Summer Fest Fic: "Cat Nap"
Oct. 5th, 2012 09:32 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ladyarcherfan3.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
jam_pony_ficTitle: “Cat Nap”
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyarcherfan3
Fandom: Dark Angel
Rating: PG-13 for some language
Word Count: 2,193
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you’d recognize – Dark Angel and the characters and concepts belong to their creators.
Characters: Alec, with brief appearances by Max, Joshua, and Biggs.
Prompt:Alec + any/all (gen/case fic or humor/crack) Prompt: Cats sleep up to twenty hours a day. Alec would like to accomplish this just once (can't he have just one day off?), but he keeps getting interrupted.
Notes: Set before “Love Among the Runes”. OK, so I tried to go cracky and funny on this and then I ran out of ideas and figured out I need more practice writing humor. Bear with me.
By some sort of miracle, Alec had the day off from Jam Pony, had no schemes planned and didn’t even had a reason to leave his apartment. He wasn’t even needed at Terminal City, where he had been splitting his time lately. It was perfect. He was going to actually become the lazy idiot that Max so often claimed he was. So, when his alarm went off – force of habit had set it – he tossed it across the room with a satisfied grin.
“All day cat nap, hello!” he muttered as he burrowed back into the cocoon of warmth and softness that was his bed.
The lingering smile was wiped off his face less than an hour later.
“McDowell!” bellowed his landlord, between sharp volleys of knocks. “McDowell!”
Alec groaned. “Whaaaat?!” His legs instinctively shifted out of the bed but the rest of him wasn’t quite ready to abandon sleep yet. Head still on the pillow, feet on the floor and his torso half way between, he had one moment perfect balance. Then the instinctive flinch at the next knock dropped him to the floor. “Shit.”
He managed to tug on a pair of sweats and an old tee shirt without further injury and snapped open the front door with more than human speed. The landlord didn’t react that fact and continued his tirade without the door between them.
“McDowell! What the hell did you do to the plumbing in here?”
A slow blink was the initial answer, followed by a deliberate removal of the spittle that had spattered across his face. “What about the plumbing, sir?”
The sir wasn’t from the fact that Alec really respected the guy, quite the opposite, really. But it worked.
The landlord’s chest puffed up with self-importance and the red rage eased out of his face. “I’d guess there’s a leak in your bathroom. It’s draining through to the rooms below you.”
Now that he mentioned it, Alec was aware of the sound of trickling water. “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “Well, let’s check it out,” he said with a sigh. “Whatever happened wasn’t my fault, I haven’t been in there since last night.”
“It’s almost eight, don’t you work or something?” the land lord groused as he followed Alec to through the apartment.
“Day off. Hoped it would be relaxing, but this isn’t what I had in mind.” He opened the bathroom door and clapped his hand over his eyes. “Perfect.”
One pipe or another had given in to time and disrepair and burst overnight. The uneven titled floor had become a pool, water standing less than an inch deep near the door to nearly a hand’s span at the far wall.
“Yup, that’s a mess,” the other man observed.
Alec let his hand drag over his face as he uncovered his eyes. “Why today,” he muttered. “Seriously, why today?”
“It’s gonna cost you to get this repaired.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His jacket, with the winnings of last night’s pool tournament still stuck in the pocket, was tossed across the easy chair. He grabbed it and pulled the wad of bills out. “This should cover it.” Giving away money was never something he liked to do, but he also didn’t want to have to deal with mess on his own. Plumbing was not on his extensive skills list. The thought of just leaving the apartment and moving entirely over to TC crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. Actually living in that place wasn’t what he wanted either. The transhumans could have it.
The landlord took the cash and left with surprising purpose. The amount paid for surprisingly quick service, and within the hour, Alec was seeing the plumber out the door, thanking him. The leak was fixed, but the water still remained. And he wasn’t even sure where a mop was in the apartment.
Eventually, after an extensive search turned up nothing but a few moldy towels, Alec begged and bribed a mop and bucket from the landlord. Armed with his borrowed weapons, battle commenced.
