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daraoakwise · 2 years ago

Note

This is 100% absolutely an alternate universe. There is too much different that can’t be attributed to the destruction of one starship 20 years earlier. Not a branch universe; it can’t be. (In my long story, they have an argument with … Well. It’s the Guardian of Forever, needing them to fix something. And they ask: why didn’t you have us fix Vulcan, Nero? And the Guardian says: that is what always did and will happen in your universe.)

Which means absolutely and completely, there was never a point when AOS Scotty and TOS Scotty were the same person or living the same life—not his first 11 years until the Kelvin supposed changed everything, or even 36 years until the destruction of Vulcan. Nope. They had a completely different life from the start.

(Which is an interesting idea. Somehow, despite what is literally DNA differences and wildly divergent life experience, somehow you still have the same person. Are we talking mind? soul? Something else that defines the essence of self. The how, and why … I wonder what their philosophers and priests and poets have to say about it?)

The age difference you point out is incredibly important too. We meet AOS Scotty in his mid-thirties, which is pretty much just when TOS Scotty would have become Chief engineer the Enterprise. And an incredibly important point that you recently taught me, that hadn’t even occurred to me, was that when we first meet him, TOS Scotty should have be moving toward retirement, if not there already. He’d put in his 20/25 years, including lengthy deep space deployments … time to go home. And then he doesn’t. And then he doesn’t again at the end of the five year mission. (He lived an extraordinary life. If someone asked me if I wanted an extraordinarily life, I would say “please, god, no.”) And by the movies, he’s given up on something. Something of self, of hope (for that ordinary life?) It’s real, but I don’t know what it is. I will look forward to the story you tell someday explaining that.

Anyhow, the age and career difference makes a huge difference in AOS’s Scotty’s connection, to a feeling of “crew as family” that doesn’t exist in TOS. To just … the willingness and desire to make the effort to connect.

AOS Scotty is, on the screen, more actual fuckup than TOS Scotty is. He can do amazing, groundbreaking things (three people beamed in from multiple places! Let’s escape a singularity! I’m going to look at an equation for less than half a second and immediately grasp its full implications!) And then he beams people onto a bridge instead of a cargo bay, ooops. Loses the dog. Overconfidence leading to mistakes, including derailing his career.

And the alcohol. Got to back up on that question into some headcannon backstory. In my backstory of AOS Scotty, there was every chance that he was headed into the abusive childhood of TOS Scotty. His mother was a severely bipolar, severely drug addicted person, who had a son and daughter with men who she couldn’t have pointed out if they walked past her on the street. (To the ‘TOS and AOS are half brothers’ point.) Whether in kindness or despair or indifference, she dropped them off with their grandmother, her mother, and it changes the course of his life. (AOS Scotty tells this entire story about his ‘wee granny,’ which is 100% more than TOS Scotty ever says about his family.)

So she stabilizes his childhood, although I suspect there is a sense of abandonment in him. His Granny loves him. Does she dote on him? Probably. However, she is also the person who badly failed her daughter. She tells herself she won’t fail her grandson. She’s strict. No messing around doing whatever frivolous/destructive thing that sucked her daughter in. He gets the best education. (He is pretty clearly more academic than TOS Scotty. Not smarter; they have equal minds. Just more credentials.) So he’s at the University of Edinburgh when he’s 16, doing groundbreaking things … just at the age when his mother’s demons become his.

Here’s this poor kid, who doesn’t know what’s happening to him, who is terrified of failing his Granny. Who knows about his mother, but doesn’t know her … but is terrified of becoming her. And he discovers that he can level out (or it feels that way) with alcohol and drugs. That poor damn kid, who undoubtedly has a massive, multi-faceted crisis at about 17 years old.

And although he largely shakes it off as an adult, it also means that when he gets tossed off the ship, he heads straight to a bar and gets entirely smashed in a self-destructive and self-pitying way that we don’t get out of TOS Scotty until Relics (when I really can’t blame him.)

In my opinion, although without textual support beyond just a better ease with people, TOS Scotty‘s romantic dumbassery doesn’t carry over to AOS Scotty. AOS Scotty is very aware of the emotions going on around him. So he’s good at people, at least on the surface. AOS Scotty will be the life of a party and end up in someone’s bed to finish off the evening. Actual fuckup is present again, however. The real guy is a gallant sweetheart. (TOS Scotty, obvious. For AOS Scotty, he is entirely gentle with Jaylah in Beyond. Nothing romantic there, but even though she is the badass ninja-type, he’s watching out for her battered heart.) I strongly suspect that the masking guy, or the struggling-with-mental-health guy uses unconnected sex like he uses alcohol, which is to say, unhealthily. (To say nothing of dangerous/destructive sex as a symptom during a manic episode.)

I really am convinced that he’s bipolar. We don’t see depression, but. It’s there. We do see mania. The dog thing, the overconfidence that leads to mistakes, expansive and grandiose, talking too much and too fast, bouncing off the walls, declaring the Enterprise ‘exciting’ in the middle of a fucking intergalactic disaster … the first movie is him entirely a manic episode (because he’s been trapped in a boring boring place and has stopped taking his meds!!!) He is way more centered in the later movies; back on the meds that do a good job at regulating him.

(I do hope you have the time/inclination to read my long story, because this is a huge part of what I explore. And midway through, he makes a particular decision that I’m honestly kind of dying to talk with you about—would TOS Scotty do the same? I go back and forth. It’s a decision 70,000 words in the making, and I won’t spoil it in case you’re going to read it, but if you’re pretty sure you’re not I’ll give you the TL;DR 😆)

I don’t think I’d be able to interpret AOS Scotty in that direction if it wasn’t present, at least as a possibility, in TOS Scotty. That way he starts to unravel. The propensity is there. It doesn’t fully manifest in TOS Scotty, but he’d recognize it for sure.

The self-sacrifice isn’t there in AOS Scotty, any more than it would be in any brave Starfleet officer. (He would have eventually reached the conclusion he had to go into the warp core, and he would have done it if Kirk hadn’t knocked him out, but going in isn’t his immediate reaction. (As opposed to “you’ll be killed man! I’ll do it Mr. Spock …” out of TOS Scotty.)

And the anger certainly isn’t there, any more than it would be in a person who gets riled up at idiots. And he does get riled up. He is furious at Starfleet for being reckless with his discoveries. Tells off Kirk for plopping a starship underwater, or taking it above a volcano. Downright belligerent about illegal and dangerous orders. But that undercurrent of rage? The guy who is genuinely terrifying when he suggests to a Klingon that he might want to take it back? No. Which makes sense because there isn’t anything to fuel it.

I have got to go back and read some of the older stories again. They are so gorgeous, and it’s been a while. Expect me in your notes.

Ok, you asked for it. Meta Part 1/1000. Who is Scotty?

For me, the biggest question is: how is it that in one universe, a person can be reservedly taciturn, and in the other, socially garrulous? The only answer I can come up with is that it isn’t a fundamental characteristic of self, it isn’t their nature, but a symptom of something else related to some differences in their lives.

Scotty in every universe has three layers: the mask, the damage, the actual person.

In TOS Scotty, the mask is that wall. Sure, he’s friendly enough, but most people don’t know him, and that is fine by him. He’ll give you the surface of himself, and you are going to think you know him, but it isn’t true. And that mask fits over the underlying damage that you have so aptly described in all your stories. The wolf, the survivor. (It gives him an iron backbone that, by the way, I think is missing in AOS Scotty.)

Then we have AOS Scotty. He’s openly gregarious, almost oversharing. He is good at reading people; in the movies he is reacting constantly to what people are feeling and thinking around him, actively tactile, touching them, reaching out, watching. I considered the possibility that he was just a non-trauma response Scotty, the way TOS Scotty might be with a gentler life, but I don’t think that’s true. My interpretation of AOS Scotty is in part informed by pretty much every significant Simon Pegg character: an easy going funny guy who is always masking mental illness, addiction, self-doubt, loneliness, even despair. But it isn’t just the actor. Textually, the broadly comic guy fades when he’s comfortable.

So he’s masking too. What is he masking? What coping technique is reading people that closely for? What is he using humor to cover, what doesn’t he want people poking? It’s not trauma; trauma would send him in TOS Scotty direction—because that’s how Scotty reacts to trauma.

After watching him, I’m convinced he has significant mental illness going on. They both clearly struggle with depression, but the first time we meet AOS Scotty he tells us this genuinely insane story about the dog and the transporter which is entirely about overconfidence, euphoric energy, a feeling of invincibility, lack of impulse control … it’s a manic episode. (Which, honest to god, I also think he has going throughout the entirety of the first movie.) He tells the story for comedy, what’s he covering? That dog could have just as easily have been a person. AOS Scotty is afraid of himself, of hurting people. He’s reading people because he’s using them as a stand in for his own judgment, which he doesn’t trust. Am I out of control? Am I scaring you?

Now, in both of them the mask and the damage causes some additional issues that overlap, but also some things that may be actual self. They share some arguable negative traits. Self destructive fuckup? Yep. Obsessive, addictive. Someone who people don’t actually know because the real person is generally buried under the mask. Irritable and grumpy. Stubborn. Pushback when someone is being an idiot. Can get emotional and riled up. Is that because they are masking and damaged, or is that part of who they are?

I’m convinced that the real person, underneath everything, is fundamentally the same in both universes. The sweetheart. Brilliant, serious. The reasonably-natural leader. (TOS Scotty is frequently badass; AOS Scotty takes control of the engineering deck instantly, with zero authority.) Prefers order but will let it go if he has to. Develops unusual relationships that aren’t easily classified. Lights up the room when he is genuinely happy. Drops truth bombs that people don’t always want to hear.

What do you think? The guy who won’t speak two words is the same person as the chatterbox who won’t shut up. Why?

I have put a TL;DR at the bottom as an apology for the length of this. >.>

Okay, so-- bearing in mind that everything I know about the AOS versions I've learned second-hand, either via that one spectacular RPer back in '09 or now you, and that I am an Opinionated Person--

My answer is that it was always a parallel universe, never a branch off. That Spock accidentally followed Nero sideways into an already-existent parallel, that they weren't creating something new, but interfering with something already there. That's legitimately the only way it makes sense to me; not only in terms of like actual characterization, but also in universal aesthetics. Jim Kirk having blue eyes, while Len McCoy has hazel, stuff like that. Apple store versus actual deep sea submarine. Cornfields versus geosynch orbit over San Fran. XD

It's always been, for me, that Pegg's Scotty is such a vastly different critter from Doohan's that I can't honestly ever see them having been the same person even in the past. And I think some of that is nature, and no small amount of that is nurture (or different kinds of lack thereof), and then just different formative experiences, too.

So, I've always operated on the theory that they're actually genetically half-brothers, because that does make actual perfect sense to me; that can also explain why I can see more easily where AOS Scotty could be related to Peter Preston (a fair-haired kid with lighter hazel eyes from what I can tell) whereas TOS Scotty is a bit more of a stretch there.

And that also means some variations on hows and how nots.

God, I dunno whether I should beg forgiveness or not for the length and rambling nature of this, but here goes:

All right, so I definitely write AotW with the aim of it being perfectly dovetailed to TOS canon (before Disco and SNW, though if they come up with something excellent that fits, I'll gleefully add it in), all the way to Relics (and beyond), occasionally yoinking a plot or two I like from the novels, or some other incidental and then asking lots and lots of deep questions. Like, "Excuse me, what was up with [insert event] at this [insert timestamp] that had that particular expression on your face?" and then writing, I dunno, 10K of backstory for it. LOL! OR, my god, this whole storyline was because I was chin-handing at Scotty (as one does or should) going, "But why did you buy a boat for retirement?" And then like, twenty-one years later, I've answered that one, but asked about a thousand more.

Digression aside, though. So, going on TOS canon, my take on the facets (caveat emptor, caveat lector):

1.) The mask he wears: Made of stereotypes and assumptions made by other people which he just doesn't correct or offer anything deeper to. Largely self-protective. He doesn't want to get too close to his crewmates, not because he doesn't care about them -- he very much does! -- but partly because personal trust does not come anything like naturally to him, it generally has to be earned and the only one I think who earned even some of that is Spock by that point.

But also partly because Scotty's already deep into his career? He's at the age where most career officers can retire, whether they choose to or not. Hell, he reached that age before Jim Kirk even took over. He's five years older than McCoy, and most of a decade or more older than the rest. So, he's already climbed to the peak of where he dearly wanted his career to go (Enterprise's Chief, Pike's Chief) and is actually, seriously contemplating retirement. Starfleet's changing around him some, he has definitely Been Through Some Shit, he has a family he wants to go back home to. Like, despite loving the Enterprise, and considering her half of his home, she's not all of it, and he does want to watch nieces and nephews grow up, he does want to try his hand at teaching on a larger scale, and hell, maybe he'll find a lad or lass who can live with him. (There are reasons he doesn't ultimately retire, but we won't get into those here.)

So, allowing himself to get too personally attached to his crewmates is a recipe for being kept in service past when he wants to be. It also, in my timeline, is because he lost one crew very traumatically and has lost crewmates otherwise, and loving people just so they can die on him trips allllll over his abandonment issues anyway. So, easier to keep them at arms length, care for them, protect them (even with his life), but never let them have pieces of himself that there's no getting back.

I think the mask is even more opaque in the movie era, too.

2.) Actual fuckup: Surprisingly not as much in evidence in TOS-era canon as one might expect. He only gets drunk onscreen once, and even then he wasn't doing it for fun, he was doing it for a purpose. I tend to write him with Jimmy in mind, who definitely drank (and got hammered), but who also regularly quit for long periods of time just to prove to himself that he wasn't his alcoholic father. At least in my stuff, in the TOS era and before it, Scotty only gets absolutely trashed when he's happy; he knows better than to drink when he's upset, so he doesn't. He doesn't like where his mind goes otherwise. And he knows what that can lead to, too.

There's a line in Torn that always sort of sticks with me:

He didn't like to fight, not like that. Not verbally, not physically. If confrontation could be avoided, Scott avoided it -- he didn't like the sick feeling that came with that kind of anger, the kind that boiled. He hated that feeling, knew too well what it could lead to if you got to like it too much. If you're too good at something and you like it too much, you'll do it. He didn't like it, but it seemed like he was always doing it anyway.

That kinda goes double for alcohol. So, he drinks on screen, but he's only shitfaced once in TOS, and even then under other circumstances. He drinks in the movie era, too, but I think we only see him mildly tossed in VI. And then Relics, but who the hell could blame him? (I personally think he drank as self-medication occasionally by then, hence me writing What Is Late. McCoy does get to see behind the mask, but -- tellingly -- can't actually do anything with what he can see to help in the deep ways that are needed there.)

So, the other actual fucking-up is mostly in crushing on exactly the wrong kind of people (women who need/want something he's just not) and losing his head trying to uphold a chivalrous ideal, only to land firmly on his face. Despite that dumbassery, though, he's not controlling or possessive, just protective and ridiculous.

I would label his propensity for being (a little frighteningly) willing to die in the line of duty under this, except I don't think that's actually much of a character flaw? Like, I don't think he devalues his life at least in that era? So much as it's just how he's wired. There's a scene I don't know if you've read, that I originally conceived of when I was first writing ONOW, believe it or not, but didn't have the nerve to write back then. Or the skill, honestly. Fairly shortly after Corry pulls Scotty out of the ocean. And I only just added it back when I did the most recent workover of that novel, and it kinda goes into it some:

Cor was gone when he woke up the time after, what felt like a fair piece of time after; he thought he was maybe delirious when he found himself looking at Sean Kelley, sitting with the chair back at the table.

“They’re pack animals, you know. Family animals,” Sean said, hitching Corry’s blue blanket up tighter around his shoulders, after a moment where they just stared at one another. “Wolves, I mean. I grew up in Montana; at dusk, you could hear them singing.”

It wasn’t a non sequitur, exactly. It was more than Scotty knew how to process. He took a deep breath -- aware again of what that felt like -- and let it out; felt how much it weighed to do that, too. “‘M nae sure ye’re ‘ere,” he said, mouth not wanting to work right; still, it seemed necessary to let Sean know that he might not actually be real.

Sean didn’t seem to care whether he was real or not. “World War III was the best thing for them,” he said. “Even though Colonel Green’s army devastated Bozeman. And Livingston. Even with the radiation. They didn’t have to survive so many of us anymore.” He closed his eyes; in the soft light of the cabin, his face was shining with tears. “We go and pick up a tray from a cafeteria, but they have to fight every day to eat. Or for space to live. For everything.” There was a beat, then he opened his eyes and said, “I jumped.”

Scotty still wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming -- or hallucinating -- Sean sitting there. But he said, “Me too.” Solidarity for a feeling, he thought.

“I know.” Sean freed his arm from the blanket and scrubbed his forearm across his face, voice tight. “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? I don’t know how to even-- say how horrible it was. How lonely. You know?”

Scotty thought about the black, growling mountains of water. “Aye,” he said, closing his eyes again; if Sean was the product of delirium, it probably didn’t matter so much anyway.

Sean was quiet for a moment, then said, “No one jumped after me.”

It didn’t sound like a lament; more like a man putting some kind of realization together.

“I woulda.” Scotty didn’t need to think about it; whatever bad blood had existed between them before just didn’t seem important now. But it wouldn’t have ever, he knew. He would have jumped after Sean, or anyone else; it would have never occurred to him not to.

This was, though, the first time that he realized that. He didn't know what that changed, if anything.

Sean made a sound like a laugh, if a laugh could be that fractured. “I know you would have. I would have jumped for you, too. I guess I kind of did, in a way. I guess we both kind of did. But that’s not what I meant.”

There was no understanding that right now; there would have to be a time later for it. Scotty hummed back something of an acknowledgment, even as the rocking of the Lady Grey and the tenuous sensation of being warm and too heavy to move was pulling him away again.

Right at the edge of gone, he heard Sean say, “Now I know why they call you Wolf.”

And like, that says it. At least my take on it. It's not so much that he wants to die or even wants to hurt himself (though that man absolutely does have the capacity to be incredibly self-punishing if pushed the wrong way), it's that where he places his values sometimes is at odds with continuing to breathe. Even if he is a survivor. Maybe especially because he's a survivor.

So. Onto mental health.

(I absolutely want to pick your brain about AOS!Scotty being bipolar, because wow, that is awesome insight and also a very good explanation for what I thought was a ridiculous tale -- Archer's beagle -- and also like, psychology is my thing, and also like, there is some evidence that if you pushed him in the right ways, TOS!Scotty could have gone that same route, right?? So, like, anything you wanna talk about backstory wise there, please do. For real, I will beg even. What environmental factors were at play there? What of that is genetic?)

But anyway, by the time TOS starts, Scotty's got his headspace pretty well under control. Predisposed to depression (that's one of the many things that happens when you're traumatized as young as he was), has been on rock bottom in his life, but he's also learned a lot of coping mechanisms that would have worked, if he had actually gone and retired when he was planning to. They aren't perfect coping mechanisms, but they do the job.

He's confident and knows his ship, he worked for years under a Captain who not only elevated his career, but built him up in ways that meant he could be comfortable in the center chair, or when everything is going nuts, and he is less prone to reckless courage (but still brave down to his last cell), and like-- I personally think the peak of Scotty's career in Starfleet was before we ever see him in that red shirt for the first time. Because for the rest of the universe, his greatest contributions happened later. But as to him, as a person, as a man who has Been Through Some Shit, I think his highest points were between '56-'65. And I think serving on Kirk's Enterprise, and all the sometimes insane chaos there -- including him being possessed and used as a murder weapon, including him being killed -- started putting some very real cracks in that otherwise solid place he'd clawed for.

And I mean, Season 1 Scotty really is the rock. Steady and calm for the most part; when he does get agitated, it's not really that manic kind that happens much more frequently later. Season 2 Scotty Goes Through More Shit and you can start to see where it's doing a number on him. Season 3 Scotty is just-- like, you can tell he is Not Exactly Okay. He's still smart as hell and competent, but still Not Exactly Okay. Movie!era Scotty is the same, but instead of wearing the mask, he's started pretty much being the mask; when you see behind it is vanishingly rare. And he also still Goes Through More Shit.

So, we get to Actual!Scotty. You say:

Agreed. XD On every point, too.

I think, though, that one thing TOS!Scotty has that AOS!Scotty doesn't -- at least as I write him -- is the foundation of his own anger. He swallows a lot of it as a kid. He takes a lot of suffering without biting back, at least at first. (So did his actor.) But that doesn't mean that rage isn't down there simmering.

And like, you've read Forty-Eight (and Give and Take, etc), so obviously there comes a point where he stops tolerating it. That point, I think, is well before that, but before then, he's mostly avoiding and staying away from the things that have hurt him. It's not until his mother drops dead and he almost does and then he gets horribly triggered by circumstances no one intended to be triggers that he starts biting back.

When you told me that AOS!Scotty kind of slumped off devastated when Kirk 'fired' him, that was what really jumped out. Like I said there, that mental image: TOS!Scotty woulda absolutely been lit up hot and loaded both barrels and he wouldn't have gone to drink his sorrows away, he would have gone after Jim Kirk's throat even if he really liked the guy because no one -- no one -- is ever going to hand him a beating again where he'll lay under a fist. Not ever.

So-- I don't know if I've given any answers here, but that's where I think the big differences are:

TL;DR: Different men altogether from the jump because different universes. And TOS!Scotty got that fire and spine and ability to snap back because he once was a battered child with no advocate, and even if he swallowed that anger back then, it still existed and eventually came back, and ultimately even helped him become the absolute badass we see later.

So. XD Thoughts?

#meta #scotty #montgomery scott

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souvenirsofsurgery · 4 years ago

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Fiction Podcast Recommendations

Because this is the only media I consume anymore. Let’s get the big ones out of the way first!

1. Welcome to Night Vale

The OG. This was the first podcast I really got into and I am very sentimental about it. It’s the funniest and most uplifting piece of horror media I’ve ever found, and I love it for that. And I’m obsessed with the weird worldbuilding, the atmosphere is absolutely perfect. Also, gay main character, which I pretty much require at this point.

It can take a minute to get into if you really want some plot, but I promise some plot is coming.

2. The Magnus Archives

This is a great horror anthology that also ends up having a really interesting overarching plot. I’m warning you right off that bat that it is a tragedy, though, and we’re all anticipating being absolutely crushed when it ends. But! Canonically biromantic asexual main character, which we love.

Similar to Welcome to Night Vale, you’re going to have to be a little patient if you really wanna get to that plot, but it’ll get there.

3. The Adventure Zone

One of my absolute favorites. It’s a D&D podcast, but no D&D knowledge is required to enjoy it (I didn’t play D&D when I first started listening). It’s funny and endearing, and also has made me sob so hard that my family thought something was wrong with me. I still think about the ending of the Balance arc, because I’ve never found an ending in any other piece of media that is so emotional and satisfying.

And as far as representation goes, the first arc has a gay main character, second arc has a bi woman main character, and third arc has a main character who is technically asexual, although that hasn’t been confirmed in canon at this point. Also plenty of LGBTQ+ side characters, including a trans woman (Lup I have a crush on you <3) in the first arc and a nonbinary person in the second.

4. The Penumbra Podcast

Welcome to the queerest thing I have ever seen in my life. Just straight up no cishets around, it’s beautiful.

