#Id probably have to pull some real bullshit to make this work but what if wendy as wx | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

petersasteria · 3 years

Text

What You Don't Know Won't Hurt - Tom Holland

Tom || Main || Taglist

Pairing: Tom x Chalamet!Reader Requested? Nah 4,289 words

* * * *

“Happy five-month anniversary!” You whispered in Tom’s ear as you hugged him from behind. He smiled and turned around to pull you in for a short, but sweet kiss.

“Happy five-month anniversary to you too, babe.” He said softly with a bright smile on his face. “I spoke to your brother.”

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows before pulling away from him to prepare breakfast for you and Tom. “What did you talk about?”

Tom shrugged, “Nothing important. He greeted us, that’s for sure. He’s inviting me to hang out with his friends, actually. Should I go?”

“Do you want to go?” You asked and he nodded slightly. “Then, go for it. When is that supposed to be?”

“Tomorrow after lunch.” Tom answered and you nodded. Both of you prepared breakfast and ate breakfast. You didn’t eat that much because you knew you’d puke it all out later. You’re two weeks pregnant and you wanted to tell Tom later tonight.

You and Tom haven’t been confirming your relationship to the public despite being seen together for a bunch of times. That’s about to change, though.

You and Tom were caught by the paparazzi and it was normal for both of you, but what you didn’t know is that you two were caught kissing and that caused so much reaction from the media. When you two got home from your shared flat, you were surprised that your relationship was outed by the paps. It was something that surprised both of you. You had no problem with that because you didn’t want to hide anymore. Tom, however, was fucked.

Tom’s phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID and quickly went to your shared room to answer it. You didn’t even have the time to ask who it was because he just bolted straight in the room. You didn’t mind, though. It was probably his manager or publicist or someone important from his team.

It was his girlfriend, Nadia.

Tom answered the phone immediately. “Na-”

“When were you planning on telling me that you’re cheating on me? Did you even want to tell me?” Nadia asked. She was mad and rightfully so.

“I was planning on telling you, but-”

“Cut the bullshit.” She said angrily. “It’s so unfair that you and her have gone public, but you haven’t gone public with me and we’ve been together for a year.”

“I was planning on leaving her, I swear!” Tom hissed.

“You leave me with no choice, Tom. Goodbye.” She said before hanging up. Tom let out a frustrated sigh as he sat on the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands and just sat there.

A few minutes later, his phone’s blowing up with notifications from Instagram. He clicked on it and was shocked to see Nadia’s post about her relationship with him. He scrolled through each comment and he was hurt that everyone started going against him.

Timmy saw the post and sent it to you. You were confused as to who Nadia was but when you looked through the pictures and read her caption, you realized she was Tom’s girlfriend. His real girlfriend. You went up to your shared room and saw him sitting on the bed with a shocked face.

“You didn’t have the decency to tell me that you were taken?” You whispered as tears streamed down your face. You didn’t have the energy to speak loudly. “All this time, I thought you were single when we met because that’s what you told me. Everyone’s going to think that I’m the snake who took you away from her, don’t you realize that?”

“That’s not my problem.” He said before getting up and grabbing a suitcase to pack his things. “We’re done, Y/N. I lost her because of you.”

“Wait a second.” You grabbed his arm and he looked at you. “Why are you acting like it’s all my fault? There’s two of us in this relationship! It’s your fault too!”

Tom went back to packing and said nothing. You watched as he moved around the room to grab his things. You suddenly felt sick to your stomach when you realized that you’re carrying this man’s baby.

“You came on to me!” Tom shouted and you flinched at the sound of his voice. He was angry.

“No, that’s not true and you know it! Don’t twist this!” You shouted back. “How dare you blame me for something I didn’t know! If I knew you were taken, we wouldn’t be where we are right now!”

Tom was finished packing his things when he stared at you one last time. He took in your features. Like your older brother, you had a face that made you look like you came straight out of a renaissance painting. In truth, Tom was lucky he was graced to wake up next to a beauty such as yourself.

“Look, I’m sorry. I have to go.” Tom sighed as he grabbed his suitcase and left your shared apartment. You knew he was going to try and get his girlfriend back. You stared at the man you loved as he left your shared flat without another word.

News broke out and Tom defended himself saying shit about you and that he was working on apologizing to his true love which he did. He even got her back and vowed not to do it again. He still got his job and because of all the attention he got, he was being asked to take on roles left and right.

You got the short end of the stick, though. Everyone thought you were a liar and the few people who defended you were facing backlash for being on your side causing them to leave you. Your parents had no say and your sister just dismissed you. Timmy stayed by your side and he never left. He even defended you when no one else would.

This caused a rivalry between Tom and Timmy. Timmy took it personally because even he didn’t know that Tom was taken and Tom promised him that he’d care for you and love you. Tom, of course, didn’t let it faze him. He was still a jackass.

Meanwhile, your pregnancy was going well. The baby was healthy and Timmy has been very supportive. He’s the best uncle in the world, in your opinion. You still get casted for some roles, but you asked them to hide your pregnancy and you were thankful that no one said a thing.

The media still wasn’t so nice to you, though. Since they didn’t know you were pregnant, they assumed that you let yourself go after Tom left you. They made rumors about you having breast implants, you gained so much weight after Tom left, and so much more. This pissed Timmy off because he kept asking you to clear the rumors and just tell them you’re pregnant.

“I don’t want to, okay?! I want this baby out of the spotlight! You saw how the media treated me and I admit that it’s shitty, but can you imagine how the media will treat my baby?! They won’t be so kind and we both know that.” You frowned. “I don’t want Tom to know either.”

“Fine.” Timmy nodded. “Don’t stress yourself, okay? How’s the baby?” He asked as he sat next to you.

You smiled and looked at him, “The baby’s fine and I know the gender.”

“Spill!” Timmy said in excitement. His eyes sparkled and he was happy.

“I’m having a boy.” You grinned.

“Ahh!” Timmy screamed in joy. “Tu as un fils! (you are having a son)” You laughed and nodded as he pulled you in for a hug.

A son. You’re having a son. He’s the center of your world.

A year later, Beau Julien Chalamet is now turning 1. He was very playful and he was always laughing. It brought you joy despite having a tough work life. You were thankful that Beau took almost all your features which made him really look like a true Chalamet. In short, his name suited him well.

Today is Beau’s 1st birthday and you were celebrating in your flat. Your sister will come over later and Timmy won’t be able to come because he was halfway across the world to attend an awards show. You were now waiting for his call while Beau watched Sesame Street in the living room.

You were looking at Beau with an amusing smile as he danced around to the song Elmo was singing on tv. Your phone rang in your hand and you glanced down to see that Timmy wanted to FaceTime you. You smiled and quickly answered, “Hi, Timmy!”

“Hey!” He grinned. “Where’s the birthday boy?”

“Il regarde la télé! (he is watching tv)” You turned the camera to Beau and he was watching while dancing. Timmy laughed and you turned the camera back at you. “I thought you’re at an awards show.”

“Yeah, it was. It’s the after party now and I’m in the men’s room so that it’s quiet. Everyone’s having fun out there and I figured they’d be too busy to go to the bathroom.” Timmy explained.

You nodded, “Tu es intelligent. (you are intelligent)”

“Merci beaucoup.” He said with a playful smile on his face. “Anyway, I want to speak to the birthday boy!”

You grinned and called over your son. You pulled him on your lap and he instantly smiled when he saw his favorite (and only) uncle in the whole world. “Who’s that?” You asked Beau.

“Timmy!” Beau said with a cute smile which made yours and Timmy’s heart soar. Timmy was his first word and your brother will never not let go of that.

“Hey, buddy! I miss you so much!” Timmy pouted. “When I come back there, I’ll give you lots of presents. Okay?”

“‘Kay!” Beau smiled. He can repeat the last syllables of words, but he can say ‘mama’ and ‘Timmy’ really well. It was weird, but hey, every kid is different.

You, Timmy, and Beau kept talking for a few minutes. On the other line, Timmy didn’t notice Tom entering the bathroom. Tom has never seen Timmy ever since the incident and seeing your brother made Tom nervous. He noticed that Timmy was talking to you and he hid in one of the cubicles to listen.

“Y/N, you don’t have to worry about me giving gifts to him. He’s my nephew! I’m allowed to spoil him. Plus, that’s mom and dad’s first grandchild.” Timmy said.

“I know. I’m just telling you not to spoil him. I can’t afford those things and he might go looking for them.” You told him which made Timmy sigh.

“That’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m his godfather. Besides, who else is going to do that? His deadbeat dad? No fucking way, Y/N.” Timmy shook his head. “I swear I’ll beat him up, but at the same time I’ll thank him for giving you Beau.”

“Don’t beat him up, but thank him for me too.” You said. “Well, I have to go. Pauline is coming over in a few minutes and Beau is making a mess in the living room right now.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to you later before you go to bed.” Timmy said.

“Okay. Bye! Beau, say goodbye to Timmy.” You smiled as Beau walked over to you and showed his face to Timmy. He gave Timmy a toothy grin and said, “Bye!”

“Bye!” Timmy smiled and flew him a kiss through the screen. “Bye, Y/N/N. Take care.”

“You too.” You smiled before hanging up.

Timmy put his phone in his pocket and washed his hands. Tom emerged from one of the cubicles and stared at Timmy. Timmy looked up and saw Tom through the mirror. They stared at each other and Tom cleared his throat and said, “H-How are-”

“Skip the formalities and tell me what the fuck you want.” Timmy hissed. He turned around to face Tom and he crossed his arms.

Tom gulped and took a deep breath. “Y/N has a son?”

“Why does that matter?” Timmy raised an eyebrow.

“Is he mine?” Tom asked.

“Everything related to my sister and my own sister will never be yours. Excuse me.” Timmy said angrily before leaving Tom in the bathroom.

Tom looked at the door where Timmy left and he pulled out his phone to call Sam who was back at home and because he conveniently lived near you.

“Hello?” Sam answered. “I thought you’re at an awards show.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Tom said quickly. “You live near Y/N, right?”

Sam was silent on the other line before speaking again, “Why? Are you planning on getting on with her again? Because if you are, at least break up with Nadia first. What you did was fucked. You’re lucky mum and dad love you.”

“That’s not it, Sam. I think she’s hiding something from me. I overheard her brother saying something about having a nephew and the kid having a deadbeat dad. I’m the deadbeat dad, Sam. I think she hid that from me.” Tom said.

“Are you drunk?” Sam asked in concern. “You know, I think you’re an alcoholic.”

“I’m not fucking drunk, Sam! Just check. Please.” Tom begged.

“I can’t just show up at her place a year later! That’ll be weird. What will I say?” Sam shrieked in panic.

“Tell her that I told you to get something of mine that’s still there and then look around. Tell her that I must’ve left my jacket there.”

“Are you hearing yourself?!” Sam shouted. “That’s fucking weird! You left your jacket and you want it back a year later??? Do you know how suspicious that sounds?! Just straight up ask her!”

“I don’t have her number!” Tom hissed.

“Grow a pair and ask her brother! I won’t help you do your dirty work. Besides, if she did have a child that she hid from you, she has a reason for doing so. If she wants to keep the kid away from you, then she has every right to do that.” Sam told him.

Sam had a point. A minute later, Tom hung up and exited the bathroom to find Timmy. He looked around and he couldn’t find him anywhere. When he asked Timmy’s friend, they told him that he left. It devastated Tom.

A week later, Timmy flew to London to stay with you for a couple weeks. Because he hasn’t seen Beau in a while, he decided to go on a roadtrip with Beau to somewhere far away so you can have some alone time. Your alone time was ruined when someone knocked on your door. You looked through the peephole and furrowed your eyebrows when you saw Tom.

“What the fuck.” You said as soon as you opened the door.

“Hey, Y/N.” Tom said with his hands in his pockets. “May I come in?”

“No.” You said and closed the door, but Tom stopped it with his foot. You inwardly groaned and opened the door again to face him. “What?”

“Where’s my son?” Tom asked.

Inheriting your great acting skills from your older brother, you acted like you didn’t know what he was talking about. “What the fuck are you talking about?” You asked.

“Don’t bullshit me. I overheard Timmy talking to you last week. He was talking about a nephew and a deadbeat dad.” Tom snapped.

“Why are you listening to conversations that don’t concern you?” You asked angrily. Tom shook his head and invited himself inside your flat. You rolled your eyes and sarcastically said, “Sure, come in. Be my guest and make yourself at home, will you?”

You closed the door and walked to the living room as Tom walked around the flat in search of a little boy that he hoped would resemble him. He found the room he once shared with you and saw a crib there. He went back to the living room and asked, “Where is he?”

“It doesn’t concern you.” You simply said.

“I have every right to know because I’m his father!” Tom shouted.

“You just gave me your sperm and I did all the work with the help of my brother. You’re technically a sperm donor, Thomas.” You said with your arms crossed. “Besides, you went back to your girl. I didn’t have the time to tell you.”

“You could’ve-”

“No, I couldn’t. Do you know how that’ll turn out? It’ll be messy! You have a relationship to prioritize and I can’t imagine how she’ll feel when finds out that the girl you cheated on her with is having your baby! That would totally suck! I was thinking of her more than you because she’s been through so much hurt. I wish I could apologize to her, but she probably hates me.” You admitted.

“Fuck that shit. You could’ve told me! When was I supposed to see him? Huh? You took him away from me! I want my son and I have every right to have him! You're so selfish!" Tom yelled angrily.

Tears streamed down your face as you looked at him while you sat on the couch. You took a deep breath and calmly said, "You got your girl back. You got all your dream roles and you are constantly wanted by directors for their movies. You have friends and family who are supportive of you. You have parents who love you and cherish you because according to them, you're the best thing that's ever happened to them. You have all the money in the world to support yourself and there's no doubt that you'll be financially secure for the next ten years. You have everything that I've always wanted."

"Tom, I don't have anyone by my side; I'm single. I've been single ever since you left me. I never got my dream roles and I rarely get casted for anything and if I do get casted, I play either a whore or a mistress because that's what the public sees me as. My whole reputation is now tainted as 'Tom Holland's side chick' and the media will forever portray me as that. It wasn't even my fault because you never told me that you were in a relationship that was hidden from the public."

"Ever since news broke out about you cheating on your girlfriend with me, I lost all my friends. They're all disgusted with me now and everyone thinks I'm a liar when I tell them that I never knew you were taken. My parents? They don't like me; they never did. I may be the youngest, but I was a mistake that they decided to keep because my siblings wanted me. My parents never loved me and they never supported me. I'm the worst thing that's ever happened to them. I don't have all the money in the world because like I said, I rarely get casted for anything. I don't want to live off of my brother's money because he worked hard for it. I struggle to make ends meet and I struggle to find work and I'm doing my best at that while being a single mother for MY son."

You sighed as you wiped the hot tears that never stopped falling from your eyes. "My son is the best thing that's ever happened to me and he's the ONE THING I did right. He's also the one good thing that came out of our little mistake. I don't know what I'd do without him. He's the only one I have and you want to take him away from me? Hell, he's the reason why I'm alive right now. When I look at him, I want to be better so he can have better. You don't understand that, Tom. Just because you're a hot shot doesn't mean you can get everything that you want."

"I just want to be with him. I want him to live with me for a while." Tom said.

"Over my dead body, Thomas." You said sternly. "You can't just strut in here like you own the place. I'm sorry you had to find out through someone else, but I won't let you take him from me."

"Were you planning on telling me?" He asked and you shook your head.

"You told me that being with me was a mistake and that you didn't want anything that has to do with me. So, I kept my mouth shut when I found out. I hid it well and when I did an indie film where I was, you guessed it, a mistress, I was already 5 months pregnant. But I hid it well."

"I just want to help you because I was absent in this child's life."

"I got through it with the help of my siblings, especially Timmy, but I did most of it alone. If I can do it alone now until the rest of my life, I'll do it. I don't need you."

"The kid needs a father and that's me."

"No, he doesn't. You're just thinking that because it's like a trophy for you."

"That's not true." Tom shook his head. "My parents want grandkids and he's my son. I want them to know him."

"They can have grandkids the right way. My son was born out of marriage. I'm sure they'd want their grandkid to be a legitimate child." You told him before getting up from the couch and walking to the kitchen to get yourself a glass of water.

"Lock the door on your way out, Thomas." You called out from the kitchen before drinking water. Tom sighed before leaving and slamming the door on his way out. ‘The audacity of that man.’ you thought as you shook your head.

Tom went to the pub with the boys and told them everything. Sam shook his head and said, “You pushed through it?! You pushed through your stupid plan of seeing her?! That’s really stupid!”

“Watch your mouth, Sam.” Tom spat.

“You shouldn’t have done that. Besides, she’s right. Nadia will be really hurt if she found out that Y/N’s having your baby. If Y/N can do it without you, she can manage. Just leave her alone. At least you know.”

“Yes, but I want to see him at least. I missed one year of his life. I want to be there for him forever.” Tom frowned.

“You can’t.” Sam shook his head.

“I agree.” Harry nodded. “You ruined Y/N’s reputation and that kid is the only thing that holds Y/N together. She kept it a secret because she wants it all to herself because the media will say shit about her again. If you’re in the kid’s life, you’ll be exposing him to the dangers of the media. She’s just being a mum and that means she’s not risking it.”

“Well said, Harry.” Harrison nodded. “He has a point. You’re not good at keeping secrets either.”

“So what should I do?” Tom asked.

“Nothing.” Tuwaine answered. “Don’t do shit until Y/N says so. Besides, her brother can straight up kill you because you broke her heart and you’re forcing yourself in her son’s life like nothing happened. You’d be a dead man. Imagine the headlines.”

Harrison laughed, “It’s hilarious; ‘Tom Holland killed by Timothée Chalamet’! You’re sending yourself to your own grave, mate.”

Tom sighed heavily as his brothers and friends laughed at his misery.

You told Timmy about Tom’s visit and it angered him. You had to stop him from going to Tom’s flat to give him a piece of his mind. You assured him that Tom wouldn’t bother anymore and that it’s up to you if you want Beau to know who his father is.

It wasn’t until you got your big acting break that you revealed Beau to the public. You’ve been casted in a big movie alongside Timmy and you’ve never been happier. You confided with Timmy and he agreed that it was time to reveal Beau.

You saw Tom’s comment on your Instagram post and ignored it. It’s his first time seeing how Beau looks and he’s probably shocked that Beau doesn’t look like him. Tom messaged you on Instagram and you didn’t want to reply at first, but you figured that it’s been years. Beau is now 4 years old and you knew it was time to let go of your past. It was time for a new chapter. You replied to his message on Instagram and began talking.

With Timmy’s advice and consultation, you allowed Tom to meet Beau and if he wants to, he can visit him every other weekend as long as he follows your rules.

You finally spoke to Nadia about your past issue and now both of you are okay. She believed every word you said and you thanked her for that. She even said that Beau was a very bright child with a great future ahead of him.

Tom wasn’t around all the time due to his schedule, but whenever he’s in the country with a free schedule, he makes sure to give it to Beau. They may not be as close as Tom would like, but at least they were getting along.

You moved on with your life and you finally got everything that you wished for. You got your dream roles, your parents were finally trying to have a decent relationship with you, your sister was around you more, the media was finally asking your side of the story to clear your name, you’re financially secure, Timmy finally moved in with you to help you with Beau, and you started dating someone again. Life is great.

* * * *

sorry if the ending shitty

𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐓𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @blueleatherbag @cocoamoonmalfoy @thatforgottenangel @parkerpeter24 @turtoix @slutforsr @givebuckyhisplumsnow @buckys-little-hoe @runawayolives @chewymoustachio @hollandsrecs @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @yourstrulyamour @juliediggory @lharrietg @alexx-stancati @rumplebutterbaby @dummiesshort @spideyspeaches @thevelvetseries @buckymylove @quxxnxfhxll @marvelsimps @dreamy-clousds @bora-world @hunnybunimdun @supred12 @more-like-reyna @caitsymichelle13

𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @holland-styles @trustfundparker @calltothewild @felicityparkers @hufflepuffprincess24 @tommysparker @justasmisunderstoodasloki @quaksonhehe @call-me-baby-gir1 @itstaskeen @theonly1outof-a-billion @lost-in-the-stars03 @justafangirlduh @piscesparker @speedymaximoff @miraclesoflove @lexirv @blairscott @getbywithasmile @pqrkerr @lavender-writer @blackbat2020 @hoodpankow @bi-lmg

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland one shots #tom holland angst #in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh #chalamet!reader #timothee chamalet

138 notes · View notes

ayoitsnic · 3 years

Text

Platonic! Sam x Reader x Dean

Word Count: 2.5k

Trigger Warnings: None? Violence that's pretty typical for Supernatural

Summary: Sam and Dean found out they have a sister. They're very skeptical at first but upon meeting they find out that despite 2 totally different upbringings they have more in common than they expected.

