cabinpres_fic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cabinpres_fic) wrote2012-02-03 07:49 am
cabinpres_fic) wrote2012-02-03 07:49 am
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PROMPT POST PART III
Please see the most recent MOD NOTE
(updated 6 June)
Welcome everybody. How you got here I have no idea but thank you for coming and welcome again, nonetheless . As you may have gathered this is a Fic Prompting Meme dedicated solely to the hilarious and oh-so-addictive BBC Radio 4 sitcom - Cabin Pressure. I'm aiming for this to be pretty anything goes - but in order for everything to run smoothly, there are a few guidelines. Don't worry - they're not too restrictive.
FILLING GUIDELINES
As you probably all know - our meme now has it's very own database created and maintained by the great Enigel. It both catalogues each and every prompt that we post and provides links to fills. You can find it here: Google Spreadsheet
We also have a Pinboard archive which has been put in place by the lovely
oxfordtweed in the place of our late Delicious Archive. This Archive contains a list of all the prompts this meme has to offer - you can find it here: Pinboard ArchiveThis is a great step forward in making our meme just a little more organised (but not too organised of course. This is Cabin Pressure) which is always a good thing.
So in order to make things easier to archive - Please nest your fills.
This can be done by either posting each part as a reply to that part's immediate predecessor, OR by replying each time to Part I OR - well you get the idea :D
It makes it simpler for Enigel and myself to link fills in a clean and clear manner. Following these guildelines will be very much appreciated guys :D
REPROMPTING
Reprompting is allowed but please include the URL of the original prompt when you do so. It will make it infinitely more easy to Archive which would make both Enigel and I very happy :)
As for everything else
- Be respectful to one another. Disagreements are fine, but not everything disagreeable is trolling. If you suspect someone of trolling, just ignore it. If you cannot respond to a comment without attacking or trolling someone else, keep it to yourself.
- No bashing prompts. It might not be your cup of tea - but obviously someone wants it enough to go to the effort of requesting it. So just scroll past it.
- Prompt away as much as you like guys - seriously, go wild - but please try to fill as well.
- Please no RPF. I'm not trying to oppress you RPF writers and enthusiasts, I would just really like to avoid any legal problems.
- When you post a fill (or post a new part of a WIP) please go over to the Filled Prompts Post (if it is complete) or the WIP Post (if there are still more parts to come) and, following each post's guideline's, post a link to this fill or new part.
NEW - If your fill includes a major element that veers from the original prompt (crossovers, established universes, kinks, et cetera), please take a few moments to check with the OP that such additions are welcome. This has caused problems in the past and it only takes a few moments of your time.
REALLY IMPORTANT ADDENDUM
According to numerous Child Safety laws it is illegal to provide pornographic material to minors. Seeing that the majority of the stuff we have here is rather adult in nature, this Meme is consequently an 18+ zone. Failing to comply to this rule could result in the Meme getting shut down. So if you're here and you're under 18 please back button now.
+ Please do not post anything regarding minors in a sexual situation. It really doesn't matter how tasteful or crass it is, there are laws that classify that sort of thing as child pornography and as such, I'm afraid we're going to have to go with the attitude that safe is better than sorry.
It really is VERY important that these rules are upheld as the consequences are severe.
Other than that - go crazy guys. Any problems please just message me and I'll try my best to work it out.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Prompt Index
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Fundamentally Wrong (2/?)
The bricks and stonework looked old and worn. Most of the names on the door buzzer were faded or scratched out, and loose wires hung from the bottom of it, sparking warningly at anyone who might actually try to press anything.
The only remotely new-looking aspect of the entire building front was the plaque on the door. It was golden and shining and only scuffed in a few places. At the exact moment Martin bent to take a closer look, the sun emerged briefly from behind a cloud and glanced off it, nearly blinding him. He shaded his eyes and could just make out the words DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY, engraved in a neatly centred stack.
Martin glanced at the door buzzer. The loose wires snapped and jumped.
He knocked.
There was no response.
He waited a few seconds, knocked again, waited a few more seconds, turned to leave, remembered that he was expected, and went inside.
He didn't know what he'd been expecting a holistic detective's office to look like on the inside, but this was, somehow, not it.
It was dark, but not the pleasantly mysterious kind of dark people liked to praise the use of in old detective films. This darkness was dank, threatening, and totally obscuring. The only thing Martin could make his eyes focus on was an inner door inset with a splintered glass window, boasting splintered letters spelling out the words DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY.