This one actually has two separate storylines. The Juno Steel one is about a private eye on Mars, and the Second Citadel is sort of an ensemble story in a fantasy setting, and I would highly recommend both of them. Like would you like to hear a noir inspired story set in space with a nonbinary bisexual detective protagonist and a homme fatale criminal love interest? You absolutely would. Or would you like to hear about a knight who is sworn to hunt monsters having an existential crisis because he’s having some feelings about a monster he just had a homoerotic sword fight with? Obviously you would. Listen to this podcast.

Anyway! Let’s get into some of the smaller podcasts!

5. Death by Dying

This one is so much fun. Love the weird vibes of this creepy little town. We’ve got an obituary writer who just doesn’t even seem to realize how bizarre all the deaths he’s writing about are, I’m obsessed with it. As soon as he started reading out the condolences and they were just in-universe ads I lost it, that’s so funny to me and I immediately knew I was going to love this podcast.

6. Kaleidotrope

Fanfiction gays, this one is for you. Here is a college that is said to be magic, where everyone will find their romantic trope and fall in love. The main characters are running a college radio show together, with one of them believing in this magic absolutely and the other being very skeptical. Will they fall in love? :)))))))

This one is so cheesy, and it’s very small so the audio is pretty scuffed, but it’s so sweet and I love it. Both of the main characters are queer and one of them is nonbinary.

7. Brimstone Valley Mall

I’m obsessed with this podcast! Nobody is talking about it and I’m obsessed with it! It’s demons working in a mall in the 90s, who also have a band together. Wtf I love that. One of the main characters is gay, and another one is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. Please listen to this podcast, I want it to get more popular so badly.

8. The Strange Case of Starship Iris

This one is so sweet and I love it so much. Gay space criminals? That’s everything I love. It also just has so much heart, I want to cry. There’s a bisexual woman main character, another WLW main character, a trans man main character, and a nonbinary main character (who, yes, is an alien, but I will let it slide because there is also a nonbinary human side character).

9. Alice Isn’t Dead

The vibes are impeccable. I listened to a lot of this one while I was on a road trip by myself in rural America, and that is the ideal experience. This is about a woman trucking across America looking for her missing wife. It’s so quietly creepy, and I’ve got a thing for weird Americana. And there are lesbians too, so.

Also, the main character dealing with her anxiety was something that was actually really important to me. I really liked hearing about someone who didn’t “cure” her mental health problems, but grew and learned to manage them better. It was just a very important story to me, and I still think about her all the time.

10. CARAVAN

Every single person involved with making this needs to go to horny jail. I am so serious. You will hear an extended conversation about how, like all of these characters are monster fuckers, and also very audibly hear two characters have sex. So, you know, you’ve been warned.

But, all that aside, this one is about a man who accidentally ends up in this weird hell world, and has to try to figure out how to get back home. It’s really fun, but also gets pretty heavy towards the end. Definitely read the content warnings ahead of time.

This one’s also queer, obviously, with a bisexual man as the main character and some queer side characters (Including Virgil who I do have a crush on. The morally dubious enbies just get me.)

#podcast recommendations #podcast review #lgbtq podcast #queer podcast #welcome to night vale #the magnus archives #the adventure zone #the penumbra podcast #death by dying #kaleidotrope #brimstone valley mall #the strange case of starship iris #alice isn't dead #caravan podcast

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letterboxd · 4 years ago

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In Focus: The Mummy

Dominic Corry responds on behalf of Letterboxd to an impassioned plea to bump up the average rating of the 1999 version of The Mummy—and asks: where is the next great action adventure coming from?

We recently received the following email regarding the Stephen Sommers blockbuster The Mummy:

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you on behalf of the nation, if not the entire globe, who frankly deserve better than this after months of suffering with the Covid pandemic.

I was recently made aware that the rating of The Mummy on your platform only stands at 3.3 stars out of five. … This, as I’m sure you’re aware, is simply unacceptable. The Mummy is, as a statement of fact, the greatest film ever made. It is simply fallacious that anyone should claim otherwise, or that the rating should fail to reflect this. This oversight cannot be allowed to stand.

I have my suspicions that this rating has been falsely allocated due to people with personal axes to grind against The Mummy, most likely other directors who are simply jealous that their own artistic oeuvres will never attain the zenith of perfection, nor indeed come close to approaching the quality or the cultural influence of The Mummy. There is, quite frankly, no other explanation. The Mummy is, objectively speaking, a five-star film (… I would argue that it in fact transcends the rating sytem used by us mere mortals). It would only be proper, as a matter of urgency, to remove all fake ratings (i.e. any ratings [below] five stars) and allow The Mummy’s rating to stand, as it should, at five stars, or perhaps to replace the rating altogether with a simple banner which reads “the greatest film of all time, objectively speaking”. I look forward to this grievous error being remedied.

Best, Anwen

Which of course: no, we would never do that. But the vigor Anwen expresses in her letter impressed us (we checked: she’s real, though is mostly a Letterboxd lurker due to a busy day-job in television production, “so finding time to watch anything that isn’t The Mummy is, frankly, impossible… not that there’s ever any need to watch anything else, of course.”).

So Letterboxd put me, Stephen Sommers fan, on the job of paying homage to the last great old-school action-adventure blockbuster, a film that straddles the end of one cinematic era and the beginning of the next one. And also to ask: where’s the next great action adventure coming from?

Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz and John Hannah in ‘The Mummy’ (1999).

When you delve into the Letterboxd reviews of The Mummy, it quickly becomes clear how widely beloved the film is, 3.3 average notwithstanding. Of more concern to the less youthful among us is how quaintly it is perceived, as if it harkens back to the dawn of cinema or something. “God, I miss good old-fashioned adventure movies,” bemoans Holly-Beth. “I have so many fond memories of watching this on TV with my family countless times growing up,” recalls Jess. “A childhood classic,” notes Simon.

As alarming as it is to see such wistful nostalgia for what was a cutting-edge, special-effects-laden contemporary popcorn hit, it has been twenty-one years since the film was released, so anyone currently in their early 30s would’ve encountered the film at just the right age for it to imprint deeply in their hearts. This has helped make it a Raiders of the Lost Ark for a specific Letterboxd demographic.

Sommers took plenty of inspiration from the Indiana Jones series for his take on The Mummy (the original 1932 film, also with a 3.3 average, is famously sedate), but for ten-year-olds in 1999, it may have been their only exposure to such pulpy derring-do. And when you consider that popcorn cinema would soon be taken over by interconnected on-screen universes populated by spandex-clad superheroes, the idea that The Mummy is an old-fashioned movie is easier to comprehend.

However, for all its throwbackiness, beholding The Mummy from the perspective of 2020 reveals it to have more to say about the future of cinema than the past. 1999 was a big year for movies, often considered one of the all-time best, but the legacy of The Mummy ties it most directly to two of that year’s other biggest hits: Star Wars: Episode One—The Phantom Menace and The Matrix. These three blockbusters represented a turning point for the biggest technological advancement to hit the cinematic art-form since the introduction of sound: computer-generated imagery, aka CGI. The technique had been widely used from 1989’s The Abyss onwards, and took significant leaps forward with movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Starship Troopers (1997), but the three 1999 films mentioned above signified a move into the era when blockbusters began to be defined by their CGI.

A year before The Mummy, Sommers had creatively utilised CGI in his criminally underrated sci-fi action thriller Deep Rising (another film that deserves a higher average Letterboxd rating, just sayin’), and he took this approach to the next level with The Mummy. While some of the CGI in The Mummy doesn’t hold up as well as the technopunk visuals presented in The Matrix, The Mummy showed how effective the technique could be in an historical setting—the expansiveness of ancient Egypt depicted in the movie is magnificent, and the iconic rendering of Imhotep’s face in the sand storm proved to be an enduringly creepy image. Not to mention those scuttling scarab beetles.

George Lucas wanted to test the boundaries of the technique with his insanely anticipated new Star Wars film after dipping his toe in the digital water with the special editions of the original trilogy. Beyond set expansions and environments, a bunch of big creatures and cool spaceships, his biggest gambit was Jar Jar Binks, a major character rendered entirely through CGI. And we all know how that turned out.

A CGI-enhanced Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep.

Sommers arguably presented a much more effective CGI character in the slowly regenerating resurrected Imhotep. Jar Jar’s design was “bigger” than the actor playing him on set, Ahmed Best. Which is to say, Jar Jar took up more space on screen than Best. But with the zombie-ish Imhotep, Sommers (ably assisted by Industrial Light & Magic, who also worked on the Star Wars films) used CGI to create negative space, an effect impossible to achieve with practical make-up—large parts of the character were missing. It was an indelible visual concept that has been recreated many times since, but Sommers pioneered its usage here, and it contributed greatly to the popcorn horror threat posed by the character.

Sommers, generally an unfairly overlooked master of fun popcorn spectacle (G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is good, guys), deserves more credit for how he creatively utilized CGI to elevate the storytelling in The Mummy. But CGI isn’t the main reason the film works—it’s a spry, light-on-its-feet adventure that presents an iconic horror property in an entertaining and adventurous new light. And it happens to feature a ridiculously attractive cast all captured just as their pulchritudinous powers were peaking.

Meme-worthy: “My sexual orientation is the cast of ‘The Mummy’ (1999).”

A rising star at the time, Brendan Fraser was mostly known for comedic performances, and although he’d proven himself very capable with his shirt off in George of the Jungle (1997), he wasn’t necessarily at the top of anyone’s list for action-hero roles. But he is superlatively charming as dashing American adventurer Rick O’Connell. His fizzy chemistry with Weisz, playing the brilliant-but-clumsy Egyptologist Evie Carnahan, makes the film a legitimate romantic caper. The role proved to be a breakout for Weisz, then perhaps best known for playing opposite Keanu Reeves in the trouble-plagued action flop Chain Reaction, or for her supporting role in the Liv Tyler vehicle Stealing Beauty.

“90s Brendan Fraser is what Chris Pratt wishes he was,” argues Holly-Beth. “Please come back to us, Brendaddy. We need you.” begs Joshhh. “I’d like to thank Rachel Weisz for playing an integral role in my sexual awakening,” offers Sree.

Then there’s Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bey, a member of the Medjai, a sect dedicated to preventing Imhotep’s tomb from being discovered, and Patricia Velásquez as Anck-su-namun, Imhotep’s cursed lover. Both stupidly good-looking. Heck, Imhotep himself (South African Arnold Vosloo, coming across as Billy Zane’s more rugged brother), is one of the hottest horror villains in the history of cinema.

“Remember when studio movies were sexy?” laments Colin McLaughlin. We do Colin, we do.

Sommers directed a somewhat bloated sequel, The Mummy Returns, in 2001, which featured the cinematic debut of one Dwayne Johnson. His character got a spin-off movie the following year (The Scorpion King), which generated a bunch of DTV sequels of its own, and is now the subject of a Johnson-produced reboot. Brendan Fraser came back for a third film in 2008, the Rob Cohen-directed The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Weisz declined to participate, and was replaced by Maria Bello.

Despite all the follow-ups, and the enduring love for the first Sommers film, there has been a sadly significant dearth of movies along these lines in the two decades since it was released. The less said about 2017 reboot The Mummy (which was supposed to kick-off a new Universal Monster shared cinematic universe, and took a contemporary, action-heavy approach to the property), the better.

The Rock in ‘The Mummy Returns’ (2001).

For a long time, adventure films were Hollywood’s bread and butter, but they’re surprisingly thin on the ground these days. So it makes a certain amount of sense that nostalgia for the 1999 The Mummy continues to grow. You could argue that many of the superhero films that dominate multiplexes count as adventure movies, but nobody really sees them that way—they are their own genre.

There are, however, a couple of films on the horizon that could help bring back old-school cinematic adventure. One is the long-planned—and finally actually shot—adaptation of the Uncharted video-game franchise, starring Tom Holland. The games borrow a lot from the Indiana Jones films, and it’ll be interesting to see how much that manifests in the adaptation.

Then there’s Letterboxd favorite David Lowery’s forever-upcoming medieval adventure drama The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel and Alicia Vikander (who herself recently rebooted another video-game icon, Lara Croft). Plus they are still threatening to make another Indiana Jones movie, even if it no longer looks like Steven Spielberg will direct it.

While these are all exciting projects—and notwithstanding the current crisis in the multiplexes—it can’t help but feel like we may never again get a movie quite like The Mummy, with its unlikely combination of eye-popping CGI, old-fashioned adventure tropes and a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble of overflowing hotness. Long may love for it reign on Letterboxd—let’s see if we can’t get that average rating up, the old fashioned way. For Anwen.

Related content

How I Letterboxd with The Mummy fan Eve (“The first film I went out and bought memorabilia for… it was a Mummy action figure that included canopic jars”)

The Mummy (Universal) Collection

Every film featuring the Mummy (not mummies in general)

Follow Dom on Letterboxd

#the mummy #brendan fraser #stephen sommers #action adventure #fantasy adventure #action adventure film #the green knight #david lowery #dominic corry #letterboxd

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high-functioning-lokipath · 4 years ago

Text

Star Trek - Leonard "Bones" McCoy x reader - Southern Charm - Words: 3,556

A/N: While I did write this with TOS in mind, I do believe it is fairly AOS compliant as well. Enjoy!

"Lieutenant Commander Y/N L/N, Chief Medical Officer of the Starship Serenity."

"Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Doctor L/N. I'm Captain James T. Kirk. This is my first officer, Commander Spock and our CMO, Doctor McCoy. We're looking forward to having you as the first trainee in the Starship Exchange Training program."

"Pleasure to meet you all. And I'm looking forward to it as well," You replied, stepping off the transporter pad. You gave the Captain a handshake, the First Officer a Vulcan salute and then turned to the grumpy looking CMO.

"How old are you?" He demanded to know.

"Old enough," You assured him, crossing your arms. "Why do you ask?"

"Just don't see many youngsters like you with that rank," He trailed off, leaving the statement open ended.

"Well, I happen to be an outlier. Or haven't you heard of that, Doctor? Besides, I'm not that young," You replied, curtly. You didn't often become confrontational this quickly but questions on your age and suspicions on how you got your rank were a sore spot for you.

"Just because I have to train you doesn't mean I have to like it," McCoy grumbled.

"I never asked you to." You quickly grabbed your bag that was transported with you and walked to the doors. Just before you stepped out to the hallway, you turned back around. "Captain, Commander, have a good evening. I am looking forward to working with you two over the next few weeks. Don't worry, I know where my quarters are. Doctor, I will see you at 6."

As you unpacked your bag, you thought over what happened in the transporter room. You had really been looking forward to this training and you had heard many great things about the Doctor. Of course, you had also heard he was a bit of a grump, but you hadn't thought it was this bad! You decided to stay in your room for the rest of that evening, as it was already late when you arrived, and try for a fresh start in the morning.

"Are you out of your mind? I'm a doctor, not an assassin!"

"I was simply saying, Doctor McCoy, that Starfleet medical personnel are completely untrained in self defense techniques! We are trained to save lives, not take them. That I completely agree with. But we must also be trained how to defend and disable. Defend ourselves, disable our opponents. Otherwise we may become a hindrance to any away missions we get assigned on!"

"Look, even if you're right, and you're not, when would we have the time to train?" He yelled. "Have you ever been to medical school? Do you know how stressful that is?"

"Of course I went to med school! I happened to graduate top of my class! And I remember very clearly how stressful it is! But they need to make it work! Even another month would be enough for most!"

"Another month?" He screeched. He raked his fingers through his hair and rubbed his forehead. "Look, I have plenty of training to defend myself in the field. Let's just agree to disagree and get this over with."

"Alright, Doctor," You sighed. The first 2 weeks of training slowly passed with the only change in attitude being on your side. You'd gotten to disliking the Doctor as much as he disliked you. Every day you trained was near constant arguing and insulting.

Unbeknownst to you, Kirk had started taking bets from the senior crew members on when in the final week you two would get together. Whoever won would get 3 days vacation. The current bets on Kirk's paper were:

Uhura: As she steps on the transporter to leave Thursday

Scotty: Monday

Chekov: End of shift Tuesday

Sulu: Beginning of shift Wednesday

Spock: At precisely 07:35 in the evening Friday

Kirk looked oddly at Spock when he submitted his estimate. "Spock, you do realize she is scheduled to leave Thursday afternoon."

"Yes, Jim."

"So why-"

"I have my reasons."

"Logical, I'm sure."

"Quite. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm needed in engineering."

"Ok, Spock. But don't get your hopes high about any vacation!"

Monday: Scotty's Day

You got up early and headed down to the rec room to get breakfast. Usually you had breakfast in your room but this morning, oddly enough, Scotty had invited you to join him for breakfast. Once you entered the rec room you mentally groaned. Of course McCoy would be there!

"Good morning, Scotty," You greeted, walking up to his table which was unfortunately right next to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy's table.

"Aye! And an even lovelier morning with you here, lassie!" You blushed slightly, surprised at the engineer's comment.

"Oh please!" You scoffed. You were about to walk away to the replicators to get your food when Spock cleared his throat.

"I believe Mister Scott is correct, Doctor. Your hair and makeup accentuate your natural beauty quite well."

"Spock!" You, Kirk and McCoy gasped at the same time.

"Look here," You finally said, gathering your composure. "I appreciate a compliment here and there but really! I'm going to go get my breakfast and I don't want to hear one more peep out of any of you when I return! Understand?" They all nodded and stuck to their word, not another compliment for the rest of the day.

Tuesday - Chekov's Day

Your shift had gone fairly well. Training with Doctor McCoy was finally becoming almost bearable and there hadn't been any major disasters. "Doctor, was there anything else you needed me for today?" You asked, stepping into the open doorway of his office.

"No, you can go if you'd like," He sighed, not lifting his eyes from his PADD.

"Is something troubling you, Doctor?"

"Just a lot of paperwork, darlin'," He said absently. You blushed brightly and he quickly tried to correct himself. "I mean, Doctor. Sorry." He finally looked at you, face as red as yours. You nodded and attempted to make a hasty exit but you ran into a gold blur.

"Oh! Ezcuze me!" Chekov quickly said, helping you up. "I'm wery sorry! Are you hurt?"

"Only my pride, Pavel," You replied, dusting yourself off.

"What in blazes happened out here?" McCoy yelled, stomping out.

"Oh nothing, Doctor," You assured him.

"Well watch where you're going next time!" He ordered. With that he marched back to his office and closed the doors. You sighed and wished Chekov goodnight before leaving.

"No vacation," Chekov mumbled softly before leaving Medbay too.

Wednesday - Sulu's Day

You walked into Medbay to start your shift only to find Sulu already there. "What are you doing here so early?" You asked. "Your check-up isn't for another 45 minutes."

"I wanted to make sure I got here on time. You know how it is on the bridge sometimes," He chuckled. You nodded and chuckled lightly. You checked the schedule on the PADD and noticed the Ensign before him had cancelled.

"Well, Sulu, you just managed to get an early appointment. Step on up!" You had him sit on the nearest biobed and grabbed your Tricorder. As you started running over the usual check-up points, Dr. McCoy walked in.

"You're here early," He commented. Sulu nodded and you explained what happened. "Alright. Y/N, I'm going to leave you to it. I have a headache this morning and I think I'll just sit in my office for a bit with the lights down." You looked at him a little better, noticing how exhausted he looked. His hair was a mess and there were dark bags under his eyes. He may be a pain but he was still human and you felt for him.

"Did you need me to get you anything, Doctor?" You asked. He shook his head but groaned at the movement. "Just comm me if you need anything." He made a noise of agreement and you went on with Sulu's checkup.

Thursday - Uhura's Day

"Good morning, Y/N," Uhura greeted you in the turbolift on your way to Medbay.

"Good morning, Uhura," You replied abit sadly.

"You alright, sweetheart?"

"I'm going to miss you all. I love my ship and my crew, don't get me wrong, but," You trailed off, unsure of how to explain yourself.

"You don't feel like family there?" She filled in. You nodded slightly. "Oh honey, I understand. Don't feel bad, alright? Who knows! Maybe you'll get a transfer one day even!"

"That would be nice I guess," You admitted. The doors swooshed open and as you stepped out, Dr. McCoy walked by.

"Doctor L/N," He said, sounding somewhat frustrated. "I need you to gather all the anti-toxin hypos we have."

"Of course. Is everything alright?"

"Spock just told me we're going on a mission tomorrow. He should have told me at least 2 days ago. The new colony on Oliza 6 sent out a distress call about 1 week ago saying that something was wrong. They said some of the younger people were having strange reactions to some of the foods."

"That's odd. Isn't the food on a planet usually tested first?"

"Yes but apparently they forgot to test on the younger adults. Blasted regulations. Test one adult you've tested them all." At this point you had nodded a silent goodbye to Uhura and started walking with Doctor McCoy down the hall. "Let's see if we can't find out what's on that planet and run some tests of our own. Might save some time."

"Doctor?" You said, somewhat hesitantly.

"Yes?"

"I do have to go back to my ship this afternoon. I," you paused. McCoy had finally started to be nice with you and now you had to go. You didn't want to upset him again on your last day. "I'll help as much as I can on the tests of course, Doctor, but I-"

"No, no," He said with a sigh. "I didn't realize it was Thursday." He smiled slightly and put his hand on your shoulder. "If you tell anyone what I'm about to say, I'll have to kill you," He joked. "Your work has been excellent. Your skill set is beyond your years and please don't take that wrong. You've impressed me." You blushed at his praise. "Of course, I still don't agree with the extra combat training," He added. You rolled your eyes and he chuckled. "But I guess you're not so bad."

"Well thank you, Doctor. I, uh, I guess I'll get the hypos for you now."

"Oh, um, yes, thank you," he replied somewhat awkwardly. The rest of your shift went about the same. You and the Doctor awkwardly dancing around each other. Eventually, though, the time came for you to finish packing, and leave the Enterprise.

As you headed to the transporter room, Uhura came running up to you with a small package in her hands. "What's this?" You asked.

"Oh, just a little going away present that a few of us put together for you."

"That's really sweet of you. Thanks so-"

"Bridge to Lt. Uhura," The Captain's voice rang through her comm.

"Duty calls!" She exclaimed. "Keep in touch!"

"Will do!" You replied, heading off to the transporters. Once you got there though, you saw Scotty talking to the Captain through the comm. He seemed upset about something.

"But Captain! I-"

"Scotty, we need to help that colony. There's no time."

"Aye, Captain. Scott out," He sighed. "I cannae believe 'at."

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, lassie. I'm so sorry! The Captain just got an emergency message from Oliza 6. We're heading there straight away."

"So I'll be staying another night?"

"At least." Your brows furrowed in thought. While you did want to get back to your ship to start your transfer application, a few more days here was not all that bad.

"Ok," You replied. Scotty seemed surprised. "I'll just take this back to my room and then head to Medbay. They'll probably need me handy."

"Aye. I'll let the Captain and Doctor know." You nodded in reply and headed off. When you returned to Medbay, you could have sworn you saw a look of relief on McCoy's face.

"Doctor L/N," McCoy said. "I'm putting you in charge of Medbay for the time being." Your eyebrows raised in surprise. "Jim's put me on the landing party and you technically are the next ranking medical officer on this ship."

"Well, thank you, I guess," You said. "Have you made any progress on the tests?"

