riptide_asylum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-12-10 09:58 pm
riptide_asylum) wrote2009-12-10 09:58 pm
Entry tags:
"Fear of the Dark" (Other)
Title: Fear of the Dark
Rating: PG
Summary: Off-ship, in the middle of a space station, with a Kpihlr shitworm after you, no one can hear you reliving childhood traumas.
Cody crouched against a bulkhead and looked around wildly. In the dark, every space station looked the same, and Stalag-32 was no exception. Somewhere in the chaos and the laser blasts, he'd gotten separated from Nick, and after the station's main generator kicked off and the darkness descended, Cody decided it was a good time to be afraid.
Afraid for Nick, somewhere in one of the other spokes of this hellish wheel.
Afraid for Murray and Gloria, who had no idea where to find them.
And afraid for himself as the quiet, ungenerous sounds of someone trying to make as little noise as possible, came closer.
When he was a kid, Cody had been afraid of the dark. It was something the Admiral hadn't been able to beat out of him, and despite all Elinda's attempts at folk remedies--warm lat before bedtime, the aroma of lavender piped into his sleeping quarters, tridur in his food at dinner--nothing cured it. As soon as the lights went out and the door closed, Cody would shake in his tiny sleeping pod.
The first ten minutes were for cold sweats and his imagination, the whispering voice that told him to run, to unlatch the pod and flee, headed towards the light. It spoke to him of horrors beyond number: giant fang-toothed Stolian slugs like in his vidreels, a wave of acid rushing through the corridors towards his bed, the giant hand of Et'nnk that judged and squished, and the things Elinda called "spiders".
Cody rested his head against the cool metal bulkhead, letting his eyes fall closed. He hated spiders.
When sleep finally came, it was always fitful and tremulous, as if each breath Cody took was a step along a wobbling high-wire suspended over a dark and ravening abyss. Without the light to guide him to morning, at some point every night the wire would snap and he'd fall. So far, so fast, into the waiting jaws of what was worse than slugs or spiders.
He'd writhe against innumerable terrors, tentacled beasts that held him down and hurt him. And in the dark, no one could hear him scream.
Close by, the noises grew bold, and Cody opened his eyes wide, as if the very action would somehow give him vision in the inky murk. But all around him was pitch black solitude, the very fabric of his nightmares.
The telltale hitch in the trigger of the S'tt'gzzt Ace 5--the very reason Acme had recalled the model--was the thing that saved him. In the dark it was loud as breathing, and Cody dove to the deck, pressing his face hard against the cold metal plates. There was a blinding red flash, and then the bulkhead where his head had been just moments before sizzled.
A guttural, hissing laughter reached his ears, then resolved into a series of high-pitched whines and clicks. Cody didn't need any translation.
He crawled quickly along the deck; the phaser blast had illuminated a suspended walkway leading back along the spoke in the direction of Stalag's main hub. His hands rasped over moon-cold metal, the raised safety welts cutting his palms.
Another phaser blast and Cody couldn't help the squeak of pain that escaped him. He dropped flat to the deck, biting his lip against the burn running across his hip. The smell of seared flesh filled his nostrils and Cody bit back tears. How far back to the hub? How far back to Nick?
Flesh closed over his hands in the darkness and Cody scuttled, whimpering, away, terror driving him. He rolled over the edge of the walkway and into the long, dark drop below.
He screamed blind terror, fingers scrabbling at the edge as he hung over the abyss.
"I got you, baby," Nick whispered. "Cody, don't move."
At the sound of Nick's voice, Cody went limp, even as his eyes grew frantic, searching the darkness above for some sign of his friend. "Nick? Help me, Nick!"
"I gotcha, babe, I gotcha." Nick's voice was low and haggard, but his grip was like stone, and slowly, Cody felt himself pulled back onto safer ground.
With a tortured shriek, the walkway lurched. Cody screamed as the platform dropped several feet before groaning to an uneasy stop. "Nick! Don't let go, Nick! Don't let go!" Cody thrashed his legs, panic consuming him.
