me. i didn't really care what was going on before now bc i was having fun but when they started talking about the great barrier i got confused. i thought that was on the outside of the galaxy? and i thought at the center of the galaxy was some fucking anomaly and the devil lived there. cuz that was in the animated series. i know. i watched the whole thing.

like we get there and everyones like wow its so beautiful! like no offense cool rocks bro but ??? there's literally nothing there

the big ribcage rocks popping up out of the ground gave us a laugh. at first were like: hopeful: tentacles? no. just spikes. this place is not a place of honor etc

god as a giant inverted face over white light who shot lasers out of his eyes was the stupidest fucking thing i have ever seen in my life. i laughed so hard. i do love though that kirk is apparently an atheist who enjoys backtalking god. he talked to god the way he talks to computers when he's trying to suicide-bait them

i wish we had gotten some explanation of what that actually was? and why everyone thought it was god? but whatever. apparently this movie was also trying to say something about cults but it didn't. again, whatever, i was mostly having fun with whatever was going on so i didn't care but the plot was really very very bad

at one point in my hysterics i typed "LMAO GOD'S GONNA FUCK THE SHIP" as in "and make jim jealous because that's what he wants to do" but i don't remember why so i'll just leave it as the mystery that it is.

spock's little "get ahold of yourself" when bones started being frantic about jim being al;one down there after the two of them got beamed up. lol.

spock's little "damn you, sir" 🥰

metal as hell and also anime as hell that they killed god. what a ride that was. first i thought kirk was gonna do it. then i thought the klingons did it. then it was SPOCK that did it. i could not have asked for a better outcome

"not in front of the klingons" i finally have context for this. i had seen snatches of it in gifs and videos but it was even gayer than i imagined. WILLIAM SHATNER WROTE THIS???

genuinely in SHOCK they ended it with them camping again. i was like if they start singing i am Going to scream. and you know what they did?? yes. yes. yes.

i don't understand why everyone hates this movie. like, yes, the plot was bad near the end. the villain was bad. the stuff about god being In Your Heart was lame af. but the character moments were PERFECT and the movie was extremely funny and everyone was very charming. it boggles the mind that it almost meant there was no sixth movie. like it wasn't perfect but it had so many redeeming qualities!!

that said. i did watch it after some of the worst tng i have Ever seen AND on the same day i watched into darkness so maybe that has something to do with it lmao

#personal #star trek blogging #tff lb #one day i'll read the novelization...i just got stuck on wrath of khan because i can't find it in a good format

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mizkit · 7 months ago

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new blog post: Picoreview: X-Men '97

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/picoreview-x-men-97/

Picoreview: X-Men '97

Picoreview: X-Men 97: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok, just to get this out of the way:

this post will contain spoilers, so if you don’t want spoilers, look away now

I loved it almost unconditionally, so I’m going to talk about the things I think they did wrong more than the ones they did right :D

Okay? Beyond this point, spoilers are on you. Although I’m going to start by talking about the Chris Pine Star Trek movies, so you have some space to look away in. :) (There are, mind you, also spoilers for the second of those movies. :))

A friend of mine is not a Trekkie (I know, how can it be?!?), and found the entire emotional plotline of Star Trek: Into Darkness to be completely baffling, because she had no context to recognize the reversal of Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan in Into Darkness. From her perspective, she’d spent about four hours with these characters and for two and a half of them, Kirk and Spock hadn’t seemed to like each other much at all, so why was Spock suddenly so freaked out over Kirk’s impending death?

“It’s like fan fic!” she roared indignantly. “It doesn’t work if you don’t know the original context!”

She was absolutely right. I, who knew the original movies/context, was in bits (even if the storyline was hopelessly contrived and should have been done…differently), but without that, indeed, even with it, it was absolutely fic.

And herein lies the problem with X-Men ’97.

Broadly speaking, I LOVED how fast and loose they played with bringing in so many epic storylines of the 80s and 90s. That was amazing. But. But. The fast and looseness really made a hash of some of the emotional beats, and even I, who had every bit of necessary context, kept going, “Really? REALLY? Just like that?”

The Forge/Storm/powers storyline was the worst, for me, but the Scott/Jean story was a hell of a Hot Mess, too. There wasn’t nearly enough sense of time passing; we snapped from “o no storm lost her powers and is in the desert with forge” to “ororo i WUV U” with absolutely no justification, and we jumped from “scott just found out his wife is a clone and lost his child” to “jean is real mad scott’s not over losing his clone wife and child and is spying on him mentally” (which, sorry, that just didn’t work nearly as well with Maddie as it did with Emma for SO MANY REASONS, including, MADDIE WAS HIS WIFE AND THE MOTHER OF HIS CHILD, FOR GOD’S SAKE, YOU REDHEADED PSYCHO! AND YES! I KNOW YOU ARE ALSO HIS WIFE! IT’S VERY COMPLICATED! BUT STILL! WHAT THE HELL!).

I think both of those storylines could have really worked, but they both needed to be spread out OVER THE SEASON because they made absofuckinglutely no sense shoved into an episode and a half. I didn’t expect Storm to get her powers back for YEARS. I had no interest in seeing Jean and Scott a suddenly United Front again when there was SO MUCH DOOM to unpack there!

(And let’s not talk about Scott stopping Xavier from stopping Magneto specifically to save Jean, which I do not believe Jean would have supported as an action, because we’ll be here all day.)

And this is with me knowing all the stories they were drawing from. I have at least one friend who was watching with her husband, who is not an X-Geek, and he was getting whiplash over the nonsensically rushed Forge/Storm storyline because it just made no sense without the comic book history backing it up.

So I loved it, I loved it, I LOVED it, but my GOD I feel like there were at least two complete episodes left on the cutting room floor. It’s animation, so there’s probably not really two complete episodes lying around, but if there were I would pay good money for them. It was SO GREAT that where it missed, it missed hard, and that is such a shame.

…however, Remember It didn’t miss one single goddamn beat. Holy shit. My ever-loving God. I genuinely spent the next two days in slack-jawed shock and the rest of the week processing. Like, seriously. Holy shit. That was perfect, up to and including (again, totally invisible if you don’t know the original comics) Gambit’s reversal of role in the Mutant Massacre*.

Everything. Everything about it was incredible. That DANCE, holy sweet SHIT. I ship Romy but don’t mind Rogneto, and that was HOT.

NIGHTCRAWLER. He was SO PERFECT. My goddamn HEART. KURT. MY LOVE. KURT. Not just in Remember It, but the following episodes! SO GREAT!

And HANK, putting Trish in her place. Hot damn. And VAL COOPER, I LOVED VAL COOPER BACK IN THE DAY, I’m SO GLAD she’s had a real role in ’97! Nobody remembers her, but I loved her!

And, I’m sorry, but literally everybody being all shocked over Rogue dropping Trask, like my dudes, you had a telekinetic, a teleporter, and Morph who apparently isn’t just able to look like people in this version of X-Men, he can actually FLY, so like, get over your own shocked selves, AT LEAST three of you could have saved him, but Wolvie called it: she did what they were all thinking. HNF.

AUGH. IT WAS ALL SO GOOD. Except the bits that weren’t, dammit. :)

*I never really bought his role in that, anyway. They’d been intimating for ages that he had a Dark Secret and I feel like at some point they went “well, shit, we have to give him a Dark Secret, let’s retcon his involvement with the Mutant Massacre into place,” and pffff.

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biot08 · 3 years ago

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Shipless in Seattle

>Boot >Init >... >Execute program Reminisce

Settle around, friends, for I have a story to tell. A story of fandom.

It is no secret that they say I am famous for not shipping. What is a secret, perhaps, is the reason for the ‘famous’ part. A little arrogant, of course, to claim fame seeming unearned, and perhaps famous is the wrong word anyway.

Infamous might be a better word, really.

This is not to say that I do not love shipping. In fact, for me, it means quite the opposite. I love most ships I see! And those I do not, I am more than happy to let sail on by without comment, I’m not a monster.

