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daylight_darknightI've been a little neglectful about posting stuff in places other than AO3 for the past couple weeks, so I'm now playing catch up. Here are the first four stories in a collection about Rip and the team. I'm really indulging in my silly side here while at the same time exploring the whole team as family with Rip as the much beleaguered father. Therefore in terms of genre I'm calling this crack with a side of fluff. It's the weather's fault. In these dark, wet days, I feel the need to write stuff which is light and heartwarming.
Title: The Adventures of Time Dad
Characters: Rip, Mick, Ray, Sara, Martin, Jax, Leonard
Rating/Warnings: PG
Genre: Humor, Crack, Fluff, Family, Friendship
Word Count: 3500 so far
Spoilers: Takes place between seasons 1 and 2 with random visits from Leonard because I keep forgetting he's dead.
Summary: Some days Rip wants to strangle them. Some days he wants to hug them. Some days he wants to do both.
1. Threats and Addenda
Rip knows how to take a punch. He needs to considering how often he’s on the receiving end of one. Unfortunately, he really doesn’t see this one coming. One moment the supervillain wannabe is calmly pacing back and forth along the rooftop in front of the team, smugly bragging about how he plans to use his recently created time machine to conquer the entire planet, the next he’s fallen into a red-faced rage swinging a fist at Rip and yelling about interfering do-gooders.
There is a brief second where Rip is able to wonder exactly what sort of personality disorder the supervillain wannabe is suffering from, and then the pain hits him. The blow is powerful enough to knock him off his feet, the supervillain turning out to be surprisingly strong, and Rip tumbles backwards seeing not only stars but entire galaxies burst in front of his eyes.
Things go rather fuzzy for a while. When Rip is finally able to make sense of the world once more, he finds himself lying on the ground, Ray and Martin kneeling beside him with looks of concern on their faces.
Rip groans putting a hand up to his ringing head. He is about to reassure the others he’s alright when a familiar growl draws his attention elsewhere. Gazing over to where the supervillain wannabe was standing, he finds the supervillain now several inches off the ground being held up by the lapels by Mick. The villain’s face is now several shades paler and he looks like he is seriously reconsidering his life choices. Something which would probably happen to anyone who suddenly finds the furious face of Mick Rory only an inch away from their own.
“No one,” Mick growls emphatically. “No one punches our Captain and gets away with it.”
The supervillain sputters and lets out the sort of whine a distressed puppy might make. He is saved from responding however by the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat.
Everyone turns to look at Sara Lance.
Sara in turn looks pointedly at Mick. The smile on her face is somewhat sheepish but her eyes twinkle with amusement.
Mick turns back to their villain. “No one but Sara,” he corrects, “is allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it.”
The supervillain whines again, his legs swinging helplessly in the air.
This time it’s Jax who interrupts. “Well, there was that time Kendra... uh...”
Mick rolls his eyes but corrects himself again. “No one but the members of our team are allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it.”
By this time, the supervillain wannabe is looking less scared and more confused.
“Jonah did technically...” Ray begins.
“Fine,” Mick snaps. “No one but the members of our team and Jonah are allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it, but I like Jonah.” He moves his face even closer to the supervillain’s until their noses are almost touching. “I don’t like you.”
The supervillain wannabe swallows convulsively. He opens his mouth several times and makes some random noises but doesn’t manage to say anything coherent before he is tossed off the roof.
Mick turns back to the team with a satisfied smile on his face.
Rip sighs and shakes his head, but says, “Thank you, Mr. Rory,” because after all, it’s the thought that counts.
2. What Not To Do
The team is gathered on the bridge, some standing casually, some leaning against consoles, some sprawled lazily in chairs. Rip has just been briefing them on their next mission, and in his opinion, it went fairly well. No one questioned his plan or suggested an alternative, and ultimately more violent, option. There was only a minimum amount of complaining about the assignments given and no one suggested a quick side mission to the local bar. All in all it was a surprisingly peaceful meeting.
Rip should have known it wouldn’t last.
“Right,” he says, clapping his hands together. “You all know what you’re doing. Things should go smoothly as long as you keep out of trouble and remember everything I’ve told you, specifically what I’ve told you countless times not to do.”
The team blink blankly at him and exchange looks.
Sara who is slouched in a chair, head resting on her hand, says, “You mean no calling ‘Not it’ when you’re assigning chores?”
“Oh, I know,” says Ray, snapping his fingers. “No calling dibs on the showers.”
