#she's been living with humans too long and forgot how to Vulcan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leopardcoffee · 2 years

Text

You’re the ghost in the room

Soval/reader

🫧Warnings: none

🫧Notes: Translations under the cut

🫧Soval had just wanted a brief walk before returning to his work at the embassy, it had not been his intention to rekindle things with his old flame.

🫧Translations:

Taluhk- precious

Ashalik- darling I ashau du. I ashau du heh du losrak me. Du nem-tor t'nash-veh khaf-spol heh t'nash-veh katra k' du heh losrak me wanting. I ma vesh' hollow opi' du losrak me, k'diwa. I vesh' pok tor nem-tor du u' t'nash-veh ko-telsu heh du threw t'nash-veh storilaya pla' svi' t'nash-veh limuk, ni uf dare du leralmin nash nam-tor t'nash-veh lafot lu wuh lafot nam-tor kling's tonk'peh ish-veh?- I loved you. I loved you and you left me. You took my heart and my katra with you and left me wanting. I have been hollow since you left me, beloved. I was ready to take you as my wife and you threw my advances back in my face, so how dare you say this is my fault when the fault is no one's but yours? K’diwa- beloved

Dim rays of sun shone down on the Vulcan embassy in San Francisco through the heavy fog. Overcast weather had been the norm since Soval had arrived here on Earth after a brief visit to Vulcan. He could understand how it might bog one down after a while, but for the moment it was a nice reprieve from Vulcan’s scorching summer skies. Small puddles dotted the streets, remnants of last night’s rainstorm. It had been an interesting experience for him, rain on Vulcan was nearly unheard of.

Laughing Human children dashed in front of him as he walked, splashing in the puddles but careful not to muddy the ambassador’s robes. Soval watched them as they went on their way. Children of all races were seemingly predisposed to the same behavior, though Vulcan children tended to prefer sand banks to puddles. Fondly, he remembered his own childhood, now long ago. He couldn’t bring himself to chastise them, he had certainly tracked sand in the entryway of his parents home when he was their age.

Soval continued on his way, taking in the scenes of humans going about their lives. Having lived here as long as he had, he was not as easily irritated as some of his fellow Vulcans. For all their perceived faults, Humans certainly had a way of endearing themselves to you. Returning back to Vulcan had been a bit more of a shock than he had been expecting, he was far more expressive than he had been when he had lived on Vulcan permanently. As much love as he did have for his home planet, Earth was more his home than anywhere else. He knew other Vulcans looked at him like he was an eccentric, but so long as they respected his wisdom and authority, it didn’t bother him.

As he walked, he was greeted by many a friendly face. Sometimes it crossed his mind that he wished he could smile back at them, but not always. Laughter and the sounds of life filled his ears. Tree leaves rustled in the wind and colorful leaves crunched beneath his feet. ‘Fall’ as he had learned it was called, was on its way, bringing with it the promise of the cold kiss of winter.

Between the colored trees, Soval thought he saw a familiar face flit by. He narrowed his eyes and walked a little faster. There they went again, slipping by at the edges of his vision, a woman. How did he know her? He was almost certain he’d seen her before, but who was she? He rounded a corner and she came into view. Her hair blew in the wind, her cheeks tinged pink from the cold. Indignantly, she pulled her scarf up a little higher to shield her face, yet to notice his presence.

But he had noticed her, and now there was no way he could continue without pretending he hadn’t. Her once lustrous hair was streaked with gray, it had been so long. The memory of their last meeting forcibly invaded his mind. She stood at the corner of the street, waiting for something. This was not the place where he had wanted this to occur. It was too late now, she had seen him. At once she seemingly forgot whatever she was waiting for and her eyes widened at the sight of him. For a moment, they were both stock still as they registered what was happening. All at once, she broke the trance with her shrieking voice.

“YOU!”

She stormed towards him, Soval could do nothing but watch. Her hands reached out and grasped the lapels of his robes and dragged him closer.

“How dare you show your face here? How dare you invade my peace with your presence?”

“I do not understand. Y/N, it has been so long, taluhk…”

Rage invaded her gaze that had once been filled with adoration. She shoved him back as hard as she could. They were beginning to attract attention from people as they passed by,

“Don’t you speak to me like that!”

“Y/N, ashalik, people are staring. We should discuss in private.”

For a moment she seemed to come to her senses and glanced around and all the people staring at them. With a reluctant grunt of agreement, she grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him with her. They turned the corner into a small space between buildings and Soval felt himself be shoved up against a wall.

“What do you want from me? Why are you here? Answer me!”

“Again, I do not understand. Have I upset you? It has kept me awake for many nights trying to figure out why you left.”

Her eyes grew unfocused as she processed his words. Soval breathed heavily, the cold wind whistled past them and blew his bangs.

“What makes you think you have the right to say that to me?” There was no anger in her voice now, only confusion and sadness. Soval didn’t, couldn’t understand what was happening. As far as he remembered it had been her who had left him on his own, simply quit her job at the embassy one day with no explanation and left him alone. He hadn’t lied to her, he had spent many nights awake trying to figure out where it all went wrong. In the coming weeks after she left, his home had become a mess, his days unfocused and his nights lonely and wanting. He had all but fallen apart in her absence, but as the days passed and the years went by, he started to recover. But even then, he had never found another woman he’d take as a mate.

“I-I still don’t understand ashayam. What have I done? It was you who left me."

“WHAT?! IT WAS YOU WHO CHASED ME AWAY, DON’T COME CRAWLING BACK TO ME NOW! YOU LOST ANY CLAIM YOU HAD OVER MY HEART YEARS AGO!” Y/N screeched at him, her face once again wild with rage, eyes filled with tears.

Soval’s ears rang and his head spun, what? What was going on? She blamed him? But, she had left one night with no explanation and left him yearning. One day they had been as close as mates, so near to the threshold of finally being together, and the next day she had vanished without a trace.

“I did no such thing. There was no one closer to me than you, and then you left. You gave me no explanation, no warning, you simply vanished from my life and took everything with you. I ashau du. I ashau du heh du losrak me. Du nem-tor t'nash-veh khaf-spol heh t'nash-veh katra k' du heh losrak me wanting. I ma vesh' hollow opi' du losrak me, k'diwa. I vesh' pok tor nem-tor du u' t'nash-veh ko-telsu heh du threw t'nash-veh storilaya pla' svi' t'nash-veh limuk, ni uf dare du leralmin nash nam-tor t'nash-veh lafot lu wuh lafot nam-tor kling's tonk'peh ish-veh?” Soval spit at her, forgetting himself and converting to his mother tongue. As composed as he had been, he felt his emotions creep out beyond the bounds of his control. He had thrown himself from against the wall and gotten into her face, his words formed not with love and care but with hatred and violence.

She stumbled, taken back by the intensity of his emotions. For a moment it seemed as though she might cry, and worry spiraled in his stomach. Just as he was about to reach out for her in an act of comfort, she found her footing and spat back at him with tenfold the intensity.

“Spare me your Vulcan eloquence. Tell it like it is. YOU PUSHED ME AWAY! Left me on my own to pick up the pieces of my heart. I thought you wanted me too, clearly I was mistaken, clearly I underestimated your cruelty and your hatred of us pitiful humans. How could I have been so stupid? To think someone like you would ever stoop so low as to be with someone like me? Tell me why you did it, tell me why I got a transmission from Starfleet command on the night where I finally thought we might become something more, posting me on the other side of the country. Stop stalling. SAY IT IN ENGLISH COWARD, TELL ME WHAT YOU REALLY MEAN!”

Soval breathed deeply, and chose his words carefully. “I did not send you away. Your transfer was completely unknown to me. I was under the impression that you had quit and left because you were disinterested in my advances-”

“Advances? What?” You sounded incredulous, almost like you didn’t believe him. “What are you saying?” You stepped closer, so near now that your chests brushed. Soval could hear your breathing, see the dried tear tracks on your beautiful face.

“I am saying, ashayam, that I love you. I have loved you from the moment we met, there is no one else in the world for me. I can never take another mate, you are the only woman I have ever and will ever pledge myself to. So please, k’diwa, please say you love me too.”

“I love you too.”

Before you could get your bearings, begin to comprehend what was happening, you felt the world blur around you. Soval turned you around so you were the one shoved against the wall, his hand cradling your fragile head and taking the brunt of the impact. His breathing was labored, his body tense. The look in his eyes was a mix of intense love, desire, and lust. Having his hand brace you against the wall and his much larger body pressed against yours made your stomach flutter. He had always elicited such feelings in you.

“Do not tease me ashayam, do you mean it?” Soval’s voice was husky, it was clear he was barely containing himself from taking you then and there. The very thought made your heart lurch.

“I mean it.”

Soval’s lips were not harsh against yours. His kiss was tender, inexperienced. Even so, his lips were soft and caressed yours gently. His hand reached up and cupped your face, everything he did he did as softly as he could. You reached up and took his head in your hands, clutching him to you so you would never have to part. It was clear he had never kissed before. You moved your lips against his and he followed. He quickly grew more and more earnest as he learned what he was doing, and forced you harder against the wall and kissed you hungrier.

When you broke apart, you panted and stared at his flushed face. His cheeks were green and his lips were parted, ready to begin again. Soval leaned back in to kiss you again, but you placed your hand on his chest to stop him. At once his face grew serious and he stepped back.

“I am sorry Y/N, I should not have done that, I-”

“Soval, stop. You did nothing wrong, that was the best kiss of my life. And as much as I’d like to do nothing but kiss you until I die, we need to talk about this. We have things to resolve, kissing in an alley won’t solve our miscommunication. But know this, I love you, I want you, and I always have and always will.”

“As do I ashayam. I have died everyday without you, the severing of our bond humbled me more than I can express. I need you Y/N, I fear I can no longer live without you.” In a moment completely devoid of logic, Soval grabbed your waist in desperation and dragged you in for another kiss. You were completely at his mercy, helpless against the sensation of his lips devouring you. He dipped you and pulled your body closer, hiking your leg up to his waist. His sharp Vulcan teeth dug into your lip, careful not to draw blood. You wrapped your arms around his neck and leaned into it. After a long moment, he regrettably released you.

“You are right, we must discuss. Would you prefer my home or your own?”

“Mine.”

Soval settled down on your plush couch, your borderline garish home decor was surprisingly aesthetically pleasing to him. The walls of your home were filled, art covered every available surface. A homemade quilt was draped over his legs. In the heat of the moment, the both of you had failed to realize that Soval had been out in the cold for far too long. Upon arriving at your house, you had flown into a fit of worry. He had been trying to hide his shivering from your keen eye, but nothing escaped you. You had thrust him down onto your sofa and smothered him in your throw blanket. He gazed at you as you puttered around in your kitchen, you had insisted on making him tea to quote “warm his insides.” He had tried to explain to no avail that that was not logical, tea did not increase internal temperature, but you had insisted, and he couldn’t bring himself to deny you.

The oriental carpet beneath his feet was patterned in a floral motif, as was the rest of your home. Everything simply screamed you, he noticed some of his gifts to you prominently displayed as well. But what had caught his attention was a framed photo on your side table that you must have forgotten was directly in his line of view. It was a photo of the two of you outside the embassy in summer, you were leaning on his shoulders from behind, a wide smile on your face. In contrast, he looked perfectly put together. Admiral Forrest had taken that photo on the day you were promoted to Captain. The pride radiating from you had been infectious, so much so that he had not bothered to explain to his flabbergasted Vulcan colleagues why he was letting you be so physical with him.

Drawing him out of his pensive trance, you walked in with two steaming mugs of tea. He gladly accepted one. Earth teas were different from Vulcan teas, much more aromatic and flavorful, but he liked them all the same. You took a seat across from him in one of your luxurious armchairs. Leaning back with a sigh, you closed your eyes and tilted your head up to the ceiling. Soval admired the column of your throat and the subtle curve of your jaw. You were truly divine, there was just something about human women that had always enticed Vulcan men. Perhaps it was the fire, Vulcan women tended to be cool and impassive, but human women burned bright with passion. Whatever it was, it had certainly worked on him.

“So,” she began, “I want to know exactly what happened from your point of view.” She snuggled back into her chair, legs tucked gracefully under her, ready to hear what Soval had to say. Brushing a lock of hair from her face, she blinked expectantly at him as he collected himself.

“I had thought I was making my advances quite clear, that you were prepared to reciprocate my affections and bond with me. When you left, I thought it was my feelings that had driven you away, that perhaps I had overstepped my boundaries that night. I have lived every day since trying to figure out what it was that I had done wrong to have you ripped from me.”

Y/N took a deep breath, placing her mug down on the table and running a hand across her forehead. In the dim lighting, Soval could see the gray in her hair, the subtle creases on her face. They had wasted a lot of time. He’d like to kiss her worry lines away, but after his uncontrollable outburst of emotion earlier, he thought a subtle approach might be better for the both of them. He could still see his own teeth marks on her lip.

“I was ready to reciprocate your advances, but I couldn’t tell if they were merely friendly or romantic. I thought you had requested a transfer for me because I had been too open about my feelings that night. I was completely heartbroken at the thought that you’d sent me away.” She rose from her chair and crept over to where Soval was sitting and curled up next to him.

“I have always loved you, and I’d love nothing more than to be your wife, if you’ll still have me.” She placed her hand over his, lacing their fingers together. Soval leaned closer to her, a few more inches and their lips would brush.

“Of course I will have you ashayam. The question, my dear one, is whether or not you will have me?” He said huskily. Her eyelids drooped and her eyes strayed down to his lips, her own parted in want.

“I am yours.”

“Yes, you are, and I am yours.” Soval pressed their lips together fervently. He pushed her down onto the couch and climbed on top of her, intent to take her in mind and body, to finally make her his.

#soval #soval/reader #ambassador soval #star trek #star trek enterprise #st ent #st enterprise

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fandomwriterstuff · 3 years

Text

“We’re a well-oiled team of military-grade kindergarteners,” his best friend, and the only other human on the ship who would understand what kindergarten was, continued chastising him and his companions. “The level of education and training among the three of you eclipses that of the entire rest of the members of this operation,” Annabeth continued, pointing her finger individually at himself, his pilot Jason, and his Chief Science Officer Nico. “You know, I’m not that surprised with you, Percy, but you are our XO so you should really be more responsible,” he winced at that, still feeling a bit of imposter syndrome at being the Commander of the USS Olympus. “Jason, shouldn’t you be piloting a ship or something?” At that, he saluted her and did an about face before scampering off to get into more trouble. “And you, you’re definitely way too responsible to have gotten mixed up with this Seaweed Brain and Sparky, so what’s in this tomfoolery for you?”

Nico, the only Neptunian on the ship, shifted his large black wings self consciously under the scrutiny of their Chief of Operations. Percy, as the Commander of the vessel, felt obligated to protect his usually stoic and well-behaved… acquaintance? Di Angelo was reserved, almost standoffish, and resented anyone who tried to stick up for him for some reason, but that didn’t stop Percy’s stupid seaweed brain from doing so. Hence the acquaintance. Percy was 99% sure Di Angelo didn’t consider him a friend. But he was nice to Percy and a great officer, so Percy considered him his friend.

“It was my fault, Annie,” he used her childhood nickname carefully, not knowing whether it would soften her up or piss her off more. He was hoping for softening. “It was just another one of Jason and my dumb ideas that we thought we would need a scientist to help with, and we didn’t want to piss off Leo by involving him in it. You know how he is about his engineer and warp cores and whatnot,” Percy held his hands up placatingly. “Leave Di Angelo out of this, he has sciencey things to do, isn’t that right?” Percy side-eyed his companion who (not surprisingly) rolled his eyes.

“I try not to get involved with human pranks or even Jovian mischief, but Officer Grace and First Officer Jackson were about to be meddling with my linguistics team. It isn’t my duty to tell my superiors what to do, so I sought out the next best option, supervising and ensuring no lasting damage was done to the physical or emotional state of the linguistics team. Now,” Here Percy held in a smirk as Di Angelo shrugged. “If they caused interference with the machinery of the ship, that wouldn’t be my expertise, so I allowed it to happen and-” Percy held back a laugh as the other male started speaking even faster to get everything out as Annabeth turned redder and redder. “I’m very sorry about that, truly, but I had no control over the situation.”

“No control over the situation? You three broke our LIT machine and now we have to go back to Earth as soon as we pass close enough to fix it. Soon enough nobody on this ship will understand each other,” the woman across from them crossed her arms and Percy shrunk back a bit.

“I want to make a joke about a machine being called “LIT,” but I feel like it isn’t the right time,” he muttered. “I know the Linguistic Inhibition Technology is important, but most of us have a working understanding of at least one other language, so it shouldn’t be a huge issue, right?”

“You know it works by connecting to the implant technology in our brains, so as it shuts down one by one, members of this ship from spaces stations and planets far and wide will have no clue why they suddenly can’t understand their XO, or their Chief Officer, or their best friend. So you better explain this. And you have to tell them that we’re going straight back to Earth to fix it because no nearby planets have the same brain implant tech as us. Damn Terrans and their brand name technology copyrights,” Annabeth grumbled and finally turned around to walk off.

“Hey, you’re Terran, too!” Percy shouted after her, but she just flipped him the bird.

“She can do that?” Di Angelo asked, side-eyeing Percy.

“Yeah, she’s been my best friend since we were twelve. As long as she doesn’t undermine my authority in front of everyone else, I don’t really care. I’ve done way worse to her,” Percy laughed at the other man’s frown. “Nothing bad, just pranks and things of that sort. Maybe when we get back to Earth we can show you where we’re from. You never set foot off of the training grounds while you were in school.”

“I would… like that,” Di Angelo paused and gave Percy a soft smile.

“Great,” Percy patted the younger male on the shoulder and made his way to the Command Center.

Percy sat himself down in the rotating chair and pressed on the comms device.

“Gooooood evening crew of the USS Olympus, this is your Commanding Officer, Percy Jackson, speaking,” he smiled at the engineering crew that was scuttling by, only for one of them to pause and look at him like he was speaking a different language… Whoops.

“There was a malfunction with the Linguistic Inhibition Technology and we will be returning to Earth henceforth to repair it before the damage becomes problematic. You may experience glitches with your implant technology and may revert to only understanding your first language and those you have studied extensively. If somebody looks like they’re not understanding what I’m saying right now, please escort them to the linguistics team in Science Bay 3. Carry on. Jackson, out.” He clicked again and the mic turned off.

He sighed, this would be one of his bigger mistakes. They were supposed to be exploring, but they couldn’t do that if nobody could speak to one another. One trip home couldn’t hurt him, and he was sure Annabeth would be happy to see her father.

It wasn’t until later after the Chief Officer meeting when someone finally asked Percy about Earth. For many of the non-humans on the ship, Earth was a place to get education and training to go out in the star fleet, and they never set foot outside the campus grounds, just like Di Angelo. But people had stopped asking him questions because Earth was basically “Space Australia,” as Annabeth had explained to him. The adaptability of humans and their need to pack bond astounded many and horrified many others. So, he stopped talking about home.

It was a new member of their ship, Novax (a Vulcan who was a part of Leo’s engineering team), who asked him about it first.

“I hear Earth is 75% made of pure salt water, and is filled with animals of all kinds. Do you have a favorite water animal?” he asked Percy excitedly.

“Definitely dolphins, though they aren’t underwater creatures. Like humans they need oxygen to breathe, and come up for air very often. My favorite actual underwater species would have to be a hippocampus from Neptune. I’ve always wanted to go and see one, but my human anatomy prevents me from going on-planet,” Percy explained and sipped on his hot tea.

“There are a million creatures in the ocean and you pick one that doesn’t breathe underwater?” Clarisse grunted. His Chief Tactical Officer was a brutish Martian, but very specialized in weapons. “And your second favorite isn’t even Terran.”

“What else do you know about the ‘ocean’?” Novax breathed, leaning forward.

“Eh, not much,” Percy shrugged.

“I’m not sure I heard that correctly, maybe my LIT unit isn’t functioning well,” another member of engineering asked, Nyssa. “Your planet is 75% water and you don’t even know what is inside it?”

“I could tell you about the people who spend their life learning about what survives in the deep depths,” Percy looked up, knowing he had all of the non-Terrans hooked on every word. Even Di Angelo had paused in his note taking and was staring wide-eyed at Percy. “But I don’t know if you’d want to know.”

“No we do!” Nyssa exclaimed. “There are people who dedicate their lives to a place that’s literally not navigable by humans, the main inhabitants of the planet?”

“Well as you said, most of the planet is water. Which means that coastal communities are filled with fisherman, whalers, swimmers, and more. I could tell you about some of those. I could also tell you about the scientists that spend years of their lives building bots that can’t even come close to withstanding the pressure at the deepest depths without imploding, or I could tell you about those that do come close,” he shrugged.

“What happened to those?”

“The video feed cut out after only seeing multiple rows of sharp, jagged teeth,” Annabeth answered, her sharp grin frightening those who hadn’t noticed her. Some forgot that she was Terran, because she was also half Minervan.

“I could tell you about whales. Beautiful, they come in black and white or grey or blue. But they can be as big as almost 100 feet long. That’s as long as most pirate ships. And they could fit about 400 average sized humans in their mouths. You don’t want to cross one of them. And they only live on the surface. The things that live in the deep,” Percy shuddered for effect. There were no Neptunians on the ship, so there were no natural water dwellers there, so all of his rapt listeners were shocked by this information. “There’s the anglerfish. They light up the dark with an antenna on top of their heads, and the light lures in prey. But it’s so dim elsewhere that you don’t see their big sharp teeth until you’re right up against them,” he murmured. “Giant squids are almost as big as whales but not nearly as peaceful and beautiful. They have eight arms and two tentacles that could wrap around any boat and crush it.”

“Ten limbs?” Nyssa whispered, clearly disturbed.

“Plus, the Portuguese Man o’ War,” Percy shrugged nonchalantly. “Also known as the floating terror. It’s like a big blue jellyfish that sits innocently on top of the water with huge blue tentacles that sit just underneath with a sting strong enough to kill a full grown human.”

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth grinned that shark grin again. “Percy won’t tell you about the stories of the old days. He doesn’t want to scare you.”

“That was the not scary part?” Novax gulped.

“Anyway, I just got notified that we’ll be back on Earth in a few days, so brace yourselves,” and with that, she stood and left them all staring after her. When the door clicked shut, Percy had all eyes back on him. He shrugged.

“Don’t look at me. I wasn’t going to tell you about the kr- nevermind,” he stood. “Di Angelo, with me,” the younger officer stood, back to business and was at Percy’s side again in a moment. “Clear your schedule, you’re spending shore leave with me, pal.”

“Great,” came the deadpan reply.

“Don’t sound so somber,” Percy rolled his eyes. “I’m just going to show you the beach and maybe a good gay bar. You need to let off some steam my dude.”

The other male reddened.

“That is so… That is…” he huffed. “Highly inappropriate.” he glared down at the ground and Percy felt a little bad, maybe the guy wasn’t out? But it was clear he had a preference for males. Oh well, that foot was already in Percy’s mouth.

“Fine. But I will be attending and I am a great dancer so you’re missing out,” he winked at the flustered officer and made his way back to his cabin. It would be an interesting few days.

He made a plan with Annabeth. Day one before shore leave, Percy would spread a rumor to Novax about the kraken. Bigger than a giant squid and meaner. Known to crush entire pirate ships in the olden days.

Day two, Annabeth would mention sirens to Nyssa. Hideous creatures that could lure you in with their voices and lead you to believe you were bringing your ship in to everything you ever wanted, when in reality you would crash your ships and then drown.

Day three, Percy would tell Leo about the Megalodon. A definitely very real shark so big you couldn’t even imagine it. Percy shuddered at that one.

“But, there are some good things,” Percy was speaking to Nico Di Angelo from his Commander chair, in ear shot of some of the participants of the conversation a few nights prior. “Mermaids, the siren’s nicer cousin species. And the lost city of Atlantis. Known to be a great and bountiful city, lost to the sea and cursed by the gods to be stuck down there forever. Some believe it still exists, but it’s within the Bermuda Triangle.”

“What, pray tell, is the Bermuda Triangle,” Clarisse sighed.

“Hard to explain. Ships just… go in… and they never come out,” Annabeth shrugged. “Planes go down. Ships wreck. People who go in don’t come back out, so we don’t know if Atlantis is really there or not.”

“That’s… terrifying,” Novax whispered as he walked by.

Percy was sure he had created a healthy fear of Earth’s oceans in his crew. And he meant to, because while he loved the beach and swimming, he did want to make them shy away from the depths. They wouldn’t do well to explore it.

#percy jackson #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #star trek #fusion #nicercy #percico #if you squint

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lucycola · 4 years

Note

Hey could you do a Spock X reader where she knows nothing about Vulcans and like keeps accidentally doing taboo things e.g touching hands or touching his ears

I thoroughly enjoyed writing this! I accidentally made it gender neutral, because I forgot what pronouns, you used. I’m sorry! I hope you like it.

WARNINGS: Fluff, affection, ignorance of affection in Vulcan culture idk. Maybe Spock is slightly OOC but who cares. I took a little liberty of giving the reader a pinch of background.

To say you were oblivious was an understatement. You weren’t a complete idiot, or anything, just innocently scatterbrained. Perhaps that was the explanation why you didn’t flinch when every you were chastised for a mistake or given a strict order by your commanding officer. As a blue shirt, you fell under the command of the Enterprise’s first officer, and his reputation as a stony, unfeeling, authoritarian preceded him. You were never bothered by this. He was most terrifying, others noted, when Captain Kirk left him in charge when unable to take the chair. You were warned about him-to never cross him and always do exactly as he said. Spock was a hard-ass. He was handsome and perhaps at first you wondered, but it had been made clear to by others he wasn’t interested in anyone.

You had met more terrifying people. You had nine brothers and a strict, often unfair and bully of a father. Commander Spock was a piece of cake. It was in your nature to be gentle, welcoming, and comforting despite the constitution of your upbringing. It was your personality. You didn’t like to let people bring you down.

You were elated alone to be living your dream, anyway. You weren’t going to let the attitude of anyone around you affect your nature or happiness.

You obviously didn’t know anything about Vulcans either.

The first touch was accidental. It always is.

You never took the Vulcan to be clumsy, but on one occasion while discussing your current assignment in passing he dropped his holotape. You both reached for it, and in a cliché manner brushed hands. While your boss pulled away, you did not and picked up the tape.

“Here ya go!” You cheerily patted the tape in his hand for good measure, “I’ll have that report in the morning like you’ve requested, sir.”

Bypassers gawked as you cheerily skipped away. Your commanding officer only quirked a brow and went on his way.

The next time was less on purpose and more out of your kindness as your commander internally lamented about his captain’s safety during an emergency situation. He had donned the chair and even while appearing composed and direct you had an eye for spotting worry in well kept men. In an brief moment you pressed your hand to his wrist and said softly, “He will be okay. You’ll make sure of it.”

He tensed under your touch and you removed your hand a smiled.

“Report to your station, Ensign,” he said in his usual tone, no hint of distaste or approval in his voice.

“Yes sir.”

The third time was even worse. Somehow you had been suckered to prompting Spock by Doctor McCoy into reporting to an impromptu physical. Confidentiality be damned, the Vulcan’s stress levels were unusually high and it was affecting his demeanor. You accidentally overheard the nurse and the doctor whispering something perhaps about pon farr happening again, but no it hadn’t been seven years yet. Whatever that was.

“I don’t think he’ll listen to me, but if you say it’s important, I’ll try.”

“You’re his favorite, so you’re my best bet.”

“Mister Spock doesn’t have favorites,” you laughed, “But I’ll do it anyway. Someone has to draw the shortest straw. I never mind it being me.”

“Thankyou, Ensign. And good luck.”

You skipped along to the your commander’s quarters. You had never been inside and only rarely had delivered your reports to him in person when requested. He couldn’t always come to you and that was understandable.

At the chime the door slid open and though it was subtle, your boss clearly wasn’t expecting you.

“Hello, Mister Spock,” you greeted, “Doctor McCoy-”

“I am aware of the doctor’s request. As it is not mandatory I do not find it necessary to attend.”