"I believe so," He pulled up some test results on his PADD and showed them to you. "The hobgoblin ended up helping me but he was actually of some use." He looked around furtively. "Don't tell him I said so though."

"I promise," you said seriously. You stared at each other for a moment before you both broke out into a fit of laughter.

"Really though, the fruits on Oliza 6 seem to be causing a buildup of adrenaline in their systems causing aggression, anxiety and heart problems."

"Hm, interesting."

"That's what the hobgoblin said," McCoy grunted. You chuckled and he finished explaining their plan to administer hypos to everyone. The comm suddenly whistled.

"Bridge to Dr. McCoy," Uhura said.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" He replied.

"The Captain is preparing to beam down now and would like you to meet him in the transporter room."

"Alright, I'm on my way." You followed the Doctor as he gathered a few last minute items from his office. When he grabbed his phaser from his desk you couldn't help yourself.

"Doctor, that phaser is last year's model. Didn't you get your new one?"

"Oh, must not've. I'll ask Scotty for one." He grabbed his communicator and flipped it open. "McCoy to Scott."

"Scott here. Whaddya need, Doctor?"

"L/N said my phaser is old. Got a new one for me?"

"Sure do, Doc. I'll have her all polished up for ya when ya get to the transporters. Just remember, this one's a wee bit more powerful than the last. She's got a bit of a kick!"

"Don't worry, Scotty, I'm sure I can handle it. McCoy out." You looked worriedly at him because, knowing his views on defense training and based on what he said, this new phaser would throw him for a loop.

"Doctor, perhaps you should just stay with your old pha-"

"Doctor L/N," He said stiffly. "I do not want to hear anything more about training. I am perfectly capable of defending myself. Please do not worry yourself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a mission to attend to. Do you think you'll be able to handle Medbay while I'm gone?"

"Of course, Doctor McCoy," You snapped. You heard the Medbay doors swoosh closed and sighed, leaning on he's desk in his office. You closed the office doors and locked them, needing a moment to gather yourself. "Gah! That man is so annoying!" You yelled to yourself. "If he doesn't get himself killed on this mission-" you left your threat unfinished. "Oh! I could just kiss him," You seethed. "I mean, kick." You paused, mid-pace, and shook your head vigorously. Your brain had apparently taken a left turn without telling you. "Did I seriously just-and now I'm talking to myself. Ok, Y/N, get yourself together. You'll figure it out later." You finished your little pep talk and headed back out.

The first few hours were fine. One or two clumsy engineers with a few cuts and bruises. A sniffle here and a headache there. It was actually somewhat relaxing. You decided to be a little helpful and got some paperwork done for Dr. McCoy. As you sat in his office tapping away on your PADD, you found yourself lost in thought. You hoped he wouldn't be upset that you did some extra work for him. "That's not what I asked you to do, Doctor!" You mocked under your breath. Chuckling slightly you continued your quiet monologue, "Oh wouldn't he be upset if I ran a report on him. He definitely is overworked. He'd come in here, yelling and screaming in that adorable southern accent of his, and he would proba-" You interrupted yourself again. Staring off for a second, realizing what you just said. "Adorable? Good grief. I'm either unconscious or demented."

The rest of the shift went fairly well and you heard that the landing party was making good progress too. Finally you turned everything over to the night shift doctor and went to your quarters to get some rest before your shift began again in the morning. Your sleep that night was restless, though, and when your alarm went off you didn't think you had slept a wink.

Friday - Spock's Day

"Good morning, Doctor L/N," one of the nurses greeted you as you walked into Medbay.

"Good morning," You replied tiredly. "Anything on the schedule?" You asked as you got a cup of coffee from the replicator.

"No. Just a couple of vaccines that the nurses can take care of."

"Good. I'll be in the office if you need me then."

"Are you alright, Doctor?"

"Fine. Just couldn't sleep last night."

"Oh, I understand. I'm worried about Dr. McCoy too. As I understand, the reaction the youths are having is fairly viol-"

"I am not worried about the good doctor!" You yelled, angrily. "Just in case you didn't notice, he's not exactly my type. And even if he was, that is no concern of yours, nurse!"

"Permission to speak freely, Doctor?" She asked with a slight smirk.

"Of course," You replied, rubbing your forehead. "I'm not the dang Captain." She giggled lightly before replying.

"That's exactly what McCoy would say. No go get some rest. We'll hold down the fort, Doctor." With that she walked off to get a few things prepped for the day. As you walked into the office and sat down, you thought about her observation.

"Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit."

A few hours later, after a short nap and another cup of coffee, you were reorganizing the supply room when Scotty called through on the comm. "Doctor L/N! We're gonna need a team down here immediately! The captain and Dr. McCoy were injured and we're beaming them aboard right now!"

"Ok, Scotty, we'll be right there, how serious is it?" You replied. Chills had run up your spine when he said Dr. McCoy had been injured but you kept yourself focused.

"The Captain's not too bad. I think he said a broken arm. Doctor McCoy though. He's in pretty rough shape."

"Alright. L/N out," You signed off. You started to grab emergency supplies and sent the emergency team down to the transporter room. Just like Scotty said, McCoy was in critical condition by the time you saw him. He was completely unconscious, had multiple broken ribs, a broken right arm, a fractured left leg, and a concussion. After about 3 hours in surgery, he was finally patched up. You looked at the chronometer and saw it was about 3 in the afternoon. Deciding that you needed to talk to him as soon as he woke, you opted to sit guard on a chair next to his bed.

"Doctor L/N?" A nurse called out. You opened your eyes with a start. Looking at the chronometer again you realized another 4 hours had passed.

"Has he woken up?" The nurse nodded. "Well why didn't you wake me?" You whisper yelled, not wanting to wake him now.

"For the same reason you're whispering now. He didn't want to wake you." You shook your head and looked back at him sleeping on the biobed. "His vitals are good and he will likely make a full recovery in about a week."

"Oh no! This doctor is getting a prescription for some real R&R for at least a month. He's been far too overworked." You immediately grabbed the PADD with his chart information and put him on medical leave for a month. The nurse smiled at you and shook her head.

"You know, you're technically off duty now. You can head back to your quarters."

"I think I'll stay here a bit longer," You said slowly, a blush rising to your cheeks.

"I thought so," She nodded. You settled back down in the chair and got a bit more paperwork done on your PADD. Looking at the chronometer again you saw it just turned to 7:33pm. You heard a groan from the bed and saw the Doctor waking up.

"Well hello there, darlin'," He smirked.

"Hello, Dr. McCoy," You smiled.

"Oh for Pete's sake, would you please just call me Leonard!"

"I'll consider it," You grinned. You stared at him for a moment, realizing again just how scared you had been.

"You alright, Y/N?"

"I was just so scared, Leonard," You admitted. "I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to tell you-" you stopped mid-sentence, nervous to continue.

"Tell me what?" You decided to chance it so you bent over and gave him a quick kiss. Standing up quickly, you looked away embarrassed. "Well, I'm not sure I understood. Can I hear that again?" He smirked. You smiled and leaned forward again for another kiss. You vaguely heard the doors open but neither you nor Leonard paid attention.

"So, any plans for your 3 days vacation, Spock?"

#star trek #bones x reader #leonard mccoy #leonard mccoy x reader #star trek tos #star trek aos

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irrfahrer · 2 years ago

Note

"Safe? When is anyone ever truly safe, Ziv? At least humor me..with that-"

Not in the slightest impressed Ziv looked past the edge of the datapad she had been reading over to Exar Kun and rose a furred eyebrow so far up it alost reached up all the way to the end of her forhead. The Murakami Orchid, that had curled their longest root around her neck and hung lazily as if they were a tiered child with their flowerhead resting on her chest like a scarf, moved up a little to follow where Ziv was looking only to think back against her chest and sink in the collar of her tunic, hiding.

Around them the starship was drowned in the blue lights of hyperspace and like the shadows of an ocean the tourquise reflections danced over the grey walls. The Tynnan had with her back against one armrest and he rknees hanging over the other armrest,sat down on the Co-Pilot-Seat and had turned it around so she did not needed to look outside the scuttles into Hyperspace-enhancing her own senses with the Force had its downsides as For one Ziv very easy got spacesick, as in- her senses were so keen that she automatically notice that the enviorment of a staship or a starport were artificial and, even worse, that she could not leave this palce whenever she wished to. This little fact that most people had no problems ignoring made her claustrophobic the second sh left the hard ground of a planets surface and while she knew how to keep her uncomfortableness from turning into panic, she did not wanted to challenge a situation in which she could become panicky.

With a quiet sigh she looked back at her Datapad, ears laying flat against her head: "Ah yes, go on, oh great Sithlord Exar Kun who is on the verge of death and very kriffing far away from his goal to be immortal, please continue sharing your edge-lord-nihilism with me: the Galaxy is a kriffing cruel place and whatever I am doing there is nothing I can change about that and having hope is just the stance of a kriffing fool because everything is without meaning anyway. In fact at the moment we are not even safe because we ar in the middle of a kriffing icecold vacuum on a starship that only needs one burned through wire for the life-supporting-systems to fail which would mean for us to freeze to death or suffocate in the kriffing nothingness that is space and the onyl thing protetcing us right now from that kriffing cruel fate are only a few inches of old Durasteel."

"You know, thinking about it,beside the fact that I am in a kriffing durasteel coffin that makes my claustrophobia knock on my brain to be aknowledged and when your mind decides to give in to the virus you beeing able to at anytime turn me into a snack , I feel suprisingly safe.", She blinked, looking up with her fluffy ears suddenly jolted up as if she was an alerted animal before adding with a wide grin that showed her teeth in all their carnivorous glory: "Huh, I am kriffing awesome like that, in-kriffing-deed."

[ @sithisms ]

#lol #sithisms

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littlemisspascal · 3 years ago

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The Last Mandalorian

Chapter One: The Warrior in Carbonite Part 3

Fandom: The Mandalorian / Pedro Pascal

Eventual Pairing: Din x Togruta!Female!Reader

Word Count: 4,320

Rating: G

Summary: A series that is a mixture of Mandalorian, Star Wars, ATLA, and my own imagination. The Imps have seized control of the majority of the galaxy, including your homeworld Shili. You and your sister Ahsoka have developed a daily routine despite the stormtroopers keeping your village imprisoned. One morning you make a startling discovery that will change the course of your lives forever.

Warnings: I don’t know much about starship mechanics so probably nothing in this is accurate but it’s fanfiction people so cut me some slack please, reader gets a nickname 🥳, plot plot plot, discussion of loss of loved ones, worldbuilding, dialogue heavy, this is a slow burn but it’s also ridiculously self-indulgent so I’m including as many cute getting-to-know-you scenes as I can, reader is 17 and Din is 19 so I’m going to warn this as underage even though nothing sexual or even vaguely romantic happens in this chapter.

Author Note: Thank you anyone and everyone who has read even a sentence of this story! Special thanks and love to @dindja for creating this stunning, fantastic, amazing piece of fanart for me 💖💖💖 I still can’t believe how perfect it is. I mean, I’m such a sucker for pinky promises it’s not even funny and this is just beautiful 😍😍😍

Part 2

Cross-posted on AO3

For as grand and wide-reaching as the Galactic Empire has become in its ten years of existence, it had relatively small beginnings. A group of radical Force-wielders banded together under the leadership of an old, beady-eyed man named Sheev Palpatine who believed it was his divine destiny to seize control of the entire galaxy, rewriting the ancient laws to match his own beliefs. His cult, the Sith Order, gained attention by attacking Jedi temples, capital cities, places with large populations until every corner of the galaxy had heard of them. Most regarded them with fear, but over time they began garnering a startling amount of followers who were discontent with the status quo and willingly drafted themselves as soldiers in Palpatine’s fight for control.

At first everyone in your village thought Palpatine and his cult of followers weren’t worth worrying about—after all, Shili was a peaceful planet that never drew much attention to itself. But within the first year of its inception, the Sith Order captured Ryloth and the similar peaceful characteristics between the Twi’lek planet and Shili were too glaring to overlook. A seed of anxiety took root in every Togruta’s mind after that, and continued to grow with every planet seized as the years progressed.

The Decimation of Alderaan didn’t start as a tragedy, believe it or not. The Mandalorians, Jedi, and Alderaanians combined their numbers in an all-out fight against the Sith Order. It was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the galaxy, thousands of souls willing to die to defeat Palpatine’s followers. For the first three days of warfare, the fight seemed to be in favor of the allies with many noteworthy Sith members reportedly killed in the fray, such as Palpatine’s second-in-command Dooku and lethal Zabrak assassin Maul. You remember there was a sense of hope felt within your village as everyone listened to the news reports blaring across the Holonet. A belief that things were finally, finally going to return to normal after so much chaos.

But on the fourth day, the Sith Order brought their own ally onto the battlefield.

At the time there wasn’t a name for the droids that slaughtered every opponent they faced. They were described as indestructible, unharmed by blasters and the intense heat of Mandalorian flamethrowers. Not even lightsabers could damage them. The allies didn’t stand a chance, brutally murdered one by one, their dying screams echoing across the Holonet, forever haunting listeners far and wide.

The Dark Troopers were unleashed upon Mandalore afterwards and out of the ashes rose the Galactic Empire, except, in a twist nobody—not even the Sith Order—saw coming: Palpatine died before taking on the title of emperor, passing away in his sleep. A mediocre ending for the monster who permanently altered the foundations of the universe. One of his loyal followers from the cult’s early beginnings took control in his place, a vile man with a penchant for spilling blood and a deceptively bland name: Gideon.

Only seven years-old then, you didn’t understand the unbalance in the Force your aunt kept referencing. You didn’t understand the meaning of the word genocide either. But you did understand the galaxy would never be the same ever again, and the lesson was only further established as truth when the Imperials seized your village.

There is no normalcy to return to anymore.

And as long as Emperor Gideon remains in control, there is no future to hope for either.

Silence reigns in the aftermath of Maar’s explanation as the long list of tragedies hangs heavy over the four occupants. There is tension in the air as you await the Mandalorian’s response to the extinction of his people, whether that be an outburst of anger or tears, and each passing minute only intensifies the nervous energy thrumming through your veins. Your leg starts to bounce restlessly, a bad habit you have had since childhood.

The Mandalorian stands eerily motionless. Your eyes keep flicking from your lap to his visor though you know it is rude to stare. His helmet hides his expression, but you don’t need to see it to know he is floundering right now, mind scrambling to piece together all the details thrown at him. From personal experience, you know the loss of a loved one hits like a tidal wave, hitting you over and over again until you must decide if you are going to stand up or surrender to drowning. Grieving the loss of your parents is the hardest experience of your lifetime to date.

But this...this is vastly different. The Mandalorian didn’t just lose his loved ones. He has lost his friends, neighbors, comrades, acquaintances, everyone all at once. This loss isn’t a tidal wave. It is a kriffing avalanche, burying him ten feet under in total darkness, and there is no one he can count on to save him.

Finally, after the longest five minutes of your life, he shifts, resting his hands upon his belt with an unexpected air of seriousness. “I need to go.”

You frown, head tilting. That is his reaction?

“Go?” Ahsoka echoes, sounding as incredulous as you feel. “Go where?”

“To look for survivors,” he answers, blunt and harsh, the words forced through clenched teeth.

Ahsoka is struck silent, and you feel your heart break on his behalf. Your mother’s stories about the Mandalorians had always included, one way or another, their lifelong bonds with each other. You had felt those ties when you had connected with the Mandalorian, believed for a moment as strongly as he did that his fellow warriors would come search for him, that his absence would be noticed and missed amongst them. And here he is now, still desperately clutching to them, unable—or, perhaps unwilling is more apt—to believe a stranger telling him those bonds have been cruelly severed.

“What you need is to rest,” Maar says, gentle yet firm, letting her authority as the eldest in the room seep into her tone.

He shakes his head, not backing down. “I’ve been asleep for ten years. I don’t need any more rest.”

“Your ship, it, uh,” your shoulders hike up defensively when his visor snaps in your direction, pinning you with its blank stare. Clearing your throat, you continue with a slight grimace, “It’s going to need some repairs before it can take off. I can help you fix it.”

Ahsoka looks over at you in surprise, and then in worry. You don’t blame her, especially since the offer had slipped out without you consciously meaning it to. Once again, the Force is calling the shots and you are just along for the ride, a passenger in your own body.

He considers you for a long moment, then asks, “What do you know about the mechanics of a gunship?”

If anyone else had asked you that same exact question, you would have bristled at their condescension and retracted your offer in the next breath. But with the Mandalorian, there isn’t even the slightest hint of patronizing courtesy. It is a serious question prompted from genuine curiosity.

You sit up straighter, smiling at him now. “Enough to confidently say I’m your best shot at getting off the ground.”

“What’s your plan, exactly?” Ahsoka asks you, braced against the wall with one eye on you and one on the Mandalorian across the garage, patiently waiting for you to finish assembling your tool kit.

“Huh?” You reply distractedly, trying to decide if you should bring your carbon chisel or not.

“You don’t have one, do you?”

Not. There are bigger concerns than a bit of carbon scoring. You move to grab your favorite screwdriver with a tapered socket, only for Ahsoka to snatch it away, holding the tool hostage.

“Hey!”

“Have you thought about what you’re doing?” Ahsoka asks slowly, staring you directly in the eyes. “Once you fix his ship, he’s gone. And he’s taking our best chance at escaping Shili with him.”

A quick glance over your shoulder shows the Mandalorian studying the scattered BB unit parts on your workbench. You are missing a few vital components needed in order to bring the little droid back to life after a stormtrooper shot a plasma bolt through it for accidentally bumping into his leg, and haven’t had any luck convincing the village traders to track them down for you when they went to the capital.

“We can’t keep him here against his will,” you manage at last, turning back to your sister. “Otherwise we’re no better than the Imps.”

When Ahsoka doesn’t say anything, you shrug a shoulder, adding, “Besides, I think I’m supposed to fix it for him. The Force seems pretty insistent about it.”

She makes a face at that. “I liked you better when you ignored your Force instincts. You didn’t make me worry as much.”

A laugh escapes you, embarrassingly loud in the otherwise quiet space, and your cheeks immediately start burning. Ahsoka’s lip twitches like she wants to smile, but instead she schools her features into a blank expression when the Mandalorian’s head turns at the sound. Only once he diverts his attention elsewhere again does her stare lose some of its intensity, looking less like she wants to dissect him beneath a microscope. You can practically see her protective-older-sister-instincts buzzing, reacting to the warrior’s presence.

As much as he is a chance at providing an escape, he is also first and foremost a complete and total stranger. Even worse, he is a complete and total stranger who knows how to handle weapons.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” You squeeze her arm reassuringly. “Shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours. You’ll be so busy smoothing the Elders’ ruffled feathers you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

Ahsoka finally relinquishes the tool, exhaling a quiet sigh. “You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.”

Walking side by side with the Mandalorian in silence isn’t awkward, per se, but it definitely isn’t comfortable either. He is close enough your arm keeps accidentally grazing against his, the cold brush of metal against your skin startling you each time. You would have considered his nearness strange if you hadn’t heard Ahsoka threaten to castrate him if you wound up hurt before she sent him flying at the juni tree branch outside your window with an unnecessarily strong push of Force.

To his credit, the warrior handled her rough treatment with the same ease he has handled everything else thrown at him. You are beginning to think Mandalorians don’t just wear beskar—they are made of it too. Other than the few glimpses of frustration earlier in Maar’s office, he keeps his cards close to his chest, impossible to read.

He watches everything though, reacting to the slightest of movements and sounds. Constantly alert. You are certain he is watching you right now, despite the fact his helmet is facing forward, your nerves prickling in response to the sensation of eyes upon you.

To your surprise, he is the one to break the silence first. “You sneak out often.”

It is a statement, not a question.

You suppose the dots are easy enough to connect to reach that conclusion. Still, the certainty in his voice has your heart skipping a nervous beat. He hasn’t even known you a day and yet he is privy to secrets no one outside your community is aware of. “Yeah,” you nod your head after a brief lapse of silence, “Ahsoka can’t train in the village. Not with the stormtroopers around.”

“Has your village tried to run them out? Fight back?”

It is only because you know he is just trying to understand your village’s predicament with the little bits of information he has that you don’t snap at him for being so insensitive. He has no idea what these past five years have been like for you all. No idea the amount of losses and sacrifices the community has suffered.

Your grip on your tool kit tightens. “I was twelve when they came. The community is mostly traders and hunters, not trained fighters. The few weapons we had were nothing compared to their blaster rifles, but some of the adults tried to defend the village, including our parents. They...” You swallow, or try to, at least, your throat suddenly dry as sand. “Our aunt looked after us until last year we woke up one morning to find a note she’d left to join the rebellion. We haven’t had any contact with her since.”

The Mandalorian’s gloved hand brushes against your knuckles. This time you think it might have been on purpose.

“I lost my parents as a child, too. There was a riot and they died protecting me,” he offers his own private details with the same reluctance as one volunteering to have their teeth pulled out. “The Mandalorians took me in, raised me as one of their own.”

You say nothing about the way his breath slightly hitches when he says Mandalorians, appreciating his openness as it puts you both on somewhat equal footing with each other.

“I owe it to them to look for survivors,” he tells you, and your montrals detect the quietest hint of a plea in his voice.

“I understand,” you answer, keeping your tone light to preserve the fragility of this moment. This kind of situation doesn’t happen often—two strangers on the same wavelength, exposing their vulnerable underbellies, desperate to be heard and yet skittish at the same time—and it is oddly therapeutic.

A decision is made right then and there in the span of a heartbeat. And even more significantly, it is 100% your own choice without any intervention or manipulation from the Force.

You stop walking, causing the Mandalorian to halt as well. He scans the area for a threat, then visibly jerks when he turns back to find you have your hand held out towards him, pinky raised high, reacting as if you are pointing a weapon at him.

“I don’t understand,” he says, blunt and almost suspicious sounding. Are you just imagining it or can you actually hear him frowning? “What are you doing?”

“Haven’t you ever made a pinky promise with someone before?”

“...A what?”

You snort, ducking your head to hide your smile, and then reach for his hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t protest your touch.

“A pinky promise,” you repeat as you make his hand form a fist, curling his fingers towards his palm, and then adjust his pinky so you can wrap yours around it. He watches the whole process wordlessly. “It’s a sacred vow shared between two people. The Elders say once it’s sworn, the promise can never be broken.”

He cocks his head, skeptical. “Never?”

“Never,” you reaffirm with a nod. Licking your lips, you look at his visor, right where you instinctively know his eyes are staring back. “I promise I’m going to help you. No matter the odds.”

And something leaks into your voice then, something resolute and binding and otherworldly. A tremor shoots down your spine, too quick for you to make sense of it.

Your sister’s words echo in the back of your mind, ‘You shouldn’t make promises you don’t know for certain you can keep.’

You try to pull away, self-doubt gnawing a hole in your stomach, only for the Mandalorian to wrap his pinky tighter around yours, holding you still. A gasp escapes your lips, muffled by the bleeding sincerity in his voice as he swears:

“I promise I will be there when you need me. No matter the odds.”

And although your sister could undoubtedly provide you with a long list of reasons why you shouldn’t, you believe his promise to be true.

The Mandalorian heaves a heavy sigh at the sight of his crashed ship.

