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Apr. 6th, 2011 12:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keire_ke[saiyuki trek -- bad day]
Sanzo woke on the wrong side of his sleeping pod, or rather he woke out of the sleeping pod, upside down, hanging from the railings on the ceiling. This happened from time to time, when the nightmares got the better of him. Somehow, the glands which countered the distress by supplying his brains with endorphins worked best when he was upside down, which, given the regularity of his nightmares, meant that twice a week he would wake up hanging from the ceiling.
This tended to put him in a bad mood, despite the endorphins.
From there the day got steadily worse. The intern got the sniffles, but refused to be tested (bloody hell, was the little twit not aware that the publicly available records for the biology of Miak'rans were incomplete, at best?), an engineer broke his thumb and had the gall to whine about it, and later that evening a squad of omnicidal freaks from the outer moons of Betelgeuse VI invaded the ship and killed the captain.
To top it off, the coffee maker on the bridge had refused to co-operate. Sanzo glared at it with an empty cup in hand.
"This is not a good day," he said into the silence that followed the headshot that took the captain out of his chair.
He wasn't terribly worried. His kind was hard to kill at the best of times, and if nothing else he should get the chance to practice bullet extraction. Such wounds were a rarity, and a fresh corpse was always useful.
"No, really?" Gojyo muttered. He was shoved away from his desk, where a retarded-looking alien was systematically frying all the connections by shooting lasers at them.
It seemed Sanzo was dead right about his prediction for the journey. It's been two weeks and the captain was dead, the communications were fried, and a gang of the dumbest beings to grace the galaxy with speech were threatening to kill them.
"Shut up," the leader of the pack growled. The gravely tone of his voice suggested damage to vocal cords at an early age, which was consistent with available information for the species -- children would often be put through smoke inhalation to prepare them for life in the smog of the cities, which had the side-effect of frying their brain cells. "We are taking over the ship. You will be processed in due course."
Sanzo rolled his eyes, but said nothing. If he got shot he would have to extract the bullet and he was unlikely to get any privacy on the bridge. He amused himself instead with cataloguing the rest of the staff present and therefore the likeliness of himself getting shot. Hakkai would likely survive a shooting -- Vulcans considered wounds illogical and therefore avoided them whenever possible. Gojyo and two of the other four communication officers were human, so getting them shot would only be a nuisance. The pilot and the navigator, as well as the chief of security, were all Youkai, only a little more resilient to bullet wounds than humans.
The ill-fated captain had fallen where he'd been shot, in-between the consoles. No one bothered to move the corpse yet.
"This is a federation vessel," Hakkai was saying. "You are thereby declaring war on the entirety of starfleet."
"Starfleet is far away," the leader said, with what technically was a grin, as it was on a mouth, but where human standards were concerned, it was the stuff nightmares were made of. "Move." All the available guns, that is those that weren't performing programming operations, turned towards them.
The entire force comprised about twenty men-shaped creatures, seven of which were female, one of which was pregnant. They all carried pistols, one laser, one suited to eject traditional projectiles. Sanzo made a mental note to read up on the battle customs of the species. It looked like a riveting read.
The leader turned and gestured to something. There was movement among his ranks and two uneven squads formed; three guards and the rest. "Now, Vulcan," the leader said, when most of his force departed the bridge, presumably to terrorise the rest of the ship. "Bring me the captain."
"You have shot the captain."
"Bring me his head, then," the creature grinned. Well, this did solve the mystery of the ugly necklace he had about his neck. "Do it, or I will start shooting the lot of you."
Hakkai narrowed his eyes, but moved to at least give the appearance of obeying. At least the head would buy them some time, Sanzo thought. The purpose of the exercise eluded him, but then again, he had been skipping xenopology classes habitually.
"He is gone."
"What?" the chief alien roared.
"The body is not here," Hakkai said, looking at Sanzo.
"What did you do?" the alien growled, stepping to Sanzo with the gun levelled at his chest.
"What could I have done, I was standing right here the whole time."
"You will regret this," the alien started saying, but then his arm broke in half and his nose imploded, presumably forcing some of the bone and cartilage into the brain, if there was any common sense to his anatomy.
The other two soldiers opened fire and Sanzo chose to hide under the console. From his spot he got to see a black-yellow blur roll and twist and then land, feet first, on the neck of the first creature. There was a very satisfying crack as they both his the floor and the blur rolled kicking out the legs from underneath the other with enough force to break them.
The blur stilled then, revealing the captain. He was crouched low, ready to attack. One of his hands was on the neck of the fallen alien, where it'd crushed its windpipe. "Is everyone okay?" he asked, standing up and stretching his arms over his head, even as the third alien charged.
As it turned out, he also had a prehensile tail, which he used to scoop up a gun from the floor, grab it, point, shoot the charging alien in the head, then drop it again.
"Sir," Hakkai said.
Across the room Gojyo's expression was a picture. "The fuck?" he mouthed to Sanzo, who shrugged in reply.
"Oh, that's good." The captain bounced to the command chair, flipped a switch, tapped in a code. He looked confused for a brief moment, then he put his fingers to his neck. When he spoke, Sanzo found with surprise, it was in a perfect imitation of the alien leader's voice. "Move to the engineering area," he just said, and killed the line.
"Sir, if I may," Hakkai said.
"Yeah?"
"You have a bullet in your brain."
"Nah, don't think it got that far." He rubbed his forehead and dug out what had to be a bullet. "I'm good," he said and dropped it on the armrest of the chair, where it slowly oozed blood onto the polished metal. "Seal off th' bridge. Disrupt all beaming. Transmit the soundless alert, to as many people as you can. Report, soon as people confirm their safety." He grabbed a mini communicator. "Call up the planet, tell them the reinforcements had been alerted and they have thirty minutes to apologise and stand down, or else.
"I'm just gonna off the motherfuckers here and then we can figure out what to do about the rest."
"Isn't the common procedure to first make plans than kill?" Hakkai asked, quirking a brow.
"Pro'lly, but they killed me and pissed me off. And they are dangerous."
"I see."
The door closed behind the captain and Hakkai folded his hands behind his back. "I have decided I like our captain," he said.
"Dude. The captain is fucking hardcore."
"The captain is not human," Sanzo said, finding a stray latex glove in the first-aid kit and picking up the bullet. The blood was already half-clotted on its surface. It was rusty in colour, and Sanzo wasted no time in shaving some of it onto the sampler of his medpad.
"Like you have room to throw stones."
Sanzo's medpad promptly choked.
"Stupid piece of crap!"
"I thought you said our equipment was excellent?"
"It is, it is also unwieldy. This one's mine." The pad would reboot in fifteen minutes, hopefully functional, and in the meanwhile Sanzo nudged the navigator. "Pull up the captain's personal file."
"Sir, I have no clearance--" she started saying, but a glare silenced her.
"Shut up and don't pretend you can't hack it."
"Hacking is frowned upon in the academy," the pilot said, raising a brow.
"And lying isn't?"
"I am not lying, sir."
Sanzo sighed and turned to the navigator who, thankfully, was less mouthy. "If it makes you feel better," the doctor said, "you can turn around now and not read."
He had been so certain the little brat was human -- his colouring, his features, everything indicated as much. Of course there was no way that was possible, when bullets failed to penetrate his skull, not to mention the tail, but still. Sanzo had been certain that, upon reviewing the file, as a doctor well should, prior to taking responsibility for the many varied species on-board, he had him marked as human.
