I recently became hooked on the show thanks to the DVD (it's also available on YouTube).  Longstreet, like Star Trek a couple of years earlier, was cancelled for failure to attract a mass audience.  It lasted only one season, so there are plenty of loose ends to fuel fan fiction.  I found Mike Longstreet's chemistry with his assistant (and former Braille teacher) Nikki Bell to be particularly intriguing -- thus my two short stories to be found (here) on AO3.  (Note: Even though both are meant primarily for fans of the show, I intended them to be intelligible even to people who've never watched it.)

There are three earlier works to be found there as well, and I can particularly recommend the Longstreet / Nero Wolfe crossover to any Wolfe fans.

If you're more of a "carrot" person, Written? Kitten! might be the one for you. You select the word count threshold, then every time you reach it you get rewarded with a cute kitten pic from flickr (sadly, I don't know of any site with puppies).

The "stick" people among you might prefer Write or Die, which, to use their own words, puts "Prod" into Productivity. You either write for a pre-specified amount of time, or bad things happen. How bad is up to you.

Both are free, at least in Web App form.

1) The setting is ambiguous.  It's sort of in a universe of its own, with a mashup of different mythologies and some characters I just made up.  I think it has heavy Greek and Norse influence though.

2) The lofty language is due to the style requirement.  I was fully aware of how lame it sounded, but the assignment was to mimic, lol.

3) If the main character's behavior in particular is sometimes devoid of rationality and not entirely sympathetic, it's because most of the mythological heroes I read about came off to me that way.  They always seemed to do dumb things for dumb reasons with dumb results.

4) I had 2 days to write this, so yeah, it was rushed.

5) It's really just the start of a story.  I had planned more, but there was a page limit, lol.  There are two parts.

There's probably more I could say if I thought about it, but that's good enough for now.  Without further ado...

The Story

   This is a Doctor Who/Five Nights at Freddy's crossover. I don't own or claim to own the characters or other elements of either.

   The idea from this spawned from the fact that Bonnie (from Five Night's at Freddy's) has a bowtie. Things just kinda escalated from there.

   Doctor Who and all related elements © BBC

   FNaF and all related elements © Scott Cawthon

   Story by me, Bendydoodle Cantaloupe.

   WARNING: May contain some blood, violence, and horror elements.

***

NEWS CLIPPING, DATED SOMETIME AFTER 1987

Three days ago, four children vanished in [omitted] forest while their families were on holiday. Before the four – [names redacted] – disappeared on that overcast evening, they were allegedly going deeper into the woods to explore and play. Two hours passed and the children had not shown up for dinner. The parents quickly struck out into the woods in search of them, but to no avail.

A search party was sent out the day after and discovered one of the children, [redacted], wandering the moor. Even with the assistance of trained police dogs, they could not locate the other three, and when night fell they were forced to call off the search. However, two of the searchers returned to the forest to investigate the “strange mechanical noises” they’d heard. The party waited until morning, but the searchers never came back.

***

(1)

The four animatronics watched the blond man stagger about the forest as if in a daze. Curiosity – if you could call this pre-programmed urge “curiosity” – nudged them to walk out, to get a closer look, but that was against the rules. So they watched through the outside camera, studying his every move.

They saw him pull his vest closer to himself, though they could not name a reason why. Being machines, they did not understand warmth and cold. All they understood was that this man seemed... familiar. They scanned for his face in their databanks but no matches showed up. And yet the feeling – was this a “feeling”? – didn’t leave them, instead continuing to plague them as they studied the blond man.

Did they have empathy, these decaying animatronics? Could they feel? Did they have emotion? They could feel familiarity, yes, but what about anger? Love? Sadness? Were they capable of emulating these? Were they capable of emulating anything akin to sentiment?

The machines themselves, well, they couldn’t answer that. Perhaps, perhaps.

***

The man’s name was Rory. Rory Williams. He’d been kidnapped by scientists, and while in captivity he had found out about a horrible experiment gone wrong twenty-seven years back. He had escaped from the laboratory near the woods for fear that he would be subject to a worse experiment, but in his plight he’d run into the forest and gotten lost.

