Therapy, a multi-fandom crossover
that is just what the title implies, by Glacis. Rated S for silly and I for innuendo and T for Thank heaven it's there.
Dedicated with love and good will to all the friends, readers, writers, artists
and vidders out there in the wide world of fandom who
make it so much fun to share, and who actively encourage me when I do my best
to flex my brain in odd and unusual ways.
Enjoy.
The bar is a little smoky,
but not enough to obliterate the faces wandering in from the harsh light
outside the heavy door. Gentle blues fill the air, as a man on a stool with a
guitar in his hands tells tales of love, and loss, and lightning striking
twice. The dim spot picks out the silver in his hair, in his beard, the flash
of his fingers, the glint in his eye. It's sad, 'cause it's the blues, and it
always starts out that way. Where we take it from there, he sang out softly,
what we make of it here, that's the way it ends, and that's up to us.
Well, me, actually. I sit propping up the bar, running my fingers over the
smooth, curving wood. This is my local, the place where I hang, where my
friends can always find me, and usually do. Joe's a friend of mine, one of the
best, the very best kind. He listens when I need it, and he tells me what I
need to hear, whether it's what I want to hear or not.
Usually
not.
But that's what Joe's is for, all those things I dont want to hear, out there.
Where the light is.
It's crowded tonight. In
the far corner, I see two blond heads, as unalike as they can be. A Russian transplant spying on behalf of the world, and a
The middle table's lively.
Yet another short one with curls, or as close as no difference, an English
doctor politician, another one with no one in his world he can make his own. And the mobile ghetto, dark and fair, dangerous men to look at,
with their hard eyes and their hard bodies
but gentle with one another.
Their own personal third wheel at the elbow, tall, sad, lost as are they all,
but with a wicked sense of Irish humor when he's allowed to shine. To his right, a little bulldog, all spiky hair and big eyes and
sultry mouth, wearing his authority with the ease of long practice.
They're laughing, drinking, joking, including any who'll listen on the surface,
but complete in themselves, the Brits.
The dark eyed ones are off
in the other corner by themselves tonight. Brooding party,
from the looks of it. The cop with the past, down from the Canadian
north, missing both his lady and his man, the Mountie
far from home and further still from resolution, although the blond is the way
to go from where I'm sitting. A holdover from decades ago, a
tall, dark eyed man with black hair and cream skin, smiling with his mouth, if
not his eyes. The big man with the odd markings along
his temple, sitting quietly, not drinking, just smiling occasionally, speaking
softly. The slender one beside him, another doctor,
but an explorer as well. To his right, another blond,
this one lighting up the table with his smile, his teasing blue eyes, his
energy. Life of the party, he can be, but with his own demons chasing
him, always and only a step behind. His eyes are light on the surface, but as
dark as the others when you take the time to look. And muffled in the hat and
scarf beside him, knowing how he'd stand out even in the shadows otherwise, an
alien friend, one of the few, holder of broken dreams and scattered secrets.
Behind the bar, Joe's
friends, brothers, lovers, Immortal together, if they can just keep from
killing one another long enough. A study in contrasts, tall and slender, stocky
and broad, both dark eyed, holding secrets, moving with fluid and unnatural
grace. I smile at the old one, with the face of a boy, and he pours me another,
and I listen. Below the blues, I can make out their words.
I come here when I'm sad. Frustrated. Angry. Hurting. I listen to them, and they move me, and the furor
calms. Not too much, never resolved, but enough to give me distance, a measure
of objectivity, false comfort though it might be. A prism through which I can
shatter reality, play with the pieces, get lost in the color, and return to the
blinding glare of the sunlight a little refreshed. Joe's is a good place. A few
people know it. Even fewer understand it. Most have never heard of it, and I
like it that way. It's a private place, at times resembling a three ring
circus, at times so empty it echoes. But it's a good place, in the end, because
it's a gathering place, a place of power, a place of dreams.
They talk to me. Of course,
they do, that's what they're here for. To say the things they couldn't say in
their own worlds, someplace safe, someplace accepting.
"She's kidding,
right?"
"Quiet, Tom, she's
weaving words. You know better than interrupt her when she's waxing
poetic."
"Or what, Chakotay?"
"Yeah, what's she going to do to us?" "Hurt us?" "Play with our minds?" "Put us in
anatomically impossible positions -" "-and make us love it?"
Wait a minute here. None of
those positions are anatomically impossible. I do my research.
"Give us abusive
childhoods?" "Turn us ALL into hookers?" "Beat us up?"
"Kidnap us?"
Several voices in unison : "Tie
us up??"
By now Joe has gotten on
his sticks and wandered over to lean on the other side of the bar. Sidling up
close, he whispers, "Looks like an uprising." I can't help but agree.
"I finally get some, a
one-off at that, and what happens? UNinvited guests!
And I lose out! As always!" Bayliss,
with what sounds suspiciously like a whine in his voice. Hey, I gave him Blair.
Most people would kill for a chance at that.
"Yeah, and they pretty
much do. You'd hand me over to anybody, wouldn't you?" A
disgusted snort from Sandburg. Well, no, pretty boy, I wouldn't, only
those who wouldn't harm you. Much.
"Great,"
a moan from Mulder. "MORE handcuffs."
"What are you bitching
about?" And his other half. Funny, I never
noticed just how nasty Krycek looks when he sneers
like that. "I've been everything from a rapist to a clone. You just get
emotionally tortured."
"And you get your
pick," another country heard from. What was
"Every show has to
have a slut." Bodie, now. Sounding disappointed.