Whoever this Dirk Gently person was, and whatever a holistic detective was, he was evidently very proud of the title. This was understandable, as he had probably made it up himself.
Behind this strangely intimidating door, Martin could see a woman sitting at a desk.
He knocked.
She didn't move.
He opened the door and went in. “Er, hello. Is this the, er...”
He couldn't do it. Somehow, it was impossible to walk into a holistic detective agency and complete the time-honored ritual of passing several signs declaring the establishment they were attached to to be a doctor's office, law firm, or computer hardware repair centre, approaching the front desk, and asking if this was the place.
He couldn't make himself say it.
That was all right, though, because the receptionist was evidently not prepared to listen to it anyway. He came to this conclusion after observing the fingers wedged firmly in her ears and the nothing in particular she seemed to be glaring at.
“I'll just, um,” Martin said, raising his voice so he could hear himself over her determined humming, “Go – go in.”
He opened another inner door and caught a quick glimpse of a bizarrely scattered room before his field of vision was largely overtaken by a man who bounded up to him wearing a grin that was somehow exactly halfway between Arthur Shappey and an axe murderer.
“Mr. Crieff, I presume,” said the man, pumping Martin's hand briefly before darting back to his desk and gesturing at a swivel chair in the middle of the floor.
“Captain Crieff,” Martin, still a bit dazed, corrected automatically, and then wished he hadn't. It was one thing to remind people of his rank when he was wearing his hat and stripes and they were sitting inside GERTI asking him for a pillow or some biscuits. It was quite another thing to bring it up when he was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and standing in the office of someone from whom he appeared to have stolen a good deal of furniture.
“Captain Crieff,” the man amended amiably, and continued with his enthusiasm and terrifying smile firmly intact. “Truly a pleasure. I am Dirk Gently. The morose figure across the room is my assistant –”
“Partner,” interjected the morose figure, from where he was reclining uncomfortably on what appeared to be a beach chair held together chiefly by the liberal application of gaffer tape.
“Richard MacDuff,” Dirk Gently finished smoothly.
“Ah,” said Martin, mouth going dry. “Mr. MacDuff, I – I don't – I'm so sorry; I have no idea –”
Richard raised a hand and shook his head. “It's all right.”
“Wh- what?”
Heaving a sigh and throwing his head back – perhaps unwisely, judging by the visible give of the tape behind him –, Richard said, “I've gone through six chairs and four desks since I started. It's a sort of cycle. He destroyed the first chair.” Here he nodded, without, apparently, any real resentment, at Dirk. “And the desk got repossessed along with the rest of the original office. The second desk took sixteen bullets and one poison dart meant for the two of us, so... that was all right. The fourth chair was dismantled under suspicion of being a disguised explosive, which, surprisingly enough, it wasn't.” He said this without a trace of sarcasm. “The third desk is currently somewhere in either Utah or Oslo, or possibly Alpha Centauri – we're not entirely sure. The last chair is now a vital component of a machine helping gravity hold the planet together and in place. And so on. I've never managed to keep a complete set of office furniture for more than a few months. So this makes sense, really. It was only a matter of time before I lost one without ever actually having it.”
Martin suddenly liked Richard rather a lot.
“Somehow,” he said emphatically, advancing into the room and sinking into the proffered chair at last, “I know exactly what you mean.”
OP
Re: OP
Mere emaoticons cannot convey my joy right now, but I'll try:
:D
Re: OP
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (2/?)
(Anonymous) 2012-03-26 07:12 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Fundamentally Wrong (2/?)
(Anonymous) 2012-03-27 12:40 pm (UTC)(link)Fundamentally Wrong (3/?)
(Anonymous) 2012-03-29 05:11 am (UTC)(link)---
Captain Crieff had never been questioned by detectives before. Dirk would have been able to discern this fact for himself even if the good captain hadn't mentioned it a dozen times during the course of the interview – which was his first, you see, he'd never been involved in things like this before, he'd never even met a detective before, unless of course it had been an undercover one, but anyway he had definitely never been a suspect or a victim or involved in any significant way with any significant crime, and he'd certainly never been interrogated or interviewed or whatever it was they called it and he was very sorry if he was babbling, but he'd just had something of a shock and he was feeling frankly out of his element here because, you understand, he'd never done this before.
MacDuff remembered the tea and gave him a lukewarm cup of it, which seemed to help.
No, Martin – they could call him Martin, he wasn't really all that bothered about titles, silly thing to have brought up – had not noticed anything suspicious about the van before stopping for petrol.