It wasn’t like him to interrupt you. He was tense and though he stood perfectly erect like a statue there was a little shake in his right hand. Without thinking, you grasped it to still the quiver.

“Are you alright?”

Many would expect his to snatch it away, but he didn’t and stood there. If he was caught off guard, it wasn’t apparent. His expression was unmoving and his eye contact never wavered.

“I am fine, Ensign. Report back to your duties.”

“Doctor McCoy said it was important.”

“I am not here to entertain the doctor’s every illogical human whim.” He pulled his hand away, “There is no empirical evidence to suggest I am ill.”

“You’re shivering.” You put your hands on your hip and gave him the most mothering look you could muster.

“Multiple factors such as the natural low temperature of deep space can illicit such a reaction,” he retorted.

“It’s broiling in your cabin, Mister Spock. Only people with fevers do things like that.”

“Humans, Ensign. Humans,” he corrected, “I deduce you are not aware of Vulcan biology or customs.”

“Please don’t lie to me,” you requested softly, “How am I supposed to work efficiently under an ill commanding officer?”

The way you spoke nearly convinced him to do your bidding, but still he remained stubborn.

“I do not comprehend how that would deter your work efficiency.”

You grabbed his hand again, “I am going to worry myself to death if you really are ill and you’re just trying to act like you’re alright. That will keep me from working like I’m supposed to. Efficient crew needs an efficient captain.” You winked at him.

“But Captain Kirk-”

“It’s a metaphor, Mister Spock. Now please come so the doctor can stop paging me and I can work on my report concerning the Althenian plant’s healing properties and various uses from its sap.”

“I yield,” he said after a small beat and without releasing your hand, followed you to the medbay. More people inwardly gawked watching to drag him down the hall. His face was tense, albeit slightly amused.

After reaching your destination you waved him and the doctor off sweetly and made your way back to the lab. You heart wrapped around the thought of him being ill and you hid that worry ill. A little heat bloomed in your chest at his previous touch. You brushed it away. No, you told yourself.

The doctor was only a little surprised. His suspicions were confirmed.

“I had my doubts at first, Spock, but now I see it’s true.”

“Despite Vulcan’s telepathic abilities, I cannot automatically read your mind. Elaborate, Doctor.”

The doctor chucked, “That ensign is your favorite.”

“I do not understand.”

“Who else could have convinced you to come here to let me scan you? Probably not even Jim-”

“I am inclined to follow the captain’s every order.”

“You don’t let anyone touch you like that. Especially not for a long time. If I’m not mistaken you two were practically kiss-”

“That will be enough elaboration, doctor. Please proceed with your medical assessment, as I have much work to attend to.”

The doctor chuckled again. “It’s too bad I can’t tell with that one. They act like that towards everyone.”

“Everyone,” Spock repeated flatly although it was intended to be a question.

“Sweetest soul I’ve ever met. Lights up a room as soon as they enter it.”

“Indeed,” Spock nodded, familiar with the colloquialism.

The doctor’s eyebrows raised and he grinned, “I knew it.”

You of course were oblivious to all of this as you continued through your work, happy as a clam.

After some deliberation one of your coworkers decided to explain the delicacies of Vulcan culture after viewing a friendly hand grasp as a greeting between you and your commanding officer. You were elated to see his shivering had stopped and once again he tensed under the touch, but nodded his head at your greeting. You had blushed while doing so. It was sweet, but your coworker had to break it to you as they had before when warning you last time about him not being interested in anyone.

“Vulcans don’t like to be touched, you know,” they said to you, taking you aside.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re very sensitive to skin to skin contact. They guard themselves mostly, but hand touching is extremely taboo the way kissing in public or other sexual acts are.”

“You mean...” you blushed, “I’ve been--! I hope he’s not offended.”

“Normally he’s not afraid to explain things or clear up-“ you coworker coughed,”-unwanted affection. I’ve seen plenty girls get a talking down to.”

“What are you saying?”

“Perhaps he’s forcing himself to be polite.”

“Oh, I’ve got to apologize right away!”

You felt so stupid! How could you be so offensive to him or his culture? You should have read up on his customs before truly interacting with him. It would seem like a smart thing to do-but you were so lost to the world it was embarrassing.

You paused in front of his door for the first time in your life, afraid to speak to him.

The door open quickly and you stepped back, surprised. He had looked like he had been going to leave and you sheepishly smiled, “I’m sorry for interrupting you, sir. I need to speak to you.”

“Come inside.”

You blushed at the request, wringing your hands as you entered.

You turned to him and blurted, “I had no idea what I was doing, sir, I swear. Had I known that touching you was wrong I would stop. I’m so used to being touchy-feely on Earth I forgot that not everyone-”

“Ensign,” he said firmly.

“Yes?” you squeaked.

“Had those interactions provoked me I would have made it known. I should be the one offering an apology. I should have explained what such interactions mean on Vulcan before anyone else claimed the opportunity. I assume someone took the liberty of doing so.”

“Yessir. I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologize.”

“Why not?’

“Because your actions did not provoke me, but precisely did the opposite.”

“What-what do you mean?” Your face was fully red and you obscured it with your hands. He let out a sound that was the closest Vulcan thing as a sigh and stepped closed to you.

He grasped your hands and lowered them from your face. His eyes were soft and the most vulnerable as you had every seen them.

He pressed his right hand that was shivering terribly to the side of your face. It stilled instantly.

“I am aware of your affection for me and I return the sentiment.”

You couldn’t find your voice and after a long moment of studying your features he leaned down to give you a kiss, warm and firm.

You gasped into his lips and pressed back.

He released you and you looked at him starry eyed.

“So it was true, what the doctor said, you said in a hushed tone.

Spock’s arms were around you gently, “Elaborate.”

“I am your favorite.”

“Affirmative.”

FIN

#spock #spock x reader #spock x gender neutral #startrek #star trek #tos #ask #request #mister spock #mr spock #s'chn t'gai spock #doctor mccoy #bones #leonard mccoy

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mothmans-cumrag · 3 years

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Rewatching Amok Time be like

finally. the episode where Spock and Kirk fuck in front of a bunch of vulcans. I remember how uncomfortable my dad looked when we watched it and also how I didn’t really get it because I was eight and the german dub sucked.

awww and it starts with Bones worrying about Spock 😍😍😍 i forgot about everything but the obvious part of the episode

ok poor Christine she didn’t deserve this

ooohhh new intro, now it’s sung and DeForest is also starring <3 as he should (although why didn’t they put the entire cast of the senior crew there?)

whyyyy are you hiding something behind your back, babe

omg the puppy eyes with which Jim tells Spock that they won’t have time to stop by Vulcan after all killed me 🥺

the stance of Jim asking Spock to come with him into the turbolift is the stance of a parent scolding their child

“you’re sick, babe, go to sick bay”

hah that rhymed I am a musical genius

“yield to the logic of the situation” is such a powerful statement actually

“as tight lipped as an aldeberan shellmouth” I love these little space sayings cause it means that there is a human out there who’s job it was to invent species and connect attributes to them to create sayings that make it sound like the federation has been out there so long they started picking them up and using them as well and I think that is beautiful

“biology as in... reproduction” translates to “you’re telling me you’re just horny? in heat? fuck or die disease?” god how did my dad watch this with me when I was a kid?

it’s Checkov’s first episode and he and Sulu are getting whiplash from all the back and forth 😂😂 what a great introduction of his new home, and yes it’s totally normal for Spock to try to kidnap the ship, Jim to bend the rules to save him and Bones just being done with and shouting at both of them

tbh whenever someone interrupts me while I’m trying to practice an intstrument I too have the instinct to just destroy my computer

“your face is wet” that is. the most non-soothing crap you could’ve said, Spock

soup.

“you’ve been most patient with my kinds of madness” gay.

ahhhhhh he’s asking his boyfriends for emotional support I can’t guys I’m dying aaaaaaaahhhhh

“she is lovely, Mr. Spock. Who is she?” Nyota has a cruuuush

tfw your bf is not only married, but also really famous

awwww he vouches for his boyfriends 😍

these bells are REALLY starting to get on my nerves

PLOT TWIST

“in this climate?” will be my new “in this economy?”

i really don’t like all that talk about the possession of women

you know they could have mentioned it’s a life or death combat earlier

the T in James T Kirk stands for “tiddies out tuesday”

why. does jim. breathe. like that.

this is so sexual i can’t. I just can’t.

smart move, having them beam up off-screen to save a few bucks

“I shall do neither” just killed me dead

I live for the happiness in Spock’s eyes as he sees Jim again

sending Christine out to be alone, uhhuh, so what’re you planning to do now that you’re together again 😏😏

ahhhh i love it. very good. wouldn’t recommend showing to your EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN tho!

#tw sex ment #tw emojis #tw all caps #tw sexism #tw death mention #st #star trek #tos #star trek tos #spirk #spones #mckirk #mcspirk #leaf rewatches

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to-boldly-nope · 4 years

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Snow White- TOS Spock x Reader

Plot: {requested by the lovely @groovyfluxie (you seriously come up with the best prompts ever)} You and Spock are transported to a strange planet where each region is centered by a different fairytale and the only way to get out is by living through that tale. So what happens when you get to be Snow White?

Words: 1388 (yeah I got too excited)

A/N: Yeah, I kinda changed the plot, but not by a whole lot (I hope you don’t mind) and honestly, I’m about to turn this into a series with different characters and fairytales because it just seems so COOL

One moment you were in your quarters, reading, and the next you were in a castle wearing a raggedy dress. You walked over to the balcony and pulled the red curtain back, looking out into the courtyard. There was a wishing well near your window and you gasped.

"Snow White, go out and clean the courtyard!" A woman hissed while opening your door, making you flinch. The woman had thin, arching eyebrows and a permanent scowl. Her head was covered with a balaclava and a crown rested atop.

"Y-yes, ma'am," you stuttered as you ran past her and out to the courtyard. You didn't know where you were or why you were here but you did know that you didn't want to be there. You found a bucket and went over to the well and drew water. Birds sat on the edge of the well, watching you closely. You gave them a look before going to wash the courtyard steps.

"Cleaning a courtyard, how stupid," you hissed as you dipped a cleaning brush into the bucket. "What is there to clean? It's just going to get dirty again."

You began to scrub the stone angrily. You didn't know if anyone else from the Enterprise was here or if they were trying to look for you. You just wanted to go home. You took the bucket of water and threw it on the steps, rinsing the leftover dirt away. You found yourself going back to the well to get more water.

"Want to know a secret?" You asked the birds still sitting on the well's edge. "Promise not to tell?"

You pulled on the rope, bringing the bucket up. "We are standing by a wishing well. Make a wish into the well, that's all you have to do and if you hear it echoing, your wish will soon come true."

Inside, you didn't know why you were singing, but you couldn't stop. You peered over the edge of the well and looked at your reflection in the water. "I'm wishing for the one I love. To find me today."

Your voice echoed as if someone was responding to you. At least you know if the rumor was right then your dream will come true.

"I'm hoping and I'm dreaming of the nice things he'll say. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah," you sang with a smile, letting the well respond back. "I'm wishing for the one I love to find me today."

"I do not understand how speaking to a well is logical in this situation."

"Spock!" You exclaimed. "Thank God, where are the others?"

"It appears that we are the only ones here," he stated while putting his hands behind his back. He wore a white dress shirt with poofy sleeves, a blue tunic-like vest, and a red cape around his shoulders.

You tried to walk over to him but a force pulled you away and you found yourself going back to your room. You hid behind the red curtain before forcing yourself to look at Spock.

"Fascinating. It seems as if we are supposed to act out a play. Our characters were not supposed to have a long interaction."

"You mean to tell me for us to get back to the Enterprise then we have to put on an act?!" You yelled while slamming your hands down on the balcony banister.

"I shall see you when time allows," Spock told you before walking away.

You were dusting and humming around the little house. You learned that the Queen sent a huntsman to kill you, but he was kind enough to let you go. After that, you found yourself rooming with seven dwarfs. You had to come up with a compromise, of course. If you wanted to stay, then you had to do their chores and for some reason, you happily obliged. Now, an old peddler woman was gifting you an apple for saving her from your bluebirds.

"And because you've been so good to poor old Granny, I'll share a secret with you. This is no ordinary apple. It's a magic wishing apple," the lady said while circling around you like a vulture.

"A wishing apple?" You asked, letting your interest and curiosity get the best of you as you cradled the apple.

The old woman smiled as she knew that she got your attention. "Yes! One bite and all your dreams will come true."

"Really?" You gasped excitedly while holding the apple up to your face. The sun reflected off of it so nicely that you saw a perfect reflection.

"Yes, girlie! Now, make a wish and take a bite."

You came back to your senses and eyed the old woman suspiciously. She gave you a reassuring look. "Oh, come on, dear, there must be something your little heart desires. Perhaps there's someone you love."

You though about her statement. You didn't love anyone because you believed that nobody loved you. Then, your mind thought of Spock. You always looked up to him, but you never thought it was love. He would always play his Vulcan harp when he knew you were upset and he always let you borrow his books. There was also all those times he's protected you during away missions. It was discreet, but you always knew because he would always stand in front of you or put his hand out over your torso. Maybe he did love you, but you knew that you loved him.

"Well," you blushed bashfully, "There is someone."

"I thought so," the woman smiled cheekily, "I thought so. Old Granny knows a young girl's heart. Now, take the apple, dearie, and make a wish."

"I wish-I wish," you whispered while clutching the apple.

"That's it. Go on, go on."

"...And that he will carry me away to his castle...where we will live happily every after."

"Fine! Fine!" She roared, "Take a bite. Don't let the wish grow cold!"

You took a bite from the apple and you didn't feel right. Doctor McCoy has injected you with some weird medicines, but you never felt like this before. "Oh! I feel strange."

You groaned and clutched your head and stomach, the apple still in your hand. It felt like you were going to pass out. You let out a gasp before falling backwards, falling into an eternal slumber.

When Spock heard news of a princess in a glass coffin, he knew that he had to look for you. He wasn't sure if the princess was you or not and he wished it wasn't you. He rode by horse throughout the land until a flock of bluebirds caught his eye. Spock followed the flock into a forest valley, where he was met with the reflection of glass.

Spock got off his horse and ran up to the coffin and he saw you. He removed his hat and felt tears well up in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. He didn't know what to do this time. He grabbed your hand, making sure your bouquet was still in place, and gave it a Vulcan kiss before kissing you as a final goodbye.

He kneeled beside the coffin and put his head down. He didn't show much emotion, but he failed to keep them inside. He also failed to ignore the noise and movement above him.

"Spock?" You asked, voice groggy from not being in use.

"(Y/N)?" He asked while looking up at you. You saw faint tear lines as the sun hit his face. "Fascinating. It has appeared that a human kiss woke you up."

"Have you ever heard of a true love's kiss?" You asked, blushing as you thought of Spock kissing you.

He simply shook his head, wondering how he revived you, but he soon forgot about his thought and scooped you up in his arms.

"My hero," you giggled while you put your head in the crook of his neck before the two of you were suddenly teleported back onto the Enterprise. Everyone on the bridge stared at you in Spock's arms and he let you down while letting out a nervous cough.

"Nice to see you two again," Kirk greeted.

"Thank you, Captain," the two of you said in unison while you stared at the floor. You only looked up when Spock placed a Vulcan kiss on the back of your hand.

#star trek imagine #star trek imagines #tos spock #star trek #star trek tos #spock x reader #tos spock x reader

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jesbelle-writes · 4 years

Text

The Gift

After his failed attempt to reach kohlinar, Spock found that the rhythms of life aboard the Enterprise were somehow different. He had reached a hard-won détente between his Human emotions and his Vulcan logic, and it cast a new light on even the most familiar of rituals – such as the one now playing out in Kirk’s quarters.

“So Bones – your birthday’s coming up...” Kirk opened this conversation just as he had every year about this time.

“I don’t want a big fuss,” said McCoy, with the same frown as usual.

“How about a little fuss then?” asked Kirk, the customary amused smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“I suppose I could tolerate it, if I had to,” came the reply.

And so some small celebration would be agreed upon. A place and time would be chosen for a quiet round of drinks; Scotty, Chapel, Uhura, Sulu, and (now that was no longer “the kid”) Chekov would be invited; and they’d all spend a quiet evening getting mildly inebriated and swapping reminiscences. Spock would attend, of course. McCoy was his friend, after all.

But this year, Spock couldn’t shake the feeling that something special was in order – something to acknowlege the shift he sensed in his relationship with McCoy. He couldn’t really name the nature of that shift – it was different somehow to the way his other relationships had changed – but he felt a need to take some kind of action nonetheless.

He wanted to give McCoy a birthday present.

His mother had explained gift-giving to him when he was a child. She had provided him with an exhaustive lesson on the rituals and obligations involved, including a list of the types of gifts that would be considered appropriate to each occasion.

“But sometimes,” she said, “a person wants to give a gift from the heart – something that shows how much regard they have for another person. The best gifts on these occasions are something the recipient can experience. A happy memory is worth a thousand objects.”

Spock understood that these “little fusses” that Jim put together were exactly that – another in a collection of happy memories for McCoy. Spock wanted to give McCoy something like that.

The bulk of his meditation time was dedicated to solving the puzzle of how to do that.

He considered the activities that McCoy engaged in during his rare breaks from work. He spent the bulk of his time simply “hanging out” with Spock or Jim or Christine. He enjoyed reading a genre of books he called “dimestore trash” that Spock had no idea how to even begin to obtain. And he enjoyed music.

Music seemed promising. McCoy’s tastes were eclectic, but Spock had a good ear and he was reasonably certain that he could find something that would please McCoy.

It was in this frame of mind that he noticed the humming.

There was a little snippet of a tune that McCoy hummed when he was trying to unravel any particularly thorny problem. Spock had heard it hundreds of times when sharing laboratory space with McCoy. It had long ago been relegated to the background noises of the lab.

It was a pretty tune, and obviously a favorite. He asked Dr. Chapel about it that afternoon.

“You mean the one that goes hum de dum dum dum hum de dum dum dum?” She mangled it completely, but it was still recognizable as the same tune, if only barely.

“Yes,” said Spock. “Do you know the title of the piece?”

“Sorry, no. I asked him about it once. He got really self-conscious and said it was just something his mother used to sing. Then I didn’t hear it for about a month.”

Jim was no help. “I don’t spend much time in the lab,” he pointed out. “And his mom was some kind of music historian, so she probably knew a lot of obscure songs.”

Spock made a recording of himself playing the tune on his lyre and fed it into the ship’s computer, but it matched nothing in the database. Finally, he sent the recording to the library at Memory Alpha and waited.

The answer came almost fourteen hours later – a song from the mid-twentieth century, lost for nearly 200 years before it was discovered in an archive on the North American continent at a place called Muscle Shoals.

The tune was sweet, and the song was short. But the lyrics...

If Spock had searched for years, he couldn’t have found a song more suitable. He decided that the piece should be performed live.

“It’s beautiful, Spock. Where did you find it?” asked Uhura. “It’s just so… Dr. McCoy, isn’t it?”

“I believe it is a favorite of his,” said Spock. “I would like to play it at his birthday. I was hoping that you would agree to sing it.”

“I’d love to, but I think you should do it. It would fit your range.”

“My musical range, perhaps. It is a very emotional piece,” said Spock.

They practiced the song every night.

McCoy’s birthday was in the forward observation lounge. It was busy tonight, and when Spock picked up his lyre and Uhura stood next to him a hush fell over the crowd.

“If I needed you Would you come to me, Would you come to me, And ease my pain?” sang Uhura.

“If you needed me, I would come to you, I’d swim the seas For to ease your pain.”

“In the night forlorn The morning’s born And the morning shines With the lights of love.”

Spock spared a glance toward McCoy, but Jim was seated between them, blocking his line of sight.

“You will miss sunrise If you close your eyes And that would break My heart in two.”

Spock tried twice more to catch a glimpse of McCoy to no avail. It wasn’t until the final chorus that he saw him.

McCoy looked stunned, overcome, but with what emotion, Spock couldn’t tell. There were, however, most definitely tears in his eyes.

The song ended to enthusiastic applause and several people came to pay their compliments – mostly to Uhura. McCoy was among them. He took Uhura’s hand in his and said, “Thank you so much, Nyota. That was lovely.” He nodded toward Spock. “You played that… very well – as usual, Spock.” He raised his glass toward the others. “I want to thank y’all for coming tonight. I know the night’s still young, but I’m not so much, and I’ve just had a week and a half of long shifts. So if y’all’ll excuse me, I’m going to head on out and get some shut-eye before I have to deal with the next torn rotator cuff or targ bite or what-have-you.”

There followed the usual well-wishing and congratulations as McCoy left. Spock, feeling unsettled and having no desire to feel unsettled in public, picked up his lyre and retired to his own quarters…

… where he was surprised to find Dr. McCoy leaning against his desk.

“I used my medical code,” said McCoy. “I hope you don’t mind. I promise I’m not planning to make a habit of it.”

Spock nodded. “I apolo--”

“I’m sor--” McCoy shook his head. “You got nothing to be sorry for. Just… let me say my piece and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” McCoy took a deep breath. “I… what you did tonight, Spock – that was the nicest, most thoughtful gift I’ve ever gotten. I couldn’t say this with a bunch of people around, but I need you to know what it meant to me.

“My mama used to sing me that song when I’d have bad dreams. She’d come sit on my bed and… stroke my hair… and sing that song. And it worked every time.

“She sang a lot of songs. She had a beautiful voice and she played guitar. She made a lot of recordings of those songs, and after she died, I’d play them all and pretend she was still there – just in the other room, singing. Well, I was just kid...

“Anyway she never got around to recording that one. So I’d sing it to myself when the bad dreams woke me up. I forgot most of the lyrics. I forgot what it sounded like when she sang it. I forgot what her fingers felt like in my hair. But it always made me feel better.

“I guess I got used to singing it. It was the tune I’d whistle in the dark, and it became the thing I turned to whenever the going got even a little rough.

“That’s what you gave me tonight. You gave me back her song. I don’t have words for that.” McCoy swiped at the tear that had fallen onto his cheek. “If you weren’t a Vulcan I’d hug you.”

Spock didn’t know what to say. He was experiencing a rush of emotions too powerful and too complex for him to even name, let alone express, not that he wished to express them. He didn’t even want to experience them.

Did he?

“And on that note,” said McCoy, standing up, “I’ll just see myself out.”

“Leonard.”

McCoy had nearly reached the door when Spock put out his hand to stop him. He took him by the wrist, his fingers curling around the warm, soft skin above McCoy’s pulse.

The sensation cut through some of the turmoil in Spock’s mind. This was… good? It was… fitting.

It was right because Spock had wanted to touch McCoy, hadn’t he? He’d wanted to give a gift that would touch McCoy’s heart.

And now he was touching his skin and that was also what he’d wanted, wasn’t it?

He pulled McCoy closer, put his arms around him, held him. And holding was also what he’d wanted.

And then McCoy’s arms wrapped around his waist…

...and there. This is what it is to fit, thought Spock. This is what it is to be exactly where he belonged.

McCoy drew back a little, enough to look Spock in the eye. “You sure?”

Spock nodded. “I am now.”

And then he kissed him.

Just a little note -- the song is “If I Needed You” by Townes Van Zandt. I’ve used it in fics before because it gives me serious Bones vibes. I actually had this scene in mind for one of those fics, but ended up using something else, so now you get it here.

#12daysofspones #spones #star trek #prompt: giving #yes i'm obsessed with this song

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dustbunny105 · 4 years

Text

Title: Use Both to Grow Fandom: Star Trek: TOS Ship: Amanda Grayson/Sarek Word Count: 7011 Rating: PG Summary: Amanda dreams of being burned from the inside out and wakes choking on Vulcan's heat. Warning for miscarriage. A/N: Written ages ago for a fandom auction. I set it aside to think of a title and promptly forgot about it, lol.

Amanda dreams of being burned from the inside out and wakes choking on Vulcan's heat. Pain lights her body aflame and her throat feels as chafed as if she'd attempted to drink the desert down. She thrashes once then curls in around the source of the pain, embracing herself as if she can keep it contained.

There is a grip strong on her shoulder and a caress at the edge of her consciousness and she feels herself relax, just a little, when she realizes she isn’t alone.

“What is it?” Sarek asks, bent close over her. He manages to reach one of her hands and squeezes. “Close your eyes, Amanda-- breathe. Tell me what's happening to you.”

She takes a deep breath; it isn't enough, not in Vulcan's thin atmosphere. The heat she normally finds soothing instead prickles at the end of her every nerve. She realizes she’s crying, tears mingling with sweat, and turns her face into her pillow.

There’s a hand on her face then, fingers pressed to her temple. Sarek urges her to look at him and whispers a long shhh that she feels cross her mind like a summer breeze. She gasps in her relief and tries to see him through her tears. His face looks pale in the dark.

“My lower abdomen--” she begins, then cuts herself off with a hiss, closing her eyes again against the nausea. “It hurts. I feel sick-- I don’t know--”

She shifts then and her eyes snap open when she recognizes the wetness between her legs. Without another word from her, Sarek pulls the sheet away from her body. The two of them stare at the blood soaking lazily through her nightgown and she feels Sarek’s hand tense in hers. She almost laughs but the relief is washed away by another wave of pain and it comes out instead as a sob.

“This isn’t right,” she manages to say. “Sarek--”

“Peace, Amanda,” he says and shifts beside her. The hand on her hand disappears but the other hand continues to press comfort directly into her mind as he grabs at a communicator and calls for help.

“He’s very polite,” her father said but the disapproval was plain to hear. He stopped there and Amanda could see him staring at her from the corner of her eye.

Amanda focused the tray she was loading with desserts. She resisted the urge to tell her father to use his words. “Impeccably so,” she agreed instead. She glanced over at her father’s tray, still only half set. “Have you got that? I don’t want to leave him between Mom and Doris for too long-- those two can test anyone’s manners.”

“He’s awfully cold, don’t you think?” her father asked without acknowledging the question. He used that whip crack tone that meant he wanted you to know he was holding his temper by a thread. “I noticed he didn’t have much to do with you.”

She’d noticed her parents exchanging looks throughout dinner, every time Sarek could have taken Amanda’s hand but didn’t. Every time he nodded instead of laughing or smiling at a joke. Every time he refused to rise to bait.

“He can seem cold when you don’t know him,” Amanda said, turning at last to look her father in the eye. In spite of herself, the genuine concern she saw there softened her and she let a smile touch her lips. “Vulcans are very reserved in company.”

“I hear they don’t have emotions,” her father said, staring hard at her. His voice still hadn’t raised but his face was turning red. It went a shade darker for every moment she continued to look at him with flat serenity. "Looking at this gentleman, I'm inclined to believe it."

“They have emotions,” she told him, a cold snap of dignity in her own tone. “They just don’t allow themselves to be ruled by them.”

She didn’t wait any longer to cart her tray out into the dining room, though she tried to project calm by the time she got there. Her father was slow to follow, his face still red. Amanda's family had only ever wanted her to use her words until she said something they didn't like, after all.

“I’m afraid our only specialists in human medical treatment are unavailable at present,” says the nurse who greeted Sarek by the family name that Amanda is still learning to wrap her tongue around. He barely glances at Amanda and she can’t decide whether she prefers that to the way other Vulcans, staff and patients alike, had stared at her as they passed. Humans are still a novelty on Vulcan and especially in the capital and of course they all know who she is. “We will, of course, treat the Lady Amanda to the best of our ability.”

Sarek shifts at Amanda’s bedside, the hand he’d allowed himself to put on her shoulder twitching.

Before he can answer, Amanda speaks up, “I have every confidence that you will,” even though the pain makes her voice quaver. “Sarek has assured me that you’re the finest medical center in Shi'Kahr.”

The nurse blinks and she can see clearly enough beneath his placid expression that her pronunciation has impressed him.

“I must stress,” he says, addressing her for the first time, “that our care in your case may be lacking, as compared to what we could offer a Vulcan in your position.”