"Stay with me, Cody. Stay with me!" Nick yelled back, and his grip tightened.
Cody scrabbled for purchase on the lurching platform, then froze. The guttural, hissing whine sounded again in the darkness, only this time it was much, much closer. "Nick!" Cody worked his fingers helplessly.
He heard a mighty roar (roar), then it felt as if he'd taken flight and he was soaring, up over the platform's edge, straight into Nick, straight into the musky, spicy arms he knew and loved. Sobbing, Cody collapsed at Nick's feet.
The platform screamed and dropped another few feet. Cody slid, yelling, along the length of it, until his foot encountered something soft, and he stopped.
In the darkness, Cody had no way of knowing what or who had pursued him. The smell of carrion assailed his nostrils, and a foul miasma somehow worse. Something liquid dropped to the deck next to his temple and sizzled into the metal. "Nick?" Cody hazarded.
There was a second roar, louder than the first, angrier, then Cody sensed Nick fly through the air and cannon into their pursuer. There was a wet squelch and a thud, and the unmistakeable sound of a pissed-off Caldarian weaponsmaster. The string of intricate, accented curses was music to Cody's ears. He sat up, conscious now of the throbbing at his hip. There was more hissing and an angry throbbing whine, then the unmistakeable sound of Nick head-butting something. The platform swung wildly in the dark, and it was all Cody could do to close his eyes and hang onto the edges as it veered back and forth, tortured metal whining.
Another hiss and a click, then a phaser blast whipped past Cody's ear, ruffling his hair. He refused to open his eyes, and just hung on for dear life, the metal edges cutting into his palms. He heard Nick's warning growl, the one he used when he was absolutely done playing and someone was about to pay dearly. Then a noise like a bubbling wet fart and something large and unmistakeably *sticky* sailed past him in the darkness, headed in a long downward arc into the dabyss below.
Cody waited, face still pressed against the metal.
"Baby?" he heard finally. "Baby, please, please please, tell me you're okay." Nick was nearly sobbing.
Cody pulled his wits about him. "Nick?"
He heard a relieved exhalation from somewhere above him.
"Nick? I think whatever that thing was, it shot me in the ass."
Forever after, the sound that Nick made then would be hotly debated between the two of them; did he actually bang his head against the platform in frustration? Or was it, as Nick hotly averred, merely that he'd lost his grip? Whichever it was, Cody had never heard anything remotely as sweet.
---
"If you ever wander off again, Cody--Cody, listen to me--" Nick knotted his fingers in the chest of Cody's jumpsuit. "--I'll shoot you myself and save everyone the trouble." The two of them were lying together in their small bunk back aboard the Riptide. Murray and Gloria had been ecstatic at their return (or so Cody hoped the hooting intimated), but he and Nick had been too exhausted to do more than raise a hand in greeting and set the auto-pilot for somewhere far the fuck away from Stalag-32. Then, if Cody remembered rightly, he'd fallen off the bridge.
"Nick..."
"No, you listen to me, pal. I did not sign on for this to see you get eaten by a Kpihlr shitworm. Or anything else for that matter. Now the next time you get it into your head to go chasing off after--"
Cody bridled as best as he was able while being fisted and shaken. "Hey! Hey! Nick! It wasn't my idea to stop at the Stalag, was it? Or was it my idea to try to cheat the proprietor out of the going exchange rate? Huh?"
Nick loosened his grip only slightly.
"Or was it my idea to charge headfirst into a knot of off-duty Unity soldiers, phasers drawn and ready for action? Nick, you *saw* the crowd in there, you must have known what we were getting into."
Nick drew a shaky breath. "It was that song."
Cody frowned. "What song?"
"The--" Nick shook his head. "those Unity officers. That song they were singing."
Cody thought hard, and conjured up an image of the cluster of uniformed officers, singing and laughing. "Yeah. So?"