“I can’t do much about the landing gear,” you inform him, believing honesty to be the best policy for cases like this. “And I brought some foam-jet for the cockpit viewport, but it’s not a permanent fix. You’re going to have to find someone offworld to replace them.”

“Right,” he agrees absently without turning his eyes away. It occurs to you then that this ship is the closest thing to a home he has now. One of the few precious relics from his past he can still physically cling to.

“Does your ship have a name?” you ask.

He looks at you, as if coming back to self-awareness, and answers, “Razor Crest.”

A good name, you think. Strong. A bit mysterious. Just like its owner.

You nod decisively. “I like it.”

His modulator crackles faintly, a quiet noise produced from a sudden exhale of air. You blink at the unexpected sound, surprised to realize you recognize it. A laugh. The Mandalorian just laughed at something you said. What is next in store for you? Are akul going to sprout wings and start flying?

He steps around you, heading for the side entry door still open from yesterday with its ramp laying on the ground, pebbles shifting noisily beneath his boots with each step. You don’t realize you are staring, oddly entranced by the swish of his cape and his purposeful strides, until he calls out your name to ask if you are coming.

You nearly drop your tool kit in your haste to follow after him into the Crest’s interior, ignoring the flaring heat radiating from your cheeks.

For the next few hours, you and the Mandalorian work in companionable silence, engrossed in rerouting wires and welding damaged components with your trusty hand torch. The gunship is older than you initially assumed, perhaps even as old as yourself, and you idly wonder if the Mandalorian found it in a scrapyard somewhere or maybe inherited it from another Mandalorian. You notice the way he handles each piece with an experienced and respectful touch; the same kind of care someone reserves for their most cherished possessions. Anyone with eyes can see how much he loves the Crest just by watching him.

Once you have finished sealing the numerous cracks dissecting the cockpit’s viewport like a spiderweb with foam, you approach the Mandalorian to see his progress on returning power to the dashboard. He is on his back beneath the steering controls, rearranging a mess of wires, and barely acknowledges your presence when you squeeze yourself into the tight space next to him.

“The red wire goes before the white one,” you point out, noticing the mistake immediately. “Fire hazard.”

He pauses, looks at where you have gestured, and corrects his error without criticizing your intervention. You bite back a smile, pleased to be heard. Within your community, even though you have proven your skills time and time again, some of the villagers, usually men, don’t always adhere to your advice, thinking you are too young and too female to know about technology, until they inevitably make their problems worse for themselves and come back to you with their metaphorical tail between their legs.

You help him reattach the cover plating once he has finished, screwing the bolts back into their corners, and then watch, fingers crossed, as he attempts the ignition sequence, flipping a series of switches.

None of them light up with even the faintest flicker of life.

“Dank farrik,” he growls under his breath, slamming a fist upon the console.

You take a tiny step forward, hesitant to direct his frustration your way. “Can I try?”

He tilts his head, probably thinking he knows this ship better than anyone and if it doesn’t work for him then you aren’t going to have any luck either.

Eventually he steps back with a shrug, uttering a simple, “Sure.”

Although you can’t remember the last time you were on a ship, it doesn’t take long to refamiliarize yourself with the various controls and screens once you take a seat in the pilot chair. When your hobby for fixing broken machines changed into a passion you wanted to pursue as a future career, you started memorizing any reading material you could find on the Holonet, including the flight manuals for different classes of starships. You flip through the stored information in your mind about gunships as you press a few buttons on the panel overhead, trying out different sequences for a response.

When your third attempt fails, you bite your lip, racking your brain for a solution. You think about Huno’s kitchen droid and how you had been on the verge of ripping off one of your head-tails trying to repair it after one of its fuses blew, causing it to malfunction. Your tools and knowledge hadn’t been able to fix it in the end. It had required a special remedy to bring it back to life.

You lay your palms flat on the console, just as you had held onto the droid’s square torso. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice the Mandalorian fidget, as if he wants to come closer but is hesitant to crowd you. You ignore him, pressing your fingertips harder against the metal, visualizing in your mind the unseen gears, cables, and components stiff and powerless. You imagine the parts working properly, a current of electricity running through each wire, life ultimately returning to the entire ship, and whisper under your breath a request to the Force.

“Please work, please work, please work…”

An invisible pulse of energy burns down the length of your arms and discharges through your fingertips, strong enough you jerk backwards against the seat. Every button and screen on the dashboard lights up all at once, beeping with alarm at being so rudely resurrected.

You sit there helplessly, stunned and breathless, hands twitching in your lap. The kitchen droid hadn’t required even half as much energy to restart, barely a pinch. Now your body feels like you have been thrown against the electric fence a dozen times. Wordlessly, the Mandalorian comes to your side to help, punching buttons and turning knobs until the alarms quit blaring. A distant part of your brain thinks the Razor Crest as a whole seems strangely soothed by his presence, not quite as cold and dark, but it is hard to follow that train of thought due to the distracting pain throbbing along your temples.

“That’s quite a spark you’ve got,” he says, not unkindly or accusingly, just a statement of the obvious. He looks down at you, not outright asking for an explanation, but giving you the opportunity to open up if you wanted to.

“Yep, that’s me,” you reply, forcing a cheerful smile, praying it doesn’t resemble a grimace. “Sparks Tano at your service.”

He chuckles again, oblivious to how your heart stutters at its raspiness. “Thank you, Sparks. I appreciate it.”

“Well, we’re not done yet.” You rub at your temples under the guise of adjusting your headband. “I need to take a closer look at the engines before we attempt flying out of here. I—”

“I’ll do it,” he cuts in, already heading for the ladder. “You stay here, see if you can update the navicomputer settings.”

You know he knows that updating the navicomputer is child’s play for you. Clearly you aren’t as great at concealing your pain as you thought you were and this is his way of giving you a break. A small part of you is irritated at being treated like a porcelain doll, but you push those negative feelings aside as quickly as they develop. Your aunt always used to remind you and Ahsoka it was okay to accept help when it was offered, that needing support didn’t in any way make you weak.

“Hey, wait a second,” you call out as you spin around in your seat, freezing him right before he disappears from view into the hull. He holds onto the ladder, waiting patiently for you to continue.

“Back at Maar’s place you didn’t introduce yourself and it’s weird just calling you Mandalorian in my head,” you say, awkwardly drumming your fingers on top of the armrests. He doesn’t answer, eliciting a sigh from your mouth after a drawn-out beat of silence. “What’s your name? You do have one, right?”

“I do, but I can’t tell you it,” he admits at last. “By Mandalorian Creed, only other Mandalorians or my riduur—my spouse,” he corrects, seeing your confusion, “are allowed to know my name and see my face. This is the Way.”

He doesn’t linger to hear your response, dropping down into the hull with a resounding thud. You slowly turn back around, staring absently out the glass. Every culture is unique, including your own, but you think there is something especially interesting about the Mandalorians’. It sounds like a lonely existence, only able to show your face while in select company. What would have happened if he had been unconscious and you had slipped the helmet off his head? What consequence would he have faced?

And if there truly aren’t any Mandalorians left besides him, his spouse will be the only one to ever know him completely. It almost sounds like a love story, if not a little bit heart-wrenching.

Two high-pitched dings from the console jerk you out of your thoughts with a wince. You look for the source, finding the radar lit up and actively scanning the area, and bristle when you see a pair of red dots moving across the screen.

Not even a minute later you are sprinting out of the cave, ignoring the Mandalorian’s alarmed shout from the roof of the Razor Crest. They’re early, you think with panic, looking towards the sky where two starships with Imperial logos are heading straight for your village. Why have they come back so soon?

You push your legs to run faster, your surroundings a blur beyond the trail in front of you, but the effort is meaningless. You won’t make it back home before they land.

And when your absence is noted, bloodshed is not a possibility.

It is a guarantee.

Series taglist: @pedro4ever @cannedsoupsucks

Din Djarin Taglist: @a-skov @pedrosbisch @quica-quica-quica @stevie75 @iamskyereads @banga-sama @dincrypt @ohlawdthebirds

Permanent taglist: @promiscuoussatan @vintagesaph @over300books @chibi-yuki @theocatkov @oh-no-a-whovian @absurdthirst @freeshavocadoooo @you-and-i-deserve-the-world @lin-djarin @happiestsparkleofall @randomness501 @gallowsjoker @coaaster @captain-jebi @leilei-draws @disgruntledspacedad @melobee @stilllivindue2spite @pointy-sharp @artsymaddie @waywardmando @asta-lily @thisshipwillsail316 @mylifeofcalculatedchaos @grogusmum @sherala007 @mejswho @uncle-kenobi @rogertaylorsfalsettogivesmehives @tacticalsparkles @mandocrasis @littlebopper96 @you-got-me-starry-eyed @kiss-evans @writeforfandoms @pbeatriz @anaaaispunk

#my fic #my writing #Mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian fanfic #Din Djarin #din x you #din x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #togruta reader #ahsoka tano #the last mandalorian #pedrostories #art

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sttngfashion · 4 years ago

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5.26 and 6.1 - Time’s Arrow

Oh my god. Y’all. It’s a new Fashion It So post. In the year of our Picard 2020. Yes.

For literal years, Charlie and I have been like UGH WE NEED TO DO TIME’S ARROW PARTS 1 AND 2 BUT IT’S JUST SUCH A MONSTER.

Well, I’m doing a complete rewatch of the series with my partner and we just got to these two, so IT IS TIME.

We open in a cave in San Francisco, where Data and Picard are checking something out:

Rent for the cave is $6,000 per month

Showing them around is this guy in a Science Outfit:

He’s ready to go night biking

We’ve seen this look before in both Silicon Avatar and Devil’s Due, and it’s functional, yet cute. Basically a windbreaker in jumpsuit form.

They find a couple of items in the cave, including a pocket watch from 1889 and also:

I left my head in San Francisco

IT’S DATA’S HEAD!!! And it’s been there for FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. What could have caused this? And why is Data’s head so absolutely terrifying?

Is that fondant

This head is, in a word, haunting. The 2020 of heads.

Data and Geordi chat in Ten-Forward about what the presence of Data’s head in the cave means. Data says it means he’s mortal; that someday he will die, and that’s comforting. Spoiler alert: that’s not what it means. But it’s a nice conversation.

Also, Guinan is here!!!

Merlot My God!!

Or maybe: Burgundy-lightful!! Or perhaps: De-Crimson-alize Sex Work!! Okay that last one was a stretch but I really think I missed my calling as a nail polish shade namer.

Anyway, she’s here in her classic look of a pizza-sized hat and a flowing gown/coat/top/robe. The collar here is a little too close to a mock turtleneck for my liking and honestly - this is a little staid for our friend Guinan. I want a TEXTURE or a SWEEP or some WIDE RIBBING or some PLEATS. Don’t worry, though...she will get plenty more later.

Then there’s some plot which frankly we DO NOT HAVE TIME to get into but let’s just say: the away team goes to a planet, there’s a temporal disturbance, and Data ends up here:

Huge mood

Where are we? Or should I say WHEN are we??

Well that old-timey font is a good clue...also the horse

Are we in the Old West land of an off-brand Disneyworld? Are we going to ride something called Large Lightning Mesa Train Tracks? What colorful characters will we meet here?

Winner of 1893’s Mustache Medal

This type of ‘stache is called a Fu Manchu, after the character Dr. Fu Manchu. It’s not...a great look? But it is memorable, which is sometimes enough. He’s also wearing a simple black cap, probably made of silk. He’s keeping it cazh.

So where are we?

SAN FRANCISCO, OPEN YOUR GOLDEN GATE / YOU’LL LET NOBODY WAIT / OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR

Yes, it’s San Francisco. And it’s *eyes popping out of head like a cartoon wolf seeing a busty babe* 1893!!!! That temporal disturbance was...disturbing.

So who else do we have hanging out?

Please check out our Vaudeville act, Knit Cap ‘n’ Bowly

These dudes understand those famous Bay Area MICROCLIMATES, amirite? We’ve got a Henley. We’ve got a buttondown. We’ve got a vest. We’ve got a coat. No matter which way the thermometer decides to go, THEY ARE READY. Also loving the pop of forest green on Knit Cap’s knit cap.

We also have a 49er:

No, it’s not Steve Young. I googled “famous 49ers” to complete this joke so if there is a more famous 49er please let me know

It’s a literal 49er. Since it’s 1893, this guy’s been hanging around in town for a while, and he’s also familiar with the layering techniques one must master if one is to conquer the Bay Area’s climate. He also has a kicky Colonel Sanders-type tie. He asks Data for money and gives him a few panhandling tips. He’s chill. We like him. But don’t get too attached if you know what I mean!!!!

Data decides he needs somewhere to stay, so he finds a hotel:

Brian.

Why is this so funny to me. Brian. Why would you name your hotel Brian. Brian!!!! I know it’s a last name but like...Brian. HOTEL BRIAN.

This bellhop’s name is not Brian:

Where’s your hat, bro

He’s giving us a classic bellhop look, complete with too many buttons. He gives Data the very important information that there’s a poker game happening in the back of the hotel, which means: Data is about to be RICH rich.

The poker game includes a few good looks:

Louie Anderson IS Wolverine IN a Lands’ End barn coat

Two plaids? Sir...I salute you

Colonel Sanders Goes to Carnaval

Data, of course, wipes the floor with them so hard that he wins their clothes:

Didn’t get that barn coat tho

Yes, that’s the actual vest and the actual hat of those guys from the previous scene. Oh, I love it. I love Data in a vest over his uniform and I love Data with a feather in his cap. Let’s call it macaroni.

Meanwhile, out on the street, the plot is happening:

Beige: inescapable

This is our first taste of the decadent 1890’s sleeves that appear in this episode, and these aren’t even the best sleeves!! These are an amuse-bouche of sleeves. An armuse-bouche, if you will.

Anyway, these two are aliens disguised as humans who are here to steal the 49er’s life energy.

Pew pew pew

I told you not to get attached!!!

Back on the Enterprise, Guinan is doing mixology:

She would never call it something as stupid as mixology though

She tells Picard that he needs to go check out the temporal disturbance, too, even though captains don’t normally go on away missions, and then she gives him this look:

It’s that serious

When Guinan looks at you like this, you do what she says.

Now this outfit is much better than the earlier one. We have some pleated sleeves, which I didn’t even think was a thing you could DO. We have some sort of functional(?) strap(??) across the front. We even have matching fingerless gloves which always make a look A LOOK. And if Picard wasn’t sure whether he needed to go on this away mission, she then gives him THIS look:

Okay now it’s REALLY serious

Back in 1893, Data is making something:

It’s actually just a really complicated and large music box that plays “I Left My Head in San Francisco”

He’s gotten his hands on some more period-appropriate clothing, including a bow tie and a vest. Since he’s not wearing arm garters and his sleeves appear to be the correct length for his arms, we can conclude that the shirt was custom-made, not ready-made, because Data is now a baller due to his poker earnings.

Then, Data sees this in the paper:

I know her!! From work!!!!

Yes, it’s Guinan. In 1893. In a hat!!!!

We cut to the literary reception, which is honestly not as well-attended as I thought it would be, considering it got a GIANT photo of Guinan on page THREE of the paper, but okay. And who should we spy there but:

You’ll love my secret blend of 11 herbs and spices

No, it’s not Colonel Sanders. (Sorry, I really have Colonel Sanders on the brain because of that Lifetime movie.) It’s Samuel Clements, AKA Mark Twain. I had an English teacher in high school who explained the origin of his pseudonym (it indicates a mark of two fathoms, aka twelve feet, on a steamboat) and for some reason she shouted MAAAARK TWAAAAAIN when she told us that story so now her delivery of that line is in my head until I die I guess.

Anyway, it’s Mark Twain.

He’s wearing his iconic white linen suit with a black bow tie, and he’s also wearing a lot of prosthetics, because the actor playing him (Jerry Hardin, AKA Deep Throat from The X-Files AKA Melora Hardin AKA Jan Levinson-Gould’s dad) (was that too many AKAs) (you get it, right?) didn’t look enough like Mark Twain, I guess? In conclusion: what if eyebrow wigs were a thing?

Twain is having a chit chat with “Madame Guinan,” who is wearing what can only be called a sumptuous gown:

It’s 11:30 and the gown is sumptin’ sumptin’

There are so many ELEMENTS to this look! First of all: the color. Royal purple. Fit for a queen. Appropriate.

Then: those sleeves! These sleeves are known as “leg of mutton sleeves” because they KIND OF look like a leg of mutton. Have you ever seen a leg of mutton? I haven’t. I’ve only seen these sleeves. Plus they have a stripe?? No, I don’t know why, but I LOVE IT.

The cuffs and the cravat bring this from “dress” to “lewk.” Top it all off with this hat and you have a true 1893 mood.

What bird is that feather even from

We get a few good extra looks in this scene as well:

Pink Lady is NOT wearing a corset

Look, sometimes you don’t have enough period-appropriate undergarments for all the background people and that’s fine. But I WILL notice.

Is that Loretta Lynn

I am loving all of this! That purple dress is fantastic, those stripes? I die. Military man has some fun flair on his shoulder, and there is a dude in a beautiful turban back there. Plus, another Black lady in addition to Guinan and That One Ensign Who Is On The Bridge Sometimes.

Data rolls in to the literary event in a different suit with a CRAVAT:

Craving a cravat

Data is like “we serve together on the same starship in the 24th century” and Guinan is like “huh” but then she’s like “okay” which...I’m not sure if I would believe that? But let’s just say it’s fine.

Over in the 24th century, the literal entire bridge crew is checking out the temporal disturbance and I DON’T LIKE THIS AT ALL:

Blue Man Group...on ACID

These beings are like ghosts but also like Dr. Manhattan but also like pure energy.

Then everyone goes through the temporal disturbance AND THE SEASON ENDS.

Fortunately for you, this post will continue...right now.

Okay, so we’re back in San Francisco in 1893. You can tell by the horses:

Also the fruit carts

Samuel Clemens is strolling around with a reporter, telling him that he has a great story for him that involves time travelers and, like, protecting the nation.

Here’s the thing about this episode’s version of Mark Twain: he’s kind of a dick. Was the real Mark Twain kind of a dick? I just feel like Mark Twain should be JAZZED about meeting time travelers and not acting like a fuckin’ time cop* and trying to put the Enterprise crew on blast.

Anyway I love his double-breasted vest.

See my vest

The reporter’s hat is technically period-accurate, but that style is SO associated with the 1930s-1950s that I would have gone with something else. He looks cute though.

Meanwhile, Data is wearing a three-piece suit:

My positronic olfactory synapses are interpreting something as...a fart

I hate brown, but this is fine.

Additionally, the beige baddies from before are back and this time, they’ve got a SNAKE CANE:

Love the snake cane, hate how they suck the life out of people

But we are not here for them, we are here to see our faves in period clothing. Our first look is at Riker, who is dressed as an actual cop, not a time cop like Mark Twain:

The past just had...so many buttons

I guess if you’re a time-traveling white man there are worse disguises than a cop. But WHERE DID HE GET THIS UNIFORM? I choose to believe that he found a cop with a similar large handsome body to his own and beat the shit out of him and stole his clothes. Now we can all enjoy imagining a cop being beat up.

The badge that Riker is wearing is a great historical detail; the SFPD started wearing them in 1886 and are reportedly the first law enforcement agency to have worn the seven-pointed star, which is now a common shape among sheriff’s departments across the United States.

But let’s move on to a better look: Dr. Beverly Crusher:

Curlz MT

Okay, now I have more questions. Beverly obviously wouldn’t beat someone up for their clothes, so where did SHE get HER outfit? And who did her hair? Did she do her OWN hair? Where did she get a curling iron? Does she know how to use a curling iron? Was it one of those ones that’s actually made of iron that you have to heat up in a fireplace?

We will get answers to zero (0) of these questions.

We actually get a much better look at her dress later, so let’s focus on that cloak!!! I love it and I also love her hat. Okay, I guess I had less to say about those than I thought.

Bev and Will, along with the rest of the officers, have somehow procured a room/apartment in some lady’s lodging house. It’s cute!

They gave it 5 stars on AirBnB

This also raises questions. How did they get this room? How many bedrooms does it have? Are they sharing one large bed? If so, who has to sleep crossways at the foot of the bed and why is it Geordi? We will get zero answers to these questions as well, so let’s move on to arguably the hottest costume in this two-parter:

I’ll be in Holodeck 4

Whewwwwwww. He’s giving us a rolled sleeve. He’s giving us a casual tweed vest. The pants? They’re perfect. And he KNOWS how that slouch is working. It’s working VERY well. But the Irish landlady? She’s having NONE OF IT.

Absolutely NO nonsense

She needs the rent, but Picard charms her and she leaves. So I guess that’s how they got the room. Her look is knitwear-forward:

Eileen Fisher does sound like an Irish name

She’s got a shawl AND a cardigan! The cozy factor is OFF THE CHARTS. She also has a brooch, because a touch of fancy is always welcome. I will say that her hair is a little more fashion-forward than I’d expect for a woman of her age and station. This is straight up 1890s hair, and she would probably still be rocking an 1860s look, which isn’t as sweepy and would likely involve more braids. Still, she looks lovely.

Geordi is also here looking dapper:

Make the collar as high as you can. I want to be sliced open by my own collar

You CAN go wrong with a three-piece suit, but it’s difficult to. He can’t wear his visor, so he has some kicky shades which we’ll get a better look at in a sec.

Back at the Hotel Brian (lol), the bellboy (who we learn in this scene is Jack London, inspired to be a writer by Mark Twain [citation needed]) lets Mark Twain into Data’s room and allows him to look around unsupervised. This is very bad hotel management.

Great Scott

Then Data and Guinan show back up, and Mark Twain hides in an armoire.

One short day in the emerald brocade

I think one reason I love Guinan’s looks so much, both in the 24th and the 19th century, is that our color palette is very similar. We’re both winters. Bold jewel tones are the vibe. This one is in a beautiful deep green fabric with what looks like a velvet flocking pattern on it. The collar is also velvet, and I love that sleeve with a flounce on top like there wasn’t already enough fucking fabric on the sleeve so they just added a random piece to be like “yes, bitch. I’m a sleeve.”

Naturally, the hat is also jaunty af:

San Francisco’s hottest milliner is: Madame Guinan

This hat has everything: feathers, netting, a brim, an angle that makes you think it’s going to fall off but it doesn’t. We stan.

Meanwhile, Picard is setting up a sensor in a hospital while wearing a hat:

I’m bowled over

We haven’t even asked where Picard got these clothes, but I would like to point out that he’s dressed as a lower-class guy, while Riker is a cop, and Geordi looks like a gentleman. Was there even a discussion they all had about how they would disguise themselves? Was Picard like “I just really want to wear a beat-up bowler hat” and since he’s the captain, they extrapolated from there? This episode is NOT CONCERNED about any of this. They all have clothes, end of story.

Bev even has TWO outfits!!

Hello nurse!!!!

I love this look. She still has her unlikely hairstyle happening, which means her nurse’s cap is sitting atop her voluminous hairstyle. (Not very practical, but realistic!) She’s sporting a simple striped dress and a button-on apron. (Look closely and you can see the two buttons holding the apron to the dress.) The fabric underneath might be cotton seersucker, but it’s likely a lightweight cotton or linen twill. You can see how closely her look matches these nurses from a similar time period:

Hello nurses!!!!

