It's Flying, Not Driving
Jul. 3rd, 2011 06:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofknavesTitle: It's Flying, Not Driving
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tripatch
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen
Summary: I included a throw-away line about Murdock flying high on Nyquil in Arachnophobia and some people requested that story, so here it is!
Additional Notes: I don't speak helicopter, so it's as accurate as twenty seconds of Googling, "Can a helicopter land with one skid?" can make it.
To be fair, he did tell them about his unfortunate reactions with Nyquil. Hannibal just wished he had told them before they had reached the stage of the plan when Murdock was supposed to fly them out through a narrow canyon referred to as “The Devil’s Doorway” by the native locals, who really had an unfortunate grasp of alliteration and poetic sensibilities to them.
“Are we talking you get a little loopy-weird or the little pink elephants mug you-weird?” Face asked with concern.
Murdock beamed beatifically at them and pulled out his wallet, which held a Justice League Member card, three Coke can tabs, and, somewhat inexplicably, the label off of a mattress with the words, “DO NOT REMOVE” emblazoned across it.
Well, that answered that question.
“Are you able to fly?” Hannibal asked.
“Is a turtle able to sing?” Murdock answered.
Hannibal scrubbed his face with one hand. “Why Nyquil—“
“Oh, drug interactions! Or interaction with me. I dunno, Colonel, never done too well on Nyquil. Can drugs be allergic to you?”
There was a pause while they all parsed that out, save for B.A., who remained blissfully unaware crashed out in the corner. Face turned to Hannibal.
“Should he be driving?” he pointed one finger at Murdock, who was keeping up a cheerful running commentary to the chopper on what they were going to be doing today.
“He won’t be driving, he’ll be flying,” Hannibal insisted, though privately even he was a little leery.
“Oh, well, that’s completely different,” Face said sarcastically.
“Completely,” Hannibal ignored the sarcasm, making his way to the seat.
They buckled in, both clutching whatever was available when the chopper took off with a groaning lurch from the ground.
“Sorry about that,” Murdock shouted.
“It’s alright, Captain,” Hannibal assured him through gritted teeth.
Murdock gave him a funny look. “I was talking to the chopper, sir,” he said. “The old girl told me that she hasn’t been taken care of in a while.”
“As long as she gets us there—“ Hannibal began.
Face made a strangled noise. “In one piece!”
“In one piece,” Hannibal said, “then I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Sure thing!” Murdock said in that upbeat voice of his that never, ever boded well for missions. They were ten minutes into the trip when Hannibal realized that Murdock was sort of… weaving in the air, like a drunk looking for a sign on the side of the road.
“Captain?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You seem to be—“ Hannibal made a vague motion with his hand.
“Oh, that, just tryin’ to avoid the butterflies,” Murdock explained. “They keep flying into me.”
“Aren’t butterflies small?” Face said. “Easily crushable?”
Murdock looked hurt. “Well, yeah, Facey, but I still don’t want to hurt ‘em. And besides, these aren’t your normal butterflies.”
“Of course they aren’t,” Hannibal muttered.
“These are your Danaus maximus species of the Lepidoptera family. They glow bright neon green when threatened by their only natural predator.”
“Which would be?”
“Choppers,” Murdock said, whistling. The aircraft suddenly dipped, losing altitude quicker than should be possible, before regaining an almost even level again, albeit much closer to the edge of the canyon than it was. Hannibal tried very hard not to think about how much clearance they had. “Sorry about that. Did you see how many there were in that flock? Flock of butterflies? Herd of… pack of butterflies?”
“We’re going to die,” Face’s matter-of-fact voice floated from the back. “We’re all going to die in a horrible crash, and everyone will wonder, ‘Why? Were enemies shooting at them?’ and no one will ever know that it was because of butterflies and Nyquil.”
“I don’t think butterflies take Nyquil,” Murdock said with a smile. “Though they got those long proboscises. I bet those would be a bitch when you got a runny nose.”