“No practicing thieving skills on fellow teammates?” says Leonard with a lazy smirk.
“No using the fabricator to make cosplay costumes?” says Jax with a wry grin.
Martin clears his throat. “No performing potentially dangerous physics experiments on the Waverider is one I recall hearing often.”
“How about no setting fire to things on the ship to see if they’re flammable?” suggests Mick, not bothering to look up from his examination of the dirt under his fingernails.
Rip stares at them, unable to decide whether or not they are joking. “No messing with the timeline!” he cries out in exasperation.
There is a chorus of ‘oh’s, and the team nod smiling in understanding, or possibly amusement.
Rip puts his face in his hands. At least, they listened, he thinks. They don’t actually do what he tells them, but at least, they listen.
3. The Battle of the Trolls
Rip found the first troll on a shelf in the Waverider’s new library wedged between a copy of the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays and an Aztec statue of a coiled serpent.
Not being able to identify the ugly plastic creature, he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, making a face as he examined its impish grin, chubby body, and tuft of bright pink hair. There was something incredibly disturbing about the way its bulbous eyes seemed to be watching him.
“Gideon, what the hell is this?” he asked.
“A Troll Doll,” the A.I. replied. “A toy originally created in Denmark in 1959 and very popular in the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century.”
Rip frowned wondering how on earth the doll had ended up in the library or on the ship for that matter. Deciding it must be someone’s poor idea of a joke, he put it back on the shelf, after all it seemed harmless enough, but he pushed the troll as far back as he could so he wouldn’t have to see it watching him.
He found the second troll in the galley the next morning. It was there when he opened a cupboard in search of some cereal. He almost jumped when he saw it staring out at him from among the cereal boxes. At first, he thought it was the same one as before, that someone had moved it; then he recalled the first one had had pink hair. The hair on this one was fluorescent green.
Scowling, Rip gazed about the room. The Legends were peacefully having breakfast, or at least, as peacefully as they did anything. Leonard was attempting to see how strong he could make his morning coffee, Ray and Martin were arguing over who had eaten the last of the bacon, and Jax and Sara were throwing grapes at each other. Mick, who had recently arrived, pushed past Rip, completely ignored the troll, and grabbed a box of Fruit Loops immediately shoving his hand into the box and pulling out a handful of multicoloured O’s which he shoved into his mouth.
Rip sighed. Obviously, this was just another one of the team’s many quirks he would have to learn to put up with. He closed the cupboard deciding to leave the troll alone and have fruit for breakfast instead.
The third troll had purple hair and turned up in the engine room when Rip and Jax were doing repairs. They found it inside what was meant to be a sealed compartment which they’d opened to get access to the secondary life support systems. The sight of it peering out at them from between the electronic components caused Jax to fall over laughing and the Captain, who was more than a little startled, to start cursing emphatically which only made Jax laugh harder.
The fourth troll was in the medbay. It had blue hair and was wearing Bermuda shorts with polka dots on them. Rip realized he must be starting to get used to them when all he did upon seeing it was roll his eyes. Martin, to whom Rip had been showing how to use some of the more complicated medical equipment, grimaced when he saw it, and Rip was pleased to know he wasn’t the only one who despised the things.
The fifth troll was smaller than the others and had yellow hair. It was Ray who found the troll this time. He discovered it in the lab when he was working on his suit and was so enchanted by the doll he placed it in his shirt pocket and, much to Rip’s annoyance, carried it around with him all day.
Rip found the sixth troll seated on the captain’s chair at the front of the bridge. This troll had red hair and was wearing a sailor suit. Rip took great satisfaction in throwing it as hard as he could across the room much to the amusement of the rest of the Legends.
The seventh troll was the final straw. Rip had been just about to lay down for the night and upon pulling back the covers on his bed, found a rainbow haired troll leering up at him. The noise he made was akin to that of a strangled chimpanzee. Giving up on sleep, he called an emergency team meeting instead.
“This ends now!” he bellowed holding up the troll to the gathering of grumpy Legends half of which had already been asleep when he’d ordered them to the bridge. “I don’t know where these things came from. I don’t know who has been placing them around the ship, but as of now, they are no longer allowed on the Waverider.”
“You got us out of bed for this?” said Mick in disbelief.
Ray held up a hand. “What about...”
“No more trolls! I’m instituting a new rule. I don’t want to see another one of these demonic creatures ever again. Understood?”
