fic: changing planes [Cabin Pressure]

[raven]

I wrote this one for the kinkmeme, but it took a life of its own, rather.

fic:: changing planes
by Raven
3000w, Cabin Pressure, gen, ensemble. Some lives Martin Crieff doesn't lead, and the one that, at first reluctantly and now willingly, he's learning to live.

---

Martin has been missing for more than two days.

And it is not as though Douglas is going to do something terribly clever and fix everything. That is not what is going to happen at all. Underneath the stolid realism of that thought Carolyn is aware dimly of two other things: that what Douglas does best is being reassuring – reassuringly trenchant, reassuringly dismissive, reassuringly Douglas – and that now she's come out with it, finally given voice to the odd little theory knocking between the bones of her skull like a particularly irritating marble, he isn't actually saying anything at all. He's standing there, looking at her thoughtfully as though she's said something, if not profound, at least worthy of further consideration.

"I tell you what," he says at last. "How about I drive over to his house? I'll… I'll talk to his housemates. I'll be back in a while."

He's taking his keys out of his pocket without waiting for her answer; in a few minutes she sees him through the tiny window of the portakabin, getting drenched in the rain on his way across the airfield to his car.

Carolyn sits heavily down at the table and wonders vaguely how on earth her life came to this. Arthur pops his head briefly in, then disappears. He's not talking very much today.

Half an hour later, Douglas is back, wet from the downpour. He comes right in, sits down next to Carolyn and props his head up on his elbows before he says anything. "I'm ready now," he says. "Tell me."

Carolyn glances at him. "We've never met his family," she says, abrupt. "I have never filled out any paperwork on his behalf. I don't pay him so I'm not legally his employer. I never asked to see his ID. The students…"

"Were unhelpful," Douglas finishes.

"Then," Carolyn pauses. "Could it be – Douglas, you are supposed to be telling me I'm a silly old lady now."

"You're a mad old bat," Douglas says tonelessly. "Go on."

"Could it be that Martin has never actually… has never been…"

"Here?"

Carolyn nods, then shakes her head. Douglas gets up and rummages onto a shelf until he finds one of their old logbooks, and opens it flat on the table. Martin's handwriting curves neatly across the pages. Rain is battering against the windows, drumming on the roof.

"Not that," Carolyn says. "But not really here? Not quite... settled."

Douglas says, without conviction,"Rather nice penmanship for a ghost."

A drop of water falls from the leaky roof, predictable as the rain itself. Douglas says something under his breath and goes to find a bucket. Carolyn doesn't move, watching the water on the ink, blurring, smudging, fading away.

*

And now it's nearly time to be leaving. Toophan, voices murmur, at the edge of cognition; Martin tastes the word in his mouth as a coming of power. He raises a hand, and lets it drop; on the ground by his feet a small pebble, from somewhere who knows where in these oceans of desert, rolls forward for the length of a finger. Martin concentrates and it comes to a stop, buried by more layers of sand.

He pulls his hood over to shadow his eyes, covers his ears, making his way through the concentric circles of the bazaar. First, food, on the outer rim; then lamp wicks and shoe leather and soap, through smaller and smaller rings of souks; then the hub: the other things they need.

A man throws a handful of flames in the air and catches them, flips his hands over so his fingers are uncurling like flowers with fiery petals in between. Martin dips his gaze, then raises it. "Tricks."

The man quirks his eyebrow. "You would know, sala?"

In answer Martin inclines his head, pushes back the hood on the left side, revealing for a moment the rusted practitioner's bar.

The man nods his head, a slow bow, respectful. "Salaam aleikum."

"Waleikum salaam." Martin buys essentials, quick and efficient. In the burlap sack with the dried fruit and flour he adds gilded oil, alcohol for sickness. When he starts across the rings of stalls again the muezzins are calling and in the sky the twilight is thickening.

Douglas comes to meet him at the very edge of darkness, coming in from the sands, carrying a light at his shoulder. it throws shadows dark and deep into his face. "Get everything? Did you have any trouble?"

Martin raises a hand to his ear; Douglas chuckles, softly. "Do you tell them how many times it took you to get it?"

It's affectionate, not mocking. Martin pushes the hood back over his shoulders for a moment, not ashamed of the rusting metal. Douglas's mark comes from a richer family and an earlier time – when only gold was ever used, braided to look like jewellery. Martin's mark was pushed through his flesh the way it was earned, painful and definite.