Deanna is also in this scene and this episode, but you wouldn’t know it from what she’s given to do. HUGE SHOCKER: TROI NOT GIVEN ENOUGH TO DO IN AN EPISODE. 🙃

She still looks beautiful:

Why aren’t capelets more popular

We never get a really GREAT look at her whole outfit, but I can tell you that it has a capelet, it’s in the red family, and the hat has a lot of business going on. For those reasons: approved. It has a flounce in the back too:

More fabric = more wealth

Sometimes I think about just how much fabric it took to make these old-timey dresses and I’m like...how did anyone get anything done?? It takes me like 4 weeks to finish a pair of leggings and those have like 5 seams and I own a serger. These historical bitches were sewing whole ass dresses in no time at all.

Okay, so Bev is in this hospital and here come some more energy-stealing aliens, disguised as healthcare professionals this time:

I cannot take a medical professional wearing a LIGHT BROWN TOP HAT seriously, sorry

Bev AND this energy-stealing alien have BOTH managed to get their hands on the SAME nurse’s uniform?? I guess in the case of the alien, she is a shape-shifter, so she got her clothes from...that. And her hair.

I hate this light brown top hat. If you’re going to wear a top hat, don’t DISRESPECT IT by making it BROWN, but if you’re going to make it brown, make it a good brown, like chocolate. Stupid energy-stealing aliens.

There’s a skirmish, the energy-stealing aliens disappear, and the real cops show up:

MOUSTACHE

Of course, the cops showing up is bad, because when has a cop showing up ever made a bad situation better? Never. Defund the police, but don’t defund handlebar mustaches. Those can stay.

Fortunately, Data has gotten a ping on that machine he was building before and shows up on a motherfucking HORSE:

Brent just wanted to show off

He’s back in his brown striped suit and red tie. Okay.

Everyone returns to the boarding house to suss out the situation, and we get a look at what Riker is rocking underneath his cop jacket:

Suspend me daddy

You can see very clearly here how the collar is not actually attached to the shirt. This was a thing people in the olden days did so they could wear their shirt for multiple days in a row and just switch out the collar and cuffs so they looked clean. As someone who is wearing the same sweatshirt for the third day in a row, I support this method. (If you’re interested on more info about collars, here is a very enjoyable article about them.)

We are also blessed with a better look at Deanna’s sleeves and bodice:

Black lace cuffs? Decadent!!!

You can also see Geordi’s shades, which suit him really nicely. One thing I’ve been enjoying on this rewatch is just how well LeVar Burton can act without having his eyes visible. He’s great. Let’s just all think about how great LeVar Burton is for a second

And also Bev’s dress:

I legitimately want this dress

I don’t think those buttons are functional. Can you imagine how annoying THAT would be? But I am absolutely in love with this dress. Two paisleys, Beverly???? A goddess. I’m also dying for that brooch with the chain. A+ look all around, great work.

Finally, FINALLY, Guinan meets the rest of the crew:

When you meet someone you won’t actually know for 500 years

She is wearing a hat that looks like a toilet paper cozy. Did your grandma have one of these? They’re so stupid and I love them so much.

Picard and Guinan meet for what is the first time for her, but not the first time for him, and honestly it is...sensual?????

If I got a m’lady from P. Stew I wouldn’t even mind

Patrick and Whoopi truly do some nice work in this ep. But we are here to yell about clothes, so: LOOK AT THIS DRESS ON AN EXTRA:

Gimme dat dress

I just want that dress to wear around my house. I legitimately bought an 18th century costume dress to do just that, so don’t think I won’t literally do this.

OKAY, WE ARE ALMOST TO THE END.

The crew, plus Guinan, go back to the cave where this all started:

Cave Club, the only club that meets in a cave

We get a nice look at the bodice of Guinan’s dress here and guess what: MORE BUTTONS. Buttons on the lapels, and also buttons on the front panel with the pointy top. I wonder if she has multiple front panels for that dress in different colors, like a Swatch watch.

Unbeknownst to them, Mark Twain followed them!! Then there’s a scuffle with the energy-stealing aliens during which a few things happen:

Data’s head flies off

Mark Twain gets sucked into the temporal disturbance

Guinan gets hurt

Picard stays behind to make sure Guinan is okay

So we end up with Mark Twain on the Enterprise, where he sees Worf, and he’s like:

Buh-WHAT

Worf is also confused:

This is...extremely perplexing

We have a few more looks back on the Enterprise, including Regular Guinan:

ShoulderSpreads™: The Bed Spread for Your Shoulders

I love love LOVE this outfit. The color is perfect, the shoulderspreads are perfect, the front draping is perfect. It looks like a velvet housedress from the 1960s except FANCY which is kind of my ideal aesthetic. And it’s red (my fave).

We get a quick glimpse at the barber uniform:

Bitch let me pass, idc if you wrote Huck Finn

This barber does. not. give. a. fuck!!!!

Geordi reattaches Data’s head, the one they already had, which means this whole thing was a ding dang closed loop. The reattachment also kind of diminishes the whole conversation they had earlier about how Data’s head in the cave meant that Data could die someday, because...he didn’t. He still might, but his head is back and he’s fine now.

Meanwhile, Picard is still back in 1893 and they have to go get him, but only one person can come back through the temporal disturbance, so Mark Twain is like “duh I’ll go get him.”

And finally Guinan and Picard can talk about how their friendship spans 500 years!!!!

Hey girl

Hey

YOU’RE WELCOME

*abolish the police

#SEASON 5 #SEASON 6 #TNG #TNG FASHION #STAR TREK #STAR TREK FASHION

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beskarberry · 4 years ago

Text

Silver and Steel

Bargaining with Beskar, Chapter 2 (The Mandalorian x f!reader)

It was then you noticed the open wall next to you. The steel panel was slid open to reveal a vault packed corner to corner with more firepower than you had ever seen in one place. Your eyes roamed from blaster to rifle to flamethrower, noticing that not all of them were made for five fingered hands. This wasn't just an armory, it was a trophy case.

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 7.5k

Content warnings: ALOT. Descriptions of violence (a little spicier than canon) blood mention, near death experiences, hurt/COMFORT, fluff, smut exhaustion sex, top!reader.

A/N: I hope y’all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it but yeah PLEASE READ THOSE CONTENT WARNINGS!! It all works out ok in the end! Also good chunks of this was inspired by a particular filk song called Call the Navigator which I’ll link in the replies so the external link doesn’t ef up my post.

<-Previous Next->

"Med pack... junk....junk....spotchka?....is that all you've got?"

You were bent over a deep supply crate, your legs barely touching the ground while you dug through what you had hoped would be the food stock. There were several banged up tins of rations and a handful of miscellaneous junk, but nothing that looked real food. You were clean and dry after your shower, but the energy that had been spent in this very supply room just an hour or so earlier had to be replenished. "Where’s the rest of it?"

The silence coming from the cockpit was expected, but still frustrating. With a huff you grabbed two food tins and made your way through the old ship towards the ladder. At the top though a small antechamber you found your new comrade seated in the pilot chair, fussing with the buttons on the console. On either side and slightly behind his chair were two other passenger seats, though the one on his left was missing a good deal of padding. The cockpit was poorly lit save for the lighted console and the dusty starlight overhead. Though you were in the air, you could tell you were still on Tatooine. Hooray. Why are we still here? The great Dune Sea stretched out on all sides, sparsely dotted with sand people villages, but you couldn’t see any of the large space ports such as Mos Eisley or Mos Espa. In the ships’ darkness you couldn't tell what the lumpy thing was in the other chair, probably blankets or laundry. You went to toss it off the seat when a pair of huge black orbs peeped out from the heap of fabric.

"The fuck is THAT?!" You rocketed backwards, dropping the food tins in the process. The bug eyed creature made a soft cooing noise and lifted the rest of the blanket off itself, allowing two gigantic green ears to pop into view. It didn't look like a threat, in fact it looked kinda cute, but you knew it could still be dangerous. A pair of stubby three-fingered hands made grabby motions at you, the little creature giggling at your bewildered face. " Where'd you find this thing, is it some kind of pet?"

"He's not a pet." Finished fiddling with the console, Mando turned in his chair to readjust the blanket that had slumped off of the small beastie. It squealed happily and wiggled in its comfy cocoon before noticing the food tins that were still on the floor. He pointed the tiniest claw at them and chirped at you, demanding to be fed. "You'd better give him one of those before he gets mad."

It took you a moment to process what he said before scooping one of the tins off the floor, peeling back the lid and placing the dish in the seat next to the little thing. He greedily scooped the mystery mash into his tiny toothy mouth, gibbering between bites. You picked the remaining tin off the floor and leaned against the door frame, watching it happily chow down.

"If it's not a pet then what is it?"

"He's my..." the Mandalorian paused, fishing for the right words to say, "...he is my child."

That was not at all the answer you expected, if he had said emotional support gremlin you would have been less confused. The baby was still making a mess of his dinner, almost dropping his plate before Mando snatched it and set it carefully back in his lap. You had seen first hand that there was a human under all that metal plating, and your tired brain fizzled trying to make the connection between the two very different beings. Mando could tell by your puzzled face that he had some explaining to do.

He told you the tale of how he had been charged to bring the baby in as a high credit bounty, but after he used the reward to get new armor he went back and stole the child away from its captors. He talked about the Mandalorian concept of a 'foundling' and that he himself was one too. At some point you had popped your food tin open and started eating, though you were so captivated by his story that you couldn't remember doing so. When he'd finished you set your empty dish on the busted chair and gently held your hand out for the child to grab with one mush covered paw, who babbled excitedly at his new friend.

Behind you his parental guardian was rigid, ready to take you out if you made one wrong move against his precious cargo. Though he had been the one to steal you away and forgo freezing you in carbonite he still didn’t exactly trust you, your reputation as a hunter-killer was what had driven your bounty so high. He knew you were disarmed, but what else could you be capable of? However, you weren't paying mama-hen Mando any mind. Instead you let the baby play with your hand a bit before he returned to his food. You decided that the only place left to sit was on the floor. Squished into the tiny space between the passenger and pilot seats was cramped, but it gave you a fantastic view out the rounded transperisteel window into the vastness of the night sky.

“Your story sounds awful familiar.” You turned your attention to the metal clad man, watching him fidget with the steering controls. “You abandoned a guild reward for anothers wellbeing, like I did. Someone that didn’t deserve to be dragged back in cuffs. Is that why you picked up the puck on me? Some kind of kindred spirit something or other?”

“We’re nothing alike.” He was watching out the window, focused on flying the ship to unknown destinations, but he was bouncing the leg farthest away from you. So when the cogwheels turn in your head, the machine moves somewhere else. If you hadn’t experienced his human body first hand you could have easily convinced yourself he was a droid.

“Now that’s not true. You told the guild to get fucked because your moral compass was pointing the other way. I didn't just let that quarry go y'know? It was more than that. There was... there was someone she had to get back to. And the New Republic was just gonna lock her ass up and for what? It wasn't right." You remembered that Togruta woman, pointing a blaster at you with tears in her eyes and her belly swollen with a child that did not belong to the man she was being forced to marry. A few thousand credits weren’t worth another child being made an orphan, and you gave her your ship to escape in while you led hunters on a wild-bantha chase away from her. You knew it drove the guild insane but you wouldn’t have it any other way. A tiny green foot poked itself out from under the blankets by your head, bringing you out of your reverie. On reflex you tucked it back into the safety of his blankies.

Though you thankfully didn’t remember much of your early childhood, you knew you had come from Corellia. You didn’t know if you had parents or siblings, but there had been many other young street urchins in your alley behind the shipyard, and all you had then were each other. You never planned on having any kids yourself, but they were still something to be protected. At all costs, if necessary. “I’m guessing this little dude is happy with that decision.”

Mando had begun to take the ship closer to the ground, it was almost totally dark outside but you could see on the radar there was a large mountainous formation up ahead. Carefully, he landed the beat up craft on a sturdy outcropping of rocks, kicking up whirlwinds of dust and sand. Far out over the sand you could see a collection of lumpy looking ruins that were slowly succumbing to the march of the dunes. You guessed this was where your quarry was hiding out.

The baby was starting to get sleepy, his huge eyes disappearing slowly as the weight of his eyelids became too much. His little head rolled forward, threatening to toss him off his seat. Your big mean bounty hunter heart couldn’t take it, so you scrambled to your feet and scooped the baby up in your arms, sitting down in his seat to get him situated in your lap. He fussed and squirmed a bit, but you had learned a no-fail trick from the Corellian ship builders that would often help to sneak orphaned children onto their ships and off that skughole of a planet towards a better life. Many years ago they had done the same for you.

“Oh, I have sailed the midnight sea from Hoth to Arvala-5.

Seen the Cloudshape Falls of Alderaan, met rocks that were alive.

But soon I came to realize as world to world I roamed,

That nowhere in the galaxy could really be my home.”

The songs you knew were often sang by whole crews of starship sailors, loud enough to shake their durasteel walls, but you dropped your voice low and soft to turn the star-shanty into a lullaby. The baby was watching you with glittering eyes, he had stopped his wiggling and curled up tightly against your chest.

“So call the navigator, set the course and go!

We've stars and planets to explore, my wild heart tells me so.

Beneath the metal decking I can hear the engine sigh

And all I need is a mighty ship and a staaaa-aarr to guide her by”

A tiny yawn betrayed his wondrous eyes, and he gave up and closed them shut, rubbing his little hands on his face. You lowered your voice to almost a whisper.

“I've seen a million beauties and I've known a million fears,

And life is what I've found between the laughter and the tears.

Still I will sail the last frontier through worlds both tame and wild,

And marvel at their strangeness with the wonder of a child”

Soft snores were your only applause, the baby having drifted off mid stanza. You hummed a few more lines of the song to be sure he was asleep. The cockpit was as dark as the surrounding sky, but the glint of silver caught your attention. Starlight reflected off the beskar plates in a way that made the black of his visor seem darker than the heart of a collapsed star, and just as deadly. The Mandalorian was watching you intently, completely motionless.

The precious moment with the baby had made you very forgetful of the dangerous situation you were actually in. You had been captured, you were this man’s prisoner and yet here you were all cozy in the chair with his adopted son in your lap. You glared back at him, matching his fierce gaze when the little green bundle moved to get more comfortable, one tiny hand catching claws in the top you were wearing; a tunic that did not belong to you.

“Here, you take him then.” Your voice was hushed so as not to wake the child, and you raised him up gently to try and unhook him from your shirt. Immediately there were two gloved hands coming to lift the baby off of your lap. He was a monolith of leather and metal, but the way he pulled his son in close was so gentle that all the ferocity of his profession dissipated like mist. Mando carefully tucked the blanket under the sleeping little baby and wrapped him up tight before slowly turning away from you and the flight deck to head down the ladder in total silence, leaving you alone in the dark.

You watched him go, the top of his shiny silver head disappearing into the floor. Without the sounds of life in the cockpit the quiet of the night weighed heavy on your ears. He still hadn’t told you why he had kept you out of the carbonite, all you had done was let him use you as his personal play-thing... and maybe murder off some of his bounty hunting competition, but that wasn’t much to go off of. You had done worse for much less. Put your skills to better use, that’s what he had said. Absently you toyed with the end of your sleeve, no, not your sleeve. His sleeve.

That was another thing, what reason did he have to show you hospitality when his first interaction with you had been so violent? Binding you and marching your ass through the desert after he had fucking shot you. Your escape plan had almost worked, ha! All you would’ve had to do is tire him out and run but that had backfired entirely. The apex of your thighs still thrummed with sensation, warm and blissful. Though you’d had lovers in the past you usually didn’t still feel them so deeply afterwards. The smell of the fresher soap still clung to your body and clothes. Clutching at the collar of your sweater you pulled it to your face and breathed deep, letting the heady scent of it fill your lungs.

“Let’s go. We have work to do.” The modulated voice coming from the ladder startled you from your guilty indulgence and sprang you to your feet, but the source of the voice was already back down the ladder. You sheepishly followed suit.

“You plan on telling me what we’re up to exactly?” Down below the Mandalorian was loading himself with ammunition, each and every slot on his many bandoliers was packed to the brim with charges. His pulse rifle was slung over one shoulder, clanking up against a new piece of equipment you hadn’t seen before. Some kind of jet pack maybe.

“I have two bounties to catch on Tatooine. One of them conveniently fell into a sarlacc pit. The other one's hiding out down there." A bounty fob blinked red in his hand; quick flashes indicated that the target was close by. “If you help me with this, you’re off the hook. I’ll tell Karga you’re dead and the guild will stop sending hunters after you. But-” He turned to face you, he was holding your beat-up old back pack by one ratty leather strap. "If for one second I think you'll turn against me, I'll take the half credits for your corpse."

"You're one to talk!" You hissed, storming up to the gunslinger with the ferocity of a lothcat. "You kidnapped me! I didn't ask to be here."

The man in question didn't budge under your verbal assault. "Do we have a deal or not?"

He forced your backpack into your arms to accentuate his point. You ripped it from his grasp and stormed to the other side of the cabin. Everything was still inside; a pack of bacta patches, a few mementos, three busted tracking fobs and some blaster charges. Speaking of blaster-

"Where’s my gun, Mando?" Your question was answered when you turned back to face him. He was holding it by its barrel, extending the grip towards you. You met his visor with contempt, but took the old blaster from him carefully as not to cause a misfire. It would be nice to not be on the run from a guild you had pledged your loyal services to for so many years, that now wanted you delivered back to them in carbonite; and you knew that Karga would trust his favorite hunter. The life of a moisture farmer wasn’t what you dreamed of when you escaped Corellia. Fuck that. "Yeah, it's a deal. One hunt and I'm gone."

If he didn't want you to ogle his wares he should have closed the panel, but instead he joined you at the wall, picking up some extra plasma cartridges and a vibroblade with a curved handle, which he pushed into your hands. "Will that be enough?"

Either you trust me or you don't, pick a side, tin can. You didn't answer him right away, opting to pull a chest holster and another couple of blasters down from the wall. You cinched the holsters tight and tucked a blaster in on either side, slung a disruptor over your back and stuffed the knife in your boot. Once you had everything in place you stuck your fists on your hips like a superhero with a confidant nod. "Yeah, that should be good."

Mando was watching you with intensity, his visor going over each of your weapon choices. He tugged on your holsters’ cross straps to make sure they were secured. You rolled your eyes at him, "I know how to dress myself, sir."

No answer. Typical. He stopped fussing with your straps and turned back to the wall, selecting a heavy multi-ammo bandolier. He stepped closer to you, wrapping both arms around your waist to fit the belt in place on your hips. You tried to convince yourself that it was the cool beskar of his chest plate pressed up against you that sent a shiver down your spine. The physical contact was over as quickly as it had been initiated, and then he was back in the vault fishing out the tiny silver explosives that fit neatly into the circular latches on either side of your belt, handing them to you without a word. Finished with his selection he pressed a few buttons on his vambrace, one to slide the armory shut and another to summon an egg-shaped hover crib to float to his side. Inside its shell the child was sound asleep, a heart-melting smile on his tiny little face. As adorable as he was, you furrowed your brow in confusion.

“Is he coming too?”

“Where I go, he goes.” Mando said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He strode back to the supply crate you had been digging through earlier and packed a handful of rations into a bag for the journey through the dunes. Cool desert air gusted into the stuffy cabin as the access ramp fell open, and the three of you headed out into the darkness of Tatooine.

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

Your dreams were hazy and feverish, shots of blaster fire flickered through the fog from unknown assailants. The smell of blood and blast plasma strong in your nose even while unconscious. You saw the sneering face of a Twi’lek twist in agony and purple blood painted his face before he winked out of existence, replaced in your mindscape with bloody hands. Your hands. Then there was cold beskar on your cheek and strong arms hauling you from the carnage. Harsh wind in your ears and the ground spiraling away beneath you. The howling wind so loud you couldn't hear the questions being barked in your face. Pain, the smell of burning skin, then nothing. You felt objects moving frantically nearby, and something soft and green was pressing into your ribs. Your eyes, heavy as they were, fluttered open to see two huge black orbs staring up from your side where bright red blood was staining the sheets under you. Is that ... my blood?

“Hey green bean...what’cha up to?” Your voice was hoarse and weak, scratching its way out reluctantly past chapped lips. Talking made your head pound, you reached up to cradle your aching skull when two leather tipped hands caught yours and held them steady.

“Easy... Don’t move too much. Please.” Your hands were gently set back down at your sides, shooting pain up your arms. A large black and silver body was hunched beside you, frantically sticking bacta patches to your skin.

“Mand...do? What…what happened?” Your voice was barely a whisper, so faint the recycled air of the cabin threatened to whisk it away.

“You got the bastard, but that fucking Twi' managed to get a shot off in your gut point blank before he went down. You shouldn't have survived that but you did.” Is that a compliment? He was wrapping a long gauze bandage around your arm, fixing the bacta patches in place so they could do their thing. It hurt, but not as much as you thought it should have. Down by your side the child had rolled into you face first, passed out cold next to an emergency cauterizer. Mando nodded at his sleeping son, “And if it wasn’t for him, you’d be dead for sure.”

The baby? How is he involved with this? Thoughts echoed loudly in your skull, and you decided that thinky time was over. The little guy had the right idea, you should sleep now, embrace the comfort of the dark behind your eyes, let it swallow you whole.

“Hey hey hey! Not yet. Stay with me, ok? You need to drink something. Here.” An armored hand slid under your head, urging you to sit up just enough to take a drink out of the metal canteen pressed against your lips. “You need to stay awake, just for a little while.” Cool water graced your dry mouth and dripped onto your chin. Embarrassed by your mess you tried to wipe the droplets away but once again your arms were halted in place. A rough piece of fabric dabbed at your face.

“I’m not a baby, Mando. I can take care of myself.” The creeping sting of blast-burn that still scalded your skin told you that might not be true. The bacta was just starting to seep into your bloodstream, but it would take some time to work its magic.

“I know that. I was with you down there in the fray. A rancor would have been less terrifying to face than you. But right now I need you to hold still.”

Another compliment? Or was that sarcasm? You’re losing your edge, tin man. You tried to roll your eyes but the effort made your head spin; you glanced around the cabin, trying to avoid meeting the visor that was pinning you to the cot. Strewn about the floor of the ship was what was left of your holsters and weapons, splattered with red and purple blood. You couldn’t be sure, but it looked like one belt had been blasted to smithereens, torn strips of leather the only indication it had been there at all. Farther away you saw a dark block in the carbonite freezer. The Twi’lek from your nightmare was frozen solid, though from his limp posture you guessed he had stopped moving long before he was put in the chamber. One of his long lekku had been cut clean off, and even in carbonite you could see the wound was fresh. Something long and curved stuck victoriously out of the center of his chest. Your vibroblade, lodged to the hilt in his sternum.

Mando was still kneeling on the floor by your side, and though you couldn’t see his face his hunched shoulders gave you the feeling that he was distraught. He still had your head resting in his palm, his thumb absently toying with your hair. Maybe it was the bacta running through your system that made you start to feel warm and gooey on the inside, but the sensation of his hand on your scalp felt... nice. Nice to be touched in a way that wasn't just for survival. Though you had already felt his hands on your body this was something else entirely. Sincere. Maybe it was just the first time somebody near you wasn't trying to kill or capture you. You foolish girl, you've already been captured. Are you so lonely that a gentle touch makes you melt? Maybe it's you that's losing your edge.