Rip glared at his team. None of them looked happy, but that was probably more due to being dragged out of bed than the newly instituted troll ban and since no more protests were made, Rip left the bridge and stomped back to his quarters in hopes of finally getting a peaceful night sleep and never seeing any more troll dolls.
He should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Early the next morning, or the Waverider equivalent of morning, Rip walked onto the bridge and stopped in front of his study staring in astonishment.
The entire room was full of trolls. There were trolls standing upon the tables. There were trolls cuddling in the leather armchairs. There were trolls displayed among the collected treasures on the shelves. There were trolls shoved into the cluttered contents of his desk. There were trolls hanging from his telescope, clinging to his globe, sitting on his phonograph, and even hidden among his liquor bottles. Pink haired trolls, turquoise haired trolls, orange haired trolls, black haired trolls, white haired trolls, blue haired trolls. Trolls wearing sweaters, hats, and dresses. Trolls in wizard robes, jester costumes, cheerleader uniforms, and wedding gowns.
Dozens of creepy eyes and deranged grins all directed at Rip.
Slowly backing away from his study and its sudden troll infestation, Rip went from shocked to disturbed to an ire verging on apoplexy until finally settling into a hardened determination. Fists clenching, he marched out of the room and headed for the galley. The pair were exactly where he’d expected to find them, eating breakfast at one of the tables. He slammed his hands down upon it causing the dishes to rattle loudly.
“I want those trolls off my ship now!”
Sara and Leonard exchanged looks.
“What makes you think we have anything to do with them?” Sara asked, an amused smile tugging at her lips.
Rip rolled his eyes. “There’s no point in denying it. I know it’s you two. As if it could be anyone else.”
Sara and Leonard exchanged looks again and gave matching shrugs.
“Fair point,” Snart conceded.
“Now,” Rip continued. “You will remove the trolls from my study, and anywhere else you might have hidden them, and get rid of them all by the end of the day.”
“Or what?” said Sara raising her eyebrows.
Rip straightened up and folded his arms across his chest. “You know Gideon has quite an extensive music library in her database including thirty-seven types of polka music. How would like to hear nothing but polka for twenty-four hours a day?”
Leonard placed his elbows on the table and leaned towards Rip. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” Rip replied.
They stared at each other, gazes unwavering.
Sara was the one though who broke first. “Fine,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll get rid of the stupid trolls.”
Snart turned to her in confusion.
“This has gotten beyond ridiculous,” she said. “Besides, I really hate polka music.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Rip. “Now remember, I expect those trolls gone by the end of the day. Where’d you even get them all?” He held up a hand forestalling any answer. “Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”
Leaving the galley, Rip prayed that that would finally be the end of it.
******
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
“How else do you suppose we get rid of them?”
“Mick could melt them with his gun.”
“Do you really want the whole ship smelling of melted plastic?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then out they go. Would you care to do the honors?”
Beep. Whoosh.
“Bye bye, trolls.”
******
Later, when the battle was over, when they’d fought off and defeated the invasion of giant mutated troll dolls, or Evil Time Trolls as Ray had christened them, Rip stomped over to Sara and Snart, through the plastic body parts and burnt tufts of brightly coloured hair, and said with a voice of someone too exhausted to be truly angry anymore, “New rule: no tossing things out into the temporal zone!”
At least one good thing came out of it, Rip consoled himself. After the battle, no one else wanted to see another troll doll on the ship either.
4. Poor Tired Time Dad
Rip is sleeping and dreaming, and dreaming he’s sleeping. In his dream, he’s sleeping on a bed made of old parchment paper covered in scrawls of black ink he can’t quite decipher. It’s a surprisingly comfortable bed, but he can’t seem to shake the feeling he should be reading the papers instead of sleeping on them and that he’ll be in big trouble if he doesn’t. He’s trying to decide whether he should get up and try to make sense of the black scribbles when he starts to hear voices. They seem to be coming from all around him, and in the fuzziness of his dream, he can’t quite locate their source.
“There he is,” someone says, someone fairly young based on the sound of their voice. “No wonder he didn’t show up for breakfast.”
“Aww,” says someone else, a woman. “He’s kind of cute when he’s asleep.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” says a third voice with a smokey drawl.
A gruff voice asks, “Anyone got a pen?”
“Oh, I have one,” says a bright voice with an unnecessary amount of enthusiasm.