“Death, do you hear me, Hannibal? Awful, Nyquil-induced death,” Face hissed, ignoring Murdock for the time being, who burst out into an operatic aria consisting of the words,
“Death, death, horrible death! We’re all going to die, not going to lie—“
“Stop saying that,” Face said, looking panicky. Hannibal could sympathize. The edges of the canyon kept swaying closer as Murdock decided to join his song with interpretative helicopter dancing.
“Please stop doing that,” Hannibal said tightly.
“You said we were going to die first,” Murdock pointed out reasonably.
“I can say that! Everyone knows the driver can’t say that, only the passengers!”
“It’s flying, not driving,” Murdock and Hannibal said together.
B.A. snored blissfully in the background, unaware of the complicated ballet of death the chopper was currently doing.
“Whatever!” Face threw his hands up in the air in some complicated gesture. “You’re never taking Nyquil again! Never, you hear me? You will suffer, with a headache, and stuffy nose, and coughing, and—“
“Sneezing medicine,” Murdock sang out.
“Gah! Are you going to be able to fly us back home?”
“Fly-yes, land-no!” Murdock did his best Indiana Jones impersonation. To give him credit, it was pretty good, despite his nasally voice.
“That was a movie quote, not an answer,” Face said. “Try again?”
“Don’t worry, chaps, wot wot! Saw this on a TV show once,” Murdock reassured them.
“No, no TV show stunts, we talked about this, Captain,” Hannibal said in his best warning voice. He was starting to wish he had saved some of that Nyquil. Or the stuff they gave to B.A. Or pretty much anything that would keep the horrifying swoops and whirls of what would ordinarily be a pretty desert landscape from looking so much like plain terror.
“Dear God,” Face said, looking up at the alarmingly tilting top of the chopper. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done, including that incident with the llama and the stripper heels.”
Murdock and Hannibal exchanged looks, then looked back to where Face was still talking. “And the hotel at Vegas—though to be fair, I don’t think it really counts when they don’t wear wedding rings—and the pool at that hotel with the Jello and the goldfish—“
“Lieutenant,” Hannibal really wanted him to stop. Plausible deniability was a beautiful, beautiful thing, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice it just because his lieutenant liked to be dramatic in the face of what was (probably) only 85-90% certain death. Something pinged in the back of his mind. “Wait, the Jello incident was you? You told me that you were with Sergeant McManus!”
“I lied,” Face said sincerely. “And that was wrong of me. God, did you hear that? I’m sorry for lying about that, too. In short, I’m really sorry. Just please let this crash not mess up my face. I want an open-casket funeral so that everyone can mourn me properly and realize what they’re missing. Amen.”
"Hang on, gents, it's about to get bumpy!" Murdock howled gleefully.
"It was already bumpy!" Face shouted back, trying to hold onto something. He ended up wrapping himself around B.A. like a koala around a stalk of eucalyptus.
"Pirates off the port bow!"
Before any of them had a chance to ask what he meant, the sound of M60s firing and the unmistakable whir of another helicopter reached their ears.
"It's the Jolly Green Giant!" Murdock said gleefully. Apparently his medically induced high was working for them, because the chopper bobbed gracefully in and out of the gunfire in the most bizarre feat of evasive maneuvering Hannibal had ever seen.
"Captain!"
"On it," Murdock said, swinging the chopper round. The other chopper stuttered trying to keep up.
"The canyon!" Hannibal shouted.
"It's not going anywhere!"
"Oh, God," Face moaned from the back. "If we die, I'm haunting all of you."
"We'll be dead, too," Hannibal said.
"I don't care. I will haunt your ghostly asses with my own."
"Sounds like fun," Murdock chimed in as he swung the chopper round again. The enemy aircraft rammed straight into the canyon edge, losing its main rotor and plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. Without missing a beat, he added, "Kinky, but fun."
The whole affair took less than fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity, particularly with Face moaning in the background things like, "Never again", and, "Why couldn't he have taken the fucking Tylenol?"; Hannibal telling him to shut up; Murdock reciting the St. Crispin's Day speech in his best Kenneth Brannaugh; and B.A. peacefully unconscious.