He had, and now he remembered why.
The file listed no race. It also listed no planet of origin and by the date of birth the captain was presently ten years old. Granted, this would explain so much, Sanzo thought, but not nearly enough.
He was frantically scraping more blood residue onto the medpad, when the captain returned, sprayed with unknown dark substance (blood of the aliens, Sanzo surmised), but perfectly fine. "Everything still fine here?" he asked. "Any news from the planet?"
"The enemy is still dead, sir," Hakkai said. "The planet surrenders unconditionally. They are awaiting your demands."
The captain paused. "Are your enemies often not dead after you kill them?"
"They are always dead after I kill them, sir."
"Okay," the captain said slowly, clearly not following. "Put the leaders on the screen," he told Gojyo.
"He means to say you killed them," Sanzo clarified. The medpad was sputtering, but coughing up facts all the same, no known bloodtype, myriads of clotting agents, proteins, oxidisation…
"Well, of course," he said, cocking his head to the side. The main screen flickered and a face not unlike that of their unfortunate assailant appeared. Sanzo had trouble seeing its expression.
"Please accept out humble apologies," the alien -- it was female, by the voice -- said. "The rebels…"
"Can it," the captain said shortly. "I know they aren't rebels, and if you are in command, they acted on your behalf."
"I must protest…"
"Can it, I said. You have three hours to evacuate all personnel from all the space stations in orbit. After that we will use them to transmit the recording of your attack to the federation and then we will nuke ‘em."
The face on the screen was a picture.
"This message will be transmitted to all stations," the captain continued, shooting a glance at Gojyo, who immediately made himself busy. "You got anything to say, say it after."
The alien had nothing. Sanzo wasn't surprised.
The captain turned. He moved differently; the doctor part of Sanzo's brain assumed this was due to the shift in balance brought on by the tail, swinging with every step. It gave his steps the air of leaps, though they remained controlled and slow for the time being.
The bullet hole on his forehead was an angry red mark by now. Sanzo stared at it.
"Captain," he said in a voice that would bear no refusal. "You have been injured. It is within my competencies to demand that you surrender the con and proceed to medical bay, at once."
"There's no need, really, I'm good."
Sanzo glared and found the captain squirming.
"The aliens need to be sorted out," he stared saying.
"Someone else can do it. You are horrible at management, anyway. Hakkai, take the con, nuke the motherfuckers."
Of course, Hakkai chose that moment to defer to authority. "Captain?"
It was quite the sight, Sanzo thought; a being capable of rendering several fully-armed aliens dead without breaking a sweat, cringing under the glare of a ship medic. "I really am fine," the captain said, turning his wide eyes to Sanzo. He rubbed the mark on his forehead as he spoke, revealing fresh pink skin where it had been. "I don't need help."
"Who said anything about help?"
Sanzo crossed the bridge in three steps, grasped the captain's upper arm and carted him out the door. An unknown, or at least classified, species, all his to study! Oh, the gods conspired against him, he knew it to be true, but for once their meddling gave him Christmas, Hayay'al'tharaq and a birthday, all at the same day.
[saiyuki!trek -- captain's log]
"Captain's log," Sanzo said into the recorder with a long suffering expression on his face. "Stardate 17334.3. We have come across a hostile alien planet. Was forced to kill most of the encountered natives in self defence. Damages to the ship minimal, casualties among crew, one. Fortunately, it was just the captain."
"The hell are you doing?" Gojyo asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Who died and made you captain?"
"The captain, obviously."
"He's in the mess hall, on his third bucket of lasagne, last time I checked, and I checked three minutes ago."
"He did get himself fatally shot five times."
"As I recall it was largely because you shot him."
"He ordered me to."
Gojyo raised a brow, sniggered. "Man, are you whipped."
Sanzo glared at him.
"Shooting him at the time was the sound tactical move. Gave us all the advantage we needed and more."
"Please, like you couldn't have kicked their asses without it."
"It minimised damage on our part and Goku shrugs off bullet wounds like mosquito bites. He has a pain threshold you have no hopes of comprehending and a healing factor rivalled only by tapeworms."
"And you."
"I'm a polymorph, get your terminology straight."
"Whichever, really. This still doesn't explain what are you doing here. Far as I know, if we're maintaining the ‘captain was killed' line, Hakkai is first officer."
Sanzo shrugged and returned to his recording. Three succinct sentences, detailing the actions of the recently deceased captain, and he was done. "Hakkai doesn't have Goku's passwords."
"And you do?" Gojyo blinked and then grinned. "You totally do. Man, that's low, even for you."
As a reply, Sanzo brought up another log. Goku's voice was soft when recorded, unsure -- in fact, one would assume this was a child, especially as the video feed was pale and desaturated but for the colour gold, resulting in Goku's face being dominated by his already enormous eyes. "Captain's log," the recording said, "nuthing much happened, planet TK-421 inhabited by some nice people."
"He sucks at talking," Gojyo said sympathetically as the feed rolled on. "He really, really does."
"Tell me about it."
"It's a good thing he's great at planning battles, once he gets shot already. So nice of you to take over the mundane duties, then."
Sanzo scowled. It wasn't that he wanted to, particularly, but after watching Goku wake up in the middle of a night, dredging himself out of bed to put on a kicked puppy face and report that not much was happening, thank you. Fortunately, he was stupid enough to surrender the codes necessary for the recording of logs.
Not for the first time, Sanzo wondered who died and made him captain.
"So, how did you get the codes? Are we staging a coup?"
"He gave them to me."
"Wow. We have a captain who happily surrenders his top secret codes. I feel safer already."
"Fortunately for your safety, it appears he is rather preoccupied with not getting anyone else killed."
"Good thing he's got you to clean up after his stupidity."
"Don't remind me."
[chronicles of narnia -- doubt that the stars doth move]
"You- you beasts!" Eustace cries and tumbles out of the royal cabin. The accursed ship rocks under his feet, denying him the speed and effect he wished to achieve. It says plenty about his state of mind that he doesn't care, for once.
He stumbles into the so-called cabin he is sharing with those, those savages and slams the door shut. He wishes there was a lock to keep them out, permanently, but of course privacy, like consulate, is yet another concept the Narnians don't believe in.
He hears hurried footsteps on the other side of the door, and then a hushed conversation, one that's rife with yelling done under one's breath. Eustace can't make out the subject of it, but he grins to himself. Good, let them fight, like the miscreants they are.
Edmund -- it must be Edmund, it certainly sounds snooty enough -- says something, a little more calmly then, as though he ever has anything worthy to say, and Caspian falls silent. Eustace hears someone stumble and then the door is shoved open and Caspian positively flies to Eustace and lifts him by the collar.
"Now listen here, you little maggot," he says. He is furious; Eustace, despite his firm belief in pacifism and non-violence, is terrified. He would struggle, but the beast has him by the throat and doesn't allow for movement. He was right when he called Caspian a savage, he doesn't even look human! His nostrils flare, his eyes are narrowed and his voice is low and threatening. "You have ceased to amuse me some time ago, but this is the last straw."
Edmund rushes into the room then, and he at least has the grace to look apologetic, though not nearly enough, as far as Eustace is concerned.