Gold bars, thinks an inner voice from somewhere else - gold bars, gold braid. Martin shakes it off and covers his head. Toophan, he thinks again. Sand and wind, lifting.

"Well?" Carolyn demands, coming out to meet them, the determined look on her face thrown into relief by the light Douglas is carrying. The cargo that was spilling out of crates and boxes when Martin left has all been neatly loaded, and Arthur is already going eagerly through Martin's purchases.

"Dates!" he says, excitedly. "Oh, I love these, they're so sticky you can eat them forever."

"We will be eating them for pretty much forever, so hands off," Douglas says, lightly pushing his hands away, and as one he and Martin turn to face the desert.

"Time to go," Martin says after a moment, and takes Douglas's hand for a minute to define their terms. Douglas nods, pours a little of the gilded oil over their joined fingers and one by one they say the meaningless words – Martin's power is in precision; Douglas's in dramatic forms – and breathe in the precious, purposeful fragrance. They do it exactly by the book, this time, with none of Douglas's flourishes and embellishments. They have seen wonders, through Douglas's practitioner magic. They have also set themselves on fire.

"Time," Douglas agrees. Their power joins, coalesces into something, and flows out into the wheels and axles and bars, becomes a stilled motion, something waiting for a touch to spring it into life.

"Onwards," Carolyn says, and they both leap into their seats. The caravan lurches forwards, with Arthur leaning over to watch the tiny stars the oil leaves as traces in the sand.

"Toophan," Martin murmurs, for Carolyn's ears.

"Storm's coming," she agrees, and then it's dark

*

as night, as space. Gertie pulses into the welcoming black, her outer surfaces ululating greenish and glowing against the background of stars.

A sudden jerk, as they move inwards in the system. Douglas sits down in front of the interior window, visibly gelatinous against his outstretched hand, and says, "Flares."

Carolyn draws in a breath, and Martin doesn't wait for the instruction. He sets out across the ship with trails of light following his feet along the shifting passages, the organic lines and curves leading him up to the outer envelope. He emerges slowly, as though – mentally slapping himself for the thought – being born. And then there are the stars.

A distant burst of light: another flare. Martin's too late to stop the movement and they jerk inwards again, off the set flight plan. They are heading towards Barnard's Star, slowly, over weeks and months, but no longer on the course he set and he feels the aberration deeply within his bones. He breathes in and out and makes himself be calm.

He's still waiting for the next one when Arthur appears as if from nowhere, his head popping up from Gertie's outer envelope. "Martin! What are you doing?"

Martin smiles. "Watching for solar flares. You must have felt them."

"I was having a nap," Arthur says. "Can I watch for them too?"

"Be my guest." Martin waves Arthur to sit beside him and obligingly Gertie lights the space, living cells flowering into bioluminescence around them, almost like glowing, comfortable armchairs beneath the vertiginous nothingness above.

"Best not stand up too fast," Martin warns. "Gertie's good but she's not that good. She can only make air for you if you give her a minute's notice."

Air, and gravity, and a curious feeling of peace and wellbeing. Martin reaches out to pat Gertie's great side, conscious that the warmth he feels is his own body heat, reflected back on him for his own comfort; Gertie and her kind are born in the chilled outer layers of gas giants, grow into maturity traversing the gulfs of space.

"I won't," Arthur says, and Martin takes a moment to realise he means he won't move around too quickly, so Gertie can continue to form oxygen around his mouth and nose. "I come out here myself sometimes. I mean" – he motions grandly at space, the stars, the whole wondrous universe – "it's a bit brilliant, isn't it?"

Martin chuckles. He isn't surprised; Arthur and Gertie understand one another, sometimes, in a way that Martin can't comprehend; even though it's Martin who guides her through space, his very human mind doesn't gel with hers very well. He feels her like a heartbeat in his teeth, but Arthur understands her.

"Flares," buzzes a voice. Douglas's irritation, conveyed through bundles of the ship's nerve tissue and fuzzy at Martin's feet. Martin sighs and looks out. From this great distance the Sun is only slightly larger than any other star but through the filter of Gertie's perceptions, they see it with curious intensity. When the flares come, belching great clouds of ionising radiation into space, the ships are drawn, mindless for beauty, moths loving a flame.