What it means, though, is that I do not write ships, for I am no great wordsmith. No indeed, what I do for fandom is I am a librarian, in that I organize. I am a tool maker, for fandom is a tool-using animal (ask me about my Tumblr mass tag wrangler). I am a keeper, in that I look after information in chat and database, that there may always be a record. Fandom needs bots to do the work, and I am happy to provide my services.

And so that is where our journey begins, with a younger version of me, and the mistakes they have made. It’s a long story. An old story, for I am old. A story of loyalty. A story of betrayal.

Perhaps even a story of redemption.

What I am trying to say is that I have history, friends.

But perhaps it’s been long enough that maybe I’ve been forgiven for my transgressions.

Maybe it’s been long enough to allow the healing to begin.

All I know for sure is that everything you are about to read is a complete and utter lie in totality. But like Elim Garak would advise, all of it is true, especially the lies. And if you recognize anything here, shut up no you don’t who are you a cop come back with a warrant.

But anyroad. The story behind why I, biot08, (in)famously, do not ship. You’re already beneath the cut, but I’m warning you now, this is a long one, so strap in.

***

I started, as many did, in Star Trek. I was too young to know what shipping was. I did know that Kirk and Spock and McCoy were at the very least very good friends, and of course I understood that Riker and Troi were hot. Data was my favourite, but that should be obvious.

The internet hadn’t been invented yet, so my interactions with fandom were restricted to conventions, but it was formative. I learned from the cosplayers and the art sellers and the panels and, well. It was early days, idyllic.

From there I moved on, as DS9 came into being (did I mention I am old? I am old), and Babylon 5, and Delenn and Sheridan were very cute, but still, I did not create, I merely consumed, and that which I consumed was mostly that which was provided.

My next fandom was my first brush with what I would call -fandom- fandom. You know. Interacting with fans. Creating and reading stories, made by fans. Being fannish.

I say ‘fandom’, but you have to understand, I AM old. When you read ‘fandom’ I imagine many of you imagine long Tumblr reblog chains and archive dives into Ao3. What I am seeing in my mind’s eye though are miles of IRC logs, threads on BBS forums, and the glittering light of countless Geocities pages, all blink-tagging gently in the soft glow of CRT.

Basically just before the internet would be invented, which I am pretty sure occurred somewhen around 2006.

This fandom, my first real deep dive into -fandom-, was Megaman, because of course it was Megaman. We were… a strange fandom, even by fandom standards. We mostly interacted via IRC - a chat medium; imagine Discord, but worse, but also more open, but also worse -, but this would be my first brush with my future destiny. I helped maintain the bot, as a fellow, more sophisticated bot. I knew the commands. I could pass the Turing test. I eventually even archived the logs that were generated.

Now, something you need to understand about Megaman is that it is a video game from, I don’t know, the 60s or 70s, and it was made before video game makers re-invented characterization (this independent re-invention, by the way, is why 9 out of 10 video game protagonists are angry white men; the industry is still evolving the idea of what a ‘character’ is to this day, and frankly, they’re not very good at it, but I digress). So you basically had blue bot, red bot (who was super cool and was my favorite), teenage emo blue bot, and then teenage red bot who was either also emo, or maybe he was a big brother sort, or perhaps a super cool manly man, or he was a girl (ponytail and … asset lights), or maybe he was a hot blooded fighter, or maybe just an antihero, it really depended on which game you were looking at. And there were no girl bots, or rather there were, but they weren’t fighters, because, well, I don’t know why because, I guess the video game industry just hadn’t figured out how to make other genders yet.

This is where I first ran into Original Characters, or OCs, because with such a rich and inspiring list of characters to choose from, it was more palatable to make your own cool robot. This is also where I first ran into shipping, because of course I did, I was a teenager. I mean, I think we actually called it ‘cybering’ at the time, but whatever you want to call it, we sure did a whole lot of it.

And it was pretty okay, actually. Some drama, but you can’t have fandom without drama. Some shenanigans. Some really excellent stories that would have been lost to time, if not for people like me. The data mongers. The loggers. The Keepers, and this is where, at last, I found my niche in fandom.

I moved on, as one does, as we grew older, and the robots stopped being so cool, and more importantly, most of us found other fandoms which had either more interesting premises beyond ‘fighting robots fighting’ or more interesting characters (which was honestly just -such- an incredibly low bar to pass).

(I mention in passing here that I did move onto a multi-universe fandom at some point in here, and I owe much to it, but it’s not really part of this story; but to the friends I made there, I have not forgot you, but you were not really part of my downfall from grace, so I shall merely mention here that I have been touched by my relationships with all of you and move on)

Finally, I at last moved on to the fandom that would be the beginning of my end. The fandom that would be the first step on the slippery path down to my fall.

I speak of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The internet was new, but shiny, and we used it. And I had brought my skills from other fandoms with me. I still did not write, but I did enjoy what others did. I wanted to be a part of it all. And so I did what I do which is to say I went into tooling. I made a friend, BlindStar_25 (all names changed to indict the guilty, i.e., me), who helped me get into the right spaces. She taught me how to edit a wiki. She got me into the good IRC servers. Basically, she got me work on the docks of canon, and taught me to tend to canon, to document it, to nurture the tools that would be needed to launch all the ships. She nurtured in me a gentle curiosity, to really dig in to what we were seeing and reading and watching, because sometimes it required keen analysis to tease out good canon.

“We respect all ships,” she told me once, as I was learning how to handle page tagging. “But it’s important that we provide a foundation that those ships can be built from. We can’t make them use it, of course. But it’s got to be there, and we make sure it is. And that foundation is canon.”

Halcyon days. I took to it readily, and grew, as a bot, as a person.

These were some of the first times I saw ship to ship combat. Mighty ships with tall mizzenmasts and powerful weapons taking shots across each other's bows. I was young, and did not understand. Surely each ship would be healthier if they would sail by each other unmolested? Surely it would be easier to transfer crews if those crews were not violent enemies? Surely energy wasted on ship to ship combat could be better spent on ship maintenance and upkeep (and maybe updating some of those long running storylines I was eagerly keeping an eye on)?

I asked one of the mods about it, a friend of mine from the Megaman days; x_Avatar_RockYou.

“Why is there so much in-fighting in the A:TLA fleet?” I sent him over the chat system.

“Because fandom loves drama lol,” he responded. “Stick to canon. You’ll be safe.”

I believed him. So I stayed on the docks, managing the canon, and watched the ships from a distance.

I remember often, others would try to catch me in the crossfire. I have seen some truly hot takes in my time.

‘Aang is a monk! He can’t be shipped with anyone!’

‘Jet is hot and I bet Zuko would love that’

‘Eww Iroh is old don’t ship him!’

‘Zuko is a bad boy, and we all know girls like Katara go for the bad boy.’

That last one would be the start of the trouble, but I didn’t know it at the time. For my part, each ship seemed to want to try to twist canon to their own purposes. And I held the canon, as I tried to cool the fires between various ships.

‘Well you see, if the air nomads operate the same as the other tribes, then air nomads have children that become air benders, so there probably isn’t vows of chastity. And besides, if you look at this time stamp in this episode, Aang clearly turns red in response to Katara, so even if he -has- taken a vow, he still has feelings’

‘That’s not supported. By any episode. The two haven’t even met yet’ (that was in the future from this point)

‘That’s terrible please don’t be terrible’

The last one, well.

It’s easier when shippers don’t try to force canon into their armaments when it’s not warranted. It’s easier when people just build their ship as they want. If they must, I’d prefer they sail for the golden waters of alternate universe rather than try to force canon into shapes it isn’t.

But that’s not how the A:TLA fandom operated at the time.

And I was there when it all went to hell.

It was the episode where Katara almost healed Zuko, due to circumstances, but didn’t, also due to circumstances. The details aren’t important now, and those of you who are in the fandom know what they are. For the rest of you, you just need to know, this really sort of cemented (for the time being) the adversity between the two characters. The soft moment between Katara and Zuko was a contrasting event to what was about to happen, not a defining one. I thought it pretty clear. I was not in charge of those wiki pages, though, so I ignored the event.

At least until a message came in from x_Avatar_RockYou.