"Lion's mane, Caspian, let him go!"
"To what end? If your world is as bad as you say, then it would only be sensible to drown him now, so he cannot speak later."
Eustace draws a breath and only Edmund's hand upon his mouth stops the scream. "Hush. No one is going to drown you, so help me," Edmund says, but he is staring at Caspian. "I mean it. He is your guest and under my protection. You will have to go through me before you harm him."
Caspian glares, but his hold on Eustace's collar loosens. "As you wish," he says and finally lets go. Eustace would be glad to use the opportunity to run, but Edmund is holding him in place and the brute is much stronger than he.
"Leave us."
Caspian nearly starts spitting fire at that, but in the end he relents. He closes the door behind him and Edmund takes a step back, then, allowing Eustace to crawl into his bunk and wrap the blanket around his head.
"He misunderstood," Edmund says. Eustace hears him sit on the far end of the bunk and he curls in on himself to stay as far away as he can. "He thinks you intend to have me arrested and sentenced to prison, when we get back."
Eustace snorts into the pillow, but contemplates. Of course, he should do as much, it's a crime, after all, to engage in such acts with one of the same sex. It would have been his duty to report it to the police.
"You are, of course, aware that reporting me to the British police would only have you laughed at, as your testimony would make you sound like a raving lunatic, what with the magical journey through a painting and all."
Eustace says nothing and Edmund sighs. "Really, I know it is too much to ask, but can't you be a decent human being for once in your life?" he sounds painfully young and, if Eustace didn't know him for the ignorant fiend he was, on the verge of tears. "It's hard enough as it is, without you being a bother about it."
"It's a crime!" Eustace says, sitting up. "He was- And you!" he really doesn't need, doesn't want, to picture the scene again, but it flows into his mind all the same.
"What do you want me to say?" Edmund counters. "You know what you saw, and unless you learn to knock you will see it again, because we have no time to worry about sneaking about and hiding!"
"What do you mean, you have no time?"
"Haven't you listened? Lucy has told the story of our past visits. We may be returned home as soon as tomorrow, with hardly any warning at all. Right now it's all we have."
"I don't understand," Eustace says and Edmund laughs bitterly. "No, why should that matter? So we go back home, good riddance! The sooner we get there, the sooner we can forget about this whole mess."
"I don't want to forget him," Edmund says, and Eustace finds himself speechless. "Even if I forget Narnia, I will never forget him."
"Why," he starts asking and rather foolishly remembers the silly stories that they were sometimes forced to read in school, of feuds and romance and fairies and there were duels, kings and deaths in one. Some inane story sticks out, of two idiots marrying in secret and then trying to wash out the spots? He tries to match the image to the one in his head, of Edmund stretched on the seat by the window with his head thrown back, and Caspian's dark head, haloed by the orange sunset, against his skin.
It still makes no sense.
"You mean the judicial system of Narnia allows for … that?"
"I have no idea, to tell you the truth. I recall there was nothing to forbid it in my time, but I had no means to study the current laws."
"But," Eustace says, and falls silent. Then, slowly, as though the thought is coming from far away, and when it finally arrives Eustace has to wonder how could it ever cross his mind, it is so far-fetched. "Can you marry here?"
"No. For many more reasons than the obvious."
"Such as?"
Edmund gives Eustace a searching look and smiles, a little shakily. "He is the king, and in a matter of years -- or even months -- he would need to wed a woman. He should be married now, if he wasn't crazy enough to chase after a fool's errand right now." He toys with the edge of the blanket. "I cannot stay here," he says at last. "Like before, we will return to England, the three of us. So no matter what, we will have to walk away."
"Then what's the point?" Eustace asks, a touch peeved, because he is seeing less and less sense in the affair. "Other than scaring decent people to death, I mean."
Edmund bites his lip and starts laughing then, to which Eustace cannot help but respond with a scowl. "I'm sorry. You are right, of course, there is no point."
Eustace almost opens his mouth to ask again, but really, what can Edmund tell him, that he doesn't already know? He is a fool, and a kid, and this sort of stuff is best left out of mind, Eustace feels.
"I'll make sure Caspian is reasonable," Edmund says and gets up. "But try not to mention it again. He's got a nasty temper, doubly so when he's reminded that I- that we will return to our world sooner rather than later."
"He's a savage," Eustace said without real fire. "They all are. Sailing. Who sails in this day and age? Haven't they heard of internal combustion?"
"No, they haven't."
"It's insane."
"A little bit."
Edmund leaves and Eustace burrows in his blanket again. He should be more shocked, he thinks, about his cousin being that way, but since his whole family is made of freaks, at least he has an excuse. He prefers not to dwell on what that says about him, given that they are kin.
He doesn't apologise to Caspian, of course not. He has nothing to be sorry for, if anything, he should be apologised to. He doesn't say a word, though, not when he sees (and he does) Edmund and Caspian sneaking out of the camp, when they are on an island, or manning a one-man job, whatever it is, on the pigeon's nest together.
It's none of his business, what his cousin is getting himself into, really.
[chronicles of narnia -- compact of fire]
In Lucy's memory Edmund very rarely gave in to bursts of anger. His temper simmers, even when fuelled by the biggest fire; even when the rest of them are yelling, Edmund is calm enough to point out the obvious.
She suspects, or, more accurately, she has grown to suspect that this was only possible with another outlet for the emotion that Edmund undoubtedly feels, and this has proved accurate -- more than once she'd observed as he returned from a midnight hunting trip, when they were in Narnia, or a run, when in England. Mother was quite upset with his disappearances, but he would not take any scolding to heart.
So, Lucy is quite shocked to discover him screaming, around midday, in her cabin. She has returned to change her shirt, which was soaked after the man in charge of washing the deck accidentally spilled a bucket of water and she finds Edmund, stretched across her bed, with his head burrowed in the pillow, screaming.
"Edmund," she says, forgetting at once about the shirt, which was no hardship to begin with, as the day was lovely and warm, and the only trouble was that it seemed immodest to wander about in a wet, white shirt. "Edmund, are you all right?"
He is startled, she sees that in the way he freezes where he lies. She crosses the cabin to lay a hand on his shoulder and finds him flinching away from her touch. He is tense and upset and Lucy immediately feels tearful. "What happened, Ed?"
"Nothing," he says, in a hoarse, shaking voice.
"Edmund!"
"Leave me."
"I will do no such thing."
"I mean it. Go and comfort Caspian. He's bound to be mildly perturbed."
Lucy starts piecing together the details, from the shaking syllables that Edmund utterly fails to let out, but the fragments are not yet forming a clear picture. "Have you fought?" she asks, because that's what it seems like, but how can it be? They are so close, seemingly of one mind in most matters, certainly when it comes to sneaking out of people's sight.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"I don't! You are such good friends," she says and rolls her eyes when Edmund lets out a hollow laugh. "Oh, don't do that. I know what you've been up to when no one is around, I am not foolish."
Edmund snorts into the pillow.
"I would thank you not to drool on my pillow too much," Lucy says sternly. "I need it for sleeping."
"Too late."
"That's gross!"
"I've been fucking Caspian for most of the journey," Edmund says, and for the first time he turns to look at her. His eyes are red and she realises he's been crying.
"Not on my pillow I hope," she manages to say, even as she is overwhelmed by a rush of tender feelings and the need to comfort him. He looks so young, so broken, Lucy wishes she could hold him and take the world away.