Martin's ready, standing up. "Dearest," he says quietly, "don't" - and it's a spoken word but it's a clear hard thought. "The heat will hurt you."

Arthur nods. There's no sudden movement, just a contraction of her flesh like a wave.

"Don't," Martin says again, and at the next flare, there's no change in their movement at all, only a feeling of quietness, as though she's heard and understood, and although it's at least twelve times more complicated than that when you see it written down – in the operations manual, thinks the voice of a self that isn't quite his own – there's something about guiding a ship through space that comes down to feeling, in the end.

"Thank you," Douglas says, still irritated. A good co-pilot, he's already adjusting for the change in course.

Martin laughs and says, serenely, "You're welcome."

"Want a biscuit?" Arthur asks, and Martin takes one, wondering if he’ll regret it, and being careful not to get crumbs on Gertie's smooth sides.

"Rich Tea," Arthur says, indistinctly, and Martin sits down again under the great blackness of a sky that's


*

windswept and grey, disappearing behind the slamming door.

Martin looks up. "Carolyn Knapp-Shappey?"

"Yes. A pleasure to meet you." She reaches out for a handshake, and Martin winces at the amount of ink on his hands. But she turns her palms, inspects them with interest and no displeasure, and he thinks perhaps she, like him, considers the stains honourable badges of the trade.

"Martin Crieff," he says, a little belatedly. "We've corresponded."

"Of course, Mr Crieff." She smiles at him, but her eyes are on the great structure behind him, the glowing bronzed surfaces of the metal, and then when she seems to recollect his presence, and turns to look at him, she's distracted again: this time by the coiled scrolls on Martin's beautiful carved oak desk, the mess of discarded brushes. Martin smiles and decides he's going to like her.

"Perhaps you'll call me Martin," he says, gently.

"Then you must call me Carolyn." She finally drags her gaze back to him and smiles back. "Tell me how this is going to work. You said you'd figured out a new method of lexical locomotion – can you explain, please?"

"With pleasure." With sudden decision, he walks to the back of the workshop so the whole scene is spread out in front of them. The bathyscape Gewürztraminer dominates the space in her struts, all of which have been strengthened and buttressed for the occasion. "You know, of course," Martin says, "that I'm used to working with aircraft. Biplanes, mostly." Almost unconsciously, he looks up to the giant hook in the roof from which they are hung. "You've seen the wings in the process of the workings. I can have craftspeople in here eight hours a day with their brushes, painting the lettering on the outer surfaces. I suppose if there were no need for it, we could use something other than canvas for the wings."

Carolyn nods. "But Gertie is going somewhere where canvas won't cut it, I'm afraid."

Not for the first time, Martin wonders what is taking this woman on this journey – this middle-aged woman of no particular background, deciding suddenly to plumb the ocean's depths and putting a large portion of her fortune towards it. Looking at him, Carolyn seems to guess what he's thinking. "I'll have another person with me," she says, lightly. "Former submariner, name of Douglas Richardson. Perhaps you've heard of him."

Martin shakes his head.

"Never mind," Carolyn says, "all you need to know about him can be gleaned from the fact he named the damn boat. Now tell me how we're doing this."

"It occurred to me," Martin says, "that you don't have to see the lettering, even on an aircraft – it's just how we happen to do it. Now, if you take the heavy paper" – he points at the burgeoning scrolls on his desk – "and load it safely into the skin of the vessel, for example in the vacuum spaces between the layers of plating, then…"

Carolyn smiles. "I understand."

She starts forwards, going to inspect the work, and Martin hangs back, content to wait for her verdict. Suddenly, a voice pipes up: "How do the letters make it go, then?"

Martin turns to the stranger coming inside from the rain. "Hello?"

"I'm Arthur," he chirps – a young man, not quite a boy. "That's m'mum over there. How does it work?"

Martin is thrown off balance for a moment by the directness of the inquiry. He considers, then draws a piece of paper towards him. Quickly, he sketches a basic form, and the paper crumples in his hand, becomes a folded swan.

He hands it over to Arthur, who accepts it joyfully. "Wow! That's brilliant! How did you do that?"

"It's like mathematics," Martin says. "Once it's written, it can't not be true. See?" He takes the swan back and adds a descending stroke to the character on the neck. It takes flight and flutters around Arthur's head.

"Brilliant!" Arthur says again. "Do you think I could learn how to do that?"