Amanda holds back the reflexive urge to laugh as a reassurance, a habit she’s still unlearning, strangling it beneath a repressed grunt of pain. She inclines her head in acknowledgement of a point, noting but ignoring the implication that it may carry. “Of course,” she says through gritted teeth. She makes herself hold eye contact. “I came to Vulcan with both eyes open.”

The nurse tips his head, uncertainty stirring his features.

“A Terran turn of phrase,” Sarek explains before he can ask. “What my wife means is that she knew when she made the decision to move to Vulcan what potential there was for danger.”

“I can’t reasonably hold my own educated choice against anyone who does their best for me,” Amanda adds. She still doesn’t break eye contact, never mind how her eyelids flutter.

“Your understanding is… appreciated,” the nurse says. He’s studying Amanda with a look she’s growing refreshingly accustomed to. It’s the look of someone who sees something other than what they expected. He nods at them both and steps out of the room, assuring them about getting an update from the doctor they’ve called for her.

“If a specialist is indeed needed,” Sarek says once the nurse is gone, his hand going from Amanda’s shoulder to her face, “one will be obtained for you.”

Amanda’s lips twitch up at the corners, a subtle enough movement that she doesn’t concern herself with trying to repress it here. She leans into the contact and sighs when she feels Sarek’s soothing touch to her mind. “I have every confidence,” she murmurs again. “Just as I have every confidence that I’m in good hands now.”

“One would hope,” Sarek says, just as quiet and not without a glance at the door.

Her lips twitch again and then she relaxes as well she can against the bed and waits.

From the covered shelter of the porch, the shouts of a dozen people in a makeshift game, one with no name and little in the way of rule structure, weren’t so overwhelming. Amanda rocked lightly in her chair and inhaled the fragrance of her tea, still too hot to drink. Her cousins and aunts and uncles all argued some point or another, a cry going up for the third time in a half hour about who was on what team. The crowd roiled with laughter and anger in turn and Amanda was content to watch them, not bothering to dizzy herself with trying to keep track of what they were arguing about when she was sure even they didn’t know.

“So, this is where you were hiding,” said Doris, laughing as she invaded Amanda's little bubble of almost quiet. She huffed as she lowered herself into the other rocking chair, one hand on her swollen belly. There were no teeth in her smile but it had a jagged edge all the same when she added, “One little engagement to a bigshot ambassador and you’re too good for the rest of us, is that it?”

It was always one thing or another that had Doris suggesting that Amanda thought herself above the rest of them. That she wasn't excitable, that she had a position at the Vulcan Embassy on Earth. Amanda suspected that Doris’s game was just to toss out one possibility after another until she could content herself that she’d hit upon the truth. She watched Amanda like a fox watching a hen house, waiting for a bird that was stupid and slow enough to be a meal.

Amanda cupped her tea in her lap and looked back at Doris with the same calm she’d been practicing around Sarek. She held her silence just long enough for Doris to start turning their father’s familiar red-- not long at all-- and then smiled and tipped her head at the ruckus out in the yard. She said, “You know that this sort of thing has never been to my tastes.”

Doris laughed again, like a chill wind, and said, “Right, right, what am I thinking-- you always thought you were better than the rest of us.”

“You know that isn’t true either,” said Amanda, voice and gaze held steady though her hands tightened on her cup. She tried to take comfort that Doris had sought her out at all; their father made a point of never being alone in her company anymore.

“Do you really think they’ll accept you there?” Doris blurted through a grimace. “Sarek is one man you’ve managed to charm. And the other Vulcans at the Embassy are used to humans, you know-- you ought to know, you’ve taught them to be. But they come here expecting to have to put up with humans, even wanting to. You think on their own planet they’ll all be happy to have a human walking their streets-- in their capital, isn’t that what you said?”

“I won’t be the only human to live on Vulcan--”

“You’ll be the only human married to a Vulcan,” Doris interrupted. She strained to lean forward, feet pressed so hard to the wooden floor that it creaked and one hand tight on the arm of her chair. Something like real fear sparked in the cold flash of her eyes. “Do you really think they’re free of pride and prejudice there?”

“Not free of it, no,” Amanda admitted. She wanted to set her tea aside but was worried her hands would shake. “No more than they’re free of any other emotion. But they’re more aware of it and that lets them control it instead of being controlled by it.” She breathed deep, twice. “I don’t have any expectations of being accepted immediately. They guard themselves too closely for that. But they’ll come around when they see there’s no logical reason to reject me.”

The sisters spent a long time just staring at each other. Amanda counted her heartbeats, calmer with each steady thump, teeth rough on her tongue. Doris’s breathing was ragged at the edges but she finally breathed deep and let it bluster out and take most of her hositlity with it.

“I just don’t understand,” she said at last, shaking her head. She looked tired, even more so than she had for the last month as her pregnancy wore her down. In a vulnerable moment between breaths, she looked almost hurt. “You’ve always been so reserved-- really reserved, not repressed like that fiance of yours. But here you are jumping the planet for-- what, for some romantic dream?”

“I’ll be leaving to live with my husband,” Amanda said, falling into the soothing cadance she used with her students. “That’s fair, isn’t it? And I’ll have opportunities to advance my career that I don’t here, and to enrich my life. You know how long I’ve been interested in Vulcan culture, Doris.”

“You won’t be able to stay there-- not for him, with that wall he keeps around himself,” Doris said over her. They were always talking over her, past her, always addressing what they thought she must feel instead of what she expressed. She could never express it well enough for them. Doris struggled to her feet, waving off Amanda when she tried to offer her help. She looked down at Amanda with deep sympathy and intoned, “I hope you know we’ll be happy to accept you back, when you can’t take it anymore.”

There was no point in arguing, not then and like that. Amanda made herself smile at Doris, tried to make it genuine, and said, “I’ll keep it in mind.”

No words are wasted once the doctor, T’Paj, has assured herself of the diagnosis. She looks Amanda in the eye as she delivers it, as she has throughout the exam. Her manner betrays none of the discomfort that Amanda has come to expect of Vulcan medical personnel but she cannot entirely hide her disquiet with the results of her tests.

Amanda hardly notices. She gasps deep, intensifying the burn in her belly. The doctor's words catch in her teeth like the grit of the desert and she grinds them between her molars to keep from spitting them back out. She swallows them with another gasp of pain and reaches without looking for Sarek, her hand tight on his wrist.

"You didn't know that you were pregnant?" T'Paj asks, something sharp beneath the professional bluntness of the words.

"I didn't know that I could be," Amanda says, hardly more than a whisper. The admission felt sharp in its own right in her chest but is dulled by her shock by the time it passes her lips.

“We both were under the impression that we couldn’t conceive,” Sarek says; Amanda wonders if T’Paj can hear his defensiveness, his protectiveness, as well as she can.

“It is an unexpected case,” T’Paj says without looking away from Amanda. “And you’re sure that it is the case?”

Sarek tenses but doesn’t answer. Amanda, still reeling, realizes that the question has been directed at her alone. Of course-- Sarek, logically, cannot be the one to insist.

“There’s been no one but Sarek,” Amanda says, trying not to bristle herself. It isn’t an accusation, she knows-- or if it is, it’s a logical one to make. It’s a possibility they’d be foolish not to rule out and there's something comforting in recognizing that. “In any case, I don’t have much opportunity for contact with other humans.”

She may not be the only human on Vulcan but she is the only one in the city, aside from Dr. Corrigan, who she’s only met once so far in passing when she’d gone for her first appointment on Vulcan. It’s lonelier than she’d expected, though she doesn’t dwell on it. She didn’t come to Vulcan to make human friends, after all, and she’s made a fun hobby of charming her Vulcan neighbors and acquanitences.

T’Paj looks at her a moment longer, darts a glance at Sarek, then nods. She says, “It is, as I said, an interesting case. Once you’ve recovered, I’d like to put you in touch with some of our researchers.” She pauses, darting another look between them, and now a little of that familiar discomfort does show through. If she were human, she'd look sheepish. “That, of course, is your own choice to make.”

“Indeed,” Sarek says. He’s stiff beside Amanda and his tone is blander than what she’s gotten used to, nearly droning. “What steps do we need to take in the meantime?”

“We will prescribe medication for the pain,” T’Paj says, doing Amanda the courtesy of addressing her instead of Sarek. “You should consider an appointment soon with someone better versed in matters of human biology but it would seem that your body is already doing the work on our behalf.”

T’Paj goes on to explain what Amanda should expect over the next few days, what’s normal and what isn’t as far as her understanding lets her say, and Amanda can only hope that Sarek is paying better attention than she is herself. Those words buzz in her ears, prickle at her mind so that even Sarek’s soothing influence is drowned out.

“I thought you loved children?” her mother blurted without so much as a greeting, appearing at Amanda’s shoulder like a specter. It was a wonder, really, that she’d held it in for as long as she had, though perhaps it shouldn’t be. She never was one to start a confrontation if she could get someone else to do it for her. She was wringing her hands in her apron and getting garden dirt under her fingernails as she watched her grandnieces and nephews run off to play, inspired by the story they’d been told. Her eyes were wide and wet when she turned to look at Amanda as she rose. “You’ve always loved children, haven't you?”

Standing, Amanda smoothed out her long sweater and tucked her book under her arm. She smiled after the little ones and agreed, “I have.” Looking back at her mother, she reminded, “I’ve never needed them to be mine to love them.”

“You always love them better when they’re yours,” her mother murmured, loud enough to hear but low enough to mean that she didn’t want a discussion on the topic. She’d declared more than once that she hadn’t felt like she’d had a family until she had her daughters playing at her feet, no matter how many little ones were constantly under those same feet as family near and far enjoyed her hospitality.

“I'm happy to love them all as well as I can,” Amanda said, loud and clear and just as unabiding of argument. She watched the wrinkles between her mother’s brow; they’d always been the biggest tell for a crying fit.

Her mother wiped her face in the crook of her elbow, more reflex than anything. She said, “I just don’t understand how you can give something like that up for him." One of the children shrieked and they both looked over to assure themselves it was with laughter before turning back. Her mother looked wistful as she continued to watch the children in spite of facing Amanda. “I just want to see you happy, my love." She did look at Amanda then, imploring. "You know that, don't you?”

Amanda did know that, of course. She held that fact tight to her bosom despite the frustration of knowing that the happiness her mother wanted for her was the same happiness she would have wanted for herself rather than what Amanda wanted.

“I’m happy with the choice that I’ve made,” Amanda said. She took her mother’s hands in her own, trying to press her sincerity and her certainty into her palms. “I know you don’t understand and I’m not asking you to. I’m only asking that you trust me to understand myself.”

Her mother stared at her for a long moment. Then she took her hands back, scrubbed her face in her elbow and turned to walk back into the house.

The trip back home is quiet. Amanda slumps against the door of their little hovercar with both hands pressed over her belly. It feels warm and whole under her touch, a far cry from what she feels inside, and she worries she’ll lose herself if she lets up. She tries to put it out of her mind and watches the scenery pass. Vulcans go about their business along the street, sedate and steady, and she tries to make herself feel the serenity she sees on their faces. When they slow to take a turn, she sees a Vulcan father guide his daughter out of the path of an oncoming group of pedestrians with a hand on her shoulder. The girl blinks around at the group, then up at her father; her face is bright, emotions not yet under the strict control expected of adults. Amanda watches as the girl scrutinizes her father’s face and then does her best to match it, drawing up as tall as she can with a confident little strut in her step.

Amanda's fingers curl, nails digging past the fine weave of her clothes to press into her flesh. She closes her eyes and keeps them closed for the rest of the ride, not even realizing they’ve arrived until Sarek rouses her with a hand on her shoulder.

They exchange no words as they get out, Amanda swaying only a little. The medicine causes no drowsiness but the lack of pain leaves her aware of how drained she is by the ordeal. Sarek’s hand is soon on her shoulder again, urging her with a gentleness he’d surely deny towards their front entrance.

“Is everything well?” asks their nearest neighbor, T’Laas, as she passes. It’s late in the morning now; she must be on her way to work. She sweeps a gaze over Amanda and turns a querying look on Sarek.

“Everything will be,” Amanda says, sharper than she meant to; she bites her tongue when T’Laas draws herself up, however subtly, in affront. Amanda inclines her head in both apology for the outburst and acknowledgement of the concern. In a gentler tone, she says, “I only need to rest.”

T’Laas relaxes and nods in return, the indiscretion already dismissed. She murmurs her wishes for their good health and continues on her way. She and Amanda have shared tea before and are on good enough terms that Amanda trusts T'Laas not to hold this one incident against her. A knot of tension Amanda hadn’t noticed loosens at the base of her spine and she allows Sarek to guide her inside as T'Laas goes on her way, understanding that her presence now would be more hinderance than help.

Being home isn’t the relief Amanda had hoped for. The house feels bigger than it did; more empty. One hand stays on her belly and she trails the other along the walls as they walk to try and get her bearings. For the first time since she arrived on Vulcan, Amanda doesn’t feel as if she’s home at all.

She balks when they reach the entrance to the bedroom, standing firm against Sarek’s guidance, and nausea comes over her in spite of the medication. Bile tickles her throat and she finds she can’t look at the bed, even though she knows it will have been cleaned up in their absence.

“Amanda,” Sarek says, chiding. “You must rest, give yourself time to recover.”

“I will,” she says, swallowing. She rolls her shoulders to shake his touch and turns with purpose down the hall towards her study. “But not in there.” After a deep breath, she expands, “Not right now.”

Sarek trails her down the hall, silent as a shadow. He touches her shoulder again when she reaches her study, a passing contact that’s gone by the time she turns to look at him.

“I have correspondence to see to,” he tells her, tipping his head towards his own study a little further down the hall. “Nothing urgent. You can find me there if you have need of me.” He hesitates halfway through turning and looks back to pin her with a stare. His gaze roams her face and his mouth is pinched at the corners. He is agitated, more so than he’s letting on. Just before the silence would have been too much, he asks, “Amanda-- did you want the child?”

Amanda doesn’t flinch but it’s a near thing. Some absurd part of her wants to laugh. It’s a topic they’d danced around during their short courtship and beyond, no matter how he’d deny it if put in those terms.

Her tongue runs rough against the backs of her teeth. She looks away from him, hands tight against her belly. Finally, she confesses, “I don’t know. I never really thought about it before.”

No one has ever really asked her before.

Amanda’s family sprawled across several small, tightly packed towns and beyond. Having children wasn’t a question; it was an expectation.

It was both a burden and a relief throughout her life. Every assumptive comment, every knowing look, had chafed and chipped at her. But at the same time, no one pressed. Why would they? They all watched as she tended to her young cousins and occasionally their neighborhood friends and knew beyond doubt that she would have her own someday. Amanda could enjoy the company of her young relatives without having to worry too much about “her own someday” as long as she paid her share of polite smiles when they were mentioned as a forgone conclusion. Sometimes she’d catch the eye of a cousin who the family whispered about with pity or exasperation or both and they would share a secret smile and a roll of the eyes. These were the few, precious moments she felt a bond of understanding with members of her family.

So it was easy enough to bear the smug edge of Doris’s smile when she bounced little Lester on her lap and cooed about giving him a sibling someday soon. Amanda even had patience to spare for the condescending lecture about how to hold him and feed him and speak to him, as though she hadn’t grown up being taught.

Doris was a new mother, she reminded herself, and her labor had been difficult. Whatever other motive she had, it was natural that she would be protective of her firstborn.

“He’s still learning that nighttime is for sleeping,” Doris said on a breezy little laugh. It trailed as she looked at her son sat babbling on Amanda’s lap. She reached out to brush wispy hair off of his forehead and forgot entirely to look smug. “I’m up all night some nights, just holding him and humming whatever lullaby I’m not too tired to remember. James offers to help out, of course, but I’m not ready to share that much just yet…”

Lester drooled and rubbed his little fist into the mess, burbling like he was proud of himself. It seemed to break the spell and Doris gave that little laugh again as she took him from Amanda and dabbed at his face with a soft cloth.

“You’d almost think you had the better idea of things, looking at him like this,” she said. When his face was clean, she lifted him in quick bounces and grinned past him at Amanda. “No sleepless nights for you, eh?”

Amanda chose to ignore the secondary implication in the statement, not that it would change her response. She gave Doris the little slip of a smile that had become her norm and rolled her shoulders in a shrug. “I had the best idea for myself, at least. I can’t imagine the same thing working out for you.”

Doris’s face went funny-- not red, not yet, but funny-- and she settled Lester on her knee to bounce so she could look at Amanda unimpeded. Her lips pressed into a tight line and Amanda could see her jaw work.

“You really do think you'll be happy there, don’t you?” she asked, not sounding altogether sure of what she thought of the idea. “Surrounded by all those repressed Vulcans-- living with one, even. Loving him and having to believe he loves you even when he never says it.”

“Sarek tells me that he loves me,” Amanda corrected, feeling some satisfaction in the surprise it brought to Doris’s face. She didn’t bother to explain herself; she felt no need and it would be pointless besides. “He tells me every day, just like I tell him. You’ve just never seen it.”

No, Doris would have to hear it and wouldn’t believe it otherwise. She didn’t understand Vulcans. She certainly didn’t understand Sarek and likely wouldn’t even if she were willing to make the effort to do so. He was too much like Amanda for that.

“Just as well, maybe,” Doris muttered, digging for a win as was her wont. Her brow wrinkled and she couldn’t seem to decide if she wanted to look at Amanda or not. “One less thing to worry about there. You’ll have a hard enough time of it yourself. Any child of yours might be more Vulcan than you but they’d never be as Vulcan as him.”

There was no logic to arguing, so Amanda didn’t. She let Doris turn red and huff and then finally turn her attention back down to Lester, who had begun to wiggle and whine for want of stimulation. She grabbed a little plush of uncertain design, Lester’s favorite, and used it to boop his nose. The happy little noises he made in response melted her face into a smile and she seemed to forget for the moment that Amanda was there.

Amanda leaned back in her chair, smiling softly at the two of them. She could see the appeal, certainly, even when Lester pushed his fingers into his mouth and then endeavored to touch everything around him with the glob of drool he’d gathered in the two seconds it took Doris to pull them back out. She looked forward to one day reading Lester her favorite stories; to seeing him grow up as she’d seen her little cousins do. But if no child of her own was in her cards, it was no loss at all compared to what she stood to gain from her life going forward.

She didn’t bother to think of it again.

Any hope Amanda might have had that she would feel more at ease in her study is dashed within the first slow circuit she makes around it. She looks at the familiar room, decorated with a mix of Vulcan and Terran aesthetic influence, and feels as if she doesn’t know it.

She paces, touching everything. Her fingers flit over the spines of her collection of hardbound books, though she leaves them all on the shelves. She looks at the painting in progress on the easel in the corner with a critical eye, comparing it against the view out of her window. She touches the lute hanging on her wall, more decoration than instrument until she learns to play, and her touch coaxes a sour note of grief from it.

Her circuit finishes at her desk and she reaches reflexively to turn on the terminal. She has work to do, she recalls distantly, work she’d intended to do when she woke. Her students will be due their latest scores soon. But Amanda isn’t thinking of working; she probably shouldn’t anyway, with her head stuck up above the clouds in the thinnest layer of Vulcan’s atmosphere. One hand drifts to rest over the comm suite; the other is back on her belly.

The lump in her throat almost chokes her before she can think to swallow it down. Her head feels altogether too heavy and she bows until her forehead presses against the top of the terminal. She swallows again and again, eyes shut tight against tears.

Amanda doesn’t want to call her mother but she wishes she could. Or her father, her sister-- all of them, even. She doesn’t even know if she would but it hurts down deep that she can’t.

They would welcome her call, of course. Of this, she has no doubt. But it would be illogical to call when she knows it will only end in greater frustration.

Whatever their response to the news, they would center it in her narrative. What she thought and felt would be an afterthought to what they did. They would decide all that on her behalf, as they always did, this time before she could decide for herself.

It’s too easy to imagine how they’d react. The color rising in their faces, the tears. She can imagine her mother’s scream, a high little bleat before she slapped her hands over her mouth to keep the rest in. She can imagine their sympathy, their sorrow. She can taste their grief coating the roof of her mouth. And underneath it all would be the relief, the realization that she could have children and the renewed expectation that she would.

Bitterness overcomes her and she shoves herself away from the terminal. She paces the room three times before she finally stops at the window, staring out into the city. Pointedly, she grips either side of the window and inhales deeply of Vulcan’s midday heat, letting it fill in the hollow pit that opened up when T’Paj gave her the diagnosis.

What would she have done, she lets herself wonder, if she’d known? She dismisses the question of whether she’d have been able to do anything. She closes her eyes, turns her face up to the light and breathes through the meditation exercises she’s learned. What, she asks herself in spite of logic, would her ideal scenario have looked like?

Amanda has always loved children, after all, but they’ve always been other people’s children. They’ve never been her responsibility at the end of the day, hers to care for and nurture. She’s never dwelled on the idea. It’s tangled too tightly in the expectations thrust upon her by her family for her comfort, though she’d never gone so far as to resent the possibility. She had reasoned that it would happen one day or it wouldn't and left it there. Then she met Sarek and loved him even more deeply than she desired the opportunity for a fresh beginning that his interest represented and it didn’t seem logical to worry about the matter of children after that. She’d made her choice long before he asked the question.

Epiphany sings through Amanda and she stutters over a breath. Tension leaves her body in a long exhale, though she wouldn’t yet call herself relaxed. Of course, she’d known the question was illogical when she’d asked herself. Not only because it was a matter already past-- but because it was the wrong question to ask. Why was she dwelling on what she would have wanted when she should be asking herself what she wants?

Well, she can hardly be expected to come to a decision without facts to base it upon, can she? Not on Vulcan, certainly. With a shake of her head, she turns from the window and crosses her study in long strides. She makes her way without hesitation down the hall, determination standing her up tall. Dozens of questions have organized themselves in her mind by the time she finds herself in her doorway, each one bearing a value to be weighed and added up. Something like excitement tingles in her chest, contained with great effort between her ribs.

Sarek reaches out a hand to greet her before he's even looked up from his work. She doesn't suppose she could walk softly enough to sneak up on him, not that she's inclined to try. He finally faces her as she slides her palm across his, his gaze flicking over her.

"Your condition has improved?" he asks, less certain than he normally is with her.

"It has," she agrees. She can see his confidence rise in the face of her calm. "My mind is more at ease now that I've had time to process."

Sarek casts another inquisitive look over her and says, “Yet I can see that there’s more to the matter than what you’ve processed.”

“There is,” she agrees just as readily. Letting his hand slide out of hers, she helps herself to the seat across from him and rests her elbows on his desk, fingers steepled. “If your work can wait, Sarek-- there are things that I would like us to discuss.”

Amanda didn’t fidget but it was a near thing-- not so near a thing, though, as her face being pressed against the window of their little shuttle as they descended. Most of the trip had been spent imagining this moment and the anticipation took a turn towards anxiety now that it had arrived.

“If you’re concerned what my family might think of you tripping over your gown as you boarded the shuttle,” Sarek spoke up from beside her, his attention on a scientific journal in his lap, “you can rest assured that I won’t be bringing it up to them.”

Lips pressed against her smile-- he was a cheat, was what he was, always prodding to win an emotional reaction from her-- she turned to him with what she thought was a passable impression of his own quirked eyebrow. She was forced to rethink when he looked up to give her an eyeful of the original.

“Jokes, Ambassador?” she asked with great dignity. “And what would your esteemed family think of that?”

He shook his head and looked back at his journal. “How very human of you, to threaten to betray me as I’ve promised not to betray you.”

“You hear threats where you expect to hear them,” she scoffed. Since he wasn’t looking, she did allow the briefest hint of a smile. "And you expect them everywhere."

“Of course,” he agreed readily enough. “How else do you think I’ve lived this long, in my position?”

“And here I thought it was your gift of diplomacy,” she said with a note of false disappointment. She dropped the game a moment later, settling back in her seat and looking with only a little longing at the sky passing beyond the window. Idly, she wondered if the ship that had carried them was still orbiting or if it had already moved on.

There was a comfortable pause, then a brief tension before Sarek asked, “Are you… feeling better?” He had grown accustomed to such considerations in their time together but they seemed harder for him to express the closer they got to Vulcan. It was fortunate for them both that she could read him as well as she could.

“I’ve had a chance to make peace,” she said, careful over the words. The moments she’d spent bidding her family goodbye at the wedding party had been filled with tears shed and voices raised. Her mother had hugged her tight just before they’d separated and insisted through sobs that Amanda let them know immediately when she had arrived safely on Vulcan and that she was to stay in touch. “I know they mean well. I know that they want the best for me. What they need to realize is that what’s best for me isn’t theirs to define.”

Sarek shook his head, setting his journal aside. “I must confess,” he said, “I’m baffled by this dynamic. If they’re so opposed to the life you’ve chosen to live, why don’t they cut off contact entirely?”

“Because they don’t want to lose me,” she said gently. The question gave her a bit of a chill. It wasn't representative of one of her favorite tidbits of Vulcan culture. “They want me to be happy-- and they want to be able to see it for themselves. Never mind that they’re too stubborn to recognize it when they do see it.”

“They raise conflict after conflict with their refusal to accept your decisions,” Sarek said, the shadow of a frown touching his lips. “They continue to press their expectations upon you, trying to break you into something they can rebuild in their own image. There’s no logic that I can find in this kind of love.”

When he put it that way, Amanda could admit that it was easier to see his point.

Amanda brushed her fingers over the back of Sarek’s hand; he turned it over at the touch and she rested her palm against his. She worked her jaw around a question that was becoming increasingly stark the closer they got.

Before she could even ask, Sarek answered, “I would hope that we know each other well enough that I would never have to choose between your-- contentment and ours.” His fingers caressed her, an almost unconscious motion. “Attempted reconciliation is the first step, always, and I have confidence in our capacity for reconciliation. Certainly, I’ve always felt that I know you better, somehow, than your own family does.”

“You took the time to know me,” Amanda murmured. He would never have thought to bring her here if he hadn't. Her attention strayed back to the window but only for a moment. “They never did. Someday, maybe.”

Amanada could tell that Sarek was unconvinced-- which was fair, she granted, since she was too-- but he was gracious enough to let the subject rest. He didn’t pick up his journal again. They sat, hand in hand, peaceful in each other’s company. Amanda didn’t realize how much time had passed until the autopilot whistled to alert them that they were docking at the shuttle station and she jumped, a jolt of anxiety going through her bones.

“Peace,” Sarek murmured. He pulled his hand easily from the iron grip she’d fastened around it and wrapped his arm across her shoulders. He pressed gently when she didn’t stir and again he bid her, “Peace.”

But it was he who hesitated at the threshold, stopping short of pressing the button that would lower the door for them. He looked at her with an uncertainty that she was sure only she could see.

“You understand--”

“I know better than to expect Vulcan to be like Earth,” she assured him. She smoothed her gown and folded her hands in front of her, the picture of reserve. “And I know how I’m-- we’re-- expected to behave.”

He hesitated a moment longer, searching her face. His lips parted but he sealed them again without speaking. Facing the door, he stood straight and hit the button.

Amanda walked into the light of her new home with both eyes wide open.

