#it’s giving the demolition guy from atlantis a little

[pterygoidwalk]

he showed up to the whirling-in-rags with break-up bangs

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Red vs Blue: this corner of a crumbling world, chapter 2

Atlantis TLE AU: The Launch

Yorkimbalina, 2222 words. | AO3

York and Carolina’s research on Atlantis has had its ups and downs over the years, but ending up unemployed after the museum rejects their funding is absolutely a down. Running into a wealthy and eccentric gentleman with a connection to Carolina’s mother and a curious parcel, however, is turning out to be a definite up. Meanwhile, below the surface, the King of Atlantis races against time to rediscover lost secrets of the past before the ancient city crumbles for good. Or: the Disney Atlantis AU no one really asked for but that I’m writing anyways.

The atmosphere in the launch bay was electric, humming with anticipation on all sides. Wash leaned against his cart, waiting for a clump of soldiers to move so he didn’t have to jostle the nitroglycerin too much getting around them.

“Excuse me, sir. I think you dropped your dynamite.”

Wash groaned and turned around to see a red-haired woman holding a fallen stick of dynamite out to him. She wore a functional brown traveling coat with a blue skirt sticking out the bottom and a knapsack slung over her back with a roll of paper sticking out.

“Uh, thank you,” Wash said, awkwardly retrieving his dynamite. “I’m usually more responsible with explosives than this.” He stuffed the stick in with the rest of it.

“What do you have in there, anyways?”

“Eh…” Wash considered it. “Gunpowder, nitroglycerin, cherry bombs notepads, fuses, wicks, and…paper clips. Big ones.” He demonstrated, holding his hands a foot apart. “You know. Office supplies.”

“Sounds about right. Although most of the offices I worked in had a dictionary.” She sized him up in one brisk, assessing gaze. “I take it you’re…Washington?”

“Just Wash. Please.” He examined her right back. “And you are…”

“Linguist and cartographer. Carolina Richards.” She held out her hand again and he shook it this time. “Since I helped you find your dynamite, I don’t suppose you could help me find my husband?”

Carolina hadn’t meant to get separated from York. They’d agreed he could have the Journal until the launch, which meant that he had spent the boat ride over with his nose buried in it and somehow wandered out of her sight while she had gotten distracted by an argument with Felix and the expedition’s cook, O’Malley.

“It’s a vegetable, O’Malley. The men need the four basic food groups.”

“I have your four basic food groups! Beans, bacon, whiskey, and lard! Not to mention the blood of my enemies for a fifth!”

Carolina had been left to find her way down to the launch bay at the sound of the alarm, and ended up running into the expedition’s demolitions man. Wash seemed nice enough, even if he had been too busy moving his cart to help her find York.

Carolina just sighed, hiked her knapsack up a little further and moved towards the ramp. York would have to come this way eventually.

“Carolina!”

Or York would already be there, next to Sarge and a large, unfamiliar man in a military uniform. Sarge waved Carolina down. He was dressed in what would have passed for a dapper naval uniform if it wasn’t bright red.

“This is Carolina Richards,” Sarge was saying to the military man. “Allison’s kid. Carolina, this is commander Ortez. He led the original mission to Iceland that brought the journal back.”

Carolina extended her hand to shake with Ortez, who earned himself high marks in her book for just shaking her hand without making any remarks whatsoever regarding her gender. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I knew your mother well. The book has nice pictures, but I must admit, I prefer a good mystery myself.”

“Not bad, eh?” Sarge cut in, gesturing to their surroundings—the enormous bay of the ship, the people moving everywhere, and the fantastical sub itself.

Carolina smilled. “I have to say, when you settle a bet, you settle a bet.” She moved in on York’s left, touching his elbow so he’d know she was moving into his space. “There you are.”

He looked up from the book and grinned at her. “I’ve been here the whole time, you’re the one who ran off,” he joked.

“I did not. I turned around and you were gone.”