"Oh, well, mate, there's drawbacks to getting my share, you know." Doyle, even pissier than Bodie. "Least you don't have a background as a
hooker/thief/runaway with a rotten memory."
"You,
too?" Bashir stepping
up to bat. No fair, he was my first. I almost feel betrayed, except, of
course, he's right. "She has some real issues with identity and sexuality,
doesn't she?"
"That's obvious, my
dear doctor." Even muffled, Garak's drawl is
unmistakable. "At least you get to work through yours. I'm stuck with a
fifteen year old girl
and Odo."
Hey! Not my fault! That was
canon, damnit! I got you two together!
"Once. Which is more
than you ever managed with us." Go away, Chakotay.
I tried, okay? I just can't help it. The thread between reality and fantasy
with Tom is simply too thin.
"Didn't stop you from
doing all sorts of nasty things to me in prison and then making me sing about
them, in French, did it?" Wow. I had no idea Tom could whine like
that. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so appalled.
"At least you got to
deal with them." A soft, cultured voice, and big
eyes staring at me accusingly through round glasses. Sorry, Balliol, one of
these days, I promise. You're too cute not to do something with you.
"That's what you keep saying. Then you turn to
others." A sniff over his shoulder. Illya and Napolean
grinning at me. It's Janis' fault. Forty three hours of sixties music
and Illya in next to nothing -
"TIED
UP!" Wow. Blair, Illya, Krycek,
Mulder, Methos, Tom, Julian, Fraser, Doyle and Cade
in unison. That's a hell of a choir.
"It's not worth
complaining about." The voice of reason, compliments of the Boy Scout.
Don't glare at me, Duncan, you're the one who wanted to cut your hair, I can't
help it if it makes you look all of twelve. "She's going to do what she's
going to do, and there's not a bloody thing we can do about it."
"Except relax, and live through it," Ellison's soft rumble. God, I
like that man. Blair, now he's a sex toy with a brain I can torture for days,
but the things I can do to Ellison's senses
a distinctly peeved growl around
my ankles catches my attention and I look down. Oops. Better not gloat. Neither
the panther nor the wolf is too happy with me since the last visit to the
spirit plane.
Stepping over them, careful
of tails, I dig in my pocket and pull out a quarter. Joe has to take breaks
sometime, and he does have a jukebox, hidden where the casual passersby can't
see. I scan the offerings quickly, then smile, dropping the coin in the slot
and pushing the button firmly. Turning to view the assembled crowd, I smile
brightly. I really do love them. And beneath the bitching, they know it. They
never had it so good on screen. At least, with me, they get some. Usually.
"Thank you." And
I mean it. "Thank you for acting out my frustrations and my anger, my fear
and my oddball sense of humor. Thank you for being there for me. So I don't
have to pay a professional!"
Then the music rips through
the room, and the grumbling dies down. Now that everyone's in the middle of the
room, the lads are seeing faces that usually keep to the shadows. To my utter
delight, new connections form as interest lights up one face after another, in
the most unusual ways and for the most unexpected people.
Tim is glasses to glasses
with Balliol, talking about isolation, wondering about vacations into the
other's universe. Something I may have to work on. After all, I don't want poor
Peter to always be the groomsman, never the husband. Or however that would be
said.
Fraser and Ellison are
bonding in a corner about tasting disgusting things, one on purpose, the other
by accident
although the jury's still out on that one. Maybe Blair really did
want to see how sour milk impacted hyperactive taste buds. Speaking of whom,
Blair's doing some fieldwork with Garak and Julian,
peppering them with questions as fast as he can talk, which is pretty damned
fast.
Mulder has Methos cornered,
going on about that story that I will eventually finish, if I can ever find the
file. I told them, when the hard drive crashed it ate it, but Mulder just told
me it was a lousy excuse and Methos kept muttering about back-ups and giving me
significant looks.
Krycek and Kowalski are commiserating
about long term deep cover, although I'm not sure they
both mean quite the same thing.
Illya and Paris are talking about cars,
not a surprise, and MacLeod and Bodie are comparing
Sensei. Murph's watching them both like a starving
man at a banquet. I've got to get that boy laid more often.
Speaking of which, Cade's got Doyle off to himself, and they're both shooting
Balliol the strangest, most calculating looks. Wouldn't that be one hell of a menage a trois
yet another one
somebody's going to tell me I can't do, and that will be that. Another angst fest. Probably with blood
and death, and definitely bending the laws of space and time.
Which
brings me to Napoleon and Chakotay, sitting there,
trying to out-suave one another. There are days when I really wonder about these guys
A glass lands in front of
my nose with a solid clink, and Joe reaches over to push another quarter into
the jukebox. "They're just getting into the dance," he grins, and I
can't help but grin back. "Be a shame to stop the music now when it's just
getting hot."
Picking up my drink, I
raise it to salute him, and he lifts his own to meet it in a toast.
"Here's to the endless possibilities," I smile. "Of life's
little mysteries," he concludes.
It's just the beginning.
Something To Talk About, Bonnie Raitt
People are talkin, talking 'bout
people - I hear them whisper, you won't believe it
They think we're lovers kept under covers
I just ignore it, but they keep saying
We laugh just a little too loud We
stand just a little too close
We stare just a little too long
Maybe they're seeing, something we don't, Darlin'
Let's give them something to talk about - How about love?
I feel so foolish, I never noticed
You'd act so nervous,
could you be falling for me?
It took a rumor to make me wonder Now
I'm convinced I'm going under
Thinking 'bout you every day, Dreaming
'bout you every night
Hoping that you feel the same way
Now that we know it, let's really show it, Darlin'
Let's give them something to talk about
A little mystery to figure out
Let's give them something to talk about - How about love?