#star trek #star trek: tos #sarek #amanda grayson #samanda #my writing #miscarriage

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mylittleredgirl · 4 years

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trekathon: enterprise “in a mirror, darkly”

season 4 episodes 18 & 19:

oh my god, the first contact music 💗😭

the opening sequence to the enterprise mirror universe eps really is inspired. i also like to imagine the composer metaphorically tossing it down on a table in front of all the fans who’ve been complaining for four years like “HERE’S YOUR FUCKING INSTRUMENTAL OPENING THEME” and storming out

i’ve been breaking up the discovery recaps because there are 19 concurrent plots and i’m trying to keep them straight, but i feel like a stream-of-consciousness bullet point experience is appropriate here:

those of you watching today will never know the special delight that mirror captain forrest brought to internet nerd fans back in the day. the site television without pity used to write snarky tv show recaps, and keckler, who wrote the enterprise recaps week to week, decided early on that admiral forrest was such a boring character that he must be evil -- and so after 3-some years of calling him “evil admiral forrest,” him showing up in the mirror universe was like prophecy coming to pass

mirror phlox and reed developed the agonizer booth!

apparently non-terran rebellions against the empire are a recurring concern

mirror!travis is REAL hot

they’re all hot but travis? with that earring? and that hair? dang.

i think we can all agree that phlox is the creepiest mirror version, just casually performing live vivisections of random animals with a smile 😬

i’m glad discovery went the full-on sexy leather uniform route instead of just slapping some pins and patches on the existing uniform style and putting the ladies in crop tops

mirror!t’pol going through pon farr (and ~ahem~ asking trip to help her out) raises my continuing question about how and when pon farr affects female vulcans

does it just kick in at some point, like with vulcan men? is it connected to their bond-mate? should i be worried about tuvok’s wife is what’s behind my question

mirror archer is such a hopeless disaster and hoshi very obviously like “wow... those orgasms... so great... 🙄” really gives me life

vulcan bowl-cut rebellion!!

the vulcan science directorate has found no evidence of alternate realities

given it is ALSO going to be time travel, the vulcan science directorate’s about to take a double hit

okay okay space science time! tricobalt device + gravity well of dead star -> interphasic rift to other universe

i don’t know why trip saying “so what?” is so funny

i totally forgot the suliban had cloaking technology by the way

i also forgot how great the enterprise transporter effect is!!

okay now i want to watch “the tholian web.” star trek marathons are not linear

mirrror!malcolm getting horny for future phasers is very on brand

tos sound effects 🥰

honestly impressed they even have escape pods in the mirror universe

i assume they’re all on the evil line of the alignment chart, but i guess that makes captain forrest lawful evil, hoshi neutral evil, and archer chaotically unhinged evil

part ii!!!

“release the ducking clamps!” bakula why

t’pol’s orange eyeshadow is quite a look

on-screen text falls into the “canon if i feel like it” zone as far as i’m concerned, but i love that archer’s profile starts with: “charming, bold,”

apparently he was the starfleet chief of staff, the ambassador to andoria, and the president!! of the federation!!!!

the best part is that when i paused it to read, the closed caption says [LAUGHING]

our babes look so good in velour

GORN!

disaster mirror archer hallucinating prime!archer is an entire thing i’m not even sure how to deal with

a cgi gorn was a bad call from start to finish. this isn’t a 16 years on thing. they did their best, but it was ridiculous then too.

shakespeare’s plays are “equally grim in both universes”

omg travis high-kicking the admiral

archer parading around the shuttlebay of the admiral’s nx-01 ship, making a dramatic speech to about 18 people all looking either bored or concerned. i love that they chose to make this entire episode about what a clown mirror archer is

those 18 people include two vulcans, an andorian, a denobulan, and an orion, and we saw a tellarite officer earlier. during this period in history there are a significant number of aliens serving on starfleet ships -- as opposed to Just T’Pol in the prime universe. they’re all second-class citizens, but they hold officer ranks. in the discovery era, i don’t think we see any non-terrans holding military positions.

okay actually given that they successfully take over a ship i can see why that policy doesn’t last

i have a specific desire to see t’pol with hyper realistic disco spock style ears

i love that even mirror hoshi protects phlox 🥺

i would like to thank the director of this episode for the artistic decision to only show archer and hoshi hooking up in silhouette form

“it may take centuries, but humanity will pay for its arrogance” YES i love that connection to the ds9 mirror universe eps

they really can design the heck out of a negligee in the mirror universe can’t they

hoshi and travis making out!!!!

honestly i don’t think hoshi had a long game here? i buy her being content as forrest’s captain’s woman, but then archer betrayed forrest and she wanted revenge, and then forrest died so she had nothing to go back to, and then it’s like “well i was going to go for tenure but now that i’m here i might as well rule the empire”

#trekathon #enterprise #i need a mirror t'pol icon

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years

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December 28: Star Trek TMP

Just watched The Motion Picture for the first time in....uh, a long time. Too long. I’d only seen it once before. A few thoughts:

I remember there being long sequences of space in the beginning but those seem to be cut from the version on Prime. I guess I could be remembering wrong, but the run time is almost 15 mins shorter than what google says it should be, too. (ETA I guess what I saw today was the director’s cut, and the stars are from the theatrical release...)

Overall, this is a good sci fi story, and even though it’s really REALLY reminiscent of The Changeling, it’s different enough to warrant its own movie. BUT--the film could and should have been at least a solid half hour shorter. In other words, the sci fi conceit was cool, but it wasn’t that complicated. By itself, it could have fit in a 50 minute TOS episode.

The rest of the time, what makes it a movie, should have been focused on the Enterprise crew: most of the best scenes are the reunions, the re-introductions, seeing people advancing in rank, getting hints of what they’ve been doing...

It’s not that I need more information in all instances; I mean, I rather like not knowing how McCoy became a disco hippie, for example. But we could have gotten more scenes of just the crew doing...literally pretty much anything lol.

Instead of long shots of the inside of V’ger or that scanning sequence or that 100 year long wormhole scene.

Basically what I’m saying is that there’s a lot of good stuff in this film, but the pacing is SUPER weird and the emphasis is in all the wrong places, at least per my personal taste.

Every time I see Stephen Collins I think “Reverend Spice Boy.”

Anyway the most important part of TMP is of course its place in the Kirk/Spock story. I actually legit don’t know how people can watch this without looking at it through a K/S lens because first of all, I don’t think it makes sense, and second of all, it’s so much less interesting.

I definitely read the sequence of events like this: right after the 5YM, Kirk and Spock return to San Francisco and hook up. Spock freaks out, leaves Starfleet, and returns to Vulcan. Kirk doesn’t entirely get what happened but he moves on with his life. The first time they see each other after that is TMP itself. That’s why Spock wanted to purge emotions in the first place, why he’s so awkward with the whole crew, and why he’s extra awkward with Kirk. Also, Bones knows about all of this.

The ‘this simple feeling’ scene is the Pinnacle. Of Everything. This is such an important step in Spock’s individual journey, but that journey is so clearly tied up in Jim and his feelings for Jim. Why did he want to purge his emotions? It HAD to be something pertaining to Jim--he lived among humans for his entire adult life and it’s only NOW that he’s like ‘nah, gotta peace’? He feels the machine consciousness and thinks ‘this is the perfect mind, I have to learn about this exactly logical mind’--and what he finds is a machine wanting what he already has! Purpose, meaning, connection, feelings. LOVE. That’s why he’s laughing when he’s in sickbay. He should have known. What he was running from is exactly what he was also running toward, and it was Jim the WHOLE TIME.

I’m sorry but this is a queer love story I don’t even know what else to tell you.

I headcanon that the phrase “this simple feeling” actually came up between them before. It just has that ‘callback’ feel. I think Kirk said it to Spock during the hook up scene, like ‘you have to trust this simple feeling between us’ or something.

Other great parts of that scene: Kirk just pushing Bones away when Bones tries to get him to step back from Spock; the expression on Kirk’s face (the man invented love, okay); the hand holding and arm grabbing, obviously.

I also liked Spock’s line, later on, about V’ger “It is searching, but like many of us, it doesn’t know for what.”

Completely forgot there was another Vulcan science officer in this film. Poor guy didn’t last long. Also, I can’t believe Kirk LITERALLY manifested a new Vulcan Science Officer. The skill. Your fave could never.

The more I think about it, the more fond I grow of this film. There are parts where I spaced out, for sure. But when it’s good, it’s so good. All the crew getting the Enterprise ready. Spock’s arrival in that cloak. Kirk recommissioning McCoy. Kirk being kind of rusty at captain-ing but ultimately getting it together to save the day. The softness and beauty of our own explorer probe finding a family of machine-aliens and going off in her own ship to search out all the knowledge of the universe--then coming home to tell us what she learned. The triumvirate reunited again. Janice Rand returning as an engineer. Those truly awful uniforms (with the matching shoes that make them look like they have little feeties) that nevertheless have a fond place in my heart. Etc., etc.

#the year 2020 #2020: star trek #2020: fandom thoughts #star trek tos

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myheartmightexplode · 5 years

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Tarsus iv

Summary

Big, black holographic letters before a plain white wall. A name seared into his memory like a fresh burn scar that itched, stung and roared when touched, followed by the most bullshitty question he had ever heard, in neat, 20 % transparent letters:

TARSUS IV - Were Kodos' actions defendable?

Anyone who has ever been in a class, has usually met that one guy.

'That one guy' is the guy who, without fail, doesn't arrive a second before he has to. And after a week or so of finding the barely-in-time arrival annoying, you just get used to it, and stop paying it attention altogether.

Therefore, no student really cared when one infamous James T. Kirk deftly slid into the auditorium to the beep of an attendance card and the hiss of the doors sealing shut behind him. This was also why his best friend, Leonard "Bones" McCoy, didn't have to follow his eye roll up with any kind of comment; as Interspecies Ethics 241 approached its end, any snide comments he could come up with had all been said once or twice before.

Neither he, nor Spock - a vulcan exchange student that decided to stay behind on Earth after his semester was up, and also the only of Jim's bedroom encounters with aliens that stayed tangled in the sheets - started when blonde hair and a cheerful grin climbed not as much as leaned over the two back rows of the auditorium and shoved them apart, to press an out-of-breath kiss to green-tinged lips.

"C'mon, Bones, move over."

Bones let out a snort. "If you wanna sit with the cool kids, you gotta be on time." Jim opened his mouth to complain, but was cut off with a sharp, "it's full, Jim! Go sit in the back."

Respect and discipline was two values which Starfleet Academy held highly, so when the guest lecturer started speaking, Jim merely gave his friend an ugly look and struggled himself into the back row, splitting up a couple of friends.

He hadn't unpacked his bag or sunk into his not-nearly-cushioned-enough-but-apparently-ergonomic seat before the lecturer announced the theme of his lecture, and in the same breath, captured Jim's attention like no teacher could ever hope to do.

TARSUS IV - Were Kodos' actions defendable?

He stood, and gestured for the girl next to him to stand. When she didn't react, merely cast a look at him that asked him how stupid he was or what he was on, he grit his teeth and shoved past her, probably painfully crashing into knees and stepping on toes and backpacks on the way, but with a numbing anger, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Affronted, their teacher rose from her seat next to the controls to the holo, hissing an accusing "Cadet!" as the door next to her opened with the internal override.

Not turning away from the lecturer, who busily continued as if nothing had happened, Bones scoffed at the vague shape in the corner of his eye of a fellow student flipping the bird on their way out. Some people just had to make a scene.

When the class ended, Bones turned to see that Jim had run ahead of them, which, though uncharacteristic of him, wasn't surprising. Bones knew better than to expect Jim to act a certain way; the guy always ended up doing the exact opposite. Whether it was because he liked to fuck with people's heads, or it was just in his nature to be unpredictable, Bones had yet to find out.

Spock didn't talk a lot unless prompted to do so by Jim, so the walk to the absolutely packed cantina was a silent one. Traveling through Monday morning hallways was a game of pinball with not-quite-awake latecomers and last minute crammers reading up on whatever subject their test would be on, which meant that securing a table was a privilege of the students quick to exit class. Neither Spock nor Bones rushed needlessly, so the discovery that Jim had secured a table for the three of them was a welcome one.

How Jim had already acquired lunch as well, though, was a bit of a mystery. That Bones got an avoidance rather than an answer when he asked as much was even more of one.

"Sorry. Just had to run ahead," he answered, attempting to fit half a sandwich in his mouth and not chewing thoroughly before gulping the chunk down in a manner similar to a bird of prey in a hurry. "I skipped breakfast this morning, so I was— I'm—" Jim cut himself off with an odd expression in favor of shoving more food into his oral cavity.

Bones stared expectantly. "Starving, Jim. You can say it if you try hard enough," he teased. Spock, as per usual, misunderstood him, and saw his chance to demonstrate his knowledge to his inferior human companions.

"Indeed, it is not a word considered 'taboo' amongst humans, especially since a famine has not occurred since late 21st century, due to advanced—"

"The fuck it hasn't. Just because Vulcan and Earth has a limitless food supply, it doesn't mean that the rest of the universe is as lucky."

Spock didn't appear offended, but something about his face made it clear that he didn't appreciate much being interrupted and belittled in the same sentence. Leonard assumed that his own face was just as expressive.

"'The hell, Jim? We're talking about Earth, not the rest of the universe. What crawled up your ass and died?" He would probably be amused that Jim had managed to eat half his lunch with an impressive three bites, but was a bit too busy feeling secondhand offense from Spock when all Jim saw fit to answer with was a scoff. "Don't get all touchy over Tarsus IV. 'S only a week long subject."

Spock suppressed an instinctual wince as James' metal chair scraped over the stone floor, creating a noise that cut painfully into his ears.

"I forgot my PADD in the classroom," he stated, abandoning his lunch as he collected his jacket and bag, throwing over his shoulder as he went: "See you in Nonverbal Communication."

Spock had, and suspected McCoy had as well, seen his beloved store away his PADD in his bag as they were approaching his acquired table, and therefore immediately revealed the statement to be invalid. What reason Jim would have to make the untruthful statement, however, Spock didn't know. He decided to voice as much. "I am struggling to understand the human tendency of 'lying white.'"

"White lies, Spock. It's 'white lies.'" Bones was torn between wanting to laugh at the vulcan, and buy him an educational book on FSE expressions, but thoughts of Jim distracted him. He sighed. "Yeah, me neither."

The day after, Jim was wholly absent from class. Spock would easily admit that he did not understand this sudden behavior of James'. While his 'boyfriend' might certainly not be the most logical of humans, he could always be trusted to do his very best in every situation, and always 'come out on top.' While often absentminded, always listening. While perpetually late, never did he skip class. Unless he was not feeling well?

Jim had taken up the habit of always calling Spock sometime between 23:48 and 00.07 every evening, which meant they had half an hour for talking before Spock begun his meditation. Their nightly conversations were illogical, as they rarely had anything of importance to discuss that could not be discussed at another more favorable time, but most nights, they provided Spock with a sense of calm, which aided him in his meditation later, and he felt himself growing fond of them in a way that surely was not vulcan.

There had been no such call the previous night, and as Jim always was the one to start the conversations, Spock had taken this as a need for privacy, and refrained from calling Jim himself.

Now that the classroom doors sealed shut, preventing latecomers from disturbing the rest of the class, Spock was left unsettled. McCoy, beside him in the same seats as the previous day, looked around the room, restlessly.

Seeming not to find what he was searching for, he settled down with notes from the previous lesson in front of him. "Probably slept in," he mumbled, as the lecturer started speaking.

Unsure of how to put words to his 'gut feelings,' Spock kept quiet.

Tarsus IV was an uncomfortable topic, and also one of the reasons that Bones wasn't all that fond of the big, black, star spangled silence up there. After all, Earth was a very safe place to live, with everything you needed at least somewhere nearby, and a lot of safety nets if something should go wrong. Serving on a star ship, or at a base somewhere on a barren planet several lightyears away from civilization, you had no safety nets. Limited supplies and death in all directions.

And still, the only place he truly belonged.

Even if Tarsus IV reminded him just where he was going and how bad an idea it really was, he kept a straight face and his fingers steady when they broke up in groups for discussions, listened to witness descriptions and took notes during the lengthy lecture on theories and controversies on and around the still touchy subject. The lecturer treated the whole topic tastefully, theorizing rather then concluding, which was a rare find, as most people seeking to comment on the incident either were theorists who painted it as a cruel massacre and wholeheartedly believed Starfleet to be behind the whole thing and Kodos still alive, or professors who had found proof that everything had gone to plan, and no innocent life had been stolen.

Bones did find the guest lecturer interesting, but not half as much as Spock, it seemed. He had attempted to mock the vulcan for it, but black eyes had turned to him sharply, and merely stated that "the conflict between logic and ethics is extremely fascinating, and Dr. Durmeg seems to have conducted thorough research, with valuable findings that may be the most relevant information pertaining to the discussion of Tarsus IV ethics." Sometimes Bones wondered why he bothered.

The walk towards the lunch hall was less obstructed on a late tuesday, and for once, Spock elected to talk during the whole walk. Bones didn't know if the vulcan brain allowed vulcans to process more information at one time than the human brain did, or if it was just Spock, but the young man had come up with some 'extremely fascinating' theories that had Bones wondering if he shouldn't be right up there beside the lecturer.

He wasn't done talking when he reached the table that Jim - mysteriously - had captured a second day in a row. Gracefully sliding down into the chair opposite his boyfriend, Spock busied himself with his brought, vegetarian, lunch.

"It is most unfortunate that you missed this class," he said as he released the smell of a vulcan salad from its container. It seemed to smell pleasing to him, but Bones felt mildly nauseated by the odor. Unaware of his friend's discomfort, Spock elaborated: "The Dr. Durmeg expressed interesting and valuable viewpoints on the Tarsus IV crisis."

Jim's vague hum seemed to confirm the statement, and discourage rather than encourage an elaboration, but the tone was either lost on or ignored by Spock.

"Indeed, he made some quite convincing arguments that Kodos' action were entirely justifiable—"

"Nothing about Kodos is justifiable."

Spock seemed to consider the statement for a second, tilting his head. "Had you attended class—"

"We're through."

"I beg your pardon?"

Jim stood, locking his PADD and putting it away. "We're over, Spock."

And in the next second, Jim was gone.

Spock tried, futilely, to grab onto a sensible thought that would explain these actions. He turned to McCoy.

"I am not entirely sure that I understand the full meaning of this particular human—"

"He…" Bones narrowed his eyes at the hallway where Jim had disappeared. "He just broke up with you."

He hadn’t slept for days, hunger gnawing at his insides as if his body could eat itself inside out and survive that way, dull teeth scraping at his nerve endings as he felt as if he had a black hole inside of him that was pulling at him, rendering him immobile and whimpering.

Tara had fallen to her death, slipped somewhere she should’ve been safe but wasn’t because she was sluggish and blinded by the gnawing, and Yvonne had fallen asleep, but not woken up the next morning or the one after, and now they were down to ten, ten almost- and just-barely teenagers, nine who should’ve been safe in their beds maybe even with their parents by their sides if they were lucky and hadn’t decided to throw away the fact that they were so blessed as to be chosen for the sake of saving one single blind passenger, save him for nothing because now they were all going to die, all alone and hopeless, now that the darkness came and stole him away, as he passed out because he was too hungry and too cold and too hurting to fall asleep but his body couldn’t take anymore and—

Jim didn’t awake with screams and moans anymore, mainly because the nightmares didn’t plague him any longer, but also because they weren’t as much nightmares as bad memories, and if there was one thing Jim didn’t do, it was linger on the past. However, the experiences left him shaking, cold and with a wave of nausea washing over him as he stretched out under the sheets, just to feel the soft cotton all around him, just to forget the sensation of wet, dirty, sandy clothes clinging to his body.

The room was completely dark, but the window let in a slight shimmer of blue light that caressed his desk, the spines of the books in the book shelf, the night stand and the empty right side of the bed. With a shaking breath, he reached for his cell phone, ignoring the glaring numbers of the display in favor of thumbing through his programmed contacts, not trusting his voice to carry the voice commands correctly.

It wasn’t until his thumb rested over the name so dear to him, that he realized what he had actually done not too many hours previous.

Releasing the device with a sigh, he curled back up under the cold sheets, staring at the insides of his eyelids. Spock wouldn’t be mad, Spock would probably understand and brush it away as emotional human behavior, and act as if nothing had happened, but the sudden realization that he had broken up with Spock left him inexplicably shaken, to the core, and feeling alone and very small and like he didn’t belong.

If he didn’t cry himself to sleep, it wasn’t because the black hole in his chest didn’t hurt.

"I don’t think I’ve seen you worried before."

The observation wasn't anything but that: An observation. Interestingly enough, seeing as almost every reference McCoy made to his behavior came in the form of an insulting attempt to, presumably, elicit an emotional response.

In the same fashion, Spock voiced his observations on Jim's behavior, and the questions it had raised within him.

" I don't delude myself as to think I have gotten him pinned down, but as I've for a while studied Jim's behavioral nature, this sudden 'breaking up' seems to me unmotivated and uncharacteristically not thought through. Additionally, I have come to the conclusion that this could be related to the current lecture subject and our discussions of it, which leaves me 'puzzled.'"

Leonard cringed visibly from the strange, if not audibly painful mixture of informal and formal federation standard english. "Keep working on your colloquial english, Spock. Anyway, would've thought vulcans didn't worry."

Spock opened his mouth, to answer one remark or the other, Bones assumed, but was interrupted by the lecturer's arrival. He thought he might've caught a glimmer of disappointment in those expressionless eyes as Spock sat down next to him, swiftly entering vulcan notes into his PADD ("quite logically, seeing as the experience would not only ensure easier and more correct recalling of the lesson, while simultaneously provide exercise in FSE to GV translation.")

The belated beep of the attendance card distracted him, though, and he turned in his seat to face his romantic partner - his boyfriend - who again had arrived barely on time, his appearance speaking of an insufficient amount of sleep. Beautiful blue eyes sought his, and Jim sent him a tight smile.

When Spock returned his smile (or what he hoped came across as one) with a slight nod and warm eyes, Jim could finally breathe out, and try a happier expression. He sunk into an end seat in the back, and drew out his PADD.

He didn't particularly want to be there, but then again, he didn't particularly want to be single any longer than he had to, (although he was pretty sure Spock had no idea what "we're through" meant anyways.) So he tuned out everything else, and started drafting up an explanation that wouldn't set off Spock's internal lie-detector, or leave anything for his vulcan curiosity to latch onto.

An hour passed by without making itself known as Jim debated family problems, insomnia, existential crisis, hell, even male PMS, and he had a good thousand words worth of half-assed stories when he became aware of the silence. Not break-silence with co-student chattering, not lecture-silence with the lecturer mumbling to himself during stops in his presentation, not note-taking silence with tap-tap-tapping on PADDs. Just silence.

Worrying that he might have been asked a question he wouldn't have the faintest idea of an answer to, he drew a breath, and looked up.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't the gazes of a hundred and fifty six students, one guest lecturer and one teacher simultaneously directed at him.

He sent a look at Spock and Bones, fully intending to have them explain what was going on via eye contact, but the sad, pitying? look on Bones' face, and Spock's suddenly calculating eyes made him wary.

Turning his eyes to the front of the auditorium, his mouth went dry, and the black hole returned.

Spock returned his eyes to the hologram that had put a stop to the lesson.

Younger, thinner, paler, more haunted, hair dirtied by dust or dirt and with barely discernible tear tracks burrowing their way down a blank face, stood his boyfriend by a rescue shuttle, the Platon, the first shuttle to touch down on Tarsus IV after the Kodos incident.

The hologram was highly pixelated and taken from a low angle, and this, along with the folds of clothing that obscured the motive, suggested that a compact device had been used in secrecy, to obtain the picture. Had anyone seen it be taken, the photographer would likely be reprimanded, and the picture deleted. It should have been deleted, even if it was not discovered while it was being shot. Wouldn't there be witness protection? Wouldn't someone be hired to ensure that any picture of such nature was deleted from—

Opening classroom doors spurred him from his somewhat hysterical inner debate, and before he really was aware of his actions, he had packed up and went out the door, chasing Jim's hastily retreating back.

Leonard, on the other hand, was rooted by the sudden revelation, and didn't retrieve control of his limbs until the doors swished shut behind Spock.

Swearing under his breath, he, too, rose from his seat. Every step he made towards the door and every number on the override code felt incredibly awkward and loud in the silent room, but awkwardness wasn't really what was on his mind at the moment.

Sinking down into a corner of the fire evacuation staircase, Jim didn't really feel much. There was the insane, pressing pain in his chest and burning in his eyes, and maybe he twisted his ankle on the way here, but it felt as if his mind was just a floating mass, incapable of holding a thought, resulting in a buzz, like a wrongly configured communicator. He became aware of an arm snaking around his shoulders, uncharacteristic of Spock, and a warm hand massaging his shoulder, very characteristic of Bones, and maybe it relieved the pain a bit, or maybe it didn't.

He let out a puff of laughter. "I drafted like…" He did a headcount. "Fourteen different lies to tell you."

Spock needed no further explanation. He cocked his head "I think the appropriate expression is: 'Truth will out.'"

Jim neither corrected or laughed at the erroneous use of the saying, and instead snorted out a quick "maybe."

Leonard ground his teeth, rubbing his best friend's shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing manner, while he tried to sort out his thoughts before his mouth could spew something that went unchecked by his brain. 'I'm sorry' were the most pressing words, but they were lame, and Jim would probably appreciate them as much as he appreciated a fucking hologram that confirmed him as one of the nine Tarsus IV survivors being stretched out over the holoscreen in front of a whole class of starfleet cadets.

It wasn't very surprising that Jim was the first one to speak, because there wasn't a whole lot to say. The words surprised all of them though. Including Jim himself.

"I wasn't supposed to be on Tarsus IV," he confessed, grabbing a random thought out of his head and pulling it out of his mouth. And when he started talking, everything else came detached, easily:

"I snuck onto a ship to get over there. I was just so sick of Frank and Winona and Iowa that I figured I'd go somewhere they couldn't get to me. Somewhere they couldn't just… Go act all worried in front of the police and get them to haul my ass back into the house when I wanted to be alone."

He blinked repeatedly to clear his vision again, and dared a glance up at the two best people in the world. They radiated endless patience and comfort, and something that the black hole didn't take, blossomed in his chest.

"Uh… I was in eight or ninth grade, and there was this summer camp, or school, I guess, over at Tarsus IV. An advanced academical course for kids and language courses for parents and guardians, and everyone would live in really cramped houses. I was bored out of my mind with regular school, so I really wanted to go, but Winona wouldn't take me, and hell would freeze over before I took Frank, and I obviously couldn't go alone, so I snuck aboard the ship."

The three of them were all sitting down now, and even if he leaned a little heavily into the arm that was still slung awkwardly around his shoulders (he appreciated the gesture too much to shake it off, even if it felt strange,) it felt like they were just hanging out, talking about whatever crossed their mind. Even now that there was only really one thing on their minds.

"I hid in the room of my classmates on the ship over, and hacked into their databases while they were still unprotected to put my name into the class. I still had to hide in Thomas' closet when we got to Tarsus, though, because I couldn't figure out a way to assign myself some sort of housing, but you know. It just became a kid's game. Hiding from the parents, unless I wanted to be sent back home. Class was challenging, but that's what I went there for, so I had a really great time.

"I guess you know what happened next." He shrugged. "Food went bad, communication lines went down and Kodos decided it was time to play god. Fuck, he had like, a screen to relay public announcements on, and at first, we thought it was really funny in a very pretentious way, but…"

Jim didn't realize he was crying until a salty tear ran down into his mouth, and when the taste hit his tongue, his throat started tightening up. "Just, seeing a huge face of some guy who you really, really trusted before, because he was the fucking governor of the colony, saying that you and you and you have to kindly go die…

"This guy in my class, Kevin Riley, his parents were on the dead list. What kind of monster kills the parents of a kid, and expects the kid to go on fine?

"…When they rounded up the people who were going to die because their 'existence represented a threat to the well-being of society,' it was kind of obvious that he favored kids over adults. I have no idea what he was trying to do. Build his own society, I guess. I think he just wanted to see what he could make us do.

"Anyway, they made all the people on the dead-list gather together, and people were holding onto each other and kids were trying to get through the energy field when they managed to separate all of them. And then, in one second, they were all there, and in the next, everybody had just disappeared. Not a trace there'd been anyone there. I guess we were all in shock, because no one started screaming or anything, and I was just thinking that I was really lucky that I wasn't on the living-list, because it meant I'd sure as hell not be put on the death-list."

Jim chucked darkly. "God, I'd just thought the thought, and the moment after, the peace keeping forces, peace keeping, yeah right, they point their phaser rifles at us, and Kodos isn't looking nice anymore, and he just says that 'there are some blind passenger on Tarsus IV,' and my blood just froze. I was sure they knew who I was and where I was, and I had no idea what to do. He started saying something about how even one more person alive would mean 'slow death to the more valued members of society,' and we kids just panicked. I don't know how many of us there were, but someone pulled me along, and half my class started running for anywhere else. I can't even remember where we hid, I just remember trying so hard not to get caught.

