Star Trek/Pacific Rim AU: Marshall Christopher Pike recruits James Kirk for the last mission to save the world. He teams up with Leonard McCoy, with whom he’s Drift compatible, and falls in love along the way.
“Bones. He’s my copilot.”
People who don’t know them don’t understand how it is they work. How it is that he managed to drift with a doctor rather than the man they all thought he was perfect for.
Jim thinks it’s obvious. He’s a rule breaker. He reads the situation as it happens and he adapts to it. Spock, on the other hand, follows the rules. His skills are beyond compare, but he fights according to the manuals and his plays come right out Pike’s frontal lobe. Jim doesn’t think that way. Besides, it’s pretty fucking obvious that Spock will only ever drift with Uhura.
Leonard McCoy on the other hand. He’s temperamental, adaptable, and a rule breaker in his own right. That was how they ended up on the same chopper out to California. Maybe Jim had unconsciously decided during that flight that McCoy was going to be his co-pilot, but it doesn’t matter when he made his mind up, only that he knew he wasn’t going to drift with anyone else.
Because when you drift, you have to accept the other person without question; who they are, every perfection, every flaw, every shitty thing that has ever happened to them.
It was only going to be the man he now calls Bones. Because, besides Pike, Bones was the only person who accepted Jim from the start. He’s never had to prove himself. Bones calls him on his shit, but follows his lead when the time’s right, and he has enough of his own demons to not mention Jim’s.
Jim’s never been so close to anybody before. Yet it’s not enough, and despite his previous aversion to relationships, somehow he wants to be closer still. It’s a thought he’s desperate to keep from his co-pilot, from Bones, he’s just not sure how long he can manage that for, not when each drift takes them deeper into each other’s heads.
Tag: crossover
<I know that you are young. I know that you have no power with which to resist the Yeerks. But you have the potential. If you make a wish, I can give you powers that no other human has.>
“Powers?”
<Make a contract with me, and you will become Magi.>
The tumblrmorphs are all enablers. BIG GIANT CROSSOVER ENABLERS.
I am aware that Elfangor is described as having a burn covering his entire side when the not-yet-Animorphs come across him, but this looked better to me.
Text is only slightly modified from the actual conversation in The Invasion.
BBT/Avengers snippet 2
This is his “second chance” at life; never mind all the other “second chances” that he’s had before. Never mind all the hospital trips and near death experiences and life changing events that had defined the majority of his career with S.H.I.E.L.D. This time it really was a second chance, because this time he really had died. His heart had stopped for nearly five minutes while the medical team fought to drag him back, and it had only been luck that he had survived. Luck in where the fatal wound actually struck. He doubted that he would ever know if the blow had been on purpose or if Asgardian physiology was just different enough, but the blade had glanced off of his heart instead of bisecting it.
Absurdly, he briefly considers calling it a new lease on life, a chance to change things and become a better person, but seeing as he is still an employee of S.H.I.E.L.D. that doesn’t quite seem to fit the bill. With all the electronic documents listing him as deceased, it is only on paper that his survival has been recorded and apparently that is the way it is going to be for the foreseeable future. A future that, according to the Director, will be best accomplished in the company of his family. More specifically with the one member that is even remotely prepared to deal with an injured secret agent: his youngest sister.
Phil had expected to find things along the same lines as the last time he had seen Penny, back before Stark and Ironman and superheroes. He was prepared to deal with vapid starlets approaching him for whatever illegally concoction Penny had come up with this time, and for men so stupid that they made farm equipment look like Stark when it came to thinking. He knows that he’s been less than charitable in these assumptions, but those were the sort of people that Penny had surrounded herself with since her teenage years and he really hadn’t expected any change.
He certainly hadn’t been expecting his sister to be friends with scientists, let alone dating one. He could see her sleeping with one, yes. Especially one that had the sort of charm and charisma that Stark so happily flaunted, but Leonard could barely string two sentences together around him, let alone seduce someone like his sister. It boggled the mind that so much could have changed in the few short years (five is not a few, a traitorous part of his mind whispers to him, but he ignores it with the ease of long practise) but change it apparently had.