“Give it here,” says the gruff voice. “I want to draw dicks on his face before he wakes up.”
“You are not drawing dicks on his face,” says yet another voice, older and sterner than the rest.
“He is just sleeping, right?” asks the young voice worriedly. “I mean he’s not sick or dead or something?”
“Well, considering he’s currently breathing, I’m pretty sure he’s still alive,” says the woman.
“Also Gideon would have let us know if something were really wrong,” adds the bright voice.
“Too bad,” says the smokey drawl. “And here I thought we’d finally have a chance to take over the ship.”
“Very funny,” says the young voice.
“Who’s joking,” says the gruff one.
The older voice says, “Clearly what’s happened is our dear Captain has been overworking himself yet again and I think it’s high time he got some proper rest.”
A hand falls on Rip’s shoulder.
“Rip?”
The touch combined with the sound of his name is like a jolt of electricity. The dream vanishes, reality reasserts itself, and Rip realizes he hasn’t actually been sleeping on a bed of parchment, but has in fact been sleeping at his desk in his study. He is sitting not lying down and the only papers are the ones his head is currently using as a pillow.
He is also completely surrounded by the members of his team, all of whom are staring at him.
Rip groans. Rubbing his hands across his face, he sits up and groans again when pain shoots down his back.
“Good morning, Captain,” says Martin in an unnecessarily cheerful voice.
It’s followed by a chorus of ‘Morning’s from the rest of the crew who are all showing a tad too much amusement at his current predicament.
“Uh, good morning,” Rip says, his voice rough. He blinks several times as he tries to rid himself of the sensation of unreality which always seems to follow him when he wakes up in the middle of a dream. “Sorry. I... um... It seems I fell asleep.”
“No duh,” is Jax’s insightful comment.
“You alright, Rip?” asks Ray.
“I’m fine,” Rip replies. He runs a hand through his hair and tries not to think of what a mess he must look. “I just stayed up rather late researching our next mission.”
It wasn’t the first time. There is always so much to do, missions to perform and get ready for, the ship and crew to look after, and, irony of ironies for a Time Master, there never seems to be enough time. This isn’t even the first time he’s fallen asleep in his study, far from the first time. There is usually a safeguard though that prevents something like this embarrassing moment from occurring.
“Gideon, why didn’t you wake me?”
“You have not achieved the prescribed amount of sleep for the past four nights,” says Gideon, the A.I.’s voice coming down from above. “I determined that waking you would be detrimental to your health.”
Now even his ship is rebelling against him. Rip lets out another groan, his third already that morning.
“Well,” says Martin, “perhaps that’s a sign you should take a day off, maybe get some decent sleep in a real bed.”
“No, no, no,” says Rip dismissively, getting up and reorganizing the papers on his desk he had recently been using as a pillow. “We have a mission ahead of us. That aberration in Constantinople isn’t going to fix itself.”
“I think it can wait until you’re rested,” Martin insists.
“Yeah, no offence, man, but you look like shit,” says Jax.
“You look like a week old corpse,” says Leonard. “And I do mean offence,” he adds with a smirk.
Rip sends Snart an exasperated look. “I’m fine,” he tells the team once again, trying very hard to ignore the rough grittiness of his eyes and the leaden weariness weighing down his limbs. “I’ll just grab some coffee and we can get on with our mission.”
“Nope,” says Sara, in a matter-of-fact tone, the one she uses when she wants to let people know she's not to be messed with. “We’ll keep researching the mission. You are going to bed.
Rip blinks at her. “Excuse me? I thought I was the Captain here.”
Sara nods. “Exactly. You’re the Captain. We’re the crew. And it’s our job to look after our Captain’s wellbeing. So are you going to go to bed or do we have to drag you there kicking and screaming?”
“Please say ‘kicking and screaming’,” says Mick with an evil grin.
Rip gazes from one member of his team to the next but they all seem to be of the same mind.
“Fine,” he declares throwing his hands up into the air. “I’ll go to bed. Just don’t blow up the ship while I’m asleep.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” says Ray, throwing him a salute as he walks past.
Rip rolls his eyes. “And no messing with the timeline!” he calls out as he exits the bridge.
“Go to bed, Rip,” Sara calls back to him.
As he makes his way to his quarters, Rip lets out a jaw cracking yawn. Maybe the team is right, he admits to himself. Maybe he could use some more sleep. Not that he’s going to tell them that. He stumbles into his quarters and immediately falls into bed where he is soon sleeping again, sleeping and dreaming, dreaming about six little toddlers who invade his ship and start joyfully tearing up his precious pile of papers.