"You should have left me for dead, cashed in on that half credit reward."

"That is not The Way." His mantra was rehearsed, spoken as easily as he drew breath, but you could hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“Well... thank you for not letting me bleed out.” You could see the top of the baby's green little noggin still curled up against your side, though the part of your ribs he was leaning on didn’t have a single mark. You looked for the blast wound that Mando was supposedly talking about, but aside from a handful of plasma burns your skin was smooth and healthy; the pool of dried blood under you was the only indication anything had been there at all. What kind of mando magic is that? And what did he mean about the child? Your first thought was how disappointed you were there wouldn’t be a good scar. Your second was realizing your top was missing. Shreds of it were still on your shoulders, but the front had been ripped off completely to get to your vanished wounds. Mando seemed like he didn’t even care, he had been so focused on patching you up that the idea of modesty was thrown out the window, but you couldn’t help teasing him. “There’s not a scratch on me, Mando. You just wanted me topless, didn’t you?”

His thumb on your scalp froze, his visor going from your face to your chest with rapid snaps. Without letting your head drop he used his other hand to tear his cloak from his back and throw it over you and the sleeping baby. “Better?”

Party pooper. “Yes, thank you.” Why is he being so nice? He must have ulterior motives, right? Why keep me alive if not to cash in on that bounty? You decided to push his buttons some more. “This bed sucks. Is this why you're so crotchety? Because you sleep on this Maker-forsaken thing? It’s making my back hurt.”

The cot you were on was spartan at best, more of a cloth covered bucket than a bed. It was recessed into the wall opposite of the armory, bits of machinery and droid parts hanging over the space above you. There wasn’t much of a gap between your head and the durasteel plating of the ship’s hull. Your teasing was rewarded with a long, tired sigh. The hand that cushioned your head moved down to your shoulders, pushing on you so that you sat up straight. You scooped the baby off of your side and into your arms, trying to ignore the dried blood from your wounds that stained the sheets before swaddling the sleeping bean in his father’s cloak. The metal man rose from the floor, letting go of you just long enough to remove his cross-belts and unlatch his chest plate, setting them on the floor with a dull thunk. He squished himself between the wall and your back, his dorsal plate scraping loudly without its cape. He scooched one armored leg around you until it was between your hip and the wall on your side, pulling you into his lap and turning his whole body into a pillow, letting your torso rest on his. He was used to the sharp metal bed frame, but that didn’t mean you should be subjected to it.

“Is this ok?”

You could only nod, your cheeks flushing red with a mix of emotions. It was more than ok, his formidable body was warm and comfortable. His arms wrapped around your waist, helping to support not only you but also his foundling. The spice of him was strong now with him on your back, worn leather and metal and that damn fresher soap that was making a fool out of you. Underneath his steady breathing the sound of something rhythmic caught your attention, it was quick and faint, but unmistakably the sound of his heartbeat. His heart is racing. Listen to that engine purr.

Behind you a man with a name you may never know watched your chest slowly rise and fall with each breath, not with lust but something unfamiliar though not unwelcome. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, whether from the ordeal of keeping you alive or the fact that you were in his arms again he couldn't be sure. He sighed, trying to convince himself to calm down, but the deep breath he took only flooded his senses with the essence of you, threatening to melt the beskar off his head with the heat rushing to his face. He couldn't help the way his fingers traced over your skin, careful not to undo any of the bacta patches. He jumped slightly when your hands found his, but the weight of the child still in your arms made it difficult to reach your fingers. The glove you were touching was suddenly empty, and a bare hand snaked out from under the cloak that kept you modest. With the press of a button the child’s pram floated its way over to you from the supply crates. The baby’s adopted father carefully lifted the sleeping creature off your lap and into his hover crib, another button press on the vambrace and the shield door slid closed.

His hand returned to the safety of the cloak, pulling the other glove off before finding your fingers again. His skin was so warm you couldn't help but imagine his hands somewhere more intimate. Evil, evil bacta... Maybe you wouldn't have to.

"I should thank you properly." It was impossible to hide the tiredness of your voice, but he was close enough you only needed to whisper. His grasp tightened around you, your once plush pillow was now a rigid wall of muscle.

"You should go to sleep." the sound of his baritone words so close to your ear made your skin prickle. Too late for that. Slowly you guided his hand down your belly until your tangled hands bumped into your belt line. A low growl rumbled out of the modulator. “Cyar'ika... you need to rest."

The alien term of endearment made you hum, but you ignored his words of warning and pushed his hand under the tough fabric till his fingertips found your heat, both of you gasping softly at first contact. His free hand fumbled with your button, and after some difficulty you undid it for him along with the zipper. With space to work, with his wrist moved freely, lazily rolling a calloused fingertip against your clit; remembering his lesson from the first time he experienced your body, his touch was light as a feather.

There wasn’t much you could do for him in the position you were in, so you leaned back against him and relaxed, letting him enjoy you at his own pace. The bottom of his helmet was pressed into the crook of your neck, and though it was sharp you could feel something warm and soft underneath it. So there is a real man under there. Scruffy stubble brushed at your skin and sent goosebumps down your chest. Under the beskar his eyes followed the prickling trail that lead under the tattered cloak you still wore to your breasts, watching the way the fabric pointed where your nipples grew hard for him. His other hand couldn’t resist finding its way to your pert peaks, rolling them between his fingers in that way he knew flushed you with heat. Soft gasps rewarded his ears as he worked at your breast and clit, rubbing them in tandem. Your hips rolled into one hand and your back arched into the other, urging him to help you build your climax. He obliged, adding a second finger to pinch your clit softly between strong digits until you fell apart around him.

The pressure that was building behind you and pressing into your spine told you that if you wanted more from him you would have to give him a better angle. You started to get up, but the hands on your sensitive spots held you in place.

“What about your injuries? I don’t want to hurt you.” What injuries? There’s nothing left! His voice was filled with sincerity, a far cry from your first encounter. You didn’t answer him, instead you found each of his hands and squeezed them with a hum, asking him to trust that the bacta had set in and made you comfortable enough to move from your impromptu med bay. He slid his fingers out from your burning core, dragging the wetness from your cunt over your skin until his palms were on your back, helping to push you up off of him. The teeny tiny bed frame made it difficult to spin yourself around until you were facing him, and even more difficult to kick your pants off as you passed over top of him, but he never took his hands away from you to keep you steady until you were seated in his lap.

Straddling his waist you rolled your hips over where his cock was hidden from you, making him shudder under your legs. His arms glided from your knees to your hips, languidly making their way up your sides and past your breasts to the last remaining tatters of the black knit sweater he had allowed you to wear. Hooking a thumb under its ruined edges, he slid it up over your arms and cast it away into the darkness of the ship. His hands went right back to working at your breasts, massaging them like dough in time with your grinding hips. You took a moment to admire how he looked underneath you, his remaining armor glinting in the hazy ship light as his hands searched for every sensitive inch of your chest. You knew from legend that his helmet could never be removed in front of you, but you’d never heard anything about the rest of his clothes. Where his chest plate had been was a strappy flak jacket dotted with magnetic fasteners. Your hands went slowly to the first clasp, and the hands that were so indulged in you froze, his body stiff between your legs.

“Is this ok?” The irony of you repeating his question from earlier back to him made your lips turn in a sly smile.

“Y-yes.” His voice was nearly imperceptible, and you realized that he was shaking. You looked to his visor, watching him nod in consent before you continued. He dropped his hands to your hips, pulling down on your thighs and rutting up into you while you busied yourself with the complicated under armor until it fell away at his sides, revealing a pair of suspenders and an identical black knit tunic as the one that had been shredded off of you. You didn’t have the energy to peel every article of clothing off of him, so this would have to do. Without his cloak bunched around his shoulders you were able to see the flesh of his throat, so warm and inviting that you wanted to sink your teeth into it.

You bent down to nibble at the exposed skin, and the filthy moan that rattled out of the helmet sent shivers down your spine. The taste of him was exquisite, better than you could have imagined under all that fabric and leather. The overwhelming cocktail of his scent straight from the source made you bold. You kissed your way around the edge of his helmet where the metal met his skin until you found his pulse point and made good on your desires. His body convulsed when you bit down, sucking at the tender skin until you left blooming marks that would be there for days.

“Cyar'ika... Please...“ There was that word again, you didn’t know what it meant but the way he breathed it like a prayer felt like warm honey in your belly. Releasing his tormented neck you ran your hands down his broad chest until your thumbs bumped the leather suspenders that lead you down to his waist line where you were able to tug the edge of his shirt free, giving you a delicious window of his tummy; well-muscled and dusted with dark brown hair.

“What’s wrong, tin man? Nobody ever touch you like this before?” He was still shaking while you ran your hands under the edge of his shirt and through the soft treasure trail of fuzz from the top of his belt line to the bottom of his ribs. He couldn’t answer you, his breath caught in his throat at the sensation of your hands on his skin, but you were starting to put the pieces of his puzzle together. No, probably not.

You decided not to torture him any longer. The fabric of his pants was nearly stretched to capacity and wet with your slick. You had to stretch one leg out onto the floor to get enough of a footing to lift yourself high enough off him that you could free him from the canvas prison. His cock nearly burst out of its confines, and your face flushed red at the sight of him standing proudly at attention, twitching in your hands with a flood of shimmering precum made just for you.

His chest was heaving, ragged breaths forcing their way out of his modulator before you’d even taken his length. You used your hips to notch him at your entrance and his grip on your thighs clenched like a steel trap. Slowly you lowered yourself onto him, letting him fill you until you were stretched wide. Your eyes met his visor, though from the way it was tilted you knew he was watching himself disappear into you. His arms wrapped tightly under your ass as he thrust into you hard enough that he lifted you off the cot, quickly scooting both your bodies down the bed until he was flat on his back. You tried to stay upright, but his pounding soon had your head spinning until you were falling forward into his chest, digging your arms around his shoulders in a way you were becoming familiar with. Your hands found their way to the back of his helmet to where his hair line started, sneaking a few fingers under the metal edge to tangle in his curls. The Mandalorian’s hands were on your waist, holding you in place while he rocketed up into you, filling the ships cabin with the sound of wet slaps. His thick cock hit different from this angle, grinding up against the sweet spot deep inside you with each rut until you started seeing stars behind your eyes. He could feel you building up around him and he quickened his pace until you were gasping his name.

“M-mando! I... I’m gonna....” Your muscles coiled with heat until you burst, your sweet cunt fluttering around his still pumping cock until he went cascading over the edge of ecstasy with you, his helmet vibrating with a guttural roar. His feverish body shook, giving you a few short thrusts to milk the cum from his cock until it spilled out from where he was lost inside you.

His shaky arms held onto you so tightly, as if you would blast away into space if he let go. The endorphins flooding his head made him want to pour his heart out and tell you everything, bare himself in body and soul for the first time in his life. He wanted to tell you how nice you had looked in his clothes, how the loose knit fabric draped over your breasts was a work of art; even more so when you were standing before him armed to the teeth in his hunting trophies. How seeing you slice that fucking Twi’lek to ribbons was more graceful than any ballet. The sight of the bloody hole that had been burned into your side had made his skin crawl. Mando wasn’t ready to explain the child’s healing powers, he barely understood them himself; but if it wasn’t for the baby he would have been burying your corpse instead of tending your wounds. Instead of experiencing your living body like he was now.

His heart fluttered at the thought of his foundling healing you with his baby sorcerer magic, his tiny green paws pushed on your side where the blood was spilling from your wound. The thought of you dying for his bounty made him sick, but pride flushed the sensation away when he thought back to that first day with you up in the flight deck. How when his baby boy was restless that you acted, not with malice but with tenderness and care. He'd never wanted to rip his helmet off faster in all his days than when you sang his son a lullaby, the sweet tune of it filtering through his sensory equipment, and he longed to hear it as it was meant to be. In that moment he had been entranced, but the fierce glare of his visor had made you feel threatened. He didn't want that. He wanted to make you feel safe. The same way you had made his child feel, the same way you made him feel now. Like the galaxy itself couldn’t tear you from him.

But the ugly truth was that soon it would all end when you both went your separate ways. All the feelings he wanted to confess to you died in his mouth, leaving a bitter taste that brought him back to reality. You still straddled his waist, and though the blood had long since left his cock it still sat neatly in your heat, letting him feel your gentle heartbeat around him. Carefully he pulled himself free from the apex of your thighs and rolled you both sideways onto the unforgiving cot, letting gravity shuffle you down until you were nestled in the crook of his arm. He couldn’t help brushing a stray lock of hair from your face, meeting your half lidded eyes with his own behind the visor.

“I don’t think I can get to the fresher this time.” Your voice was barely a whisper, and the edges of sleep crept unbidden to your eyes; the traumatic activities of the day finally winning over your endurance. “You’re probably going to have to burn these sheets.”

Mando hummed with indifference, though for you he would burn all of Tatooine down if you asked. All the lovely thoughts that had danced through his mind came rolling through again, haloed in the warm light of afterglow. Only one made its way past his lips, sneaking out of the helmets’ modulator like a prayer.

“How does the song end?”

“Mmm?” You were so close to sleep, so cozy and full of cum that you knew would be a fun mess for morning-you to clean up. You wracked your brain trying to remember what the hell he was talking about. The star-shanty? “Why, do you need a lullaby too?”

“N-no. Just curious. When you leave, my foundling might ask me about it.” Liar. The calloused hand gliding up and down your spine brought the original contract you made with him ringing through your skull. One hunt and I’m gone.

“Leave? I’m not going anywhere until I see you tell Karga face to face that I’m rotting in a sarlacc pit. No take-backs. That old dog will probably dance when he hears he won’t have to part with his credits and I want to catch it on holo-corder.”

The rumbling sigh deep in his chest sounded more like an engine powering down than a mortal man, and it told you more than words ever could. The arm you had around his chest was met with strong fingers that intertwined with your own. He doesn’t want me to go. Who are you, Mandalorian?

“Tell me anyway? Please?” His arms tightened like a fortress around you. His words were distant, echoing out from somewhere in dreamland instead of right by your ear. Alright you big softie, if you’re going to beg me. You sighed heavily against him, trying to recall the songs of your distant past.

“The nights are long between the stars, and lonely too for me,

I wonder how I might have fared with home and family.

But the bonds of friendship I have formed will last my lifetime through,

Security is not for me, my dreams are all of you.”

The same soft snores that had been your original encore with the baby now ghosted in your ear, muffled by the mysterious beskar helmet but still unmistakable. Like father like son.

The weight of his arms around you was like nothing you had ever felt in your years on the run. You had traveled so far and met so many living beings but not once had you let another share your bed while you slept. You could get used to this. The thought was the last you had before sleep overtook you, your body slumping against his while you dreamed of silver and steel.

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piratewithvigor · 4 years ago

Text

My first thought in regard to every band that gets played on my radio station

ACDC: Every dad’s favourite band

Adams, Bryan: Every mom’s favourite singer until Michael Buble came along

Aerosmith: haha they thought Vince Neil was a lady

Alice Cooper: he’s a Game Of Thrones fanboy and I have proof

Alice In Chains: my sister doesn’t like them because she decided AC were Alice Cooper’s initials ONLY

Allman Brothers Band: good music for dropping acid to

Allman, Gregg: That’s too many Gs for one name

Animals: House Of The Rising Sun, or who even cares

Argent: Sometimes Hold Your Head Up is really catchy

Asia: Tuesdays

Autograph: one of the members went on to be a pharmacist

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: There are just so many pop culture jokes about Taking Care Of Business that whatever I say won’t be as funny

Bad Company: with their song; Bad Company, off their album; Bad Company

Benatar, Pat: Always getting her confused with Patti Smith

Black Crowes: I like them for Lickin, but it doesn’t seem to exist outside of one shoddy video on youtube and my old CD

Blackfoot: this band name feels kind of racy

Black Sabbath: Dio was not better or worse than Ozzy; just different

Blondie: I like Call Me, but Blondie confuses me stylistically

Blue Oyster Cult: MORE COWBELL

Bon Jovi: Hello, childhood trauma, I missed you

Boston: ONE GUY. ONE GUY DID IT ALL AND NO ONE KNOWS

Bowie, David: Don’t let your children watch The Man Who Fell To Earth, or David Bowie’s will end up being the third penis they see in life

Browne, Jackson: Another musician ruined by Supernatural

Buffalo Springfield: Jack Nicholson was at the riot they sing about

Burdon, Eric: no ideas, brain empty

Bush: ditto

Candlebox: ditto once more. Who are these people?

Cars: This band feels so gay and so straight at the same time, I can only assume they’re the poster children of bisexual panic

Cheap Trick: I played Dream Police on Guitar Hero so fucking much because it was the only song anyone who played with me could keep up with

Chicago: Chicago 30 exists, but they do not have 30 albums. Fucking riddle me that

Clapton, Eric: 6 discs in one Greatest Hits is too many. That’s called “re releasing your discography”

Cochrane, Tom: For some reason, everyone thinks Rascal Flats did it better

Cocker, Joe: Belushi did it right

Collective Soul: who?

Collins, Phil: If his biggest hits were done by MCR, they would be emo anthems, but because he’s 5′6″ and from the 80s, they’re not

Cream: *Vietnam flashbacks on the hippie side*

CCR: *Vietnam flashbacks on the war side*

CSNY: David Crosby; meh

Deep Purple: THEY’RE SO MUCH MORE THAN SMOKE ON THE WATER

Def Leppard: the only music for when you’re a heartbroken bitch but also a sexy one

Derek And The Dominos: Clapton and ‘Layla’ broke up

Derringer, Rick: Tom Petty if he was from the midwest

Dio: You thought it was an anime reference, but it was me, Dio

Dire Straits: You can tell how bigoted a radio station is based on how much of Money For Nothing they censor

Doobie Brothers: I have yet to smoke weed, but I listen to the Doobies, and I think that’s pretty close

Dylan, Bob: I take back everything I said about him in my youth

Eagles: Hotel California isn’t their best song, but the memes that come from it are second to none

Edgar Winter Group: @the--blackdahlia

Electric Light Orchestra: Actually an orchestra and sound a fuckton like George Harrison

ELO: I really hesitate to ask what happens with the 7 virgins and a mule

Essex, David: no prominent memories of him

Fabulous Thunderbirds: cannot spell

Faces: Who on earth thought that was a good album name?

Faith No More: I got nothing

Fixx: One Thing Leads To Another is a damn bop

Fleetwood Mac: I ain’t straight, but I’m simply not enough of a witch to enjoy them to full potential

Fogerty, John: He got sued cause he sounded like himself

Foghat: Slow Ride slowly becoming less coherent feels like a drug trip

Foo Fighters: He was just excited to buy a grill

Ford, Lita: deserved better

Foreigner: dramatically overplayed

Frampton, Peter: a masterful user of the talk box

Free: dramatically underplayed

Gabriel, Peter: leaving Genesis changed him a lot

Genesis: if someone likes Genesis, clarify the era, because yes, it does matter

Georgia Satellites: sing like you have a cactus in your ass

Golden Earring: Twilight Zone slaps, but it doesn’t slap as hard as this station thinks it does

Grand Funk Railroad: Funk

Grateful Dead: I like their aesthetic more than their music

Great White: there are so many fucking shark jokes

Greenbaum, Norman: makes me think of Subway for some reason

Green Day: the first of the emo revolution

Greg Kihn Band: RocKihnRoll is literally the most clever album name I’ve ever seen

Guns N Roses: They have more than three good songs, but radio stations never recognize that

Hagar, Sammy: I’m still trying to figure out where he lived to take 16 hours to get to LA driving 55 and how fucking fast was he driving beforehand?

Harrison, George: He went from religious to rock, and if he had continued rocking, he would have gotten too cool

Head East: I respect people who use breakfast foods as album names

Heart: Magic Man and Barracuda are played at least once every goddamn day. They’re not even the best songs!

Hendrix, Jimi: I have both a cousin and a sibling named after Hendrix references

Henley, Don: Dirty Laundry gives me too much inspiration

Hollies: Somehow sound like they’re both from the 60s and the 80s at the same time

Idol, Billy: he’s doing well for himself

INXS: Terminator vibes

Iris, Donnie: knockoff Roy Orbison

James Gang: too many funks

Jane’s Addiction: if TMNT had a grunge band representative

Jefferson Airplane: *assorted cheers*

Jefferson Starship: *assorted boos*

Jethro Tull: The only band to make you feel not cool enough to play the flute

Jett, Joan: icon

J. Geils Band: I requested them on the radio once and it got played

Joel, Billy: he really did just air everybody’s business like that

John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band: literally wtf is that name

John, Elton: yarn Elton sits in my basement, unstaring. Please someone take him from me

Joplin, Janis: Queen

Journey: Stop overplaying Don’t Stop Believing. It takes away from the rest of the repetoire

Judas Priest: literally started the gay leather aesthetic

Kansas: another fucking band Supernatural stole

Kenny Wayne Shepherd: the man confuses me to the point where he isn’t in the right place alphabetically

Kiss: Mick Mars and I will simply have to disagree on the subject

Kravitz, Lenny: runaway vibes

Led Zeppelin: Fucking fight me if you don’t think they’re the most talented band (maybe not the most talented individually, but collectively, no one comes close)

Lennon, John: My least favourite Beatle for reasons

Live: I got nothin

Living Colour: slap a decent amount

Loverboy: do you not get TURNT the fuck up to the big Loverboy hits? Who hurt you??

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama is a Neil Young diss track

Marshall Tucker Band: no opinion

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: VERY STRONG OPINIONS THAT THEY AREN’T GOOD

McCartney, Paul/Wings: Power couple

Meatloaf: I have nothing but respect for a man who willingly named himself Meatloaf

Mellencamp, John: voted cutest lesbian of 1987

Metallica: I liked their appearance on Jimmy Fallon

Midnight Oil: I get them confused for Talking Heads a lot

Modern English: who?

Molly Hatchet: Hollies vibes, but also Georgia Satellites vibes

Money, Eddie: DAN AVIDAN, IF YOU SEE THIS, COVER TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT

Motley Crue: Stan Mick Mars and John Corabi. They’re the only ones who deserve it

Mott The Hoople: no one loves them except for David Bowie

Mountain: props for naming an album ‘Climbing’

Nazareth: I want to make a John Mulaney joke here, but I can never come up with one

Nicks, Stevie: witch queen

Night Ranger: I get them confused with Urge Overkill

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain was the ally grunge needed

Nova, Aldo: he’s Canadian, at least

Nugent, Ted: *serves a ghost as jerky*

Offspring: nothing here

Osbourne, Ozzy: this bitch crazy

Outfield: Your Love is kind of a sketchy song, but it slaps hard

Palmer, Robert: low quality Eddie Money

Pearl Jam: *grunts in Eddie Vedder*

Petty, Tom: I have so many feelings about Tom Petty and they are all good

Pink Floyd: which one is Pink?