He’s seen Leonard come and go a handful of times since that first awkward meeting, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if Penny had run off with her boyfriend instead of sticking around to help take care of her older brother. He’d been prepared for it, prepared to be left to take care of himself because he still sees the little sister so determined to make something of herself by herself, that when she told Leonard that she didn’t want to leave her “recovering addict” of a brother alone for too long it had honestly taken him by surprise.
Although it was nice to be reminded that at least one of his sisters still cared about the wayward son, it was much nicer when he finally managed to convince her to out on a date. It gives him the necessary time to check in with Fury and settle his nerves in regards to Barton and Romanova’s current statuses. He is less impressed with the Director’s decision to keep his agents in the dark about his survival, but he has to admit that he isn’t anywhere near recovered enough to deal with the sorts of things that come with being the handler to two master assassins. It still rankles, and the thinly veiled argument lasts for almost an hour before Fury finally signs off. Phil grits his teeth against the annoyance and pops a handful of pills with the intention of getting a good sleep.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK! “Penny.”
With a groan that is part exasperation and part pain, Phil twists just enough to be able to stare at the door and attempt to telepathically convey the need to go away at whomever is on the other side.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK! “Penny.”
It doesn’t work. The injured agent grunts as he rolls off of the couch, and manages to very slowly push himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness washes over him and he winds up clutching at the arm of the couch to keep his balance and attempt to keep his lunch down.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK! “Penny.”
It feels like it takes an eternity to cross the few feet between the couch and door, although it’s barely enough time for the nap interrupter to finish a sixth round of knocking and calling for his sister. It takes all of Phil’s energy to yank the door open and glare out at whomever it is who wants to face the Coulson brand of irritation.
“You aren’t Penny.”
The petulant confusion in the man’s voice is enough to jump start Phil’s medication-addled brain, and he finds himself wondering at the odds. Doctor Sheldon Cooper, a man that S.H.I.E.L.D. had briefly considered recruiting before his particular neuroses and less than comforting history with the US Government had held them off, was standing on the other side of the door looking for his sister.
“Why aren’t you Penny? Where is she?”
His tongue felt thick in his mouth, but he managed to form words around it. “Because I was born first. And she’s out with… Leonard, I think his name was.”
“Leonard? But— but she’s supposed to be here so she can take me to the comic book store because he’s working!”
(And that was how Phil Coulson met Penny’s craziest neighbour Sheldon Cooper)
BBT/Avengers snippet
Ducking into Penny’s apartment that evening, Leonard rationalizes to himself, was necessary to his own continued survival. With another rendition of the Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler Show going on in his living room, it was just good sense to be anywhere but there, and Penny’s apartment has always been a good escape from his roommate. Well, maybe not always, but most times. Sheldon could be pretty tenacious in his wants after all.
He’s not entirely sure what it was that he was expecting when she shouted for him to come in instead of answering the door— maybe some pretty lingerie just for him?— but it is certainly not what he got.
There is a half naked man sitting on her couch with his back to the door.
More importantly, to Leonard at least, Penny is sitting directly behind him and doing something to his back. The spark of jealousy that sears through him doesn’t fade even when she turns around to wave him in. “Were you planning on standing in the doorway all night? Come in, Leonard!”
The stranger makes an attempt to turn at look at him, but that’s about as far as he gets before Penny slaps him upside the head. “Don’t move or I’ll pull something.”
“You should have been a nurse,” the stranger grumbles in a pain roughened voice; and now that Leonard has stepped around the couch he can see the reason why. Penny is very carefully cleaning a line of stitches that hold together the rough edges of what looks like a stab wound that hasn’t even begun to heal, and the scientist finally takes in more of the man than just the fact that he’s half naked.
He is the very picture of exhaustion. His blood shot eyes are sunken into a sallow face, and a three day beard grows in patches along his chin, though he appears to have at least made the effort to shave his neck if the nicks and cuts along it are anything to go by. His jeans are ratty and a size too large, sliding down his hips even while sitting; he almost looks like he’s not used to wearing them. His Captain America boxers peek out over his belt, and Leonard finds that just a dash more creepy than it used to be because Captain America is real.