The landing pad was in sight when Murdock let out a small, "Ruh-roh."
"Ruh-roh? What's ruh-roh? You're not allowed to say 'ruh-roh'!"
"Captain?" Hannibal asked tensely.
"We may have an itty bitty problem," Murdock confessed. He glanced out the window. "But I've always considered myself a glass half-full person, so let's call it a future solution."
"And that would be?"
"We may be missing a landing skid. But, like I said, if we look at it the right way, someone's gained a really big ski."
"What about the wheels?" Hannibal said.
"They're a bit... stuck."
"Have you got a plan that doesn't involve us dying in a crash?" Face asked.
"Naturellement, mon ami!" Murdock trilled. "Hang tight, fellas. Or hang ten, whichever you want."
The ground was coming up alarmingly fast and the helicopter began to tilt sideways.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Hannibal growled, clutching his seat.
"I never know what I'm doing, sir," Murdock said. "It's never stopped me before!"
The helicopter hit the ground on its one landing skid, the slope of the land compensating for the imbalance. There were a tense few moments when the aircraft shook alarmingly, shuddering as Murdock fought the controls to keep it from flipping.
"Just like driving a car," he said casually, even though his hands were shaking and alarms were flickering like a disco light, "Steer into the crash."
When the old bird finally lurched to a stop, leaving them mostly intact, Hannibal let out an uneasy breath he wasn't aware he had been holding.
Face let out a groan and crawled out onto the ground on his hands and knees, lowering his face to the ground and kissing it fervently. One of his hands caressed the sand lovingly.
"Oh, sweet ground, sweet, beautiful ground, how I've missed you."
Hannibal ignored him, choosing instead to look at his high-as-a-kite, certifiably insane pilot, who grinned triumphantly at him.
"It's flying, Captain, not driving."
Author:
tripatchRating: PG
Pairing: Gen
Summary: I included a throw-away line about Murdock flying high on Nyquil in Arachnophobia and some people requested that story, so here it is!
Additional Notes: I don't speak helicopter, so it's as accurate as twenty seconds of Googling, "Can a helicopter land with one skid?" can make it.
To be fair, he did tell them about his unfortunate reactions with Nyquil. Hannibal just wished he had told them before they had reached the stage of the plan when Murdock was supposed to fly them out through a narrow canyon referred to as “The Devil’s Doorway” by the native locals, who really had an unfortunate grasp of alliteration and poetic sensibilities to them.
“Are we talking you get a little loopy-weird or the little pink elephants mug you-weird?” Face asked with concern.
Murdock beamed beatifically at them and pulled out his wallet, which held a Justice League Member card, three Coke can tabs, and, somewhat inexplicably, the label off of a mattress with the words, “DO NOT REMOVE” emblazoned across it.
Well, that answered that question.
“Are you able to fly?” Hannibal asked.
“Is a turtle able to sing?” Murdock answered.
Hannibal scrubbed his face with one hand. “Why Nyquil—“
“Oh, drug interactions! Or interaction with me. I dunno, Colonel, never done too well on Nyquil. Can drugs be allergic to you?”
There was a pause while they all parsed that out, save for B.A., who remained blissfully unaware crashed out in the corner. Face turned to Hannibal.
“Should he be driving?” he pointed one finger at Murdock, who was keeping up a cheerful running commentary to the chopper on what they were going to be doing today.
“He won’t be driving, he’ll be flying,” Hannibal insisted, though privately even he was a little leery.
“Oh, well, that’s completely different,” Face said sarcastically.
“Completely,” Hannibal ignored the sarcasm, making his way to the seat.
They buckled in, both clutching whatever was available when the chopper took off with a groaning lurch from the ground.
“Sorry about that,” Murdock shouted.
“It’s alright, Captain,” Hannibal assured him through gritted teeth.
Murdock gave him a funny look. “I was talking to the chopper, sir,” he said. “The old girl told me that she hasn’t been taken care of in a while.”
“As long as she gets us there—“ Hannibal began.