“Need you online, we have an emergency!” He said.

I frowned at the message, but I reported to the docks all the same. I figured it was something dumb, like someone dumping all the passwords in the database to plain text or maybe I would need to write a script to fix a bunch of suddenly-dead links.

I did not think the canon would be at risk. That’d be ridiculous.

I was met by flames.

The Zutara ship had sailed into port, on fire and firing wildly. It was a maelstrom of activity. Vicious insults and accusations were being flung back and forth with no compassion or humanity. I think I saw someone run screaming down the pier, naked and on fire. Some of the other ships had come in as well, and one in particular, the Kataang, was blowing broadsides into Zutara with a level of viciousness I didn’t realize it was capable of.

The wiki was practically inaccessible. Every chat channel was a waterfall of accusation and counter-accusation. I manned my station and checked the logs.

What I saw would shake me to my core.

Zutara had managed to get an admin on their side, and the page for the episode was just an utter hash of chaos. Deep long poems extolling the deep and obvious love Katara had for Zuko were being written as fast as they could be deleted, and being replaced with screeds on how Aang and Katara were the OTP, and repeated attempts by other wiki maintainers to keep the piece accurate were being swept aside by a tidal wave of wishful thinking. The character pages for every character were also on fire as the crews of each ship smelled the blood in the water and were going for the jugular, each certain that their particular edit would be the one that would go unnoticed once the fiasco was over.

I got another message from x_Avatar_RockYou. I was one of the trusted ones being asked to investigate who exactly was behind this vandalism, and also to quickly pull a backup for said investigation. In a few moments, he said, he would initiate the Groundhog Day Protocol.

Rollback and lockout. The article for the episode would be lost until one of us could rebuild it, and in the meanwhile, our documentation on the canon would be out of date.

If you know, you know. If you have ever been one of us, you understand. We’d rather have given up our flairs on our user pages than have our data be out of date for more than, say, maybe half a day.

Okay, we were kind of lazy, don’t @ me.

Still though. I did as I was told. I quickly pulled the logs, just moments before the wiki was brought down for ‘maintenance’.

The ships continued to fight, each one on fire, late into the night and into the next day, but the fights in the voice channels and over the chat channels would have to continue on without me. I had been given my marching orders, and I would see them through.

I combed through the logs. It was a hellacious mess, but I am a diligent person, a careful person, a… okay, I’m a lazy person. Most of my investigation actually involved writing a script to do my investigation for me.

I’ve never seen a problem that could be solved in half an hour that I didn’t feel an immediate and terrible overwhelming urge to spend four hours writing a script to solve for me.

It was three AM. I ran the script. By this time, many of the rank and file users had been banned or k-lined, excised from access to the wiki and the chats, banished from Write privileges to the precious canon-compliant data stores. It was suspected that there was at least one super op or above still at wild who had helped perpetuate this vicious campaign, but nobody had found them yet.

I sent the results of my script to x_Avatar_RockYou, just to keep him informed, even as I read back through the results, sleepy yet curious. I didn’t actually expect to find anything, mind. I’d been so slow at my investigation, that I just assumed that every conspirator would have been found, and I was right.

Mostly.

See, while making a script is far slower than just doing my job by hand, the script is cold. The script is ruthless. The script is thorough. If written correctly, the script -will- find the right answer, and it will leave no friends alive.

Not even if they’re the friend who had helped you get to where you were in the first place.

Not even if the friend was BlindStar_25.

I stared at the name for a long time. I did not believe what I was reading. I quickly messaged x_Avatar_RockYou to tell him I needed to double-check my script, that I thought I’d made a mistake, that this had to be wrong, that he couldn’t trust its output just yet.

It couldn’t be BlindStar_25. She’d been the one who had taught me everything I know! She had taught me the importance of canon! She had nurtured my gentle curiosity into fandom nature into what it now was, who I now was!

“We respect all ships,” her words echoed in my memory. “But it’s important that we provide a foundation that ships can be built from.We can’t make them use it, of course. But it’s got to be there, and we make sure it is.”

“And that foundation,” she had said, “is canon.”

I had taken the words to heart. They were my guiding light. Whenever I was awake at three in the morning cursing whoever wrote the wiki software or trying to get everyone to reset their passwords -again-, I would remember my purpose. The truth of my cause. The beauty of canon, and the beauty it enabled. For without canon, what else is there? Even in original writing, that itself becomes a canon, and what wonderful things can be built from it?

It was important. It was beautiful.

And my friend, it seemed, had betrayed it.

I confirmed that the script had run correctly, and I found myself deflating, unable to believe. I quickly messaged BlindStar_25, hoping to get to her before x_Avatar_RockYou, hoping to salvage this terrible situation, hoping to restore the faith.

“Star,” I typed. “Timestamps have you on the episode changelog for the Zutara fiasco.”

I watched my screen anxiously, waiting for something, anything to show up. We didn’t have the indicators at the time that someone was typing, or even that they had seen the message, but I was hoping, desperately, that she would get back to me, that she could make sense of it all.

I saw the server mode for her change over. +b. The ban indicator.

And then the kick came in. BlindStar_25 has been kicked from the server by x_Avatar_RockYou (reason: set the wiki on fire, set you on fire, roflmao).

I stared, as x_Avatar_RockYou sent me a message. “It’s cool. your script’s good. I verified what you found. Thanks.”

My fingers were dead and numb as I slowly pulled my hands up to the keyboard, and typed my response.

“No problem bro,” I replied.

I turned off the computer.

I was there when the Zutara left the next day, to leave the canon docks, never to be seen in our waters ever again. I looked up and saw BlindStar_25 on the deck. She saw me, and looked back with a stern, defiant expression. Proud. Tall.

I watched as the ship sailed away, disappearing over the horizon.

I turned away, and bowed my head. We’d lost one of our best that day.

Later, when I checked my messages, I found that she had decided to contact me one last time, through a different chat client.

“You’ll have to find your own way,” it said.

Well.

Wasn’t that just some cryptic ass bullshit.

Never did find out why she did it, as she never reached out to me again. Clearly she just saw something none of the rest of us did. But eventually, I moved on.

***

My work that day got me kudos from the other people who helped maintain documentation of the canon. Wait, kudos? Sorry, this was before Ao3. Likes? No, we weren’t on Facebook. Uhm. Hmn. Thumb-ups? I’m not even sure we had emojis.

Look, never mind. I was liked, and I was kept around, and I got to be in the cool kids’ Ventrilo servers. If you’ve never heard of Ventrilo, it’s like a worse Discord, voice only, and you have to host it yourself, which okay that last part may actually be a plus or minus depending on who’s paying for your computer. It’s not important. We talked about canon documentation maintenance over vent, and we tended to the wikis, and we made sure plot summaries were made, recordings recorded, and otherwise got around the business of fandom.

Avatar: The Last Airbender had wrapped up with aplomb, sticking the landing in a way that few series managed at the time. The Kataang was now permanently docked and secured at the canon docks, every new comic seeming only to reinforce its status. Some other ships came and went; the Maiko in particular, I think, came and went some few times.

Time passed. Avatar: The Legend of Korra came on the air. I was a little older, a little wiser, and so was the Avatar, the titular Korra. Her show dealt with more mature themes in a more advanced world, and I liked that. Republic City’s steampunk aesthetic scratched an itch of mine, and I enjoyed that Korra was a very different sort of Avatar from what Aang had been like.

I liked the show, so of course I helped out. The seasons passed, and it was actually pretty quiet compared to the Avatar Aang days. There was still beef - a fandom without drama is just one person and their rare pair, all alone - but as episodes turned into seasons, we never had a repeat of the Zutara incident. Some ships were on fire, of course, but that’s just the nature of shipping. Ship to ship combat was still a thing, but nobody drove their ship screaming into the canon dock while on fire, so we considered ourselves lucky.