“Oops.” He didn’t sound sorry in the least.

“Your mother always said you couldn’t put a price on knowledge,” Sarge commented, tipping his head back to look at the sub.

York laughed, light and easy. “Well, all this could very well be small change compared to the value of what we’re going to learn on this trip.”

“Yes,” Commander Ortez agreed, turning to look at the ship himself. “This should be enriching for all of us.”

The alarm sounded out, and a voice came over the loudspeaker announcing the final boarding call. York transferred the Journal to his other hand so he could grab onto Carolina’s and give it a squeeze.

This was finally happening.

“It seems our time is up,” Ortez observed. “Mr. Sarge.” He nodded before heading up the gangplank.

Carolina led the way up the ramp, stopping at the top to turn and wave a farewell. “Goodbye!”

“Make us proud!” he called after them as the door shut with a clang.

Because space on the ship was limited, York and Carolina would be splitting up into the barracks instead of rooming together, and because York had gotten the Journal on the ride over, Carolina stole it back before she went off to find her quarters.

York occupied himself shuffling slides on the way up to the bridge. Now that they didn’t have to look right for the museum, he could let Carolina take over the presentations. She had always been better at the talking, anyways.

Copied page, Viking pictures, carvings, naked—whoops, better hide that one. He shoved that particular slide deep into his pocket. Must not have been careful enough when he was collecting things at home during the last-minute packing rush.

York continued shuffling the slides even after he’d checked them all, enjoying the feeling of them clacking between his fingers.

Dum duh dum duh dum, he thought, tapping a rhythm out as he tromped up the metal staircase to the main bridge and looked around for where he was supposed to be.

It didn’t take him long to spot the projector and screen conveniently located off to one side, or long to get it set up and ready for him to use.

Just as he was testing the slides, regrettably, something under the projector popped out and he had to swear and bend down to fix it.

“Need some help there?” someone out of sight asked.

“Nah, I got it, ‘s no worse—” he grunted as he shoved the reel back into place. “—than the projector at the museum.” York hauled himself to his feet, dusted off his shirt, and extended his hand to an intimidating looking woman in black. “Dr. York Richards, cartography and linguistics consultant. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Tex.” Her grip was very strong. “What are you showing?” She had a slight accent that York couldn’t quite place.

“Oh, just some slides. Pages from the journal, a couple of maps, some carvings…” He started stacking the slides along the side of the projector. “My wife, the other Dr. Richards, can explain it better than I can. ‘Fraid I trip over my tongue sometimes.”

She nodded. “I’ll let Niner know to call her up to the bridge. And I’ll let everyone else know to come see the show.”

Tex was as good as her word, and it didn’t take long for the first person to wander up. A surprisingly familiar person at that.

“Grumpy florist guy!” York said, delighted.

Grumpy florist guy stopped after climbing up the ladder and stared, before rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Weird broke husband.”

“So this is where you wandered off to.”

“It pays the bills. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh, right.” York holds out his hand to shake, again. “Dr. York Richards, cartography and linguistics. Also, projectionist.”

“Wash, explosives and dem—wait, Richards?”

“Yeeees?”

“Your wife was looking for you.” He paused. “You know, of all the times I imagined what kind of woman your wife was, I still never came close.”

“Really?” York decided not to ask what Wash had imagined.

“It’s unexpected.” Wash looked him over. “What happened to your eye?”

York ignored the familiar lurching feeling in his gut and tried for a light laugh instead. “Forgot to feed the cat for a couple of days, so he took payment out of my face.”

“Wash.” Tex had returned, and from the sound of her voice, she was not pleased. “Go make sure your ordnance won’t blow up my ship.”

“But the presentation—”

“That wasn’t a request.”

Wash held up his hands in a position of surrender and vanished back down the ladder.

York let out a breath through his nose and nodded at Tex before he went back to organizing the slides.

Shortly afterwards, Carolina arrived, touching his left arm as she moved up into his space. “Hello there.”