"That didn't cross my mind until now."
"You are disgusting."
"If only that were so."
"Why did you fight?" Lucy asks, as Edmund slowly rolls to his back and stares at the ceiling. She curls next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"I said it was over."
"Why?"
"Because we are going back and he will marry the star."
"Really? How can you tell? They barely spoke."
"He's a king, she is a guide from the heavens, this is a fairly tale land, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
"Are you afraid he'll forget you?"
Edmund snorts. "This is not what Shakespeare would have you believe," he says and he tries to be flippant, but a hitch that is more of a sob betrays his distress.
"Are you jealous?" Lucy asks and this is a novelty to her, and possibly to him as well.
"No."
"Then, if you don't want him to marry the star, why don't you just ask?"
"Ask him what? Please Caspian, don't marry the woman who looks like the embodiment of all things good and beautiful, and who would be sure to bring hope and light to your subjects with her very presence?"
"Did you try ‘please, Caspian, I love you?'" Lucy says and Edmund shoves her off the bed and pulls the covers over his head. "Well, did you?"
"You are being ridiculous," he says, but his voice is shaking.
"I'm being ridiculous? I'm not the one who's locked up in a bedroom, crying over what, exactly?"
"You wouldn't understand!"
"Understand what?" Lucy crawls over the bed until he is sitting on the sad mound that is Edmund and glares, an effort thoroughly ruined by the fact he cannot see her. "I understand that you have broken your heart quite thoroughly, and that I have yet to hear of Caspian's involvement in the matter."
"He was involved enough."
"What did he say?"
"I'm not sure, I left after he resorted to vulgarities."
"Caspian swears?"
"Like a cockney bricklayer. Maybe better."
"Edmund…" Lucy says, leaning her full weight on Edmund. "Don't you love him?"
"Does it matter?"
"Rather, I would say."
"It's stupid."
"Clearly, you are crying your eyes out here. One too many romance novels, I fancy."
"Oh, bother you," Edmund says, twisting out of her hold and pulling the comforter off his face. He is pale and his face is puffy. "You're a monster and Caspian is an insufferable fiend. You can both go drown yourselves and stop bothering me!"
"Right," Lucy says, and gets off the bed. "I will go and speak to Caspian, and when you wish to stop channelling the spirit of Eustace, you will join us." She leaves Edmund to his sobbing.
*****
Caspian hides well, but the Dawn Treader is a small ship, and it is takes Lucy less than ten minutes to find him, high in the crow's nest. He's glaring at the sea as though it has committed some grave, personal offence against him, and his grip upon the rim of the basket looks like it hurts him.
"I suppose you are as unwilling to talk as Edmund," Lucy says.
"I wouldn't presume to refuse Your Majesty anything, least of all a conversation."
Lucy rolls her eyes. "Really? That's what you're going to do now?"
"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."
"Well then, let me refresh your memory. My brother and you seem to have started a courtship, let it flourish, consummated it summarily, and I am told it ended. I don't much care for the latter, as you may well imagine, partly because it was adorable to see you two sneaking about, and partly because Ed is now weeping about it."
Caspian looks scandalised, ashamed and a little bit terrified. Lucy fights a grin, because the proud king looks like a child caught with their hand in the jar of cookies.
"At least he's suffering," he says finally and Lucy smacks him, only partially in jest.
"That's my brother you're talking about."
"He brought it on himself."
"Again, my brother."
"That's not much of an argument."
"It's enough of an argument," Lucy says.
"Then, I am glad to have an ally." Caspian's face twists in anger. "If that's where you stand, you might as well leave me here."
"I don't like seeing you unhappy."
Caspian turns to her and smiles as the wind whips his hair about his face. Lucy is mesmerised for a moment, because he is stunningly handsome, really, but he belongs to Edmund, she can see that plain as day.
"Edmund would say that it is good that you are to depart soon," Caspian says. "Then you won't have to watch me be unhappy."
Lucy doesn't think much about what to do next. He steps forward and wraps her arms around Caspian's waist and just holds him. He stiffens at first, unsure of himself and the gesture -- he was an only child, an orphan at that, Lucy remembers, he would know little of the comfort between siblings -- but then he melts into her arms and his breath hitches. His arms envelop her and she feels him whispering.
"Please, Lucy," he is saying and the words come out a garbled mess, "Aslan listens to you the most, please, ask that he let him stay. I need him."
Lucy shakes her head and blinks away the tears. "You know it doesn't work like that," she says. "It cannot."
"It's not fair," Caspian says into her shirt.
"It never is." Lucy hesitates. "Won't you come speak to Ed? At least you should say goodbye." The goodbye is coming, she knows it. She can feel it in her bones, in the smells of the air, in the blinding whiteness in the far horizon.
"Why doesn't he come to talk to me," Caspian is petulant and Lucy very nearly laughs. Boys, honestly.
"He won't," she just says and digs her knuckles into Caspian's back. "He's Edmund."
The king sighs and, though he is still for a few more minutes, Lucy senses the resolve. Soon they are both climbing down the mast and sneaking (mostly to avoid company) into Lucy's cabin, where Edmund is busy counting the dust motes in the golden beam of light above his head. The forlorn look on his face breaks Lucy's heart all over-again.
He looks at them and then away, even as Caspian pushes past Lucy to sit by him on the bed. "I still think you are an egotistical idiot," Edmund tells the ceiling.
"I still think you are a lying bastard," Caspian says.
"I don't lie."
"No? Then what was it you said about being glad we have no hope together?"
Edmund sits up, throwing the covers aside. "Then what would you have me say?" he says. There is fire in his eyes such as Lucy has only seen on the fields of battle, and all of it is directed at Caspian, who miraculously stands it without so much as a flicker of unease. "That I am an utter cretin and I love you so much that it is going to kill me to leave you here alone? That I will be an absolute ass to everyone else from now on, because no one else will ever be you?"
Caspian manages the thinnest smile and kneels on the bed. He takes Edmund's head in his hands and kisses his mouth, staunching the flow of words. "Yes," he says. "I would have you say that. It would have been honest."
"Go fuck yourself," Edmund says with feeling. "I don't want this. I never wanted this."
"And you were doing so well," Caspian laughs and kisses him again, even as Lucy rolls her eyes. Edmund can be so stubborn, it's uncanny.
He sounds a little better now. Still sad, but at least he will have some comfort, she hopes.
She is closing the door behind her when she remembers the pillow and so she rushes back and yanks it from underneath Edmund's shoulder. The movement disrupts their balance and they both look at her, in amusement and surprise. She shoves the pillow into a cupboard and closes its door with a click.
"Try not to make too much of a mess, alright?" she says and leaves.
She doesn't think they notice.
notes: Watching ST:TOS 1.22. mentally recasting it with nu!Trek and Ben Barnes as Khan. Good times. Gooooood times.
I have no idea why DW is giving me trouble. WTF, DW?
Thirdly, I also have no idea why CoN inspire such teary angst. I mean, seriously? This much mushy angst? Moi? I must be sick. XD
Sanzo woke on the wrong side of his sleeping pod, or rather he woke out of the sleeping pod, upside down, hanging from the railings on the ceiling. This happened from time to time, when the nightmares got the better of him. Somehow, the glands which countered the distress by supplying his brains with endorphins worked best when he was upside down, which, given the regularity of his nightmares, meant that twice a week he would wake up hanging from the ceiling.