Parts 5 - 8
Title: The Adventures of Time Dad
Characters: Rip, Mick, Ray, Sara, Martin, Jax, Leonard
Rating/Warnings: PG
Genre: Humor, Crack, Fluff, Family, Friendship
Word Count: 3500 so far
Spoilers: Takes place between seasons 1 and 2 with random visits from Leonard because I keep forgetting he's dead.
Summary: Some days Rip wants to strangle them. Some days he wants to hug them. Some days he wants to do both.
1. Threats and Addenda
Rip knows how to take a punch. He needs to considering how often he’s on the receiving end of one. Unfortunately, he really doesn’t see this one coming. One moment the supervillain wannabe is calmly pacing back and forth along the rooftop in front of the team, smugly bragging about how he plans to use his recently created time machine to conquer the entire planet, the next he’s fallen into a red-faced rage swinging a fist at Rip and yelling about interfering do-gooders.
There is a brief second where Rip is able to wonder exactly what sort of personality disorder the supervillain wannabe is suffering from, and then the pain hits him. The blow is powerful enough to knock him off his feet, the supervillain turning out to be surprisingly strong, and Rip tumbles backwards seeing not only stars but entire galaxies burst in front of his eyes.
Things go rather fuzzy for a while. When Rip is finally able to make sense of the world once more, he finds himself lying on the ground, Ray and Martin kneeling beside him with looks of concern on their faces.
Rip groans putting a hand up to his ringing head. He is about to reassure the others he’s alright when a familiar growl draws his attention elsewhere. Gazing over to where the supervillain wannabe was standing, he finds the supervillain now several inches off the ground being held up by the lapels by Mick. The villain’s face is now several shades paler and he looks like he is seriously reconsidering his life choices. Something which would probably happen to anyone who suddenly finds the furious face of Mick Rory only an inch away from their own.
“No one,” Mick growls emphatically. “No one punches our Captain and gets away with it.”
The supervillain sputters and lets out the sort of whine a distressed puppy might make. He is saved from responding however by the sound of someone loudly clearing their throat.
Everyone turns to look at Sara Lance.
Sara in turn looks pointedly at Mick. The smile on her face is somewhat sheepish but her eyes twinkle with amusement.
Mick turns back to their villain. “No one but Sara,” he corrects, “is allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it.”
The supervillain whines again, his legs swinging helplessly in the air.
This time it’s Jax who interrupts. “Well, there was that time Kendra... uh...”
Mick rolls his eyes but corrects himself again. “No one but the members of our team are allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it.”
By this time, the supervillain wannabe is looking less scared and more confused.
“Jonah did technically...” Ray begins.
“Fine,” Mick snaps. “No one but the members of our team and Jonah are allowed to punch our Captain and get away with it, but I like Jonah.” He moves his face even closer to the supervillain’s until their noses are almost touching. “I don’t like you.”
The supervillain wannabe swallows convulsively. He opens his mouth several times and makes some random noises but doesn’t manage to say anything coherent before he is tossed off the roof.
Mick turns back to the team with a satisfied smile on his face.
Rip sighs and shakes his head, but says, “Thank you, Mr. Rory,” because after all, it’s the thought that counts.
2. What Not To Do
The team is gathered on the bridge, some standing casually, some leaning against consoles, some sprawled lazily in chairs. Rip has just been briefing them on their next mission, and in his opinion, it went fairly well. No one questioned his plan or suggested an alternative, and ultimately more violent, option. There was only a minimum amount of complaining about the assignments given and no one suggested a quick side mission to the local bar. All in all it was a surprisingly peaceful meeting.
Rip should have known it wouldn’t last.
“Right,” he says, clapping his hands together. “You all know what you’re doing. Things should go smoothly as long as you keep out of trouble and remember everything I’ve told you, specifically what I’ve told you countless times not to do.”
The team blink blankly at him and exchange looks.
Sara who is slouched in a chair, head resting on her hand, says, “You mean no calling ‘Not it’ when you’re assigning chores?”
“Oh, I know,” says Ray, snapping his fingers. “No calling dibs on the showers.”
“No practicing thieving skills on fellow teammates?” says Leonard with a lazy smirk.
“No using the fabricator to make cosplay costumes?” says Jax with a wry grin.