Plant, Robert: solo career is a crapshoot, but his voice is unparalleled

Poison: I want them to write a song called ‘Alice Cooper’

Pretenders: I want to say good things, but I have nothing to say

Queen: A doctor of astrophysics, a screaming girl, a disco queen and a diva walk into a bar. It’s Queen; they’re there to play a gig

Queensryche: neutral opinion

Quiet Riot: they got big because of a song they hated. I love that

Rafferty, Gerry: the second-sexiest sax opening in all of music

Rainbow: Ritchie Blackmore created something very magnificent

Ram Jam: one good song and they didn’t even write it

Ratt: I’m sure they have more than Round And Round, but I don’t know it

RHCP: funky, but if you have paid money to hear them, you’re going to The Bad Place (I don’t make the rules)

Red Rider: basically Golden Earring

Reed, Lou: Walk On The Wild Side would be such a cool song if it wasn’t so dull

REM: American Tragically Hip

REO Speedwagon: Props for having a dad joke as an album title

Rolling Stones: Never in my life could I imagine the drummer being named anything but Charlie

Rush: How to make being uncool the coolest fucking shit

Santana: The world needs more Santana

Scandal: There’s something really funny about The Warrior being my brother’s “song” with his girlfriend

Scorpions: Was Wind Of Change written by the CIA? Only the spotify podcast I got an ad for once could say

Seger, Bob: A different variety of Eric Clapton (frankly a better variety, but that’s just me)

Simple Minds: we ALL forgot about you

Skid Row: Sebastian Bach is prettier than all of us

Soundgarden: music that makes you feel like you dunked your head underwater

Springsteen, Bruce: my arch-nemesis. Maybe someday, he’ll find out about it

Squeeze: according to my friends, the stupidest band name ever, but they’re theatre kids, so you know

Squier, Billy: If he can make it through 1984 alive, you can make it through whatever bad day you’re having

Stealers Wheel: Yet another band who I always mistake for George Harrison

Steely Dan: my house’s nickname for the Robber in Settlers Of Catan

Steppenwolf: Either makes me think of Jay & Silent Bob, Jack Nicholson, or that time I had to cut 6lbs of onions

Steve Miller Band: when you’re in the right mood, they slap hard

Stewart, Rod: my soundtrack to summer 2015

Stills, Stephen: Love The One You’re With Is Catchy, but the lyrics are questionable

Stone Temple Pilots: the only band to write a song about goo you smear on yourself

Stray Cats: an obscene amount of merch is available for them

Styx: Supernatural would have ruined them for me too if I hadn’t been into them previously.

Supertramp: I hunted for Breakfast In America for two years and it was worth every hunt

Sweet: I will never understand my two-month obsession with Ballroom Blitz when I was 15, but it was legit all I listened to

Talking Heads: you may find yourself in a pizza hut. And you may find yourself in a taco bell. And you may find yourself at the combination pizza hut and taco bell. And you may ask yourself; ‘how did I get here?’

Temple Of The Dog: I keep confusing them for Nazareth

Ten Years After: somehow still relevant

Tesla: not the car or the dude

The Beatles: Evokes a lot of opinions from people. Mine is that I love them

The Clash: I showed my sister the ‘Lock The Taskbar’ vine ONCE and it still kills her

The Doors: evokes teenage terror from deep within my soul

The Guess Who: Canada’s answer to confusing question-themed band names

The Kinks: kinky

The Police: wrote the theme of 2020 and everyone somehow forgot it was about a teacher resisting becoming a pedophile

The Ramones: playing all of their songs in a row wouldn’t take more than 2 hours

The Romantics: you don’t think you know them, but if you’ve seen Shrek 2, you have

The Who: If someone can explain Tommy to me, I’d be glad to hear it

The Zombies: I think they happened because of the 60s

Thin Lizzy: Could the boys maybe leave town?

Thorogood, George: blues, but make it modern

Toto: the most memed song behind All Star

Townshend, Pete: just makes me think of the end of Mr. Deeds

T-Rex: Mark Bolan is an icon

Triumph: The no-name brand of Rush

Tubes: like the yogurt

Twisted Sister: they did a christmas album and my mom does NOT hate it

U2: U2 Movers; we move in mysterious ways

Van Halen: RIP Eddie

Van Morrison: honestly, who’s named Van?

Vaughn, Stevie Ray: Steamy Ray Vaughn

Walsh, Joe: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get

War: Foghat, but even groovier

Whitesnake: the most successful band to be named after a penis

Wright, Gary: the 90s thanks him for writing the song every movie used for the “guy sees cute girl and it’s love at first sight” scene

Yes: To Be Continued

Young, Neil: The best part of CSNY

Zevon, Warren: the album cover of Excitable Boy makes me deeply uncomfortable for reasons I don’t understand

ZZ Top: has been the same three guys since 1969. Lineup unchanged.

3 Doors Down: They feel a little modern to be on a classic rock station, but whatever

38 Special: Why 38?

#I made this instead of doing homework #Classic Rock #Meme

334 notes · View notes

kz-i-co · 4 years ago

Text

Bad Temper

» Request: "Ok, so I was thinking of a One-shot about Reader and Wonho. The reader is part of their make-up team and she and Wonho have confessed to each other that they have mutual feelings, but that they cannot be together due to the circumstances of ruining their professional connections. And they decide to act like nothing happens and hope things just go back to normal. But one day Wonho snaps, because he thinks she is too flirty with Minhyuk and too close to Shownu, and confronts her about it. She gets angry and agues that she feels like Minhyuk is her smaller, Ray of sunshine brother and Shownu is just a very chill shoulder she can count on. That is where Wonho starts feeling bad about what he said and mentally slaps himself. He just destroyed anything he could possibly have with her and doesn't know how to fix it." - BlueOzzyD

» Pairing: Wonho x Reader

» Genre: angst x fluff

» Words: 2.1k

» A/N: PROOF OF HOW BACKED UP I AM WITH MY REQUEST (so embarrassed).......I got this request back when Wonho was still apart of monsta x. I know I'm sorry :( I only have a few left and I promise I'm still working on them. I haven't forgotten anyone.

» m.list | MX masterlist

"Okay take 5." The director spoke as the boys stepped off set.

You and the rest of the makeup artist began to wipe off any excess sweat from their face as the boys started to drink water. Wonho eyed you as you wiped off sweat from Minhyuk.

"Great dancing." You winked.

"Thanks (Y/N)." He smiled still trying to catch his breath.

You pulled out another wipe, patting down Minhyuk's sweaty face. He always had to make your job difficult by moving around.

"Great now you messed me up." You pouted going for another wipe not realizing there was no more. "I need to get more. Be right back."

You went to the storage room quickly and jumped from the sound of the door shutting behind you.

"I need to talk to you." Wonho spoke causing you to stress.

"Can't this wait until later? You guys have to be back on set in 3 minutes."

"Can we go out tonight? I'm off for the night."

You looked at him annoyed taking a deep breath, pulling your mask down. "You know we can't."

"Come on, I promise somewhere private." He begged.

"No I told you we can't. I already got a warning for "wandering off". If they find out, you and I would be screwed."

"I can't get you out of my mind." He leaned in closer.

"Try harder." You grabbed the pack and left him alone.

You hated seeing him so hurt but there was nothing you could do. You both signed a contract of no dating when you started this job. Wonho was at a successful level when it came to his career and you couldn't be the cause of it ending.

You were cleaning your brushes while you had some time before the boys came in. Nothing better then your favorite tunes playing in your ears while you had some alone time.

But your alone time didn't last long as you felt strong arms wrap around you, lift you up as you were spun in circles. You felt shaken as the sudden attack had you frightened from being unaware.

Once you were put down you looked up at your victims laughing only causing you to punch him weakly. "You ever do that again Shownu, I will end you."

You looked passed him as the other boys were watching and you couldn't help but notice Wonho's annoyed expression.

"I thought you were taking off today?"

"Change of plans." You shrugged. "Besides I don't want to miss the rest of your shooting."

"Thank god, and if I'm being honest..." Shownu leaned down closer. "I think you're the best artist here."

.....

"Okay last but not least, sit in my chair buff bunny." You said causing the other guys to laugh except the bunny himself.

"Guys you need to get into costume." The manager came in.

"I just need to finish Wonho's makeup real quick." You spoke as the rest of the guys already got up.

"Okay. No problem."

As soon as you two were alone, you were expecting Wonho to hit on you again but nothing. Nothing but silence.

"What's wrong with you?" You asked as he was blank from you doing his makeup.

He shrugged his shoulders silently.

"You're gonna make me pry."

"I just see how you are with the guys and then you ignore me. It makes me feel like I'm a jerk."

"I ignore you because I'm afraid of what might come out of my mouth." You shrugged. "We're both struggling here."

He grabbed you so you were leaning into him. "Please just give this a chance."

"I can't." You whispered as he came closer about to brush his lips against yours.

Before you could pull away, he desperately collided with you. Ever since the first time you hooked up, you felt like you were suffocating from hiding away your feelings.

He grabbed your thighs, pulling you up into his lap as the kiss deepened by the second. His hands comfortably cradled your bottom, locking you in place.

He pulled away quickly and made his way down your neck, already pampering your skin.

"Wonho?" You heard Jooheon at the door.

"Fuck." You jumped off his lap and quickly started to panic. You pulled up your mask turning away from Wonho as Jooheon opened the door.

"We're going on."

"Be right there." You didn't turn towards them as you lowered your head in shame. "(Y/N)-"

"Stop. This can't happen again." You wiped your single tear. You couldn't lose this job, you couldn't.

The boys were lounging in the back and Minhyuk grabbed you forcing you to sit on his lap. He wrapped his arms around you as he thanked the staff for making the shoot close to perfect. "Can you come to my house and do my makeup every day."

"Or I can just teach you how to do it yourself." You looked at him amused.

"(Y/N)....I need to talk to you now." Wonho got up annoyed and you immediately turned your head. "Please."

"What's the matter?" Shownu asked alarmed from the situation.

"It's fine Shownu. I just know how the buff bunny gets if I forget to replace his shakes."

"You make her do that?" Shownu asked.

"Don't worry, it's my job to serve for you guys." You got up following Wonho into the back.

"You can't act like that in front of everyone. They'll know what's up." You said as soon as you were alone.

"What is up with you and Minhyuk?" He asked.

"You're kidding me right?"

"No, I've seen the way you act with him....the way you two flirt together-"

"That's bullshit-"

"The way you two cuddle."

"You're so freaking-"

"And don't think I haven't notice Shownu. What happened the other night when I wanted to spend time with you and you didn't feel good - but then I found out from Shownu you were with him."

"I thought maybe it was nothing but how am I suppose to feel when you're hugging him after each take."

"You are seriously so stupid." You said upset.

"Is this what you do (Y/N), you lead guys on and just use them."

"You are such a jerk." You cried and walked out of the room.

You didn't know where this was coming from. Why was he acting this way? He was twisting everything.

The next few days you stayed away from the company until they granted you a transfer.

"Have you seen (Y/N)?" Shownu asked their manager. "We haven't seen her all week."

"She decided to leave the company."

"What?" Shownu said alarmed as Wonho stood up in shock.

He was quick to leave the room and make his way out of the building, taking the first taxi to your apartment, not even caring to let anyone know. He knocked on your door but it was clear you weren't home. He sat on your steps as he pulled his phone out trying to reach you but it went straight to voicemail.

He couldn't help but run his fingers through his hair frustrated. This was all his fault, he felt. He pushed you away when he was jealous and ignorant.

You sighed as you tugged your heavy purse along, crossing out your last number of the day. Your eyes glanced to your steps seeing Wonho look up suddenly alarmed and confused.

"What are you doing here?" You asked confused.

"Why haven't you been answering your phone?" He asked first.

"Because I blocked your number."

"Oh." He looked down. "I'm sorry for what I said."

"Thanks." You said sarcastically as you walked passed him unlocking your door.

"Let me help you." He reached for your book that had addresses crossed out as you struggled holding your keys. "You didn't have to leave the company." He noticed that you were job searching.

"Well I was transferred to cube and their management sucks so....-"

"No I mean.....please come back. I was wrong and stupid."

"You know what. Not only was I risking my job for you but to think I was hooking up with Minhyuk AND Shownu. That's pretty pathetic."

"I know and I'm sorry. I just snapped from how you were so open with them and I was jealous."

"You were jealous for nothing. They're like my brothers Wonho. It's obvious I liked you and I was afraid of getting caught."

"Liked?" He said his voice dropping.

"Well.....you hurt me."

"Please forgive me."

You sighed again as you finally got your door open, inviting him inside. "I'm not going back to starship, so don't bother begging me."

"Then let me at least help you find something else, I'll help you with money."

"I don't need your dumb idol reputation to help me find a job. No one's hiring at the moment, that's all."

He followed you to your kitchen. "You haven't touched your wine since that night?" He glanced over to your counter with a tall red wine bottle a quarter full.

Your eyes drifted to where he was referring to. "I don't usually drink so I have no interest in finishing it."

"What about now?" He asked stepping closer to you and you were quick to stop him. "Please."

"What part of no, do you not understand?" You shook your head.

"I understand that if you're not part of the company, what else is standing in our way."

"You don't get to come into my apartme-" He closed your lips with his.

It only took you a second to pull away and push him as far away from you as you could. "You're a jerk."

He looked at you as he was making you feel guilty but yet sensual. He placed his hand where you pushed him and tugged on the button that was already coming undone. You stared frustrated as he knew what he was doing to you. You wanted him and that was clear.

"I know." He whispered close to you as he came closer. "I'm sorry."

"Please go." You whispered.

"Would it help to say I'm im love with you?" He asked only a centimeter away from filling the space.

"You're not."

"I am."

"No because-" He pulled you into him once again not breaking the kiss as sudden.

You hummed to break away but he was quick to shut you down. The kiss grew more desperate the more you let him take control. You were defeated by this point. You loved him too, you always had but the circumstances were far from acceptable but now that you were out of the job, maybe your fantasy could become a reality.

"Please take me back." He broke away from the kiss as you finally could catch your breath.

"I'll support you....support us." He practically begged.

"I can't just not work."

"Then I'll find you something....just give me some time."

"But if you're caught dating at all, you'll-"

"I know. But you're more important." He gently brushed his lips against yours.

"I can't let you do that."

"Then we'll keep it a secret." He was clearly not letting you go.

"Ok." You softly smiled confirming, sending him kissing you once again but with more passion. He lifted you up, gently sitting you on the counter as the kiss grew deeper by the second.

"Please let me take care of you." He kissed down your neck and you nodded in acceptance. He lifted you up once again carrying you to your bedroom.

"I promise.....I'll make you happy." Was the last thing he said before closing your bedroom door and giving you a night to remember.

Sure, you had regrets....but you loved him and he loved you. It was just the risk you had to play with. Is love really worth it?

#wonho scenarios #wonho smut #wonho fanfic #wonho imagines #wonho fluff #ot7 #monsta x fluff #monsta x imagines #monsta x smut #monsta x fanfic

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readyplayerhobi · 4 years ago

Text

Captain’s Log | 1

; Starfleet Captain!Jungkook x Ex-Borg!Reader

; Genre: Fluff, angst, future smut

; Word Count: 6.6k

; Synopsis: Freshly promoted Captain Jeon Jungkook is one of the youngest captain’s in Starfleet history. Sent on a mission to provide aid to a fellow starship, he grapples with multiple problems from a Q who seems to be trying to be human and calling himself Seokjin to having the only Romulan in Starfleet on board and the intricacies of dealing helping an ex-borg crew member readjust. Whether he’ll manage to succeed is another matter altogether, but he’ll try his hardest to prove the USS Yi Sun-Sin deserves a place amongst the most famous ships in Starfleet.

; A/N: So...I’ve just decided to split this. And by split it...I may or may not continue it. I’m not sure how this will be received or if people will even enjoy given it relies very heavily on the Star Trek world. If I can get my inspiration back then I will definitely write the second part which will probably be much longer!

Captain Jeon Jungkook stood in the small transport ship, staring out of the viewport with his breath caught in his throat. Before him, was the vast expanse of space. Thousands of tiny twinkling specks of light dotted the view, each one a star that was hundreds, thousands or even millions of light-years away.

There was every chance those stars could already be dead. The big ones would have swelled, more extensive and more substantial as they tried to survive by burning as many gasses as they could before finally going supernova and exploding. All that would remain is a neutron star, the compressed core of what had once been a magnificent sun or instead, a black hole that would eat at the very fabric of the universe.

Smaller stars would simply burn out, becoming white dwarves and cooling for millions of years as they became invisible. Forgotten. What Jungkook was looking at, was visual proof that those stars had existed.

But that wasn’t what interested him.

No, what interested him was the monumental structure that hung in the deadness of space, beyond the atmosphere of Earth. McKinley Station was massive on a scale he couldn’t comprehend. Giant in the kind of way that only space could provide. It was one of Starfleet’s pride and joy, a spacedock that birthed the spaceships that protected the hundreds of planets in the Federation.

Cradled gently in the spacedock’s arms, like a loving mother just waiting to let her child go, sat one of those spaceships. She was brand new, her paint glistening in the lights that shone around her. Like other ships of her class, Curiosity, she had the familiar saucer section that took up a large portion of her size while towards the back, her currently powered down warp nacelles flowed out in two straight lines.

A pale grey, the only notable thing on her was the lettering scrawled across the top of her saucer. It slowly came into view as the transport moved around, letting Jungkook get a good look.

The larger script read her registry number, NCC-75715. It was the clearest text, but he wasn’t interested in that. No, he was interested in what was written above that in a smaller font.

USS Yi Sun-Sin.

Her name. The name she would be known by across the stars. The reason he was interested in the magnificent ship, so new that she would probably have the delightful fresh smell when he got on board, was that she was his.

Captain Jeon Jungkook, one of the youngest captains in Starfleet history, was the captain of the brand new USS Yi Sun-Sin. This was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on her, but he could feel his heart swelling with pride already as he watched the ship get closer and closer. He would lead her crew through the galaxy, make the hard decisions, explore the unexplored and defend the defenceless.

It was still hard for him to realise that he’d made it. His years at Starfleet Academy had gone perfectly. Almost too perfectly. The highest grades, the best physical performance and graduated top of his class. He’d only been beaten in the mathematics and physics sections by a Vulcan, which was unsurprising.

After that, he’d run through the ranks of Starfleet at an exponential rate. As a result, he was only 31 and already a captain. His parents were beyond happy and bursting with pride that their little boy had made it to the honoured ranks of Starfleet. Just an ordinary guy from a small city called Busan.

Yet here he was. About to embark upon the greatest adventure.

One Year Later

“Engineering, what’s the status on the warp drive?” Jungkook asked, his finger pressed onto the screen embedded into the arm of his comfortable captain’s chair. The bridge stretched before him, a small space before reaching the helm and beyond that was the enormous viewscreen that let him see what lay beyond the Yi Sun-Sin.

A scientific anomaly in the nebula they’d been studying for the last week had caused the warp drive to unexpectedly power down. They’d been operating on thrusters since, managing to push the ship just far enough that they’d left the nebula. Engineering had been working on the drive ever since, frantically running through diagnostics and repairing blown conduits.

A starship without a warp drive wasn’t of much use to anyone. Jungkook was desperate to get it working again so he could get both his ship and crew away from any potential danger.

The last thing he needed right now was for a Borg cube to randomly fly by.

That thought ran through his head and he cringed at the thought, pushing it away quickly. He hoped that didn't happen. With the current roster, Jungkook didn't need his crew needing yet another reason to hate the Borg.

Not that he'd begrudge anyone for their negative feelings regarding the Borg. They were terrifying and Jungkook prayed to whatever god would hear him that he would never have to come across them.

Any alien species they found that they deemed to be a worthy addition to their gigantic Collective was swiftly captured and assimilated. Rarely did those people ever manage to return once taken.

But a few did.

When he’d been choosing the crew for his ship, Jungkook had had the pick of a wide range of capable candidates. He’d quickly earned himself the Captain of Lost Causes title amongst his peers when they saw who he’d chosen.

His crew was eclectic, to say the least.

And that included an ex-Borg. The only ex-Borg in Starfleet since the demise of Icheb, a capable officer who had unfortunately been killed to harvest his Borg parts. Jungkook, and everyone else in Starfleet, had found that a sad day. Even more so because it had been the infamous Seven of Nine who had delivered the parting blow, ending his suffering when she found him.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine how painful that had been for her. A lot of people were under the assumption that those who had once been Borg still retained their lack of humanity. Or whatever you called that in other species. They were wrong. People had it, they just didn’t know how to access it anymore.

Which was why he’d picked you to be his astrometrics officer. You had retained your knowledge from when you’d been in the Borg Collective, one drone amongst millions, even billions. That meant you had a formidable knowledge of space and how to traverse it, a mathematical mind that could only be met by an android and an innate understanding of science.

Needless to say, you were a brilliant Starfleet officer.

You didn’t quite make such a good human though. Along with struggling to find your place amongst free-minded individuals once more, your social skills found much to be desired as well. Everyone on board Yi Sun-Sin knew about you, and they all knew about the problems you had faced in Starfleet Academy when it came to others.

Jungkook had found you endlessly fascinating for the first few weeks. Your lack of awareness regarding certain social graces and your complete disregard for rules if you felt they were interfering with something worthwhile had both bemused and exasperated him.

When he’d been given this ship, the only thing he’d thought about had been how to ensure he was commanding a large number of Starfleet personnel efficiently and with care. He wanted to be the kind of captain whom people were confident about coming to with their problems while also inspiring strong loyalty to take them into dangerous situations.

He most certainly had not expected what had happened with you over the last year. Not that he particularly regretted any of it. Starfleet didn’t have any concrete regulations when it came to fraternizing. Jungkook knew because he’d frantically scanned them all when he’d realised how deep he was into his feelings. All he’d been able to do was maintain that his personal life remained personal and that when in command, he didn’t let anything interfere with his job.

Alongside you though, he’d also taken on Lieutenant Commander Jimin. The slight man was currently standing behind the communications console to the left of Jungkook at the back of the bridge. He was Jungkook’s second officer and a Romulan. The only Romulan in Starfleet. Just like you, it had made him a little bit of an outcast amongst his fellow officers and cadets at the Academy.

Romulans were not exactly renowned for being friends of Starfleet. But Jimin’s family had fled Romulus before he’d even been born, gaining asylum on Earth and becoming productive members of society. Jimin had never known what it was like to be amongst Romulans; he’d never even seen the homeworld of his species.

That didn’t stop people from distrusting him though. From viewing him through the lens of hostility and anger. Unsurprisingly, he’d somehow formed a friendship with you and it pleased Jungkook to see that you both at least had each other.

But that wasn’t what was important right now. The damn warp drive was.

“Engineering reporting,” The soft and feminine voice of his Chief Engineer, Siyeon, filtered through to the bridge. “We have almost managed to fix the drive, Captain. I estimate another hour and a second test run will be required before I can recommend restarting the warp drive safely.”

Her words were brisk and precise, the famous mark of the ever so logical Vulcans. Siyeon had been the Vulcan to beat him in the subjects he’d hadn’t come top in at the Academy, her analytical mind pursuing her to move through the engineering ranks. When he’d seen her name available for his crew he’d jumped to bring her aboard, promoting her to a senior rank.