Now, Rory felt his entire body go rigid. Thirst racked at his throat and his stomach ached with hunger. He’d been in the lab, say – three days? Four? He couldn’t remember exactly. They’d barely provided any food, the scientists there.

He checked his watch. It was 7pm and nightfall was almost upon him. Or maybe his watch was broken – he saw the second hand tick a minute away but the minute hand didn’t move. Well, he thought, for all intents and purposes it’s 7pm.

What was it about this place? These trees, this underbrush and shrubbery seemed familiar, even though Rory was lost. Maybe he had strayed back toward the lab? No; the forest was far too dense. Near the lab, the forest thinned out and the plants vanished altogether just a few paces shy of the perimeter. So what was this place? And why did it bring a sudden, heavy sense of dread?

Despite his misgivings, Rory lurched onward, curiosity goading him forth.

***

“There, look,” said the bear, pointing with one distorted paw. His steel jaw gaped, revealing horrible, crooked endoskeleton teeth, as the Toreador March chimed in the air. “There he is.”

“Who is he, Foxy?” said the chicken. “He looks familiar.”

The bear growled, “The fourth one. The fourth.”

“Can’t be. He’s too old,” the chicken snapped. A trickle of blood and mucus streamed from one of her eyes, as if the force of the reprimand jarred her internal structures.

“It’s been twenty-seven years, Chica. Of course he looks old.” The bear emitted a raspy sound that could have been a huff had it not been for the auto-tuning in his voice.

The two animatronics gathered closer to the camera feedback screen. The blond man was limping, weaving unsteadily towards the camera, though his eyes betrayed no sign of detecting it. The sight of him kindled that unnameable sensation again.

“See?” said the bear. He tapped the screen with his mangled claw. “He’s the fourth. Has to be.”

“But I’m the fourth.”

The bear wheeled around and snarled, “You’re not one of us!”

The mechanical rabbit stood, nose-to-nose with the bear as the latter went on: “We were programmed to find the fourth one. You’re just here to fill in a fifth, to babysit us, ‘cause you didn’t come soon enough and then we were put into these – things! But once we have the fourth one, we’ll be all together again. No more worries, Bonnie.” The bear spat out the name as if it were a vile drug.

“And then what?” challenged Bonnie. “You do know that these – Bonnie, Freddy, Foxy, and Chica – aren’t our real names.”

“Shut up!” roared Freddy. “We don’t talk about the old life! It’s against the rules! All we have is right now, and right now we’re Bonnie, Freddy, Foxy, and Chica! Okay?”

Chica eyed them stiffly. This was the closest thing to emotion Freddy had gotten to in a long time. The mechanical bear was the one who felt emotion most keenly, but most of the things he felt was rage.

Bonnie bared his endoskeleton teeth. “Fine.”

“Good. Now, everyone” – Freddy waved his mangled paw over the two other machines present – “get in position.”

“How come?” asked Chica.

Freddy flexed his good paw, his sharp talons scraping his metal palm. “It’s finally playtime.”

***

Rory stared up at the phone box that loomed before him, his discovery after another hour of walking. Ivy crawled over the sides and the windows were cracked and caked in mud. The derelict booth was faded blue and the doors hung crookedly, but it was shelter. It was going to be small and cramped inside, Rory figured, but at least he would have some protection from the cold.

He picked up an oblong rock and used it to pry the ivy off of the door handle. A quick glance up at the little piece of sky that shone through the trees told him the sun was almost fully set. Rory gripped the right door handle and pulled it, but the door didn’t budge, even though the rusted sign said “pull to open.” He pushed instead. The door gave. And then he walked inside.

“No way...”

Either he was hallucinating from hunger or he had fallen down a rabbit hole. Instead of a dusty closet-sized bare room, Rory found himself in a sort of control room. His back to the entrance, a translucent glass pillar  around a circular console, with all sorts of strange buttons and levers on top with exposed wiring down below. Above the console on a manoeuvrable, pivoting beam was what seemed to be a small TV screen. Over the railing and down below, there was a vast space and huge, thick wires that were like the trunk of a tree. There was one door to the left and another to the right.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” Rory said to himself in a breathless voice.