Martin clears his throat. “No performing potentially dangerous physics experiments on the Waverider is one I recall hearing often.”
“How about no setting fire to things on the ship to see if they’re flammable?” suggests Mick, not bothering to look up from his examination of the dirt under his fingernails.
Rip stares at them, unable to decide whether or not they are joking. “No messing with the timeline!” he cries out in exasperation.
There is a chorus of ‘oh’s, and the team nod smiling in understanding, or possibly amusement.
Rip puts his face in his hands. At least, they listened, he thinks. They don’t actually do what he tells them, but at least, they listen.
3. The Battle of the Trolls
Rip found the first troll on a shelf in the Waverider’s new library wedged between a copy of the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays and an Aztec statue of a coiled serpent.
Not being able to identify the ugly plastic creature, he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, making a face as he examined its impish grin, chubby body, and tuft of bright pink hair. There was something incredibly disturbing about the way its bulbous eyes seemed to be watching him.
“Gideon, what the hell is this?” he asked.
“A Troll Doll,” the A.I. replied. “A toy originally created in Denmark in 1959 and very popular in the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century.”
Rip frowned wondering how on earth the doll had ended up in the library or on the ship for that matter. Deciding it must be someone’s poor idea of a joke, he put it back on the shelf, after all it seemed harmless enough, but he pushed the troll as far back as he could so he wouldn’t have to see it watching him.
He found the second troll in the galley the next morning. It was there when he opened a cupboard in search of some cereal. He almost jumped when he saw it staring out at him from among the cereal boxes. At first, he thought it was the same one as before, that someone had moved it; then he recalled the first one had had pink hair. The hair on this one was fluorescent green.
Scowling, Rip gazed about the room. The Legends were peacefully having breakfast, or at least, as peacefully as they did anything. Leonard was attempting to see how strong he could make his morning coffee, Ray and Martin were arguing over who had eaten the last of the bacon, and Jax and Sara were throwing grapes at each other. Mick, who had recently arrived, pushed past Rip, completely ignored the troll, and grabbed a box of Fruit Loops immediately shoving his hand into the box and pulling out a handful of multicoloured O’s which he shoved into his mouth.
Rip sighed. Obviously, this was just another one of the team’s many quirks he would have to learn to put up with. He closed the cupboard deciding to leave the troll alone and have fruit for breakfast instead.
The third troll had purple hair and turned up in the engine room when Rip and Jax were doing repairs. They found it inside what was meant to be a sealed compartment which they’d opened to get access to the secondary life support systems. The sight of it peering out at them from between the electronic components caused Jax to fall over laughing and the Captain, who was more than a little startled, to start cursing emphatically which only made Jax laugh harder.
The fourth troll was in the medbay. It had blue hair and was wearing Bermuda shorts with polka dots on them. Rip realized he must be starting to get used to them when all he did upon seeing it was roll his eyes. Martin, to whom Rip had been showing how to use some of the more complicated medical equipment, grimaced when he saw it, and Rip was pleased to know he wasn’t the only one who despised the things.
The fifth troll was smaller than the others and had yellow hair. It was Ray who found the troll this time. He discovered it in the lab when he was working on his suit and was so enchanted by the doll he placed it in his shirt pocket and, much to Rip’s annoyance, carried it around with him all day.
Rip found the sixth troll seated on the captain’s chair at the front of the bridge. This troll had red hair and was wearing a sailor suit. Rip took great satisfaction in throwing it as hard as he could across the room much to the amusement of the rest of the Legends.
The seventh troll was the final straw. Rip had been just about to lay down for the night and upon pulling back the covers on his bed, found a rainbow haired troll leering up at him. The noise he made was akin to that of a strangled chimpanzee. Giving up on sleep, he called an emergency team meeting instead.
“This ends now!” he bellowed holding up the troll to the gathering of grumpy Legends half of which had already been asleep when he’d ordered them to the bridge. “I don’t know where these things came from. I don’t know who has been placing them around the ship, but as of now, they are no longer allowed on the Waverider.”
“You got us out of bed for this?” said Mick in disbelief.
Ray held up a hand. “What about...”
“No more trolls! I’m instituting a new rule. I don’t want to see another one of these demonic creatures ever again. Understood?”
Rip glared at his team. None of them looked happy, but that was probably more due to being dragged out of bed than the newly instituted troll ban and since no more protests were made, Rip left the bridge and stomped back to his quarters in hopes of finally getting a peaceful night sleep and never seeing any more troll dolls.