This tended to put him in a bad mood, despite the endorphins.
From there the day got steadily worse. The intern got the sniffles, but refused to be tested (bloody hell, was the little twit not aware that the publicly available records for the biology of Miak'rans were incomplete, at best?), an engineer broke his thumb and had the gall to whine about it, and later that evening a squad of omnicidal freaks from the outer moons of Betelgeuse VI invaded the ship and killed the captain.
To top it off, the coffee maker on the bridge had refused to co-operate. Sanzo glared at it with an empty cup in hand.
"This is not a good day," he said into the silence that followed the headshot that took the captain out of his chair.
He wasn't terribly worried. His kind was hard to kill at the best of times, and if nothing else he should get the chance to practice bullet extraction. Such wounds were a rarity, and a fresh corpse was always useful.
"No, really?" Gojyo muttered. He was shoved away from his desk, where a retarded-looking alien was systematically frying all the connections by shooting lasers at them.
It seemed Sanzo was dead right about his prediction for the journey. It's been two weeks and the captain was dead, the communications were fried, and a gang of the dumbest beings to grace the galaxy with speech were threatening to kill them.
"Shut up," the leader of the pack growled. The gravely tone of his voice suggested damage to vocal cords at an early age, which was consistent with available information for the species -- children would often be put through smoke inhalation to prepare them for life in the smog of the cities, which had the side-effect of frying their brain cells. "We are taking over the ship. You will be processed in due course."
Sanzo rolled his eyes, but said nothing. If he got shot he would have to extract the bullet and he was unlikely to get any privacy on the bridge. He amused himself instead with cataloguing the rest of the staff present and therefore the likeliness of himself getting shot. Hakkai would likely survive a shooting -- Vulcans considered wounds illogical and therefore avoided them whenever possible. Gojyo and two of the other four communication officers were human, so getting them shot would only be a nuisance. The pilot and the navigator, as well as the chief of security, were all Youkai, only a little more resilient to bullet wounds than humans.
The ill-fated captain had fallen where he'd been shot, in-between the consoles. No one bothered to move the corpse yet.
"This is a federation vessel," Hakkai was saying. "You are thereby declaring war on the entirety of starfleet."
"Starfleet is far away," the leader said, with what technically was a grin, as it was on a mouth, but where human standards were concerned, it was the stuff nightmares were made of. "Move." All the available guns, that is those that weren't performing programming operations, turned towards them.
The entire force comprised about twenty men-shaped creatures, seven of which were female, one of which was pregnant. They all carried pistols, one laser, one suited to eject traditional projectiles. Sanzo made a mental note to read up on the battle customs of the species. It looked like a riveting read.
The leader turned and gestured to something. There was movement among his ranks and two uneven squads formed; three guards and the rest. "Now, Vulcan," the leader said, when most of his force departed the bridge, presumably to terrorise the rest of the ship. "Bring me the captain."
"You have shot the captain."
"Bring me his head, then," the creature grinned. Well, this did solve the mystery of the ugly necklace he had about his neck. "Do it, or I will start shooting the lot of you."
Hakkai narrowed his eyes, but moved to at least give the appearance of obeying. At least the head would buy them some time, Sanzo thought. The purpose of the exercise eluded him, but then again, he had been skipping xenopology classes habitually.
"He is gone."
"What?" the chief alien roared.
"The body is not here," Hakkai said, looking at Sanzo.
"What did you do?" the alien growled, stepping to Sanzo with the gun levelled at his chest.
"What could I have done, I was standing right here the whole time."
"You will regret this," the alien started saying, but then his arm broke in half and his nose imploded, presumably forcing some of the bone and cartilage into the brain, if there was any common sense to his anatomy.
The other two soldiers opened fire and Sanzo chose to hide under the console. From his spot he got to see a black-yellow blur roll and twist and then land, feet first, on the neck of the first creature. There was a very satisfying crack as they both his the floor and the blur rolled kicking out the legs from underneath the other with enough force to break them.
The blur stilled then, revealing the captain. He was crouched low, ready to attack. One of his hands was on the neck of the fallen alien, where it'd crushed its windpipe. "Is everyone okay?" he asked, standing up and stretching his arms over his head, even as the third alien charged.
As it turned out, he also had a prehensile tail, which he used to scoop up a gun from the floor, grab it, point, shoot the charging alien in the head, then drop it again.
"Sir," Hakkai said.
Across the room Gojyo's expression was a picture. "The fuck?" he mouthed to Sanzo, who shrugged in reply.
"Oh, that's good." The captain bounced to the command chair, flipped a switch, tapped in a code. He looked confused for a brief moment, then he put his fingers to his neck. When he spoke, Sanzo found with surprise, it was in a perfect imitation of the alien leader's voice. "Move to the engineering area," he just said, and killed the line.
"Sir, if I may," Hakkai said.
"Yeah?"
"You have a bullet in your brain."
"Nah, don't think it got that far." He rubbed his forehead and dug out what had to be a bullet. "I'm good," he said and dropped it on the armrest of the chair, where it slowly oozed blood onto the polished metal. "Seal off th' bridge. Disrupt all beaming. Transmit the soundless alert, to as many people as you can. Report, soon as people confirm their safety." He grabbed a mini communicator. "Call up the planet, tell them the reinforcements had been alerted and they have thirty minutes to apologise and stand down, or else.
"I'm just gonna off the motherfuckers here and then we can figure out what to do about the rest."
"Isn't the common procedure to first make plans than kill?" Hakkai asked, quirking a brow.
"Pro'lly, but they killed me and pissed me off. And they are dangerous."
"I see."
The door closed behind the captain and Hakkai folded his hands behind his back. "I have decided I like our captain," he said.
"Dude. The captain is fucking hardcore."
"The captain is not human," Sanzo said, finding a stray latex glove in the first-aid kit and picking up the bullet. The blood was already half-clotted on its surface. It was rusty in colour, and Sanzo wasted no time in shaving some of it onto the sampler of his medpad.
"Like you have room to throw stones."
Sanzo's medpad promptly choked.
"Stupid piece of crap!"
"I thought you said our equipment was excellent?"
"It is, it is also unwieldy. This one's mine." The pad would reboot in fifteen minutes, hopefully functional, and in the meanwhile Sanzo nudged the navigator. "Pull up the captain's personal file."
"Sir, I have no clearance--" she started saying, but a glare silenced her.
"Shut up and don't pretend you can't hack it."
"Hacking is frowned upon in the academy," the pilot said, raising a brow.
"And lying isn't?"
"I am not lying, sir."
Sanzo sighed and turned to the navigator who, thankfully, was less mouthy. "If it makes you feel better," the doctor said, "you can turn around now and not read."
He had been so certain the little brat was human -- his colouring, his features, everything indicated as much. Of course there was no way that was possible, when bullets failed to penetrate his skull, not to mention the tail, but still. Sanzo had been certain that, upon reviewing the file, as a doctor well should, prior to taking responsibility for the many varied species on-board, he had him marked as human.
He had, and now he remembered why.
The file listed no race. It also listed no planet of origin and by the date of birth the captain was presently ten years old. Granted, this would explain so much, Sanzo thought, but not nearly enough.