Actually, this guy seems to have a real Captain America fetish going on. Leonard is 100% certain that Penny doesn’t own the Captain America dufflebag at the end of the couch, or the replica 1940s bomber jacket with “Rogers” on the sleeve. It’s at about this point that Leonard realizes that he’s been staring for a bit longer than is strictly polite and starts stuttering out a long winded apology.
Penny leans over and smiles as she lays her hand over his mouth. “Relax Leonard. This is my brother Philip. Phil, this is Leonard.”
“Wait, the drug dealer brother?”
Phil looks far more amused by that than a man with a knife wound through his back— and Holy Batman does it come right out the front? How is this man alive?!— has any right to be. “I didn’t deal drugs. I made chemical compounds.”
“You made crystal meth,” Penny rolls her eyes. “Stop trying to make it sound impressive.”
(And that was how Leonard Hofstadter met Penny’s older brother Phil Coulson.)
I have… struggled with this one. Mostly because I keep changing things in the drabbles for Paved and Perdition which retroactively change this and the three or four drabbles that follow immediately after it.
prompt: TEMPTATION
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline: Waiting for the End
characters: Gabriel, Laufey-Serenity
words: 1629
summary: (A conversation long over due)
———————————-
A little more than a century after the death of Christ, and Gabriel the Messenger is still on Earth. He has remained to watch over his Father’s fledgling religion, or so he tells Michael on the rare occasion that his brother thinks to question it.
That, more than anything that has happened since Lucifer’s fall, is what hurts the most. Centuries ago, Michael would have been the constant watcher over his shoulder. He would have wanted to know everything that Gabriel was involved with, every message and all the possible trouble he could be getting into. He would be there to offer aid and even comfort. Once… well, once their brother would have been right there with Michael, scoffing and poking and prodding. He would teach Gabriel tricks here and there while Michael was distracted.
Those times are long gone. Michael has gotten so wrapped up in training Raphael on how to be a ‘proper’ Archangel, that he has forgotten that Gabriel was already one. Michael has allowed himself to dwell on their brother’s Fall, and on the destruction of their family. He has turned a blind eye to the damage he has done to the Host while he sits and stews on whatever hateful things Lucifer whispers through the cracks in the Cage. He has allowed those spiteful words to strike all too deeply, and now he can barely see beyond the final battle. No matter how far in the future that may be.
That’s not something that Gabriel really wants to think about. He doesn’t want to consider how many of his younger brothers will die for their pissing contest, either. So he hides; he hides on Earth and guides the new church along the path that Father has set for it.
He’s gotten pretty good at hiding, though any angel with a drop of sense to their name can still find him. All they have to do is reach out for the curious squish-crunch of Grace forced into a form too small for it. Thankfully, most of the non-human entities that populate Earth aren’t quite to versed in feeling out an angel’s Grace; to them, he is Nal. He, or rather she, is one of them. She’s just another pagan looking to make something of herself.
It’s not a hard sell to make when sharing the body with a pagan woman. Laufey has stirred and brushed against his grace every few years since that first year, giving him glimpses of memory and knowledge of how to use her powers. It has helped him to weave the story that has bound them to the Nordic pagans, and has become such a familiar touch that he rarely notices it these days.
He thinks nothing of it when he feels her stir this time. Nothing, that is, until a soundless voice rips through his Grace alongside a memory. The pain that lances through their abdomen is so unexpected that for a second he loses control of the vessel and it crumples to the ground.
“Nal!” it is the impetuous pagan that he has been whispering his father’s secrets to that catches him, hands curling protectively into her tunic. Gabriel can see greatness and power in the future of this nordic pagan, but without using powers far beyond what he has borrow from Laufey, he can’t say just how it comes to be. At the moment he is young and worried, hands shifting nervously to press against her abdomen and then her forehead.
Gabriel laughs slightly, and it is a weak, breathy sound as she pushes him away. “Settle down. I’m alright, it was just an unexpected kick.” The pagan’s brow furrows in confusion, but Laufey’s lips curve into a gentle smile that it had taken Gabriel thirty years to figure out. “Do not worry so, Borson. Nothing is wrong.”
“You are… certain?”