"We had to hide away for one and a half weeks. They fed the 'valued members of society' in a closed area, and no one got to bring any food out, so we tried to find food elsewhere, but it just wasn't ever enough, and god, I thought a day without food was bad, but that was just hell. Freddie from our class gave up after a while and ran to Kodos' soldiers to get some food, but I don't know what Kodos told them, that they had to obey him or something unless he'd kill them, maybe, but they just took him somewhere, and he never came back.

"We hid around the housing area for another half week and I thought we were going to die that one day, but suddenly, someone got the communication back up working, and they signaled starfleet to come and rescue us, and I guess Kodos heard about that, because the soldiers just started firing away at everybody, so we just, we ran away as far as possible from any building we could see, so we hid in some unfinished buildings, and Tara fell off the top of the building and died, and Yvonne and Mark just stopped waking up after a couple of days of hiding."

Suddenly, his words came like a rush, as if he couldn't get them away from him, out of him, fast enough. They tasted like poison on his tongue.

"They found us, two soldiers, or three I guess, and they fired at random into the building, so we found some crates to hide in and under and behind, but Linn wasn't fast enough and she disappeared, and Thomas was just barely, by a hair fast enough to only get half his face blown away when we ducked. We hid away for three hours just holding our breath and not making noises, and then we had to take off our t-shirts to press them against Thomas' face so he wouldn't bleed to death. I have no idea why we didn't just let him bleed out, because it was just naïve and stupid to think that anyone would come to our rescue after all that time, but they did, they did, and…"

He doubled over with a choked sob, and both Spock and Bones were there to catch him, embrace him, rub at him and warm up his shaking, inexplicably cold body.

"I don't know why I'm crying," he whispered, voice hoarse. "I'm over this. I left it behind. It's so, so long ago."

"Bullshit," mumbled Bones right back. "You'd have to be made outta titanium to just leave behind something like this."

"Sharing worries and 'venting emotions' seem to be an effective way of dealing with such problems, Jim. There is no shame in attempting to relieve your pain."

He shook his head. "Four people died because of me. Possibly five."

Warm lips pressed to his temple. "And I grieve with thee, Jim, but--"

The warmth in his chest was back, and the black hole felt as if it had lost it's strength. Even as he untangled himself from the unbelievably emotional display, he felt comforted. He smiled, mainly to himself. "No one's ever told me that before."

"'Bout time we did, then." Bones stood, and offered a hand, which Jim took.

"Let's get to lunch," he said, patting his friends' backs decisively. "Let's count the stares I get when we get to the cafeteria."

Bones thought Spock looked vaguely amused, and saved the visual for future reference. However: "Your face is all red and puffed, by the way."

Jim started rubbing furiously at his face, which probably wouldn't help at all. "Shut up, Bones. Your face is red and puffy. What happened to 'you did a great job, Jim?'"

"I'm a doctor, not a psychologist. I've dashed out enough comfort today," he snorted. "Time to get you to act more like Jim always-arriving-late Kirk and less like a wuss."

"Hey, I don't always arrive late."

"Yeah, you really do, actually. You're gonna be late for your own funeral, someday."

"You're like the worst friend ever. Spock, tell Bones that he's the worst friend ever."

"As I have not yet befriended every person 'ever,' as you say, I cannot ascertain that he is the worst friend ever."

"Spock, you're the worst boyfriend ever."

Spock merely raised an eyebrow at the accusation, tuning out the inevitable jab at Jim's 'taste in men' that Bones was very likely to make. Instead, it seemed impossible to tear his eyes away from the wide grin that spoke warmly of the human trait of getting through anything anyone 'threw their way.'

#star trek #spock #kirk #sprik #tarsus iv #fic

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

Text

Star Trek Gold Key #31: The Final Truth

Our story begins with Kirk and his crew in the midst of yet another armed conflict with an alien government, which as usual is not going very well for them. Meanwhile, the narration box is going on about seeking answers to the mysteries of the universe, such as the mystery of “what does all this have to do with the shooty robots?” Like most great mysteries of the universe, answering this one will require delving into terrible and forbidden realms where we risk encountering sights we should never have seen, and knowledge we are unequipped to handle. Which is to say, we’ll have to read this comic.

[ID: A comic book splash page titled “Star Trek—The Final Truth—Part 1.” The page shows Kirk, Chapel, two goldshirts, and an orange-skinned alien wearing a purple leotard, all standing in the middle of a futuristic city while white and blue robots point guns at them. A figure in a hooded gold and brown cloak is standing in the foreground, pointing toward the Enterprise crew and saying, “You can see your weapons are useless! You are prisoners of the Ministry—and you shall remain so for the rest of your natural lives!” In the top left corner, a narration box reads, “The universe—laboratory of life! Countless mysteries, keys to creation itself, lie suspended in solution against a backdrop of stars. And the races that inhabit these stars, human or alien, will always seek the answers to these mysteries...although some answers may only come at great cost!”]

The issue begins with a ship’s log from Spock as he beams down with a small landing party onto a planet called Quodar, which is about to be admitted into the Federation. According to Spock’s Pepto Bismol-colored narration boxes, Quodar not only “[forms] a strong cornerstone against the Klingons,” it’s also rich in both dilithium and “triolium-L, a dilithium preservative.” How one goes about preserving dilithium I don’t know, but the point is that Quodar’s chock full of some important minerals, so the Federation has a lot of motivation to stay friendly with them. And yet, they sent these guys to conduct diplomacy. I mean, that’d be a sensible enough decision if this was the real TOS crew, but at this point I wouldn’t trust the Gold Key crew to attend a birthday party without blowing up a planet in the process.

Anyway, Spock’s group is greeted by T’oell, a bald dude in a bright pink jumpsuit who’s the Quodarian Secretary of Affairs. Spock informs us that T’oell is “always in the spotlight [and] sharply contrasts the queen, Arama, who chooses to be reclusive,” and indeed it would certainly be hard to miss T’oell in that outfit. T’oell says he’s sorry to see that Kirk isn’t with them, and Spock tells him that Kirk was “detained escorting Starfleet Admiral Tailen Kahn from Starbase in the shuttlecraft.” Apparently he did bring McCoy along, though; everyone else is too tiny to make out, but we know McCoy’s there because he’s chosen to helpfully stick his face right up against the front of the panel.

[ID: A comic book panel showing Spock walking next to a bald man wearing a pink jumpsuit open to the waist with a wide-collared pink shirt under it. Two more crewmembers are walking behind Spock, while in front of him are a male blueshirt with blond hair and McCoy, whose face is shown in extreme close-up. Spock is saying, “He has been regretably [sic] detained escorting Starfleet Admiral Tailen Kahn from Starbase in the shuttlecraft!” while the man beside him is saying, “Ah, then come. We shall make you as comfortable as possible!”]

Speaking of Kirk, he soon chimes in with his own captain’s log from over in the shuttle he’s currently sharing with Admiral Kahn, an orange-skinned alien of some sort wearing some kind of plastic leotard-looking thing; Chapel, who’s apparently decided to try out being a redhead; some random guy with brown hair; and Chekov. I only know that’s Chekov because Kirk addresses him by name a couple panels later. Before that I thought he was Sulu. It really shouldn’t be possible to draw Chekov in such a way that he can be confused with Sulu, but here we are.

[ID: A panel showing five people inside a shuttlecraft: Admiral Kahn, an alien with mottled orange skin, a tail, and short orange hair, wearing what appears to be a plastic purple leotard with abs modeled into it and a purple headband; Chekov, or at least a man with short dark hair in a green uniform shirt; Kirk; Chapel, who has orange hair for some reason; and a nondescript male greenshirt with brown hair. A narration box from Kirk reads, “Captain’s Log: supplemental! Spock has been sent ahead with the Enterprise to Quodar! The Vulcans long ago established diplomatic exchange with Quodar and Spock already is familiar with their customs!”]

Kirk says that Spock’s been sent ahead because the Vulcans already established diplomatic relationships with Quodar, so he’s familiar with their customs. Yeah, just like how I’m familiar with the customs of every country America has diplomatic relations with. But never mind that, there’s more pressing matters at hand. Chekov suddenly reports that “a freak cosmic storm” has come up on them, knocking out their guidance system. The admiral yells at him to compensate, but Chekov can’t because a planetary magnetic field is already pulling them in. No way around it, they’re going to crash. But when they do, it’s with a sound not typically associated with high-speed spacecraft impacts.

[ID: A narration box reads, “But, when the ship hits...” while the shuttlecraft impacts with a blobby green substance, making a “Glooomphh!” sound. A single question mark in a thought bubble emerges from the craft.]

is that question mark coming from inside the shuttle or is the shuttle itself just that confused about what’s happening

It seems their fall has been cushioned by something soft on the planet’s surface, leaving the shuttlecraft mostly useless but everyone unhurt. The crew clambers out to take a look. They’ve been saved by...moss?

[ID: The five members of the shuttle crew stand on a mossy green plain while the shuttlecraft sticks up at an angle behind them, covered in blobs of moss. Kirk is saying, “Look at it! This stuff is everywhere—deep and bonded enough to cushion the impact of a plummeting shuttlecraft!” Chapel is saying, “Readings show it’s parasitic—a moss! It’s uniformly about 30 miles thick, seemingly around the whole planet like a cocoon!”]

Yep, this planet is covered with thirty-mile-deep moss. For reference, thirty miles is the average depth of the Earth’s continental crust. That’s a lot of moss. Chapel says that her sensor readings indicate that the moss “lives off high energy levels” but she can’t yet determine the source. Chekov then points out some local wildlife, which “seem to be birds, except they burrow into the moss!” which I guess disqualifies them from being birds. According to Chapel the birds are also parasites, because they live off the moss.

So we’ve got moss as thick as a continent, which is somehow soft enough to cushion a spacecraft crashing from orbit, something water isn’t soft enough to do without the aid of some parachutes, and some birds that aren’t birds but are parasites even though that’s not what the word ‘parasite’ means. Confused? Don’t worry, it gets worse.

Admiral Kahn (yes, his name really is Kahn; presumably either the writer just plain forgot that there was already a Star Trek character named Khan or else placed an incredibly unlucky bet on which one-off TOS character would go on to become a household name by starring in one of the most famous sci-fi films of all time) isn’t interested in birds or moss, though. He’s interested in “matters at hand” such as them being stranded in the middle of a moss field. Kahn orders the spare greenshirt, Manning, to stand guard outside while the rest of them get back inside the shuttle with their distress beacon on until help arrives. This seems like a decent enough plan, but Kirk immediately vetoes it, on the grounds that “A beacon could just as easily summon trouble here! Sensors indicate a concentration of living beings close by!”

Fulfilling his sworn duty as a high-ranking Starfleet officer to be overly obstructive and hot-tempered at all times, Kahn immediately tries to pick a rank fight with Kirk. Kirk is unconcerned, pointing out that while Kahn might be an admiral, he’s in administration, without much field experience, and Kirk can’t let Kahn’s inexperience endanger his crewmembers’ lives. It’s Kirk’s job to endanger his crewmembers’ lives. Then he just starts walking off while Kahn splutters uselessly behind him.

Meanwhile on Quodar (no, they haven’t been on Quodar this whole time; why would you think that the planet they crashed into was the planet they were traveling toward? that would be silly), Spock’s getting concerned about Kirk and the shuttlecraft failing to appear. He’s contacted Starfleet, who apparently have some tracking information about the shuttle. T’oell is concerned about what that info indicates. “If Starfleet’s trackings are accurate, your shuttle crashed on our neighbor planet Tristas!” he tells Spock. “Your friends may be in serious danger!”

T’oell goes on to explain that the two planets used to have good relations, with Tristas allowing scholars from Quodar to study in their halls of learning. The Tristians were peaceful and “a race advanced beyond any society we have encountered! Theirs was an endless quest for knowledge—an entire culture directed at but one goal! They sought the secret of life itself!” Whether the Tristians wound up building an enormous computer to answer the question for them, though, we don’t know, because one day Tristas suddenly and without explanation sent all the visiting scholars home and blocked communications. When the Quodarians tried to go visit to see what was up, they were told to turn back or be destroyed, and later received a message that anyone who did get through the Tristian defenses would become permanent prisoners of the military. Apparently those defenses aren’t that great, though, considering how easy it is to crash into the planet completely by accident.

Back on Tristas, the shuttlecraft crew seem to have turned something up.

[ID: One large panel with a smaller panel inset into the top left corner. The top panel shows a narration box reading, “Meanwhile, on Tristas, a discovery has been made...” while below Chapel, Kahn and Kirk look surprised. Chapel is saying, “Captain…?” In the lower panel, the crew are looking out through a gap in the mossy hills at a city of elaborate white buildings standing against a pink sky. Chapel is saying, “Tri-corder indicates all materials here—metals, glass—they’re all synthesized from compounds in the moss!” Kirk is saying, “Phasers set on stun—stay alert!” Kahn is saying, “We’re walking right into the hands of aliens! This is suicide, Kirk!”]

man, that is some seriously impressive moss

Before they can check out the moss-city, though, someone yells at the group to stop. Judging by the outfit of the person in question, I’m gonna say it’s a Jedi?

[ID: The shuttlecraft crew stands about in surprise, except for Kahn, who has dropped to his knees in a defensive crouch with an angry hiss. In the foreground stands a figure in a hooded brown robe with their hands on their hips, saying, “You are hereby in the custody of the Ministry! Your vehicle has already been secured! Remove your weapons immediately and follow me!”]

Kirk protests that they come in peace and only landed here by accident, but the Jedi Master and his accompanying robot minions are unmoved. Kahn, naturally, thinks the best solution to all this is to shoot first and ask questions later, while Kirk, who thinks that’s kind of a stupid idea, tries to hold him back. Meanwhile Manning, thinking that their would-be captor is distracted by watching Kirk and Kahn bicker, tries to take the chance to shoot the dude himself. The only thing that this accomplishes is promptly getting Manning shot by one of the robots.

On Quodar, Spock narrates that they’ve finally gotten T’oell, with much reluctance, to go directly to the queen with a request for her to help the crashed shuttle crew. While T’oell is gone, Spock tells McCoy that he’s positive he can get through the planetary defenses on Tristas (what, like it’s hard), if they can only convince Arama to help. McCoy is skeptical about Arama, questioning how a leader who never shows herself can inspire trust in her people, but Spock says that the Quodarians do trust her all the same and that she’s never let them down. Unfortunately the Enterprise crew aren’t quite so lucky, because T’oell comes back and reports that Arama has regretfully refused to grant them an audience because “it would be illogical to take action which could result in war!” Seems the Quodarians have picked up a few vocabulary words from all that diplomacy with the Vulcans.

Meanwhile, the shuttle crew find themselves being chivied into a strange form of confinement.

[ID: A large panel with a smaller panel inset into the bottom right corner. In the larger panel, the crew are standing in a room covered with a glass dome, which is set into a larger room where several large and indeterminate pieces of machinery stand about. Some men with white hair, wearing long pink smocks over green shirts and boots, are looking down at the crew through the dome. Chapel is looking up at them and saying, “A laboratory specimen observation theatre!” One of the observers is saying, “Curious—the way they arrived on our world without activating the early warning defense systems!” Another one says, “There was that storm—a cosmic energy displacement—within our parsect! Several city-states reported malfunctions!” In the lower panel, Chapel is using her tricorder to scan Manning, who is sitting on the floor with a hand to his head. She says, “Manning is coming around, Captain! He’ll be a bit stiff, but he’s all right!” Manning replies, “Uhhh...that’s your story, Lieutenant!”]

Kirk demands to know who these people are and what’s going on. One of the pink-smocked observers says that they are the Ministry of Science and that he personally is “Science Lord for the city-state Chantil!” Yes, really, SCIENCE LORD. I don’t know what that entails, but what an amazing title. Oh, and also they’re keeping the crew prisoners. When Kirk asks “By what right?” the SCIENCE LORD says that “This is not a question of rights but imperatives! We must do this for the security of our people!” Oh yeah, sure, that’s what they all say.

The captives then have some kind of collars beamed directly onto them, although apparently not before the Science Ministers take the time to change from pink smocks to white in-between panels.

[ID: Two tall panels side by side. In the first, the scientists, their hair now blonde and their smocks white, look down at the captives while large white collars appear around the necks of Kahn and Kirk. One of the scientists says, “We have just beamed those collars on you—a regretably [sic] necessary disciplinary precaution, but only until you adjust to your situation!” Kirk is saying, “Wha...?” and Kahn is saying, “Hsssss....!” In the second panel, Kahn is leaping into the air with the aid of a little propeller built into the back of his leotard, while Kirk looks up at him from below. Kahn is yelling,”Humanoids! We will not be prisoners of your like! Do you hear me…?” Kirk is yelling, “Admiral!”]

Predictably, Kahn’s attempt to...actually, I don’t really know what he was attempting to do there, but whatever it was, it only results in him getting zapped by his e-collar and crashing to the floor. The SCIENCE LORD then tells the crew that they “are to become tenders of the divine life until such time as we no longer need you! This audience is now ended!”

Back to Quodar, where night has fallen on the capital, a couple of guards are patrolling the topiary when suddenly they come under attack. The narrator takes a moment to indulge in some purple prose while the armed guards somehow completely fail to defend themselves against three unarmed people in robes.

[ID: A panel with a narration box reading, “Out of night-darkness, as if birthed by the shadows they emerge from, three silhouettes attack with unrestrained fury...” The panel shows two guards dressed in yellow helmets, yellow vests, brown and white shirts and white pants, being assaulted by a figure in a hooded gray robe and exposes Starfleet uniform boots and the sleeves of a uniform red shirt. In the background, two other hooded figures are punching and kicking more guards. One of the guards is yelling, “Stop them—don’t let them get to Arama!”]

gee I wonder who these mysterious figures under robes that don’t fully conceal their Starfleet uniforms could be

One of the guards tries to escape to warn somebody, but before he can get away Spock steps out of the darkness and clocks him across the jaw. Just given up on the nerve pinch thing, I guess. McCoy and Uhura gather up the guards and McCoy gives them some sleepy hypos to keep them out for an hour. Spock then tells the others to go back to their quarters while he goes ahead to make his way to Arama alone. In perhaps the most out-of-character moment we’ve seen in these comics yet—and I don’t need to tell you that that is really saying something—McCoy agrees with him.

[ID: McCoy and Uhura standing in front of a gray building, while Spock walks away from them. McCoy is saying, “He’s right—whatever must be done from here on, is his to do!” Uhura is saying, “He’ll make it, Leonard! It would be too illogical from him not to succeed!”]

So Spock heads inside to see Arama on his own, knocking out another guard or two in the process. Why exactly Spock thinks that beating up the security and breaking into Arama’s quarters personally is going to make her more likely to listen to him I don’t know. In any case, with the guards out of the way Spock opens the door to Arama’s chamber, which apparently has something quite surprising behind it.

[ID: A narration box reads, “But, when Spock enters the chamber...” while Spock opens a large wooden door and exclaims, “You! It can’t be...But it is! We never suspected!”]

What’s behind door number one? Place your bets now! I guarantee you pretty much anything you guess is gonna be way more interesting than the actual answer.

We begin Part 2 back on Tristas, where Kirk and Co. are being introduced to what life as prisoners of the Science Ministry entails. Apparently wearing dorky jumpsuits is a large part of it.

[ID: A large panel titled “Star Trek—Part 2—The Final Truth.” A narration box at the top reads, “Captain’s Log: Supplemental! As a result of a cosmic storm, our shuttlecraft has been stranded on Tristas! We have been made virtual slaves, enforced by punisher collars!” The panel shows a wide shot of a moss field cut through by a river, with several people walking around carrying sacks. On the far side of the river is a large orange machine, with the white buildings of the city visible in the distance. On the near side, Kirk, Chapel, Chekov, and Manning are standing, wearing sleeveless white jumpsuits open almost to the waist, with yellow and orange shirts on underneath. Admiral Kahn, still wearing his purple leotard, is crouching nearby looking surprised. Kirk is saying, “What do you make of that housing, Lieutenant?” Chapel is saying, “Seems to be some sort of transformer! It might possibly be the source of energy feeding the moss, but it doesn’t seem powerful enough!”]

do you think it’s hard to get those jumpsuits on over the shock collars

A robot warden tells the newcomers that their job is to pick moss, and one of the other moss-pickers on duty approaches to show them the ropes. Kirk asks her why they’re all prisoners here. “Not prisoners—privileged!” she says. “We serve the life within! It is within us and we are within it!” A statement that would be a bit more believable if she were not also wearing a shock collar. But hey, maybe that’s part of the privilege, who am I judge.

Kirk wants her to tell him more about this “life within,” but the woman draws back, telling him that “If you cannot link with it, then it is not for you to know! Please, ask me no more! Be happy that you are allowed to serve the presence!” Of course, Kirk’s not about to be satisfied with that, and demands answers, grabbing her arm as she tries to get away. The only thing this accomplishes is to get him zapped.

[ID: Two panels side by side. In the left panel, Kirk is falling to the ground and yelling, “YAAAAHHH!” as his collar shocks him with a “PZZZZZZZZAAATTTT!” sound, while two more people in jumpsuits stand nearby looking surprised and a red robot runs closer. In the right panel, Kahn watches while crouched above the scene on an outcropping while the robot says, “Stop! Humans have violated alien control dictum! They will be segregated!” A woman in a white jumpsuit and blue shirt with a black bowl cut replies, “They will be no such thing! Return to your post, machine! We can act upon our own directives!”]

Admiral Kahn promptly jumps into the middle of this mess, declaring that actually, they’d rather obey the robot’s order, because “We have no interest in your lot and you obviously have none in ours!” Another one of the moss-pickers tells the woman that there’s no point in arguing. “There is nothing we can do!” he says. “They cannot understand as we do! That is why they cannot be told!”

Later—presumably after a hard day of moss-picking—the crew reconvenes in some remarkably lush-looking quarters.

[ID: A tall panel with a narration box reading, “Later, as night falls..” In a room with elaborately decorated white walls, Kahn is sitting on what appears to be a green mattress placed on top of a larger blue mattress, while Kirk stands in front of a pink table with some indeterminate objects on top of it, and Chekov sits nearby in a pink and blue armchair. Kirk is saying, “At least they’ve made us comfortable! I think it was a good idea to segregate ourselves. We need to plan!” Kahn is pointing at Kirk and saying, “I don’t need your patronizing, Kirk! It was easily observed that your peculiar manner of questioning was getting little result!”]

Dang, this must be the white-collar prison.

Chapel wonders if this ‘life within’ everyone keeps talking about is something theological. Kirk doesn’t think it’s that simple. “They aren’t worshippers [sic]...they’re protectors! I have a hunch, though! I think the answer is tied to whatever the source of the energy that feeds the moss is!”

At that very moment (I recommend you don’t try to work out the timeline here) Spock is entering Queen Arama’s quarters, where we were promised something truly unexpected and game-changing. What could it be?

[ID: A long panel with a narration box reading, “At the moment, on Quodar...” Spock is standing in the foreground of a room with decorated pink walls. In front of him, a woman is standing on a dais with a large chair behind her, wearing a green dress with a white top and a headdress made of several green ribbons pointing different directions. Spock is saying, “Live long...and prosper, Queen Arama! I find it most unexpected that you are a...” Arama is saying, “A Vulcan? I’m not, except by heredity. I am a Quodarian daughter of Vulcan’s last ambassador here. As to why you’re here, my answer is still no!”]

Turns out Arama’s a Vulcan, a twist that McCoy saw coming back in part one:

[ID: A panel showing Uhura and McCoy watching T’oell walk toward a doorway. Uhura is saying, “B-but you can’t just leave the captain and the others stranded!” T’oell is saying, “I-I’m sorry…!” McCoy is saying, “Illogical? Bah! It wouldn’t surprise me if Arama turned out to be Vulcan!”]

“Finally, my tactic of calling everyone who uses the word ‘logic’ a Vulcan has paid off!”

You might naturally be wondering what significance this is going to have for the rest of the story, so let me just save you some time here: absolutely none whatsoever. It has nothing to do with anything and will never be elaborated on.

Spock protests Arama’s decision to not change her first decision, but she takes him to task, pointing out that what he’s asking would risk war with Tristas, something that would not end well for Quodar. Spock is remarkably chastened by this.

[ID: Arama standing before Spock and saying, “I know their capabilities—such a war would hardly last a day! Do you wish that on my people? Does the Federation?” Spock is bowing his head a bit and saying, “I-I’m sorry, Arama—I don’t know what came over me! You are correct...and logical!”]

Chastened but not deterred, apparently, because early the next morning, the Quodarian FAA spot one of their miniature ‘starscout’ spaceships taking off unauthorized. Arama doesn’t have any trouble figuring out who the culprit is, but apparently she’s not much bothered about it either.

[ID: A panel labeled, “Inside the starscout...” Spock is inside a spacecraft looking down at a small screen which shows an image of Arama’s face. Through the screen Arama is saying, “I presume I am speaking to Mr. Spock! We have broadcast to Tristas that one of our starscouts has been stolen! Your human half is very predictable...good luck, Spock!”]

On Tristas, Kirk and Friends are back at it in the moss mines, trying to figure out a way to deal with their robot guards. Chapel suggests she could “knock out” the two of them (how one knocks out a robot I don’t know) but Kirk doesn’t think she could take both of them down fast enough. Admiral Kahn, naturally, is once again unsatisfied with Kirk’s approach and takes it upon himself to take action.

[ID: A panel with a narration box reading, “Kahn approaches cautiously, as if to empty his shoulder bag! But...” Kahn is shown punching one robot into a bush, while his tail is wrapped around the leg of another robot that is otherwise offscreen, making “SPA-TAAANNG!” “KRAAMM!” and “ZZZRAACCKK!” sounds.]

spa-taaanng

He then heads off by himself to find their shuttlecraft, although not before delivering this little speech:

[ID: Kirk, Sulu and Manning stand together taking off their collars and jumpsuits, while Kahn stands nearby on a ledge, saying, “So tell me, Kirk, how do you find my performance in the field now...or had it never occurred to you that I was never given the chance for such experience! I hope I can trust you to find someplace to hide...”]

I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to parse that first sentence and it’s just not happening.

Oh, and he also tells Kirk that he wants Kirk “alive and well when I come back! Well enough for a court martial!” Kirk is pretty unperturbed by this, though he does tell Chekov and Manning to shadow Kahn in case he gets into trouble, because of course he’s going to get in trouble. In the meantime, he and Chapel head back into the city. On their way to the Science Ministry, another robot tries to apprehend them, so Chapel promptly kicks it to death.

[ID: A tall panel showing a green robot being kicked by Chapel’s boot with a “SPAAANNNGGG!” sound while the robot says, “SQUEEEEE-EEE!” From offscreen, Chapel is saying, “For all the trouble these robots are causing, we should have tried breaking out earlier!” Kirk, standing in the foreground at the bottom of the panel, is saying, “The people here aren’t used to agression [sic] or violence...without those collars they can’t do much!”]

After taking the robot’s weapon, Chapel says that if they can get to the main computers in the observation lab she might be able to work them, since she’s “been trained in advance computronics.” Man, Chapel’s really been holding out on us, apparently.

They break into the Science Ministry and confront Minister Tonar. And if you’re thinking “wait, who’s Minister Tonar?” that’s because no such character has been named in the story so far. Presumably that’s the name of the SCIENCE LORD (with this art it’s pretty much impossible to identify him by appearance alone) but how exactly Kirk came to learn his name is a mystery. At any rate, Kirk doesn’t waste any time getting right to the threats.