*Disclaimer* I wouldn't normally describe y/n in fics but in this one I did so purposefully to show the similarities between the siblings. I've been told some people are a bit touchy on that.

Oh also this is the first fanfic I've ever written so I'd be happy with constructive criticism.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

'Shit' Y/N thought to herself as she was put through to her dad's voicemail. 'Wait....it said call his son....does that mean...? Wait do I have a brother he never told me about!?' Grabbing a pen and a pad of sticky notes she called again, this time hoping for voicemail so she could write that number down.

'This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean 866-907-3235. He can help.'

She got his voicemail again, quickly scribbling down the number before hanging up and dialing it.

Sam and Dean were just finishing up a ghoul case in Indiana when Dean's phone began ringing in the glove compartment of the Impala. Reaching over from the driver's side Dean quickly found his phone, glancing at the caller ID "Unknown Number?" He questioned out loud. He assumed it was a scam caller, but answered it anyway just in case "Hello?"

"Is this Dean?" A female voice asked, sounding mostly nervous, but also just a teensy bit excited.

"Who's this?" Dean questioned skeptically, causing Sam to look over curiously from the passengers side

"I'm Y/N. I umm....this is gonna sound crazy but I'm your sister." She felt weird saying that. Until 5 minutes ago she was an only child. "I tried calling dad but it went straight to voicemail and said to call you if it was an emergency...I kind of need help.."

Shocked with the idea of possibly having a sister Dean pulled the car over to a screeching halt, putting the hazard lights on. He needed a minute to take that in. He put the phone on speaker so Sam could hear what was being said "No that's impossible. Dad already had one kid we didn't know about. No way he had a second." Dean said, obviously in denial.

"He what?" Y/N asked, a grin spreading across her face. Regardless of the circumstances that prompted this call, she was elated to find out she had more than one sibling

Realizing what he had just said, Dean shook his head "Nevermind. Where are you?" He asked as Sam began to flip through John's journal, looking for any hint that there might've been another Winchester out there. It didn't take long for him to find the missing pages not even halfway through the book. It would seem she was born long before Adam.

"I'm in the Poconos, in Pennsylvania." Y/N responded

"Okay well we're about 10 hours from there. We'll be there in the morning." Dean told her "Text me the address." The phone call ended and Y/N texted him the address. They weren't sure what the emergency was that she had to call their dad for but regardless of whether or not it was their kind of thing, Sam and Dean were definitely gonna haul ass to go meet this mystery woman.

The next day Sam and Dean found themselves in Northeast Pennsylvania before noon hit. When they finally reached their destination they realized that this woman had grown up so differently from them. She lived in one of those fancy gated communities. Well THEY considered it fancy. Y/N was used to it, but then again the bar wasn’t too high with the childhood Sam and Dean had. The houses were big, the yards green, you needed a pass from security to get in, the only thing missing were picket fences.

"Are we sure we aren't walking into a trap?" Sam asked Dean as they stood on the big white porch, ringing the doorbell. "Well if we are, we're certainly prepared." Dean had grabbed holy water and had his gun tucked into the back of his jeans. Sam, a little silver and the Demon killing knife. It wouldn't protect from /everything/ but it'd save them from most of their most common threats.

When Y/N opened the door you could definitely see the family resemblance between her and Sam. She was tall for a woman, standing around 5'10, had light brown, shoulder length hair. Her eyes though, those were a beautiful shade of green like Dean's. It was almost like looking in a mirror for the boys "Hey." She greeted, letting them in

"Which one of you did I speak to on the phone?" She questioned

"That would be me." Dean replied, raising his hand a bit "This is my brother Sam." Sam was still trying to get over the fact that it looked someone took him and hit copy/paste.

"Wow. Dad really got around didn't he?" She commented without thinking. "4 kids, good for him." Just like Adam whom Dean had very briefly mentioned the day before, John Winchester while still her father, wasn't in the picture that often. Sure he seemed like a cool guy the few times a year he would visit but they never really had a proper Father/Daughter connection. She did care about him, but at the end of the end of the day he was just a person she knew she could trust, hence she didn't think twice about making comments like that until she noticed the look on her brothers' faces when she said it. "Sorry, I want thinking when I said that." She quickly apologized, wanting to move on.

Upon entering, the whole house smelled like Palo Santo wood. She found the scent very calming. "Anyways it's a hell of a drive from Indiana. You hungry? I made pie." She offered.

Dean's face lit up at that "What kind?" He asked with a small grin

"Blueberry. It's my mom's recipe." Y/N replied as she motioned for them to sit at the kitchen table. While she took out a knife to serve the pie, Sam had swapped out her utensils for ones they knew were silver.

"So what was so important you felt the need to call us up here?" Sam asked. Y/N could already tell she liked Sam. He gave off good vibes.

Y/N stayed silent for a moment before telling them "My cousin was found dead the other night. He had his throat ripped out. Cops say it was a Mountain Lion but it sounded like something that might interest Dad. Where is he by the way? I tried calling him a few more times and it just kept going straight to voicemail. Doesn't even ring."

Sam and Dean both looked a bit sad as they had to break the news that their father had passed away and had been dead for quite some time now. Upon hearing that, Y/N didn't really react. She wasn't sure how to. Of course she should've felt something because it was her father, but at the same time, as mentioned previously, he wasn't around a lot. He was absent for most of her life just like he was for Sam and Dean's. Sure he was there for the big stuff like birthdays, her high school graduation, or prom night where he let her drive up in the impala, but it was the small stuff she wanted him there for.

"So you know about the whole 'fighting monsters' thing then?" Dean asked as he splashed a small amount of holy water on her leg under the table. Sam kicked him under the table for even mentioning it. What was he thinking!? She didn't even notice the holy water but the question caused Y/N to look at him weird.

"What the hell are you talking about? Mom always said he was a fed." This almost forced Sam to hold in a chuckle.

Despite looks from Sam telling him it was a bad idea to tell her what they really do and that it was probably a vampire that killed her cousin, Dean told her anyway. They already made the mistake of not being totally upfront with Adam. Dean wasn’t making that mistake again "Yeah, okay." She chuckled dryly "You fight monsters. Sure you do." Like any sane person, she thought they were bullshitting. "Next you're gonna tell me you've found bigfoot out something." She said sarcastically

"Actually Bigfoot's one of the few things that isn't real." Dean told her with a smirk

"Tell ya what, you fight monsters?" She motioned towards her two brothers "Prove it. Show me these monsters. Let's go find the 'Vampire' " she said with finger quotations "that killed my cousin."

"Oh no no no." Sam finally spoke up "I was against telling you about what we do to begin with, but I'm drawing the line at having you go out on a hunt. You could really hurt. Or worse, killed."

"What is this, some bullshit male chivalry thing? Do you think women can't do the job?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"No, no that has nothing to do with it." Sam quickly back tracked "It's just that you only found out today that monsters are real, you've never hunted before, and we don't want you getting hurt."

Y/N got quiet for a moment, contemplating how she wanted to respond to that. When she finally spoke, she leaned across the kitchen table and told the boys very calmly, like eerily calmly "He was my family. I'm going and we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice." It was loud and clear, in no uncertain terms that she would do anything for her family. That included killing vampires.

The group went silent again. Sam and Dean exchanged a few glances before Dean relented "Alright fine, but you follow our lead."

"Deal." Y/N nodded

It didn't take long to locate the vamp nest. Only a day or two. In that time Sam had given Y/N a full rundown of everything she'd need to know about Vampires. How they're nocturnal but that doesn't mean they can't wake up during the day, how the whole 'stake through the heart' thing doesn't actually work and you gotta cut the heads off, and how they normally live in groups.

Thankfully it was a small nest, only about 6 or 7 of them. When the 3 of them pulled up to the old, long abandoned Birchwood Resort, Dean popped the trunk revealing their weapons cache. Y/N looked surprised to see all that stuff, peeking over Dean's shoulder to get a better look. "I've never seen so many weapons in one place. That's awesome." She grinned as Dean handed her a machete. Sam looked at Dean, thinking to himself how similar she sounded to him.

"Alright, Sam and I are gonna go in. Stay out here and if you see any of them try to run out just chop the head off." Dean told her

"You're crazy if you expect me to stay out here and miss all the action." Y/N told Dean as she leaned against the side of her dad's car. She didn't care how long the old man had been dead. To her, that would always be his car. NOT Dean's. With a sigh, she looked up to the night sky and ran her fingers through her hair "Alright fine, whatever. You're the master. I'm just the padawan." She shrugged, kind of annoyed but not in the mood to argue. Sam chuckled at the Star Wars reference.

"This place is huge though." Y/N added "It's really easy to get lost in. You might be better off with someone who grew up here and is familiar with the area. I wonder where you could find someone like that." She hinted, as her and her friends would explore this place as teenagers. "I think we'll be okay." Sam declined. They really were set on having her outside. Thinking about it, she could definitely understand the decision. They'd probably see her as a liability.

Once Sam and Dean had found the nest, the massacre began. After killing half the nest Dean found himself pinned under a vamp, his weapon thrown across the room where he could reach it. "Sammy!!!!!" He called out but Sam was busy with 2 vampires of his own.

Outside Y/N had grown bored of waiting for the boys to return. How long did it take to kill a few 'Vampires'? 'Fuck it' she thought to herself 'I'm going in.' And that's exactly what she did. Looking around the place for her brothers she ran into 1 vampire. Too Easy. She cut the head off as it made a move to go after her. Looking at the decapitated head on the ground made her nauseated but she pushed on.

Before long she heard a commotion From inside one of the private cabins. Peeking through a window she saw the bad position they were in. Scared, and sick to her stomach she ran into the cabin. Swinging the machete in her hand she killed the vampire that had Dean pinned. It was a clean cut and came centimeters from Dean's throat.

He got up, grabbing his own machete to help out Sam. After the vamps were dead Y/N averted her gaze, trying to avoid looking at more dead bodies as she caught her breath.

"I thought we told you to wait outside!" Dean told her to which she instantly responded with "And I thought Sam said you guys would be okay on your own but I just had to come and save you. You should be thanking me."

With a sigh Dean nodded "Are you okay?" He asked, just making sure. "I'm fine. I'm covered in blood and I just killed 2 Vampires, but I'm fine." Despite the nausea, she grinned. The whole hunting thing wasn't supposed to be fun, but this was the most excitement she had in a long time. "Alright, I don't know about you guys but I would kill for a shower right now. If you want after that I know a great bar off main street. I could use a stiff drink."

Sam and Dean left 2 days later, having found a case in Virginia. "We are gonna keep in touch, right?" Y/N asked as Sam and Dean put their duffel bags in the Impala

"Of course we are." Dean agreed while Sam added his contact info to her phone. She of course already had Dean's info saved. "You sure you don't wanna come with us?" He asked which caused Y/N to shake her head lightly "As much as I would love to, I have responsibilities up here. Work, family, what's left of a mortgage to pay off...Maybe one day though." She offered a soft smile.

After hugging both boys and telling Dean to drive safe, they took off for Virginia. "Dude," Sam looked over at Dean "I know we were skeptical at first but can we agree she's definitely related to us?"

Dean looked at Sam weird “I don’t see it.”

“You’re kidding right?” Sam asked “Aside from the fact that she’s like a walking replica of me, she makes really good pie; you love pie. You saw how defensive she got when I told her it’d be safer to sty at home while we took care of the vamps. It’s clear she’d do anything for her family. Sound like someone you know? and while we’re on the subject let’s talk about the fact that she’s not a terrible hunter. She’s far from a natural and a little weak stomached, but for someone who’s probably never killed a thing in their life she wasn’t bad.” Sam listed all the different ways she was just like Dean.

“What was the first thing she said when she saw the arsenal he keep in the trunk?” Sam asked his brother who responded with “I dunno. What’d she say?”

“She said ‘That’s awesome. She sounded just like you.” Sam insisted

Dean sat silent for a moment, focusing on the road ahead of them before relenting “Yeah okay when you put it like that she’s definitely related.” He agreed

#Supernatural #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #sam winchester x reader #Dean Winchester x reader #female reader

36 notes · View notes

bluerose5 · 3 years

Text

The Ghost of Paradise (Exile AU)

Chapter 2: By the Minute

Rating: M

Word Count: 3,796

Tags: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Scott Ryder, Reyes Vidal, Reyder, Pre-Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Exile, Flirting, Secrets, Complicated Relationships, Eventual Romance, Rivalry, Engineer/Mechanic Scott Ryder, Jealousy

[Read it here as well on ao3.]

“Our agents say that you were speaking with Reyes Vidal at Kralla’s,” Nola said. She didn’t even give Scott a chance to breathe. The second he was through their gates —which were still a work in progress— Scott was ambushed. “Do I even want to know what you have planned?”

Scott grinned at her.

“Why must I always have something planned?” Scott asked. “Reyes is a good friend. For all you know, we could have been catching up over drinks.”

“‘Could have’ doesn’t mean that you were.”

“Fair enough.”

As she fell into step at his side, Nola led him around while they spoke, appraising their growing community with pride.

“Scott, as governor of Paradise, should I not be made aware of any transactions that might affect us?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Tell me what I need to know then. Nothing more, nothing less.”

As if he could refuse her insistent prodding. Every time he left, he always forgot how relentless she could be upon his return, but only when it pertained to matters that could have both predictable and unforeseen effects in their future.

In a way, Scott was grateful to have someone with that type of dedication on their side. They’re going to need it.

“I swear, it wasn’t anything particularly groundbreaking,” Scott promised. “I gave him some seeds from our latest project in exchange for a long-ranged scanner modification. That’s it.”

“Hmm… A decent enough trade.”

“Glad to have your approval.”

Of course, it was too much to hope that she would leave it at that.

“What is it for?” Nola asked.

Scott knew from experience not to lie to her face.

He sighed. “I’m going to scout out some of the Remnant ruins nearby. See if I can get a read on their bots, or a turret if I’m lucky.”

She cocked her head to the side and considered that for a moment, lips pursed.

“Promise to be careful then. I know you would gladly give your life to protect any of these people, but we don’t need you to throw it away because of pure recklessness,” she reminded him. “If it comes down to an altercation, we would rather have you here than some lousy turret schematics. Besides—” She shrugged. “You would probably be the only one who could make sense of them anyways. You and that stupidly genius brain of yours.”

Scott scoffed, suddenly uncomfortable as he shifted in place.

“Got it from my parents, or so they say.”

Ellen and Alec Ryder. The woman who literally gave her life to perfect biotic implants and the man who created a whole new type of AI. Quite the legacy to live up to.

Good thing Scott wasn’t living his life based on their achievements. Andromeda was a whole different playing field compared to the Milky Way. The work he was doing with Paradise was incredible in its own right. At least, he liked to think so.

If he could change at least one person’s life for the better in Andromeda, then he considered that a success.

Based on the feedback he was receiving from the residents, he was doing a damn good job, and that was enough for him.

But Nola had a point.

People relied on Scott now. As much as he was willing to dive headfirst into danger, he needed to refrain from doing so.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised her. “If things start to go south, I’ll ping you and Nakamoto.”

“Thank you,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Scott hated to worry her so, but there was that one other matter.

“If it’s any consolation to you,” Scott said, trying for a lighter tone yet failing, “Reyes offered to accompany me on the trip.”

Nola stopped short, and Scott skidded to a halt. She narrowed her eyes at him with a sneer curling at her lip.

“No, that is not of any consolation to me. Scott Ryder, you know how he is.”

“Charming and witty?” Scott tried for his best smile, but Nola wasn’t buying into that bullshit, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Flighty and untrustworthy, especially once his back is against the wall.” Then, she amended her statement, taking on a slightly accusatory tone. “That’s assuming you didn’t pay any of his ridiculous service fees.”

“Puh-lease.” Scott chuckled. “If anyone should be spending their credits, Reyes should be the one paying me for my company. I’m a treasure not many can afford.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Nola snorted, “but at least you know your worth.”

“They say that time is money, after all. I’ll make sure to charge him by the minute while we’re together.”

“Please do, and make sure to get a picture of his face once you show him that bill.”

Scott was only happy to see her smile again.

“Will do,” he said.

“While you’re at it, drop a few hints here and there that Paradise might be looking to contract out some exclusive deals with top-rate smugglers. Leave out the ‘top-rate’ part, of course. Can’t have that going to the poor man's head.”

“His ego is already insufferable enough without the compliments,” Scott agreed, “but isn’t the whole point of secrecy for you and I not to draw attention to our connections here?”

“A woman can dream though, can’t she?” Nola sighed.

“So much for Reyes being ‘untrustworthy.’”

Nola didn’t even hesitate, brushing off his attempt to use her words against her.

“Skill is skill, and we don’t exactly have the people or resources to be picky right now. Everything is a commodity on Kadara, even integrity. If he betrays us, we’ll deal with him, simple as that.”

Right.

Still, it was laughable to think that the Charlatan would take on a contract with some of his direct competitors.

Although, that sounds like exactly the type of stunt that Reyes would pull. More than likely, he’d have an ulterior motive for doing so, but Scott could see it happening.

Did he support the idea, though? Definitely not.

“I don’t know,” Scott muttered. “I couldn’t see Reyes limiting his business to one group, especially if we’re only starting to get our feet wet.”

“You would know how he operates better than I, but I suppose that attitude is understandable. Disappointing, but understandable.” Nola grumbled. “Well, if nothing else, tell him the least he could do is give you a discount.”

“Trust me, I’ve been working that angle for a while. No such luck.”

“Greedy bastard.”

As they finished up their routine patrol, they soon switched direction, heading towards Nakamoto's clinic to conclude their meeting. There, Paradise’s leaders convened. They reviewed the requests that their colonists posted on the message boards around the settlement. Together, they decided on what matters they could approve for certain and which ones would be placed on the docket for a community vote. After that, they moved on to logistics, including topics such as requisitions and inventory.

To draw the meeting to a close, Nola relayed their latest numbers for colonial development. Water production was steady. However, food stores would be struggling soon to keep up with the recent influx of residents, so security personnel and all of those who knew their way around a gun were strongly encouraged to increase hunting and foraging activities while out on patrols or while performing their daily tasks. A roster will be posted on the local message boards to look for volunteers who would like to fill a full-time hunter-gatherer role.

Hopefully, what few angaran scientists they had amongst their people would be able to process their first batch of nutrient paste after their next harvest. It wasn’t exactly the tastiest solution available, but it was a necessary one if they were to survive.

In terms of population, there was a rapid spike in enrollment when word spread that Paradise actually got shit done and held true to their promises, but they expected the effect to eventually plateau once people settled in. Angara enrollment was up at the moment, especially after Scott appointed Nola as governor, and they have even seen a few Initiative members join up, having made the journey all the way from the Nexus to be reunited with friends, family, and loved ones.

Scott asked that they spread word for people to be warm and welcoming. The request probably wasn’t necessary, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Their community would make no friends by tearing people apart, and they prided themselves on being close and tight-knit.

It was important that they not only claimed to be but that they acted like it as well, backing up their words with actions.

Security assignments were then posted. Patrols would have to be upped to make up for an increase that they were seeing with gang-related attacks. Once automated security measures were in place, they would revisit the matter in order to assess which sectors needed heightened security. Emergency drills would be held at the end of the week.

With all of their needs addressed, Nola called the meeting to a close.

Once the meeting was adjourned, Scott approached Nola and their Head of Security, requesting a full census to be done within a day's time. Scott needed names, numbers, faces. Each citizen’s profile needed to be updated within their database.

If Scott was going to make an effective defense matrix for the colony, then he would prefer to program an IFF system that only a select few could remotely activate. For the system to work as intended, all of the colonists' photo IDs and biometric profiles would need to be kept current and constantly updated in real-time.

Nola promised to see to it that Scott got what he needed, shooing him off.

Apparently, he was hovering, but Scott could take a hint. He could tell when he was no longer needed, and he knew that Nola worked best when he wasn’t constantly worrying after her like a mother hen.

Departing from the settlement, Scott cloaked himself the second he went beyond the boundaries of their walls.

He was almost halfway back to Port when he received a message from Reyes. Figuring that he was in the clear, Scott made sure that the coast was clear before deactivating his cloak.

Pulling up his omni-tool’s interface, Scott opened the message. Along with it, there was a set of coordinates, sent from Reyes’s location.

R: Think I’m ready to cash in on those shuttle repairs. Wouldn’t mind the company right about now.