Suddenly, the room lit up, although dimly. Rory jumped as the doors slammed shut. An azure glow began to emanate from the pillar. The TV screen flickered to life. The console whirred softly.

He squeezed his eyes shut, convinced that he was going to die. A primal fear tore through him and the world pitched and tossed. He was down on the ground and digging his fingers through the holes in the grated floor, fighting to hold tight. There were machines in front of him (or were they hallucinations?), shaped like animals but they didn’t move like animals, and screams echoed down the darkened corridors, abruptly cut off once everything went black.

***

And then there was ringing. Not in his ears. A phone was ringing. It sounded like the old-fashioned kind with a spinning dial instead of buttons.

How could there be reception, let alone a phone, here?

Rory opened his eyes. To his right there was a phone. With a tentative hand, he picked it up.

“H-Hello?”

“Hello,” said the voice on the other end. The word was tinged with a British accent, but the vowels stretched out in a distinctive way.

Rory felt his blood run cold. “Wh-who is this?”

“There’s no use trying to directly talk to me.” The phone guy’s voice was slightly rough, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while. “This’s a message, alright? So you better pay attention, because I won’t be able to say it again. Put this on speakerphone. That’s the green rectangular button, in case you’re wondering.”

Rory did so. He sat down on a chair that was situated beneath the TV screen, leaving the phone dangling off of the console as it played the message. As the phone guy spoke, Rory did as he said.

“Bring down the TV screen. It should turn on automatically. Now, at this point you should start hearing a bit of noise” –

Clattering sounded from Rory’s left. His stomach churned as he kept listening.

– “Don’t ignore that. This place, the TARDIS... kills the unwary, I’m sorry. It didn’t used to be like that, but after the incident twenty-seven years ago, the most of the TARDIS became corrupted. Where you are now – which should be the main control room – is the only safe zone left. And even this’ll eventually decay. It’ll rot, just like the animatronics.

“There’re two buttons on each side when you sit in the chair. Red ones’re for the doors. Clear ones are for the lights. Left ones” – the phone guy took a wheezing breath – “trigger the left side and vice-versa. You’re going to have to check the lights a lot, but don’t leave them on. The TARDIS is losing power. You’ve only got so much you can use per night.”

Underneath his arms, Rory could feel his sweat start to soak into his vest. The TV screen showed a mess of connected polygons, with boxes marked with a combination of one letter and one number. What were those?

“On the screen, the small labelled boxes toggle the cameras. Check those often. You have to keep an eye on the animatronics. I don’t have the time to describe ‘em. You’ll know ‘em when you see ‘em. They hunt from... now – midnight – to 6am.” Another wheeze came from the phone guy.

So it was midnight. Rory figured he must’ve been out for hours.

“Check the lights. For God’s sake, check the bloody lights. They could be right in the doorway and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late.

“And what happens if they get you?” The phone guy paused.

Rory’s teeth started to chatter. His throat clutched. He couldn’t breathe. Is this some kind of sick joke? A twisted game?

“I can’t say for sure.”

It must be, thought Rory. I’m going to die.

“Good luck.”

The phone buzzed, indicating the end of the call, and then went dead.

Chapter 1: Trust has to start somewhere

A weak fluttering of the eyelids, almost imperceptible; dark lashes in a pale face trembling. Captain James T. Kirk had read up on cryogenic stasis, and he knew that cognitive and aural capabilities should be fully functional by the time motor control started to reappear. He therefore perched himself on a ledge next to the pod and addressed its supine occupant.

“Relax, you’re safe. You’ve been put into cryostasis again, and right now you’re thawing. You should be fully in control soon enough, especially since you only spent two years in stasis this time. But you know that process better than me, I guess.”

Kirk’s words had clearly reached the pod’s resident, judging by his reaction; however, the desired relaxation effect failed to materialize. He strained to move, managing no more than a feeble writhing, though, and his throat formed a guttural, “Gggghk...”