[ID: Kirk pointing a gold-colored blaster at Tonar, an old man with white hair wearing a pink smock over a green shirt. Kirk is saying, “I’ve seen enough here to realize that all your threats and defenses are bluff! Well I can show you violence that would turn this city-state inside out before you could even organize yourselves! Talk!”]

you know the thing I really love about Star Trek is how it portrays such a wonderfully enlightened and peace-loving future for humanity

“You fool!” Tonar says. “You don’t know what you are doing! It’s your very violence that I’m protecting our secret from” and so outraged by this is he that his dialogue runs right into the edge of the speech bubble without room for a punctuation mark. Chapel interrupts to say that she’s getting strange readouts from the computer she’s been messing with. “I asked for a catalogue readout on anything pertaining to “the life within,”” she says, “but I’m getting data on psychosociological experimentation and interplanetary insect surveys!”

[ID: Chapel standing in the background next to some machinery, while Kirk looks towards Tonar and says, “It’s all beginning to make a crazy sort of sense now! This city—it’s like a bee-hive! Workers! Robot drones! And you...” Tonar says, “Very well, Captain Kirk, you will have your answers! Now!”]

well I’m glad this is all making sense to somebody

“Our race embraced the secrets and sciences of the universe, yet we did not know our own planet!” Tomar begins to explain, and I use the term ‘explain’ loosely. “Beneath the moss there is a layer that defies analysis but we finally managed to penetrate that layer...It was discovered that our planet was actually hollow, like a great egg! In that “egg” were energies that were life in its most fundamental form—a link to creation itself!” He then says that the Science Ministry started to devise an experiment in the hopes of unlocking the secrets of this egg energy, an experiment which they neglected to tell the rest of the planet about. Evidently this troubled Tomar, as he says that he embarked on his own experiment, “one to save our race from destruction! The people were merely told that the forces of creation itself had been discovered! They were told only that we had become tenders of an egg that would hatch the ultimate living creation!” Which is a hell of a thing to get told by your government. Imagine waking up one morning and seeing “forces of creation discovered” trending on twitter.

Anyway, then this happens:

[ID: Three panels, two small ones on the top and one large one below that. The top left is labeled, “At that very moment, beneath the city-state...” and shows Kahn in a corridor, looking at a door with a sun symbol on it, as he says, “I don’t know what all this is leading to—but I think the answer lies just beyond that door up there! Maybe it’s the shuttlecraft!” The next panel shows Kahn’s hands reaching to open the door as he says, “Suddenly have feeling...like premonition...like I shouldn’t enter! And yet, on the other hand, I feel I am compelled to—as if my fate were tied up here!” In the third panel, Kahn is suddenly falling through a green-walled tunnel that ends in a black void filled with pink orbs and swirls of light, as he yells, “YAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”]

you guys maybe should have put a lock on that door or something

Things get even weirder from there:

[ID: Three panels, two side by side on top and one long one below. In the first, Kahn is kneeling on the floor, eyes wide, saying, “I am the universe...I am alone...somebody help meeee!” Around him, two disembodied speech bubbles are saying, “Is this Tonar’s doing?” and “No! Let us hope that what he saw didn’t permanently damage his brain!” In the second panel, pink and white fog begins to surround Kahn as the voices say, “If Tonar only realized that in small doses, the “Eye” could expand the mind of any thinking creature!” and “But that is for them to reconcile—when everyone is ready to accept us, we shall reveal ourselves!” In the bottom panel, Kirk and Chapel are watching Tonar gesturing in front of a screen that shows a blob of beige-colored slime. Tonar is saying, “We created the Eye—a shape your mind conjures for identification since the mass of energy has no form—from the unstable forces contained in our planet! Mental energy is the required tool...Kirk, that thing you see on the screen is the six scientists that were sent to study that energy! All six of them!”]

“A collective intelligence—pure unsiphoned mental energy!” Kirk says, somehow discerning a heck of a lot more from that image than I am. “More than you know!” Tonar replies. “The Eye has increased their energies a hundredfold! The eye’s emanations reach to the furthest reaches of this galaxy—and they can now travel with it!”

So let me try to sum this up. These people were living on a planet covered with a continent-thick layer of moss, and then one day they discovered that under that moss was magical mystery energy that had something to do with the forces of creation. They tried to study this energy by creating the Eye, and we don’t actually know what the Eye is because it’s undefinable, but the scientists who looked at it got turned into a blob of super-intelligent scientist goo, and now both the Eye and the scientist goo are being kept in a completely unlocked and unguarded room in the Science Ministry building. Got all that? If you do, please explain it to me, because I’m lost.

Tonar explains-- ‘explains’--why he hasn’t told anyone about the scientist goo. “Don’t you see...we were a civilization at its very pinnacle! We would have nothing more to live for if the secrets of the Eye were revealed. Our knowledge would have killed us!” So I guess he just told everyone that they had to pick moss for the rest of their lives instead. Cool. While he’s rambling on about this, Kahn somehow gets transported into the room, but no one pays him much attention.

Kirk is skeptical of Tonar’s motives. “I see a man who is either short-sighted or vain enough to believe the universe is finite!” he says. “Or is your real motive that you fear the idea that your race’s entire lifestyle will be totally changed?” Keep in mind that said “lifestyle” currently consists of “everyone picks moss every day forever” and listen, I know change is hard, but I feel like most people would be pretty happy to move on from that one.

Tonar assumes that now Kirk has learned about...whatever it is Kirk has learned about here...he will “either control it or destroy it!” Kirk assures him that they won’t, and not only because seriously, where would they even start. “There are those who will try,” he says. “The Federation can protect you, allow you to share your knowledge with a united scientific collective! We are not exploiters, Tonar—and we’re not conquerors!”

Oh, and also Spock is here.

[ID: Tonar walking away towards the foreground, saying, “Please excuse me, Captain Kirk...I have something to tell my people!” Spock and Kirk are standing behind him, Spock saying, “It would seem I was not needed after all, Captain! I found Chekov and Manning looking for Admiral Kahn! They brought me here!”]

wow, you were so helpful in this issue Spock. really got a lot done.

Everyone heads back to Quodar, where Kirk tries to reconcile with Kahn, but apparently his encounter with the Eye has changed his priorities somewhat, and their differences now seem “pitifully insignificant.” Instead he’s been thinking about transferring to work with “the Tristas project” despite said project not yet being a thing that exists.

With that, everyone goes off to celebrate Quodar’s induction to the Federation, complete with some guys playing instruments that I initially mistook to be one double-barreled vuvuzela, which is a terrifying concept.

[ID: A large panel showing a crowd of people in front of a large building, while T’oell, Chapel, Arama, Spock, Kirk, Manning, Chekov and Kahn stand on a parapet under a green awning watching the celebration. In the foreground is a bald man in a blue shirt, green tabard and blue headband, playing a long silver horn, with another man standing behind him playing another such horn. Narration boxes at the top read, “Captain’s Log: Personal. Admiral Kahn admits his mind has pushed into his subconscious most of what he saw when he stumbled into the Eye, but I observe he is indeed a changed person! Other than that, the universe seems frustratingly unchanged in view of making what could be humanity’s greatest discovery! I don’t know what Khan saw in the “Eye”--but I envy him for having seen it!”]

And that’s the end! Well, that seems to sum everything up satisfyingly. I sure can’t think of any loose ends that might need tying up here, can you? Nah, I think we’re good.

#star trek #star trek gold key #recap tag #star trek gold key recaps #GK 31 The Final Truth

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hitchell-mope · 5 years

Text

(Third film. After “ready as I’ll ever be”. In the woods of Auradon)

Lonnie (on her cellphone to Elsa): thank you your majesty. See you soon. (She hangs up). Ok. So we got Agrabah, Arendelle and New Orleans on our side.

Dizzy: what about Auroria and Cinderellasburg?

Jane: you know it just occurred to me how stupid some of these names sound

Lonnie (shrugging): we didn’t name em. Auroria. Possibly. Cinderellasburg. I dunno. Remember it’s her son who’s the homicidal maniac.

Dizzy: true

(In Ben’s office the three villains are looking at smoking hole in the carpet where the king once was)

Maleficent: is he dead

Chad: I dunno. Never done this before. Just thought of what would hurt him and did that. Dunno where that ball came from

Adam: what exactly would hurt him.

Chad: I think it was something to do with you sir

Adam: well he did destroy my portrait. And you had better hope he’s not dead. If he is then he’ll be used as a martyr and the bastards will be even harder to subjugate.

Maleficent: oh don’t worry. The bodies scattered throughout the kingdom? They’re merely asleep. The wand won’t allow otherwise. And a rookie did perform it after al

Adam: so what next?

Maleficent: I need to hunt down the ember and hopefully capture my daughter. You two make sure that the boy isn’t found by his allies.

Chad: Roger

Adam: we are not on a walkie-talkie

Chad (hopefully): but we could be?

Adam: no. You still have your cell

Maleficent: and you have a telapthic link with me. Adieu gentleman

(She disappears into purple smoke)

Chad: ooh I almost forgot. Where’s Audrey

Adam: don’t know don’t care. She’s not important. And she’s thrown in her lot with the villain spawn. She’s not worth saving son

Chad: I did this for her. I need to tell her. She can finally be my queen

Adam: and if she doesn’t want to? Because your skin is peeling off on your cheek

Chad: then I’ll make her. I have the wand. A little trance and then we dance.

Adam: whatever you think is best. Prince Chad of Auradon

Chad: I like that name

(On the island Facillier Celia and the boys have just sat down for lunch)

Carlos: god I forgot how good your cooking was

Facillier: well I’m glad I can still do something for you children. Even if it isn’t much

Gil: this is more then enough sir

Jay: to be honest I kinda missed this. Running away from Jafar. Coming here. Playing arcade games. Having proper good and not glass lined stew. Thank you

Facillier: your very welcome Jay. I have two extra slices for the girls when they come back from their fathers. Would they be interested

Gil: Evie would

Carlos: mom won’t. Vegetarian. But dad probably wil. If not then 🎶more for me🎶.

Jay: I’m done. I’ll put them on the bikes. You go play some games.

Carlos: ahaha I don’t think so. Not after yesterday. I’m coming with you. Don’t even try to stop me

Jay: and miss out on quality time with you? What am I? And idiot? Don’t answer that, just assume the position

(Carlos happily jumps in Jay’s back and they leave the arcade. The silence doesn’t last long)

Jay (from outside): HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK!!!!

(Carlos scurries back in slightly out of breath)

Carlos: the Hook’s stole our bikes. Jay’s chasing them. How long do you think mom and Evie will be at their dads?

Facillier: I don’t know. Why do they want there bikes

Carlos: the blonde said something about revenge redemption and repentance

Facillier: shit

Carlos: what

Celia: Harry’s alive. And they know.

(Outside the sisters Hook are on the bikes and Jay is chasing them. The give him the slip and he takes a shortcut which ends with him crashing through the apartment of someone he knows)

Jay: good thing I can’t get hurt

Cassim: Jay?

Jay: Cassim? You moved?

Cassim: I’m squatting.

Jay: of course. When this is all over I’m coming back for you personally. I need my grandpa after all

Cassim: Aladdin adopted you?

Jay: yup.

Cassim: I’m glad. Now what the hell are you doing

Jay: the Hook bitches stole two of our bikes. Trying to get them back.

Cassim: then go son, go

(Jay teleports away from the apartment straight into the girls path. They crash into him, flip over and land in a pile of crates against the wall)

Jay: you know. I have it on good authority that this is where your brother landed last year. After my friend stabbed him in the dick

Cj: don’t speak his NAME!

(She screams and aims a knife at his throat. He holds her wrist stopping her in the process. There’s a cracking sound)

Jay: do you really think you can hurt me. (Harriet tries to att ack him but he sweeps her legs from under her, she land on her back and he puts a foot on her throat) both of you are just as pathetic as your brother. Now. Tell me (his eyes glow bright gold) why did you steal the bikes?

Harriet (slowly suffocating): Harry. He’s, he’s

Jay: he’s what?

(In hades lair mother and son have just finished their talk)

Harry (still in disbelief): he though she was a mermaid. Oh god the injuicetus of it all

Hades: the what

Harry: it’s not fair. I can’t be related to those. Hold on. Do I have magic?

Hades: I don’t know. You might be a Vernon. James, while very bloodthirsty and oh so confident

Harry: yuck

Hades: is 100% fully human. So I don’t know if you have it in you.

Evie: and besides what do you care if you’re half mermaid? Your owner is an octopus. You haven’t got a leg to stand on

Harry: ohoho neither does the king kid sister

Evie: don’t call me that you have NO RIGHT

Harry: if I have magic. I’ll be more powerful then you

Evie: oh you think so do you? You’re only half god. The rest of you is stanky part human. I’m half sorceress. Mal’s half dark fairy. We’re better then you. In every way shape and form.

(This is when “anything you can do” happens. After the song)

Mal: are you two quote finished? Only cause I really want to get home before the kingdom falls and my fiancé dies

Evie (scoffing): of course. It’s always about what you want. You don’t even care that I’m in a crisis

Mal: I’m sorry what was that?

Evie: oh nothing. As always you’re too wrapped up in your own crap to see I’m suffering

Mal: oh my apologies dear sister. But who’s god awful advice last year led to the deaths of sixteen members of the paparazzi?

Evie: you’re the one that lost control. And then tried to kill me.

Mal: I was pissed that Ben got kidnapped. I also tasered Harry in the neck and nearly crushed Gil’s aorta in a fit of magic induced psychosis. You’re not special

(At this point the guys speak simultaneously)

Harry: you did what to Gil?

Hadie: you killed sixteen people?

Hades: that explains the magical history tour

Mal: Uma tore out my own heart and made me put it back, we used the book to resurrect them and yes the attempted sororicide is what led to it

Hades: wow. And. After all that. You still want to help.

Mal (shrugging): I live there. I have to help. Who else will?

Hades: the authorities. I don’t get it. After everything you’ve been through. Your mother. The coronation. The whatever it was the news called it last year

Evie: the green cyclone. It a lot PR to get rid of. I should know. I was in charge of it

Hades: and now this boy your mother possessed. You’re not thinking about yourself when you really should. By all means. Be all who you think they need you to be. Or be none of it. You don’t owe them or this world a thing. You never did.

Mal: is that from man of steel?

Hades: possibly. We get a lot of old used up films here

Mal: I never really paid attention to the movie besides the two leads

Evie: OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!

Mal: ...I think we need to talk. We can use your den right dad?

Hades: be my guest

Mal: thank you. CMON!

(She teleports Evie and her self to the den and seals the place)

Mal: now c’mon. Spill. Out with it

Evie: out with what?

Mal: the reason you’ve been pissy since the altercation we all had with Adam

Evie: I just...don’t...see...why you’re... ok with all this

Mal: oh?

Evie: he left us. With them. And I know he had his reasons. But they doesn’t excuse or lessen what he did. And I’m so...angry. That you seem fine with it. And it’s not fair. You have the height. More magic. The title. I love Doug and I can’t even say it to him. You’re the main character in this little soap opera that is our lives and I’m on the fringe of it all trying desperately to get a major part. But of course. Your story way isn’t it. And it’s always been like this. Ever since we were thirteen and I stabbed it in the leg. Got a quick hug from Carlos and he rushed straight into your arms and you punted next into the barrier. It’s irrational. And illogical. But I’m not a Vulcan. I have my own shit to sort out and it just feel like I’m constantly waiting out there for it to be my turn. I I.

(This is when “waiting in the wings happens”)

Mal: wow. And yet you’ve never tried out for choir

Evie: hey!

Mal: sorry. But seriously. You’ve been holding onto this whatever this is. For what? Ten years?

Evie: I hate that you’re right. I hate that you’re coining and I’m not. And I hate

Mal: you think I’m coping? I hate it too. I hate that he left us just as much as you do. But I do understand it. If I couldn’t be near Carlos I’d do whatever I could to keep him safe. Even if it meant ceasing all contact. And I know you’d do that for Dizzy and Gil would do that for the twins. I don’t like it but I understand it.

Evie: I guess.

Mal: ready to go back in now?

Evie: fine

(They go back to the main room only to seek new problem)

Harry (absolutely incensed): WHADYA MEAN I LOST A YEAR OF MY LIFE!

The sisters (unimpressed): this should be interesting

(At the arcade. The Hook sisters are ties back to back on the dinner table. Carlos is having a minor breakdown)

Carlos: woah woah wait. So you’re telling me. That the bastard that’s haunted my nightmares since I was eleven years old. Is the son of hades, Mal and Evie’s older brother. And you never THOUGHT TO TELL ANYONE

Harriet: why would we AAAAAAAAARGH

(Jay just flexed the cord binding the two sending an exceedingly painful electric shock through both of them)

Jay: yeah. You don’t get to talk to Carlos. Neither of you deserve to talk to Carlos.

Cj: we only require the presence of one.

Jay: English please

Gil: me. CJ’s talking about me. What do you want.

Cj: do you even care. Did you even think about them. All year long. You forgot them. Traitor

Gil (with more calmness then they deserve): I do care. I come here with my brother and our friends every Friday and I help with the relocation. As for Uma and Harry. They terrify me. They gave me the same look you’re giving me right now when I left. Uma wanted to get out of here, who wouldn’t, but when anything doesn’t go her way she turns cold and horrible. Harry, well, you know how he is. I loved them. And I know they loved me. But they terrify me. And you don’t terrify people you love. So no. I’m not the traitor. No matter what you say.

Jay: how long have you known?

Harriet: since Hadie brought him to the ship 19 1/2 years ago. I was three. I named him after meself.

Celia (unimpressed): huh inspired.

Harriet: if pa knew he had made it with a god who can take a lady’s form at will and sired a child in the process. Harry wouldn’t have lived to say his first words. And don’t either you dare say that it woulda been a good thing

Carlos (muttering): well

Harriet: SHUDDIT. It didn’t help. Father hated him. Insulted him. Tried to hurt him. It’s why I broke both his legs and poked out his eye. Everything I’ve ever done is to protect my brother and sister. And I’ll not have him be put at risk because his whore of a mother couldn’t keep her pissing mouth shut!

Jay (chuckling): I’m sorry have you MET your brother?

Harriet: yes. He’s an angel has a great respect for women. Would kill for his family. I raised him right

Jay: you raised a perverted overly violet ambiance is what you did

Carlos: I just hope that mom and Evie kill him before he gets here

(In the lair Harry’s having one of his patented meltdowns)

Harry: I remember HAHAHAHA I rememhahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA

Evie: May I?

Hades: May you what?

(Evie walks up to her mortal older brother and slaps him around the face so hard he spins in perfect 360 and falls on his face slapped cheek landing on the floor painfully)

Harry: owwww

Mal: you’ve lost a year of your life. Big rotting whoop. You’re still nineteen

Harry: that’s even worse. I should still be young and beautiful

(The girls burst into hysterical laughter. So much so they actually start choking on air. Their brother is unimpressed)

Harry: so not only do you hate me. You think I’m ugly

Mal (trying very hard to keep a straight face): you are not a 12 year old girl and I am not your mother. So yes. Your hideously repulsive to me. More to the point. You’re nothing. You were born nothing. And god willing you’ll die nothing. You repulse me and everyone you know. The only reason our cousin ever kept you around is because she felt sorry for you

(Harry slaps her around the face. In turn she punches him in his face. Then uses magic to screw him up into a tiny little ball. And kicks him into the tv. After which he unfurls himself looking very much the worse for wear. This is when “you’re a mean one mister Hook” happens. After the song)

Evie: so you think we can leave him here as a moulding husk?

Mal (ruefully glancing at their father): I highly doubt it. The Samaritan here will probably heal him.

Evie: ooh idea time

Mal: yeah.

Evie: a repeat of last year. We take it hostage. And make Uma comply to our demands.

Mal: hmmmmm tempting. Can we still keep it beaten bloody and broken.

Hadie: ok this has been alluded to but I gotta know! What did he do. If he’s just in a different gang to you what could he have possibly done to make you hate him so much?

Mal: he attacked my son five years ago. He kidnapped my boyfriend and tried to throw him to sharks

Evie: he extorted my daughter for protection money. He fought my boyfriend last year

Harry: the dwarf stabbed me in the dick

The sister rotten: YOU DESERVE IT

Mal: he’s a foul vile disgusting little troglodyte who deserves eternal torment

Evie: he’s literally a bastard son of a bitch, father

Hades: somehow I think that was directed at me

Evie: ohoho if you’re ever going to be sure of anything in your too long life, be sure that every insult I currently have racing around in my brain is directed at you

Hades: thank you dear

Mal: we should get going

Evie: agreed

Mal: first though dad. Two questions. One. May I have the ember please? (He tosses it to her). Much obliged. Two. Come with us. Please?

Hades (looking guiltily ashamed): ah

Hadie: our dear old dad has barely left the lair. Yesterday’s incident was the first time he’s gone that far since

Evie: my second birthday. Of course

Hades: I’m sorry. I am so so sorry. I just. I can’t risk you, any of you, getting hurt because of me.

Mal (disappointedly): ah. Oh well. That’s fine. Long shot anyway. C’mon E. Wait.

Hadie: what’s wrong.

Mal: that (she points at Harry’s unconscious form). What’re we gonna do with it?

Evie: we’re gonna have to take him with us. A genuine hostage situation. If Uma tries anything. We threaten it’s life

Mal: I like those odds. (She conjures up a hair thin coil of rope and hogties Harry with it). There. That should do the trick

Hadie: doesn’t that hurt him

The sisters rotten: who cares?

(They leave the lair with the pirate railing behind like a deformed balloon. Once they’re at the arcade Evie stops Mal just before the dragon goes inside )

Evie: wait wait wait!

Mal: what what what?

Evie: ok. First of all. Uncalled for. Second of all. What do we tell the others about that?

(She points to Harry)

Mal: the truth

Evie: ok I know you have this “I don’t lie” policy, which is frankly bullshit, but sometimes lying is better

Mal: they’ll find out anyway. No use in letting it fester. C’mon

(They enter the arcade. And immediately notice the hook sisters chained up on the table)

Mal: hey guys. What’s going on?

Jay: they stole our bikes. Mine and Carlos’s bikes they were trying to find Pennywise

Harriet (happy cry/laughing): oh my god. You’re alive AAAARGH

Jay (holding the ignited and still burning chain): hush bitch.

Carlos: is it true mom?

Mal: yes.

Carlos: you and Evie I understand. But him. Dear god hades have some self respect

Evie: Hook thought she was a mermaid

Carlos: she?

Mal: Hades is Harry’s mother. Mine and Evie’s father. Harry’s mother

Carlos: huh, makes sense

Evie: in other news. I’m a day younger than Mal. The result of a rebound apparently

Mal: Maleficent left the morning after the wedding night.

Carlos (massaging the bridge of his nose): that’s a lot of information to get in thirty seconds

Mal: sorry hon.

Celia: what do we do now?

Jay: take all three of them hostage. If Uma tries anything. Off them one by one

Carlos Evie and Celia: agreed

Mal: Gil, buddy, you’ve not said anything yet. You ok?

Gil: how is he?

Facillier: he’s fine son. He’s preserved. Intact. He’s

Gil: is he still mad. About last year.

Cj: if he’s retained the sense Harriet taught him he’ll be mad as all get out

(The core four and Celia exchange a look that says “this explains so much)

Carlos: we’ve got to wake it up don’t we?

Mal: sadly yes. Jay you’re much more level headed than oh no...

(Her attentions turned to the tv where an emergency news report is airing. In Arendelle Elsa is preparing her leave)

Anna: how long are you gonna be gone?

Elsa: as long as my daughter needs me.

Anna: well then. Beat the bastards.

Elsa: oh believe me. I will.

(She takes her rucksack and teleports away to Auradon. She slams into a dome two hundwred miles from the castle and falls to the forest floor. Back on the island Hadie’s on his exercise bike. Hades however)

Hades: I made the right choice didn’t I? It’s not a good idea for me to go. So I shouldn’t. But I should. Bugger it. I don’t know. What do you think? What should I do

(Hadie hops off the exercise bike and faces his dad)

Hadie: what do you want me to say father? You did what you thought was best. I told you not to go try and give her the ember yesterday and look what happened. And now you’re asking me if you made the right decision? I can’t tell you that. Sorry but I can’t

Hades: I know. And don’t be sorry. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. Oooh. Idea.

Hadie: what?

Hades: go with them. Protect them.

Hadie: really?

Hades: yeah. Iri...Mal has the ember

Hadie: oh but they still don’t like you

Hades: but Mal likes you

Hadie: good point. I better get ready then

Hades: HAHA!

(This is when “I’m so sorry” happens. After the song. In the arcade. The news caster is fear-mongering)

Newscaster: we don’t know what’s happening. The black smoke descends and leaves people unconscious. It is believed that a villain may have escaped the barrier after Hades’s attempt yesterday afternoon. The king is missing and lady Mal is nowhere to be fargh (he lets out a strangled scream as his heart is ripped out of his back. His face goes slack and he speaks with Maleficent’s voice) I know you are watching dear. So do me the courtesy of paying attention for a change. I know he gave you the ember. For some reason he took quite a shine to me so it would make sense that you are the favourite. Can not fathom why though. You are basically useless and very difficult to love. Anyway. Give me the ember at your earliest convenience and return to the isle with me and the toffs will live. Fail to do so. And I shall kill every last man women and child in Auradon until only tour pathetic little friends are left. And I will make you do away with them. Just know Maleficent Bertha that if you deny me what happens is your fault. You’d choice sweetie. (The heart is placed back into the mans chest) I’m sorry I don’t know what happened for a minute there urk

(His neck twists violently to the left and he falls down dead)

Mal: oh no. Oh nononononononono.....

(She enters a verbal cycle that only Jay notices. He switches off the tv and gets on the dinner table)

Jay: ok. EVERYBODY OUT. NOW

(Everyone hightails it outside and he sits down beside Mal on the floor)

Jay: it’s ok. You’ll be fine.

Mal: you don’t know that

Jay: I do. I do know that. You know how I know that? This sort of thing has happened to us so many times before. And you know what we do? We win. Every. Single. Goddamn. Time. And besides. You have the one thing Maleficent or chad will never have.

Mal: what? What do I have

Jay: you have me. You’ll always have me. I’m always gonna be there for you. Whatever happens. Be sure if this. I’m here for you

(This is when “I’ll be there for you” happens.)

#disney descendants #zendaya!mal

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clevercatchphrase · 5 years

Text

You Monster Chpt. 37 (The End)

(this story is also on AO3 under the same username as here! I am no longer linking the chapters or else Tumblr would hide the entire post from the search results!)

Light. The dim, enveloping glow curiously pokes its head around the corners of the tunnel for the first time in centuries and gently caresses their face with a soothing, familiar warmth.

Frisk faintly feels its heat on their cheeks and vaguely senses it through closed eyelids, which felt so unusually heavy that they can’t seem to open them even the tiniest sliver.

With a dreamy sort of awareness they realize their senses have somehow become detached. Slowly, their sluggish mind tries to reconnect their brain to their body. But there’s no hurry. No rush. Everything is calm in their current state of peaceful, black nothingness.

The first sense to return to them is their hearing- muddy at first, all the noise directed Frisk’s way sounded muffled and fuzzy and very far off in the distance.

“Frisk?”

“Frisk!”

“Please my child, open your eyes.”

The noise has no meaning at first; just pitches and tones, some louder or deeper than others, but as their hearing gradually returns, so did the memory of words and language, and Frisk realizes with a start someone was calling their name.

“Frisk, please wake up. This is all just a bad dream!”

That voice. They recognize that voice. Toriel. She’s calling to them.

Suddenly, the blackness all around Frisk’s mind didn’t seem as peaceful and calm as they once thought. They no longer wanted to rest, they wanted to wake up, but their body stayed limp and unresponsive to their thoughts. They strain to open their eyes, make even the smallest sound, move just an inch. But it might as well have been the hardest task in the world.

Their sense of smell returns next, useless as it was for their situation. The acrid stench of smoke, the cloying smell of dirt and rubble, the bitter odor of sweat and sharp aftertaste of magic all linger in the air.

A ways off, Frisk hears Undyne screaming, and Papyrus screaming, and Asgore unsuccessfully trying to calm them both.

Wake up! Wake up! Frisk thinks frantically. Please let me wake up to show them I’m okay!

“Please, Frisk,” Toriel whimpers. “Please do not tell me I could not save you, too.”