Nick swallowed hard, and Cody could see the naked pain in his eyes. "It's a Caldarian song, Cody. About the, well the promise of future generations. I think that's how you'd translate it. But it's--" He took a deep breath. "--it's one of our most sacred songs, if not the most sacred. And to hear it coming out of the mouths of the very people who'd just--" Nick broke off with a sob and Cody pullled him close, as close as he could. The decimation and enslavement of his friend's homeworld had cut deep, and Cody did the best he could to just be there to give Nic's pain space to breathe.
For a moment, the two of them just held each other, each giving and taking what was needed. Cody pressed his head against Nick's, hard, hoping his message would be received. As always, it was, and Nick pulled back to kiss him lightly, just reassuring them both they were still there.
"Baby," Nick said finally, "if we're gonna go on more missions, we have got to get you some leathers."
Cody harumphed. "Not like those heavy black things you wear. Please. Besides," he nettled, "I don't look good in black."
If Cody had not been so attuned to Nick's moods, he might have missed the pregnant pause that followed. "Aw come on, Nick."
Nick stopped his mouth with a kiss. "Okay, okay," he said finally. "No black leather. Got it. Still, baby..."
Cody shifted next to Nick, trying to find a comfortable way to rest. His hip still throbbed, and the phaser burn, even with the Riptide's stock of med patches, would take a few weeks to heal. "Nick, that little bastard shot me in the ass!"
Nick pulled him down in another long kiss. "Shitworms are like that, baby."
Cody started to object, but Nick tightened his arms, pulling Cody down towards him until his face blurred in Cody's view, until he could let go and just fall into Nick's light and fierce blue eyes.
"Cody," Nick whispered. "I will always find you. No matter how dark it is. No matter how big the worm--no matter what. You got that...Captain?"
Cody was too overwhelmed and too tired to do more than nod, his nose rubbing against Nick's unshaven cheek. The look in Nick's eyes; it was more than a promise, more than love, more than anything Cody could name. He gave up trying.
With a soft, unarticulated noise, Cody stepped off the wire and fell, into the pale blue abyss filled with light.
Rating: PG
Summary: Off-ship, in the middle of a space station, with a Kpihlr shitworm after you, no one can hear you reliving childhood traumas.
Cody crouched against a bulkhead and looked around wildly. In the dark, every space station looked the same, and Stalag-32 was no exception. Somewhere in the chaos and the laser blasts, he'd gotten separated from Nick, and after the station's main generator kicked off and the darkness descended, Cody decided it was a good time to be afraid.
Afraid for Nick, somewhere in one of the other spokes of this hellish wheel.
Afraid for Murray and Gloria, who had no idea where to find them.
And afraid for himself as the quiet, ungenerous sounds of someone trying to make as little noise as possible, came closer.
When he was a kid, Cody had been afraid of the dark. It was something the Admiral hadn't been able to beat out of him, and despite all Elinda's attempts at folk remedies--warm lat before bedtime, the aroma of lavender piped into his sleeping quarters, tridur in his food at dinner--nothing cured it. As soon as the lights went out and the door closed, Cody would shake in his tiny sleeping pod.
The first ten minutes were for cold sweats and his imagination, the whispering voice that told him to run, to unlatch the pod and flee, headed towards the light. It spoke to him of horrors beyond number: giant fang-toothed Stolian slugs like in his vidreels, a wave of acid rushing through the corridors towards his bed, the giant hand of Et'nnk that judged and squished, and the things Elinda called "spiders".
Cody rested his head against the cool metal bulkhead, letting his eyes fall closed. He hated spiders.
When sleep finally came, it was always fitful and tremulous, as if each breath Cody took was a step along a wobbling high-wire suspended over a dark and ravening abyss. Without the light to guide him to morning, at some point every night the wire would snap and he'd fall. So far, so fast, into the waiting jaws of what was worse than slugs or spiders.
He'd writhe against innumerable terrors, tentacled beasts that held him down and hurt him. And in the dark, no one could hear him scream.