Kirk stifled a sigh – he had expected such a reaction to his voice; it wasn’t unwarranted, to be honest. While he had been waiting for the first signs of motor control, he had entertained a dark corner of his mind with fantasies of how he would tell the fully aware, but still helpless man lying below him of how Christopher Pike had felt when he lay dying. He knew that wasn’t really a wise option, but it had felt sweet imagining it.

Instead, he acknowledged the response, trying to sound steady, “Yes, it’s me, Kirk. You are safe, regardless.” Knowing the one bit of information that might bring his opponent to hear him out, he added, “And so is your crew. Spock had them removed from the torpedoes before those were beamed onto the Vengeance. Their pods are right next to yours.”

The body below him went still all of a sudden, concentrating all his efforts on moving his eyelids. Kirk found himself staring into painfully familiar eyes, clear and pale, the color of roiling clouds, the gaze still unfocused but clear in its intent.

Kirk nodded in response, hopped down and stood next to the pod, carefully grasping Khan’s head and shoulders; even after hours of being subjected to the awakening process, the other man’s body still felt unnaturally cool in his hands. He turned him to the right ever so slowly so he could see the others’ pods beside his, lined up in a double row in the dimly-lit storeroom, a silent honor cordon.

The captain could feel in his fingertips when the information had registered – the tension left the body he was holding as if a string had been cut. Stubbornly refusing to acknowledge a similar tension trapped in his own muscles, he lowered Khan into the pod again as gently as he could and resumed his position on the ledge, smoothing an escaped blond strand out of his eyes.

Khan was trying to talk again, straining to form a silent W. He’s not missing a beat. Of course. Kirk closed his eyes – this was the part he’d dreaded, but there was no avoiding it. He tried to steady his voice as he began to speak.

“My crew is imprisoned on Rura Penthe.”

The name reverberated through the half-empty storeroom, echoes lurking among the shadows, giving a painful reality to the situation, to his friends trapped on the world described as the alien’s graveyard. His breath caught in his throat, and he had to collect himself for a moment before he was able to continue speaking.

“We were ordered by Starfleet Command to interrupt our five-year mission to attend a ceasefire talk with the Klingons. Shortly after we’d arrived, during dinner, an assassin struck and poisoned their chancellor. We were seized and accused of the murder; at first we were confident, thinking it was a simple enough mistake, their blaming us aliens, and that it would all clear up soon.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held. “Then there was the trial, when it became clear we’d been framed. All eight of us who had been present were sentenced to life imprisonment on Rura Penthe. However, my sentence was suspended, to return the Enterprise and her remaining personnel to Federation space and to tell the Federation of our lawful treatment.”

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut so tightly they hurt. “I should have refused. I should have gone with them.”

He shook his head sadly. “But at that point I was still convinced that the Federation, that my Federation, would clear this all up; that, failing all else, they would let me mount a rescue mission. Instead, I got words.”

The captain didn’t even attempt to keep the bitterness from creeping into his speech. “Difficult situation. Fragile ceasefire. Diplomatic channels.” He spat. “They wouldn’t do a damn thing except for tepid inquiries through those dammed diplomatic channels about their welfare.” He slowly opened his eyes again, looking down at Khan. “The lifespan on Rura Penthe is measured in months. My friends are dying, and nobody gives a damn.”

Khan seemed to have regained a measure of control about his facial muscles in the meantime, for his expression could best be described as the exact opposite of surprise. The question in his eyes was clear, however.

Kirk nodded in acknowledgement. He grasped a thin metal chain around his neck, pulling forth a small data cube from his shirt – his uniform shirt, he reflected bitterly. He explained, “While we traveled back to Earth, I saved all recent data from the Enterprise’s logs as well as my personal tricorder files onto this encrypted cube and deleted the originals. At that time, I was afraid there would be more attempts to frame us and tamper with the records – maybe the assassin had a mole on our ship. But when it became clear that Starfleet Command would not act, I refused to share my data, and now I am glad I did – all they did in response was threaten me with a court-martial, as if I cared."  