Their sense of touch comes back next, gradually growing aware of the furry arms and silken robes wrapped around their body and squeezing them tight.

Frisk tries to respond. Oh, how they want to raise their arms and squeeze her back, to show their mother they could hear her, that they were still here, but their body would not cooperate.

“Please,” Toriel begs, quiet, desperate. “Please do not tell me I have failed again.”

A single tear, unseen by Frisk, rolls down her muzzle, over her fangs and clings to her chin, where it wavers for a moment before deciding to leap from one face to the other. The lone droplet plunges, and hit its mark on the bare skin of Frisk’s cheek. The sudden touch of moisture and flash of heat is enough to make them flinch, and magically it was like a switch is flipped.

Their face twitches. And then their fingers. And then their toes. And then their body suddenly remembers how to move, and as if awoken from sleep, Frisk finally manages to open their eyes.

At first all they see is the white fur of their mother’s neck as she clutches them close to her chest with her head bowed over them in grief.

Frisk tries to speak, but the croak that came out of their throat gets smothered by the fur and they go unheard. So with tremendous effort, they raise one arm instead in a feeble attempt to hug her back.

Toriel startles. With a gasp, she loosens her hold enough to look down on her child’s face.

“Frisk?” She asks cautiously.

Exhausted, dazed, Frisk weakly grins back at her. “…Mom.”

“Frisk!” Toriel cries in jubilation, hugging her child tight once more, but this time in joy instead of despair.

Around them the shouting stops and the other monsters come close to see with their own eyes to confirm their little human is indeed okay.

“Frisk!” Undyne and Papyrus yell in unison.

“You’re okay!”

“You had us worried, punk!”

“Frisk, I am relieved to see you have escaped serious harm,” the deep voice of the king speaks up, warily standing a few feet back from the group like an uninvited guest.

“S-s-stop fighting!” the shrill, stuttering voice of Alphys cuts in as she hobbles into the room with an exhausted-looking Sans leaning heavily on her shoulder. She blinks in surprise at the scene before her. “Oh! Y-y-you already have. Um, that’s… that’s good!”

“Hey… everyone…” Frisk wheezes, voice raspy and dry. They try to sit up and fail, so Toriel helps adjust them until they’re upright in her lap.

Visions of the fight with Flowey swirl inside their head, but waking up to Papyrus and Undyne arguing with Asgore, Sans and Alphys arriving late to the scene, and Toriel crying over them did not match up with their memory of the ultimatum the little group had come to moments prior to the flower’s attack. They blink in confusion, clear their throat, and speak again, this time with a voice a bit stronger than before.

“What… what happened?” they inquire.

“We all caught wind you were gonna try and give up your soul to Asgore,” Undyne starts. “But none of us want to see you die, even if it means we can’t go free!”

“Yeah, so we all rushed over here as quick as we could!” Papyrus continues. “With my powers of persuasion and my brother’s short cuts we rallied everyone in the Underground to come to your aid!”

“U-Undyne, Papyrus and, uh, th-the former queen had to b-break through the wall while Sans and I caught up and-” Alphys adds before trailing off and blinking in confusion. “Wait a minute… what happened after you three broke through?”

Now it was the others’ turns to knit their brows and crease their foreheads in puzzlement as the collective gap in their memory is exposed.

“I… I do not recall…” Toriel speaks up, somewhat alarmed. “I remember a blinding white light, and, as strange as this sounds, I think I forgot who I was for a moment, but when the light faded I found you lying on the ground before the king. I assumed the worst and did not think of much else after that.”

Frisk absorbs their words, deep in thought. No one remembered Flowey. No- it was more like the attack from the flower had never happened, yet the barrier was still broken. How had he…?

They shift in Toriel’s lap, and, with effort, sit up on their own. “Do you remember… anything about a flower?” they ask the group.

Most monsters shake their heads.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, Frisk.” Sans chuckles, eyeing them with mild interest. “There’re flowers all over the garden. We may have kicked up one or two.”

Off to the side, Asgore clears his throat. “Ah, pardon me for ruining the moment, but even though it seems something extraordinary that none of us can recall has occurred, the barrier by some miracle, has been brought down. I do not know how, but I shall not question it.”

Striding over with graceful steps and a smile of gratitude wide on his face, the king of all monsters humbly kneels before the little human.

“Human. Frisk. I may never know what has happened here today, but I have no doubt in my mind you played a big part. The barrier is gone, and thanks to you, monsters can finally go free.”

The last two syllables of Asgore’s declaration were like magic words that broke a spell. All around the room monsters stand a little straighter. Their eyebrows raise and they give small gasps of awe.

Go free.

The barrier was gone. Monsters could go free.

“Wait, I didn’t-” Frisk tries to explain, but no one was listening. This wasn’t right. They shouldn’t take the credit for this. Flowey- no, Asriel- was the one who had brought the barrier down. They get up, determined to set the record straight, but before they can even make a move, a great rumbling in the earth throws them off balance and their opportunity is lost when their mind switches to panic. Was this an earthquake? Had destroying the barrier caused a landslide?

But as the tremors grow stronger, so does a chorus of voices until Frisk realizes it’s not the mountain shifting around them, but a stampede of monsters storming the king’s castle.

And before anyone can say another word, there they are; Gyftrots and Ice Caps, Woshuas and Aarons, Temmies, Vulcans, Pyropes and every member of the royal guard bursting into the chamber and tumbling over one another in a great shouting mess. They yell at the king to “Stop fighting!” “They’re our friend!” and “Don’t hurt the human!” as well as yell at each other to “get out of the way!” “Quit pushing!” and “Excuse me, but your claw is in my ear!” until someone points out the human and hollers: “LOOK!”

All eyes turn to look and the screaming stops at once to be replaced with one simultaneous, overjoyed interjection of-

“FRISK!”

Anger forgotten, all these new monsters disentangle and surround their little human and cheer with triumph and hugs. They were safe! Their little human friend was okay!

“Well, my child, it certainly seems you know how to make quite the impression,” Toriel chuckles, rising to her feet and watching them fondly with respect for the number of monsters who’d all rushed to their aid. She could barely believe how many friends they had made. How many lives they had touched. Her smile wavers a bit, infiltrated with a vein of guilt. “I am… sorry… to have denied you your freedom for so long and doubted your ability to handle your own in the Underground. I think it is clear to say you have proven you can a dozen times over. Can you forgive me? For everything?”

Frisk turns to her, burying their face in her robes and letting out a contented sigh. “Always,” they whisper. They breathe deep, relishing the soft feel of her fur they almost thought they’d never feel again, while the monsters around them begin to catch up.

“Wait, what happened to the barrier?” “Look! It’s gone!” “But how?” “Did we break it?” “I bet it was Frisk!” “Yeah! They’re something special!” “They set us free!” “Oh! I’ve got to go home and tell my family this!” “We’re free!” “I’m gonna start packing immediately!” “Everyone! We’re finally free!”

Vainly, Frisk tries to explain that this wasn’t their doing, but all around them the monsters were too excited to listen. Going against their nature, Frisk decides to give up clarifying that it wasn’t them who broke the barrier. Everyone was too happy to care about the minor details anyway, so Frisk forces themselves to be cheery for their sake.

Scanning the crowd, Frisk realizes an oversight and turns to Toriel. “Oh! Mom, I see residents from Snowdin, Waterfall and Hotland, but do the monsters in the Ruins know the barrier is gone?”

“Oh my, perhaps not,” Toriel says, a hand going to her lips in concern. “As far as I am aware, I was the only one in the Ruins who left to search for you.”

“Then I gotta go back and tell them the good news,” Frisk suggests.

“Of course, my child. Let us get underway-“

But before Toriel could even take even a single step, a dozen monsters excitedly surround her. Apparently, somewhere in the chaos the word had spread that this new Boss Monster was the former queen and no monster in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to meet royalty.

“Queen Toriel!” “Miss Toriel!” “Are you really the queen?” “You came back!” “We missed you, your majesty!” “Are you gonna resume your throne?” “The kingdom definitely needs a better politician like you!” “(Don’t get us wrong, Asgore’s great, but all our history books say he’s only the heart of legislation while you were the brains.)”

“Oh dear,” Toriel sweats, searching for a way to politely side step the crowd and finding none. “It seems I may be a bit before we can head out, Frisk.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Frisk says confidently. “I can handle it myself.”

Toriel pauses and looks up at them. For a brief moment there’s that ancient, lingering worry of a fretful mother in her eyes, but after a blink, it vanishes without a trace. She smiles at them with complete trust.

“I know you will,” she nods, and lets them go without complaint.

“Come on, guys!” Undyne announces to the skeletons and her girlfriend. “Let’s follow Frisk’s lead! There might be some monsters in the other regions who still don’t know! We gotta tell everyone we’re free!”

All around them monsters part to let them through, and some even turn to follow. Back down the golden corridor, over the ramparts and through the streets, Frisk was pushed to the head of the procession of cheering monsters as they sang about the news. They blush violently from so much misplaced praise, but stay quiet as they lead the march back through the Underground.

Into the elevator, then out into Hotland, Alphys branches off from the parade with a small group of Astigmatisms and Whimsalots.

“M-Mettaton and I will make an announcement over the PA system,” she explains. “That should cover all of Hotland! We’ll catch up with you again at the barrier. Er, or should I say former barrier.” Giggling at her joke, Frisk and their remaining company wave her goodbye. Another elevator and short walk later they were parting ways with Undyne at the dock, Napstablook and Temmies joining her.

“Leave Waterfall to me, Frisk,” Undyne smirks, flashing them that devilish grin full of her razor sharp teeth. “I know every rock and mushroom and will make sure everyone down to the last Moldbygg hears the news! In fact, I bet I can do it before you even reach Snowdin!”

“I won’t take that bet,” Frisk says, boarding the boat after Sans and Papyrus. “I know I’d lose."

Laughing, Undyne waves them farewell as the ferry takes off.

The boat ride is a peaceful one, with the river person humming a nondescript tune to the gentle lapping of the waves against the hull. Sans only manages to crack three puns before falling asleep, and for once Papyrus doesn’t get after him for his "laziness."

“Don’t worry about Snowdin,” Papyrus says to Frisk when they disembark at their destination. “I will see to it that every rabbit, slime and snowman knows of our emancipation!” The taller skeleton hefts his brother up on his back like the world’s boniest bag of flour. “But first I will see my brother tucked into bed for a bit of rest. I hate to admit it, but after seeing how much he overworked his magic today, he actually has a valid excuse to be napping! We will meet you again at the exit!”

The three part ways at the town intersection, skeleton brothers heading east towards home, and human child west, through the woods and back towards the Ruins.

Frisk politely waves them farewell, but as soon as they're out of sight, they let their smile fall off their face and sigh.

Pretending to be happy was getting tiring. They had told the truth when they said they wanted to tell everyone in the Ruins that they were free, but deeper down they were honestly just relieved to get away from all those monsters applauding them for something they didn't do. They shouldn't be getting praised like this. Shattering the barrier wasn't their doing. All this love wasn't for them. Not to mention the issue that they were still a human trying to be wedged into a monster's world.

How could all the monsters just brush it off like it didn't matter? How could any of them turn away so easily from what they had been taught to believe their entire life and just ignore that little fact at the drop of a hat? Frisk surely couldn't. Maybe it was a monster thing that allowed them to just be so accepting, but Frisk couldn't say the same for themselves. It still wasn't right. None of it felt right. They were going to need a lot of time to think this through.

Trekking through the snow, Frisk pauses their sullen introspection just long enough to notice a small white canine standing in the Ruins' doorway. He regards them with such a look of pure smugness that, for a moment, Frisk can't tell if this dog knows more than he lets on. They study him a while.

"Hey," Frisk says after wavering a moment, feeling unusually silly for talking to a dog even though they had done so plenty of times in the past. "You know, I've seen you around a lot recently, but it's never occurred to me to ask you this. Are you... Are you a monster dog? Or are you just a regular dog?"

The white dog snorts in amusement. Or maybe it was just a regular doggy sneeze. Either way, the canine gives no clearer answer. With that, he picks himself up, gives himself a good shake, and trots merrily into the forest, charred tail held high as he swaggered off.

Frisk watches him go, more unsure than ever of the dog's state of awareness, but chooses to follow his example and not be bothered by it. Straightening up, they turn back to the Ruins entrance, and finally return to the place they once called home.

A great sense of nostalgia comes over Frisk as they cross the threshold out of the snow-blanketed forest and back into the purple, brick lined tunnels. The warm, ever-present aroma of baked confections greets them as they ascend the stairs back into the sleepy, unchanged house. They dither a moment, and decide to take a detour back to their room before alerting their friends of their new freedom.

Their room is exactly how they left it- untouched by neither time nor their mother in their absence. Passing their bookshelf, they pause and deposit the one remaining geode that they picked up from Waterfall onto their desk placing it next to a few other meager mementos of theirs. They smirk with a pang of irony when they spy their cellphone not even a foot away, and pick it up. Oh, how all of this could have been prevented if they had just taken their phone with them that night, but then again it was a pretty funny thought when they connected the chain of events. Who else could say they forgot their phone at home and ended up setting off a domino effect that would free an entire race?

On a whim, they hit the speed dial and hold the phone to their ear. It rings twice then someone on the other end of the line picks up.

“Hello, this is Toriel,” the voice greets.

“Hey, Mom. I’m just calling to say I made it back okay.”

“Oh, thank you for checking in, Frisk!” Toriel says. “That’s very responsible of you!”

“I... may be a while before I came back. I want to make sure everyone hears the news.”

“Take all the time you need, my child,” Toriel reassures. “We will not take one step outside if you are not there with us.”

“Thanks, Mom. Talk to you later.”

Frisk hangs up the phone and casts one more look around the room. They glance at their bed, and a funny thought occurs to them. This hadn’t always been their bed, had it? They had been born on surface, so this bed, these toys, all these books, this entire child’s room hadn’t originally been theirs.

Didn’t some of those monsters in the throne room call Toriel ‘Your Majesty’? And hadn't Kid called Asriel a prince? So if Toriel and Asriel were both royalty, then that meant Asriel was Toriel’s-

Sharply turning on their heel, Frisk makes for the front door. Maybe it was better they hadn’t been able to explain about Asriel to everyone in the throne room, but suddenly understanding this connection fills them with a new, different sort of agitation.

Passing the tree in their front yard, they come across a Vegetoid and Loox who beam at them with elation.

“Frisk!” “You’re back!” “Where have you been?” “We missed you!”

“I went all the way to the end of the Underground and back.” Frisk chuckles, hugging them each in turn. “Oh and the barrier is broken. Monsters are free now!”

Loox’s eye goes wide in wonder and Vegetoid’s jaw drops.

“Really??” “No way!!” “We’re free?” “Unbelievable!”

“Believe it!” Frisk insists. “And tell everyone you know! Let’s get everyone to the surface!”

The two monsters needed no further prompting. With a hop and a skip Vegetoid and Loox race away, ready to tell anyone who would listen. Frisk follows at a leisurely pace, telling every Whimsun and Migosp they encounter, who in turn bound away to tell every other Moldsmal and spider.

By the time they reach the spider’s bake sale, jubilant cries of “We’re free!” “Everyone, we’re free!” could be heard echoing through the corridors. The lone human figures if they could hear those cheers this far back in the caverns, then everyone must know the news by now.

They turn back towards home, only to cross paths with a Froggit, who hops up beside them.

“Frisk! Did you hear? A miracle has happened! The barrier has been destroyed and monsters can finally return to the surface! We’re finally free!”

“I did hear!” Frisk plays along. “I was just about to head to the exit myself!”

“Good idea!” The frog monster croaks. Then pauses, and looks back. “Oh. Before you go, tell that other Boss Monster kid the news. I was so excited to tell my family that I forgot to tell him. Anyway, see you on the surface!”

Frisk waves the Froggit farewell, carefully hiding their confusion with an overconfident smile.

‘Tell that other Boss Monster kid?’ But… surely Froggit knew they weren’t a Boss Monster if they knew their true name. So who could it be referring to? Unless…

Eyes going wide, Frisk turns to the west and sprints to the very last -and very first- cavern they could reach as fast as their legs could carry them.

____________________________________________________

Asriel sits in the center of the flower patch in the lone ray of light that the ceiling could offer. Gently, he thumbs a golden petal between his fingers, careful not to tear it from the flower.

“We did it, Chara,” he says absently to the soil. “I-it took longer than we anticipated, a-and I needed some extra help, but in the end, we freed everyone. Just like we said we would.”

The monster child snuffles, and wipes his nose with a sleeve. No tears welled in his eyes so he did not cry. A tiny part of him wonders if he had already forgotten how again.

Sighing, Asriel turns over his paws and studies his nails and pads. He had returned all the monsters’ souls and set the human ones free to wherever they wished to go to, so he knows this form would not stay with him for long. He figures he has an hour, maybe two, before the residual magic has evaporated and his form would revert, but for now he examines the body he has. Raising one hand over his head, he places it between his face and that small patch of sky. In the thinnest parts of his skin between the fingers, the light was just strong enough to shine through, illuminating the capillaries under his snow white fur. But was it really him? Were these really the arteries and veins of a living body? Or the illusion of fur and flesh over his roots and leaves? After all this, was he really back, or just trying to fool himself, to distract his mind away from the growing hollow that gnawed within him where a soul once was, or maybe never had been?

Asriel sighs again and lowers his arms. Feelings were already starting to leave him, slowly leaking out like a glass with a hairline crack. He felt real. He looked real. Why couldn’t that be enough proof for him?

“Asriel,” the voice is so quiet, the monster child almost thinks he imagined it, but he blinks in surprise when he looks up to find another kid at the mouth of the cave.

“Frisk?” He says, startled. “W-what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be going to the surface with everyone else?”

“I... came back to the Ruins to make sure everyone heard the news that the barrier was gone,” Frisk explains, though their voice hesitates ever so slightly. “Someone told me there was one last kid lagging behind.”

He stares at them for a moment, before raising his brow. “You mean me?”

“Yeah! You’re my friend, too, you know. You should go to the surface with everyone else.” Frisk’s smile falters just the tiniest bit when Asriel shakes his head.

“Frisk… I can’t. Not after all I’ve done and how I treated everyone. I know I look like my old self, but I won’t last this way forever. Pretty soon I just know I’m going to regress back into a flower. And when that happens I’m probably gonna forget how to be compassionate again, too.” While he speaks, Frisk wordlessly comes closer until they join him in the flower patch, and sits down beside him. “Sometimes I think I was never Asriel at all. Surely someone who is remembered as being so kind would never do the rotten things I did. Even without a soul.”

Frisk hums, studying Asriel with a mixture of sympathy and remorse. “Maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be better.” They venture. “Sure, Asriel died, and pretty soon you’ll go back to being Flowey, but the feelings you feel now and the memories you made today are yours and yours alone. So… even if you don’t think you’re Asriel, you still chose to set the monsters free. You still broke the barrier. You can keep choosing to do the right thing, the kind thing, even without a soul.”

“Thanks, Frisk,” Asriel sniffs and cracks a grateful smile. “You always knew the right thing to say to make me feel better. Even when I was a flower. I should have listened to you more. If… If I hadn’t been so obsessed with trying to bring Chara back, I might have just realized that you were the friend I wished I had all along.”

“You do have me as a friend.” Frisk ensures him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be the friend you needed back then. I couldn’t quite control that with not being born yet and all. But I’m here now. We can start being real friends now if you want. When you go to the surface, let’s pretend that we’ve never met and start over from there!”

Asriel laughs at the joke, but even now it’s starting to feel forced as emotions are stolen from him. His smile fades.

“Thanks for the offer, Frisk, but I really can’t go. S-someone has to take care of these flowers after all.” He hastily adds, but Frisk doesn’t budge.

“C’mon, Asriel. There’s gotta be something I can say to make you change your mind and leave this place.”

“I’m serious, Frisk,” Asriel says sternly. He didn’t want to admit to them it was because he didn’t trust himself . If he can’t feel anything, then that means he’s inevitably going to screw up again. Say the wrong thing again. Hurt them again. He can’t do that to them again. He won’t. “Please… let me end on a high note. Let everyone think I died trying to be heroic instead of returning as the villain. Can you do that for me? Can you promise me you won’t tell the others what happened to me? I-if Mom and Dad see me like this and then like a flower again it’s gonna break their hearts.”

Frisk stares at the martyr prince for a long while, trying to come up with any reply to convince him to come with him, but they can think of none, and it’s clear by the look in his eyes that Asriel’s mind was already made up.

“I promise,” Frisk sighs in defeat. “I won’t tell them what happened to you.”

“Thank you.” Asriel breathes with relief. Uncrossing their legs, Frisk stretches out in the flowers beside him. “Um… Frisk… why are you still hanging out here with me? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“I don’t want to say goodbye to my best friend just yet,” Frisk winks. “’Cause if- once I leave, I’m not sure how long it'll be before I get to see him again.”

Asriel snorts. “Won’t Mom get anxious if she realizes you’re taking an awful long time to get back?”

“I told her I might be a while... She won’t be worried.”

Their words sound honest enough, but Asriel can't help but feel like there is more that they won't say. Something they're hiding. Humming, he and decides not to press. If they wanted to tell him, they'd tell him. So instead he lies down beside them, and together the two friends share a peaceful silence as they watch clouds drift by their little window a hundred feet above. The sight tickles a memory in Asriel and after a minute he speaks up.

“Hey Frisk?”

“Hm?”

“You remember being human now, right? Do you… remember your life on the surface? Before you fell?”

Frisk shifts in the flowers, the air suddenly dour around them.

“Bits and pieces…” They say vaguely. “I remember little things like nursery rhymes, movie theatres, car trips and shots for school. I was really young back then, but maybe not as young as I thought I was when I fell... In fact, I think I may be over the age of fourteen instead of just having turned thirteen.”

“Do you… do you remember why you climbed the mountain?” Asriel dares to ask.

A long silence follows. Asriel almost thinks Frisk had fallen asleep judging by their stillness, but to his surprise, they roll over and look him in the eyes. “You know what? I don’t remember.” They stick their tongue out and flash him a goofy grin.

“Ah, well. Guess you can’t get all your memories back,” he shrugs. “Chara never liked to talk about the surface with me, and, well, my memories of it aren’t pleasant either. I guess I was hoping to hear something reassuring about it, so I know what all the other monsters are getting into.”

“There… will be challenges, no doubt,” Frisk says. “But… I have a feeling they’ll all learn to get along.”

“That’s good,” Asriel sighs, and then yawns in the late afternoon heat. “I think… I’m gonna take a nap for a bit. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah, me too.” Frisk agrees, and allows themselves to unwind. It’s not long before they can hear the sound of Asriel’s gentle snoring, and their own eyelids start to grow heavy. Still, they fight off sleep just yet. With Asriel here, they could temporarily ignore their own troubles and focus on his. There had to be a way to bring him back with them to the surface with everyone else, where he belonged. No matter what he had done in the past, Frisk couldn’t let their oldest friend be left behind.

Frisk ponders and plans and schemes and speculates, but no matter how hard they think, they can’t come up with a good argument to get Asriel to come with them. They guess they could use brute force, digging him up as a flower and taking him to the surface in a pot whether he liked it or not, but they would rather Asriel come willingly so that he knew he was worth it. Forcing him to come along might send the wrong message. Heaven knows that’s how they would have felt if any of their monster friends had use force to get them to stay away from the king.

Frisk rolls on their side and sighs in frustration. There had to be a way.

There had to be a way…

They close their eyes to concentrate, but doing so just reminds them how tired they still were, and unfortunately the grass was soft and the sunlight was warm, and without even realizing it, Frisk follows Asriel into sleep.

__________________________________________________

Something was tapping against their forehead. Something small, and smooth and hard and maybe a touch cold.

Frisk creases their brow, gives a grunt of displeasure, and groggily swipes at their face.

Something taps them again. This time grazing their nose. Then again on the ear, like a stern flick of discipline.

Groaning, Frisk rolls over, murmuring “Stop it, Flowey,” half awake. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“Why should I?” A new voice says. “You are the one who is in my bed.”

Frisk’s eyes fly open the moment they realize there’s someone else in the cave with them, and abruptly they sit up. They gasp in awe. There, at the edge of the flower patch, sitting against a crumbling pillar in the shadows-

-is another human.

Their skin is pale, almost sickly so, with flushed cheeks that may have been caused by fever or rosacea. Their hair, a light reddish-brown and razor straight frames their face, almost obscuring their intense, ruby-red irises. They wear a simple green and yellow sweater and brown cargo pants, and hug their boney knees with one arm while they stare at Frisk, flicking pebbles at them with their free hand.

“Nearly a whole a decade in the Underground,” they say absently. “One would think you would have learned not to sleep on my grave by now.”

It dawns on Frisk that they recognize this human, though before their glimpses of them had been fuzzy in their dreams and blurry in the video tapes. They speak the name they had said many times before, but now it felt entirely different knowing it belonged to someone else.

“Chara…”

“I guess I have no right to complain anymore, though.” Chara continues as if Frisk hadn’t spoken. “Technically it is your grave now, too, after all.”

“I… what do you mean?”

“She thought you had been murdered,” the strange child says evenly. “Asriel framed your death. It is why she never came looking for you.”

Frisk found it hard to break away from that unsettling stare of Chara’s and had to wipe their watering eyes. Was it Frisk’s imagination, or were they slightly fuzzy around the edges? The teeniest bit blurry, and maybe even… transparent?

“Is this… is this a dream?” Frisk asks looking around. Asriel is still lying beside them, but he doesn’t appear to be breathing, as if frozen in time.

“What do you think?” Chara asks back, slightly annoyed, and they flick another pebble at Frisk’s face. It bounces off their cheek with a small, but very tangible impact. They guess they were awake then.

“So why did you do it?” The ghost before them prods. Chara moves their whole head to look at them, owl-like, their eyes motionless in their sockets. They tip their head to the side in interest, and the shift in their hair causes golden petals to drift form their scalp, as if magically conjured between the strands.

“Do what?”

“Climb the mountain, idiot. Every child in a fifty mile radius of this place knows the legends. They know those who come here never return. So why did you?”

Frisk cracks a half-hearted smile. “Well, like I told Asriel, I don’t really remember-"

“Do not try to lie to me,” Chara interrupts. Their pitch does not change, but every word is as cold as ice. “You may be able to fool Asriel, but deceit will not work on me.”

Frisk’s jaws snap shut. Involuntarily, they swallow a lump in their throat. Chara’s eyes unfocus just a fraction as they study the other human before them, and Frisk suppresses a shiver. That gaze of theirs seemed to pierce straight through them, as if they were nothing but clear glass, viewing their entire life’s history up to this point.

“Ah, you saw it too, didn’t you?” Chara says after a tense pause. “Even at your young age you understood how vile humanity was to the world and itself. You even experienced it firsthand.”

Frisk’s stomach twists and lurches, as if Chara's words are like metal claws, forcibly dredging up the memories against their will. They fight to stay upright as a wave of nausea and fear washes over them.

“That… was a long time ago,” Frisk says with as much pseudo-confidence as they can muster. “Things are better now. Humanity is ready to change. They'll accept the monsters this time around. I know it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well, I’m here, right? If I could befriend monsters, then maybe other people can too.”

Chara shakes their head, and golden petals rain from their hair. How curious. Surely their hair was too thin and straight to conceal so many?

“Frisk you are the exception, not the rule.” The ghost says. “Do you think you would have grown up so loving and kind if you had stayed on the surface? Do you think you would still be as merciful and forgiving if you had fallen with your memories intact?”

Frisk didn’t have an answer for that. Wisely, they decide to stay silent.

“That's what I thought. So. When are you leaving?” Chara asks, even though it sounds more like a demand.

“I can’t leave yet,” Frisk insists. “Not until I convince Asriel to go with the rest of the monsters. He… he shouldn’t stay here. He shouldn’t have to be alone.”

“He won’t be alone,” the ghost challenges. “He has me.”

“But… but you’re dead!”

“So is he,” Chara points out. “And I will not let your greedy hands have him.”

“Greedy? How on Earth am I greedy?” Frisk demands, insulted.