Scott’s fingers hovered above the holographic keys, contemplating his next move before deciding to hell with it.

S: Miss me that much?

R: Am I that obvious?

He didn’t even give Scott a chance to reply before he sent another message.

R: If it’s still in question though, let me put it bluntly.

R: I want to see you.

Scott pursed his lips, cursing his stupid heart for racing in response.

S: Give me a few. I’ll be there.

R: I’ll be looking forward to it.

Before he could embarrass himself, Scott closed out his messages. He quickly made his way to Port, grabbing his bag of tools and gear before venturing back out into the badlands.

From there, Scott followed the coordinates to a cliff, overlooking a nearby valley. The sun was slowly but surely sinking down over the horizon, lightning up the sky in array of pinks and oranges and reds.

Reyes was already waiting for him by the time he arrived, the shuttle powered down for the moment.

However, the second Scott noticed that Reyes was facing away from him, he instantly slowed his walk to a crawl. He bent his knees into a slight crouch and shifted his weight with each step, toe to heel as he snuck his way up behind him.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone.”

Scott delighted in watching him him jump in shock, only to have a blade at his throat in the blink of an eye.

As soon as Reyes realized who it was, all the blood drained from his face.

“S–Scott!”

Hands raised in surrender, Scott raised an eyebrow at him incredulously.

“You know, I was kind of expecting a warmer welcome,” he admitted, careful of the firaan's sharp edge. Keema must have given it to him. “Have to say, though, would it be weird if I was a little turned on right now?”

Reyes scoffed.

Trailing the blade along the outline of his throat, Scott swallowed thickly when he eventually felt its pointed tip press underneath his chin. Reyes tilted it up, and Scott followed, lest he risk being cut.

Their eyes met, and Reyes smirked.

Bastard was toying with him.

Retracting his knife, Reyes sheathed the firaan while Scott tried to catch his breath. The goosebumps left behind in the dagger's wake soon receded, yet a warm heat lingered.

“Tsk.” Reyes huffed at him. “Ryder—”

Uh-oh, back to last name basis. From experience, that meant trouble.

“You know better than to sneak up on me!” Reyes scolded.

“I do,” Scott said, not even afraid to acknowledge it, “but I love getting a rise out of you.”

“What if I would have hurt you?”

“But you didn’t.”

Scowling, Reyes placed his hands on his hips. Shaking his head, he pinched at the bridge of his nose.

“Scott, what the hell am I going to do with you?” he asked, releasing his nose, half-fond and half-frustrated.

“I’m sure we could think of something.”

Reyes hummed in agreement, watching Scott approach the shuttle with his bag tossed over his shoulder. He dropped it to the ground, then immediately got to work.

Watching him closely, Reyes leaned against the side of his shuttle with a thoughtful look.

“Maybe I could take you on a date?”

While Reyes tried to sound confident, his attempt ultimately failed. Instead of forming the words into a bold offer, they fell flat, sounding more like an uncertain question.

Scott stopped what he was doing. He spared Reyes a brief glance, only to return his attention to the task at hand, hiding his flushed face.

“Wouldn’t Zia disapprove?” Scott asked, being rougher than necessary as he practically took apart the control panel.

Envy curled inside him, spreading like an infection through his bloodstream. There was a sharp squeeze around his heart as it was encased in the feeling.

Reyes called him out on it, way too perceptive for his own good.

“Ryder, are you jealous?” Reyes chuckled.

Scott glared, causing him to throw his hands up in surrender.

“Just asking.”

“And if I am?” Scott retorted.

“Then I’d have to put your mind at ease.”

“It’s really none of my busin—”

Reyes closed the distance between them. Reaching out, he cupped Scott’s cheek, brushing his thumb along his bottom lip. Weak as he was, Scott leaned into his touch for a split second. His eyes threatened to flutter closed, but he had to remain firm about this one matter, if nothing else.

As he started to pull away, Reyes said, “There is nothing going on between Zia and I.” Scott froze into place. “We went out for drinks a few times, nothing more.”

“You swear?” Scott asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I swear.” His voice grew heated, impassioned. “I might be a bad man when it comes to many things, but I wouldn’t ever lie about that to you.”

Scott considered that before replying, “Well, like I said—” He cleared his throat, eyes averted. “ It’s not really any of my business, so I don’t know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

He trailed off, uncertain why he was acting that way.

Reyes furrowed his brow.

“No need to be sorry. If you had crossed a line, then I would have said so.”

“Even then, you’re not mine. Your relationships are your own.”

“I could be.”

Scott regarded him skeptically.

“Could be what?”

“Yours,” Reyes answered instantly, staring intently at Scott. “Just say the word.”

If only they weren’t both keeping secrets from each other at the moment, then Scott might take him up on that.

Turns out, being with the Charlatan would be a huge conflict of interests. Who could’ve guessed?

Silence settled between them. It was as if the whole world was awaiting Scott’s answer with bated breath. Time itself seemed to stand still in anticipation.

“I—” He struggled to find the right words. “Give me time.”

That’s all he could ask.

Reyes’s hopeful expression fell, and that alone felt like a stab to the chest. Scott's breathing trembled a little, as if it was becoming difficult to continue drawing in one breath after another.

God, he didn’t want to hurt him, but neither of them could really afford to rush into things half-cocked.

Scott copied his earlier gesture, reaching out to cup Reyes’s cheek. The change was almost instantaneous, how the tension drained away, only for Reyes to melt into Scott’s touch. He leaned into his hand, starved for affection.

Scott swallowed thickly, unable to pull away, let alone take his eyes off of him for even a second.

“All I ask is that you give me time,” Scott repeated. “That’s not a ‘no.’ I just need to think a few things over, iron out a few details.”

Reyes listened, then agreed.

“Alright.” He pulled away with a small, private smile. “As if I could deny anyone such a reasonable request, especially you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Returning his attention to the shuttle, Scott got back to work. After all, he didn’t want to neglect the poor bird, and it appeared that the shuttle was in desperate need of a little TLC.

His diagnostics only confirmed his suspicions.

When a couple of sparks resulted from his prodding, Scott chastised Reyes for mistreating their baby. Reyes grew defensive, both of them falling back to old habits as they bickered.

This was the type of work that Scott did on the Nexus after he got sidelined and shafted. Systems repairs, shuttle repairs, routine maintenance… That sorta thing.

It was how he met Reyes to begin with. Few pilots had the energy to hang around and talk shop with Scott while he worked, especially since a lot of them had only recently returned from failed colonization efforts. Understandably, most people didn’t want to entertain idle conversation after watching their friends die out in the field.

That was fine by Scott, but Reyes had always gone out of his way —even then— to make sure that Scott had anything and everything that he needed.

They might have taken his shuttle out on a few joyrides together, gotten in trouble for wasting fuel, but Scott wouldn’t trade that time they spent together for anything in the galaxy.

Even now, it felt natural to settle back into their old routine. While Scott worked, Reyes watched, and they talked about anything and everything.

Time passed, and Scott only got deeper into the repairs and modifications. Despite the setting sun, he still broke a sweat, a light sheen glistening upon his skin.

Eventually, he had to take off his shirt, leaving him in a plain tank top that quickly got dirty along with his hands.

Swiping at the perspiration beading at his hairline, Scott grunted as he came to a stopping point for now. He reached for his bag, but what he was seeking wasn’t there.

“Shit.”

Turning towards Reyes, Scott huffed at him.

The bastard wasn’t even trying to hide his staring. Face flushed, he was biting teasingly at his bottom lip, brown eyes dark as he watched Scott through a hooded gaze.

Getting to his feet, Scott crossed his arms over his chest.

“See something you like?”

“Definitely.”

“You’re shameless.” Scott shook his head in disbelief, tsking under his breath. “You’re just as bad as that one time when Gil Brodie asked for a ‘second opinion’ on some fix he made. Turns out, I ended up doing almost all of the work while he sat back and watched.”

“Smart man,” Reyes noted, giving Scott a thorough once-over. “This Gil must have great tastes.”

Scott snorted.

“Flattery will get you nowhere. If you really want to make me happy, then you would grab your water bottle for me.”

“Did you forget yours?” Reyes asked, slightly concerned. After all, being caught out in the badlands without water was just asking for dehydration or heat stroke.

Nevertheless, he got the bottle for him. Scott placed his hands over Reyes’s, shrugging with a flustered blush.

“Yeah,” Scott sighed. “I thought I had packed it! I don’t know where it could’ve wandered off to.”

“Perhaps you were in a bit of a rush to get here,” Reyes said, trailing off suggestively.

Scott figured that he would allow that.

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “but what else do I keep you around for, if not the water? You wouldn’t want the guy repairing your shuttle to get dehydrated, right?” Scott smirked. “I could get delirious, and it would be very unfortunate if I just so happened to forget to install an essential component.”

Reyes gasped dramatically, relinquishing the water to Scott, who was quick to take a swig.

“You always have to watch out for the pretty ones,” Reyes grumbled. “Always causing trouble, keeping secrets…”

There it was again. That sense of knowing , that sense that both of them were holding something back. It was left unsaid. Neither confronted the other about it, but they knew that the secrets were there.

Before the sudden lag in conversation could get too awkward, Scott took another swig of water and asked, “So, you think I’m pretty?”

Reyes chuckled, glad for the change of subject.

“Kian seems to think so,” he muttered. Leave it to him to avoid the question. “He keeps asking when you’re going to start working for him at Tartarus.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“As a dancer?” He had to make sure he was hearing right.

“Yep.”

“Could you imagine?” Scott scoffed. “Me, shaking my ass for money? A tempting offer. It would probably be more profitable than the odd jobs I take on here and there, but I think I’m fine where I’m at.”

“Damn,” Reyes sighed, “what a shame.”

Scott raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“You saying you would have come to watch me?”

“Not only that, but I would have paid to watch you,” Reyes said, “especially if I could have gotten a private show out of it.”

Scott tried to imagine it, grinning in spite of himself.

“What’s so funny?” Reyes wondered.

“Nothing, nothing,” Scott said, brushing off his concern. “That just made me remember a thought that I had earlier.”

“What about?”

“Oh, you know.” Scott gestured vaguely. “Just that I should start charging you a fee for when we spend time together.”

Reyes winked at him.

“It would be worth every credit.”

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #scott ryder #reyes vidal #reyder #mreyder #my writing #my fanfic #scott ryder x reyes vidal #exile au #hopefully tumblr doesn't screw with the order of my paragraphs again :/

8 notes · View notes

all1e23 · 4 years

Text

Chocolate Dipped

Pairings: Sugar Daddy!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Steve has finally had enough of these two idiots.

Warnings: Angsty stuff.

A/N: I am feeling better! Just in time to make you guys cry for Christmas. This is in Steve’s POV at the start. I think I grabbed everyon’s tags but I was pretty sick this week. If I forgot to add you please shoot me an ask and I’ll correct it today. Also, half edited. I got lazy. lol If you like it come sing me a song, write me a story or scream at me! This is the sixth part of my series Sugary Sweet. Make sure you catch up!

***My fics are not to be saved or posted on any other sites without my written permission. Reblogs are my jam, though! Thanks!***

“You goin’ home tonight, buck?”

Steve hung around the doorway to Bucky’s office, hovering like a worried parent. The small room was lived in. Two weeks have passed since they attended Stark’s gala, and Bucky made it a point to work himself to death every single day since. There were cartons upon cartons of takeout, guest pillows from his penthouse on the leather couch that sat under the large windows on the south wall, and Steve caught Bucky wearing the same white button-up three days in a row.

Bucky was avoiding something, and Steve had a decent idea of what that ‘something’ was.

“Hm?” Bucky mumbled, barely looking up from his computer as he did. “Uh, no. Not tonight. I want to get this done for the Danvers account.”

Steve sighed as he spun his keys around his fingers, debating how far he could push this before he drove Bucky away.

“We have people who do that now, Buck. Go home and get some sleep. Wash your hair.”

To Steve’s delight, Bucky looked up, humor lighting up his eyes and smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

“You sayin’ I look bad, Stevie?”

Steve forced through his concern long enough to grin.

“I’m saying you haven’t been home since you broke up with Y/n. Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

Bucky’s smile fell the moment Steve said her name, and his eyes fell back on his computer. He wasn’t going to talk about Y/n or their arrangement. There was nothing to say. It was never a real relationship as much as Bucky wanted it to be, so there was no reason to treat it as such.

“I don’t have anything to say about it. There was no break-up. It was a temporary situation, and it’s passed. Let’s all move on with our lives.”

“Bullshit.”

“Goodnight, Steven.”

The quiet tug of the door and the hitch of the latch echoes in Bucky’s empty office, leaving him alone in the darkened building. He knew Steve was trying to help, but Steve wasn’t. Bucky didn’t need to be babysat. He needed to go back to that coffee shop, pay for your coffee, and walk away before he let his heart fall yours. Yeah, he knew sulking in his office wasn’t going to fix anything, but he couldn’t face going home. Your toothbrush was still hanging next to his, that drawer in his dresser was full of your clothes, and there was the picture of the two of you resting on the nightstand. Taking down the pictures in his office was bad enough; at least here, the sheets didn’t smell like you.

It has been weeks when the hell was he going to get over you?

Bucky really hoped it would be soon.

The bar was packed. No stool was empty, and the floor was full of kids half his age waiting for what was probably their first beer. Steve groaned. Dealing with grumpy Bucky and now this was completely unfair. The loud cheering made Steve wince as he pushed towards the middle of the crowd, it was hard to see through the crowd of twenty-year-olds, and he has never felt quite as old as he did at that moment.

When did he become this grumpy old man? He blamed Bucky.

Steve caught his wife’s whistle and grinned when he spotted her in one of those half booths that no one actually enjoys sitting at.

“How is he?”

Steve sighed and placed a kiss on her cheek as he squeezed into the seat next to her. That was a loaded question. He gripped his wife’s legs and pulled them over his lap, tucking her under his arm. Steve was going to make the most of the dollhouse-sized booth.

“He’s… a mess. I know he misses her, but he won’t talk about it. I’m not sure what happened, but I don’t think it was a clean break like he’s making it sound.”

“Do you think she left him?”

He shook his head.

No, Steve knew Bucky well enough to know guilt when he saw it.

“I think Bucky didn’t speak up when he should have is what I think, and maybe she got tired of waiting to be more than a game.”

Steve took a sip of Sharon’s red wine and made a face. She grinned and ran her fingers through his bread, scratching gently until he hummed softly and leaned into her touch.

“Well, I think,” Sharon whispered, watching the sleepy smile tug at Steve’s lips. “We are stuck sitting at the bar. The dining room is full of what appears to be teenagers. Somehow when we weren't looking, we became the oldest people in the room. It's a tiny booth or share a table with strangers.”

“That’s alright. We can stay right here.” Steve nudged her chin up with two fingers and smiled. “I like being stuck with you.”

“You think that sweet talk is going to get you somewhere?”

“Pretty confident. Bucky taught me all I know."

Steve grinned and pecked her lips.

A loud voice interrupted Steve’s train of thought and he couldn't help but listen in.

“Look, if fancy man bun can’t see how awesome you are, then you don’t need to waste your time on him.” Steve tried to fight his smile. Whoever that was, he wouldn’t mind sharing a table with them.

“But… I think I love him.”

Steve froze when he heard your voice, and he subtly peeked over his shoulder to find you sitting at a table nearby. You weren’t alone. There was a blond guy he didn’t know, his arm was around your redheaded friend that scared the life out of him sometimes, Nat he was pretty sure, and another red-haired woman he didn’t know. He turned back around before you caught him spying, and he tried to listen over the boisterous shouts and loud, obnoxious music.

This was getting ridiculous. He was getting too old to go to places like this.

“And that sucks,” The guy continued."He’s shit for dragging you along because he knew how you felt. Everyone knew. I’m not saying marry Johnny Lightning--”

You were talking about Bucky.

“Storm.”

“Storm. Whatever. I’m not saying marry him, but it will help take your mind off the asshole who broke your heart.”

“First of all, I only know his name. I don’t have his number because I don’t want to go out with him, Clint. I don’t want anyone else. Can we just stop talking about this, please? It’s bad enough you drug me out of my nice warm bed and made come here. Please stop talking about Bucky.”

“I wasn’t going to let you hide in bed for the rest of your life,” The woman -- Nat, said with a hint of venom in her voice. “I wish you would have talked to him like I told you to. Something is off about this whole thing.”

“I didn’t have time! Things were over before I realized they were.”

“You could go talk to him now?”

“What’s the point? He’s obviously done with whatever we were. I haven’t heard from him in days.”

Bucky was the one that broke up with you? Steve hadn’t expected that, but perhaps he should have.

Steve fidgeted enough to wiggle his phone out of his pocket, silently quieting Sharon before she could make a fuss and draw your attention. He snapped a picture over his shoulder, even though he shouldn’t. You were staring at rose necklace Bucky gave you in Boston while your friends chatted amongst themselves, your eyes were red and puffy like you had been crying non-stop for days. You looked incredibly lonely for someone sitting in the middle of a crowded bar and surrounded by friends.

He dropped the image into a message and sent it off to Bucky.

“I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

Steve placed a kiss on Sharon’s head and slid out of the booth, smiling at her confusion. He walked straight to your table and stopped next to you, making a point to get his shoes and black dress pants in your line of vision. You looked up, and your fingers slipped off the necklace, your mouth fell open and stuttered incoherently.

“Y/n, I think we should talk.”

-----------------------

Across town, Bucky sat in his office, still sitting at his desk hours after Steve left him only now he was staring at his phone instead of his computer. Bucky hasn’t been able to look away from the damn thing since Steve’s text came in over twenty minutes ago. You looked good. Great. A little sad, maybe, but beautiful. He read Steve’s words one more time, and his heart clenched again.

She doesn’t look like someone who moved on. I think you left a few things out of the story.

So he did leave some things out. It was his right to leave out whatever he wanted to. Steve didn’t need to know why things didn’t work out. It wouldn’t change the outcome.

“Hi.”

Bucky’s fingers shook at the sound of your voice, so much so he dropped his phone back onto his desk. You stood in the doorway to his office, fidgeting and uncomfortable. You were still in that little black dress you were wearing in the photo, so you must have come straight from the bar. Bucky slowly leaned back in his chair, his eyes glued to yours.

“Hi… what are you doing here? How did you get in?”

You looked guilty, and Bucky had to fight back a grin.

“Steve gave me his ID.”

You held up a little white card as an explanation and gave him that same shy, nervous smile you gave him when he offered to pay for your coffee all those months ago. Steve could never just mind his own damn business. Nosy little punk.

Bucky should probably thank him for meddling this one time -- depending on how the rest of this night goes.

“Of course, he did.”

You took a few steps in, just enough that you could place the card on Bucky’s desk a keep your distance. Bucky watched your eyes scan his desk for your missing pictures, and he wanted to jump in and tell you they were on the bookshelf behind him now. They were hard to look at it all the time now. He saw relief flood you as you spotted them.

He still didn’t understand why you were here.

“Is everything okay, sweet girl?”

The name just slipped out. Bucky hadn’t meant it to. You weren’t… well, you weren’t anything anymore, and he didn’t have a right to call you pet names, but he couldn’t help it. Bucky wanted to call his sweet girl forever. Would have, too, if only the stars had aligned the way Bucky had wanted.

Bucky watched you as hesitated. You took a step forward and then stopped as if you were trying to decide where to go, towards him or out the door. He saw the conflict in your eyes as you fought with yourself, and then you stood up taller with your shoulders squared, having made your choice. You strode towards Bucky with determination, walking around his desk, and Bucky pushed off from his feet, letting his chair roll back enough to give you the space you needed-- wanted.

He hoped it was what you wanted.

Bucky didn’t move or make a sound. Just held his breath and waited.

You sank down on his lap, straddling his waist as you’ve done during the hundreds of times you’ve visited him in his office. Bucky waited until you settled comfortably, and his hands came up to wrap around you and rest against your backside. Your own find their favorite spot tangled in his hair, and the tears catching in your lashes were caught right away.

It took every ounce of strength he had not to lean in and kiss those tears away.

“You left.” You whimpered. “Just disappeared and stopped talking to me like we were never… something.”

Bucky’s heart twisted into something dark and ugly. He hadn’t thought there was much to say. Things had been off since he came home from Boston, and then that boy, he didn’t think there was anything left after that.

“I thought--” Bucky’s arms tightened around you, fingers pressed into your skin as he forced himself to admit what he was scared of since he first met you -- you didn’t really want him.

“I thought maybe you liked that kid from the gala. He's closer to your age and… he could be someone who wants the same things you want. I didn’t want you to feel like you were stuck with me if you didn’t want-- if this was temporary. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“No, that’s not what I want.”