He grasped the cube so tightly for a moment that its edges bit into his palm – it was all that remained to him of his beloved ship, which he would now never be allowed to fly again. Getting a grip on himself, he relaxed his grasp and continued, “While traveling to the rendezvous point in the neutral zone, we were brought off-course by an ion storm in the Mutara sector. We were knocked out of warp right inside the Mutara Nebula, sensors practically useless. It was by pure chance that we stumbled upon a bubble within that vast nebula, containing a small cluster of three suns, with maybe a dozen planets altogether, several of them Class M. We didn’t think much of this discovery at the time, since these systems were so isolated and therefore unlikely to be colonized; we couldn’t even receive subspace communication there due to the nebula. So we simply recorded the location and were glad that this bubble allowed us to jump to warp speed again and reach the rendezvous in time.”

He locked eyes with Khan, his blue eyes unflinching as he stated what he would have called treason not too long ago. “But now this cube is the only record of the coordinates, or indeed the existence, of a handful of planets almost impossible to find by conventional means, within Federation space but beyond the reach of the Federation.”

Khan gave an almost imperceptible nod and slowly fought to answer, his deep voice still weak but his words clear. “And if I help you free your crew, you will give these coordinates to me.” It was a statement, not a question, his face looking resigned.

Kirk shook his head, still holding Khan’s gaze. “No. We are already on our way there. In fact, we should arrive within the hour.”

“What?” Khan sat up in shock, leveling eyes with Kirk.

The bastard only pretended to be helpless still, to lull me into a false sense of security. Kirk couldn’t say he was surprised, really. He tried not to flinch from the face next to his as he answered, as calmly as he was able to, “It’s a bit hard to tell from here, I know, but we are on board a colony ship I stole. I found one, the Chrysalis, whose deployment was delayed indefinitely due to the current unstable situation and hacked into the logistics database to have your pods brought on board by automatic transports. Then I forged a launch order, snuck on board, lifted off and was gone before anybody was the wiser. As far as I can tell, neither I, you nor the ship are being missed so far – Starfleet probably thinks I’m still sulking in Iowa.” 

Khan was studying Kirk with an inscrutable expression, leaning in even closer until their faces almost touched. “What game are you playing, Captain?”

Kirk shook his head slowly. “No more games. This is the 23^rd century, and we are supposed to be so much more civilized and wiser than the turbulent, savage 20^th century you hail from. Yet all you have encountered so far has been deceit, betrayal, coercion and blackmail. This has to stop, and it stops now. I am not Admiral Marcus. I will not use your crew’s welfare as collateral to force you to do my bidding. I am helping you and your followers because you are people, not pawns. Whether or not you are going to help me is entirely your own decision.”

Khan seemed taken aback by this outburst. He studied Kirk silently for a minute, and then slowly asserted, “You must have read up on my history by now, Captain. And yet you would entrust the lives of your crew to my sense of honour? You are a fool.”

Feeling a surprising calm wash over him, Kirk replied, “No, Khan. I chose this way because there is no other option left to me. If I forced you to work with me, it would only end in backstabbing and betrayal, like last time. If we and my people are to survive a break-in into the Klingons’ penal colony, we must learn to trust each other. And trust has to start somewhere; therefore I chose to trust you and put all my cards on the table. I know that you could just as well crush me in your hands now, and maybe you will. But my friends are dying on that godforsaken snow rock, and there is no risk I would not take to save them.”

Khan took in his words silently, turning to let his gaze sweep over the assembled pods. Kirk knew he should have felt fear, or anything really, but the calm remained – he’d said what needed to be said. When Khan pulled up his legs to lower himself from the pod to the floor of the storeroom and then turned towards him, he left his ledge and stood in front of the taller man, unafraid, awaiting his decision.

For a few heartbeats Khan just stood there perfectly still, watching him, his face impassive. When he finally spoke, his words cut through the stillness of the storeroom like a knife.

“This ship must have a database. Let us see if we can get some information on Rura Penthe before we arrive at the Mutara nebula.”

He turned to leave, striding by the still-occupied pods without checking to see if he was being followed. As Kirk sped to keep up with Khan’s pace, he reflected, Of course he doesn’t – he knows I have no choice but follow. Nevertheless, the first hesitant glimmer of hope since the trial slowly stole its way into his heart as they made their way towards the bridge.

