Fic: Puzzle, part 1 (of 2). PG-13.
Jan. 10th, 2007 12:51 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
roadstergal.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
reddwarfslashThis is a bit hard to categorize, but I believe it fits best (of all options) in this community. It's a crossover between Red Dwarf and War of the Worlds (the TV show). The character Derek Custer is only mentioned as a gag in Rimmerworld, but I played with the idea of him in Beryl and Stroke Me A Zipper, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kahvi used him (ahem) in A Smooth Ride. Thanks to kahvi for her beta (klem).
For those unfamiliar with WotW, Blackwood and Ironhorse are two members of The Blackwood Project, a four-person team trying to deal with an alien race that lost its technology in the war of '53 and can take over human bodies.
A dimension-hopping space-bike built off of the chassis of a Ducati 999R is a magnificent and near-orgasmic piece of machinery. The engine hums between the rider's legs with a thrilling vibration, the cylinders spooling up with a meaty rumble to send the bike flying with the gentlest touch on the throttle. It leans at the lightest countersteer, turning as soon as the direction change is merely thought. Every bolt and fastener cries out to go, go, go - go at speeds that break the laws of physics as much as the laws of the local constabulatory.
Puttering around dark alleys at walking speeds is an utter pisser on that bike.
Derek looked from side to side. Seattle has no night life, he thought. Rats scurried around, a few homeless people camped out, and one or the other person might hurry on about some personal business quickly, but otherwise, the place was dead. It was all very irritating, Derek decided. He was used to having the near-prescient bit of AI that was built into his bike giving him an idea of where there was trouble - kidnappings, wars, oppressed minorities, beer shortages. He was used to going to those places and doing something about it. But he had come here on the basis of a virtual shoulder-shrug from the computer and a vague premonition on his own part, and nothing was happening. He didn't like it. He liked to follow his gut, yes, but his gut seemed to be doing strange things around here.
The area became more industrial and ill-lit as he meandered onwards, no particular destination in mind. The closed-up storefronts gave way to warehouses, many of them rusty and dilapidated. They all looked firmly locked, however - except for that one, right there, with a For Lease sign hanging off of one ruddily-streaked wall by a single fastening. The door was likewise not functioning with a full set of hinges - not that entry would have been prevented if it had been, thanks to a gaping hole or two in the side of the building.
For no particular reason he could put a finger on, Derek parked his bike and shut it off. He slipped off his helmet and jacket, tossed them over the bike, and wandered in through one of those holes. The interior of the warehouse looked even worse than the exterior. The roof was thinking about calling it quits and settling down on the ground for a while, and was only still standing thanks to the structural support of cobwebs. Stacks of empty boxes were piled around on the filthy, gritty, seagull-excrement-streaked floor. The rats had made this a social gathering place, and were having what appeared to be a bachelor party.
The sudden noise of gunshots outside was startlingly loud. Derek evicted a pair of rats who were having an intimate moment behind one of the stacks of rotting boxes, and positioned himself to observe.
A slender, dark-haired man came pounding into the warehouse. He came to a halt, looked around, and picked up a rusty metal bar from the ground, turning back towards the hole in the wall that he had come in through. Another man ran in through that same ragged hole in the wall; he was taller, more broad-shouldered, and significantly more out-of-breath than the first man.
The newcomer had a length of motorcycle chain in his fist, and he swung it at Dark-hair. Dark-hair, displaying an agility that Derek found impressive, caught the chain on his bar and yanked. The attacker let go of the chain and stumbled, offbalanced; Dark-hair swung the bar to hit him in the small of the back, then very hard in the side of the head.
Derek watched the man fall with interest. His blood was green, not red, and Derek started to flip mentally through the people he knew of who had green blood. Vulcans were rather nice overall, if horribly frustrating. Romulans and slug-GELFs could go either way. But as the man dissolved into a pile of steaming goo, Derek sighed. Mor-Taxians - he'd recognize them anywhere. They were a selfish, malevolent race. It did not help that they had banned alcohol from their society for religious reasons, and had absolutely hideous taste in home decor. The High Advocacy's Temple had green shag carpeting on the walls, for smeg's sake!
Two more men ran in. Dark-hair tried to position himself to keep both of them from attacking him at once, but one of the newcomers got in a position to take a swing at him as he dispatched the other. The second newcomer's arm sent Dark-hair flying; he crashed into a stack of boxes.
As far as Derek was concerned, that tore it. He pulled his Colt .45 out of its shoulder holster and shot the second newcomer. The man melted, shrieking, into the pile of creamy glop that always reminded Derek of lutefisk. He had developed a theory, actually, after a few too many lagers, that a prior Mor-Tax invasion had led to the creation on Earth of lutefisk, bagpipes, and fishnet hose. He wished he could remember the theory that tied them all together, as it had been rather brilliant, if he did say so himself.