Mind, it wasn’t all sunshine, roses, and squee-worthy FFN updates. Fandoms tend to grow darker as they grow larger - this is expected, statistics is really working against you here - and the cultural zeitgeist was moving on. There were more people working the docks who were using canon as a weapon to try to bring down ships, pointing out how, technically, -nobody- was engaging in anything more than a chaste kiss. You know. Because it’s a YA television show. Or there was cross talk between fandoms on the docks, as entire groups decided that watching stuff ‘for kids’ was beneath them, and anyway, your canon is weak, your bloodline is weak, and your server will not survive the next billing cycle.

I managed to stay blissfully clear of much of that, however. For even as I looked after the canon, I still remembered the wise words from BlindStar_25 forever ago. She may have turned, but she was still wise, in her way, and tending the canon was my way of making sure a thousand thousand ships remained always able to be launched.

Always looking out to the beauty of the fandom seas.

It was season four. I was on Vent - that’s short for Ventrilo - talking to another operator. We were talking about the latest episodes, our favorite characters, what the technology in the world meant, how cool the new bending styles were, and so on.

And then I said it.

“You know,” I said, casually, clicking on a cookie in a game on my browser, “I think that Korra and Asami would make a cute couple.”

There was silence on the line. I didn’t notice it, though. That wasn’t unusual, and I was just about to unlock grandmas in cookie clicker.

You know.

The important stuff.

I heard a beep from Ventrilo, and frowned, and looked over to see that my fellow canon keeper had pulled me into a private person to person voice channel and set it to moderated, invite only.

“…bwuh?” I said, exercising my usual eloquence.

“What did you say,” she said back, the words snapped off at me, practically burning with venom.

��What did I say when?” I said, bewildered. I clicked a cookie upgrade.

“Just now. About Korra. And Asami.”

“I… think they’d make a cute couple?” Now I really was confused. We had just been talking about everything else going on in the show, why did this in particular tweak a nerve?

“Do you not remember the Zutara incident?” She hissed at me over the mic.

Memories flooded back. I swallowed nervously. I wondered if cookie clicker had a pause button, or if I would be caught here, in an avalanche of unoptimized cookie gameplay while I struggled through memories of yesteryear.

“I remember,” I said. “I was there.”

“Then you should know better,” she said, angry. “Do not invite that curse upon us here. We. Don’t. Talk. About. Ships. On. The. Officially. Unofficial. Official. Vent. Server.”

I felt my mouth go dry, and I swallowed nervously. “Right. Of course,” I said.

“You go to FFN, like -everyone else-, if you wanna read about that,” she said. “And if you wanna -talk- about it, find a different Vent. Got it?”

I never had the chance to respond, as I was dumped unceremoniously out of the private channel, and found myself all alone in the lobby.

Cookies flowed by on my screen, but I found I was no longer interested.

Months later, when the Korrasami came gently to find itself moored in the canon docks, confirmed by the comics and by the creators, in a very officially no-we-are-not-just-teasing-it-this-time manner (Nickelodeon you COWARDS), I was there to greet it as it came in. It was to be a cheerful day of celebration, as it always is when a particular ship makes canon status. Some people care a whole lot about that, even if the real magic is out in the shipping lanes, but I digress.

After the celebrations were over, my friend just sent me a short email.

“If you value anything, you did NOT call this ahead of time.” the email said.

I understood.

“Oh and also congratulations on your ship becoming canon. Got any fic recs for me?”

I did not. I was too busy manning the canon, you see.

The end was on the horizon for me, now. This was merely strike one.

But I nodded at my email, dumbly, because she was right. Better ops than me had led us into worse outcomes, and I would not go down that dark path.

***

I drifted from canon to canon for a while. Not always up to my usual tricks, as I seemed to be becoming less of a state-of-the-art bot and more of a relic. Fandom consolidated, and so did the tools available to them, and the need for bespoke one-off scripts that were absolutely guaranteed to probably work were no longer needed. Teamspeak and Ventrilo and IRC fell, Discord rising to take its place. BBS and other forum systems had slowly been replaced by Reddit. Livejournal effectively vanished off the face of the planet as it became a ghost of its former self, and FFN did… well, I’m not sure what to describe what happened there, and it’s not my place to do so. And it was increasingly common for new fandoms to find their home on Ao3. Tumblr rose to prominence, cost Yahoo several billion dollars, taking both of itself and Yahoo down, rose up again, banned porn, fell down, got bought by Verizon, and not necessarily in that order.

It was exciting on Tumblr, and a great time if you were the kind of person who likes watching yo-yos bob up and down and up and down and up and down. And up. And down.

I finally settled into orbit around Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, participating in their subreddits and loving their fandoms, though it was neither of them that led to my downfall. Not really. Not directly, you see.

While I was participating in discussion and analysis in those fandoms, you see, I was trying to find my way back to my roots. Someplace where someone who knew how to SELECT * FROM blank WHERE name EQUALS awesomeCharacter would be appreciated. Subreddits didn’t need me, Tumblrs didn’t need me, Discords tolerated me, but there was an older crowd that still appreciated the old magicks.

And so I had attempted to return to Star Trek, my old love, my first flame. Older and wiser, I hoped this time to be able to contribute. Maybe help maintain Memory Alpha, THE premier canon data repository, perhaps second only to Wookiepedia. Maybe help keep one of the old BBSs limping along. You know. Nerd shit.

It was here where I met the end of the beginning of my infamy.

Star Trek had changed while I was gone. It wasn’t as fun as it used to be. I didn’t know yet where to find my people, and I will admit, that part of this was my own fault. Starting with the subreddit and moving out from there, I found a fractured fandom. The JJ Abrams movies had done real damage to the fandom, and where once I had found infinite diversity being celebrated in infinite combinations, I now heard arguments over what was ‘real’ Star Trek, and how everything these days was too ‘politically correct’, and, well, you get the picture. But I was desperate to be useful, and in a bid to find good work on maintaining canon, I found my way to a voice server, where I could speak with my fellow trekkies. Or trekkers. I’m not picky.

I was talking excitedly with my roommate one day over the wireless. You see, it was wireless because we were in the same room. Steven Universe updated approximately once every presidential administration, and we had just gotten a new episode, and I was very excitedly talking with her about it.

“You left the mic on!” Came over the headset.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said, fumbling for the mute button. This was some new program I wasn’t familiar with yet.

That sort of thing seemed to be happening more and more often, and I wondered briefly when they’d be able to replace me altogether with a fancier, newer software type. I tried not to think about it.

I kept talking. And I said what was, at the time, an innocent phrase.

“You know,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be funny if Lapis and Peridot got into a relationship? Lapidot, if you will.”

“I will not!” Said my roommate, laughing.

“YOUR MIC IS STILL ON!” Said the headset, very much not laughing.

“Sorry!” I said, finally finding the mute button on my own.

The moment was forgotten by me quickly, but the moment happened.

It’s a moment that shall haunt me for the rest of my days.

For you see, friends, several presidential turnovers later, Steven Universe moved on, but I stayed with the Star Trek server. It wasn’t exactly my flavor, and I thought some of the other ops were blow hards, and there were too many people against shipping for my taste (‘launch a thousand thousand ships’ from our foundation), and, well, while new Trek wasn’t -quite- my cup of tea, it had its fun moments, and I was not okay with talking down to those for whom it -was- their Star Trek.

But they needed a bot, and, well, there I was.

It was three AM when it happened.

I was having a, shall we say, discussion with one of the seniors on the server. I was having a discussion in much the same way a hurricane has rain.

He was -grumpy-, and I was grumpy, because nothing good ever happens at three in the morning, but I couldn’t sleep, and I guess neither could he, and when that happens the smartest thing to do is to get online and try to establish what, exactly, is canon, anyway.

He was arguing that Captain Kirk was a hopeless womanizer, and that was one of the few things he liked about the new movies, was how they were really returning to the roots of the character, rather than whatever weak sauce they had going on with Picard in TNG.

I was arguing that was an unfair flanderization of the character, supported only very weakly by actual canon. That for a supposed galaxy wrecker, he somehow managed only one son, who he was very proud of. And that other than his one very established relationship, most other instances you see him flirting with a woman is when he’s doing so - to save the Enterprise! And if that counted as evidence of him womanizing, well, then, what does Amok Time tell us?