He was frantically scraping more blood residue onto the medpad, when the captain returned, sprayed with unknown dark substance (blood of the aliens, Sanzo surmised), but perfectly fine. "Everything still fine here?" he asked. "Any news from the planet?"
"The enemy is still dead, sir," Hakkai said. "The planet surrenders unconditionally. They are awaiting your demands."
The captain paused. "Are your enemies often not dead after you kill them?"
"They are always dead after I kill them, sir."
"Okay," the captain said slowly, clearly not following. "Put the leaders on the screen," he told Gojyo.
"He means to say you killed them," Sanzo clarified. The medpad was sputtering, but coughing up facts all the same, no known bloodtype, myriads of clotting agents, proteins, oxidisation…
"Well, of course," he said, cocking his head to the side. The main screen flickered and a face not unlike that of their unfortunate assailant appeared. Sanzo had trouble seeing its expression.
"Please accept out humble apologies," the alien -- it was female, by the voice -- said. "The rebels…"
"Can it," the captain said shortly. "I know they aren't rebels, and if you are in command, they acted on your behalf."
"I must protest…"
"Can it, I said. You have three hours to evacuate all personnel from all the space stations in orbit. After that we will use them to transmit the recording of your attack to the federation and then we will nuke ‘em."
The face on the screen was a picture.
"This message will be transmitted to all stations," the captain continued, shooting a glance at Gojyo, who immediately made himself busy. "You got anything to say, say it after."
The alien had nothing. Sanzo wasn't surprised.
The captain turned. He moved differently; the doctor part of Sanzo's brain assumed this was due to the shift in balance brought on by the tail, swinging with every step. It gave his steps the air of leaps, though they remained controlled and slow for the time being.
The bullet hole on his forehead was an angry red mark by now. Sanzo stared at it.
"Captain," he said in a voice that would bear no refusal. "You have been injured. It is within my competencies to demand that you surrender the con and proceed to medical bay, at once."
"There's no need, really, I'm good."
Sanzo glared and found the captain squirming.
"The aliens need to be sorted out," he stared saying.
"Someone else can do it. You are horrible at management, anyway. Hakkai, take the con, nuke the motherfuckers."
Of course, Hakkai chose that moment to defer to authority. "Captain?"
It was quite the sight, Sanzo thought; a being capable of rendering several fully-armed aliens dead without breaking a sweat, cringing under the glare of a ship medic. "I really am fine," the captain said, turning his wide eyes to Sanzo. He rubbed the mark on his forehead as he spoke, revealing fresh pink skin where it had been. "I don't need help."
"Who said anything about help?"
Sanzo crossed the bridge in three steps, grasped the captain's upper arm and carted him out the door. An unknown, or at least classified, species, all his to study! Oh, the gods conspired against him, he knew it to be true, but for once their meddling gave him Christmas, Hayay'al'tharaq and a birthday, all at the same day.
[saiyuki!trek -- captain's log]
"Captain's log," Sanzo said into the recorder with a long suffering expression on his face. "Stardate 17334.3. We have come across a hostile alien planet. Was forced to kill most of the encountered natives in self defence. Damages to the ship minimal, casualties among crew, one. Fortunately, it was just the captain."
"The hell are you doing?" Gojyo asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Who died and made you captain?"
"The captain, obviously."
"He's in the mess hall, on his third bucket of lasagne, last time I checked, and I checked three minutes ago."
"He did get himself fatally shot five times."
"As I recall it was largely because you shot him."
"He ordered me to."
Gojyo raised a brow, sniggered. "Man, are you whipped."
Sanzo glared at him.
"Shooting him at the time was the sound tactical move. Gave us all the advantage we needed and more."
"Please, like you couldn't have kicked their asses without it."
"It minimised damage on our part and Goku shrugs off bullet wounds like mosquito bites. He has a pain threshold you have no hopes of comprehending and a healing factor rivalled only by tapeworms."
"And you."
"I'm a polymorph, get your terminology straight."
"Whichever, really. This still doesn't explain what are you doing here. Far as I know, if we're maintaining the ‘captain was killed' line, Hakkai is first officer."
Sanzo shrugged and returned to his recording. Three succinct sentences, detailing the actions of the recently deceased captain, and he was done. "Hakkai doesn't have Goku's passwords."
"And you do?" Gojyo blinked and then grinned. "You totally do. Man, that's low, even for you."
As a reply, Sanzo brought up another log. Goku's voice was soft when recorded, unsure -- in fact, one would assume this was a child, especially as the video feed was pale and desaturated but for the colour gold, resulting in Goku's face being dominated by his already enormous eyes. "Captain's log," the recording said, "nuthing much happened, planet TK-421 inhabited by some nice people."
"He sucks at talking," Gojyo said sympathetically as the feed rolled on. "He really, really does."
"Tell me about it."
"It's a good thing he's great at planning battles, once he gets shot already. So nice of you to take over the mundane duties, then."
Sanzo scowled. It wasn't that he wanted to, particularly, but after watching Goku wake up in the middle of a night, dredging himself out of bed to put on a kicked puppy face and report that not much was happening, thank you. Fortunately, he was stupid enough to surrender the codes necessary for the recording of logs.
Not for the first time, Sanzo wondered who died and made him captain.
"So, how did you get the codes? Are we staging a coup?"
"He gave them to me."
"Wow. We have a captain who happily surrenders his top secret codes. I feel safer already."
"Fortunately for your safety, it appears he is rather preoccupied with not getting anyone else killed."
"Good thing he's got you to clean up after his stupidity."
"Don't remind me."
[chronicles of narnia -- doubt that the stars doth move]
"You- you beasts!" Eustace cries and tumbles out of the royal cabin. The accursed ship rocks under his feet, denying him the speed and effect he wished to achieve. It says plenty about his state of mind that he doesn't care, for once.
He stumbles into the so-called cabin he is sharing with those, those savages and slams the door shut. He wishes there was a lock to keep them out, permanently, but of course privacy, like consulate, is yet another concept the Narnians don't believe in.
He hears hurried footsteps on the other side of the door, and then a hushed conversation, one that's rife with yelling done under one's breath. Eustace can't make out the subject of it, but he grins to himself. Good, let them fight, like the miscreants they are.
Edmund -- it must be Edmund, it certainly sounds snooty enough -- says something, a little more calmly then, as though he ever has anything worthy to say, and Caspian falls silent. Eustace hears someone stumble and then the door is shoved open and Caspian positively flies to Eustace and lifts him by the collar.
"Now listen here, you little maggot," he says. He is furious; Eustace, despite his firm belief in pacifism and non-violence, is terrified. He would struggle, but the beast has him by the throat and doesn't allow for movement. He was right when he called Caspian a savage, he doesn't even look human! His nostrils flare, his eyes are narrowed and his voice is low and threatening. "You have ceased to amuse me some time ago, but this is the last straw."
Edmund rushes into the room then, and he at least has the grace to look apologetic, though not nearly enough, as far as Eustace is concerned.
"Lion's mane, Caspian, let him go!"
"To what end? If your world is as bad as you say, then it would only be sensible to drown him now, so he cannot speak later."
Eustace draws a breath and only Edmund's hand upon his mouth stops the scream. "Hush. No one is going to drown you, so help me," Edmund says, but he is staring at Caspian. "I mean it. He is your guest and under my protection. You will have to go through me before you harm him."