Derek walked over to the slender man who was lying in a pile of broken crates. He seemed to be a fairly normal human with fairly normal blood clumping his black hair. Derek had seen more angular faces, but they had all been on mechanoids. The man looked, all in all, very little like a Rimmer, which made Derek feel a frustrating variant of confusion. Why was he here? He consoled himself by noting that the man was wearing an institutionally macho uniform in an unflattering olive-drab color that would have appealed to Derek's own, long-gone Rimmer. But it was a very lame consolation.
Dark-hair was heavier than he looked, and Derek had to do some work to pull that man who was not a Rimmer out of the warehouse, settling him next to the bike. Derek lifted up his bike's seat and pulled out a psi-scan. He waved it over the man. It blinked for a moment, pondering, then flashed "Mild concussion" up on its screen, smugly. Derek wished that he could get his hand on just one of the smegging things that would do something other than read the obvious.
Derek dropped the psi-scan back into the small dimensional anomaly under the bike's seat that let him actually keep things in it. He fished around in the anomaly and pulled out a medi-kit. From that, he removed an antiseptic pad and a mild general anesthetic. Seagull guano and cobwebs would do the man's head little good.
As Derek was swabbing at the one sizable gash in the slender man's head, Dark-hair came to with a groan and grabbed Derek's hand. "Blackwood?"
Well, perhaps he hadn't come to. More like come at or come with. His eyes were very bleary. "Blackwood?" Derek asked. The kiss that Derek received before the last syllable was fully out of his mouth was unstudied and fairly awkward. It was quite sincere, however, and he enjoyed it for a moment before sticking the hypo of anesthetic into the man's rear.
It turned out to be a three-cigarette anesthetic. Derek had just pulled out his lighter to start up the fourth when a hand grabbed his wrist. "Who are you?" growled Dark-hair, coming to his feet a little unsteadily. He was almost exactly Derek's height.
"A friend," Derek said, injecting a little extra calm into his voice. The other man was unaffected.
"I don't have instant friends, mister," he said in that same growl.
"Well, you got lucky tonight." Derek grinned at the man easily, and the man tightened his grip on Derek's wrist.
"Or maybe not," the man replied. Derek wondered if he spoke in anything other than a growl. It had a bit of a sexy overtone to it, true, but you could overdo that very quickly.
The man jerked his head around just before Derek heard footsteps. A much taller man came running out of an adjacent dark alley. "Paul! You're alive!" His voice was almost sinfully deep.
The man who was apparently Paul replied, irately, "Yes, I am, and I told you to stay put!"
The newcomer seemed unconcerned. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket and replied, easily, "Well, all of the action seemed to have played out, and you hadn't come back..." he trailed off and turned to Derek. "Who's your friend?"
"He's not my friend, Blackwood," Paul snapped.
Derek felt a bit of an affinity with the Blackwood fellow. His body language said, very clearly, 'easygoing.' The stiff, formal body language the Paul fellow was giving Blackwood, however, compared to his delirious kiss not four cigarettes ago, was making the pieces of the puzzle Derek had picked up so far fit together in an interesting way. However, it was still like putting together the sky part of the puzzle, when you feel like you can put any two pieces together in the right way if you bang on them hard enough.
Blackwood had pulled out something that Derek recognized as a rudimentary Geiger counter. He waved it at Derek. "Well, he's not an alien," he pronounced. Derek frowned. What were these people on?
Paul practically spat in frustration. "Not being an alien isn't all there is to being trustworthy!"
Blackwood, still unperturbed, asked Derek, "Who are you?"
Derek leaned back languidly against his bike. "I'm an interdimensional traveler who goes to spots of trouble and gets good people out of 'em." And shags them later, if they feel like it - and they usually do, he added to himself. No need to say it out loud, though.
Blackwood turned to Paul with a grin. "Good enough for me!"
Derek smiled in echo. He liked this man.
kahvi used him (ahem) in A Smooth Ride. Thanks to kahvi for her beta (klem).For those unfamiliar with WotW, Blackwood and Ironhorse are two members of The Blackwood Project, a four-person team trying to deal with an alien race that lost its technology in the war of '53 and can take over human bodies.
A dimension-hopping space-bike built off of the chassis of a Ducati 999R is a magnificent and near-orgasmic piece of machinery. The engine hums between the rider's legs with a thrilling vibration, the cylinders spooling up with a meaty rumble to send the bike flying with the gentlest touch on the throttle. It leans at the lightest countersteer, turning as soon as the direction change is merely thought. Every bolt and fastener cries out to go, go, go - go at speeds that break the laws of physics as much as the laws of the local constabulatory.