“Then I wonder,” Dirk wondered, “what it was that made you open the doors.”
“Well, um,” Martin stammered. “I – that is to say, there was nothing outright suspicious, but I – I had this feeling...”
“Ah!” Dirk stopped him with a raised hand. He could feel excitement bubbling up, threatening to turn into the full-blown thrill of the chase before he was ready for it. “A feeling! Now we're getting somewhere.”
Martin looked at MacDuff, as he had done repeatedly throughout the conversation when Dirk said something he couldn't or didn't want to grasp. “Is he being sarcastic?”
“No,” said MacDuff, shaking his head. “He's being holistic.” He prefaced the latter half of the remark with a sigh, the tone of which suggested that the word itself made him tired, which it did. Dirk knew this. MacDuff had told him so often enough.
“What?” Martin was beginning to look bewildered again. It seemed to be his default state.
Dirk kindly stepped in to explain. “Feelings,” he said seriously, “are just as prone to the laws of cause and effect as everything else. People don't just have them, on a whim, and if they do, there's a reason for the whim. If we can find the cause of your unease, we will be one step closer to finding the missing furniture.”
Martin gaped at him. Dirk recognized the look on his face. It was the look of a client who wanted to say “Are you really a detective?” but was too shy or polite or terrified to go through with it.
The moment passed without incident.
Martin swallowed, and said, “Well, that's – that's the thing. I... I don't know why I was so keen on stopping. Or...” He looked uncomfortable, and then embarrassed, and then at the half-full cup of tea he was clutching in both hands. “I wanted to stop and have a look, about... an hour earlier, but I didn't. It – it would have been ridiculous. I'd barely even started, and there was no reason to – ... Anyway, I – I told myself I'd check it out when I stopped for petrol, but – I had to... fight myself not to pull over sooner.”
Judging that the moment had been sufficiently dramatically prepped, Dirk leapt to his feet and began pacing. After giving Martin a moment to acclimatize himself to this sudden change in state, he whirled to face him. “Think! Did you notice anything at all amiss with the van, or the road, or yourself, or the environment? Anything you half thought of and brushed off? The tiniest passing thought could be vital.”
“Well...” Martin looked uncomfortable again. He took a short breath and a long sip of coffee, and met Dirk's eyes. “Yes,” he said firmly.
Dirk was a bit thrown by this. To cover for his momentary surprise, he sat on the edge of his desk, looked hard at Martin, and said intensely, “What? What did you notice?”
Martin was looking more and more ill at ease by the second, but he held Dirk's gaze steadily enough. “It's – what I didn't notice.” He cleared his throat. “It occurred to me after we spoke on the phone. All that furniture – I – I should have noticed the sudden... loss... of that much weight. I've – well, things have... fallen out the back before. Not – not often!” he hastened to add. “But – a few times. And I always... notice. A desk, a chair, a lamp...”
“Miniature filing cabinet,” MacDuff pitched in.
Martin flushed slightly, and Dirk wished MacDuff hadn't said anything. The man had only just stopped apologizing every other sentence.
“Er... yes. Anyway, that – that much weight? I should have noticed.”
The silence that fell on the office was a heavy one.
Dirk steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips in an effort to appear deep in thought. He was deep in thought, in fact, but people often missed this if he didn't show some outward sign of it.
“Maybe you were drugged?” MacDuff offered, breaking the silence.
Dirk and Martin both turned to look at him, Martin with apparent disbelief and Dirk with interest and a touch of fond amusement.
MacDuff, under Dirk's tutelage – a unique combination of negative reinforcement, negative compliments, and leading by negative example – had grown rather adept at voicing ideas that were unlikely to go over well.
“Think about it,” he continued, undeterred. “You felt – odd, you have no memory of losing anything, and you didn't notice your van suddenly getting lighter. Maybe – somebody pulled you over, drugged you, robbed you – ? If they were quick about it, you wouldn't have lost much time.”
Martin's face was white. “Are – are there drugs that can do that? Just – I mean, obviously, there are, but – ones that wouldn't knock me out or... kill me?”
Dirk inclined his head in MacDuff's direction, indicating that it was his day to have the first go at being dark and serious. MacDuff obliged.
“We've seen some pretty... messed up things,” he said quietly. “It wouldn't surprise me.”
“But I – I'm not... beat up or anything, or – wouldn't someone have stopped? Called the police?”
“If they saw it,” said MacDuff.