Bucky swiped his thumb under your right eye, wiping away the tears he could no longer stand to see. He didn’t know how to ask if you loved him or how to tell you that he wanted more, but this? He knew this. Bucky’s spent the last eight months asking you want you wanted and doing everything he could to give it to you.

He could do this.

“What do you want, babygirl? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

There was only one thing you wanted.

“I want you to love me,” you choked out in a desperate, hopeless plea. “I want you to love me like I love you. I want you to be in love with me.”

“Oh, baby.”

Bucky cupped the back of your neck and let the other rest on your back, firmly holding you in place on his lap. This was something he should have said months ago.

“I’ve been in love with you for months. Maybe since I bought you that first cup of coffee and you looked at me with those sweet lips and pouty eyes. You’ve had my love, sweet girl.”

You sniffed and took a breath, your bottom lip still trembling as you twisted over his words.

“But-- I, I heard you telling you Sharon you didn’t want a future with me.”

Bucky’s nose crinkled, and his brow furrowed. “What? What are you talkin’ about, baby?”

“In Boston. That night you were drinking at the bar. I came down to… to see you, and you said you didn’t want a family right now and not with me.”

Bucky was smiling, and he could tell by your pout you were about to jump off his lap because of it. He couldn’t help it. This was good. The best news he has heard in weeks. This was all because he was an idiot, and he could fix that. He could stop being an idiot. Bucky took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around your waist, letting the chair lean back all the way, so you fell against his chest, and your feet came off the floor just enough to make you unstable if you tried to get up on your own.

He needed you to stay put a little longer, and if you wanted to leave after he said his peace, he would let you go.

"Did you hear what I said after that?”

“No," you squeaked. “I ran back up to our-- your room.”

“Our room.” He corrected.

"Our room." You amended. "Then you came up and we-- Well, we made-- we..."

Bucky didn't need you to say anymore. He remembered. Bucky absolutely remembered making love to you. He held you against him and carefully explained what really happened that night.

“I did say that, but that wasn’t what I meant. It came out all wrong, and you'll be happy to know Steve and Sam would beat my ass to defend you without a second thought. What I meant and what I explained to them that night was I wanted to wait until you were ready for all that because if I’m going to do all that? Get married and have kids; I only want to do it with you.”

You groaned and thumped your head against his chest. “Why is Nat always right? She said you didn’t mean it. That it was a mistake.”

Bucky chuckled quietly. His fingers gently rubbed at your scalp, and his lips found your skin, pressing soft kisses to your temple. “Probably because she could see it written on my face. According to Sam, I look like a lovesick idiot every time you’re near me.”

Forcing yourself to lift your head, you met his eyes and whispered,” Bucky, I do love you, and I don’t want that dumb bellhop from Boston or any other guy. You’re all I want, but I’m not ready to get married right now. I know you are, and if you want all that right now-- I don’t know, okay? I graduate in May, and then I want to work and-- and --I don’t think I can--”

Bucky’s thumb settled over your lips, stopping your panic.

“I know, and that’s why I said I wanted to wait. Let you find your footing in a new job and get yourself settled there before we even talk about it. I wanted to tell you all this in Boston. Tell you how much you mean to me. How you’re all, I think about, every damn day and the nights that I’m not with you are like torture.”

Your eyes twinkled with someone Bucky didn’t like, and his cheeks warmed right away.

“So that was the whole picnic thing? And renting out the skywalk?”

Bucky nodded sheepishly.

“I might have chickened out. I was worried you didn’t feel the same, and I wasn’t ready to lose you.”

One thing was certain; you were made for each other. You were both idiots.

“So, you do see a future with me?” You asked, nerves showing through your shaky voice. You needed to be sure. You couldn’t go through all that again.

“You weren’t just changing the subject with sex every time?”

Bucky barked out a laugh, the chair under you shaking from the force of it. You pursed your lips. He didn’t have to laugh so hard. It was a serious question. Bucky gave your hip an apologetic squeeze and shook his head.

“No, I didn’t mean to do that. It was incredibly sexy to hear you say you only wanted... me. You could have asked me for anything, and you just wanted me. I like that."

“It’s true, though. I don’t want any of that other stuff. You’re the only thing I want, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes darkened, and his hand slipped under the hemline of your dress. “Somethin’ you want… right now?”

Your slender fingers gripped his wrist, and you shook your head. “Nope. What I want right now is to get you home, shower, and maybe sleep till late tomorrow. I haven’t-- I haven’t been sleeping great lately.”

The confession made Bucky remember how terrible he probably looked from his own sleeping habits over the past eighteen days. The last he saw in the bathroom mirror, the dark circles under his eyes, were getting pretty hard to hide. His beard was unkempt and thick and Steve wasn’t wrong about needing to wash his hair. He raised the arm you were still clutching and pressed a kiss to your fingers.

“This how it’s going to work from now on? Just goin’ tell me what to do all the time?”

“Yep. That’s how it works when I’m your girlfriend.”

Your eyes widen dramatically, and Bucky grins.

“I am… I mean, it’s okay I said that, right?”

“Well, you are my girl.”

Bucky can feel your tension deflate, and he really likes the smile on your face.

“Mmm, and you’re my sugar. My sweet fella.”

#sugardaddy!bucky x reader #sugar daddy!bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky x reader #alternate universe #sugar daddy AU

2K notes · View notes

b4kuch1n · 4 years

Text

The Future Is In Space! (and so is the rest of you)

Okay, so. Gordon should’ve seen this coming.

And he did, to be fair: Joshua’s always loved space. Joshua loved the idea of flying cars when he was a tiny little thing, if the fact that all of the toy cars he had were thrown with intense force at one point or another meant something, and he clapped at the night sky once when Gordon got them both stuck at a gas station in the middle of nowhere due to… circumstances… which was super, ultra, uber cute as fuck . Especially because Gordon had just applauded him for singing along to a song on the radio when they parked, and that was very possibly the first time Joshua registered clapping as a possible positive reaction to something he likes, or whatever like that. Gordon Freeman has a PhD in theoretical physics and theoretical physics only.

The point is that Gordon loves Joshua so fucking much. No, the point is that Joshua has always liked space. He chose for himself a set of space-themed PJs when Gordon took him to the mall, and he likes food with weird colors because that’s “alien food”, and he has given away all of the toy cars he had to make space for toy space ships of many sizes, and Gordon has had to have a conversation with him once about upending a dusty fish bowl onto his own head so he could look like an astronaut. He doesn’t do that anymore, because Joshua is genuinely a really smart kid who just needs the required pieces of information to put things together by himself.

Gordon loves him so much.

Gordon also has only experienced a single year of relatively radiation-free, sludge-free, organic, non-Black Mesa- poisoned air and also freedom (to an extent) since. You know. Almost dying and also losing his right arm in Black Mesa. Where he jumped into a few portals, one of which leading to an alien world called Xen, where he had to kill what seemed to him at the time a spiteful god against his own existence.

That, and not the Joshua-loves-space part, is the part he didn’t see coming. Hadn’t. Still doesn’t, if he can be honest for a minute. There are days it still doesn’t feel real, just to contrast nicely with the days when what’s left of his right arm and his right shoulder hurt, and days when power outage hit unexpectedly and the lights went out without warning, and days when he fights to not let some stupid fucked up slights against him go because that’s just how the world is that’s how things are now keep your head down and don’t think Gordon just shoot just let your trigger finger pull itself in you are in a comedy of error a laugh track a monkey on a leash just dance just move your feet j

Hey, no digging your heels in there. Throw yourself off your rhythm, Gordon. Joshua. Joshua loves space. Joshua is going to an elementary school now. Joshua just came home from a “career” day, and the parent invited to speak is a retired astronaut.

Joshua said: “I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up!”

Joshua likes numbers. Somewhat. He’s not averse to them, at the very least, and homework’s kind of bullshit from the concept to the execution but when Gordon and Tommy and Coomer sit down to keep him engaged while he does it he has fun with math homework. He likes video games, he likes the puzzles in the youth magazines they signed up for at his school, he likes messing with shape blocks and pulls out some cool combinations Gordon doesn’t see coming sometimes. Joshua is a smart kid that enjoys a fair challenge. Joshua is totally astronaut materials.

Joshua is going to space.

Joshua is absolutely going to space.

Xen is, coincidentally, also in space.

Gordon is calm. He totally has a good poker face. He performs well under pressure, especially very specific types of pressure, e.g. when there are rules in place he can cling to and ground out an appropriate plan of action. He could improvise a presentation in class in a pinch, because he knew what presentations are and what he’s been working on and what the teacher expected. He could jimmy his car out of an ice patch, because he knew how cars work and how ice acts. He can smile and say “That’s great, Joshie! You just gotta work hard for it, and then you’ll be in space in no time.”

Gordon has an image he can provide to show how he feels.

[Picture ID: a drawing of Gordon Freeman standing in front of his son Joshua, cut off at their chest. Gordon is a tall man, a bit heavyset, with tan skin and mid-back length, messy curly brown hair that’s greyed at his temples due to stress from surviving the hellhole that is Black Mesa and Xen. He’s wearing his comfortable worn-and-faded t-shirt, which is orange with a very faded graphic printed on the front. Joshua is a young boy with brown skin and short dark curly hair, brown eyes that’s brimming with light and happiness, and a wide happy smile. He’s wearing a light green t-shirt. Gordon is smiling at him, with another shot of his face enlarged and superimposed on the drawing right next to his head. This Gordon is screaming. This Gordon is screaming his heart out, and his face is scrunched up while his mouth opens wide, and he’s screaming a silent scream and he will never stop.]

---

Contrary to how it appears to everyone, Benrey doesn’t live full time at the Freemans’.

Well. He does “sleep” there. If he actually sleeps. That’s one of the questions that Gordon has had ever since Black Mesa that he never got to or bothered to ask, and then when they had to defeat Benrey in the final boss fight he thought that was it with his chance to ever ask. And then Benrey came back and the situation took a hard left into throw-the-whole-suitcase-out awkwardness and Gordon thought it better to never bring those questions up ever again. It’s. Ongoing. Like his climb back into being a normal, mostly law abiding, neutral good citizen, who has no ties to that research facility that blew up and opened a portal to hell in space.

It helps that Benrey really is just… a dude. Now that he’s not eighty feet tall and clipping through walls anymore, he can definitely pass as someone who just really loves to mess with people for a laugh. Which… well, Gordon’s judgement of character is probably better discarded in the kitchen trash compactor now, but he’s not gonna lie and say that’s all Benrey seems to him. He doesn’t even mess with people for laugh, not really. He is just. Like that. He’s an alien, but in the sense that’s…

Well, to Benrey, humans are alien. So that’s that.

And also Black Mesa did stretch the definition of ‘human’ in the physical sense pretty thin. So, again, that’s that. It all fits together like sliced pita bread.

The other thing that helps is that Gordon has the tendency to forget about risks or consequences when they are not directly in front of him, which he sometimes overcorrects, but this time around it helps move the sentiment into the philosophical window pretty quick, and then he can throw a brick through that one, because philosophy sucks ass. Gordon’s moving along well! He only had to change prosthetics twice because the first two were in order too heavy for his shoulder and too energy consuming, and all three are fully covered by the overlords that didn’t want Black Mesa to become a Thing in history, and now he works remotely for a uni that just lets whatever happen. It’s chill. It’s mostly chill.

He could’ve just chugged along never thinking even an inch deeper about Benrey’s Benrey-ness again, and Benrey makes that easy, because Benrey loves walking around and looking at things and being a bit of a spectacle with a straight face. Okay, Gordon doesn’t know for sure if Benrey loves doing those things, because he’s not Benrey. He just knows that Benrey does those things, frequently, and with an expertise that baffles even him, who knows full well how Benrey is. Well enough. Awkward territory, all of this is, really. The Point Is that Benrey actually doesn’t appear at home too much! He plays games through the night sometimes, sure, and ever since he called second dibs on any cereal in the apartment he always appears at the right time to claim that, but the whole thing is. Balanced. Benrey doesn’t seem to have physical personal belongings outside of the PS3 and four copies of Heavenly Sword he lugged back one day (the rest of the game library everyone kinda chimed in here and there to build up, because console is common ground fair use for everyone, while PC is where Gordon streams and also works, so it’s off limit), and he rarely uses utensils to eat anything, so to anyone but the team it’d seem like he’s barely there at all. Except for his presence of course. That’s… a lot harder to negotiate.

Gordon’s gotten very, extremely good at it though. It’s his life. Things fit together, mostly. He can deal, he has been dealing, and it’s even been fun. It’s definitely really funny here and there.

Gordon’s about to break the equilibrium. Introduce a nasty new specimen into the scene.

“Bro I knocked for a hot minute,” Benrey says, at the same time as Gordon’s blurting out, “I need to go back to Xen.”

“Huh.”

“Wha- Why do you knock? You’ve never knocked. You’ve literally only ever broken in.”

“Wanna… start now.” Benrey intones in that exact way, and then knocks on the door again. It doesn’t even sound good. These doors are all made with the weird thick composite that makes a dull plastic sound when knocked on.

“Don’t do that, just use the doorbell if you want to-” Gordon catches himself. “No matter. I need to go back to Xen. As soon as possible, but anytime in the next… twelve years… will work.”

Benrey just looks at him for a long time. An extended minute. Maybe even two.

Gordon is just staring back.

“You’re at. The door.” Benrey says, in a low voice. Gordon blinks. “Rude… rude little boy Freeman, huh.”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Benrey-”

“Gonna let me in? Soon? ‘s bad etiquette… greeter… doesn’t even let guests in. Bet your wares aren’t even good.”

“Alright! Alright.” Gordon snaps, but he also does step back for Benrey to walk in, which. Really, that’s never been necessary. Benrey’s always come in and out as he pleases. Usually Gordon just walks out into the living room and Benrey’s already on the couch playing whatever game catches his eyes on that day. The decorum of knocking and walking in is simply never present.

Well, Benrey does knock on Joshua’s bedroom door. But that’s it.

They walk together into the living room, then Benrey situates himself on the couch, and Gordon settles on the carpeted floor next to the table to observe him. He’s never seen Benrey actually fold his limbs up into the position he’s usually already in when walked in on before. It’s mostly normal movements, which still catches Gordon off-guard a bit.

“Nice couch you’ve got here,” Benrey says, and pulls out his phone to fiddle with. It’s a Nokia 2700 Classic, with a theme downloaded from the Ovi Store, and a firefighter-themed 2D platformer that does get insanely hard in places. Tommy got him a snazzier Blackberry a while back, but he refused that one. Gordon didn’t really get it, but. Whatever.

“It’s always been here,” Gordon replies on reflex.

“Liar… Gordon Lie… man.” Benrey seems to need to chew on that one for a second. “Gordon Lieman. This building’s like. Ten years old.”

“That’s practically forever dude. That’s longer than they sent me to MIT for. Joshua’s not even that old.”

“He’s gonna. In… seven… years.”

Gordon remembers what he needs to talk with Benrey about again. “Goddamnit,” he slaps his own face - not with the hard prosthetic this time, thank you very much. Took him six months of HEV training and a year with a prosthetic to get it to heart. “Okay, so. Xen.”

“Wait. Math’s wrong… eleven. Years.”

“Don’t distract me! Xen!” Gordon throws his arms up, finally making Benrey actually look at him proper. “Joshua wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.”

Benrey puts his phone down.

“Yeah,” Gordon scrubs his face, with his flesh hand. “So I need to… do something about Xen. I have a plan. I need to find materials, and then I need a way to Xen…”

“What’s an astronaut.”

“A- no.” Gordon sits up straight. “No, you’re fucking with me. You’re doing this on purpose. I’m fucking about to go nuts, dude.”

Benrey looks him up and down, makes sure his head movement is clear in the dark living room, lit only by the lamppost outside the window. “Yeah,” he says, “no shit. You wanna go back to… Xen… and stuff. Freeman lost his mind.”

Gordon opens his mouth to retort, but then closes it with a click. “Okay,” he mumbles after a moment of thinking it over, “okay. I get where you’re coming from.”

“Haha, get it. ‘cause I’m from. Xen. And shit.”

“Not funny, dude.” It is a bit funny. “But I’m not- okay, so, listen, Joshua’s a determined kid, alright? He’s smart, and he’s healthy, and he likes space. He’s… the chance of him becoming an astronaut is not zero.” Gordon pulls his legs up to his chest. “If it’s up to me, it’s gonna be a hundred percent, ‘cause that’d make him so happy. But even if I’m not the one writing the almighty script I’m still gonna do my best to help him if he’s serious.”

Benrey continues looking at him. “Uh-huh.”

“And… that includes. Never letting him near Xen.”

“Mm.”

“And I know, I know Xen’s like. Ten fucking floating rocks at least a million Texas lengths away from Earth, but it’s still there, y’know? It’s still there. You’re from there! You know it’s still…”

“Yeah?”

“... I. Want to blow Xen up.”

Benrey settles into the draw-me-like-a-French-girl pose. “Sounds good. How’re we doing that.”

“Well, we’ll need explosives that can actually detonate in Xen’s climate, and acquiring that’s gonna put me on so many shitlist-” Gordon almost physically grabs his own hand to yank himself back to Benrey’s answer. “Wait. Are you really just… relenting? Are you actually in this now. Benrey?”

“Say more about the explosive though.” Benrey blinks innocently at him. “Please? Explosive cool. Maybe illegal. Super cool though.”

Gordon is not doing the frog mouth thing. He’s not. He’s totally not. He sighs a long sigh; there, no more rude expression. “I am only thinking about using explosives, because it’s costly and we’re gonna have to transport it. So you have nothing to snitch about. Who would you even snitch to, anyway? Fucking- we are under an indefinite two-way nondisclosure clause, if any of us ever open our mouth to a stranger about that we’re gonna get sacked, but. Wait are you even involved in that? You came back after we signed those papers. Well Tommy’s officially ‘representing’ us, so it’s all tangential kinda, so maybe he can just add you, but why would you-”

“No explosive run huh… What’re you gonna… use. Then.”

“-subject yourself to the law- alright, yeah uh. To be honest I was thinking raw force? Because I do have around twelve years to make this work, and Coomer has insane strength that has leveled a Xen island before, and Bubby is… I think he just isn’t aware that there’s supposed to be a limit to human strength at all. They forget to put that in when they pumped him with knowledge juice. He can- wait, Bubby can just make fire. He can maybe negate the climate conditions for us, so explosives are still in the question here, and- Darnold, last I heard he’s doing some ‘Sour Patch Kids but real’ stuff… sounds like seriously corrosive stuff… We can. We can have a plan.”

Benrey is on his phone again. “Nice.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Gordon dry swallows some dust from the carpet. He realizes he’s gripping on it pretty hard with his prosthetic; he’s close to ripping a chunk of it out. He takes a deep breath and relaxes the plastic hand. “We’re gonna need to make and test the explosives, and we’re. I need to tell everyone. Convince them to help. And we’ll need a portal back to Xen.”

Benrey’s still clicking away on his phone - probably playing that firefighter game again - but he’s looking at Gordon at the same time. Gordon looks up just in time to catch the sharp grin disappearing from his face.

Alright. Maybe Benrey does love doing Benrey things. At least one of them’s actively enjoying this.

---

Gordon’s well aware how ridiculous he is. Is sometimes seen as. Perceived as. Terminologies.

Mostly he copes fine with that. He’s lived it for as long as he’s alive. Most decisions he makes are met with a raised eyebrow at the sublest and outright laughter at the rudest. Transitioning, that was a long, long period of his parents going from “haha funny joke but don’t tell it in public yeah” to “oh shit that’s for real huh? That’s for real” to confused, but silent, silence. Him applying for MIT and seeking a scholarship was definitely the career advisor at his high school laughing uncomfortably for a long time, because Gordon’s never held down a project properly, has he? How’s he doing this? And then him adopting Joshua officially was at least ten separate conversations with Joshua’s grandparents patting him on the back, it’s okay if you don’t! We can care for him. It’s nice to have children around the house again! We know you’re busy! We know there’s things youngsters like you want to do before getting tied down with children. Trust us, we know. You don’t have to .

Gordon knows. He’s never had to make any of the decisions he actively made, but one, that’s why they’re decisions and not punishments , and two, in many ways including cerebral, he did. Kind of have to. In many ways those are the only steps that make sense for him to take. They were the foundation to who he is as a person, with a sense of self that must be supernaturally obscure, because he’s. He’s got a lot of things to balance. A lot of tight ropes to walk.