                *****************************************************************************

       James T. Kirk closed his eyes then opened them to gaze at the ceiling. Three weeks in a coma? By all rights he should have been dead and buried. Once again he owed his life to an extremely loose cannon.

       "And Khan?"

       McCoy straightened stiffly and shot him a sharp look.

      "Don't bother with him, Jim. He's in custody where he belongs. Very likely to be tried for treason, or some such thing, you just concentrate on getting better. Doctor's orders."

      Kirk let his head roll to the right until his first officer came into view.

     "How did you do it? How did you subdue him?"

      Spock drew himself up to attention.

      "I am not proud of it but I believed you to be dead. I watched you die."

      Kirk sighed. "What. Did. You. Do?"

      "I broke his arm. Even though Uhura kept stunning him, I beat him. I believe that if she had not told me that Dr. McCoy needed him alive, I would have killed him."

      "So he is being held over for trial."

     "It is unclear. An investigation has been launched  to ascertain whether or not he was ever a member of Star Fleet in any capacity, or if it was another of Admiral Marcus's lies."

     Kirk closed his eyes again. "So. It all comes down to whether he gets tried as a traitor or as a terrorist."

     "Not necessarily."

     Spock, Kirk, and McCoy's attention snapped to the door, where a man of medium height stood studying them.

     "I hope I am not intruding. My name is Callum Tollman. I am here to ask some questions of you, Captain Kirk. If your attending physician has no objections, of course."

     "For God's sake man! He has just come out of a coma. He needs his rest."

     But Tollman's initial comment had not been lost on Kirk.

     "What do you mean by Khan not being neither a traitor nor a terrorist?"

     "That is what I am hoping to determine hence my wanting to speak to you. I have been assigned as his defender at the hearing and I plan to execute my duty to him to the fullest."

     "Why not speak with Khan directly?"

     "Oh, don't think I haven't tried. But he has seen fit to invoke his right to not speak. At all. To anyone."

     Kirk stared at the man. "I want to see him."

     Spock's eyebrow came close to disappearing into the dark fringes of his bangs.

     "A most unwise decision, Jim. To what purpose?"

     McCoy glanced at the Vulcan. "Well. I must say I have to agree with Spock. Besides. You're not going anywhere for awhile yet."

     Kirk kept his eyes on Defender Tollman. "What do you want to know."

         ********************************************************************************************************

     Spock Prime sat silently, his eyes lit by the soft glow of the meditation candle. A page of Surak's teachings lay on the mat. Slowly, silently, he repeated his mantra over and over again, but other thoughts stubbornly refused to be vanquished.

     Khan had survived the destruction of his ship, as had all seventy-two of his followers. This new time continuum was taking some getting used to. Vulcan destroyed, his mother and billions of Vulcans dead. Events that should have taken place in the future, or not at all, were reality in the here and now.

    Spock sighed, snuffed the candle and in one fluid motion rose and stepped out onto the balcony. He turned his face to the stars. His younger self had saved Khan's sleeping crew by not leaving them in the torpedoes. Khan had survived not only the detonation of the weapons on the Vengeance but also it's crash landing. Something Khan Prime had been unable to do. What made this Khan stronger, more resilient? The answer to these questions was on Earth and so to Earth he would travel. He turned with a swift decisive movement, reentered his home, and made preparations for the journey.

Choices - the fic that grew out of the "Redemption By Vulcan" idea first posted here by Julia Mae (aside: anyone seen her around lately? I hope she's okay).

Anyway, Julia Mae, Fox, Carol, I hope you're proud of what you've wrought . The ideas you brought forth in the Star Trek spoiler thread wouldn't let go of me until I wrote them down, and here I thought I'd successfully broken the fanfiction habit more than a decade ago - also, finals time perhaps wasn't the best of times to start this, but never mind .

Seriously though, thank you for your ideas and inspiration. I don't think I'll ever dare write Sherlock fanfic, but I had a blast doing this one and I owe it all to you .