“If they cared,” Dirk added darkly, taking his turn at that end of the spectrum. “However...” He looked Martin up and down a few times, and was quickly dissatisfied with the amount of information such a casual method of observation allowed him to glean. He stood and moved to Martin's chair, hovering one hand over his shoulder to indicate that he should remain still. He circled the chair twice, studying Martin from all angles, and finished by peering closely at his face for any marks Martin might have missed, having presumably not thought to look in a mirror for injuries that might have resulted from an attack he didn't remember. He ignored the slightly frightened look in Martin's eyes and the familiar exasperated sigh from MacDuff.
The one point Dirk really felt he had failed to get across to his partner(/assistant) over the course of their association was the occasional necessity for the disregarding of certain boundaries in aid of a case. Many an argument had ended with Dirk pointing out that, as far as it could be helped, he never actually touched anyone, and MacDuff relenting on the grounds that he was tired of having this argument, because neither of them ever won it.
Dirk regarded Martin thoughtfully. “Your lack of any sort of wound is a point against the theory. As is your timetable – you say you left Fitton at half noon?”
“Yes.”
“Two hour drive, generally?”
“With no stops, yes.”
“And you stopped for petrol, and a brief mental respite, and arrived at the office at quarter to three... If you were robbed, you were robbed very quickly, and very efficiently. It's possible, but highly, highly improbable.”
“Well – what other explanation is there?” Martin asked hopelessly.
Dirk blinked. Wasn't it obvious? “That everything in the back of your van vanished into thin air, of course.”
“But – that's –”
“Don't say it,” MacDuff groaned, but Martin was in no state to listen to such sound advice.
“That's impossible!” he cried, somewhat indignantly, as though he was waiting for the two of them to reveal that this whole thing was some big joke at his expense.
Dirk leaned back against his desk and tried to smile reassuringly. “Of course it is! That's why it's much more likely to be the truth.”
“What?”
“Stop talking,” MacDuff pleaded with the room at large, but the room at large ignored him.
“The impossible,” Dirk said patiently, “and the improbable are two very inaccurately christened labels, I have always felt. The improbable takes something that we know to be true – for example, that wild furniture thieves tend not to roam the M1 in broad daylight, that muggings tend to take longer than five minutes, and that a van driver tends to fight back when under attack and would therefore tend to have at least a few bruises to show for it – and twists it. The impossible merely implies that there are things about the universe we don't understand. And God knows we've got the mass hysteria, year-old and completely obsolete scientific texts, and arguments about how much God does know, if He or She or It or They or Ze exists, to prove that that's true.”
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (3/?)
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (3/?)
I'm not really sure what he expected to happen when he hired the boss of the guy he may have accidentally robbed blind, though. XD
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (3/?)
Yeah, this is actually pretty good luck for Martin. XD
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (3/?)
Fundamentally Wrong (4/?)
Dirk had moved on from his speech on the impossible and was now explaining to a foolishly curious Martin just what the term holistic entailed when used in conjunction with the term detective agency.
Richard had heard this often enough to be able to more or less tune it out, which he did. He glanced down at where he had written Arthur Shappey's name and address, and something about it caught his eye.
“Fitton,” he said aloud, interrupting the “tangentially related and non-negotiable expenses” portion of Dirk's spiel. With an air of immense gratitude, Martin turned to look at him.
“What?”
“The address you were delivering the furniture from,” said Richard. “I only saw it once, online. What was it again?”
“21 Milliner Way, Fitton, NN11, 7AR,” said Martin robotically, clearly having memorised it for the job. “Why?”
“Fitton,” Richard repeated triumphantly, and an odd look crossed Dirk's face.
They said simultaneously, “That's where the other client's from.”
“What other client?” demanded Dirk.
Richard, who had nearly demanded the same thing but had stopped himself because he was sure Dirk would do it, and he didn't think he could handle saying the same thing at the same time twice in a row, said, “The bloke who's lost his dog.”
“Ah. Our suspicious fiancé hails from the very same noble domain.”
They shared a significant glance, which Martin got in the middle of as he looked rapidly between them.
“Sorry, what? You've – what other clients?”
“The bloke who's lost his dog and the suspicious fiancé,” said Dirk impatiently. “Pay attention, Martin. MacDuff! Get your coat. Fitton suddenly sounds like the place to be when the sun goes down.”
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (4/?)
Still, love what is here :D
Re: Fundamentally Wrong (4/?)
(Anonymous) 2017-02-28 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)