“Of course I am. Odin, if I didn’t know my own body, who else would?” Well, Gabriel supposes that Laufey would kwow the body better than he, and by the tug and pull of his grace it’s obvious that she is up and wants… something. To talk, most likely. It’s not really a conversation that he is looking forwards to, but it is one that needs to happen.
So she claps a hand on Odin’s shoulder, presses a kiss to his forehead, and whispers a blessing in Enochian into his hair. Odin makes a face at the kiss, and Gabriel finds himself laughing again. She braces himself against his shoulder as she lurches back to her feet. “I do believe, however, that it’s a sign that I need to head home. We will continue our discussion another time.”
“Yes, of course.” He’s still young enough that when a mother-figure uses that tone, he does not disagree with her, and it is a tone that Gabriel has forced himself to learn. She flashes another smile at him and flickers away, only going far enough to cover the sound of her wings. A moment later, and she is settling into the Garden; she needs time to commune with her Vessel, and this is the only place that she can think of where she won’t be bothered by angels or pagans or Christians.
He takes an unneeded breath and then pulls up one of Laufey’s oldest memories for them to speak in. It is an ancient palace sitting room, all beautiful Grecian columns and white marble. Gabriel has never seen the long destroyed Palace of the Serenities, but it is obvious that this is where they are. The Earth is a cool blue orb that hangs in the sky over their heads.
“Gabriel.”
He turns to face her, wearing Farbauti’s face once more. Aside from her own, it is the only face of his that she would recognize. “Laufey.”
“Pandeia Serenity,” she corrects softly, looking up at the Earth instead of at him. “You have been Laufey for far long than I ever was.”
He shrugs awkwardly and steps up beside her. Her gaze shifts from the Earth to him for a moment, and her face is strangely blank.
“How long has it been?”
“One hundred and eighty-five years. Give or take.” Even as he is answering her, he realizes that he has never told her his true name, and he turns to ask how she knew. The slap takes him completely by surprise.
“Two centuries, Gabriel? You took my life from me!”
Maybe it’s the heartache caused by Michael and Lucifer. Maybe it’s the pit in his stomach from watching Michael replace their brother with Raphael. Maybe it’s the century of hiding with the humans, or the decades of playing with the pagans. Maybe it’s just a part of Gabriel that was never allowed to flourish in his Father’s House. Whatever the reason, Gabriel grins wickedly as he laughs. “Oh Princess, the deal was that I healed your body and then I got to use it. There was no time limit on it.”
She makes a frustrated little squeak before she visibly collapses in on herself. “I want my life back, angel.”
Gabriel looks away with a frown, his moment of vindictive joviality vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Don’t we all.” All he wants is for Michael to open his eyes and see what he’s making Raphael and Anael and Uriel and all of their younger brothers into. He wants Lucifer to ask for forgiveness and come home. He wants to be able to walk through Heaven without thinking of ages long gone.
“I still need a Vessel, Serenity. My job is not yet finished.”
“Why can’t you find someone else? Why does it have to be me?” her voice is plaintive with a note of desperation.
“Because you are the last of your line. No siblings, remember? You have no nieces or nephews that I could move on to.”
“My aunts—”
“Only have half the bloodlines necessary to host an angel of my power, Serenity.”
She is quiet for a long time, and Gabriel has to admit to himself that he would miss being Nal. Her skin has grown comfortable over the decades, and the pagan magics that are available to him through her body are unlike the powers that his Father had given him. A shift to a new Vessel would mean giving all that up.
And he knows that he doesn’t have any right to that power, and that he should give it all up, but at this point he is not sure if he can. He has become addicted to her magic, something that should be impossible for an angel and yet… here he is.
“…I can still bare children.”
It takes a moment for Serenity’s words to filter through, and then the Archangel’s jaw drops. “What?”
Serenity looks rather displeased with her own line of thought, but she continues before Gabriel can get her shock under control. “I am still capable of baring children and continuing the line.”
“You would give up your own child to escape being my Vessel?” Gabriel’s face twists unpleasantly. “If I had had any doubt that you were a pagan—”
“Look,” she interrupts and her voice sounds strained even to her, “Endymion has not been reborn yet. A child of any other union would not be recognized by Mother. It’s… it’s not breaking my vows if they child is produced for a reason outside of continuing the royal line.”
“Except that it goes against that whole free will thing Father gave humanity.”