“Hello to you too.”

“Thank the lord you called me when you did. The doctor for this mission is…very enthusiastic.”

York chuckled. “Well, the slides are ready whenever you are.”

“Dr. Richards?”

Both of them turned around to see Tex.

“I don’t believe we’ve met yet.” She extended her hand to Carolina. “Tex.”

“Carolina Richards.” She tipped her head to the side, a thoughtful expression on, before asking something in Icelandic.

So that was what Tex’s accent was.

Tex laughed as she let go. “You just asked me what part of the landscape I am.”

York snickered, and Carolina pinched him, a blush spreading. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to practice my Icelandic recently.”

“Dr. Richards, the presentation?” The commander was waiting with an enormously patient expression on.

“Right.” Carolina’s body language shifted into lecture mode, and York quickly moved to man the projector. “The Journal begins by describing a land journey, but for us the relevant text starts on page fourteen, with the Shepherd’s account of an underwater cavern…”

“Lord Doyle.” Kimball stood at the doorway of the little hut, watching as she blocked out the light.

Doyle just hummed absently and held his personal crystal up to the lamp until it brightened again. His attention never wavered from the tablet in front of him.

Kimball walked over as silently as possible and peered at it, but it was only a text in Low Script. A recipe for—

“Doyle.” She dropped his title as her temper frayed further. “This is not the time to study up on how to cook catfish.”

“If not now, Captain, then when?” His voice, light and casual, entirely failed to assuage her mood.

“This is serious, my lord.” She pulled the tablet away. “I need to know how to activate the flyers.”

“Oh, really? Whatever for, Captain?”

She sputtered. “To explore. To find food, to patrol the borders, to search for resources or—or anything.”

“The city provides for our needs, Captain,” he said, dismissively, taking the tablet and positioning it better in the light. “The city provides.”

“The city is crumbling and dying, Lord Doyle,” she hissed. “A thousand years ago, we had the power to light the streets and the strength to slay intruders on sight. Now you and our other citizens cower in their homes and even the lamps flicker. We cannot continue like this.”

“You cannot have it both ways, Captain.” His voice was sharp, and for the first time, he turned from the tablet and strode towards the door. Kimball followed, furious.

“Your voice is the first to cry out for change, but you still will not move on from the Guard.”

She scoffed. “Your precious traditions have been crumbling since the Maebehlmohk, Lord Doyle, but it seems your hypocrisy has not. How am I supposed to move if you will not show me which way to go?”

“We do not need to go anywhere, Captain!” They were out on the street now, and she knew there was no point worrying about eavesdroppers. Everyone in the city would know of the argument by sundown whatever they did, but no one would mention it to either of them. “We are safe in Atlantis!”

“For how much longer?” She had to hiss this under her breath, and damn him for bringing the conversation out to the open air. No matter how bitterly she could joke with her guard; the entire city was still looking to her as the Captain to lead them through it.

No matter that the entire city knew they were standing on a cliff; she could not say out loud how close to the edge they were.

“You have a duty, my lord, to give us guidance! To lead us through this.”

“Oh-ho, and you accuse me of hypocrisy, Captain? When it seems that you have forgotten your duty?”

Kimball breathed deeply, closed her eyes, and turned away. It was fortunate she had left her spear back at the Guard-house, or else their city might be short one prominent figure right now.

“I will not have this fight with you again,” she said, quietly. “I know my duty, Lord, to Atlantis and her people. I am doing my duty every day.”

There was silence for a long moment, until Doyle sighed.

“I know, Captain.”

“But you will still not tell me the secrets of the flying machines, my lord.”

“I will not, Captain.”

“Or anything else.”

“No, Captain.” His voice was as strong as the waterfalls. “Some things should remain in the past.”

“If things continue as they are, my lord, the only thing that will remain in the past is us. Forever.” Kimball remembered enough courtesy to at least salute before spinning on her heel and striding off into the city.