Gordon’s many things, a lot of those he doesn’t fucking recall himself. Maybe that’s by itself absurd enough. He’s had a lot of time to learn, and a bit of time to relearn, being okay with being absurd.

Black Mesa “helped”, in the same way it spared the rest of him when it got his arm cut the fuck off. It’s a horror comedy. It gave him a bit of a new perspective on absurdity.

“Don’t you dare,” Gordon grouches, because he’s learning. He’s always learning. “Don’t use the a-word.”

Bubby puts his arm together in front of his chest. “I’m not about to! Don’t presume you know what I will do.”

In a way Bubby’s incredulous look stings worse than Benrey’s deflection, Gordon reasons, because Benrey has emotional (?) stakes in Xen’s existence. Maybe he has an external heart or something that’s still beating and keeping him alive on Xen, though Gordon hopes he’d’ve at least been transparent about that when they talked about blowing the place up. Bubby though, Bubby doesn’t have emotional ties to many things altogether. Bubby’s also a tube baby who sets himself on fire with his thoughts. Himself and other people and/or objects. Not as absurd as Benrey being Benrey, but absurd enough to be way above Gordon on the a-scale, and thus has no rights to call Gordon absurd.

“You have to admit though,” Bubby says after a moment of silence.

Gordon takes a deep breath. “No, actually, I don’t have to admit shit,” he says, with what he can call patience with just a little bit of definition stretching, “you ever thought of that? I actually can just never admit that blowing up a whole planetoid system is a bit out-of-the-box thinking of me. I can just say that it’s totally normal and expected behavior of me, and what’re you gonna do with that? Huh? Do go on.”

“Oh don’t be pissy at me,” Bubby huffs, and goes back to staring at the buoy bobbing on the water surface, tied to his fishing line. “You’re scaring away the fish, Gordon. Everyone knows you don’t talk and stomp around on the piers while people are fishing. It’s rude.”

“You’re literally only trying to see if you can set a fish on fire as a prank,” Gordon points out, more for his own sanity than to prove anything to anyone, least of all Bubby.

Benrey looks like he’s ignoring Gordon and Bubby’s exchange, just sitting at the edge of the piers, legs swinging evenly, but Gordon well knows he’s listening in. If not because he’s somewhat invested then because most things that frustrate Gordon is great entertainment to him.

He is, maybe, a bit, somewhat invested though, must be. He brought Gordon to where Bubby and Coomer are camping, afterall. No reasons else to do it, especially when they have time to wait for them to come back to civilization. Twelve years, in fact.

Gordon can wait (he can forget, but in his book that’s the same as waiting, really), and he doesn’t begrudge Bubby and Coomer’s “honeymoon trip”, which has consisted thus far of them trampling about in ~~nature~~ , e.g. deep ends of the world that they do not and should not have access to, but somehow end up in anyway. Gordon only knew because Coomer’s grown fond of taking pictures, and once in a while if they get wifi he sends everyone some. The most memorable one was a pitch black square except for two dots of light in the distance, with the geotag pointing to them being in the Mariana trench.

They’re having fun, and Darnold and Tommy take effort to “decontaminate” them between trips, as well as make them learn wildlife interaction guidelines (Bubby probably already knew, but he didn’t care, and still nobody’s sure if he cares now), so Gordon doesn’t mind. Has no reason to mind. Until now, but only a tiny bit.

They decided to stop in a seaside town somewhere up North three days ago, and wifi’s spotty at best but Coomer still managed to send them pictures again - of him fighting a dolphin and Bubby making fun of a goat skeleton in a museum - and then Gordon got tired of staying up thinking about Xen at night and shot his shot. It took them another day to check their message again, and Bubby replied saying “don’t third wheel other people, weirdo” and Gordon just sighed and resigned himself to staying up way too late for another week or so. But then Benrey asked him to go to GameStop with him, which. Admittedly that was suspicious as hell, but Gordon reasoned Benrey knocked and asked to be let in the other day, so what the fuck, right. And then he stepped through the GameStop’s door, noticing the glass being darker than usual, and ended up on this piers where Bubby’s been trying to have a laugh at some poor fish’s expense.

Bubby made fun of him for third wheeling again, despite Benrey also being right there, and despite Coomer not even being there.

“Did you guys have a fight or something?” Gordon asked, because maybe he can be a little bit spiteful. He’s allowed.

“No,” Bubby grumbled. “Harold impressed Gregory with his punching power, so he’s invited to the Punching Tournament. I don’t like being in water for a long time so I stayed. Their sandwich’s not even good.”

Gregory turned out to be the giant squid that lives a few kilometers off the shore, and another few kilometers under the sea level.

“I’m gonna issue an a-word ban, actually,” Gordon declares, when he comes back to where Bubby’s sitting on his journey to wear a track into the piers. “I think that’s more conducive to real conversations.”

He’s being distracted, he knows. And maybe he’s letting himself be a bit distracted, so he can have a minute to improvise a script. Benrey just fast traveled him here, he did not prepare any materials, he doesn’t even have his notebook with him. That’s where all of his plans are! And his doodles. Mostly his doodles, but that’s a part of his thinking process, so he’s allowed.

“Alright, Mister Fucking-Insane-Person,” Bubby shrugs.

“Doctor.”

“Oh, my bad! Doctor Fucking-Insane-Person.”

“Also that’s a ban dodge and you know it. Also you still don’t have any rights to call me anything! I refuse to submit in this matter.”

Bubby turns around fully to put his hand on crossed legs and stare at Gordon. “You sure, Gordon? Are you very sure about that, when you warp out of thin air to where I am missing my husband very much and not torturing fishes for fun, saying things about blowing Xen up ? Is that not ragingly absurd, Doctor ?”

Gordon takes another deep breath. For his own benefit. For his own wellbeing. “Okay, one, Benrey warped me here, I was not responsible for that. Two, you’re trying to set fishes on fire, and your husband is punching more fishes while a giant squid cheers him on, probably. And three, which part of blowing Xen up is absurd, now? Feel free to elaborate on it. I’m all ears.”

“The very idea of it!” Bubby exclaims, accidentally shoving his fishing rod off the optimal position, chasing away the few fishes not shunned by his radiating malicious intent yet. “Who even thinks of that?”

“Me,” Gordon snaps back, “and you guys kinda ruined what ‘absurd’ even means at all for me, so don’t try me at it.”

Bubby shuts his mouth with a click, but his brows are still furrowed in the exact way that claims, loudly even if soundlessly, that he thinks that’s stupid.

“No, go on, Doctor Bubby,” Gordon presses. “You’ve got the quiz. Try your hand at it again, go ahead.”

“Alright, then, how are we even doing it? If we’re doing it. And there’s no we yet, mind you.”

“I- okay.” Gordon holds his hands up. “I’ll admit I do not have the specifics yet. But logistically at least, it’s entirely possible. We’ll need,” he calculates a number real quick, “thirteen hundred pounds of column charge slurry, but if we have something high corrosive we can wrap up safely until detonation we’ll need even less. We can. Make that much. If we have Darnold’s help. We need access to Xen itself, which Tommy has the biggest chance to get. We’ll need to put the explosives deeper into the ground than surface level, so we’ll need to dig some holes, but with Doctor Coomer’s strength we can take care of that. And then we’ll need to trip it, and that might pose a problem in Xen’s climate, but we can manage a chemical fuse, or. Y’know. Just burn it hot enough to explode, which.”

He ends that speech with a vague and a bit jerky wave of his hand towards Bubby.

Bubby just blinks. “Huh.”

Benrey snickers under his breath, either at a fish or at Bubby’s reaction, Gordon doesn’t know. He wouldn’t even be able to guess, since Benrey still has his back to the entire commotion.

Gordon catches himself holding his breath, so he consciously exhales slowly. It’s okay. It’s whatever. He has twelve years. He can take some detours if necessary. He can forget, even. Maybe.

“That Doctorate turns out to be for something, huh,” Bubby continues. “That does sound pretty plausible, afterall.”

“Huh,” Gordon’s turn to blink. “Wait, that’s it? You’re in now?”

“Yeah, sure,” Bubby swings his arm out, “even though I’d like to be testy for a while longer, I also want to blow things up. Outside is very large, but it severely lacks opportunities to see things explode, so I’ll have to make it happen myself now.”

That’s a tiny bit worrying, but Gordon’ll take it. He’s used to Bubby being a tiny bit worrying anyway. Wouldn’t be Bubby without it.

“Now shoo,” Bubby turns around to fiddle with his fishing rod again, carefully moving it back to the optimal position, “you chased all the fishes off. Gonna have to start my work from the beginning now. It’s hard work tricking fishes, you know.”

“Don’t tell Coomer,” Gordon warns, “I want to let him know myself.”

“Sure, sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“Aren’t you ever.”

Gordon figures he’s done all he can on that front.

Benrey catches up with him when he’s walked away dramatically for a few minutes and is now at the main street of the town. “Rudeman.”

Gordon did forget him at the piers, so that’s on him. “Sorry, but also, do you have a plan to get us home, or what? ‘Cause I don’t have my car and I’m not hitching a random ride if I can help it.”

“Gotta... find a GameStop first. Score some Sports Champions 2 for the. PS3.”

“Alright.” Gordon nods. “Wait, do you need a GameStop to transport us? Is that a thing?”

“Huh,” Benrey just looks at him, and then pulls out his brick phone.

Gordon rolls his eyes, but then catches a glimpse of the screen, and sees the digital clock. “It’s- fuck, it’s almost five! Joshua’s almost home.”

“Oh look, no GameStop on the… roadside. What’re we gonna do.”

“Benrey, you- goddamnit,” Gordon frantically pulls his phone out of his pocket. He tries to yank his right arm out of Benrey’s hold to hold it steady, but Benrey doesn’t yield. “Fucking, let me,” he unlocks it and finds Joshua’s number, which is on top, because he added ‘01’ before his name, because he’s had plenty of experiences with arranging files so they don’t disappear on him, “c’mon, c’mon… Hey Joshie! Are you at school right now?”

“Hi Dad, yes,” Joshua answers, at the same time Gordon registers that he’s walking, Benrey pulling on his arm.

“Sorry I called in the middle of class, buddy, but we’re gonna. I’m gonna be a bit late home, okay? I’m outside right now, but I’m on my way- oh, no, we.”

They’re in his living room. Gordon puts his arm, just released, on top of the couch. This is his couch. The bowl of cereal he finished right before Benrey dragged him out’s still on the table. The PS3 lays silent in the TV cabinet, as it’s always been. He does go around the table to put his free hand on all of these things just to be sure.

“Dad?” Joshua asks from the other end of the line. “Are you okay?”

“I.” Gordon dry swallows. “No, yeah I- I got home. Me and Benrey were out for a bit and we got? Lost? But we found our way back, and I’m. I’m home now. I was really worried I wouldn’t make it back in time to open the door for you, so I called! But I’m home now.”

“That’s good!” Joshua says, even though Gordon can still hear worry in his voice. Sweet kid, his boy is. “Thank you for telling me in ad-advance.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your class. Dad’ll be more careful next time.”

“It’s okay. What are we having tonight?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, holds it in for a moment, and then breathes it out, slowly. “We can have mac and cheese again, or we can try our hand at naan and make some soup to go with it,” he says, willing his voice to calm down. “We still have the yeast Ms. Juney gave us last month, right? We can go get bread flour when you’re home.”

“Okay.”

“Go back to class, buddy. See you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah. Can we have chowder tonight too?”

Gordon laughs. “We’ll look into it, but sure! If we can find the ingredients for it. Alright, bye now. Love you, honey.”

“Okay,” Joshua says again, and when Gordon’s about to move the phone from his ear, he adds, “Love you too, Dad.” And then he hangs up.

Gordon goes to the couch and sits down. He’s maybe cradling his phone a bit. It’s still warm from him gripping on it way too hard. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“That went well, huh,” Benrey says, from the hallway. Gordon looks up to see him closing the door behind him, what looks like a copy of Sports Champions 2 for the PS3 in hand.

Gordon laughs, again, for real this time. “That’s- where'd you even get that?

---

They did make naan, or a version of it. Joshua likes messing with flour, Gordon caught him walking his fingers through the bowl, leaving tiny “footprints”. They couldn’t agree on a fish to put in the chowder, so they shelved that plan and bought some canned beef-and-vegetables soup instead. The naan turned out… fine. They tasted enough like naan, and Gordon only burned like two. Which was maybe thanks to the apartment’s stove top burning a bit less hot than it did the last time they used it; Gordon made a mental note to check on the gas or. Whatever one does. When that happened. He just needed to look up a number, call it, and stand next to the (hopefully) professional who would come while they did their work.

Benrey sat at the couch while the Freemans cooked and ate their dinner, either being on his phone or scrolling idly through the PS3’s library. Joshua asked if he could try and throw naan pieces into Benrey’s mouth from the kitchen table, which Gordon allowed, but with the preset limit of only three pieces, and the condition that he picked up the ones that missed himself. He then asked Benrey very politely if he could open his mouth to catch the bread, and then made a lot of mental calculations before throwing each piece. The first one missed, but the other two were snatched up by Benrey in a somewhat shark-like display, which Joshua clapped excitedly for.

Gordon heard Benrey come to the kitchen table, which Joshua was wiping off with the designated kitchen rag (the fourth one this month alone; it feels like someone’s eating them as they’re replaced sometimes), while he was cleaning the dishes. “Hey lil’ gamer dude,” Benrey said, and Gordon could hear him rustle around in a pocket of his puffy vest. “Scored big in the. Minigame.”

“Thank you,” Joshua replied politely.

“Here’s your price,” Benrey said. Gordon assumed Joshua was holding out his hands to receive whatever Benrey gave him, because he couldn’t hear any noise that thing made, just Joshua’s little excited gasp.

“It’s like the... Intarna-Internation… nal… Space Station!”

“Huh,” Gordon could hear Benrey blink, “that’s what it is…”

“Yeah! These are, here, they’re solar panels! They charge the batteries in here.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you Benrey!”

“Yeah, GG.” And then Benrey shuffled back to the couch, if Gordon interpreted the noises correctly.

Joshua held onto the price trinket until he asked Gordon to put it in the tool cabinet, along with the cake moulds and decoration kit courtesy of Gordon’s hectic MIT years. It was… Gordon could see why Joshua thought that was where it should go. It could be considered a cookie cutter, if the shape weren’t kinda suboptimal for a cookie. It also did look like the ISS, with wings and all.

Nobody in this household’s baked anything sweet in this apartment for at least a year, but. Well. Never say no to free, reusable stuff.

Gordon’s phone vibrates when he’s just sat down at the kitchen table again, a mug of garbage instant coffee in hand. He abandons it to go get his phone from where it’s charging on the living room table.

It’s Coomer. “It’s Coomer,” Gordon says out loud. “That’s weird- he’s. He doesn’t call.”

“He’s calling. Now.” Benrey says from where he’s sitting, on the couch. Gordon takes a deep breath and doesn’t deign it worth a rebuttal. He accepts the call instead.

“Hello Gordon! I heard you want to blow Xen up.”

Gordon pinches the bridge of his nose. “Bubby told you.”

“He did! In great details!”

“I- alright, whatever, I didn’t expect actual results with that one anyway.” Gordon remembers about his coffee. He comes back to where it’s waiting for him on the kitchen table, and takes himself a generous sip, letting it burn his mouth. “Fuck!” He sets the cup down maybe a bit forcefully. “Oh that’s a bad decision. What did- what did he tell you?”

Coomer takes a moment to gather his thoughts, leaving a blank minute where sounds of the wind and waves on the shore come through his mic. Gordon hopes he isn’t thinking about sleeping out there tonight, for the full nature flavor or whatever. “ A large part of his speech was about explosion! And how big and grand it would be. And also about how much he fucking hates Xen!”

“Glad we agree on that front,” Gordon mumbles.

“So am I! I also fucking hate Xen!”

“That’s. That’s fair, really, it’s a garbage place. But- did he, like. Have you heard anything about the actual plan? Did he tell you anything about the actual plan I definitely mentioned to him?”

Coomer pauses for another moment, probably to recall. “Nope! Not a word about a plan-”

“I fucking knew it,” Gordon mumbles.

“-though that is very thorough of you, Gordon!”

"Okay, listen,” Gordon picks his mug of coffee up and starts pacing. “I actually don’t… have all of it yet. I know me and Benrey are in,” he flicks his gaze to Benrey again, who does nothing to deny the statement, “and Bubby’s now in as well. I still need to- okay, the plan’s basically that we find or make enough explosive for the ten asteroids on Xen, we bury it at the core of said asteroids, and we blow that up so it blows Xen up. I have- I don’t know the specifics of how to make that much explosive yet, but I’ll convince Darnold somehow, and if he sits this one out then we’ll borrow his lab when he’s not using it. And I’ll ask Tommy about a way back to Xen, his. His dad’s done that plenty. He doesn’t seem to like Xen much, right? That’s the impression I got, so we can spin this into us doing him a favor or something. And then we transport the explosive to Xen, I can borrow a truck for that, I know someone, and then we dig into the ground there, that’s where we can really use your superstrength, and then we put the explosive in and. Set it on fire. Bubby, uh, agreed to take care of that.”

Another beat of silence follows Gordon’s speech. He seems to have been making that one a lot recently, mostly to himself, in his room, while writing things down in his notebook. He finds himself chewing on his own lip, so he makes himself stop and takes another gulp of the coffee, which has thankfully cooled down to gulp-appropriate temperature.

When Coomer speaks again, he seems to have chosen his words carefully. “I will need to ‘sleep’ on this, Gordon. You are right in your assessment that you do not have your plan together yet!”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “It’s okay,” he says, as much to Coomer as to himself. “It’s true. It’s half-thought up right now. I still need to figure out- figure out Darnold and Tommy and Mr. Coolatta. I, yeah,” his voice’s dropped to a mumble by now, “I think I need to sleep on it too.”

“Gordon.” The rustles that accompany Coomer’s voice gives the impression that he’s sitting down onto the pebble-littered beach as he speaks. “I would like to see Xen obliterated, and I think we can get it done.”

“That’s,” Gordon stops on his pacing in the kitchen, “That’s not. It’s okay if you’re not interested, Coomer. You don’t have to walk it back on me.”

“Please do not question my fucking hatred for Xen, Gordon.”

“O-okay.”

“But I am not in favor of hazy dreams anymore. I have gotten to see a lot during my ‘honeymoon’, and now I have broken free, and mere words on a script cannot placate me. I would like to see proof that it’s possible before I participate.”

Gordon takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

“I believe you can do it, Gordon!”

“Thank you,” Gordon says, a little bit dazed, while Bubby’s voice comes through from a distance at the same time, “Are you reciting poetry again?”

“In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?” Coomer answers. “On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire?”

“Stop praising that tiger while I’m right here!”

“I’ll,” Gordon says before Coomer can get fully caught up in Bubby’s antics again, “I’ll come back to you with. The details. When I’ve hashed it out. Thanks for,” he exhales, “thanks for holding out for me, Coomer.”

“So it is, Gordon, so it will be!”

Coomer hangs up there, and Gordon sits down at the kitchen table again. He finishes the mug of coffee in one long gulp. It’s gone a little bit more room-temperature than he likes.

“Sleep on it,” he mumbles, “good advice.”

“You should. Do that.” Benrey says from the couch. “Sleep good for body for soul.”

“You know what, when you’re right,” Gordon says, and stands up and goes brush his teeth. He then sits down at his work table and writes down questions until four in the morning.

---

Gordon used to suck at making phone calls. He’s kind of a champion at it now.

Funny thing is there’s an epiphany to it as well: he didn’t grow up with cell phones, so making phone calls was a hierarchical thing for him until he was like. Twenty years old. Kids used the landline when absolutely necessary only, and adults used it whenever they damn well pleased, because they paid for it and they had businesses to take care of . And Gordon was… not much of a rule breaker, surprisingly enough. Oh he fell short of where rules lay plenty, but he didn’t really intentionally break them. So he took calls when his parents said he could and when he absolutely needed to, and that habit persisted well into his adulthood.

He might also just be not very good at holding his tongue when speaking and. That was no good for phone calls. Kiddies phone calls. ‘cause he just realized one day that adults said whatever the fuck they wanted on the phone really, and nobody chastised them for it, no divine punishment, no sudden death round.

A sermon on self-love, that was; Gordon just takes phone calls now. Worst case scenario, he just turns his brain off and lets his mouth do its work. When people don’t presume they know better than him, they don’t presume he’s talking out of his ass ninety percent of the time.