Face made a strangled noise. “In one piece!”
“In one piece,” Hannibal said, “then I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“Sure thing!” Murdock said in that upbeat voice of his that never, ever boded well for missions. They were ten minutes into the trip when Hannibal realized that Murdock was sort of… weaving in the air, like a drunk looking for a sign on the side of the road.
“Captain?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You seem to be—“ Hannibal made a vague motion with his hand.
“Oh, that, just tryin’ to avoid the butterflies,” Murdock explained. “They keep flying into me.”
“Aren’t butterflies small?” Face said. “Easily crushable?”
Murdock looked hurt. “Well, yeah, Facey, but I still don’t want to hurt ‘em. And besides, these aren’t your normal butterflies.”
“Of course they aren’t,” Hannibal muttered.
“These are your Danaus maximus species of the Lepidoptera family. They glow bright neon green when threatened by their only natural predator.”
“Which would be?”
“Choppers,” Murdock said, whistling. The aircraft suddenly dipped, losing altitude quicker than should be possible, before regaining an almost even level again, albeit much closer to the edge of the canyon than it was. Hannibal tried very hard not to think about how much clearance they had. “Sorry about that. Did you see how many there were in that flock? Flock of butterflies? Herd of… pack of butterflies?”
“We’re going to die,” Face’s matter-of-fact voice floated from the back. “We’re all going to die in a horrible crash, and everyone will wonder, ‘Why? Were enemies shooting at them?’ and no one will ever know that it was because of butterflies and Nyquil.”
“I don’t think butterflies take Nyquil,” Murdock said with a smile. “Though they got those long proboscises. I bet those would be a bitch when you got a runny nose.”
“Death, do you hear me, Hannibal? Awful, Nyquil-induced death,” Face hissed, ignoring Murdock for the time being, who burst out into an operatic aria consisting of the words,
“Death, death, horrible death! We’re all going to die, not going to lie—“
“Stop saying that,” Face said, looking panicky. Hannibal could sympathize. The edges of the canyon kept swaying closer as Murdock decided to join his song with interpretative helicopter dancing.
“Please stop doing that,” Hannibal said tightly.
“You said we were going to die first,” Murdock pointed out reasonably.
“I can say that! Everyone knows the driver can’t say that, only the passengers!”
“It’s flying, not driving,” Murdock and Hannibal said together.
B.A. snored blissfully in the background, unaware of the complicated ballet of death the chopper was currently doing.
“Whatever!” Face threw his hands up in the air in some complicated gesture. “You’re never taking Nyquil again! Never, you hear me? You will suffer, with a headache, and stuffy nose, and coughing, and—“
“Sneezing medicine,” Murdock sang out.
“Gah! Are you going to be able to fly us back home?”
“Fly-yes, land-no!” Murdock did his best Indiana Jones impersonation. To give him credit, it was pretty good, despite his nasally voice.
“That was a movie quote, not an answer,” Face said. “Try again?”
“Don’t worry, chaps, wot wot! Saw this on a TV show once,” Murdock reassured them.
“No, no TV show stunts, we talked about this, Captain,” Hannibal said in his best warning voice. He was starting to wish he had saved some of that Nyquil. Or the stuff they gave to B.A. Or pretty much anything that would keep the horrifying swoops and whirls of what would ordinarily be a pretty desert landscape from looking so much like plain terror.
“Dear God,” Face said, looking up at the alarmingly tilting top of the chopper. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done, including that incident with the llama and the stripper heels.”
Murdock and Hannibal exchanged looks, then looked back to where Face was still talking. “And the hotel at Vegas—though to be fair, I don’t think it really counts when they don’t wear wedding rings—and the pool at that hotel with the Jello and the goldfish—“
“Lieutenant,” Hannibal really wanted him to stop. Plausible deniability was a beautiful, beautiful thing, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice it just because his lieutenant liked to be dramatic in the face of what was (probably) only 85-90% certain death. Something pinged in the back of his mind. “Wait, the Jello incident was you? You told me that you were with Sergeant McManus!”