He attacked with the bucket first, and the water was forced, scoop by scoop, from the ruined floor to the cracked tub. But it fought back. Waves splashed out of the tub with the force of his tosses. The footing was treacherous, even for a transgenic. And the cat DNA really didn’t help alleviate the annoyance at being soaked while indoors.
By the time it was too late for brunch but too early for lunch, Alec staggered out of the bathroom, victorious but battered. The floor was still damp, but there weren’t puddles at least, and the tub miraculously hadn’t overflown. His sweatpants had been soaked to the knee and his shirt wasn’t in much better condition. All his towels had been sacrificed, so he just stripped out of his wet clothes and climbed back in bed, determined to continue his cat nap.
Twenty minutes later, his cell phone rang.
“This’d better be good, Max,” he snarled; caller ID was a fantastic thing sometimes. “I am in the middle of a day long nap.”
“Get your lazy ass out of bed and down here. I need to borrow your bike.”
He scowled. “What’s wrong with yours?”
“It blew a tire while I was on a run and by some terrible luck ended up a block from your apartment.”
“Whatever. Walk up here, I’m not bringing it down for you.”
“Fine. And you can fix the Ninja’s tire before I bring yours back.”
There was a moment’s pause. “Wait, you want to borrow my Duke? Oh, no, no, I thought you meant my crappy Jam Pony bicycle, not my bike.”
She snorted. “Like I’m pedaling all the way from TC and back when I have a motorized vehicle to do it.”
“Yeah, well, get your own, cuz you’re not getting mine.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and snapped it shut.
There was a sudden clatter outside his apartment door. “Too late.” Max’s voice cut through the thin barrier.
Alec considered staying where he was – stark naked in bed - for a moment, until the thought of Max catching him in such a vulnerable position crossed his mind. He didn’t care if she saw him in his full glory, he just had no idea what she’d do about it.
“Alec!” she called and the door handle rattled. “I will break down the door!”
“God, woman!” He reached for a pair of jeans, hopping into them as he crossed the apartment. “Do you have any patience?”
“Nope.” Max grinned as she rolled her Ninja through the door. “Missed that class at Manticore, too.”
“Yeah, whatever. Hey, wait a second!” he yelped and Max propped her Ninja up on his sofa, and grabbed the green Duke from where it was stashed in a corner.
“Can’t,” she replied. “Gotta go. I’ll be back this evening to trade back. Mine better be fixed by then.” She snatched up a slightly stale but heavily frosted doughnut he had sitting on the counter and disappeared out the door.
“All right, sure, help yourself, no problem, Alec to the rescue,” he muttered to the empty room. Yet, he found himself wandering to the shelf that held a repair kit.
The source of the Ninja’s problem turned out to be a nail. “Wow, Max,” he muttered as he dissembled the wheel and separated the inner tube from the tire. “Do you not carry a repair kit with you?”
A half hour later, the Ninja was as good as new, and Alec just flopped on the couch, determined to continue his nap. He didn’t even bother to clean up the debris left behind from his work.
His cell phone shrilled again, rousing him out of a deep sleep. He snapped the phone open without looking at it, scraps of tire patches and tubes of rubber cement scattering around him as he sat up. “Damn it, Max what do you want this time?”
“Not Max,” said a familiar voice. “This is Joshua.”
“Oh, sorry man, I just figured it was Max.”
Joshua just huffed a laugh.
“What’s up?” He juggled the phone and held it between his shoulder and ear and picked up a tube of rubber cement and tossed it across the room.
“Joshua is planning a dinner party for TC neighbors. But there is no more mac’n’cheese.”
“That’s a problem,” Alec replied, knowing all of Joshua’s dinner parties involved mac’n’cheese. “Especially considering you can’t head out to the grocery store and pick it up.”
“Running and screaming,” Joshua agreed.
“Don’t you still have that helmet I gave you? Covers your face pretty well.”
“No cash to buy mac’n’cheese with.”
Alec sighed; what the hell, he could help the big guy out. “What time’s your party?”
“Six thirty. Alec help?”