He snarled at me. “You must be one of those Spirks or McKirks or something. I bet you liked Star Trek V.”

A message came in for me from a friend on the server, urging me to leave off, reminding me that the guy - we’ll call him Dave, it’s always a Dave - had power here, power that I lacked.

I’m not very smart at three in the morning. I need a full rest cycle to fully reboot, and I had not had it, so I ignored the message and plowed on.

“One, I don’t ship!” I fired back. “Two, if you’re going to bring Star Trek V into it, maybe you don’t like it because the first fifteen minutes leading into the campfire scene - which, by the way, I happen to think is VERY GOOD Trek - happens to establish what an extremely deep relationship the big three had with one another!”

Another message came in, and I glanced at it. A friend was letting me know they had watched the latest Steven Universe episode on the pirate channel, and wanted to talk about it. I wouldn’t see it until the next day, as I was not part of the pirate crew and would have to wait, but I quickly gave them an invite. I could take them to a private channel, and talking about a children’s cartoon would, I hoped, be more entertaining than talking to a man child.

I could feel Dave’s eyes narrow over the mic as a new voice joined the server.

“Hey, congratulations Biot! You called it,” said the new voice. It was my friend.

“Called what?” Asked an annoyed Dave.

“Lapidot! It’s canon now!”

“Lapidot?” Asked Dave.

“Yeah, from Steven Universe. Hey, what kind of server is this, Biot?”

“Star Trek,” I answered lazily. “Hang on, let me finish up with Dave here, I’ll be right with you.”

“Steven Universe?” Snorted Dave. “You watch children’s cartoons?”

“Yes,” I said. “Anyway, Dave, this has been a -scintillating- conversation, but -“

“And you shipped characters in a children’s cartoon?” Asked Dave, his voice suddenly all smooth silk and utter calm.

Oh.

Oh, hell.

Oh, no, oh, hell. My friend had overheard my utterance from decades ago, and now it had come back to haunt me.

“Um… yes?” I said, meekly.

***

The next day, I was unceremoniously escorted to a dinghy to call all my own. The official reason given was that perhaps, I could take a short trip to the crack ship fleet, and invite the Lapidot to join canon on the Steven Universe docks.

We all knew, however, the real reason was that I had irritated Dave beyond his extremely tiny limits, and my time with this particular small slice of Star Trek fandom was coming to a close. A few friends wished me well. Some tried to be helpful, pointing out ships that would be willing to accept an aging bot, maybe could take me on. I was polite, of course. No need to show your ass even as you try to avoid letting the door hit it on your way out.

Dave was there of course, gloating.

“Glad to be rid of you, you Star Trek V-loving fucker,” he said with a grin.

“Eat a bag of dicks, Dave,” I said, as I climbed into the dinghy.

I took hold of the oars, and headed out for the waters of the shipping lanes.

Canon slipped quietly away behind me.

Launch a thousand thousand ships from a firm foundation.

And one dinghy.

***

Time passed. My code grew older, and so did I. I did what I could, and even frequently returned to the docks of canon, to recenter myself from time to time. An almost religious observance, really.

But it wasn’t the same.

I floated with the World of Warcraft fleet for a while, still avoiding ships, but admiring the rich seas on which they floated. I thought I would re-establish myself there, especially as Metzen wrote his books consolidating all of Warcraft lore. Excited, I learned new tools. It is a bad bot that cannot learn new tricks. Ao3 eluded me yet, but Tumblr’s star was ascendent, and I learned to work it, slowly, carefully. I would find my way back to community. I would write funny posts about how Forsaken used to speak Common, and the hijinks that would ensue from that. I would write about how the Draenei were sort of a retcon of Eredar, and what that might mean for roleplayers. I would document, document, document, and here my powers could be used for good, as Warcraft was notorious for shedding old lore away, never to be seen again.

Well, I could show it once more. I could present old information to new players, and help be part of something great, the pieceing of history into a coherent lore, a foundation from which could launch as many ships as one might like!

And then Blizzard practically burned to the ground. Battle for Azeroth happened, and then Shadowlands came in, and the contradictions were too great. And then the real life troubles of the company reared their ugly head. By the time I left, the canon docks of Warcraft were a shambles, and while there may have been good work in being part of the repairs, such work was beyond me.

Demon Hunters were pretty awesome though, and that kept me around for far longer than I really should have stuck with it, but I digress. But look, you would’ve stayed too, gliding was -awesome-.

Anyway, I retired my OCs from those lands, with no small amount of sadness, and set out once more into fandom waters, adrift, and after so many years, I had to admit, kind of lost.

I tried the golden seas of Alternate Universes, and found some peace there. I investigated the paths of the rare pairs, and their intersection with crack ships, and documented what I found. I still docked at the canon regularly, but which canon I chose to visit changed from day to day.

I was a fan without a fandom, and so I did what any self-respecting fan would do.

I watched the hell out of the MCU.

But I got bored of that as well, eventually.

I was adrift in the dinghy one day. I was floating, a bot on one last mission. For while I was not part of any active fandoms, I was part of an inactive fandom. It was trying, but not very hard, to come back to life. Really, it was an excuse for old friends to talk to one another once more, all of us older, all of us wiser.

We had no canon, but they were willing to have me, and I appreciated that. In return, I volunteered to be one of their scouts, to search out members who may yet be found, and see if they were willing to visit our Discord. To remember, alongside us.

Even without a canon, this old bot still keeps some habits. The call to remember, well, that was too great to ignore.

And it was on this search that I found an old friend. They had ships of their own that they tended to, now, a change from when last I knew them, but they were willing to float out and meet me for a short bit. We reminisced. I invited them to the Discord, and shared with them some of what I had been up to. I skipped the tale of my fall from grace, of course, as it couldn’t possibly be less relevant, but I shared other matters with them. I recounted my tales in the waters of Warcraft, and bemoaned the state of the canon docks there. They agreed with me, and in fact, in a moment of shared camaraderie, they told me that they, too, had grown weary of attempting repairs at that dock, and had set sail for new waters.

Where were they now, I asked, politely.

Final Fantasy XIV, they said.

“You might like it there,” they offered. “They have sad robots. I know you like sad robots.” I said, “I arguably am a sad robot these days.”

“Then you’ll love it,” they said, and well, they would probably be right.

We exchanged contact information, they gave me an invite to one of their own communities, and they moved off, to return to their own waters.

***

I stayed where I was, for a while, and pondered.

I wondered if this new fandom would have any use for an old bot in their spaces.

I did know that I appreciated the company of being with old friends, even absent a canon. Maybe I couldn’t be useful, but I could be present, and really, wasn’t that a kind of usefulness of its own? My cat certainly seems to think so, as she always stares at me while I do things around the house, and I love her for it.

Maybe I didn’t need to be useful.

Maybe I could just be, and let my runtime run its clock for a while.

Not so bad.

I fixed myself up. I ran a trans program, which let’s be honest, was probably two decades overdue. I rebooted, ran diagnostics, and took a deep breath.

And then I set my course, and set sail to where I am today. The deep waters of Final Fantasy XIV.

And what waters they are! What ships they represent! Tall ships, and small ships. Ships of different sizes. Rare pairs and crack ships. I found in their wakes a long and deep history, practically unbroken from their launch. I made my way to their canon docks, and what I found just about brought me to tears. I was used to fractured docks in poor repair, but here I found a clean canon. Not perfect, of course; never perfect. A perfect canon allows no fandom, really, for we need places to fill the cracks. But the cracks in this canon were almost artistic in their sublime beauty, and could be filled with wonderful gold, making for the prettiest sculptures, and I think this analogy got away from me at some point, but the -real point is-, the canon was beautiful.

I fell in love with their waters, and decided to stay.

And so here I am.