He should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Early the next morning, or the Waverider equivalent of morning, Rip walked onto the bridge and stopped in front of his study staring in astonishment.
The entire room was full of trolls. There were trolls standing upon the tables. There were trolls cuddling in the leather armchairs. There were trolls displayed among the collected treasures on the shelves. There were trolls shoved into the cluttered contents of his desk. There were trolls hanging from his telescope, clinging to his globe, sitting on his phonograph, and even hidden among his liquor bottles. Pink haired trolls, turquoise haired trolls, orange haired trolls, black haired trolls, white haired trolls, blue haired trolls. Trolls wearing sweaters, hats, and dresses. Trolls in wizard robes, jester costumes, cheerleader uniforms, and wedding gowns.
Dozens of creepy eyes and deranged grins all directed at Rip.
Slowly backing away from his study and its sudden troll infestation, Rip went from shocked to disturbed to an ire verging on apoplexy until finally settling into a hardened determination. Fists clenching, he marched out of the room and headed for the galley. The pair were exactly where he’d expected to find them, eating breakfast at one of the tables. He slammed his hands down upon it causing the dishes to rattle loudly.
“I want those trolls off my ship now!”
Sara and Leonard exchanged looks.
“What makes you think we have anything to do with them?” Sara asked, an amused smile tugging at her lips.
Rip rolled his eyes. “There’s no point in denying it. I know it’s you two. As if it could be anyone else.”
Sara and Leonard exchanged looks again and gave matching shrugs.
“Fair point,” Snart conceded.
“Now,” Rip continued. “You will remove the trolls from my study, and anywhere else you might have hidden them, and get rid of them all by the end of the day.”
“Or what?” said Sara raising her eyebrows.
Rip straightened up and folded his arms across his chest. “You know Gideon has quite an extensive music library in her database including thirty-seven types of polka music. How would like to hear nothing but polka for twenty-four hours a day?”
Leonard placed his elbows on the table and leaned towards Rip. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me,” Rip replied.
They stared at each other, gazes unwavering.
Sara was the one though who broke first. “Fine,” she said with a sigh. “We’ll get rid of the stupid trolls.”
Snart turned to her in confusion.
“This has gotten beyond ridiculous,” she said. “Besides, I really hate polka music.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Rip. “Now remember, I expect those trolls gone by the end of the day. Where’d you even get them all?” He held up a hand forestalling any answer. “Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”
Leaving the galley, Rip prayed that that would finally be the end of it.
******
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”
“How else do you suppose we get rid of them?”
“Mick could melt them with his gun.”
“Do you really want the whole ship smelling of melted plastic?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then out they go. Would you care to do the honors?”
Beep. Whoosh.
“Bye bye, trolls.”
******
Later, when the battle was over, when they’d fought off and defeated the invasion of giant mutated troll dolls, or Evil Time Trolls as Ray had christened them, Rip stomped over to Sara and Snart, through the plastic body parts and burnt tufts of brightly coloured hair, and said with a voice of someone too exhausted to be truly angry anymore, “New rule: no tossing things out into the temporal zone!”
At least one good thing came out of it, Rip consoled himself. After the battle, no one else wanted to see another troll doll on the ship either.
4. Poor Tired Time Dad
Rip is sleeping and dreaming, and dreaming he’s sleeping. In his dream, he’s sleeping on a bed made of old parchment paper covered in scrawls of black ink he can’t quite decipher. It’s a surprisingly comfortable bed, but he can’t seem to shake the feeling he should be reading the papers instead of sleeping on them and that he’ll be in big trouble if he doesn’t. He’s trying to decide whether he should get up and try to make sense of the black scribbles when he starts to hear voices. They seem to be coming from all around him, and in the fuzziness of his dream, he can’t quite locate their source.
“There he is,” someone says, someone fairly young based on the sound of their voice. “No wonder he didn’t show up for breakfast.”
“Aww,” says someone else, a woman. “He’s kind of cute when he’s asleep.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” says a third voice with a smokey drawl.
A gruff voice asks, “Anyone got a pen?”
“Oh, I have one,” says a bright voice with an unnecessary amount of enthusiasm.
“Give it here,” says the gruff voice. “I want to draw dicks on his face before he wakes up.”
“You are not drawing dicks on his face,” says yet another voice, older and sterner than the rest.