“Oh, please! It’s one of your natural human traits!” Sneering in fury, Chara stands to their full height and looks down the end of their nose at Frisk with balled up hands. “You took my clothes, you took my name, you took my life,” Chara spits out each word as if it were poison, leaving a bad taste in their mouth. “You are not taking him from me too!”

Speechless, Frisk stares at Chara. For a whole minute nobody moves. Nobody breathes. Then, the slightest movement catches Frisk’s eye, and with great effort, they manage to tear their gaze away from Chara’s glare, and look to their fists. They were trembling.

Suddenly it clicks.

Chara is scared.

“You can’t touch me, can you?” Frisk dares to guess. “If I wanted to take him away by force, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Chara goes rigid as stone, fists clenched, lips tight. If ghosts needed to breathe, Frisk was sure they would have gasped.

On stiff legs, the dead child stalks out of the shadows and over to the human in the light. Despite being frozen with terror, Frisk is awestruck to see golden flowers erupt and bloom from the earth with each step Chara takes, only to watch them wither away to ash as soon as their foot leaves the ground again. Not once did Chara take their eyes off of Frisk, and when Frisk’s own eyes begin watering again, it’s then that they realize that, this whole time, Chara has not blinked.

When they’re less than a foot apart, Chara crouches until the two are eye-level. Only now does their gaze shift away from Frisk’s face and towards their chest.

Eyes focused, jaw set, Chara lifts one ghostly hand towards them. Frisk feels resistance before Chara even touches them. A great pressure squeezes against their front like an invisible wall trying to push them back, push them away from this apparition, but Frisk holds firm. Chara seems to be struggling too, trying to fight against this unseen force, straining to touch Frisk with even just two- one- finger.

Chara’s nail grazes Frisk’s sweater, and the invisible barrier between them sparks and repels the hand like two opposing magnets.

Frisk flinches in alarm and Chara yanks their arm back, eyes screwed tight in pain. Hastily they shake out the sting, and golden blossoms and flower buds spill endlessly from their sweater's sleeve.

“You are lucky,” Chara says sucking on their burnt finger, bitter, resigned. “That your soul is so pure. If you had chosen to harm even one monster, I would have ripped your soul from your undeserving body and crushed it so you could never hurt anyone else."

"You... You can do that?"

"I would have found a way." Chara spits. "People think fighting makes them strong, but they've got it backwards. Violence may make your body strong, but it makes your soul weak. It pushes out the empathy and replaces it with hate. It is a shame humans do not teach that to one another. If I had learned this sooner, I may not have died.”

“But… I thought you died from getting sick? Was it violence instead?”

“No, sickness is correct.” Chara affirms. “But it was not a mystery illness. I ingested buttercups to poison myself. A horribly slow way to go, but it got the job done.”

Beside the pair, Asriel sighs and rolls over in his sleep. At once, Chara’s sour expression melts into a look of adulation as they turn to admire him.

“You loved him, didn’t you?” Frisk dares to ask, sensing the danger has passed knowing Chara's bluff was called.

“Unfathomably,” Chara admits. “I am ashamed I did not express it as much as I felt it. I loved him so much, it was unbearable. I loved him so much that I wanted to give him the sun and the stars and show him the phases of the moon. I wanted him to see fireworks, and birds migrate, and the seasons change. I wanted him to hear thunder and see the rainbow after the storm, I wanted to take him to the beach to smell the salt of the sea, and see the vastness of the ocean and feel the waves against his feet while I poured sand down his pants. I wanted to give him the world." They sigh with longing and regret.

“But unfortunately my body was not the only thing that was poisoned. My soul was tainted by too much of that hate, and when the moment came that I needed to show even an iota of compassion, I failed, and we both ended up dead.”

“But that wasn’t your fault-“

“You do not understand,” Chara snaps. “When we got to the surface, Asriel did not let me fight back against the humans, and I did not let him get away. If I had not tried to force him to retaliate, he could have gotten home safely. If I had just cared while he was being ruthlessly attacked, he would have lived.” They begin to giggle, but it’s a hateful, disgusted kind of laugh. “Ha ha ha, he was the only good thing to ever happen to me in my rotten excuse of a life, and I. Got. Him. Killed.”

“I’m sure Asgore and Toriel would forgive you if you explained what happened.” Frisk suggests. “Asgore seems to understand what happened, at least a bit.”

“Oh, please,” Chara sneers. “Do not try to convince me I was misguided. I know exactly what I was doing when I swallowed those flowers. I wantedto die so my worthless existence could be used to help someone. Monsters were all waiting for me to die anyway. I just sped up the process.”

Frisk doesn’t respond. It’s not that they don’t have anything to say, but any kind of solace they could try to give would have probably just sounded hypocritical in light of what they themselves had tried to do only a few hours prior. Heck, it would have sounded insincere with how they still felt now. They shift uneasily amongst the flowers.

“Here’s an idea,” Frisk suggest, desperate to change the subject. “Why don’t you go with them to the surface, too? Surely you don’t have to stay here either, right?”

“There would be no point,” Chara declines. “As a ghost without a soul, the only thing the surface would offer would be a change of scenery. I would not be able interact with it.”

“Well, what if you took mine?”

And for the first time since their conversation started, Chara blinks, taken back in pure surprise.

“What?”

“I don’t want anyone to be left behind. I know Asriel feels guilty for what he did, and… looking back now I understand he did lie to me, and tried to use me, but… he’s still my friend, even if he made some terrible choices. He was nice to me growing up. Even if he didn’t mean it then, I know he means it now, and I… I want him to be happy. If you come back, then maybe he’ll let himself be happy too.”

Chara doesn’t move as they process Frisk’s words, slowly their eyes dilate at what this could potentially mean. They stare at them hungrily for an uncomfortably long time, before they squeeze their eyes shut and slowly shake their head with a firm sense of finality.

“What is wrong with you, you idiot?” Chara snips. "Were you not listening to a word Asriel said? He told you himself that monsters care about you. They all came to save you!"

"Yeah, but... I don't really deserve all this attention the monsters are giving me, especially when I kept them trapped for longer than they needed to be…" Frisk mumbles, unconvinced. "Plus, I'm human. They can't just... accept me after what our kind did to them!"

"Frisk, if you think that being human means you don't deserve the monsters' love, well...! I agree with you, but that is not how monsters work!" Chara shouts. "And do not believe for a second that I could not see through what you were trying to do. I heard how you talk, how you insist Asriel should go to the surface, but don't plan to go yourself. You thought you could escape your problems by running away back here? Just like you tried to do when you were on the surface? Too bad! You befriended them all, so now they want you in their lives. They'll always come back for you even if you try to leave them behind, and you are just going to have to deal with it!”

“They’re just acting like that because they think I brought down the barrier. They don’t really mean it.”

“You are lucky I cannot touch you or I would slap some sense into your thick skull,” Chara seethes, pinching the bridge of their nose. “Even though you offer, I will not take it. Your soul is your own. You cannot just give it to whoever you want. It does not work that way.”

“But you died too young! You deserve to be happy too!”

“Is that so?” Chara challenges. “Then what about the other six humans? They were children too, you know. Surely they were more innocent than us and died just as unfairly. Their souls may be free, but their ghosts still linger. Where is their happy ending?”

“I… I didn’t think about that…”

“Listen, Frisk, just because you could save us, does not mean you should, especially if the cost is your own life. Asriel and I… we had our chance and we screwed it up. Our turn at life is over, and that is not your problem to fix.”

“But… I don’t really belong with monsters,” Frisk persists. “I’m not a monster, and I can’t pretend to be one anymore. Wouldn’t everyone be happier if Asriel came back and went to the surface instead of me? He’s the real hero after all.”

“Frisk, stop trying to be anything. Before today you had no idea you were human. Most of your life you never cared how others saw you. You were just you. And even if you do not think you played a part, Asriel broke the barrier because you were being you. So stop worrying about what you are not. Just be yourself. It is the only thing you know what to be. It is all you know how to be.”

Frisk looks away, unsure if this strange feeling in their stomach was gratitude or dubiety. Maybe it was both. Chara certainly had an odd way of making their reassurances sound aggressive.

“Did… did Asriel bring you back when he took all the souls?” Frisk asks, switching topics again so they wouldn’t have to think about it.

“What is this, twenty questions?” Chara asks back, sarcastically, but answer anyway. “Tangibly? Yes, this is the first time I have been able to manifest and communicate so clearly. But metaphysically? No. I have been... here for as long as you have been in the Underground. I have been with you everywhere you have been. I had even tried to make my presence known to you, but either you could not hear me or you ignored me, because you never responded no matter how loud I called, so eventually I stopped trying, save for some... special circumstances.”

A sudden understanding strikes Frisk with alarming clarity.

“Wait- do you mean all the times I-"

“Had a nightmare when you slept on golden flowers or in places with “too much untamed magic”?” Chara finishes for them with an unsympathetic smirk. “Strange mood swings, such as crying for people you have never met? Yes, those were me. Asriel may have made me stir when he called my name, but for some reason you… you woke me up when you landed on my grave. I will not pretend I understand how it happened, but I guess I should thank you. If you had never awoken me, I would have never gotten to see him again.”

Frisk hums sympathetically and casts their gaze to the hole in the cavern overhead. The sun has shifted away from directly overhead, causing the light to start fading. Even though they didn't want to, they should probably leave soon. Based on what Chara has told them, they have a feeling Chara would not let them stay.

“One last question before I go,” Frisk says, morbid curiosity pushing them to ask something they almost had answered earlier that day. “Chara? What’s it like? Being dead?”

Chara gives them an annoyed look, before their expression shifts to contemplative as they actually consider the question. The silence between them goes on for almost a solid minute before Chara finally speaks again.

“The thing about being dead is… you do not know you are dead… until you are not anymore.”

“Wait,” Frisk squints trying to puzzle out the riddle. “So does that mean you’re-"

“I suggest you take your leave,” Chara cuts them off, not sounding suggestive in the slightest. “Asriel's time is almost up, and he is not going to want you to see him change back into a flower.”

Frisk sighs, not wanting a fight, and glances to Asriel one last time.

Was… was it their imagination or did he look fainter than before? Creasing their brow, Frisk blinks once, twice, and rubs their eyes. No. they weren’t seeing things. He was definitely more transparent. They could see straight through him to the flowers under his body.

“Go be with the people who want you, Frisk,” Chara says one last time, quiet, tired. “We will be fine.”

It sounded like a lie. It felt like one, but when Frisk looks back at Chara gazing at Asriel with such love and regret, they think they finally understand.

To have good intentions go wrong and come back after their death had caused so much pain and prolonged suffering, to live knowing monsters had died waiting, innocent children slain in their name, to offer them their soul and be rewarded with a new life knowing they’d have to live with that knowledge? They'd never want to wish that guilt onto anyone.

Suddenly Frisk's own fears seemed miniscule in comparison.

“Okay,” Frisk forfeits at last. “I’ll go... And I won’t take him away from you either. Not if you still need him.”

Chara sighs long and loud with relief, all the unseen tension leaving their body.

“But don’t be afraid to call for help, okay?” Frisk asks. “I know you don’t think you deserve it. I still don’t really think I deserve it either, but if what you say is true… if all these monsters came to save me because they want me, then that means there are still some out there who’ll want to save you, too.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Chara says, and genuinely smiles at them with gratitude.

With that, Frisk gets up, brushes themselves off, and makes for the cavern exit. They stop at the mouth of the tunnel and look back one last time to that patch of sunlight in the otherwise completely dark room.

The ghost of the first human huddles over the ghost of the martyr prince, hugging their knees, motionless as a statue, hair obscuring their face. Slowly, anxiously, one hand reaches out, hovers over his head, before gently stroking the fur on his brow. The motion is filled with such adoration that Frisk feels as if they have witnessed something secretly intimate.

As quietly as they can, they tip toe out of the room, leaving the two lost children behind.

_______________________________________________________

Was it minutes or hours later when they finally returned to the throne room? The time it took for Frisk to make the journey back again seems to pass in an instant to their distracted mind. But climbing up the castle steps once again, this time passing hundreds of monsters eagerly awaiting the all clear to begin migrating out of the mountain, Frisk’s spirits could help but lift.

Friends and strangers point and whisper and wave as they walk past, and the crowd parts to let them move to the front. Frisk grins, almost involuntarily as the monsters cheer them forward. It was surreal, passing by hundreds of monsters who urged them on with smiles full of love, and eyes wide with wonder and joy, eagerly encouraging them onward.

Back in the throne room a grand commotion electrifies the air, with Undyne and Papyrus organizing the crowds and Sans and Alphys drawing up plans and procedures for future human encounters with Toriel and Asgore.

Frisk smiles at the organized chaos and monsters busying themselves, getting everything in place in preparation for the mass exodus. Toriel had certainly kept occupied while they were away.

She notices them first amongst the six coordinators and perks up at the sight of them.

“Frisk! Back already?” she beams at them. “Everyone in all the other regions has been alerted to the news and we have just been making sure everyone sets out in a calm, orderly fashion. We are ready to embark when you are.”

“Well, let’s not keep everyone waiting!” Frisk insists.

“Of course,” Toriel agrees. “Would you like to lead the way?”

Hand in hand, Frisk, Toriel and every monster in the Underground follow their lead as they march up the tunnel to the surface.

Despite the setting sun, the light seems to shine even brighter the closer they come to the surface, and when they breach the mountain’s summit, gasps of awe echo through the crowd as the world unfolds around them.

Monsters, cautious at first, carefully pick their way across the rocks, striking out a new path as they spread out over the mountain side. But then, someone somewhere boldly takes the first leap, and spurs on the stampede of elated monsters as they spill down the cliffs.

“We’re free.” Someone breathes, and then again, louder, laughing, overcome with joy. “We’re free! WE’RE FREE!”

Order is lost almost instantaneously as the most excitable monsters whoop and holler in exhilaration, racing each other to be the first to explore this new world.

In too much of a good mood to dampen the excitement Asgore lets them go, and eventually the crowds calm again as they boldly march down the mountain en masse.

Toriel and Frisk stand apart from the rest, seeing to it that everyone makes their way out and no stragglers are ignored. By the time the last monster has wandered out of the mountain, the sky has shifted into the purples of twilight, and the first of the evening stars have blinked awake.

Even after the final monster eagerly scrambles after the others, Toriel and Frisk hang back until they’re the last ones on the mountain top, silently watching the others descend.

“Frisk,” Toriel says when all the others are out of earshot. She speaks nervously, almost guiltily. “I have been meaning to apologize… for keeping your identity a secret from yourself. It was wrong of me. A lie of omission is still a lie, and I should not have done that to you for all those years.”

“It’s okay,” Frisk assures her, squeezing her hand a little tighter. “I know why you did it and I forgive you.”

Toriel smiles thankfully, though something else still lingers on her mind.

“As you are aware now, this is the world you came from, so even though it pains me, even though it has been years, I must ask… Is there… is there anywhere you wish to return to?”

It takes a moment for them to understand, but when they finally do, Frisk hastily looks away when they realize what she’s asking.

“You know… it’s funny. For this entire past week I had been trying my hardest to get back to what I thought was my home.” They say evenly after a minute. “But after everything that’s happened, I’m not entirely sure where that is. Is it back in the Ruins? On the surface with other humans? I don’t know anymore.”

“Frisk. It is not my place to tell you where you belong. That is for you to decide,” Toriel says. “But no matter who or what you chose to be, you will always have a place to call home with me. With all the monsters, if you would like that.”

Unsure how to answer, they scan the horizon and stare at the setting sun in silence for several heartbeats, uncertainties still plaguing their heart like a stubborn stain. They could say 'no'. They could let them all go right then and there; a fitting penitence for what they put everyone through. The choice was theirs. But... even if they still think they didn't deserve them, deep down... did they truely want to say goodbye?

Down in a small valley below, they spy monsters roaming about, taking in this new world with dreamy wonder. A small group turn around, as if sensing they were being watched, and look up at the pair. They wave eagarly, and even from this distance, Frisk can tell it's their closest friends calling to them down below. Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, all waiting for them to catch up.

'They'll always come back for you,' Chara's words remind them. 'Even if you try to leave them behind.' Frisk sighs affectionately, knowing that was undeniably true. That's just how monsters were, weren't they? Papyrus had come for them, Sans had come for them, so had Undyne and Alphys... And Toriel... Everyone. Suddenly their answer was crystal clear. Was there ever any point in debating it when they already know their friends would never let them go?

Frisk gazes up at Toriel one last time to make sure, and finds only unconditional love in her eyes. Like magic, all those preconceived doubts Frisk still had about who they were and their place in this new world begin to melt away. Beaming, they embrace her in a hug.

Belonging. Such a simple concept that had proven so difficult for them to find these past six days. But they knew now they didn't belong back in the Ruins, or in some long-forgotten house on the surface. They belonged wherever their friends were; a place amongst all of those who didn't care what they were, who loved them for them and not what they had accomplished, who were just happy to have them in their lives. A place where they were wanted and needed with their extended monster family.

“I guess that settles it then?” Toriel chuckles.

“Yeah,” Frisk nods, never feeling more sure in their life, finally knowing where they fit in. “Let’s go home, Mom. Everyone’s waiting for us!”

#Undertale #undertale fanfiction #Frisk #Asriel #Toriel #Asgore #Undyne #Sans #Papyrus #Alphys #Chara #You Monster #my writing #at the time of writing I technically still don't have internet #but I managed to turn my phone into a hotspot just to get this and next week's comic page queued #pray for me

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Cinderella (4/?)

Fandom: Star Trek (TOS/AOS) Pairing: Spock x Reader Summary: AU based on the 2015 live-action Cinderella movie. Spock in the prince of the Kingdom of Vulcan and the reader is a good, honest country girl trying to make it through a life with her awful step-sisters and step-mother. Genre: Romance Warnings: None A/N: This chapter is twice as long as the others kill me

[Preview] [Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4]

You readied the tea and biscuits for your step-sisters and Madame, paying little mind to their tall tales as you quietly relived your evening with Mr. Spock, the prince.

You giggled to yourself.

The prince.

Mr. Spock.

The thoughtful, kind man from forest, who treated you with such dignity and respect you’d not seen in years, was the prince.

How truly, delightfully ridiculous. Absolutely mad.

You giggled once more, offering not a single care to perturbed looks the women at the table shot toward you.

Tonight was a wonderful, beautiful dream. A blessing. A kind reminder, you felt, from your dear parents, that your kindness and courage will always be rewarded, and to stay strong.

And so you would. With your journal entries and your glass slipper always by your side, securely under the floorboards, you would remember this night, this blissful, ridiculous dream night with the prince, for the rest of your days.

-0-

Not a week after the ball, Spock was called to his father’s chambers in the middle of day. There was no discernible reason the young prince could muster as to why his father was still in chambers so late into the day…

Until he approached the doors and saw Kirk offering him a sympathetic look.

Spock walked swiftly to his father’s bedside, trying hard not to focus on how fragile the man looked lying in the bed, pale and alone. Spock sat next to his father, offering no greeting or conversation. Now was the time for Sarek’s words, not Spock’s.

“I fear the time is here, my son,” Sarek spoke hoarsely, the strain of his dying body stealing away the last of his energy. “Your accession approaches, as do your additional responsibilities.”

Behind Spock, closely observing the interaction, was Michael. Though she remained silent and stoic, Spock knew she was in as much pain as their mother. Both women shared a telepathic bond with the dying king, and while his mother was weeping quietly in corner, Michael did all she could to keep her emotions in check. Truly, she would have made a fine Vulcan ruler – if only she were Vulcan.

Spock took a breath before speaking.

“I understand my responsibilities, Father,” he said quietly. “However, I refuse to enter into a lifelong relationship solely for political gain, lest the very fate of our nation depends on it. Though it may go against tradition, I cannot and will not marry without love.”

He could feel Michael stiffen behind him. They were never close, and Spock was certain this would tear them apart even further. Michael dedicated her life to serving and upholding Vulcan traditions and her brother, the heir to the throne for no reason beyond nepotism and racism, shirked them aside. The entire situation was bitterly unjust, but he could not think of any potentially successful way to rectify it.

“What if I ordered you to?” Sarek asked, seemingly joke. Spock bit back surprise at his father’s uncharacteristically jovial manner.

“I cannot and will not,” Spock affirmed.

“Then you must not,” Sarek concluded, his voice barely above a whisper. “You will despise this job, my son. You must find some peace within it. You must find your forest girl. That is your order.”

Spock couldn’t contain the surprise that overtook his face. As he processed his father’s words, Michael rested a firm hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him back from his father’s deathbed. As he moved away, Spock watched his mother race to his father’s side, gently running her fingers along his now-still face and bidding him farewell.

It… was over.

His father…

Michael gently guided him further away, near a back corner of the room, as their mother stood and wiped her eyes. She cleared her throat and started giving orders to the nearby attendants, calling for the doctor, the captain, and V’Las. Michael stood by Spock’s side as their mother took on the next steps, working through her grief to protect her children from such a hardship. Kirk listened to the queen intently, offering his availability for anything she or her family might need.

Spock recognized that he was far from alone, and yet couldn’t help but notice just how lonely he felt.

-0-

“Why do you stay at that house?” Uhura urged, asking you the same question she’s asked since your father passed. “I know it was where you were happy, but it holds no happiness now. You’ve got to learn to move on, Y/N.”

You almost jolted at the sound of your real name. Had it really been so long since you’d heard it? The last time you recall even thinking of your real name was at the ball, so many weeks ago. Perhaps you should’ve given your name to the prince – now king, poor boy – so you could have at least heard yourself say it one last time before it drifted away, lost to time like your parents.

You sighed.

“I made a promise,” you contended. “Besides, where else would I go. I’m an orphan on the path to spinster. I don’t exactly have any viable prospects.”

“You know you can come live with me,” Uhura pushed. “And your parents raised you well. You’re a brilliant and talented woman, Y/N. You’d have no problem finding work outside of that house if you really look.”

Realistically, you knew she was write. Your father’s travels brought back many languages for you learn, and your mother’s instance that she and you help the staff with the house work taught you a number of trades. If you chose to leave, the world would be open wide for you.

Yet, even as you thought it, Madame’s voice filled your head, reminding you over and over that you were nothing more than a raggedy servant girl. Perhaps, when your parents were still around, the world was your’s for the taking. But fate was often unkind, and the world would not open for a lowly, orphaned servant.

Before your conversation with Uhura could continue, the bell of the royal herald rang through the town square, drawing everyone’s attention to the man’s post.

The man, one of the few humans to work with the Vulcan palace, barely contained a smile as he unfurled his scroll.

“Hear ye! Hear ye!” he called out, his smile breaking through, ever so slightly. “Know that our new king hereby declares his love for…”

The square’s occupants fell deathly silent, eagerly anticipating the news. From what you’d gathered in the past few weeks, there seemed to be a rift among the commoners as to whether the prince – King, you corrected – would marry the princess T’Pring, since the “mysterious princess” was nowhere to be found. In fact, you were certain people had money riding on it.

“For… the mysterious princess, as wore glass slippers to the ball.”

Gasps and murmurings broke out in the crowd. Uhura shot you a look, a smirk playing on her lips.

“And requests that she present herself at the palace, where upon – if she be willing – he will… forthwith… marry her, with all due ceremony!”

The crowd grew louder as the herald stepped down from his platform. You could distinct notes of excitement, some of disdain, most of shock. Gossip was surprisingly rampant in the Vulcan Kingdom, and you could already hear the grape vine singing.

“So?” Uhura asked from beside you. You turned your attention back to her, catching the smile on her face and the mischievous glint in her eyes.

“So?” you asked innocently, trying to appear nonchalant under the Gossip Queen’s incredulous gaze.

“So,” she began again, “what exactly are you gonna do about that, princess?”

-0-

You sprinted home, the smile never fading from your face as your lungs burned and your legs screamed. You couldn’t mind the pain, not now.

He wanted to marry you!

Spock!

He wanted to marry you!

The dream, the dream of that night is actually coming true. After so much suffering, after being alone for so long, the man you love loves you back and wants to marry you.

You thanked your mother incessantly. Through everything, you kept her lessons close by your heart. You held on to your courage and kindness, even when it all seemed so hopeless, and it worked! Your happy ending found you! You were finally going to get-

“Madame?” you panted, confused by the woman sitting in your room, waiting for you.

“Well,” she said, her twisted smile pulling at her lips, “You were certainly in a rush to get here. Pray tell, what has you worked up, dear girl?”

If your heart wasn’t pounding from the run, it would have stopped dead.

This was not good. This was very not good.

You were so close to your happy ending. She was going to steal it. You didn’t know how, or why, but you knew she would do it.

Lie. Lie!

“Oh,” you started, trying to seem nonchalant, “I… I just forgot something I wanted to take to town.”

“Oh,” she offered kindly, never once breaking eye contact with you, “you mean this?”

Out from under the chair she sat in, Madame pulled out a glass slipper – the one you kept hidden your floorboard since the ball.

Your stomach dropped, a million questions flying around your head. Well, only two, really.

How?

Why?

How?

You desperately glanced around the room, looking for any kind of explanation. Next to Madame, on the window sill, lay the diary you kept next the slipper.

Shit.

It’s over.

“How did you find out?” You asked, the completely detached tone of your voice almost taking you back, if you weren’t too exhausted to care anymore. It’s over. She won.

Her smile, always wicked, developed an almost evil taste.

“I should like to tell you a story, my dearest step-daughter,” Madame began, her eyes unblinking. “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young woman, who met the love of her life. She married the man, and birthed two loving daughters.

“Then,” Madame continued, her motherly façade fading, replaced with all the wickedness you had come to know, “the light of her life died, leaving her and her daughters destitute. The next time around, she married for the sake of her family. Then, that man, too, was taken from her.

“For years, she was forced to live in another woman’s house, and raise another woman’s child – which she did with grace.”

You could have slapped her right then and there, but your mother wouldn’t have had it.

“The woman had hoped to marry off one her beautiful, stupid daughters to the prince, but his head was turned by a girl with glass slippers, who disappeared into the night. The woman returns to her house that night to find her wicked step-daughter dancing around the kitchen, stars in her eyes.”

You cursed yourself for behaving like such a fool. You should’ve learned by now to never show weakness in front Madame. She would always find it, latch on, and exploit it. You were thoughtless to let your guard down, even for a moment.

“Did you think I was an imbecile?” Madame sneered, rising from her seat and striding over to you with the slipper in hand.

“Where did you get it from?” She pressed. “Did you steal it?”

“It was given to me,” you said, “by a dear friend.”

Madame barked out a laugh.

“Nothing in this world is ever given, you ridiculous girl,” she snarled. “For everything you must pay, pay. And after living in my house rent free for all this time, here is how you’ll pay me-“

“No.” you said firmly.

Madame was aghast.

“No?” she pressed, seemingly appalled that you had the audacity to fight her.

“No,” you confirmed. “You have ruined every other ounce of happiness in my life. Destroyed everything I’ve ever held dear. I will not let you ruin this, even if that means it shall only be a memory.”

Madame smirked a wicked grin as her grip on the slipper’s heel tighten and she walked toward the door. She paused in the door way, back facing you, and raised the slipper from her side.

“Then memory,” she taunted, “it shall be.”

In one swift motion, she smashed the glass slipper into the door frame, shards of glass scattering across the floor and stairs. You could barely hear the sounds of shattering glass over your own, pained cry.

It was over. Everything. All of it. Over.

Madame turned in the door, her too-sweet-smile pulling her lips and she looked you dead in the eyes.

“It would appear as though I’m not the only one with shattered dreams, Cinderella.”

Tags: @sugarshai @elizabeth–1 @buttercup337 @room-with-a-cat @severusminerva @may-machin @mysticracoon

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#spock x reader #fanfic #star trek #star trek aos #hopefully this week at work doesn't murder me like the past month has #and i can actually get this story finished #maybe one or two more chapters #depending on how in depth i get with certain scenes #after this story is done i can focus on STARs #which i love because its my own story that i have more control over #love doing these types of aus #based on other pre-existing storylines #but my creativity is all centering around STARs right now #anyway #i'm rambling #ignore me

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