“The child won’t be human. Not enough to matter in any case. Gabriel. Please.”
“…I need to think about this, Serenity.”
As he slips out of their shared mental landscape, Gabriel is careful not to pay attention to the way his wings quiver. When he opens Laufey’s eyes, he ignores the way her stomach clenches. As he returns to Earth, he pretends her mouth isn’t dry.
This is a temptation he is not sure he can withstand.
well, I’ve spent two hours working on arts (20 minutes on Sai-Zo, 100 minutes on Jibriel, WIPs to come sometime tomorrow…) I think it’s time to get some Wrapped Up out there.
prompt: BREAKFAST
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline: Waiting For The End
characters: Usagi, Gabriel
words: 687
summary: (sweets and theology)
———————————————
Usagi loves her sweets and treats as much as the next girl, but this is more than a little ridiculous. Actually, it falls under “Absolutely 100%, Grade-A, Capslock Is Most Certainly Necessary, What The Eff Is Wrong With You” ridiculous. Seriously, it’s been two and a half hours and Gabriel is on his twenty-seventh bowl of ice cream. Bubblegum flavoured, this time.
But twenty-seven! Ugh, it just isn’t fair that he doesn’t get brainfreeze!
And he knows it; he’s grinning an ear-to-ear smile and acting as though every single damn bit is a freaking orgasm. Un. Fair.
Her frustration must finally get through that thick skull of his, because when he finishes bowl number twenty-eight he puts down his spoon instead of conjuring more. “Ah, now that is a good breakfast.”
She fumbles for a moment, stumbling over just what it is she’s going to call him before deciding to just not call him anything. “A two hour ice cream binge is not breakfast and oh my god I did not just say that.”
“I’m pretty sure you did, Moonface.” His smirk is tinted in maliciousness, but she doesn’t let that bother her. It’s just kind of his default smirk, and besides. They haven’t seen each other for a few reincarnations, she’ll give him some time to get used to her again. “So what did my favorite human call me out for?”
Usagi has been trying to figure this one out on her own for a month now. It has been a month of restless nights and research. A month of tantrums and fits, a month of brushing off her friends and family and worrying all of them. She’s at her wit’s end, which means the only thing she can do is to go directly to the source.
“Laufey’s memories…” she hesitates to ask, but she really wants to know. She winds up looking down at her hands and fiddling with her ring. “…they don’t feel like they’re my memories. Not the way that Serenity’s do.”
Gabriel’s smile is surprisingly gentle for all that it is still a teasing grin. “You expected them to? Babe, Pandeia’s memories are bound up in your divinity. You’ll never escape them in any life where they wake up, and Usagi’s memories are from this life. I’d be worried if you didn’t feel a connection to those ones. Now Laufey… Laufey’s just a shade of a life a thousand reincarnations gone. Heck, maybe even two thousand. It’s no surprise that you can’t connect to them.”
“But you can still use my body.”
Gabriel’s amusement flickers for a moment, a troubled look entering his eyes before he masks it again. “Apparently.”
“Why? And how?” I might not connect to her memories very well, but I can definitely remember the state that you left her in.” It had featured rather prominently in her nightmares of late; from the blazing heat of sharing a physical form with an archangel, to the impenetrable darkness that Laufey had been unable to dig herself out of afterwards. She had died that way, locked within her own head and unable to interact with the world.
It is a terrible way to die, whether in the here and now, or in the sixth century.
“Why… I don’t know, Usagi.” He is being surprisingly candid with her, though that is likely due only to their long standing connection. “We… the other angels, I mean… we’ve always just assumed that the bloodline is the part that matters the most when it comes to a vessel. Of course, most souls don’t reincarnate back into humans every time they die. The nearest I’ve been able to figure is that your soul remembers my grace.”
Usagi frowns at him, opening her mouth to ask another question. Of course, that would be about the time that her grumbling stomach decides to interrupt. With her face flushing red, Gabriel smirks and snaps his fingers.
The table is cleared of the debris of his frozen treat breakfast, though it’s certainly not empty. Oh no, now there are cakes of all different shapes, sizes, and flavours scattered across it.
“Let’s finished breakfast before we get into the heavy-duty stuff, babe.”