That’s- that’s what he thought. Gordon’s wrong, a little bit. He can be wrong. Has been wrong plenty before. He can correct himself, here, he’s gonna do it right now: worst case scenario, he has to recite his plan, conceived so far in total isolation from anyone he knows and whose opinions he cares about, to the person who’s the most skittish and averse to what his plan is bringing about among those people, over the phone, where he can’t see and gauge body language and facial expressions.

Gordon would… like to meet Darnold face to face for this. But. It’s work. It’s, well, it’s closer to work than to play, given that he’s gotten mildly stressed out over it, and their lunch at the only Taco Bell in the whole desert is strictly pleasant, not-work talk only. And Gordon really, really enjoys those lunch dates, because he never has to think about damage control or having an identity crisis in the middle of one. They’re just nice, normal, a tiny bit shouty (the Taco Bell is usually packed and the acoustic’s not good, but it’s a Taco Bell, and it’s a ritual now), mostly jovial, lunch with a friend, eating subpar food he’s learned to enjoy. They don’t talk about what happened at Black Mesa, they don’t talk about work in general, they don’t even talk about soda outside of appraising the gaudy color combinations for any new sponsored drink. They talk about Joshua, about Darnold’s cat Lumbar Support, about Coomer and Bubby’s travelling, about new game releases, about Sega vs. Nintendo, about the weather.

Gordon doesn’t want to fall short of where the rules lie, not this time. So he calls.

“Doctor Freeman?” Darnold answers with the title, which sets the tone pretty well. Gordon takes a deep breath and steels himself.

“Doctor Pepper.” He pauses. “Darnold. Hey. I, uh, I’ve got a thing I wanna ask.”

“Go ahead!” Darnold goes quiet for a moment, to finish his sandwich, Gordon’d guess. He’s called in the middle of Darnold’s lunch break. “I must preface however that we’re working outside of office hours, and I can only advise you at the moment. Anything further will have to go through the… official channels.”

“Okay, that’s alright. I just.” Gordon worries his lips. He realizes he’s tugging pretty hard on his left sleeve; he makes himself let go. “I have a. Plan. That’ll need your expertise.”

“I’d be delighted to help then! Feel free to share more.”

“It’s about, uh.” Gordon takes another deep breath. He’s been consuming a lot of oxygen recently. “IwanttoblowXenup?”

Darnold goes, predictably, quiet for a moment. It doesn’t sting less when it’s predictable.

When he speaks again, it’s in a clipped, professional-but-barely tone. “Please say that again, but slowly.”

Gordon closes his eyes against the sunlight streaming in from the window in his bedroom. “I want to. Blow Xen up.”

“Gordon,” Darnold sighs. “Doctor Freeman.”

“I know.”

“Your megalomaniacal tendencies have grown since we last met.”

“It’s not- I’m not doing it for fun!” Gordon throws his free arm up. “Okay, this is genuinely a lot of effort and stress for something I’d do for pleasure, Darnold. I also couldn’t care less about fucking Xen - okay that’s not true, I’ve lost like a week of sleep over blowing it up, that’s not not caring, but like. I can’t. I need it to not be there,” he stands up from his bed and starts pacing, “and I have. A plan. Half of one. About that much. So it’s not hopeless-”

“Gordon, please slow down.”

“-as long as I have your help and- and Tommy’s, okay, I will. uh.” He taps on his thigh with his free hand too, for good measure. Go the whole nine yard with fidgeting, why not. “I. So, Joshua wants to be an astronaut,” he intones, and for the first time in a while he’s reminded again of how this started, how it took over his life for a hot minute, and it almost gives him the hiccups, “and. Y’know. Xen is in space. So it needs to not be there anymore. So I want to. Blow it up.”

Darnold goes silent again. Gordon thinks he can hear the epiphany punch the air out of him. Fuck, he hates phone calls.

“As much as I want to berate you about how you’re treating this matter and yourself,” Darnold resumes primly after a moment, “my lunch break is ending in exactly fifty-two seconds, and this sandwich will take me another two bites to get through. I’ll see you in the Taco Bell’s parking lot at three AM this afternoon, Gordon. Drink water.”

He hangs up. Gordon goes drink water.

Benrey clips into the apartment when Gordon’s on his third mug of iced water. “Whoa, hydration streak,” he says, settling himself on the kitchen table.

“I can go a bit crazy,” Gordon mumbles. “I’m allowed a little bit of funk and insanity. This is my house.”

“It’s… actually. MFA’s.”

Gordon groans. “Don’t fucking remind me. I tried to forget that. Also it actually belongs to the NRC, since they apparently can just scare MFA into giving employees housing, which I’m really fucking horrified by, but I’m choosing to not think about it, and you can’t make me.”

“It can be mine soon.”

“Do not attack and dethrone Nils Diaz.”

Benrey huffs. “Killjoy Freeman.” He shifts his pose so he’s sitting up straighter. “You wanna… try out Premium Water? Free trial for a week, you can manually cancel your. Subscription. After.”

Gordon stares at him. “What’s Premium Water.”

Benrey opens his jaws, wide, showing his teeth. He points inside as if there’s anything Gordon wants to find at all in there at the moment. Then he closes it with a click and stares back at Gordon.

Gordon just sighs. “No, Benrey.”

“Guaranteed beddy bye time, no charge,” Benrey blinks at him. “Black Mesa Sweet Voice™ a hundred percent effective. Five stars… satisfaction… rating.”

“You’re fucking lying, because I’d never leave it five stars. You get three at best.”

“Gonna catch you when you fall off the. Chair. Gonna be romantic.”

Gordon laughs. “No, not allowed.” He sighs and finishes the mug of water like it’s mead and he’s some Dungeons and Dragons elven ranger. He gives himself brain freeze. “Ah, fuck, oof,” he slaps his own forehead, “bad decision. Bad decision. Okay, I. I appreciate you asking instead of just going for it, but that’s the reality of asking, right? The person you ask can say no. And you’ve just gotta learn how to deal with it.”

Benrey just keeps staring at him, but he’s used to that now. It’s only a tiny bit unnerving. “How’s learning’s... satisfaction rate.”

Gordon sighs again. “It sucks ass. Fucking hate learning.”

Benrey grins at him, and then he checks his phone and it’s already time to go.

“Drink this,” Darnold says immediately when Gordon climbs into the shotgun seat of his car, and holds out a beaker of bubbling purple liquid.

Gordon just stares at it. “Darnold, what is this.”

Darnold sighs. “It’s the Potion of Not Telling. I also drank a sample before coming here,” he holds up an empty beaker with some of the same purple liquid at the bottom. “It blows us up if we tell our employers what we’re up to.”

Gordon ponders this very carefully. “Does. Tommy, for example. Does he count as my ‘employer’?”

“No,” Darnold says. “‘Employers’ only cover people and/or establishments you’re currently under an employee contract with and receiving salary from.”

“Alright,” Gordon intones carefully, and downs the whole beaker. It tastes like… the jello packaged like seahorses Tommy brings over sometimes. The red ones, specifically. It makes him feel a bit bloated, immediately, and he rubs his side a bit anxiously when he sits down in the car. “You’re actually under NDAs at all times, huh,” he says, as an opening line.

“Same as you, Gordon.” Darnold takes the beaker back from Gordon’s hand and puts it in with the other one. “Black Mesa seeked me out and offered to find me a position in a brewery, as well as fund any of my independent ventures, as long as I do not say a word about what… transpired… back there. The official record’s that I was stranded on an island with curious dino-esque creatures for four years, instead of worked in Black Mesa’s mixology department, and honed my craft with their help, using the fruits native to that island.”

Gordon laughs, and rubs his face with the prosthetic hand. It’s like putting your face on the car’s dashboard. “Sounds like them alright. At least yours sounds exciting, instead of fucking insane. They said I was ‘chasing an entropy in the desert’ and it ‘ate my hand’. What the fuck does that even mean?”

“We attempted feats of miracle, only it was not under their accountability,” Darnold says, “and we were punished for it. No matter, we have more important things at hand. What is this plan you’ve cooked up, Gordon?”

Gordon takes a deep breath, finding it easier than it’s been for a while, and relays what he’s got down of the blow-Xen-up plan to Darnold. They never look at each other meanwhile, both staring at the cars lined up haphazardly in the lane across from them, Gordon in a barren calmness as words leave his mouth, Darnold with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his whole presence compacted into a contemplative, silent piece.

“That is an intense reaction to a faraway threat, Gordon,” Darnold says when Gordon’s speech is over. “Xen is not only at least a galaxy away, but also a few dimensions over, if I understand the briefing right. I haven’t thought about that wretched place for almost a year.”

“Sorry,” Gordon says, not really feeling any of it, but making the effort.

“You don’t have to. I understand where you’re coming from.” Darnold taps idly on his own arm. “I was… extracted… swiftly from Black Mesa after I met you and your friends. I did not witness what happened after, but I saw… enough.” He takes a deep breath as well. “We can all have intense reactions to anything.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not maladaptive,” Gordon says. He’s gone to therapy. It was really good for helping him build a system that filters out the things that actually fucks him up and makes some sense of the rest, but it doesn’t lift him out of the comedy of his life itself. It can’t. That’s not what therapy’s for.

“Indeed,” Darnold says. “But I can’t be the judge of that. My domain lies with potion mixing, and I dare say I am a true expert at it, but I can’t claim expertise at other people’s life. Especially not yours.”

“I get it,” Gordon nods. The world kinda bobs a tiny bit when he does that. “I. Know not to indulge my impulse mostly. But sometimes decisions come back to haunt me, and those are usually just about choosing one furniture over another, or tying my shoelaces in the bunny ears way instead of the circle way and having them undone in the middle of a meeting and stepping on them and falling on my face, but this time it’s. It’s Joshua’s life. And there’s just no limit anymore to what can happen, not since.” He swallows. “Black Mesa.”

Darnold nods.

Gordon blinks. “I know it’s a little bit crazy.”

“It might be,” Darnold says, “but as a famous mixologist once said: nothing ventured, nothing gained. Even if that gain is just your peace of mind.”

Gordon lets out the breath he isn’t even aware he’s been holding. “Thank you.”

“You do not need to,” Darnold smiles, “I do stand to gain from this as well, since I really need to test this flavouring that’s supposed to land on pleasantly tart on the taste scale but goes into intestine-destroyingly sour territory instead. I need to know what makes it that corrosive, and testing on humans is entirely unethical.”

---

Gordon got home before Joshua. Benrey’s also not home. He lays down on the couch and takes a nap.

He wakes to a quilt over most of him, light turned on in the living room and in the kitchen, and silent chatter. His sense of smell kicks in a minute or so into him still laying on the couch, blinking up at the ceiling; he smells fish sauce and sugar cooking.

“Tommy’s over,” he mumbles.

“He awakes,” Benrey says, seemingly into thin air. Gordon feels the couch shift minutely as Benrey makes to stand up from where he’s sitting leaning back on it. “Good eatin’. I’ll go get the. Food. Coloring.”

When Gordon’s gathered enough of himself to sit up, Benrey’s nowhere to be seen. Tommy’s shifting something animatedly on the stove, while Joshua carefully carries one bowl at a time to the kitchen table.

“Hey Dad!” Joshua says when he catches Gordon’s eyes. He puts the bowl he’s carrying down to free his hand for waving. Gordon waves back.

“Hey Joshie, hey Tommy. What’re you guys making?”

“Caramelized pork b-belly!” Tommy says from his stove station. “And... sautéed vegetable medley.”

“With rice!” Joshua adds.

“A perfectly balanced meal.”

“I picked the vege-ta-bles!”

Gordon folds the quilt to busy his hands. This one’s definitely not his. He may have one somewhere in the closet, but it hasn’t made an appearance in… six months. He thinks. “What did you get for us, buddy?”

“Carrot!” Joshua holds up a finger. “It has a lot of vita- vitamin… A.”

“Awesome,” Gordon says and goes over to the kitchen table to high five Joshua. “What else did you choose?”

“String beans!”

“Oh?” Joshua hasn’t been much for that.

“Uncle Tommy’s gonna teach me how to eat them!”

“A dash of- of flavour, packed in one Kn●rr’s Complete Seasoning packet, is all you’ll need!” Tommy switches to a lower voice when Gordon peers over his shoulder at the pan on the stove. “That is not true. Kn●rr is only… fit to be- be on the floor.”

“Are- you’re not putting that in then?”

“No, I just use salt and pepper.”

Joshua giggles. Tommy extends a hand that Joshua can slap on in place of a high five.

Gordon gets out the utensils - spoon for Joshua, chopsticks for him and Tommy - and brings the rice cooker to the table once the light’s jumped to orange. He plates the pork, scooping Joshua’s helping into his personal plate first, while Tommy finishes with the vegetables. Tommy lets Joshua choose which vegetables to go on his plate; Joshua bravely gets a little bit of everything.

They eat dinner on top of companionable conversation, Gordon and Tommy taking turns asking Joshua about school and other things.

“I heard you want to- to be an astronaut,” Tommy asks. Joshua dutifully finishes his mouthful before answering.

“Yes! I want to go to space!”

“Do you want to meet- aliens?”

“Yeah!” Joshua’s excitement cools down a little bit as he scoops up another spoonful of rice with a piece of string bean carefully balanced on top. “I read the Wiki-pea-dia about it though. They say there’s no dis-discernable e-vidence of aliens yet. We sent the Voyager Golden Records an’ they haven’t… answered yet.”

“That’s how p-physical mails are,” Tommy smiles while getting himself a piece of the caramelized pork. “It used to take… weeks... before we hear from our friends who are far away. And the- the universe doesn’t have a… an Everywhere Wifi Network yet.”

Joshua shares a conspiratory look with Gordon and mouths not yet . Gordon laughs. Gordon’s clutching his bowl maybe a bit too tight.

“You can become an astronaut and- meet aliens. In space,” Tommy waves his chopsticks with a flourish.

“I’ll teach them what- what e-mails are!”

“It’ll take a- a lot of hard work, and you have to be able to eat string beans.” Tommy takes an exaggerated look at Joshua’s plate, now cleaned of food. “Oh! Would you l-look at that! Mister Joshua Freeman is… perfect astronaut materials, according to… the NASA guidelines.”

Joshua beams with a pride that knocks something loose in Gordon’s chest.

They finish dinner and clean up together, then Gordon sends Joshua back to his room to do his homework, agreeing to an hour of video game after if he can get it done before nine. Gordon cleans the dishes while Tommy puts the kettle on and makes them both hot chocolate.

“I bought some-something for Joshua today,” Tommy prompts. Gordon looks back to see him hold up the exact same cookie-cutter-thing Benrey gave Joshua the other day.

“Oh- oh my god.” Gordon laughs. “Holy shit?”

“Wh-what’s the matter, Gordon?”

“Do you guys have like a hivemind or something?” Gordon pulls off a glove to open the tool cabinet and pull Benrey’s gift out. “Benrey gave Joshua this. I don’t even- what’re these supposed to be? Where d’you guys even get them from?”

“It’s the- International Space Station Biscuit Cutter!” Tommy puffs out his chest, slightly indignant, but definitely bemused as well. “They’re issued by- NASA, cut from the s-scrap metal of the hulls of… prototype spaceships. They’re very rare!”

Gordon stares at the one in his hand. “And now we have two of them.”

“They’re… very valuable! You can sell them for a high price.”

Gordon smiles. He puts Benrey’s apparently rare and expensive gift back into the tool cabinet and puts the glove back on. “You’ve gotta ask Joshua about that. It’s for him, afterall.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, crumbled into grains only by the click-clack of dishes in the sink and the water running from the faucet. Gordon weaves himself into a solid piece of nerve, bracing, bracing.

Tommy’s… better acquainted with the crazies of these things than most, maybe. He’s apparently said “fuck it” to the administrative work that his dad would’ve liked to hand back to him at one point, and just. Got a PhD in nuclear physics instead. Gordon’s been through something like that, and from experience he can tell that it would’ve taken real nerve to do it. He also can tell that no matter what it still rubs off on you, and you don’t recover from that kinda consistent exposure to idiosyncrasies, because you don’t ever feel like there’s anything to recover from , really. It’s just how it is, and the world’s off-kilter, not you. Like Benrey, Tommy’s world runs on a different axis, and he and the rest of them are, in many ways, looking both through strange eyes.

Gordon’s a little bit jealous of that. He’s honestly not sure if he can ever fully get Tommy, but then. Plenty of people never get him, and here he is. He can learn to wear it as well as Tommy, one day.

Right now though. Tommy’s important to the plan. Gordon knows that, in a theoretical way. Ha, theoretical…

“I would like to not be insane,” Gordon says, more to himself, at the same time as Tommy setting his cup of hot chocolate down and saying, “Benrey… told me.”

“Oh… I. That’s? Good?”

“Wha- you’re not insane , Gordon!” Tommy waves his hand. Gordon can hear it, even if he can’t see it. “You’re… creative.”

“Thanks Tommy,” Gordon says with a huff of laughter that he doesn’t think reaches Tommy at all. “I. I get it though. I got Bubby to turn around on it, but everyone else did say that it’s a little bit fucked up that I thought of doing that at all.”

“But they… agreed on helping you anyway.”

Gordon taps on the metal wall of the sink. “That’s… yeah. Well, other than Coomer.”

“Doctor Coomer doesn’t think you’re crazy,” Tommy protests. “He just has... boundaries.”

“That’s fair. He’s allowed that. He more than deserves that.” Gordon blinks. “Wait- why am I arguing down on my side? I need you to be on board for the plan to work.” He laughs, bowing down over the sink. He’s shaking a little bit. “Wow. I’m a little bit gone. Can I be a little bit gone?”

“You’re… totally allowed, Gordon” He feels Tommy tug on his elbow. With a deep breath, he lets go of where he’s gripping on the edge of the sink with white knuckles, and lets Tommy lead him to the kitchen table. He dutifully sits himself down on a chair, lets Tommy take off the gloves, and holds the cup of hot chocolate Tommy pushes into his hands carefully. “It’s your house.”

“It’s MFA’s.”

“It’s yours,” Tommy says, determinedly, and Gordon takes a deep breath and sidesteps every implications that has. “You can have your fears, and… and your plans, and your hopes. For Joshua. It’s your place, Gordon.”

Gordon takes a shaky sip of the hot chocolate. Tommy puts on the gloves and finishes washing the dishes for him.

“Sorry,” Gordon says, mostly aiming at the dishes thing, but. He also just kinda wants to put that out there.

“There’s nothing to be… be sorry for,” Tommy replies, amidst the noises of the dishes and the water running.

Tommy talks while Gordon drinks his hot chocolate; in the end, whether he wants to or not, he’s accepted a bit of the job the Gman holds. Gordon knows this, that’s how Tommy vouched for and kept the Science Team from a much worse fate than relative freedom except for a story no sane man’d believe anyway. Mister Coolatta Senior seemed to be impressed by the choice, aside from all the worries that come with it.

“He’s… he’s proud of me,” Tommy says, softly. “I know he only wants what’s best for me.”

“He’s been awfully accommodating,” Gordon says, remembering about the movie night they had after Tommy’s birthday bash last year. That man pulled a gun on him. As if he’d walk out on Tommy, if Tommy’d asked for him to stay around.

“He… doesn’t involve me… with his problems,” Tommy says. “Some parents do that.”

Gordon can’t find anything to say to that, so he finishes his hot chocolate.

“I got a vote when they brought Xen up the-the other day,” Tommy says, when the dishes have all been cleaned and put on the rack to dry. He pulls out the chair next to Gordon and picks up his cup of hot chocolate. It’s still steaming, somehow. “I-they were thinking it was- it’s too risky to leave a bridging point open like that. They want to… demolish it.”

Gordon chuckles, and then it becomes a full body laugh, and then he’s curling up on himself, the empty cup between his hands. He shouldn’t clutch it like this, it might break. He’s broken the handle off of a mug before, when one of his old prosthetic wasn’t calibrated perfectly. He can’t stop laughing though. Not enough to let go of the cup now.

“Holy shit,” he wheezes. “holy motherfucking shit. We’re doing it. We’re doing it? Xen’s fucking going down.”

“It sure is!” Tommy says, and claps a polite golf clap for Gordon’s victory.

---

Gordon does have shit he needs to do for the online classes he teaches, but outside of it he’s still way too idle. He and Joshua go to the aquarium and the museum whenever the schedule works out, and once in a while they drive by Roswell to catch a plane taking off into the sky, and he does grocery runs and tries to clean around the house and do laundry on a timetable, and there’s always the PS3 Benrey dragged back that’s now public good, as well as his probably too long Steam list, but. Gordon’s shit at talking himself into and out of doing things. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to start doing something, so there’s a black hole of time between him thinking “I should get to this” and him actually doing it. And Joshua’s life isn’t just him; his son’s going to school now, and he’s made friends at school, and he talks to them on the phone and goes hang out with them on weekend afternoons.