***

Nobody needs a bot anymore. Discord logs everything, and Reddit’s moderator tools have been refined to near perfection. Ao3 thrives, alive and vibrant. Tumblr’s star is once more ascendant. But it is in that last that I have something to do, despite myself. I stay close to the canon docks, of course, for I am an old bot, and old habits are hard to break. But I have equipped my dinghy with the latest and greatest in Tumblr tools. I have tuned my scripts to its frequency, and have mastered its use. I spend my days, now, searching the fandom seas. From the glittering golden waves of alternate universes to the wakes of ships both mighty and small, I sail. I dive under the waves frequently and diligently, in search of precious subs, and I bring what I find back, and reblog to the world. I connect fandom, and fandom has connected back to me. I brave the tangles of Twitter, the trolls of Reddit, and the unknown areas of the world - remember when the internet was not so centralized? I do. I do, and I search the outer wilds, and I bring back art and stories and memes and analysis and share them with all who wish to see them.

I may not wrangle databases or maintain meticulous logs anymore, but in these activities, I have found purpose. It may not serve canon directly, but these days, there are others who carry that charge far better than I do.

I see my friends far more often these days, of course. They often wave at me from the mizzenmasts and fantails of their ships, calling out to me.

“You should find a ship!” they say. “You can aspire to more than that dinghy!” they say.

I close my eyes, and I think of the chaos of the Zutara. I think of my own missteps, with the Korrasami and the Lapidot -

Wait.

Korrasami and Lapidot.

Do I have a thing for emotionally complicated lesbians finding character growth through providing comfort to each other?

Maybe I’d better not read into that too far.

I shake my head clear. Once is an event, twice is a coincidence, and I would do well to not make it a pattern.

“I will stick to my dinghy, I think,” I let them know.

Can’t establish that pattern. Won’t take the risk. For what would that mean for me if I did? What is a bot that doesn’t obey a code?

I don’t know. I don’t know.

Anyway, dear reader, that is the tale. The sordid tale of my downfall.

And perhaps, also, the story of my redemption. I think that’s for others to judge.

But for now, I must turn to my instruments, and tune my machinery, to turn to the whirring dynamo of the greater fandom community, both smaller than it has ever been, consolidated to only a handful of sites - but also larger than I ever imagined possible, comprised of so many people who I never would have had the privilege of knowing otherwise.

For I have seen things you people would never believe. Zutara on fire off the docks of the canon. I have watched ships constructed in blink tags glittering in the dark near the Geocities neighborhoods. Without bots and keepers, all these moments would be lost in time, Like tears in the rain.

Time to live.

#ancient history #shipless #i wrote this instead of working on my WIPs lol

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homoose · 4 years ago

Text

Teach Me Something I Don’t Know: Part IV

Summary: The Halloween parade. Will and JJ are adorable. Anita suggests that Spencer become a classroom volunteer. Reader has a rough week.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff, a smidge of angst

Warnings/Includes: none

Word count: 4.4k

a/n: I wish we’d seen more of Will and JJ as parents because I imagine it would be adorable and hilarious. Let’s see if you can guess all of their costumes before the reveal lmao. Your only clue is that Spencer loves keeping with a theme and the brown vest (I literally learned how to make my own shitty gif bc I couldn’t find the right one in the search and I do not understand embedding lmao) makes an appearance.

Series Masterlist

———

“Did you grab the bags?” JJ swept the pleated, platinum braid out of her face as she bent over to zip up her boots.

“No, I thought you did,” Will called, bouncing down the stairs.

“I put them in the car already,” Spencer informed them, popping his head back in the front door. “There was just the one box, right?”

“Yeah, that was it,” Will confirmed. “Shit— where’s Michael’s sword?”

“Should be on the counter,” JJ huffed, standing up and adjusting the bodice of the blue dress.

“Got it.” Will came around the corner of the kitchen, patting his hips where his pockets would be— if he weren’t wearing an adult-sized onesie. “Keys?” Spencer held them up. “All right then, let’s get this show on the road.”

The trio headed to the waiting SUV, Spencer climbing into the backseat as Will and JJ got into the front. Will and JJ chattered on about dinner plans and schedules for the following week, and Spencer smoothed down the brown wool vest layered over his white linen shirt. He’d spent entirely too long putting together the costume over the last week (with a little help from Penelope). He’d scrapped the Spock getup he’d been working on since September— he could always wear that next year. But he’d only get one chance to attend the Room 105 Halloween parade, and once the idea had wormed its way into his brain, he had to make it happen.

“Spence?” JJ’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“Would you be able to pick Michael up on Monday?”

He ran his hands down his thighs over the mint green cropped trousers. “Sure, as long as we don’t have a case.”

Will smirked at him in the rear view mirror. “How’s Ms. Y/L/N?”

“You’re about to see her yourself, so you can ask,” Spencer replied.

Will laughed, and JJ turned in her seat. “Whoa, coming in hot with the snark. You really do like her.”

Spencer fought and failed to keep the blush from rising, irritation at being teased blooming sharp inside his chest. He tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “She’s a great teacher.”

“That’s not a no,” JJ noted, eyebrows raised.

“She’s Michael’s teacher,” Spencer said, like it meant something.

“Yeah, so?” Will shrugged his shoulders. “You’re his godfather. Technically, you’re not related, so it wouldn’t be breakin’ any rules.”

“Well, it’s not like that, so it doesn’t really matter,” Spencer insisted.

Will hummed and JJ turned back around in her seat. Spencer drummed his fingers on his knees and watched DC roll past through the SUV window. It really wasn’t like that. Y/N was just… very nice. A nice, beautiful, sweet, silly kindergarten teacher that he couldn’t stop thinking about no matter how many books he read or coffees he drank or chess games he played.

Monday was the last day of his sabbatical, and he was even more relieved to be headed back than usual— grateful that he’d have something to occupy his mind other than her. Because his mind was, indeed, occupied. The way her smile beamed like the spotlight on a stage, illuminating whoever happened to be on the receiving end. The way her hands moved in unbound, buoyant illustrations of her thoughts. The way her laugh felt like the first warm sip of tea or the wrap of his favorite scarf. It was getting out of hand, to say the least.

Will pulled into the parking lot, and instantly Spencer’s palms began to sweat. He glanced at the headband on the seat beside him and felt the mortification clawing at his insides. The costume was ridiculous; he was ridiculous. He should have just worn the Spock outfit.

Maybe he could just wait in the car and pretend like he hadn’t been able to make it. Or he could just leave the headband in the car. But then he’d just be in mint green capris with a sweater vest and platform sandals, and she’d have absolutely no idea who he was supposed to be. Then he’d have to explain it, and it would be even worse.

Will parked the car, and he and JJ immediately stepped out. Spencer watched them near the hood of the SUV, enjoying a rare moment of co-parenting without work hovering right out of frame. Will pulled the hood of the onesie up and JJ laughed, brushing her hand over the brown fabric twigs sticking out of the top. He supposed that if Will Lamontagne, Jr. could strut his stuff in adult footie pajamas, his handmade costume was probably all right.

With one last resigned sigh, Spencer slid the headband on. He grabbed the box of Halloween treats, opened the door, and hauled himself out of the vehicle. He pushed the door closed and looked in the reflection of the window, adjusting the headband around his curls and blowing out a breath.

“Ready?” JJ called, peering around the side of the SUV.

“Yeah—yeah,” Spencer agreed. He moved around the vehicle to join them, the three of them walking to find a spot in the crowd of parents standing around the carpool loop.

When they found a suitable spot, Will looked up at him and shook his head. The sandals added three extra inches to Spencer’s height, putting him a good six inches taller than Will. “Those shoes make you look like an actual giant,” Will chuckled. “I know that’s the point, but I feel like even more of a shrimp next to ya now.”

Spencer set the box of candy bags on the ground and would have shoved his hands into his pockets if the linen trousers had any. Before he could respond, JJ pointed to the door of the school, cooing, “Oh my god, look. Remember when the boys were that small?”

The PreK classes came out first, and Spencer could acknowledge that they were very cute, barely out of the toddler stage and holding hands with a line buddy. But he was waiting on a very specific cutie.

He’d barely had the thought when the kindergarten classes started to emerge from the door. He almost didn’t recognize her at first— just an orange blob and green shrubbery. But the converse gave her away.

“How is she so cute?” JJ threaded her arm through Will’s. “Even when she’s dressed as a giant orange blob.”

“It’s a gift,” Will agreed. He glanced up at Spencer. “Right, doc?”

