Title: Feline Fracas
Author: Third Charm
Fandom: Babylon 5
Pairings: Marcus/Neroon, Heracles/Shasti (snickers)
Story Type: Christmas Comedy Snippet
Rating: All
Disclaimer: Babylon 5 and all subsequent major characters, plots, and ideas are the property of J. Michael Straczynski, Babylonian Inc. and Warner Brothers.
Warnings: None really
Spoilers: None
Summary: M/N and AU. Yep, and this is the one where Marcus thinks he's woken up within a National Lampoon's movie. Written for the Marcus_Neroon Yahoo group Advent Calendar.
Author's Note: One Earth year equals 0.74 Minbari cycles. The Minbari words and phrases were found at the "JumpNow" website in John Hightower's Minbari dictionary, though not all are direct translations. Mebels are of course the product of Monica's wonderful imagination. Also, this story is dedicated to everyone who's lived through a Holiday disaster of any type!
Feline Fracas
When Marcus and Neroon had first married, they had always known that combining their insane bachelors' lives and careers into a peaceful and comfortable *married couple's* lifestyle would be a monumental task. After all, they already had so many things against them; the marriage laws of the Federation, their species, one Minbari the other Human, their careers, one Warrior the other Ranger, their Caste affiliations, one clearly Warrior Caste the other allied to the Religious Caste, their postings, one a Satai (Ruler) leading from the Valen'Tha the other the Ranger Shok'Na (Commander) of Babylon 5, and their religious beliefs, one obviously a follower of Valen and the other an Anglican Christian. What's worse, those where just the tip of the monstrous iceberg of issues facing the poor men in their attempt to find some kind of wedded bliss, and still somehow they had been slowly but surely finding a way to overcome each one of them as they faced them together.
So would it be any surprise that after almost a year of marriage where they had barely seen each other, *and* for their first Christmas (something that was so very important to Marcus) together, that both men would be hoping for some worry free, combat free, yelling free, *stress free* time off? Would it be any wonder that they were both hoping for a calming, romantic week of blissful newlywed togetherness? Of course it wouldn't.
And of course you would be right in figuring out that they wouldn't get it. For you see, there are unfortunately two gigantically large commonalities between the Minbari and Humanity, and those, my friends, are that Fate is a bitch with a capital B and Murphy is a true and utter bastard no matter which star system you reside in. That would be why such an utter betrayal from such close and beloved quarters came as such a terrible surprise. That would also be why the poor men were now both staring in utter horror at the destruction and carnage that was once their - lovingly and pains-takingly decorated for the Season by Marcus, mind you - personal living quarters on the Star Rider estate. Both men could not believe their eyes, nor could they believe just who was responsible for the mess, but the evidence was more than abundantly clear and right before them. There, right in the middle of the disaster of epic proportions that was now their living room, were the culprits. And they were still battling it out!
Heracles and Shasti, Marcus's all black, pure bred, sixty pound Goliath of a fully polydactyl Terran Main Coon that had been gifted to the Ranger on his wedding day by a smirking Susan who had told them that she had researched cats and that she found that this breed was the best suited to the climate of Minbar, and Neroon's Warrior bred and Warrior trained pure bred hunting mebel (Minbari "panther"), were raising the unholy ruckus that had woken the men from their cozy slumber oh so *very* early in the morning. And apparently Heracles was living up to his name because Shasti, the five hundred plus pound Minbari great cat that looked something like a cross between a black panther, lion and saber toothed tiger was looking seriously worse for the wear. She was missing great patches of fur from both her sides and belly. Her ears, tail, and nose were all dripping blood all over Neroon's grandmother's precious antique rug while she howled, writhed, jumped and twisted like a bucking bronco from those old Terran rodeos vids all in an effort to dislodge the growling, biting, hissing and spitting tomcat that had, somewhere during their fight, embedded all twenty four of his rather large sized claws into her back and was riding out her efforts to get rid of him quite easily.
Meanwhile, Neroon turned his shocked eyes to mate, still unable to process exactly what he was seeing. His mate, on the other hand, had gone white and paralyzed at the thought of the absolute *hell* that this situation was going to raise when the rest of the household came barreling in, thinking that an attack had been launched at the Satai. Then he started whimpering at the thought of the extended family and retainers actually seeing this God-awful mess! And that went without mentioning the fact that he had no idea how the hell they would ever be able to explain just how his sweet *little*, by Minbari standards anyway, *house cat* was just now beating the absolute shit out of the most feared predator of this planet!