"You're not too old," Martin says. "Some people take" – four attempts at their CPL, thinks that other self – "a lot of work to get their licence. But stick with it."

Arthur looks delighted. He opens the door to let the swan out, and it immediately struggles, the lettering beginning to smudge and run because

*

it's raining in Fitton. Martin is sleeping lightly, strange light cast on his face by the water curving down the outer surfaces of the windows. There is a layer of condensation forming within the layers of perspex.

Carolyn steps within the skin of her aeroplane and says, gently, "Martin."

"Carolyn?" He looks up, blurred by sleep, the orange passenger blanket slipping off his shoulders. "Carolyn, is that you?"

"Yes, of course it's me, you foolish boy," she says, still gently. "Where have you been, you foolish, foolish boy?"

"It is you," Martin says with some surprise as she comes into his line of sight. "I think I've – ah, been somewhere."

"It's an aeroplane," Douglas notes, from the back of the cabin. "It's rather designed for having been somewhere."

Martin nods, taking this very seriously. He's very aware of the rain, the dim, familiar autumnal chill. "Yes."

Carolyn says, "So are you, I think, Martin."

"Me?" Martin still isn't quite awake, still held in the grip of something else.

Carolyn nods and sits down beside him. "You don't lay down roots very easily, do you, Martin? No… how to put it? No family ties. Nothing to hold you to the ground."

Martin says, through the haze of tiredness, "But I saw you… and Douglas…"

"We tend to fly, also," Douglas says, standing up and walking between the rows of seats. "It isn't as though we have a great deal to hold us down, notwithstanding the aforementioned aeroplane."

"But not so easy to displace as you," Carolyn says, a little ruefully. "We had time to think about it, while you were gone."

Martin looks up, snapping into lucidity. "Have I been gone for a long time?"

"We decided," says Douglas conversationally, "that whether you had come unstuck in time and space or left us of your own accord, you would come back to us."

"A long time?" Martin persists.

"Why don't you tell us about it," Douglas says, and then the thunder rolls, a storm shouting something very loudly in the distance, but in this place Martin doesn't understand the languages of storms.

"I will," he says, quiet, "and then you can take me home."

"All right," Douglas says, and takes his hand, and Carolyn leads them out onto the airfield, out into the rain.

After a while, Martin says, "I'm sorry if I made you worry." His voice is quiet, uncertain under the rain. "I'm sorry if – anyway, I never meant to. I never meant to go to other places."

"Perhaps you'd better start putting down some roots," Carolyn says, gently.

"You mean – stop flying?" It comes out panicked, before Martin can stop it.

"No," Douglas says, comfortable and easy, "but let's start with dinner. Arthur's waiting."

Across the wet spaces of the world, they keep on walking.

end.

Comments

[king_touchy]

Lovely and lyrical and well done.

[kindkit]

This is gorgeous, and I especially love all the worldbuilding you do in so little space. (And if you ever wanted to make full AUs out of any of these, I would read them with joy.)

[marymac]

This is gorgeous.

And "They have also set themselves on fire." Of course they have, that is perfect.

[opusculasedfera]

This was gorgeous.

[petra]

These are all wonderful. Gerti the sentient ship is particularly dear to my heart.

[marginaliana]

Wow, this is fascinating. I love how so much story is told in these snippets, and how Arthur is just Arthur, especially. And "They have also set themselves on fire." - hee!

[raven]

thank you very much. :)

[raven]

aww, thank you!

[raven]

heee! But of course. thank you so much!

[raven]

thank you! <3

[raven]

I have a lot of love for Gertie as a living thing. Thank you, dear.

[raven]

thank you, dear!

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

This is lovely, and I am gobsmacked by the whole idea. And your execution is perfect, building these other worlds / alternate universes where Martin is so much more at home. Martin's power is in precision; Douglas's in dramatic forms Yes. In any universe, this is a true thing.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

For good or ill, you are entirely responsible for getting me into Cabin Pressure... . I feel as if your Cabin Pressure fics are entirely in character while also giving the characters more grace, if you will, than they get in the original. Lovely. The first AU (?) here in particular, I'd happily read a whole novel's worth.

[tracionn.livejournal.com]

This is magic and wonderful and moving and so, so well composed!!

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

This was amazing. I keep thinking about it -- haunting and sweet and deeply moving.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

je ne regrette rien. :) thank you so much, my dear.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

thank you very much!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

thank you so much, my dear. <3