“I lied,” Face said sincerely. “And that was wrong of me. God, did you hear that? I’m sorry for lying about that, too. In short, I’m really sorry. Just please let this crash not mess up my face. I want an open-casket funeral so that everyone can mourn me properly and realize what they’re missing. Amen.”
"Hang on, gents, it's about to get bumpy!" Murdock howled gleefully.
"It was already bumpy!" Face shouted back, trying to hold onto something. He ended up wrapping himself around B.A. like a koala around a stalk of eucalyptus.
"Pirates off the port bow!"
Before any of them had a chance to ask what he meant, the sound of M60s firing and the unmistakable whir of another helicopter reached their ears.
"It's the Jolly Green Giant!" Murdock said gleefully. Apparently his medically induced high was working for them, because the chopper bobbed gracefully in and out of the gunfire in the most bizarre feat of evasive maneuvering Hannibal had ever seen.
"Captain!"
"On it," Murdock said, swinging the chopper round. The other chopper stuttered trying to keep up.
"The canyon!" Hannibal shouted.
"It's not going anywhere!"
"Oh, God," Face moaned from the back. "If we die, I'm haunting all of you."
"We'll be dead, too," Hannibal said.
"I don't care. I will haunt your ghostly asses with my own."
"Sounds like fun," Murdock chimed in as he swung the chopper round again. The enemy aircraft rammed straight into the canyon edge, losing its main rotor and plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. Without missing a beat, he added, "Kinky, but fun."
The whole affair took less than fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity, particularly with Face moaning in the background things like, "Never again", and, "Why couldn't he have taken the fucking Tylenol?"; Hannibal telling him to shut up; Murdock reciting the St. Crispin's Day speech in his best Kenneth Brannaugh; and B.A. peacefully unconscious.
The landing pad was in sight when Murdock let out a small, "Ruh-roh."
"Ruh-roh? What's ruh-roh? You're not allowed to say 'ruh-roh'!"
"Captain?" Hannibal asked tensely.
"We may have an itty bitty problem," Murdock confessed. He glanced out the window. "But I've always considered myself a glass half-full person, so let's call it a future solution."
"And that would be?"
"We may be missing a landing skid. But, like I said, if we look at it the right way, someone's gained a really big ski."
"What about the wheels?" Hannibal said.
"They're a bit... stuck."
"Have you got a plan that doesn't involve us dying in a crash?" Face asked.
"Naturellement, mon ami!" Murdock trilled. "Hang tight, fellas. Or hang ten, whichever you want."
The ground was coming up alarmingly fast and the helicopter began to tilt sideways.
"I hope you know what you're doing," Hannibal growled, clutching his seat.
"I never know what I'm doing, sir," Murdock said. "It's never stopped me before!"
The helicopter hit the ground on its one landing skid, the slope of the land compensating for the imbalance. There were a tense few moments when the aircraft shook alarmingly, shuddering as Murdock fought the controls to keep it from flipping.
"Just like driving a car," he said casually, even though his hands were shaking and alarms were flickering like a disco light, "Steer into the crash."
When the old bird finally lurched to a stop, leaving them mostly intact, Hannibal let out an uneasy breath he wasn't aware he had been holding.
Face let out a groan and crawled out onto the ground on his hands and knees, lowering his face to the ground and kissing it fervently. One of his hands caressed the sand lovingly.
"Oh, sweet ground, sweet, beautiful ground, how I've missed you."
Hannibal ignored him, choosing instead to look at his high-as-a-kite, certifiably insane pilot, who grinned triumphantly at him.
"It's flying, Captain, not driving."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-24 03:16 pm (UTC)“I lied,” Face said sincerely. “And that was wrong of me. God, did you hear that? I’m sorry for lying about that, too. In short, I’m really sorry. Just please let this crash not mess up my face. I want an open-casket funeral so that everyone can mourn me properly and realize what they’re missing. Amen.”
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-17 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-23 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-27 07:42 am (UTC)And heh, that's a story for another time.
Thank you for reading and reviewing!