Gordon’s not as good at holding onto time anymore, now that things’ve. Changed.

So figuring the explosives out’s been good for him. It’s just what he does back in uni again, except without a supervisor, without having to write anything down properly (just legibly’s enough), and without peer review. It’s mostly math, but with the spirit of two middle schoolers stealing sodium crumbs from the school lab to throw into puddles. It’s closer to play than he expected. Closer than playing Horse Simulator 3D on the PS3.

He and Darnold spend the day building the corrosion rate equation, pouring Darnold’s concoction on rocks Gordon figures have the same make-up as the ground on Xen. Benrey doesn’t bring the venture up often, but every other day Gordon finds clumps of dirt and random rocks that weigh suspiciously little for their size in his glove compartment. He brings those in for the pour test as well, and they build a simulation based on them.

Balancing the corrosion with the heat’s a bit tricky; Gordon needs to know how hot Bubby’s ignition can go, since their number’s high. He was about to shoot Bubby a call when Coomer’s latest photo arrived. Gordon recognized the street in it.

They put the project on hold for an afternoon so Tommy and Darnold can have the lab to decontaminate Coomer and Bubby. Gordon spends that afternoon getting the air fryer he ordered last week out of the box while Benrey reads the manual out loud wrongly. He calls Joshua to let him know they’re having guests over that evening, thankfully in the middle of the school recess this time. Gordon tries to remember Joshua’s exact timetable at school, he really does. It’s just not fruitful a task.

When Joshua arrives home, Gordon’s in the middle of arguing with Bubby over how much water’s left in air fried food. “Hey Granpa! Hey Bubby!” Joshua waves at Coomer and Bubby, “hey Uncle Tommy! Hey Doctor Darnold! Hey Benrey! Hey Dad!”

Gordon steals the chance to close the air fryer while Bubby’s joining in with the “Hey Joshua!” chorus and distracted. “We’re making spring rolls and egg rolls!” He calls after Joshua, who’s in his room putting his backpack away. “You can choose the filling yourself!”

The kitchen barely fits everyone, so comes dinnertime they move the living room table up next to the TV cabinet to make space for the spare straw mat, and lay out a tablecloth on top for good measure (Gordon’s had enough experience to remember to do that). They sit on the floor in the living room together, almost shoulder to shoulder, and at some point the conversation gets away from Gordon entirely. He just nods when Joshua points at something he wants and gets some in the bowl for him.

“I’ve heard somebody wants to become an astronaut,” He hears Coomer say at one point.

Joshua puffs out his chest proudly.

“Doesn’t everybody at some point,” Bubby says. “I wanted to be an astronaut too, when I was forty.”

“Oh I have seen the photos,” Coomer continues, a gentle light in his eyes, “It is very beautiful out there.”

Joshua asks for help with his homework after dinner, and Tommy and Darnold sit down with him for that. Benrey joins Gordon at the sink while he’s pouring dish soap into one of the large bowls they used. He doesn’t know what to do but blink at him, dumbfounded.

“Check this out,” Benrey says, and spits lime green into the sink. When the light clears, the dishes have become spotless.

Gordon stares at the sink. “I- you- th- is that- you can do that? ” He points at the plates. leaning on the sink’s edge.

Benrey grins. “New… new skill acquired bro. Just got the EXP for it.”

“You spent your EXP on dish cleaning ?”

“We should conserve water, Gordon!” Coomer declares from behind him next to the kitchen table. “Water shortage is caused by corporate greed, but with certain individual actions we can improve the situation ourselves!”

“Please don’t kill Mark Schneider.”

“Worry not, Doctor Freeman! His death will not be by my hand directly!”

Gordon laughs, helplessly. “Everything happens so much,” he laments, only semi-jokingly, as he takes off the cleaning gloves and puts the plates on the rack.

“Keep up, Doctor Freeman,” Bubby says.

“They certainly do,” Coomer says, much more nicely. “I’ve heard your plan is soon coming to fruition!”

Gordon nods. “Yeah, it’s. Yeah. We were,” he swallows, “Darnold and I, we were about to ask for Bubby to let us test his fire. Figure out if he can reach the ignition point we need.”

“Well now, that sounds like a challenge,” Bubby says.

Gordon finds a price tag still stuck on one of the bowls that he’s very sure wasn’t there when it was brought out. “Benrey,” he groans. Benrey just gives him a shit eating grin. “You’ll need to hold a temperature for about three minutes, and then the mixture takes care of the rest,” he says to Bubby, while swatting Benrey on the shoulder.

“Just three minutes, isn’t it.”

“Do not try and stay for more. I’m serious. When it explodes it’s gonna turn seriously corrosive. You’re gonna be sludge ten seconds after it gets on you.”

Gordon can hear Bubby blink. “Oh- oh. This is serious huh. We are blowing Xen up.”

“We are, darling,” Coomer affirms.

Bubby shifts on his chair. “I’ll need. A minute.”

When Gordon’s done with the dishes, he turns back to the kitchen table to catch Bubby letting go of Coomer after a hug. “Son of a bitch, you went for it, you motherfucker,” Bubby says, a bit too loudly, fixing his glasses.

Benrey sings a very high note over his voice. “Language!” Gordon hisses.

“Oh, sorry.” Bubby pats his own mouth. “Forgive a man, I’m still working through it.” He switches to a mumble, seemingly only to himself. “It’s real. I’m gonna set Xen on fire. Gonna show Black Mesa what for. It’s really gonna happen…”

Coomer pats Bubby on the back lightly, making him almost hit his face on the table. “We’ll finally move fully away from the game, my dear Professor,” he says, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling very wide.

“I can be your Professor,” Bubby mumbles. “I can blow Xen up.”

“ We can blow Xen up,” Gordon corrects him. “Me and Darnold didn’t agonize over a- darn modifier for a week and a half so you can set our work on fire and take all the credits.”

“Hush, let me process things, you rude bastard.” Benrey censors bastard with another burst of pinkish light.

“I can see the other end,” Coomer says, cheerfully. “Now, Gordon, I’ve heard you need help digging into the core of a few asteroids?”

---

They mark a date for the excursion.

He ‘woke up’ early, and made himself and Joshua an actual breakfast for a change while Benrey finished off the box of cereal that was open. “Dad’s got a work thing coming up,” he told Joshua while scooping extra egg onto his plate. “I’m gonna have to stay on site for a night.”

“So you’re not going home tonight?” Joshua asked, taking the plate handed to him by Gordon, but making no move to go back to his chair.

Gordon nodded. “I’ll be home tomorrow though, but you’re gonna have to stay at your grandparents’ tonight. I’m gonna come pick you up at their place tomorrow afternoon. You should pack a spare change of clothes and your pajamas to bring to school.”

“Okay,” Joshua said. And then, “What’re you staying on-site for?”

“I’m,” Gordon said, “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this, yeah? I’m blowing asteroids up.”

He could see Joshua’s eyes brighten. It was visible . “ In space ?”

“Yes,” Gordon laughed. “But it’s very experimental, which means…”

“It’s not ready for the public eye yet,” Joshua whispered, almost reverently.

Gordon laughed again, and took off the mitten on his hand to ruffle Joshua’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay staying at your grandparents’ place? If you don’t like that I can ask someone else to come over instead.”

“It’s okay,” Joshua said, finally content to go sit down again. “Can I bring my skate shoes?”

“Sure thing, put them in a bag.”

Gordon called Joshua’s grandparents to let them know to pick him up at five (Joshua chimed in to ask them to remind him about the roller skates), and then Joshua got his backpack and spare clothes and bag for the shoes and the house was once again vacant.

They don’t have a vehicle, but Tommy sings and Bubby joins in and Darnold keeps a beat and after a while Benrey starts playing songs out of the shitty speaker on his phone. Gordon’s even spent the day before sleepless, but that’s kind of everyday now. He hadn’t anticipated having to get used to a day having twenty four hours again, but well. He hadn’t anticipated anything while going through Black Mesa, really. It wasn’t really ideal thinking-far-ahead environment.

Benrey seems bouncier when he’s on Xen. Gordon didn’t think about it, but when he steps through the portal he has a flash of that image from what feels like a lifetime ago: Benrey giant as the Earth itself, blocking everything else in sight, his form longing to catch up with his already immense, oppressive presence. Taller than any walls, any mountains, any barriers between himself and a measly human’s fleeting existence.

Gordon shakes his head. At his least incomprehensible, Benrey’s said it was “a show”. “Like. Cable TV. A television series,” Gordon’s asked.

“Like a cutscene,” Benrey’s replied, as if Gordon was the one too slow for the course.

Benrey now felt nothing like whatever that was that happened to him and the Science Team last year. Benrey now felt just… like a dude. Doing a barrel roll, while saying “Ooooo barrel roll” with a straight face. While his Nokia 2700’s still crushing whatever song it’s playing into oblivion.

Gordon doesn’t deal in implications anymore, so he starts singing along to whatever everyone else’s singing as well, and focuses on carrying their homemade Xen-specific dynamite blocks to where they’re going to dig their largest hole into the core of this wretched piece of rock.

It takes a day, kind of; he doesn’t sleep, out here in the thin atmosphere of Xen, where the stars don’t blink and red light comes in a hue from inside the dirt. He doesn’t have to force himself to go lay down at midnight like back home, he just sits down, at the edge of the portal, when the explosives have all been installed, and watch Coomer and Bubby ready themselves.

They can hear Bubby’s cackles ringing in Xen’s air and also in their comms, as he lays in Coomer’s arms and they race the fire, starting from the outer ring of asteroids to the main Xen island. They jump from rock to rock, red light trailing after them while the dirt itself breaks apart, not with a boom, but with the sound of bubbles breaking after a wave crashes on the shore. Xen glows brighter than it probably ever has, in its disintegration.

Benrey sings a few vacant notes, standing on nothingness; the light from his mouth blends in almost perfectly with Xen’s dying light.

“You got all of your belongings outta there?” Gordon asks, half as a jab, half serious. “Didn’t leave anything important in your old apartment?”

Benrey doesn’t answer, for a moment. When he does, it’s just to mumble, “oh look, there’s fireworks.”

---

They got home early from it.

Gordon takes a nap on the couch; he only wakes up from Benrey turning the sound up to max and then shooting a rocket at a truck in Far Cry 3. “Dude,” he throws an arm up over his face, and winces when it’s the plastic arm. “What the fuck.”

“Go pick Joshua up,” Benrey says, definitely too conversationally, and barely understandable under the noises from the game. “Gordon. Sleepman.”

“You’re slipping,” Gordon comments as he wrestles himself out of Tommy’s quilt. He forgot to give it back to Tommy, he realizes sleepily, picking up the phone he left charging on the living room table. It’s seven already.

The drive to Joshua’s grandparents’ place is not a long one. He finds Joshua sitting at the porch of the little house, backpack and the bag with the roller skates at his feet. Joshua jumps up at the sight of Gordon’s car, and before he can walk through the gate he’s already found his arms full of his son.

Joshua clings to his neck with a death grip. “I’m sorry I’m late,” Gordon says. “I was tired, so I took a nap, and forgot the time.”

“It’s okay,” Joshua mumbles, “you were tired.”

“I blew up so many asteroids though.” Gordon says, and Joshua laughs.

They drive home after saying goodbye to Joshua’s grandparents (Joshua’s grandpa put a wrapped up pot pie in Gordon’s hands with an iron grip and a gaze that communicated clearly what would happen if he refused it), and Joshua agreed to take a detour to the Roswell airport for the night. Gordon absentmindedly texts Benrey taking the kid to watch airplanes, get your own food , and puts his phone away for the drive. The radio’s on, but Joshua doesn’t sing along. Gordon’s vocal cord’s still tired from Xen (no more, Xen-no-more it is, there’s just a vast of empty space inbetween dimensions there now) so he also stays silent.

They get ice cream at a drive-thru on the way, and then they’re at the highway, parking on the roadside, looking over the rail at the airport. A plane leaves the ground there and goes into the air. Gordon’s struck by how different it is from a bird or a moth; nothing about the plane communicates any internal movement, it just. Moves. Up and up. Like a JPEG sliding across the screen under someone’s puppeteering with a mouse.

Joshua stares at the plane, unblinking. “Is it dangerous in space, Dad?” He asks.

Gordon taps his hand on the steering wheel. “It’s.” He starts saying, but stops to clear his throat. “It can be. There’s a lot of math going into making things that bring a human into space, and a lot of different people doing different parts of that math, and. Sometimes some people do their math wrong. Sometimes they try something new, and we don’t have the good math for that new thing yet. Sometimes new things break into the old math, and we need to. Work around that new thing.”

“What happens if,” Joshua swallows, “someone does the math wrong?”

“We try to catch it,” Gordon says. “That’s why there are so many people doing the math. So if someone gives the wrong answer, they can spot it early, and fix it.”

“What if nobody does,” Joshua says. He’s still looking through the car’s window, at the stroke of cloud the plane’s long flown past.

Gordon puts his hands on the gear stick. “That’s very, very rare to happen,” he intones carefully. “They have to check, over and over, before they send a ship into space.”

Joshua turns from the window to Gordon. He looks at Gordon’s prosthetic hand, on the gear stick. “I’ve only found books about spaceships that have gone to space,” he says, quiet.

Gordon turns over, and holds out that hand. Joshua climbs over the gear stick to give him another hug. “Experiments are important to those ships too,” Gordon says. “They give the people who make the ships important information to make them safe.”

Joshua just buries himself in Gordon’s arms.

“I’m really sorry I came home late and didn’t call you, Joshua,” Gordon says, and hugs his son tighter. “I won’t do that again. I’ll always call when I’m home late.”

“I don’t have to be an astronaut,” Joshua mumbles.

“Oh, no- nononono, listen,” Gordon says into his hair, with all the determination he can muster up. “Listen, Joshua, you become whoever you want to, okay? You don’t have to be anything, but you don’t have to not be anything either. That’s my mistake, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re good. You’re good. You’ll be an incredible astronaut. You’ll be the first man on Mars. Jupiter, even.”

“Jupiter is a gas giant,” Joshua mumbles. “There isn't any land to land on.”

Gordon nods. “That’s why it’s called landing , I get it.”

---

They drive home after, and Joshua asks to sit with Gordon while he and Benrey play Mario Kart. Gordon agrees, which means he has to clamp down on any curse he almost lets out when someone bumps him off the damn road, while Benrey does some magic or whatever on his screen. Who the hell knows.

After their third match, Benrey elbows Gordon in the arm to signify a break. “Beddy bye hour,” he says, not even looking at Gordon, “for… babies. Hattrick means I make the rules.”

“You didn’t come first in the second match,” Gordon argues, but quiets down when he looks down to see Joshua asleep leaning on him. “Okay, don’t fucking choose Toon Link for me again while I’m away,” he points a finger at Benrey, who’s residing smugly in the to-be-chaos of his own making. “I’m fucking serious.”

He carries Joshua to his bedroom and tucks him in, and then detours to the kitchen for some water.

“Ooh, hydration,” Benrey comments idly.

“What d’you know about it,” Gordon mumbles when he settles back down on the couch. He looks at the TV screen to find Inkling on one of the shitty bikes. “What the hell man, this bike sucks ass. Fucking Shit Taste McGee over here.”

Benrey laughs.

Gordon plays the game, while thinking about the sendoff party they’re throwing for Bubby and Coomer next week, before the grandpas go off gallivanting in yet another forbidden corner of the Earth. Coomer lovingly calls it their “honeymoon”, but Gordon has full faith this is gonna be what they do forever. Or at least until they’re bored of Earth, and start aiming for the Moon instead. Probably not a bad place to be in.

“Thinking Xen thoughts, aren’t’cha,” Benrey says, while sending a shell after some poor computer character.

Gordon grins. “Ha! Sike! I’m not even thinking about Xen.” He pauses, catching the full force of a fireball a Mario shoots at him. “I haven’t thought about Xen at all actually. Since I got home with Joshua.”

“Achievement unlocked,” Benrey says, and extends a hand. Gordon stares at it.

“Wh- huh?”

“High five, idiot.”

“Oh,” Gordon says, and slaps that hand. Benrey’s eyes widen at the noise.

“Yo that’s a. Crunchy noise.” He claps his hands together, and he’s laughing now, light flowing out in a thread of something like baby blue. “This rules,” he says happily.

Gordon smiles, and then some motherfucker flings a shell at him, so he falls off the road again.

He stays up way too late again, and time doesn’t stop slipping, and when Darnold gives him a vial of neutralizer for the Potion of Not Telling at their little party the week after it gives him something like mania and he hugs Coomer like an idiot while the old man slaps his back in a motion that’s supposed to be comforting. He sleeps that off as well afterwards, and wakes up to Tommy surfing the channels on his TV, complaining about lack of daytime talk shows. When he forgets about the scheduled blackout a month after, he still calls the concierge with shaking hands and then climbs into his bed like he’s four again and there’s a storm outside. He still thinks about Black Mesa, and about Xen.

There’s just a little addendum now, that he can remind myself of.

It’s weird how quickly it blends into everything else, but. Well. It’s weird everything .

He makes cookies again, comes the winter, and teaches himself how to decorate cookies, just to have something to do. Joshua throws his pencil onto the notebook one day to go dig out the lumpy, supposedly-ISS-shaped cookie cutters from the tool cabinet.

“Careful,” Gordon calls after him.

Joshua toddles back with the cookie cutters in hand. “Can we have ISS cookies?” He asks.

Gordon says yes. He also looks up a buncha references, prints them out, and tries to get the cookies exactly correct, making two “outside” cookies and an “inside” one, with schematics of the inner chambers of the ISS drawn on. Joshua loves it.

“Here’s where the astronauts sleep,” He points at the spot that’s supposed to be the service module, and Gordon’s proud of getting that part right on the cookie.

He ruffles Joshua’s hair again. “Hey, maybe you’ll sleep there in twenty years,” he says, and marvels at the levity to that sentence. Just a little bit. It’s washed away with Joshua’s smile, and then they busy themselves with folding bags for the cookies instead.

#hlvrai #gordon feetman #joshua freeman #benrey #tommy coolatta #dr. harold coomer #bubby #darnold pepper #fanfiction #ask to tag #+ one art inside but it mostly has to do with the fic #I will. draw more from this fic and put them in as time goes on #the formatting's a bit wack bc I just copied the formatting from ao3 #I will come back to fix stuff up later #okay now I take more naps #have a good day! and also thank you for reading this fic if you do!

71 notes · View notes

sheathandshear · 3 years

Text

There’s this trend on the interwebs where people are moving from calling something “problematic” (which is now mostly a joke because of how widely it’s been misapplied) to declaring that something is “harmful”, or often, “directly harmful”, I guess because I’m the only person who thinks that playing Seven Moral Degrees of Kevin Bacon would be a fun party game.

The left has always excelled at circular logic, but navigating any fraught discussion, no matter how inane, has become a weird minefield of homogenizing, essentializing, and “boosting marginalized voices (that you personally agree with)”, and the language of harm is at the center of so much of it, because people have discovered that the more wishy-washy “problematic” invites arguments but “harm” demands condemnation.

Like, “[x group] has said that [y thing] is DIRECTLY HARMFUL to them, so stop saying/doing/using/enjoying it.” “…Every member of x group? You’ve asked people? In real life?” “That’s tone policing/gaslighting/emotional labor/talking over [x] voices!”

Or, “[x group] has said that [y thing] is DIRECTLY HARMFUL to them, so stop saying/doing/using/enjoying it.” “How is it harmful?” “It’s not marginalized people’s job to educate you! Google is free!”

…And so on and so forth, and there’s no room for argument or discussion or disagreement, because obviously anything that causes harm to someone is objectively bad, right?

Except... no. Pretty much everything can be misused in ways that can result in hurt for someone, but that does not mean that those things are intrinsically harmful, nor that others shouldn’t use, be, or engage with them.

To wit, a short list of neutral things that have been directly harmful to me because I, a variously marginalized person, have misused them, underused them, overused them, encountered them before I was ready, had bad counsel about them, bad luck, bad exposure, or lacked the context/knowledge/safe techniques to best engage with them:

- Bicycles - Scissors - Coke Zero - Prozac - One night stands - Licensed Social Workers - Monkey bars - Vegetarianism - Alcohol - MDMA - Romantic relationships - Big men with loud voices - The term “panic attack” - Those giant concrete planters in malls

All of these things directly resulted in significant, lasting negative effects on me — emotionally, physically, socially, financially — most for years afterwards, and some to this day. Much of these negative effects were a result of societal forces much larger than the things themselves — sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, fatphobia, trauma, abuse. I can point with precision to a direct chain of events that began with the mis/use of one of these things and say with complete accuracy and honesty, “This resulted in harm to me.”