Caspian glares, but his hold on Eustace's collar loosens. "As you wish," he says and finally lets go. Eustace would be glad to use the opportunity to run, but Edmund is holding him in place and the brute is much stronger than he.
"Leave us."
Caspian nearly starts spitting fire at that, but in the end he relents. He closes the door behind him and Edmund takes a step back, then, allowing Eustace to crawl into his bunk and wrap the blanket around his head.
"He misunderstood," Edmund says. Eustace hears him sit on the far end of the bunk and he curls in on himself to stay as far away as he can. "He thinks you intend to have me arrested and sentenced to prison, when we get back."
Eustace snorts into the pillow, but contemplates. Of course, he should do as much, it's a crime, after all, to engage in such acts with one of the same sex. It would have been his duty to report it to the police.
"You are, of course, aware that reporting me to the British police would only have you laughed at, as your testimony would make you sound like a raving lunatic, what with the magical journey through a painting and all."
Eustace says nothing and Edmund sighs. "Really, I know it is too much to ask, but can't you be a decent human being for once in your life?" he sounds painfully young and, if Eustace didn't know him for the ignorant fiend he was, on the verge of tears. "It's hard enough as it is, without you being a bother about it."
"It's a crime!" Eustace says, sitting up. "He was- And you!" he really doesn't need, doesn't want, to picture the scene again, but it flows into his mind all the same.
"What do you want me to say?" Edmund counters. "You know what you saw, and unless you learn to knock you will see it again, because we have no time to worry about sneaking about and hiding!"
"What do you mean, you have no time?"
"Haven't you listened? Lucy has told the story of our past visits. We may be returned home as soon as tomorrow, with hardly any warning at all. Right now it's all we have."
"I don't understand," Eustace says and Edmund laughs bitterly. "No, why should that matter? So we go back home, good riddance! The sooner we get there, the sooner we can forget about this whole mess."
"I don't want to forget him," Edmund says, and Eustace finds himself speechless. "Even if I forget Narnia, I will never forget him."
"Why," he starts asking and rather foolishly remembers the silly stories that they were sometimes forced to read in school, of feuds and romance and fairies and there were duels, kings and deaths in one. Some inane story sticks out, of two idiots marrying in secret and then trying to wash out the spots? He tries to match the image to the one in his head, of Edmund stretched on the seat by the window with his head thrown back, and Caspian's dark head, haloed by the orange sunset, against his skin.
It still makes no sense.
"You mean the judicial system of Narnia allows for … that?"
"I have no idea, to tell you the truth. I recall there was nothing to forbid it in my time, but I had no means to study the current laws."
"But," Eustace says, and falls silent. Then, slowly, as though the thought is coming from far away, and when it finally arrives Eustace has to wonder how could it ever cross his mind, it is so far-fetched. "Can you marry here?"
"No. For many more reasons than the obvious."
"Such as?"
Edmund gives Eustace a searching look and smiles, a little shakily. "He is the king, and in a matter of years -- or even months -- he would need to wed a woman. He should be married now, if he wasn't crazy enough to chase after a fool's errand right now." He toys with the edge of the blanket. "I cannot stay here," he says at last. "Like before, we will return to England, the three of us. So no matter what, we will have to walk away."
"Then what's the point?" Eustace asks, a touch peeved, because he is seeing less and less sense in the affair. "Other than scaring decent people to death, I mean."
Edmund bites his lip and starts laughing then, to which Eustace cannot help but respond with a scowl. "I'm sorry. You are right, of course, there is no point."
Eustace almost opens his mouth to ask again, but really, what can Edmund tell him, that he doesn't already know? He is a fool, and a kid, and this sort of stuff is best left out of mind, Eustace feels.
"I'll make sure Caspian is reasonable," Edmund says and gets up. "But try not to mention it again. He's got a nasty temper, doubly so when he's reminded that I- that we will return to our world sooner rather than later."
"He's a savage," Eustace said without real fire. "They all are. Sailing. Who sails in this day and age? Haven't they heard of internal combustion?"
"No, they haven't."
"It's insane."
"A little bit."
Edmund leaves and Eustace burrows in his blanket again. He should be more shocked, he thinks, about his cousin being that way, but since his whole family is made of freaks, at least he has an excuse. He prefers not to dwell on what that says about him, given that they are kin.
He doesn't apologise to Caspian, of course not. He has nothing to be sorry for, if anything, he should be apologised to. He doesn't say a word, though, not when he sees (and he does) Edmund and Caspian sneaking out of the camp, when they are on an island, or manning a one-man job, whatever it is, on the pigeon's nest together.
It's none of his business, what his cousin is getting himself into, really.
[chronicles of narnia -- compact of fire]
In Lucy's memory Edmund very rarely gave in to bursts of anger. His temper simmers, even when fuelled by the biggest fire; even when the rest of them are yelling, Edmund is calm enough to point out the obvious.
She suspects, or, more accurately, she has grown to suspect that this was only possible with another outlet for the emotion that Edmund undoubtedly feels, and this has proved accurate -- more than once she'd observed as he returned from a midnight hunting trip, when they were in Narnia, or a run, when in England. Mother was quite upset with his disappearances, but he would not take any scolding to heart.
So, Lucy is quite shocked to discover him screaming, around midday, in her cabin. She has returned to change her shirt, which was soaked after the man in charge of washing the deck accidentally spilled a bucket of water and she finds Edmund, stretched across her bed, with his head burrowed in the pillow, screaming.
"Edmund," she says, forgetting at once about the shirt, which was no hardship to begin with, as the day was lovely and warm, and the only trouble was that it seemed immodest to wander about in a wet, white shirt. "Edmund, are you all right?"
He is startled, she sees that in the way he freezes where he lies. She crosses the cabin to lay a hand on his shoulder and finds him flinching away from her touch. He is tense and upset and Lucy immediately feels tearful. "What happened, Ed?"
"Nothing," he says, in a hoarse, shaking voice.
"Edmund!"
"Leave me."
"I will do no such thing."
"I mean it. Go and comfort Caspian. He's bound to be mildly perturbed."
Lucy starts piecing together the details, from the shaking syllables that Edmund utterly fails to let out, but the fragments are not yet forming a clear picture. "Have you fought?" she asks, because that's what it seems like, but how can it be? They are so close, seemingly of one mind in most matters, certainly when it comes to sneaking out of people's sight.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"I don't! You are such good friends," she says and rolls her eyes when Edmund lets out a hollow laugh. "Oh, don't do that. I know what you've been up to when no one is around, I am not foolish."
Edmund snorts into the pillow.
"I would thank you not to drool on my pillow too much," Lucy says sternly. "I need it for sleeping."
"Too late."
"That's gross!"
"I've been fucking Caspian for most of the journey," Edmund says, and for the first time he turns to look at her. His eyes are red and she realises he's been crying.
"Not on my pillow I hope," she manages to say, even as she is overwhelmed by a rush of tender feelings and the need to comfort him. He looks so young, so broken, Lucy wishes she could hold him and take the world away.
"That didn't cross my mind until now."
"You are disgusting."
"If only that were so."
"Why did you fight?" Lucy asks, as Edmund slowly rolls to his back and stares at the ceiling. She curls next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"I said it was over."
"Why?"