“Yeah, I’ll get your mac’n’cheese.” He glanced at the Ninja and grinned. “I got some wheels to test out anyway.”
“Thanks Alec.”
“No problem, man.” He flipped the phone shut again, and caught sight of the time. Eight minutes after five. “Crap.”
The Ninja roared to life as the wheels hit the street and Alec popped a wheelie just because he could. Max didn’t say exactly when she’d come to get her bike, but he figured there was enough time to get Joshua’s stuff, run to TC to give it to him, and be back without a problem. With the Ninja roaring and riding as smooth as silk, he flew down the street.
His timing could be skewed, he realized belatedly, by sector checkpoints. Even with his Jam Pony sector pass, he couldn’t get to the front of the block long line very quickly. At least the mac’n’cheese purchasing hadn’t presented an issue.
The evening was comfortably warm; the chatter of people and varied rumbles of idling engines filled the air, but did not overwhelm. Arms resting on the handlebars, boots planted on the pavement, Alec let his eyes drift shut behind his sunglasses. He knew that dolphins could sleep with half their brain still awake, and it wouldn’t surprise him if cats could too. The line shuffled forward and Alec inched along with it, one eye open, body relaxed. At least this wait was a good excuse to continue his day long nap.
He heard the grumble of another motorcycle on the other side of the check point, and didn’t think anything of it until it didn’t slow down. Shouts from the sector police overrode the engine, and Alec opened his eyes, curious. A rusted olive drab colored motorcycle zipped around the barriers and guards. The dark haired, sunglassed driver dodged around a few pedestrians, fast and neat. In fact, almost superhumanly so. Alec sat up and revved the Ninja’s engine; the other motorcyclist tore through the gate between the sectors just before it closed behind a grey haired lady and came barreling down the street. Alec focused on the man’s face and his own eyebrows shot up.
“No way,” he muttered and gunned the Ninja into motion as the motorcycle flew past him.
The dark haired man glanced back at him and then looked again. Alec pushed the throttle down and pulled ahead. He twisted the bike and swerved, blocking the road. The dark haired man slammed the brakes and stopped an inch shy of a collision. He flipped up his sunglasses and looked at Alec quizzically.
“Hey,” Alec said easily, an eye on the crowd including sector police drawing closer, “Didn’t we go to school together? I was in room 494, you were what, 511?”
Comprehension dawned on the other man’s face. “Yeah, that’s right. We did a few spring break trips to Eastern Europe, right?”
“Sucky locations, really,” Alec agreed. “Let’s head somewhere and catch up, buddy.”
The olive drab bike rattled to life. “Sounds like a plan,” he replied with a glace towards the crowd.
“It’s Alec, in case you don’t remember.”
“Biggs.”
They pulled into TC at quarter after six; Alec figured that Joshua would just have enough time to cook up the pasta before the dinner party. And besides, who was that punctual in TC anyway?
“Alec! What the hell?” Max’s voice filled the void left by the motorcycle engines. “Is that my bike?”
He glanced down between his legs. “Oh, yeah, it is. Runs like a champ, tire’s all fixed and everything.” He looked back up. “Where’s mine?”
She glowered at him but then noticed Biggs. “Who’s that?”
“An old Manticore buddy. Biggs, say hi to her highness, Max.”
“One of the ‘09’ers?” was the reply.
Max’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Oh, buddy, I had your six in some sticky situations, but you’re on your own here!” Alec kicked the Ninja back to life.
“Where are you going?” Max demanded.
“I’ve got a nap to finish, see ya!”
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Biggs looked on, confused.
“You gonna stop me? Besides, you’ve got a new member to introduce to the club.” Alec peeled away, leaving Max dumbfounded and feeling responsible for Biggs.
Soldiers sleep when they can, and cats sleep over twenty hours a day. Alec was determined to make the most of that with what was left of the day.
Fin.
Author:
ladyarcherfan3Fandom: Dark Angel
Rating: PG-13 for some language
Word Count: 2,193
Disclaimer: I own nothing that you’d recognize – Dark Angel and the characters and concepts belong to their creators.