“He is just sleeping, right?” asks the young voice worriedly. “I mean he’s not sick or dead or something?”
“Well, considering he’s currently breathing, I’m pretty sure he’s still alive,” says the woman.
“Also Gideon would have let us know if something were really wrong,” adds the bright voice.
“Too bad,” says the smokey drawl. “And here I thought we’d finally have a chance to take over the ship.”
“Very funny,” says the young voice.
“Who’s joking,” says the gruff one.
The older voice says, “Clearly what’s happened is our dear Captain has been overworking himself yet again and I think it’s high time he got some proper rest.”
A hand falls on Rip’s shoulder.
“Rip?”
The touch combined with the sound of his name is like a jolt of electricity. The dream vanishes, reality reasserts itself, and Rip realizes he hasn’t actually been sleeping on a bed of parchment, but has in fact been sleeping at his desk in his study. He is sitting not lying down and the only papers are the ones his head is currently using as a pillow.
He is also completely surrounded by the members of his team, all of whom are staring at him.
Rip groans. Rubbing his hands across his face, he sits up and groans again when pain shoots down his back.
“Good morning, Captain,” says Martin in an unnecessarily cheerful voice.
It’s followed by a chorus of ‘Morning’s from the rest of the crew who are all showing a tad too much amusement at his current predicament.
“Uh, good morning,” Rip says, his voice rough. He blinks several times as he tries to rid himself of the sensation of unreality which always seems to follow him when he wakes up in the middle of a dream. “Sorry. I... um... It seems I fell asleep.”
“No duh,” is Jax’s insightful comment.
“You alright, Rip?” asks Ray.
“I’m fine,” Rip replies. He runs a hand through his hair and tries not to think of what a mess he must look. “I just stayed up rather late researching our next mission.”
It wasn’t the first time. There is always so much to do, missions to perform and get ready for, the ship and crew to look after, and, irony of ironies for a Time Master, there never seems to be enough time. This isn’t even the first time he’s fallen asleep in his study, far from the first time. There is usually a safeguard though that prevents something like this embarrassing moment from occurring.
“Gideon, why didn’t you wake me?”
“You have not achieved the prescribed amount of sleep for the past four nights,” says Gideon, the A.I.’s voice coming down from above. “I determined that waking you would be detrimental to your health.”
Now even his ship is rebelling against him. Rip lets out another groan, his third already that morning.
“Well,” says Martin, “perhaps that’s a sign you should take a day off, maybe get some decent sleep in a real bed.”
“No, no, no,” says Rip dismissively, getting up and reorganizing the papers on his desk he had recently been using as a pillow. “We have a mission ahead of us. That aberration in Constantinople isn’t going to fix itself.”
“I think it can wait until you’re rested,” Martin insists.
“Yeah, no offence, man, but you look like shit,” says Jax.
“You look like a week old corpse,” says Leonard. “And I do mean offence,” he adds with a smirk.
Rip sends Snart an exasperated look. “I’m fine,” he tells the team once again, trying very hard to ignore the rough grittiness of his eyes and the leaden weariness weighing down his limbs. “I’ll just grab some coffee and we can get on with our mission.”
“Nope,” says Sara, in a matter-of-fact tone, the one she uses when she wants to let people know she's not to be messed with. “We’ll keep researching the mission. You are going to bed.
Rip blinks at her. “Excuse me? I thought I was the Captain here.”
Sara nods. “Exactly. You’re the Captain. We’re the crew. And it’s our job to look after our Captain’s wellbeing. So are you going to go to bed or do we have to drag you there kicking and screaming?”
“Please say ‘kicking and screaming’,” says Mick with an evil grin.
Rip gazes from one member of his team to the next but they all seem to be of the same mind.
“Fine,” he declares throwing his hands up into the air. “I’ll go to bed. Just don’t blow up the ship while I’m asleep.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” says Ray, throwing him a salute as he walks past.
Rip rolls his eyes. “And no messing with the timeline!” he calls out as he exits the bridge.
“Go to bed, Rip,” Sara calls back to him.
As he makes his way to his quarters, Rip lets out a jaw cracking yawn. Maybe the team is right, he admits to himself. Maybe he could use some more sleep. Not that he’s going to tell them that. He stumbles into his quarters and immediately falls into bed where he is soon sleeping again, sleeping and dreaming, dreaming about six little toddlers who invade his ship and start joyfully tearing up his precious pile of papers.
Parts 5 - 8