"Because we are going back and he will marry the star."
"Really? How can you tell? They barely spoke."
"He's a king, she is a guide from the heavens, this is a fairly tale land, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
"Are you afraid he'll forget you?"
Edmund snorts. "This is not what Shakespeare would have you believe," he says and he tries to be flippant, but a hitch that is more of a sob betrays his distress.
"Are you jealous?" Lucy asks and this is a novelty to her, and possibly to him as well.
"No."
"Then, if you don't want him to marry the star, why don't you just ask?"
"Ask him what? Please Caspian, don't marry the woman who looks like the embodiment of all things good and beautiful, and who would be sure to bring hope and light to your subjects with her very presence?"
"Did you try ‘please, Caspian, I love you?'" Lucy says and Edmund shoves her off the bed and pulls the covers over his head. "Well, did you?"
"You are being ridiculous," he says, but his voice is shaking.
"I'm being ridiculous? I'm not the one who's locked up in a bedroom, crying over what, exactly?"
"You wouldn't understand!"
"Understand what?" Lucy crawls over the bed until he is sitting on the sad mound that is Edmund and glares, an effort thoroughly ruined by the fact he cannot see her. "I understand that you have broken your heart quite thoroughly, and that I have yet to hear of Caspian's involvement in the matter."
"He was involved enough."
"What did he say?"
"I'm not sure, I left after he resorted to vulgarities."
"Caspian swears?"
"Like a cockney bricklayer. Maybe better."
"Edmund…" Lucy says, leaning her full weight on Edmund. "Don't you love him?"
"Does it matter?"
"Rather, I would say."
"It's stupid."
"Clearly, you are crying your eyes out here. One too many romance novels, I fancy."
"Oh, bother you," Edmund says, twisting out of her hold and pulling the comforter off his face. He is pale and his face is puffy. "You're a monster and Caspian is an insufferable fiend. You can both go drown yourselves and stop bothering me!"
"Right," Lucy says, and gets off the bed. "I will go and speak to Caspian, and when you wish to stop channelling the spirit of Eustace, you will join us." She leaves Edmund to his sobbing.
*****
Caspian hides well, but the Dawn Treader is a small ship, and it is takes Lucy less than ten minutes to find him, high in the crow's nest. He's glaring at the sea as though it has committed some grave, personal offence against him, and his grip upon the rim of the basket looks like it hurts him.
"I suppose you are as unwilling to talk as Edmund," Lucy says.
"I wouldn't presume to refuse Your Majesty anything, least of all a conversation."
Lucy rolls her eyes. "Really? That's what you're going to do now?"
"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean."
"Well then, let me refresh your memory. My brother and you seem to have started a courtship, let it flourish, consummated it summarily, and I am told it ended. I don't much care for the latter, as you may well imagine, partly because it was adorable to see you two sneaking about, and partly because Ed is now weeping about it."
Caspian looks scandalised, ashamed and a little bit terrified. Lucy fights a grin, because the proud king looks like a child caught with their hand in the jar of cookies.
"At least he's suffering," he says finally and Lucy smacks him, only partially in jest.
"That's my brother you're talking about."
"He brought it on himself."
"Again, my brother."
"That's not much of an argument."
"It's enough of an argument," Lucy says.
"Then, I am glad to have an ally." Caspian's face twists in anger. "If that's where you stand, you might as well leave me here."
"I don't like seeing you unhappy."
Caspian turns to her and smiles as the wind whips his hair about his face. Lucy is mesmerised for a moment, because he is stunningly handsome, really, but he belongs to Edmund, she can see that plain as day.
"Edmund would say that it is good that you are to depart soon," Caspian says. "Then you won't have to watch me be unhappy."
Lucy doesn't think much about what to do next. He steps forward and wraps her arms around Caspian's waist and just holds him. He stiffens at first, unsure of himself and the gesture -- he was an only child, an orphan at that, Lucy remembers, he would know little of the comfort between siblings -- but then he melts into her arms and his breath hitches. His arms envelop her and she feels him whispering.
"Please, Lucy," he is saying and the words come out a garbled mess, "Aslan listens to you the most, please, ask that he let him stay. I need him."
Lucy shakes her head and blinks away the tears. "You know it doesn't work like that," she says. "It cannot."
"It's not fair," Caspian says into her shirt.
"It never is." Lucy hesitates. "Won't you come speak to Ed? At least you should say goodbye." The goodbye is coming, she knows it. She can feel it in her bones, in the smells of the air, in the blinding whiteness in the far horizon.
"Why doesn't he come to talk to me," Caspian is petulant and Lucy very nearly laughs. Boys, honestly.
"He won't," she just says and digs her knuckles into Caspian's back. "He's Edmund."
The king sighs and, though he is still for a few more minutes, Lucy senses the resolve. Soon they are both climbing down the mast and sneaking (mostly to avoid company) into Lucy's cabin, where Edmund is busy counting the dust motes in the golden beam of light above his head. The forlorn look on his face breaks Lucy's heart all over-again.
He looks at them and then away, even as Caspian pushes past Lucy to sit by him on the bed. "I still think you are an egotistical idiot," Edmund tells the ceiling.
"I still think you are a lying bastard," Caspian says.
"I don't lie."
"No? Then what was it you said about being glad we have no hope together?"
Edmund sits up, throwing the covers aside. "Then what would you have me say?" he says. There is fire in his eyes such as Lucy has only seen on the fields of battle, and all of it is directed at Caspian, who miraculously stands it without so much as a flicker of unease. "That I am an utter cretin and I love you so much that it is going to kill me to leave you here alone? That I will be an absolute ass to everyone else from now on, because no one else will ever be you?"
Caspian manages the thinnest smile and kneels on the bed. He takes Edmund's head in his hands and kisses his mouth, staunching the flow of words. "Yes," he says. "I would have you say that. It would have been honest."
"Go fuck yourself," Edmund says with feeling. "I don't want this. I never wanted this."
"And you were doing so well," Caspian laughs and kisses him again, even as Lucy rolls her eyes. Edmund can be so stubborn, it's uncanny.
He sounds a little better now. Still sad, but at least he will have some comfort, she hopes.
She is closing the door behind her when she remembers the pillow and so she rushes back and yanks it from underneath Edmund's shoulder. The movement disrupts their balance and they both look at her, in amusement and surprise. She shoves the pillow into a cupboard and closes its door with a click.
"Try not to make too much of a mess, alright?" she says and leaves.
She doesn't think they notice.
notes: Watching ST:TOS 1.22. mentally recasting it with nu!Trek and Ben Barnes as Khan. Good times. Gooooood times.
I have no idea why DW is giving me trouble. WTF, DW?
Thirdly, I also have no idea why CoN inspire such teary angst. I mean, seriously? This much mushy angst? Moi? I must be sick. XD
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Date: 2011-04-06 12:13 am (UTC)I liked them all!
And oooooooh, Ben Barnes as Khan. Wow. That would bring a whole new meaning to the bit where Kirk screams, "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" XD
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Date: 2011-04-06 12:57 am (UTC)^_____^ Thank you!
I knooooow, right? This was actually inspired by the scene in which Khan, half-dressed, holds a scalpel to Bones' neck and Bones is "either choke me, or cut my throat, make up your mind". Now picture that, with Ben and Karl and try not to drown in your own drool. XD