Characters: Alec, with brief appearances by Max, Joshua, and Biggs.
Prompt:Alec + any/all (gen/case fic or humor/crack) Prompt: Cats sleep up to twenty hours a day. Alec would like to accomplish this just once (can't he have just one day off?), but he keeps getting interrupted.
Notes: Set before “Love Among the Runes”. OK, so I tried to go cracky and funny on this and then I ran out of ideas and figured out I need more practice writing humor. Bear with me.
By some sort of miracle, Alec had the day off from Jam Pony, had no schemes planned and didn’t even had a reason to leave his apartment. He wasn’t even needed at Terminal City, where he had been splitting his time lately. It was perfect. He was going to actually become the lazy idiot that Max so often claimed he was. So, when his alarm went off – force of habit had set it – he tossed it across the room with a satisfied grin.
“All day cat nap, hello!” he muttered as he burrowed back into the cocoon of warmth and softness that was his bed.
The lingering smile was wiped off his face less than an hour later.
“McDowell!” bellowed his landlord, between sharp volleys of knocks. “McDowell!”
Alec groaned. “Whaaaat?!” His legs instinctively shifted out of the bed but the rest of him wasn’t quite ready to abandon sleep yet. Head still on the pillow, feet on the floor and his torso half way between, he had one moment perfect balance. Then the instinctive flinch at the next knock dropped him to the floor. “Shit.”
He managed to tug on a pair of sweats and an old tee shirt without further injury and snapped open the front door with more than human speed. The landlord didn’t react that fact and continued his tirade without the door between them.
“McDowell! What the hell did you do to the plumbing in here?”
A slow blink was the initial answer, followed by a deliberate removal of the spittle that had spattered across his face. “What about the plumbing, sir?”
The sir wasn’t from the fact that Alec really respected the guy, quite the opposite, really. But it worked.
The landlord’s chest puffed up with self-importance and the red rage eased out of his face. “I’d guess there’s a leak in your bathroom. It’s draining through to the rooms below you.”
Now that he mentioned it, Alec was aware of the sound of trickling water. “Great,” he muttered under his breath. “Well, let’s check it out,” he said with a sigh. “Whatever happened wasn’t my fault, I haven’t been in there since last night.”
“It’s almost eight, don’t you work or something?” the land lord groused as he followed Alec to through the apartment.
“Day off. Hoped it would be relaxing, but this isn’t what I had in mind.” He opened the bathroom door and clapped his hand over his eyes. “Perfect.”
One pipe or another had given in to time and disrepair and burst overnight. The uneven titled floor had become a pool, water standing less than an inch deep near the door to nearly a hand’s span at the far wall.
“Yup, that’s a mess,” the other man observed.
Alec let his hand drag over his face as he uncovered his eyes. “Why today,” he muttered. “Seriously, why today?”
“It’s gonna cost you to get this repaired.”
“Yeah, yeah.” His jacket, with the winnings of last night’s pool tournament still stuck in the pocket, was tossed across the easy chair. He grabbed it and pulled the wad of bills out. “This should cover it.” Giving away money was never something he liked to do, but he also didn’t want to have to deal with mess on his own. Plumbing was not on his extensive skills list. The thought of just leaving the apartment and moving entirely over to TC crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. Actually living in that place wasn’t what he wanted either. The transhumans could have it.
The landlord took the cash and left with surprising purpose. The amount paid for surprisingly quick service, and within the hour, Alec was seeing the plumber out the door, thanking him. The leak was fixed, but the water still remained. And he wasn’t even sure where a mop was in the apartment.
Eventually, after an extensive search turned up nothing but a few moldy towels, Alec begged and bribed a mop and bucket from the landlord. Armed with his borrowed weapons, battle commenced.
He attacked with the bucket first, and the water was forced, scoop by scoop, from the ruined floor to the cracked tub. But it fought back. Waves splashed out of the tub with the force of his tosses. The footing was treacherous, even for a transgenic. And the cat DNA really didn’t help alleviate the annoyance at being soaked while indoors.
