#sorry for the large amount of complaining and ranting haha

[gribnoire]

in an effort to obliterate prototype 2 from my mind here's a list of hcs for a dana-is-fine-now 5yrs later self-indulgent au

alex, dana, and ragland moved to canada via some -cough- slightly illegal maneuvers, so blackwatch can't move in on them even when they find alex again at risk of causing an international incident

(basically canada is like "hes been here for 5 years and its been fine, also if youre gonna provoke THAT then do it on US soil bc we know what happened to manhattan and do NOT want a repeat in toronto (also, cranky bc your bioweapon is ours now arent you)")

(everyone thinks ragland died after contact with ZEUS but he's fine and lives down the street.)

so mostly blackwatch just spies on the gang as they get up to dumb slice-of-life stuff

alex got a bachelor's in psychology (doing one of the "hard" sciences would feel like too much of a repeat and he's soul-searching) and now has a job as a forensic psychologist. mostly he's everyone's paperwork jockey because he doesn't complain when they dump theirs on him, but sometimes he gets to decide who gets to sit on jury duty. this drives blackwatch absolutely nuts

dana is working as an editor for a local magazine. she still keeps up with news journalism on her free time, but she’s decided to take it easy after everything that happened and the job pays pretty well.

dana has more or less come to terms with virus brother, mostly because every other week he goes on some dark and broody rant about being a monster/hearing the screams of those he's killed/his innate desire as a virus to kill consume assimilate infect, and you kinda just get used to it after a while

alex got a deal with a local slaughterhouse to buy some of their stock from them, since he likes his meat so raw it's still mooing. literally. they are convinced he's either a butcher or a cultist but you know what, that's his business

dana starts referring to the real alex mercer as just "my big brother," and not by name. similarly, she usually calls alex by name, but she also refers to him as her little brother, and when joking in private, her baby brother (he is five and she will never not find that funny)

she also really does think of him as a kid, and notes that one of the most divergent traits he has from the real alex (besides empathy) is how easily he trusts people (she jokes that she worries he'll get lured out into a white van behind the mall with promises of meat). he's also super dramatic about EVERYTHING, so her impression of him has slowly morphed from "scary semi-insane virus man but still a step up from my actual brother" to "haha, kid brother who sucks at smash bros"

since alex doesnt sleep, he usually whiles away the nighttime hours by hunting (he's got a permit and everything, at dana's insistence) or playing video games

he's REALLY GOOD at rhythm games but plays with the sound off ("it's distracting, dana" "it's The Point Of The Game, alex") and he's shit at fighting games ("have you ever considered NOT charging blindly in on me clearly about to unleash an ultimate").

he's also not great at puzzle games and dana has caught him melted into a pile of meat moss over professor layton before. this is in spite of his constant claims to have consumed some of gentek's most brilliant minds, so it only further cemented dana's "kid brother" impression

alex: i dont have a preference for toppings so i get everything on it since i dont eat with my mouth anyways. thousands of dead men's preferences means no preferences -later, after dana has forced him to try things using taste buds- alex: can i get a large pineapple and anchovy pizza with alfredo sauce instead of tomato the guy at domino's: im arresting you for pizza crimes

an argument they constantly rehash is that dana insists that alex should try shopping for real clothes while alex insists he can just shapeshift into whatever clothes he wants. this has, on one occasion, led to neighbors in the hallway overhearing alex yelling angrily that "IM ALWAYS NAKED, DANA"

dana is a big lesbian and kicks alex out of the apartment when she's got "friends" over. they both know what dana's up to but dana insists that her five-year-old brother "will understand when he gets older" when he complains about it

most people that know alex thinks he has no sense of humor. this is untrue. he just has a very limited one and very dull reactions. but one time dana showed him this

and he let out an involuntary snort/giggle and then looked very confused and kind of scared, like he had no idea what that sound was or where it came from

most people believe alex’s brows drawn, eyes narrowed glare means he’s angry, but dana knows that that’s actually his “i’m confused” look. this is also the look alex wears 70-80% of the time.

(his actual “i’m angry” look is brows drawn, eyes wide open)

alex has a tendency to blurt out random factoids, like a walking trivia book. these facts are ALWAYS morbid and he ALWAYS only realizes that after he’s said it out loud. dana goes “i think i’m coming down with a flu that’s been going around work” and alex goes “huh, you know flus cause 200,000 hospitalization and 3,000 deaths every year” and dana gives him a Look and he pauses for a long moment before adding in a “sorry”. dana actually thinks this habit might be a leftover from how OG alex mercer liked to mansplain, but when this alex does it it’s less insufferable and more just awkward, so she doesn’t mind it that much

“butterflies can taste with their feet. I can also do that, if i try.”  “awesome, alex”

they have separate rooms since they both make a decent amount and live a ways out from the big city, and dana’s looks pretty normal, slightly messy, and alex’s is, hm. dana keeps insisting he try decorating it and actually putting stuff in it, so it’s home to his attempt at interior decor. the room features: a bookshelf crammed full of old textbooks and basically anything remotely novel-like that he could buy from the clearance rack, 2 (two) whole deer skeletons, picked entirely clean, a large, stainless-steel industrial-grade refrigerator/freezer unit (full of huge slabs of meat), the world’s loneliest computer desk and chair, a moldy cantaloupe in a glass box on the windowsill (”alex what is that” “i’m growing penicillin” “...why?”), a tiny photo of him and dana in a really big frame hanging on the wall, and also framed, dana’s MRI scans showing that she suffered no lasting effects from the infection. dana has had her partners accidentally walk into that room instead of hers and then call the cops. she kinda wants to say something to him about it, but since one of alex’s most common broody speech topics is how he doesn’t feel like he has a personality of his own, and since what he does have in his room certainly shows...”personality,” she figures she’ll leave it alone.

whenever a coworker starts to get friendly with him, alex pulls them aside to let them know he’s actually the blacklight virus that ravaged manhattan. he doesn’t actually use his powers because frankly it takes more energy than his current dietary plan can make back, but he insists until the coworker goes “haha okay, okay, i got it.” no one actually believes him but alex is convinced they all do, and dana has never been around for this to correct his mistake