She was exactly like she’d been at the Academy, almost unaged due to her extended Vulcan lifespan. Long black hair in an understated cut, eyebrows in a straight line that made it a little hard to understand what she was thinking sometimes and the familiar pointed ears of her race. Due to the same origins of their species, she looked remarkably similar to Jimin with his ruffled black hair, straight brows and pointed ears.

Jungkook was glad to have her on board though. He felt like she could see problems that he hadn’t even considered before and sometimes came up with solutions that seemed surprisingly creative for a Vulcan. Though her second was a human. Chaos incarnate.

“Great, let me know when it’s ready and we’ll give it a try.”

“Acknowledged.”

He has to purse his lips to stop himself from laughing at her brusque dismissal. It was still jarring to be dealt with in so quick of a manner but Jungkook knew that Siyeon didn’t mean to be rude. She just had more important things to worry about.

“Jimin,” Jungkook called out to the Romulan, looking back and taking in his immediately alert stance. “Are the sensors showing anything?”

His direct gaze leaves Jungkook’s to look down at his console once more, fingers flying as he taps in commands and looks over everything. The top part of Jimin’s uniform above his heart is solid gold in colour, signifying he’s part of the operations division. It makes his slim shoulders look slightly broader, but not by much.

“Nothing in front or to the side of us, sir. I can’t confirm behind us. We’re still too close to the nebula and our sensors can’t penetrate.” Jungkook always found it a little odd, even after six months, to be staring at someone who resembled a stoic Vulcan so strongly and yet was the complete opposite. Jimin spoke with urgency, a slight tinge of worry in his voice as he was unable to give Jungkook everything he wanted while his brows dipped towards each other as his face gave away even more.

Romulans had never embraced cold logic like their cousins. If anything, Jimin was prone to bouts of rage if he was pushed to his limit. Quick to take offence and even quicker to take action. An unfortunate Romulan trait.

“That’s fine Commander, don’t worry too much over it. We’re still moving away so keep checking. Sensors at max, I want to be aware of every tiny meteor flying even remotely near us in this sector. I do not want to be surprised.” A brusque nod accompanied Jimin’s acknowledgement and Jungkook turned his attention to the next thing on his list.

Looking over to the chair next to him, he raised a slight brow at the Bajoran male sitting there. For a few moments, Commander Yoongi Min didn’t seem to realise his captain wanted his attention. He was too busy scanning over a datapad that had been handed to him by an ensign.

“Min?” Jungkook prompted, causing Yoongi to look up abruptly. The familiar ridges on the upper bridge of his nose gave away his Bajoran heritage, alongside the traditional decorative earpiece that was connected with tiny chains to the shell of his ear, an important part of his culture.

Licking his lips, Yoongi coughed slightly before nodding as he collated the reports he’d been given while Jungkook’s had been busy.

“Sickbay reports ten injured when the conduits blew on deck 11, section B and C. No other casualties. Engineering teams have already repaired those conduits. Holodeck 1 is out for the moment due to a power surge caused. No ETA for the moment.” He carried on, the reports less important now he’d gotten the big ones out of the way but Jungkook still listened intently as his mind raced.

Once finished, he nodded his thanks to Yoongi before contacting sickbay for an update from his Chief Medical Officer, Dr Dahyun Troi.

“Dr Troi, how are the casualties? Are you okay down there? Do you need any extra help?” There was a brief pause but he didn’t push it. He may be the captain of this starship but the Chief Medical Officer was the only person who was allowed to give him orders if necessary. The last thing he wanted was to aggravate her.

“Captain, we’re looking good here. I’ve already treated and released four of the casualties. Another three are probably going to be able to go in half an hour once I’ve given them a final scan. The last three are going to be here a little longer, I’m afraid. Ensign Adewale has a crushed left leg that will require surgery to repair while Lieutenant Martinez has suffered head trauma. I can’t give a firm diagnosis on Lieutenant Kapoor, though I do have a feeling that we may have to divert to a Starbase for the medical facilities there to look after her. There may be amputation required.” Dahyun’s voice was calm and gentle despite what she was reporting.

It made her the perfect doctor in Jungkook’s opinion. Always reassuring and with a soft tone of tranquillity, she managed to keep her patients relaxed even under the most stressful and painful of times.

Which made sense. She was half-human and half-Betazoid, a telepathic race which allowed them to be empathic. The ship’s counsellor, Commander Taehyung Grax, was a full Betazoid. His stronger abilities made him a better option for sensitively dealing with the crew's psychological issues.

“Okay, keep me updated on whatever you need. We’ll plot a course to the nearest Starbase just in case.” Jungkook responds, ending the communication. Taking in a deep breath, he just lets himself have a moment to compile his thoughts and just...breathe. He hasn’t slept in almost twenty-four hours.

Logically, he knows that he could just leave the bridge and get some rest. Yoongi would keep track of everything for him and call him back if anything critical needed his attention.

The soft noise of the elevator doors opening caught his attention, looking over to see you walking out with your usual, self-assured strides. Your face was carefully blank, the Borg implant along your jawline matched with another at your temple. They’d been too interwoven with important nerves to be removed.

“Captain, the astrometrics lab is functioning as expected-” Anything else you were about to say is cut off by the sudden movement of Lieutenant Commander Jung Hoseok. The Chief Security Officer, normally so jovial and bright, moved at what seemed like warp speed to the main area of the bridge, his phaser pointed in front of him while he called for more security.

“Who are you. Identify yourself.” He said sternly, his elegant face like a stone as he watches the newcomer with wary eyes. Every tiny movement is tracked and before Jungkook even realises what he’s doing, he’s standing as well. Brow creasing, he looks over the man who has appeared in a flash of white light.

“I know who he is,” Ensign Namjoon Dax, the chief helmsman said softly. “He’s a Q.”

“Oh no, please no.” Yoongi moaned softly from Jungkook’s side, a hand coming to rub at his face. There was no need for Jungkook to question why he was reacting like that because even he knew what that meant. It had, unsurprisingly, become required reading to go over the reports from Captain Picard, Captain Janeway and Captain Sisko regarding their encounters with the being simply known as ‘Q’.

It was both his name and the name of his race. Extra-dimensional beings with immense power over time, space and plenty of other things that Jungkook desperately didn’t want to get involved with. Like the laws of physics, for starters.

Q was not something that any Starfleet officer wanted to get involved with. Because for as monumentally powerful as they are, as knowledge as they were, they were like petulant children. Constantly bored and wanting to play with the ants. Of which Starfleet ships often ended up being their playthings.

“You’re right, I’m a Q. How did you know? It’s my dashing good looks, isn’t it? Nothing in your universe could possibly compare to this exquisite facade. Handcrafted by the...well I don’t know but that’s not important.” Q said, his full lips spreading into a beautiful smile.

He wasn’t wrong. The alien man stood before Jungkook was good looking, to the point it almost looked unnatural. Tall and with broad shoulders, he had jet black hair that was swept off his forehead in an elegant style while his large eyes practically sparkled with mischief.

It made Jungkook feel ill.

“I know...because I’ve dealt with a Q before. The Q.” Namjoon is still sitting at this console, the red of his uniform denoting his command division and Jungkook feels a small swell of pride at how calm he’s being. Although, there’s no reason to get hysterical. From what he’d read, there was absolutely nothing he could do to make Q disappear until he got bored and left.

“Really? I don’t remember you,” Q said, puckering his lips into a pout while one dark brow rose as he scanned over the helmsman. “Handsome, tall, those familiar markings on your face...you’re a Trill. Do you have one of those creepy worm things in your stomach too?”

Gesturing towards Namjoon, Q’s nose scrunches up in disgust. Trill’s were a humanoid race and some of them were ‘joined’ with a symbiont. A worm-like creature that could only live in the body of a Trill, which was passed from host to host. As a result, Namjoon had the memories and knowledge of all the former hosts of his symbiont.

Including meeting Q, apparently.

“I have a symbiont, yes. And you won’t remember me. I’ve only been joined for a year. You might remember one of my previous hosts though? Jadzia Dax? From Deep Space 9?” There’s a brief moment of quiet as Q thinks before his mouth drops open and he points at Namjoon.

“Yes! You were very beautiful. Though you wore blue then, not red? And you were a woman. Is it strange, going from gender to gender?”

“No. It’s natural. I’m the Chief Helmsman of the Yi Sun-Sin whereas Jadzia was a science officer. You don’t look like that Q though.” Clearing his throat, Jungkook tries to turn the conversation to himself. He was the captain of this ship, after all, it felt odd to be so clearly excluded from the conversation.

“Oh well, that wasn’t me. That was my brother, Q. He shared his memory of you, that’s why I know. I’m Q. But I’ve been quite bored lately so I thought I’d try out this whole...living like one of you things. So, you can call me Captain Seokjin! Reporting for duty!” He says this brightly, grinning as he salutes. There’s another flash of light and suddenly, the plain white robes he’d been wearing are turned into a Starfleet uniform.

A command uniform...with the relevant pips of a Starfleet Captain on his collar.

Letting out a groan, Jungkook tries to control himself as he realises that he wasn’t going to be getting out of this easily. A Q who wanted to be human, or at least act like a Starfleet officer? At least cadets at the Academy were going to remember his name after being forced to read this report as well.

“You can’t just...turn up here and demand to be part of our crew,” Jungkook states, as calmly as he can with high blood pressure rising this much. “Can’t you...go to one of the inhabited planets if you want to live like us? Find a city and-”

“Pssht!” He’s interrupted by Q, or rather Seokjin, lifting a hand and making a gesture as if he was trying to blow away a bad odour. Baffled at being interrupted so blasé, Jungkook just stares at him for a moment with wide eyes before looking over at Yoongi. His second-in-command just gave him an unsure shrug, uncertainty written all over his face.

“I said I want to live like one of you. That means on one of your fancy starships, getting into danger and fighting bad guys. I wanna pew pew everyone!” Finger guns at the ready, Seokjin pretends to fire at Hoseok. When his Chief Security Officer just scowls at the intruder, Seokjin just grins and laughs.

Pressing at his temple, Jungkook reminded himself that headaches didn’t exist anymore. They’d been cured long ago. He was just feeling a phantom headache, that was all.

“You can’t just...waltz onto a starship and give yourself a command. For starters, there’s only one captain and that’s me. Another point is that you are most definitely not qualified to be on this ship. You haven’t passed Starfleet Academy, therefore you can’t be given a rank of any kind. And even if I did give you a field rank, it would be Ensign. Because I don’t know what you can do. If I’d even want to let someone as...chaotic as you even touch anything.” Maybe he went a little too far with that. Some of his words felt a little bit harsh and Jungkook had to work hard not to give away that he was uncomfortably aware that he might have pissed the omnipotent being off.

But all Seokjin does is sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes and flapping his arms around in a remarkably childlike tantrum.

Subtly raising one hand, Jungkook calls for the security team to stand down. They do so slowly, unhappiness at the order apparent but they can’t go against their captain’s order. Straightening, Hoseok keeps a firm hand on his phaser, the gold of his uniform clashing slightly with the red he’d decided to colour his hair with recently.

“Why not? I’m more powerful than you anyway. I could take you places you’ve never even heard of. How about the Kinmara system?” Clicking his fingers, there’s a flash of light and the view out of the large screen changes abruptly. Instead of the vast expanse of space, there’s a large planet creeping into view.

“What the...where are we?” Jungkook asks, looking over at Jimin with wide eyes. His operations officer is staring with equally wide eyes before scanning the information on his console, rapidly touching it as he changes what he sees.

“I...I don’t know. The star charts don’t match up with any of the stars out there and we don’t have this planet in the system. From what I can see...it’s an M-Class with a breathable atmosphere. Gravity slightly stronger than Earth but within acceptable parameters. Multiple life signs across the planet.” He stutters slightly, eyes flickering from the view to Seokjin before moving back to Jungkook.

An M-Class meant it was habitable to life forms like humans or Vulcans. The fact that it wasn’t charted, or explored, meant that Seokjin had no doubt used his immeasurable powers to transport the Yi Sun-Sin who knows how many lightyears away from their previous location.

“Yes, it’s called Kinmara. The system is named after it. It has two moons, one of which is also inhabited and is called Breehana. Lovely place, the weather is beautiful and the ocean is just right. Only the ocean is pink, as you can see. I love pink, it’s so pretty to look at, don’t you think? Anyway, the Mara’s, the name of the race down there, don’t get many visitors so you might find it interesting to visit.” Looking back over at the Q, Jungkook realises suddenly that he’s also materialised himself into a fancy chair.

It takes a lot of effort to bite his tongue and not snap at the powerful being. Jungkook needs to get back to where they were, and Seokjin is the only one who can do that. Especially when they didn’t even have warp drive yet.

“I’m sure it’s a lovely place to visit, but right now I would appreciate it if you would just transport us back to where we were? You see, we need to make some final repairs to our warp drive so we’re not interested in exploring Kinmara right now. But if you let us know where it is on a star chart then I’m sure someone at Starfleet will eventually get round to exploring it closer.” Giving a genial smile, Jungkook gives himself a mental pat on the back. He didn’t even sound remotely annoyed then, perfect.

Only he forgot that he’s not dealing with some rational lifeform. He’d read enough about the previous encounters with Q, and read the regulations on how to handle an encounter with one, plenty of times to know that there was no such thing as rational to them. They did what they wanted, when they wanted and how they wanted.

Unfortunately, this Q had chosen the Yi Sun-Sin to be his plaything for today. Which meant that headache that shouldn’t exist was beginning to very much feel like it existed.

“Oh, are we not exploring today? How about some action instead? I know the perfect place.” Another snap of his fingers and everything goes white once more. What takes a mere second feels like minutes, with Jungkook dreading what they’ll be faced with. Because if there’s one thing he’s certain of right now, it’s that it would not be where they’d started.

He’s greeted with a vista of space when he finally opens his eyes, the twinkling lights of far-off stars as familiar to him as the back of his hand. A welcoming sight.

What is not welcoming, however, is the immediate alarm that begins to blare through the bridge. Automatically, the lights dim and a familiar, if unwanted, red light begins to flash throughout the bridge while screens begin to show what the ship deems to be important information.

Red alert. The standard Starfleet setting for when enemy ships are detected or they go to battle stations. Automatically, the ship has put itself into red alert when something has triggered its sensors. Under normal circumstances, this would mean the Yi Sun-Sin would be primed and ready for battle with weapons ready.

With no warp drive though, it was just a foreboding sound that chilled Jungkook to his very bones. Because there was something out there. Something that his ship deemed a danger to itself and her crew. Something he couldn’t fight.

“Sensors?!” He barks, jerking into movement. Hoseok doesn’t even waste a breath, practically leaping behind the security console and tapping at the screen. There’s no need to ask what he’s doing, Jungkook already knows that he’s trying to see if there’s anything they could do to fight.

“One ship, sir. It’s spotted us, five-million kilometres out and closing. It’s…” Jimin trails off, his already pale face draining even more as his mind acknowledges what he’s reading. His reaction alone makes Jungkook feel sick. Romulans weren’t prone to fear when it came to fighting. They lived for this kind of stuff, beaten only perhaps by the Klingons.

“It’s a Borg sphere, Captain.” The soft words come from behind him and he spins around, eyes widening while the rest of his expression freezes in dual shock and dismay. Your face is carefully neutral, just like it always is and he watches as you work through the data on your astrometrics panel. The sensors for your area are far more sensitive than the general navigation, which makes it no surprise that you’d figured it out first.

“Borg?” He almost whispers. There’s no need to look at the rest of the crew. The subtle wave of fear at the incoming ship moves around the bridge like a harsh wind. But at the same time, he feels a thread of pride at the actions of his senior command. No one panics or starts shouting, instead there’s an odd silence that soon turns the fear into resolve.

There may not be a lot that they could do, but Jungkook would be damned if the Yi Sun-Sin didn’t go down fighting in some way. Even if he had to ram the sphere. Did it make him a bad captain if he’d much rather his crew die in a suicide mission than be assimilated into a lifeless collective?

Glancing back over at you, he sees what no one else does. The fear in your eyes. The pure terror at the knowledge that the Collective you had once been a part of was so close to taking you again. From many conversations with you over the months, both casual and a little more intimate just before sleeping, Jungkook knew that you would rather die than go back.

There was no individual in the Borg. No one person, no freedom of thought of free will. There was only the Collective. A central mind that connected to every single Borg throughout the galaxy, billions upon billions of minds all working as one with no thoughts of their own. You had immeasurable knowledge from all the information that the Borg had harvested from the races they had assimilated over time, but you were terrified of losing your individuality once more.

A Borg drone, which you had once been, was nothing. The Collective thought nothing of killing off drones they deemed defective or those that couldn’t be repaired. There was no compassion, no empathy. No love.

Yes. Jungkook would rather his crew die than put them through that. He didn’t think he’d have many complaints about it either.

Perhaps a little selfishly too, he couldn’t bear the thought of putting you through that once more. You’d finally learnt how to be an individual once more and were exploring your humanity. The thought of you lost forever once more was even more painful.

Looking over at Seokjin, Jungkook gritted his teeth and pointed at him with fury. If only the Q didn’t have the kind of power that Jungkook couldn’t even begin to imagine or understand. He would sincerely love to punch the smug, handsome asshole.

“Take. Us. Back. I told you, we have no warp drive! That means we have no weapons! You’re not going to get the battle you wanted. We can’t fight the Borg, not like this. Take us back! You can be on the ship, fine whatever! Just...don’t touch anything and let us just do our mission! Please.” He begged, about ready to get on his knees if necessary.

Maybe it wasn’t very becoming for a Starfleet captain, but he didn’t care right now. He had no idea where they were in the galaxy and if the Borg got them, then Starfleet would never know either. The Yi Sun-Sin would go down as missing in action, just another mystery that would never be solved.

But Seokjin’s attention has moved onto you, a curious expression taking over. Tilting his head slightly, he walks over to you with long, elegant strides that make it seem like he’s been on this bridge many times. It annoys Jungkook and he has to ball his hands into fists to stop himself from lashing out at the Q.

You could take care of yourself, he knew that. Jungkook had far more important things to stress over than Seokjin taking a sudden interest with you. So it’s with great pains that he turns away and begins to bark orders at his bridge crew, demanding the status of weapons before patching through to engineering and getting an update from them.

“What are you?” Seokjin asks you, eyes of a deep chocolate brown scanning your frame up and down repeatedly. Unlike anyone else on the bridge, the colour of the top portion of your uniform is blue. A signifier of the science division, it was rare for you to be on the bridge; Jungkook wished that you weren’t here right now given the way Seokjin was looking at you speculatively.

He shouldn’t have been concerned though because you handled the omnipotent being with the same, cool regard that you did everything else. It had been a little frustrating when he’d first taken command, even more so when he’d realised that he had a potential romantic interest but he loved it right now.

Because you just stared at Seokjin, your gaze not giving away a single hint of emotion or expression. A slight tilt of your head gives away that you’re considering him and Jungkook probably shouldn’t get as much satisfaction as he does by the way Seokjin shuffles, almost as if he’s awkward.

“You are a Q. The Borg have never met your species before. I have no frame of reference for how to engage with you except for the reports from Starfleet.” As usual, your words are straightforward and precise. No one ever has to worry about whether you hold hidden intentions, it’s simply not in your nature anymore to engage in subterfuge.

“The Borg,” Seokjin sounds surprised and he scans over you a few more times, brow rising. “You can’t be an actual Borg, they wouldn’t let you stay here. Not to mention you don’t have all that ugly machine stuff on you. Humanoid and in a Starfleet uniform. You were a Borg, but now you’re not with the Collective anymore. How fascinating.”

“Very. Captain, if you will excuse me then I have duties to attend to.” You’re looking at Jungkook now, lips pursed expectantly. Pausing in his questions to everyone else, Jungkook nods and permits you to leave the bridge. It’s not unnoticed by him the way Seokjin watches you in fascination as you leave. His stomach turns at the sight and worry fills him.

Not that there’s any point. You can take care of yourself and more importantly, none of them could stop whatever Seokjin wanted to do.

“How very interesting.” Jungkook can’t help but glare at the Q as he watches you leave, twisting his lips in a bizarrely human gesture. Finally, he reaches his boiling point and points in frustration out of the viewscreen.

“Borg. Danger. Leave. Now.” Part of him knows that he shouldn’t be as blunt and rude, not when the situation was this dangerous. But he didn’t care, he just wanted his crew and ship away from danger. Something that Jungkook couldn’t do himself. He’d begged, he’d argued and now he was being firm.

If Seokjin wanted to pretend to be part of his crew then he would have to learn to take orders from him. It was the only way this whole stupid thing was going to work without causing Jungkook some serious stress. The very fact that he was even considering this said volumes about the fear and pressure Jungkook was under right now.

Exhaling slowly, he pleaded with himself internally to keep himself calm. From what he’d read about the Q, and that was the race as a whole, it wouldn’t do to antagonise him. It’d do no one any good if he decided to just disappear, leaving the Yi Sun-Sin to its fate.

“Fine, fine. Urgh, you lower lifeforms have no sense of adventure. You’re all so boring.” A click of his fingers sends everything white once more. Once his vision clears, Jungkook immediately starts barking orders to his crew. He didn’t need to though, they were automatically moving like a well-oiled machine.

“We’re back where we started, captain,” Jimin confirms with a nod of his head, his gaze still focused on the readout from his console. He doesn’t say anything more, his fingers too busy darting across the screen as he takes in what he’s seeing.

“Well, this was a waste of my time. I’ll be back when the fun starts.” With that, Seokjin vanishes. The bridge is eerily silent for a few minutes after he’s gone, everyone looking at each other in confusion as the red alert status disappears now they’re safe again.

“Is he gone?” Yoongi asks, looking over at Hoseok. The security chief glances down to his console, lips pursing as he scans through the information before nodding his head slowly.

“No...Q life-signs detected on board. Or rather, only what we expect should be onboard. Looks like he’s really gone.” Something inside Jungkook relaxes and he suddenly feels so, unbelievably, tired. Groaning quietly, he flops back into the captain’s seat and rubs at his forehead. He should visit the medical bay, it’s not natural to have a headache.

“Okay. Okay, well. He’s going to come back, we know that. Just be prepared, warn everyone on board and I want to be informed the moment he turns out. Hoseok, you better make sure your security team is ready for anything he decides to do. I know you probably can’t do anything but it’ll sure as hell make me feel better. Yoongi, get onto engineering and see if they can speed this whole thing up. I want to be gone as soon as possible, is that understood?” Yoongi nods, automatically turning to the interface in his chair.

“Yes sir, I’ll collate reports from all departments and send them to your ready room.” Nodding to his second-in-command, Jungkook stands and stretches with a groan. He’d spent long enough on the bridge and he just wanted some time to relax. But he couldn’t do that, not yet.

“Great. I’m going to head to sickbay, check-in with Dr Troi as my head is killing after that incident. Then I’m gonna try and get some rest. You’ve got the bridge Yoongi, once the engines are fixed and working then get us going again. Warp 8, back on our path. And...send a report to Starfleet about what’s happened. Try and get some advice on what to do with all this. Everyone good with their orders?” Looking around, everyone on the bridge nodded in acknowledgement to him and a weight lifted off his shoulders.

He had a good bridge crew, and he knew that he could rely on them while he was gone. Heading over to the turbolift, entering the circular car and asking for the desk that medical bay was one. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed as it began to move.

“Fuck.”

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