By the time it was too late for brunch but too early for lunch, Alec staggered out of the bathroom, victorious but battered. The floor was still damp, but there weren’t puddles at least, and the tub miraculously hadn’t overflown. His sweatpants had been soaked to the knee and his shirt wasn’t in much better condition. All his towels had been sacrificed, so he just stripped out of his wet clothes and climbed back in bed, determined to continue his cat nap.
Twenty minutes later, his cell phone rang.
“This’d better be good, Max,” he snarled; caller ID was a fantastic thing sometimes. “I am in the middle of a day long nap.”
“Get your lazy ass out of bed and down here. I need to borrow your bike.”
He scowled. “What’s wrong with yours?”
“It blew a tire while I was on a run and by some terrible luck ended up a block from your apartment.”
“Whatever. Walk up here, I’m not bringing it down for you.”
“Fine. And you can fix the Ninja’s tire before I bring yours back.”
There was a moment’s pause. “Wait, you want to borrow my Duke? Oh, no, no, I thought you meant my crappy Jam Pony bicycle, not my bike.”
She snorted. “Like I’m pedaling all the way from TC and back when I have a motorized vehicle to do it.”
“Yeah, well, get your own, cuz you’re not getting mine.” He pulled the phone away from his ear and snapped it shut.
There was a sudden clatter outside his apartment door. “Too late.” Max’s voice cut through the thin barrier.
Alec considered staying where he was – stark naked in bed - for a moment, until the thought of Max catching him in such a vulnerable position crossed his mind. He didn’t care if she saw him in his full glory, he just had no idea what she’d do about it.
“Alec!” she called and the door handle rattled. “I will break down the door!”
“God, woman!” He reached for a pair of jeans, hopping into them as he crossed the apartment. “Do you have any patience?”
“Nope.” Max grinned as she rolled her Ninja through the door. “Missed that class at Manticore, too.”
“Yeah, whatever. Hey, wait a second!” he yelped and Max propped her Ninja up on his sofa, and grabbed the green Duke from where it was stashed in a corner.
“Can’t,” she replied. “Gotta go. I’ll be back this evening to trade back. Mine better be fixed by then.” She snatched up a slightly stale but heavily frosted doughnut he had sitting on the counter and disappeared out the door.
“All right, sure, help yourself, no problem, Alec to the rescue,” he muttered to the empty room. Yet, he found himself wandering to the shelf that held a repair kit.
The source of the Ninja’s problem turned out to be a nail. “Wow, Max,” he muttered as he dissembled the wheel and separated the inner tube from the tire. “Do you not carry a repair kit with you?”
A half hour later, the Ninja was as good as new, and Alec just flopped on the couch, determined to continue his nap. He didn’t even bother to clean up the debris left behind from his work.
His cell phone shrilled again, rousing him out of a deep sleep. He snapped the phone open without looking at it, scraps of tire patches and tubes of rubber cement scattering around him as he sat up. “Damn it, Max what do you want this time?”
“Not Max,” said a familiar voice. “This is Joshua.”
“Oh, sorry man, I just figured it was Max.”
Joshua just huffed a laugh.
“What’s up?” He juggled the phone and held it between his shoulder and ear and picked up a tube of rubber cement and tossed it across the room.
“Joshua is planning a dinner party for TC neighbors. But there is no more mac’n’cheese.”
“That’s a problem,” Alec replied, knowing all of Joshua’s dinner parties involved mac’n’cheese. “Especially considering you can’t head out to the grocery store and pick it up.”
“Running and screaming,” Joshua agreed.
“Don’t you still have that helmet I gave you? Covers your face pretty well.”
“No cash to buy mac’n’cheese with.”
Alec sighed; what the hell, he could help the big guy out. “What time’s your party?”
“Six thirty. Alec help?”
“Yeah, I’ll get your mac’n’cheese.” He glanced at the Ninja and grinned. “I got some wheels to test out anyway.”
“Thanks Alec.”
“No problem, man.” He flipped the phone shut again, and caught sight of the time. Eight minutes after five. “Crap.”