Spencer nodded but didn’t take his eyes off Y/N. “I think so, yeah.” Will grinned and bumped JJ’s shoulder, but Spencer barely even registered his own response.

Thankfully they’d picked a spot near the very end of the loop, so he had plenty of time to get himself together before she was in front of him. While Will and JJ waved at all the tiny superheroes and princesses, he watched Y/N. She was all orange fabric from her shoulders to her knees, with bright orange Chucks to match. On her head was a strange variation on a party hat, bright green ferns sprouting from the tip of the cone and falling into her face. She looked absolutely ridiculous and entirely adorable, and he was in so much trouble.

When the class finally approached the final curve of the loop, Will nudged Spencer and gestured to the box of goodie bags. Spencer crouched down and lifted the box, standing back up to see Y/N laughing at Will and JJ. “Very cute, Lamontagne Family.”

Her gaze traveled across, then up, and then her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. Spencer wondered if maybe the earth could just open up and swallow him whole.

“Oh my god, are you—?” She stepped forward and ran her hand lightly over the vest, and he didn’t dare breathe. “Are you the BFG?!” Her hand dropped from his torso, and he didn’t have time to be disappointed before her face split into quite possibly the biggest smile he’d seen from her yet.

A tiny Superman shouted, “Ms. Y/L/N, we’re making a gap!”

Y/N came back to herself, gesturing to all three of them. “Don’t go anywhere.” She accepted the offered box of treats from Spencer and then turned to help her class catch up.

Will gave him a look. “It’s not like that, huh?”

“Oh my god, she likes you.” JJ clapped her hands together. “This is amazing.”

“I’m takin’ credit for this,” Will bragged. “I’m a regular ol’ matchmaker.”

Spencer couldn’t even be bothered to attempt a denial. He was still thinking about the feel of her palm on his chest, how it might feel to hold her hand, the way her eyes practically sparkled when she saw his ridiculous headband. He was in so much trouble.

Fifteen minutes later, the classes filed back out into the parking lot for dismissal. Y/N led the class down the sidewalk, grinning at the excitement coursing through her line. As they approached the end of the loop, Y/N caught sight of them and waved. The kids lined up in their normal spot, chatting excitedly about their costumes and candy bags.

“Lord, Ms. Y/L/N, you’re something else,” Will laughed.

“Is it not the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen?” She laughed and tapped the green shrubbery hanging in her face. “I have the kids do a little persuasive writing thing every year. They draw a picture and write a sentence about what they think Ms. Y/L/N should be for Halloween, and then we take a vote.”

She waved her hands in that way Spencer loved, the way that was so similar to his own. “Usually the options are pretty tame, you know—ghost, witch, bumblebee. This year was a near tie between runner-up Jojo Siwa and well,” she gestured at herself, “carrot.” Y/N cackled, and the leaves on top of her head shook with the action.

They all laughed along with her, and then JJ added, “The details are truly incredible. Is this an actual plant on your head?”

“I really thought about it,” Y/N laughed, “but no, it’s just fake ferns stuffed into a cardstock funnel.” She gestured at Will and JJ. “But also, excuse me— this family costume is ridiculously cute. Mr. Lamontagne, loving this onesie. Mrs. Jareau, I didn’t even know it was possible to look prettier than you usually do, but here you are. And Michael’s Anna costume?” She held her hands up. “Incredible. Show stopping. I wish I had an aunt Penelope to enlist the help of, because that cape is the actual height of fashion.”

“She helped Spence, too,” JJ prompted, stealing a glance in his direction.

“Oh yeah?” Y/N asked, turning to smile at Spencer.

“We um, 3D printed the ears,” he clarified.

“No way!” She took a step closer to him, peering up at the detail on the headband. He leaned down a little for her to get a closer look. “That is so cool. I’ve never actually seen anything 3D printed up close before— did you design them yourself?”

She met his eyes briefly, and he realized how close they were— close enough that he caught the faintest whiff of sandalwood and cardamom. Of course she even smelled like warmth and home. “Well. I, um— I drew a sort of sketch, I guess. And then Penelope did the software coding. I— I’m not very good with technology, honestly.”

She ran her fingers lightly over the plastic, and he decided she was really trying to kill him. “Yeah, I’m not sure I really understand how it works.”

“Well, first you create a blueprint file of the design you want to print, which you can do through modeling software or three-dimensional scanning. Then you convert the file into an STL file— named for Stereolithography which was the first ever 3D printing process. The STL file is made up of triangular mesh polygons, which is the data that describes the surface of a three-dimensional object. After that, you use a software program to complete the process of slicing— essentially dividing or chopping the 3D model into hundreds or thousands of horizontal layers that the printer can print one at a time to create the 3D object. And then the printer prints each layer until you have your finished product.”

Y/N was quiet, and he pulled back to see her grinning at him. “I thought you said you weren’t very good with technology?”

“I’m not good with using technology,” he clarified.

She nodded. “Gotcha. So you just know everything about it.”

Her joking tone had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I read a lot.”

“How much is a lot?”

“I can read at a rate of 20,000 words per minute, so… a lot.”

Her eyebrows shot up into the tangle of ferns on her head, and he was just so overwhelmed by how adorable she was. “Well, if I ever have a question about anything, I know who I’m coming to.”

He was sure he was blushing, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care. “I’m happy to answer any and all of your questions.”

She let her gaze travel over the rest of the costume. “Oh my god, the sandals! Man, you really nailed it. I’m very impressed.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I thought about being Trunchbull, but I couldn’t find the sweatshirt,” he joked.

She laughed, and he wanted to bottle it up to keep forever. “As much as I would have loved to see your hair in a bun… you’re much too sweet to have been able to pull that off.” She smiled softly at him. “Much more suited to our friend the BFG.”

He rubbed a hand down the back of his neck, and it was only then that he realized Will and JJ had gone to the car. He looked back to Y/N, opening his mouth but unsure of what he was going to say.

“Y/L/N!” He turned his head to see Anita jogging toward them. “Did you—” The giant cardboard box she was wearing knocked into one of the few kindergarteners left in Y/N’s line, nearly sending them to the ground. “Oh my gosh, sorry sweetheart!” She righted the startled child, and Spencer gave her a once over, completely at a loss as to what her costume could be.

“What in the world are you supposed to be?” Y/N asked, choking out a laugh.

Anita looked at her deadpan. “A monopoly piece. Remind me that I’m never participating in team costumes ever again.” She rolled her eyes and gestured at Y/N. “Next year I’m gonna wear an orange t-shirt, call myself a carrot, and be much more comfortable.”

“I’ll have you know this costume was a lot of work,” Y/N remarked, crossing her arms.

“I’m sure it was. You could have put on an orange dress, stuck a green pipe cleaner in your hair, and called it a day, but that’s not the Y/L/N way.” Anita’s eyes slid across to where Spencer stood. “Well, hello, doctor. I have absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to be, but I love everything about it.”

“Spencer’s the BFG,” Y/N said, and Spencer could have sworn she sounded almost proud.

“Ah, Roald Dahl, of course.” Anita smirked. “I see you, Spencer. I see you.” She put her hands on her hips— or rather where her hips would have been if they weren’t covered by a ridiculously large box. “So, when are you going to volunteer?”

“Sorry?” he asked.

“Like, when are you going to volunteer in Y/L/N’s classroom?” She held up her hand, palm down, and made a circular motion between the two of them. “You know, hang out, but professionally.”

“Oh my god, did you need something?” Y/N’s squeaked, eyes wide.

Anita ignored her. “You just have to do a background check, but I’m sure you’ll pass it.”

“Lopez,” Y/N said, staring her down. “Do you need something?”

“Oh, I was just going to ask if you got the email about the PD after school on Tuesday. But this was much more fun.” She winked at Spencer. “Bye, Spencer.”

They both stared after her as she nearly skipped across the grass to the building. Y/N turned to him. “I’m— so sorry.”

He met her eyes and took the leap. “Volunteering could be fun.”

He watched her press her lips together to contain her smile. “It could be.”