Puttering around dark alleys at walking speeds is an utter pisser on that bike.
Derek looked from side to side. Seattle has no night life, he thought. Rats scurried around, a few homeless people camped out, and one or the other person might hurry on about some personal business quickly, but otherwise, the place was dead. It was all very irritating, Derek decided. He was used to having the near-prescient bit of AI that was built into his bike giving him an idea of where there was trouble - kidnappings, wars, oppressed minorities, beer shortages. He was used to going to those places and doing something about it. But he had come here on the basis of a virtual shoulder-shrug from the computer and a vague premonition on his own part, and nothing was happening. He didn't like it. He liked to follow his gut, yes, but his gut seemed to be doing strange things around here.
The area became more industrial and ill-lit as he meandered onwards, no particular destination in mind. The closed-up storefronts gave way to warehouses, many of them rusty and dilapidated. They all looked firmly locked, however - except for that one, right there, with a For Lease sign hanging off of one ruddily-streaked wall by a single fastening. The door was likewise not functioning with a full set of hinges - not that entry would have been prevented if it had been, thanks to a gaping hole or two in the side of the building.
For no particular reason he could put a finger on, Derek parked his bike and shut it off. He slipped off his helmet and jacket, tossed them over the bike, and wandered in through one of those holes. The interior of the warehouse looked even worse than the exterior. The roof was thinking about calling it quits and settling down on the ground for a while, and was only still standing thanks to the structural support of cobwebs. Stacks of empty boxes were piled around on the filthy, gritty, seagull-excrement-streaked floor. The rats had made this a social gathering place, and were having what appeared to be a bachelor party.
The sudden noise of gunshots outside was startlingly loud. Derek evicted a pair of rats who were having an intimate moment behind one of the stacks of rotting boxes, and positioned himself to observe.
A slender, dark-haired man came pounding into the warehouse. He came to a halt, looked around, and picked up a rusty metal bar from the ground, turning back towards the hole in the wall that he had come in through. Another man ran in through that same ragged hole in the wall; he was taller, more broad-shouldered, and significantly more out-of-breath than the first man.
The newcomer had a length of motorcycle chain in his fist, and he swung it at Dark-hair. Dark-hair, displaying an agility that Derek found impressive, caught the chain on his bar and yanked. The attacker let go of the chain and stumbled, offbalanced; Dark-hair swung the bar to hit him in the small of the back, then very hard in the side of the head.
Derek watched the man fall with interest. His blood was green, not red, and Derek started to flip mentally through the people he knew of who had green blood. Vulcans were rather nice overall, if horribly frustrating. Romulans and slug-GELFs could go either way. But as the man dissolved into a pile of steaming goo, Derek sighed. Mor-Taxians - he'd recognize them anywhere. They were a selfish, malevolent race. It did not help that they had banned alcohol from their society for religious reasons, and had absolutely hideous taste in home decor. The High Advocacy's Temple had green shag carpeting on the walls, for smeg's sake!
Two more men ran in. Dark-hair tried to position himself to keep both of them from attacking him at once, but one of the newcomers got in a position to take a swing at him as he dispatched the other. The second newcomer's arm sent Dark-hair flying; he crashed into a stack of boxes.
As far as Derek was concerned, that tore it. He pulled his Colt .45 out of its shoulder holster and shot the second newcomer. The man melted, shrieking, into the pile of creamy glop that always reminded Derek of lutefisk. He had developed a theory, actually, after a few too many lagers, that a prior Mor-Tax invasion had led to the creation on Earth of lutefisk, bagpipes, and fishnet hose. He wished he could remember the theory that tied them all together, as it had been rather brilliant, if he did say so himself.
Derek walked over to the slender man who was lying in a pile of broken crates. He seemed to be a fairly normal human with fairly normal blood clumping his black hair. Derek had seen more angular faces, but they had all been on mechanoids. The man looked, all in all, very little like a Rimmer, which made Derek feel a frustrating variant of confusion. Why was he here? He consoled himself by noting that the man was wearing an institutionally macho uniform in an unflattering olive-drab color that would have appealed to Derek's own, long-gone Rimmer. But it was a very lame consolation.
Dark-hair was heavier than he looked, and Derek had to do some work to pull that man who was not a Rimmer out of the warehouse, settling him next to the bike. Derek lifted up his bike's seat and pulled out a psi-scan. He waved it over the man. It blinked for a moment, pondering, then flashed "Mild concussion" up on its screen, smugly. Derek wished that he could get his hand on just one of the smegging things that would do something other than read the obvious.