The Ninja roared to life as the wheels hit the street and Alec popped a wheelie just because he could. Max didn’t say exactly when she’d come to get her bike, but he figured there was enough time to get Joshua’s stuff, run to TC to give it to him, and be back without a problem. With the Ninja roaring and riding as smooth as silk, he flew down the street.
His timing could be skewed, he realized belatedly, by sector checkpoints. Even with his Jam Pony sector pass, he couldn’t get to the front of the block long line very quickly. At least the mac’n’cheese purchasing hadn’t presented an issue.
The evening was comfortably warm; the chatter of people and varied rumbles of idling engines filled the air, but did not overwhelm. Arms resting on the handlebars, boots planted on the pavement, Alec let his eyes drift shut behind his sunglasses. He knew that dolphins could sleep with half their brain still awake, and it wouldn’t surprise him if cats could too. The line shuffled forward and Alec inched along with it, one eye open, body relaxed. At least this wait was a good excuse to continue his day long nap.
He heard the grumble of another motorcycle on the other side of the check point, and didn’t think anything of it until it didn’t slow down. Shouts from the sector police overrode the engine, and Alec opened his eyes, curious. A rusted olive drab colored motorcycle zipped around the barriers and guards. The dark haired, sunglassed driver dodged around a few pedestrians, fast and neat. In fact, almost superhumanly so. Alec sat up and revved the Ninja’s engine; the other motorcyclist tore through the gate between the sectors just before it closed behind a grey haired lady and came barreling down the street. Alec focused on the man’s face and his own eyebrows shot up.
“No way,” he muttered and gunned the Ninja into motion as the motorcycle flew past him.
The dark haired man glanced back at him and then looked again. Alec pushed the throttle down and pulled ahead. He twisted the bike and swerved, blocking the road. The dark haired man slammed the brakes and stopped an inch shy of a collision. He flipped up his sunglasses and looked at Alec quizzically.
“Hey,” Alec said easily, an eye on the crowd including sector police drawing closer, “Didn’t we go to school together? I was in room 494, you were what, 511?”
Comprehension dawned on the other man’s face. “Yeah, that’s right. We did a few spring break trips to Eastern Europe, right?”
“Sucky locations, really,” Alec agreed. “Let’s head somewhere and catch up, buddy.”
The olive drab bike rattled to life. “Sounds like a plan,” he replied with a glace towards the crowd.
“It’s Alec, in case you don’t remember.”
“Biggs.”
They pulled into TC at quarter after six; Alec figured that Joshua would just have enough time to cook up the pasta before the dinner party. And besides, who was that punctual in TC anyway?
“Alec! What the hell?” Max’s voice filled the void left by the motorcycle engines. “Is that my bike?”
He glanced down between his legs. “Oh, yeah, it is. Runs like a champ, tire’s all fixed and everything.” He looked back up. “Where’s mine?”
She glowered at him but then noticed Biggs. “Who’s that?”
“An old Manticore buddy. Biggs, say hi to her highness, Max.”
“One of the ‘09’ers?” was the reply.
Max’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Oh, buddy, I had your six in some sticky situations, but you’re on your own here!” Alec kicked the Ninja back to life.
“Where are you going?” Max demanded.
“I’ve got a nap to finish, see ya!”
“Oh no, you don’t!”
Biggs looked on, confused.
“You gonna stop me? Besides, you’ve got a new member to introduce to the club.” Alec peeled away, leaving Max dumbfounded and feeling responsible for Biggs.
Soldiers sleep when they can, and cats sleep over twenty hours a day. Alec was determined to make the most of that with what was left of the day.
Fin.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-06 02:59 am (UTC)Awesome story is awesome. And amusing. It's exactly what I wanted without actually knowing exactly what I wanted. Loved that you threw in Biggs and Alec's reunion and Joshua needing more mac & cheese.
Thanks for the fill! ♥
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Date: 2012-10-06 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-06 09:55 am (UTC)This was a lot of fun to read! Thanks for sharing.
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Date: 2012-10-06 04:52 pm (UTC)Glad you enjoyed!
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Date: 2012-10-06 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-03 05:59 am (UTC)