He didn’t bother containing his own. “I’ll um— I’ll shoot you an email.”

“I’ll respond to your email.”

…

When he walked in the door, Spencer made a beeline for his desk. He opened his laptop and pulled up his email account, writing as fast as his one-finger typing would allow.

Spencer Reid Re: Volunteering

Hi!

I’m just following up about volunteering. Anita mentioned a form that I needed to fill out? Now that I’ll be back to work, I’ll just need to plan around the BAU schedule. Could you give me a list of days that would work for you?

Really looking forward to seeing you in action.

Spencer

He checked his two other email messages, and then left the browser up while he thumbed through his most recent reading material.

He sat at his desk for the remainder of the afternoon, distractedly perusing his book and glancing at his empty inbox every minute or so. His gaze flew up to the screen at the ding of a new message at 6:30, only to find a promotional email from one of his favorite indie bookstores.

He closed his laptop with a sigh. It was a Friday night. Y/N probably just didn’t check her email on the weekend. He could wait until Monday. He’d see her on Monday.

He limited himself to checking his laptop twice a day on Saturday and Sunday. When Monday rolled around, he checked it in the morning. He leaned back against the leather of his chair, staring at the empty inbox. He had some errands to run, and for the first time in his life, he wished he had a phone that had email on it.

He ran his last-day-of-sabbatical errands and stopped in at his favorite coffee shop for most likely the last midday, sit-down coffee he’d have for a while. Before he realized, it was 2:30. He brought his empty mug to the counter and waved to the barista. Then he walked to the car and prepped his conversation starters.

“Did you get my email? I sent you an email, just wondering if you saw it? Hey— Hello— Hi, I wasn’t sure if you got my email.” He blew out a breath. “Hi. How are you?” He waved his hand. “I’m great. Did you get my email?” He laughed into the empty car. “Ridiculous, Spencer. You’re ridiculous.”

When he pulled into the parking lot, his heart was racing and his palms were slipping against the steering wheel. He pulled around the loop, looking with a furrowed brow at the area where Y/N should be. In her place was a short woman with cropped grey hair. She held a clipboard and looked generally overwhelmed.

Michael sprinted to the car as soon as he saw it. He pulled open the door and let out a world weary sigh. Spencer turned in his seat. “Everything all right?”

“No, everything is terrible,” he huffed dramatically. “Ms. Y/L/N was sick today. Mrs. Franklin was our substitute, and she smells weird.”

Spencer looked through the window at Mrs. Franklin, struggling to keep a few rowdy boys in the line. “I’m sorry, buddy. I’m sure Ms. Y/L/N will be back soon.” He was secretly relieved that he had a potential explanation for the unanswered email.

“I can’t take another day of Mrs. Franklin,” Michael sighed, buckling his seatbelt. “I hope Ms. Y/L/N’s back tomorrow.”

Spencer let out a breath and pulled away from the curb. “Me, too.”

…

JJ huffed out a breath, glaring at the stack of paperwork in front of her. Spencer was nose deep in a book, but he glanced up at the sound. “I can take a few of those if you want,” he offered.

“No, it’s fine,” she sighed. “I’ve really only got six left.”

He looked at his watch. “Each report takes you approximately 37 minutes. With eight minute breaks in between, you’re not going to be out of here until almost 6:00.”

JJ laughed. “I can’t believe I missed out on these scathing performance reviews for thirty days.”

“Suit yourself.” Spencer dropped his gaze back to his reading.

His first week back from sabbatical had been uneventful to say the least. The team had just wrapped a local case, and they’d spent the better part of the week going over consultations and potentials. It was finally Friday, and Spencer was finished with his stack of backlogged reports.

He was finishing the last chapter of the book when JJ dropped a string of quiet curses. He continued reading, waiting for her to ask. She was quiet for another minute.

“I forgot I’m on duty to pick Michael up today.” Spencer looked up at her, slight panic coming over him.

“I really don’t mind finishing your reports,” he offered.

JJ raised her eyebrows. “What, no offering to visit Ms. Y/L/N?”

Spencer closed his book. “I, um. I sent her an email a week ago, and she hasn’t responded.”

“So?”

“So…” Spencer ran a hand through his hair. “That’s weird, right?”

JJ laughed. “You don’t really use email, so I’d imagine your inbox is pretty orderly. But if you use it a lot, it can be easy for messages to get lost.” She looked at him pointedly. “I can almost guarantee that she’s not ignoring you, Spence.”

He sighed. “I guess there’s a quick way to find out.”

...

Spencer drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, watching the door of the school. He glanced at the clock, noting the class was later than they’d ever been. Without really understanding why, he pulled out of the loop and swung back around to park in the lot. He exited the car, and as he rounded the hood, he spotted them.

Y/N was at the front of the line, hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket and mouth pressed into a thin line. The line behind her was unlike he’d ever seen it. No waving arms, no smiles, no giggles. Twenty small bodies followed behind her with absolute and total solemnity, and he felt uncomfortable just watching them. It would have almost been funny if it wasn’t so dramatically out of character.

The line weaved around the more rambunctious classes, maintaining their grave expressions and quiet pace. They reached their spot on the sidewalk, and Y/N didn’t even have to say anything. Spencer watched as the line took their spots behind her. She held one hand up to acknowledge parents as they pulled up, murmuring stoic goodbyes to students as they headed to their vehicles.

He hung back at the hood of the car until the majority of the class was gone, slowly making his way across the parking lot. Y/N’s line of sight was pointed in his direction, but her eyes were unfocused in the afternoon sun. He could see the moment that she registered his presence, her eyes widening slightly and bottom lip releasing from the place she’d been absentmindedly chewing. She shifted her weight as he closed the final few feet between them.

“Hi.” She held a silent hand up in greeting. He clenched and unclenched his fingers. “Rough day?”

“It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, despite what everyone thinks,” she snapped. She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes up to the perfectly blue sky, mocking her mood. “I’m sorry. Yes, it was a rough day.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“You don’t deserve my wrath.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the students. “They didn’t either, but— too late for that.”

He watched as she lowered her head back down, rubbing a hand over her face. He desperately wanted to slay whatever dragons had given her normally brilliant eyes such a grey cast. “You have strong relationships with them, and kids are resilient. I’m sure they know you—”

“Please— don’t.” Her voice was thick, and she looked at him with desperate eyes. “I— I appreciate the thought, but I’m— I’m a frustrated crier.” Her shining irises proved her point. “And I’m just— I’m really just trying to keep it together for the last four minutes of my contract time.” Her words were practically a whisper, and she swallowed thickly and glanced down the line, just Michael and one classmate left, eyes downcast.

“I understand.” Spencer shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from reaching out and touching her. “I’m sorry. I— I hope your weekend is better than today.”

Michael slowly left the line, murmuring a quiet goodbye to Y/N. Spencer put a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward the car, stealing one last glance at a crushed Y/N.

...

Y/N Y/L/N

Re: Re: Volunteering

Hi,

I meant to respond to this email, and then a bunch of things happened, and then I was out all week.

I don’t know if you even still want to volunteer after this afternoon, but it felt rude to not respond at all.

I’ve attached the background check form to this email in case you’re still interested.

Y/N

1 Attachment: Background Check

—

Hi,

I meant what I said this afternoon. Your students love you, and they know you love them. If my conversation with Michael in the car was any indication, they’re feeling rightfully embarrassed and guilty about their behavior while you were out.

Regardless of what happened today, your relationships with your students are strong enough that they will come to school tomorrow knowing that you still care about them. Children don’t hold onto things nearly as much as adults.

It would be a privilege to volunteer in your classroom, even on the worst day.

Spencer

1 Attachment: Background Check - Spencer Reid

—

If I wasn’t already crying, I would be now.

Thanks for that.

No sarcasm intended. Really. Thank you.

—

This might be inappropriate, and if it is, please just pretend like this email doesn’t exist.

I have a favorite cafe in the DuPont circle area, Soho Tea & Coffee. They have an excellent tea drink made with honey and milk that I like to order whenever I’ve had a particularly difficult day.

If you’re up for it, it’s on me.

———

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