Derek dropped the psi-scan back into the small dimensional anomaly under the bike's seat that let him actually keep things in it. He fished around in the anomaly and pulled out a medi-kit. From that, he removed an antiseptic pad and a mild general anesthetic. Seagull guano and cobwebs would do the man's head little good.
As Derek was swabbing at the one sizable gash in the slender man's head, Dark-hair came to with a groan and grabbed Derek's hand. "Blackwood?"
Well, perhaps he hadn't come to. More like come at or come with. His eyes were very bleary. "Blackwood?" Derek asked. The kiss that Derek received before the last syllable was fully out of his mouth was unstudied and fairly awkward. It was quite sincere, however, and he enjoyed it for a moment before sticking the hypo of anesthetic into the man's rear.
It turned out to be a three-cigarette anesthetic. Derek had just pulled out his lighter to start up the fourth when a hand grabbed his wrist. "Who are you?" growled Dark-hair, coming to his feet a little unsteadily. He was almost exactly Derek's height.
"A friend," Derek said, injecting a little extra calm into his voice. The other man was unaffected.
"I don't have instant friends, mister," he said in that same growl.
"Well, you got lucky tonight." Derek grinned at the man easily, and the man tightened his grip on Derek's wrist.
"Or maybe not," the man replied. Derek wondered if he spoke in anything other than a growl. It had a bit of a sexy overtone to it, true, but you could overdo that very quickly.
The man jerked his head around just before Derek heard footsteps. A much taller man came running out of an adjacent dark alley. "Paul! You're alive!" His voice was almost sinfully deep.
The man who was apparently Paul replied, irately, "Yes, I am, and I told you to stay put!"
The newcomer seemed unconcerned. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket and replied, easily, "Well, all of the action seemed to have played out, and you hadn't come back..." he trailed off and turned to Derek. "Who's your friend?"
"He's not my friend, Blackwood," Paul snapped.
Derek felt a bit of an affinity with the Blackwood fellow. His body language said, very clearly, 'easygoing.' The stiff, formal body language the Paul fellow was giving Blackwood, however, compared to his delirious kiss not four cigarettes ago, was making the pieces of the puzzle Derek had picked up so far fit together in an interesting way. However, it was still like putting together the sky part of the puzzle, when you feel like you can put any two pieces together in the right way if you bang on them hard enough.
Blackwood had pulled out something that Derek recognized as a rudimentary Geiger counter. He waved it at Derek. "Well, he's not an alien," he pronounced. Derek frowned. What were these people on?
Paul practically spat in frustration. "Not being an alien isn't all there is to being trustworthy!"
Blackwood, still unperturbed, asked Derek, "Who are you?"
Derek leaned back languidly against his bike. "I'm an interdimensional traveler who goes to spots of trouble and gets good people out of 'em." And shags them later, if they feel like it - and they usually do, he added to himself. No need to say it out loud, though.
Blackwood turned to Paul with a grin. "Good enough for me!"
Derek smiled in echo. He liked this man.
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Date: 2007-01-10 09:25 pm (UTC)Knowing these two sweeps a tiny bit more than I did when I was looking at your caps a few weeks ago has allowed this story to make sense to me. YAY! And now I would like to read the rest =) Yes, yes.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 07:08 am (UTC)Oh, any time. I'll make another eppy thing for you.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 10:43 am (UTC)Yay for you!!! And me! And everyone!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 10:48 am (UTC)Let me run off.
*runs*
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Date: 2007-01-11 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 05:17 pm (UTC)beer shortages
Oh, yes.
Vulcans were rather nice overall, if horribly frustrating.
Oh, fantastic.
Again, the description of the Mor-Taxians!!
He had developed a theory, actually, after a few too many lagers, that a prior Mor-Tax invasion had led to the creation on Earth of lutefisk, bagpipes, and fishnet hose. He wished he could remember the theory that tied them all together, as it had been rather brilliant, if he did say so himself.
This reminds me of Douglas Adams. In a very delightful way!
Derek had seen more angular faces, but they had all been on mechanoids.
*snort*
the small dimensional anomaly under the bike's seat that let him actually keep things in it.
It's the details in this one that gets to me.
Well, perhaps he hadn't come to. More like come at or come with.
Lovely writing.
It turned out to be a three-cigarette anesthetic.
I love Derek. So well done.
(...)if you bang on them hard enough.
Oh, eh?
Aw, they're bonding. *giggle*
Yay Derek-thoughts! :D
Well, like you couldn't tell, I love this. My only niggle would be that I'd see Derek labeling Ironhorse as something other than Dark-hair: perhaps something that varies. A hint of Cat is what I'm thinking, though I apreciate the difficulty in doing it like that. :)
Love.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-11 06:48 pm (UTC)Thankee for the feedback, and good point - I'll tweak that a bit.