Close by, the noises grew bold, and Cody opened his eyes wide, as if the very action would somehow give him vision in the inky murk. But all around him was pitch black solitude, the very fabric of his nightmares.
The telltale hitch in the trigger of the S'tt'gzzt Ace 5--the very reason Acme had recalled the model--was the thing that saved him. In the dark it was loud as breathing, and Cody dove to the deck, pressing his face hard against the cold metal plates. There was a blinding red flash, and then the bulkhead where his head had been just moments before sizzled.
A guttural, hissing laughter reached his ears, then resolved into a series of high-pitched whines and clicks. Cody didn't need any translation.
He crawled quickly along the deck; the phaser blast had illuminated a suspended walkway leading back along the spoke in the direction of Stalag's main hub. His hands rasped over moon-cold metal, the raised safety welts cutting his palms.
Another phaser blast and Cody couldn't help the squeak of pain that escaped him. He dropped flat to the deck, biting his lip against the burn running across his hip. The smell of seared flesh filled his nostrils and Cody bit back tears. How far back to the hub? How far back to Nick?
Flesh closed over his hands in the darkness and Cody scuttled, whimpering, away, terror driving him. He rolled over the edge of the walkway and into the long, dark drop below.
He screamed blind terror, fingers scrabbling at the edge as he hung over the abyss.
"I got you, baby," Nick whispered. "Cody, don't move."
At the sound of Nick's voice, Cody went limp, even as his eyes grew frantic, searching the darkness above for some sign of his friend. "Nick? Help me, Nick!"
"I gotcha, babe, I gotcha." Nick's voice was low and haggard, but his grip was like stone, and slowly, Cody felt himself pulled back onto safer ground.
With a tortured shriek, the walkway lurched. Cody screamed as the platform dropped several feet before groaning to an uneasy stop. "Nick! Don't let go, Nick! Don't let go!" Cody thrashed his legs, panic consuming him.
"Stay with me, Cody. Stay with me!" Nick yelled back, and his grip tightened.
Cody scrabbled for purchase on the lurching platform, then froze. The guttural, hissing whine sounded again in the darkness, only this time it was much, much closer. "Nick!" Cody worked his fingers helplessly.
He heard a mighty roar (roar), then it felt as if he'd taken flight and he was soaring, up over the platform's edge, straight into Nick, straight into the musky, spicy arms he knew and loved. Sobbing, Cody collapsed at Nick's feet.
The platform screamed and dropped another few feet. Cody slid, yelling, along the length of it, until his foot encountered something soft, and he stopped.
In the darkness, Cody had no way of knowing what or who had pursued him. The smell of carrion assailed his nostrils, and a foul miasma somehow worse. Something liquid dropped to the deck next to his temple and sizzled into the metal. "Nick?" Cody hazarded.
There was a second roar, louder than the first, angrier, then Cody sensed Nick fly through the air and cannon into their pursuer. There was a wet squelch and a thud, and the unmistakeable sound of a pissed-off Caldarian weaponsmaster. The string of intricate, accented curses was music to Cody's ears. He sat up, conscious now of the throbbing at his hip. There was more hissing and an angry throbbing whine, then the unmistakeable sound of Nick head-butting something. The platform swung wildly in the dark, and it was all Cody could do to close his eyes and hang onto the edges as it veered back and forth, tortured metal whining.
Another hiss and a click, then a phaser blast whipped past Cody's ear, ruffling his hair. He refused to open his eyes, and just hung on for dear life, the metal edges cutting into his palms. He heard Nick's warning growl, the one he used when he was absolutely done playing and someone was about to pay dearly. Then a noise like a bubbling wet fart and something large and unmistakeably *sticky* sailed past him in the darkness, headed in a long downward arc into the dabyss below.
Cody waited, face still pressed against the metal.
"Baby?" he heard finally. "Baby, please, please please, tell me you're okay." Nick was nearly sobbing.