Last one of the sequence I wanted to post tonight. Between this one and the last one, you finally get that explanation for the whole Usagi = Jessica thing.
prompt: CHEAT
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline: Paved With Good Intentions
characters: Usagi (Jessica)
words: 187
summary: (Americanizing a Princess)
———————————————
Halloween comes and goes before Usagi decides that she is going to Americanize her name. There are still so many people who can’t seem to pronounce her birth name correctly and she’s getting sick and tired of it. Logically, she decides to go with “Bunny”.
Illogically, it seems that everyone else has decided to start calling her “Jessica” instead, even her professors.
Her suspect list begins and ends with Gabriel; every attempt to correct someone on her name results in her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. She’s not all that impressed with him, though she privately admits that she’s impressed with the sheer scope of it. Everyone calls her Jessica now, even the staff at an off-campus restaurant she frequents.
It takes a few weeks to get used to being called Jess, of course, but by the time that thanksgiving rolls around it’s just another odd facet of her life. For all intents and purposes, she is and has always been Jessica Tsukino, to everyone but Brady.
It comes as a relief to not be Usagi anymore.
(She’s still going to hurt Gabriel then next time she sees him)
And the second one for tonight. There’s actually one between the one I posted earlier and this one, but it’s not all that essential and I’m tweaking it to make it more worthy of actually being part of this universe.
prompt: TOO MUCH
series: Wrapped Up In You
timeline: Paved With Good Intentions
characters: Usagi, Brady, Gabriel
words: 541
summary: (Stepping towards Jessica)
———————————————
“I don’t like it.”
She looks wrong. She has made a lot of changes over the last few months, but she hasn’t really taken the time to look at herself to catalog them. In all honesty, she had been afraid to; afraid that she would be able to see the sadness and loneliness and heartbreak. That she would never be able to move on past the part of her soul that had been Mamoru and Chibi-Usa and everything that should have been.
That was before she found out that she had jumped to conclusions. After that, she couldn’t look at herself because she knew that the guilt eating away at her insides would show on her face. She had felt so bad about starting to get on with her life over something so stupid, and then worse when she realized she couldn’t go back to the way she had been.
She tugs on a strand of hair and scowls at her reflection. The hair that frames her face is now cherry red, and she has taken her colored contacts out. The only glimpse of the girl she’d seen in the mirror for a decade is in the shape of her face; there is nothing there that looks of Serenity.
Like this, she resembles Beryl more than her past self, and it is more than a little unnerving. It makes her skin crawl. So she can’t be blamed for the shriek when another face appears in the mirror over her shoulder.
The Trickster laughs uproariously as he dodges out from under her flailing arms. “Oh I dunno babe. I think you’d make a smoking hot Jessica Rabbit like this.
Before she has a chance to ask just what the hell he thinks he’s doing in her dorm room, Brady’s voice comes from the doorway. “Sorry Rabbit, this guy just kinda charged past me into th— holy hell what happened to your hair?”
“It’s temporary,” she insists, turning back to her mirror to try and find at least something to enjoy from the change. She can’t. “I don’t like it.”
“Oh c’mon, cousin! Live a little!” her unwanted guest actually has the balls to grin at her, and so she ignores him out of sheer spite.
“You guys are cousins?” Brady doesn’t recall Usagi mentioning any American relatives at any point. This strikes him as odd, considering he’d gotten quite the earful about a spontaneously appearing cousin a few years back, and the fanatical search into all her relatives that had followed.
“Distantly,” his smile is wide and innocent. “By marriage. Name’s Ray. You are…?”
“Tyson Brady.” And just like that, Gabriel has slipped himself back into her life. The Princess scowls at him, but he ignores it with the ease of long practice.
“I was being serious about that Jessica Rabbit thing, Usa.”
Given the way that Brady is tilting her head, she knows that he’s going to agree even before he says the words. “You know, Ray’s right. You gotta stay red until at least Halloween. It even fits with your name.”
Usagi stares blankly at the pair for a long moment, before she covers her face with one hand. “I don’t even know who Jessica Rabbit is.”
The almost vicious smile on Gabriel’s face says quite plainly that that doesn’t actually matter.