Cody pulled his wits about him. "Nick?"
He heard a relieved exhalation from somewhere above him.
"Nick? I think whatever that thing was, it shot me in the ass."
Forever after, the sound that Nick made then would be hotly debated between the two of them; did he actually bang his head against the platform in frustration? Or was it, as Nick hotly averred, merely that he'd lost his grip? Whichever it was, Cody had never heard anything remotely as sweet.
---
"If you ever wander off again, Cody--Cody, listen to me--" Nick knotted his fingers in the chest of Cody's jumpsuit. "--I'll shoot you myself and save everyone the trouble." The two of them were lying together in their small bunk back aboard the Riptide. Murray and Gloria had been ecstatic at their return (or so Cody hoped the hooting intimated), but he and Nick had been too exhausted to do more than raise a hand in greeting and set the auto-pilot for somewhere far the fuck away from Stalag-32. Then, if Cody remembered rightly, he'd fallen off the bridge.
"Nick..."
"No, you listen to me, pal. I did not sign on for this to see you get eaten by a Kpihlr shitworm. Or anything else for that matter. Now the next time you get it into your head to go chasing off after--"
Cody bridled as best as he was able while being fisted and shaken. "Hey! Hey! Nick! It wasn't my idea to stop at the Stalag, was it? Or was it my idea to try to cheat the proprietor out of the going exchange rate? Huh?"
Nick loosened his grip only slightly.
"Or was it my idea to charge headfirst into a knot of off-duty Unity soldiers, phasers drawn and ready for action? Nick, you *saw* the crowd in there, you must have known what we were getting into."
Nick drew a shaky breath. "It was that song."
Cody frowned. "What song?"
"The--" Nick shook his head. "those Unity officers. That song they were singing."
Cody thought hard, and conjured up an image of the cluster of uniformed officers, singing and laughing. "Yeah. So?"
Nick swallowed hard, and Cody could see the naked pain in his eyes. "It's a Caldarian song, Cody. About the, well the promise of future generations. I think that's how you'd translate it. But it's--" He took a deep breath. "--it's one of our most sacred songs, if not the most sacred. And to hear it coming out of the mouths of the very people who'd just--" Nick broke off with a sob and Cody pullled him close, as close as he could. The decimation and enslavement of his friend's homeworld had cut deep, and Cody did the best he could to just be there to give Nic's pain space to breathe.
For a moment, the two of them just held each other, each giving and taking what was needed. Cody pressed his head against Nick's, hard, hoping his message would be received. As always, it was, and Nick pulled back to kiss him lightly, just reassuring them both they were still there.
"Baby," Nick said finally, "if we're gonna go on more missions, we have got to get you some leathers."
Cody harumphed. "Not like those heavy black things you wear. Please. Besides," he nettled, "I don't look good in black."
If Cody had not been so attuned to Nick's moods, he might have missed the pregnant pause that followed. "Aw come on, Nick."
Nick stopped his mouth with a kiss. "Okay, okay," he said finally. "No black leather. Got it. Still, baby..."
Cody shifted next to Nick, trying to find a comfortable way to rest. His hip still throbbed, and the phaser burn, even with the Riptide's stock of med patches, would take a few weeks to heal. "Nick, that little bastard shot me in the ass!"
Nick pulled him down in another long kiss. "Shitworms are like that, baby."
Cody started to object, but Nick tightened his arms, pulling Cody down towards him until his face blurred in Cody's view, until he could let go and just fall into Nick's light and fierce blue eyes.
"Cody," Nick whispered. "I will always find you. No matter how dark it is. No matter how big the worm--no matter what. You got that...Captain?"
Cody was too overwhelmed and too tired to do more than nod, his nose rubbing against Nick's unshaven cheek. The look in Nick's eyes; it was more than a promise, more than love, more than anything Cody could name. He gave up trying.
With a soft, unarticulated noise, Cody stepped off the wire and fell, into the pale blue abyss filled with light.