Yet none of those things are bad by definition. In fact, almost all of them can be fun, useful, or both, and I think we can all recognize that attempting to block municipal funding for bike lanes by ranting about how “bike lanes condone and encourage the use of BICYCLES, which have been DIRECTLY HARMFUL to me” would be technically true and also completely absurd. The fact that I got a TBI because of unsafe use in dangerous surroundings with inadequate supervision doesn’t mean that it’s morally wrong for my neighbor to happily bike to work in their little reflective vest. The whole culture of people biking without safety equipment isn’t great, but that’s not a commentary on bikes themselves, and bike lanes and stylish helmets do a whole lot more for cycling safety than clutching pearls about how bicycles are HARMFUL (because sometimes their use causes harm).

Obviously, there are things that aren’t neutral — that really are just objectively bad. But when neutral things that can be misused in harmful ways and things that can only ever be harmful are all referred to with the same word and responded to with the same level of seriousness, the result is bizarre false equivalencies where systematic lead poisoning of poor mostly-POC residential areas and the self-ID term “bi lesbian” are treated as basically the same, and truly dangerous things get buried under a deluge of bad faith bullshit, often in the aforementioned form of “[x group] says that [y] is directly harmful to them” parroted by someone who isn’t a member of x group and in fact has never actually talked to an x group member in real life about y and has at best read a few twitter threads.

And when a member of x group does chime in with “this is directly harmful to me!” I s2g 95% of the time that when questioned what it really boils down to is “because of my own self-image, circumstances, history, and/or trauma, this makes me uncomfortable, upset, insecure, and/or triggered, and I externalize this emotional pain as harm inflicted upon me by an outside source (you, the person who said/wrote/did the thing that I reacted to)” which like, again. No?

To pluck another example from my own life: someone crying and asking for comfort in the aftermath of an argument is a huge trigger for me because of my trauma history. I shut down, immediately start looking for escape routes, and panic for hours if not days afterwards. Affectionate physical touch in that situation literally makes my skin crawl.

That doesn’t mean that the other person is harming me by needing a hug for reassurance any more than I’m harming them for being unable to genuinely provide it. It means that, through no fault of our own, our safety needs are in opposition, and this situation hurts.

It’s like — words matter, and universally escalating their severity (and absolutism) when talking about emotionally charged subjects is so goddamn counterproductive. It shuts down conversations that actually need to be conversations, not moral cage matches; completely ignores the awkward and ugly reality of competing access needs; and it obscures the difference between hurt and harm, essential nature and subjective use, between “treating Black boys as adult men is harmful (because it actively puts them in danger)” and “bicycles are harmful (when you’re 9 years old and riding with a broken helmet down a steep slick hill without adults or older kids to tell you ‘walk your bike down and then ride on the flat bit’)”.

If you mean hurtful, say hurtful. If you think this actually harms someone, take the time to explain what you mean and why, or move on and don’t engage. No one is obligated to disclose their trauma or educate everyone all the time, but neither is anyone obligated to pay attention to someone who tells them “so ackshually this thing is extremely bad and wrong but I won’t tell you why I think that or give you information to decide for yourself because that’s too much work for me”. And if someone does have the energy to wade into discussions but then pulls that out and waves it around as their primary rejoinder, that’s probably a pretty good indicator that their ‘proof’ for that argument is a house of cards and they’re engaging for petty personal reasons or to display their knowledge of a shibboleth or both.

#politics #activism #tumblr culture #tw: abuse #tw: trauma #faffing about with my thoughts #i guess my vibe these days is Old Man Yells at Cloud #but hoooooooly sh*t I am so tired of people using the excuse of abstract harm to personally hurt others

7 notes · View notes

goblinmanifesto · 3 years

Text

Ive already accidentally deleted this once so fucking kill me (I forgot to save it).

⚠️TW FOR ANXIETY, TOURETTES, SLIGHT SELF HARM⚠️

But this is my post for @doinmybesthere Mental Health Awareness May collab! I will be doing Bokuto Koutarou. To explain a bit, to cope with bullshit that is life, I accidentally made myself a coping mechanism that I loving refer to as the ‘Klaus Hargreeves‘ (if you know anything about that character, you already know where my mental state is) because I can’t remember what my therapist said the actual name for it was. To put it simply, it’s like overactive day dreaming. I act out and create scenarios in my head to comfort myself, most of the time using characters or real people as an enabler for the comfort I wish to gain. Side effects being; if caught, considered crazy, sometimes don’t realize I’m doing it which can lead to awkward situations, sometimes I fuck up what’s real and what’s not. So, in these little stories, I will be retelling scenarios I have created through this coping mechanism that relate to both Bokuto and my mental problems! Each will be labeled with what they deal with so you can skip the one that might trigger you. Enjoy and happy reading! (I WILL ALSO BE MENTIONING AND USING STIMMING) ((I will probably use this to make other fics like this in the future mentioning my other ~stuff~ but in the meantime this is all I want to do so enjoy!))

⚠️LAST TW⚠️

1. ~Anxiety, Self harm, Mentions of Stimming~ He should’ve been home an hour ago! I was pacing in the living room, shaking hands holding my phone. It was 7:13 and Koutarou was supposed to be home at 6:00. I was spiraling and I could feel it, but I didn't know what to do about it. Id sent him text after text, but he was yet to respond. I glanced at my cell, only stopping my frantic shuffling to focus my attention on reading the screen;

Hey, is practice running late? [6:11] When do you think you’ll be home? [6:15] Are you there? [6:19] Koutarou??????? [6:23] Kou pick up your damn phone! [6:27] Did something happen???!! [6:34] Is everything okay?! [6:39] Are you mad or something??? [6:47] Bokuto Koutarou I’m dead serious where are you?!?!?! [6:53] Bo-ku-to!!!! [6:59] Koutarou it’s been hour please text me [7:07] Koutarou!!! [7:12] -Unread-

My eyes scanned the messages again, not leaving the blue screen until until my shin collided with the side of the coffee table. I hadn’t even realized I had started pacing again. I checked the texts I had sent to Akaashi as well, since I knew he was at that practice too, but I hadn’t gotten any responses from him either. Slipping my phone screen up onto the table I continued my pacing, not even processing when my finger nails found their way under my teeth, and how when they left my mouth to scratch at my neck or claw at my shirt, my teeth resorted to gnawing at my lip instead, tearing up the thin skin. All habits I was trying to kill but didn’t have enough brain power to focus on not doing them. My eyes constantly searched the driveway for the headlights of any car, any car at all, but they always came up with nothing. It was 7:24 when my phone struck with the sound of text, the bing of anticipation sent me diving for, and consequently almost dropping, my phone in an attempt to find out if it was Koutarou. It was!

-Read-

Im so sorry!! Yes practice did end up running late! But something else happened and I

wasn’t able to text you! I’m not mad about

anything I promise!! What happened is also

minor and nothing to worry about and I’ll explain when I get home in about ten

[7:21] minutes!! I’m so sorry!! -Read-

I sighed, relieved, the weight on my chest and in my head dissolved and I felt like I could finally breathe again. Though, as I came down from my anxiety rush, I became aware of a lot of things all at once. The first was a good deal of pain. From knocking my leg into a table and pacing for over an hour, to bitten lips and nails, and my scraped neck. I groaned, I need to get a better handle on this.

But that wasnt important. Koutarou was okay and on his way home! I waited at the window, feeling a bit like a dog waiting on its owner (that was a kink joke yes), and leaped to the front door when I saw his car in the driveway. Throwing open the door, I pulled him inside the second I could get my hands on him and pulled him through the doorway. The moment he was inside, I shoved myself into his arms in a tight hug, so glad he was okay. He returned the hug and held me tightly, I let out a shuddering breathe and he let out comforting sounds I sometimes use to stim. “Hey, hey, hey, I’m so sorry to have you worry, it was about Akaashi! We were running extra practice with a handful of the other guys and I literally had half a text to you written out when he a spike to the face! I was the only one left with a car so I drove him to hospital! I’m so sorry you are so worried you sent like 15 texts! I’m so-“ I cut him short with a hand over his mouth since that was one of the only ways to get him to stop talking. “Kou, it’s okay, I understand, it just really scared me ‘is all-“ he pried my hand off his face but held it in his own.

”I know, but that doesn’t mean I can’t apologize for it, whether I was in complete control of the situation or not! Which I was not, by the way, no control what-so-fucking-ever, I had four other guys in the car and one of them was bleeding and concussed, it was chaos!!” His eyes were wide and he went off on the stress of the situation and, for a moment, I forgot that it was 7:26 at night on a Thursday and I had a biology test in the morning, and that Koutarou just got home and I hadn’t even eaten yet and all the other things that werent right in the world. Everything was fine in that moment. But that ended when Koutarou took a good hard look at me. The redness and scratch marks on my neck, the bitten to bleeding finger nails, the small bruise forming on my shin, my blotchy face and my probably-way-too-red lips. He stopped dead in his words and I felt my eyebrows scrunch up.

“Whats wrong?-“

“You did the things again didn’t you?!” He sounded distressed and his broad shoulders sunk. Koutarous hands rubbed my shoulders as he stared into my eyes with the most concerned look I’d ever seen. He pulled me back to his chest again and promised it wouldn’t happen again.

7:46, Koutarou insisted on taking care of my ‘injuries’ since he was who I was having anxiety over anyway. I protested a little, but gave up when he gave me the baby-owl eyes.

First, he had wrapped bandaids on my fingers. Thankfully, they were black, and I made a comment on it was like a 2-second manicure just to hear him chuckle.

Then, Kou applied a moisturizer to my neck. “Kou, I can do this myself-“

”Nope! I insist!”

”I’m not a child-“

”Don’t care, I’m doing it so just shush up and let me do what I need to do!”

Next, he made me apply ice to my bruise even though it was tiny and caused by a damn two-foot-tall coffee table.

Lastly, he gave me chapstick. Again, wouldn’t let me do it myself, so I made several sarcastic remarks to make him blush, all working quite well. Koutarou had to tell me to stop giggling multiple times so I could stay still.

”Alright, are you done playing nurse?”

”Forgive me for wanting to take care of you!!” He stuck his tongue out at me with an audible “bleh!” and I cackled.

”You are forgiven, Nurse Bokuto.”

2. ~Tourette’s, Stimming~ My neck painfully popped when it jerked to the left, my tics had been bad all day and I no clue why. Could be exams, or the fucking toaster for all I knew. I hissed, rubbing at my neck and adjusting the water can I almost dropped, trying to continue about my Saturday.

It was obnoxious, really, having to me-proof everything around in case I end up kicking it, dropping it, or hitting it. My joints constantly cracking and snapping and jolting in the strangest ways at any given moment. Sometimes repeating what people say back at them in perfect mirror-like fashion. Though that last one can be kind of funny.

Clicking my toungue to make nice noises to try and stim the tic away, I returned back to my plants. I could feel them chuckling at me and, in that moment, I understood everything about Crowley from ‘Good Omens’.

I heard the door unlock in the other room and I put my can down as a precaution and peeked out of the doorway.

A moment later, Koutarou popped through the door after his morning jog. He called out; “Hey, hey, hey!” as a greeting.

I felt my hands go up behind my head and I thought Oh gods dammit, and then my jaw jutted forward in a very unattractive way and I repeated his phrase in the same manner as him, then immediately dropped, as my body decreed.

I groaned, looking up at him, who looked slightly bewildered at my little madness ritual. His hair laid flat on his head, he had chosen not to mess with it this morning, much to my delight, his amber eyes a little wide and his eyebrows raised. He was barely even in the house yet.

We just kind of stared at each other for a hot second before I awkwardly waved ‘hello’ and cracked a weird grin. He grinned back, his more pleasant than mine. Walking over, he opened his arms for a hug, and I accepted, since he wasn’t all that sweaty this time around, and it was the least I could do since he had to witness that.

Koutarou planted a kiss on the top of my head, cheering “Good morning!”

I muttered a response into his shirt.

“One of those days, huh?” I nodded.

“Coffee? I think we have muffins in the cabinet?” I nodded again and he lead me into the kitchen to set up some breakfast. It was 9:00 am on a Saturday after all. A weird Saturday, but watching Koutarou finagle through the cabinets, it couldn’t be that bad.

That is all for now! Have a wonderful day and I am going to sleep for three years see y’all (edited: June 18 2021, because I can’t spell)

11 notes · View notes

bladekindeyewear · 3 years

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-12-25

I’m not going to spend time BLOGGING an upd8 on Christmas morning!

...yes I am who the fuck am I kidding. (Bonus stuff and Hiveswap are still well on hold though.)

So are we gonna follow up on the main ship? Probably not, right, with that perfect Karkat point to cut away, right? We’re just going to leave Roxy’s question hanging, as well as makeouts etiquette, and leave while having seen a COUPLE FRAMES of non-possessed canon Jade with only whatever fun fanart was inspired across the internet by the moment to tide us over????

Yeah, probably.

Ugh, more Dirk. I guess it’s overdue. :(

> CHAPTER 16. Welcome to my Secret Lair

Oh huh, I guess not? So... Jane’s, or Rose and Kanaya’s?

Karkat stays for longer than John thought he would. They talk a bit, but mostly they are quiet. Eventually, Karkat gets called away on yet more important war business, leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had.

Pretty much, yeah. Can’t blame either of them.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

You’re still abandoning the task that was explicitly yours to protect your literal kid and his friends, but, oh well. Low-point. Dave dead, house dead, broke news, I get it.

He just doesn’t feel ready for that yet. The remnants of his house are still smoldering, and he can’t stop staring at them. It would make sense, he thinks, to want to root around through the rubble for anything that’s still intact; some half-charred keepsake to claim as the last thing left that’s still his. But he doesn’t want to do it, and he doesn’t want to think about it. And he still can’t move.

Can’t move. No Breath huh? What’s going to get him to, then?

> (==>)

Oh boy, that might help. XD She’s pretty good at that.

> (==>)

Still with the waistline gap. And was his phone always yellow like his God-Tier shoes?

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

Nice, huh! No judgment, just a hey-any-chance-you-could-swing-back. He sort of needs to be needed right now, in a simple, almost everyday non-judgmental way I guess. (That’s what he NEEDED anyway-- whether he deserved it though is up for debate.)

ROXY: i need help w/smth and yr darling boy is holed up in his room working on some fuckin craft project or other and cant be bothered

YES SEW JOHN A BETTER FITTING FUCKING OUTFIT

ROXY: and now that me and u are freshly on speakin terms again i might as well take advantage of that olive branch and put u to work ROXY: assumin you havent died in an air raid, that is ROXY: which id also be interested in knowin about so if u wld be so kind as to reply instead of leavin me hangin

Heheheh. Gosh Roxy is always the best.

JOHN: yea yea sorry im here. JOHN: i just had a hard time getting my phone out of these fucking tiny pants.

Hah.

JOHN: and also my house is bombed out so i'm kinda grappling with that. JOHN: but i honestly am not sure how much longer i need to sit around staring at it. trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so JOHN: short version is no i’m not dead, and yeah i can come back over there and help you out. ROXY: oh sweet yr alive and down to do manual labor its a win/win JOHN: see you soon.

Yep! Pulled away from all the metaphorical, ultra-meaningful bullshit, back to some brass tacks with some easy humor. Definitely something Roxy can do well.~

> (==>)

EXCUSE ME. What is that outfit and pose. Did you--

ROXY: sup ROXY: follow me ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way JOHN: haha ok.

Did you invite him over for the manual labor of banging you while your son is sewing in the other room

Or maybe the labor is making him a new sibling. JFC

Is this plan part of why we got the sudden content warning that was mocked or was that mainly for Hiveswap

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

I DUNNO JOHN DOES THIS SEEM DIFFERENT TO YOU

> (==>)

Yea this seems like a fucc room.

JOHN: it’s not like i could forget! ROXY: ya i guess u only really saw the living room when you were here the other day but i have changed some stuff up ROXY: done a lil redecoratin here n there

So it’s MORE of a fucc room than previously >__>”

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out ROXY: but so far so good

Ah geez.

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Well, that’ll buff out easy.

ROXY: can i get u anything? ROXY: just made some coffee JOHN: no, uh, i’m good.

Of course she has a fancy handled winecoffeeglass (and the handle does look ridiculous but it’d be too hot to hold otherwise)

Roxy shrugs and swirls her own coffee around in her novelty mug. John looks around. A lot about the room is the same. The family photos, the rug. There’s a lot more cat stuff in there now, though. The bed is new. John feels like he’s about to take a test he hasn’t studied for. He makes himself focus on what she’s saying.

That would be the feeling.

> (==>)

MY GOD. Roxy is so fucking good at this holy shit

She KNOWS she’s making him squirm and she loves it

JOHN: so uh anyway. JOHN: what was this favor? ROXY: yo why dont u just come rest yr tush for a bit ROXY: take a lil relax next 2 me here JOHN: haha uh. JOHN: roxy i uh. JOHN: im flattered, but i don’t know if that’s really the right step right now. JOHN: don’t get me wrong, everything seems so fucked up right now that when i try to think about what might actually BE the right step, it feels like a huge cartoon question mark might physically manifest over my head. JOHN: but I’m not sure if um rekindling our physical relationship is really the best--

So is Roxy trolling him, about to reveal she wasn’t thinking of sex and was just making things seem sultry? Or just had “lol jk” as an option-select, maybe.

> (==>)

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding. JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

OH NOOO NOT THE DISDAAAAIN - CRITICAL HIT D:

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

boot knockin XD

ROXY: look john ROXY: i was trying to be polite about it ROXY: offering u sustenance n rest n all ROXY: but you look like shit ROXY: i just wanted to catch up on the whole heinous war situation were in and maybe check in on e/o before leaping strait to the real n actual nonsexual manual labor favor i have in mind for u JOHN: oh.

Hey, she can’t help looking sexy she’s too good at it.

Is the manual labor moving the crashed cars? Can’t Roxy pull that off on her own, or... banish the cars to the void or something? (Oh, but WOULD she want to do it on her own when she can rope in John and bring him down to earth by giving him a useful task? And admittedly his strength and wallet would make things easier.)

John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

Probably some gender stuff mixed up in there too, June.

He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.

Just put your feet up yeah

> (==>)

WHAT A CUTE IMAGE

JOHN: sorry. like i said, my "how to react to stuff" meter is completely fucked right now. ROXY: thats fair bud

she’s used to being patient with you don’t worry otherwise you never would’ve gotten this far

ROXY: real fast i do need to do a quick takeback of all that shit i said last time we talked about janey not being literally the most evil person we knew or whatever ROXY: i guess i was hopped up on arguin or somethin since that was before we hit our conversational vibe bc of course u were right and i shoulda listened

Ouch. Yeah, we saw just lately just how far off the deep end she was. (Where was that funny upd8 reaction art summarizing the bit where Kanaya was holding Tavros hostage and Jane was transparently debating “hmm do I let my son die?” and Kanaya and Tavros were just looking at each-other flat-mouthed nervous? I REALLY wanted to share that but I don’t usually want to reblog or put most stuff HS^2 not under a read-more, for spoiler purposes, usually.)

ROXY: im just glad ur ok ROXY: or like alive JOHN: yeah, jury's still out on "ok" but, you know. ROXY: ya ROXY: u said ur house is gone?? JOHN: yep. JOHN: completely. ROXY: jeez ROXY: i would ask how ur feelin but like the answer 2 that has got 2b "prtty bad"

Talk it ouuuut~~ get those feels out there and articulated john

JOHN: yeah. JOHN: i mean. JOHN: no? JOHN: it’s weird. JOHN: it feels like it should be a bigger deal, I guess? JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE. JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house? JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self? JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know? JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something? JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames. JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it. JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late? JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison. JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good. JOHN: but that’s just bullshit. JOHN: it DID feel good. JOHN: i DO feel free. JOHN: sorry.

I was kind of saying some Breath/Blood stuff at the time of him losing his last tie to his stubborn sticking-to-his-kid-self bit? Except now we’re mixing it in with June Egbert and his gender-identity questions too.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Oh shit

ROXY: well no i just meant like i did some sharing ROXY: like referrin 2 the topic i brought up when we chatted last ROXY: but like now that u mention it ROXY: *meaningful pause* JOHN: … JOHN: i JOHN: ROXY: lol well we can move on 2 the favor part if youd rather ROXY: stick a lil pin in that topic n come back 2 it when u have had sleep

Are you just INCREDIBLY incisive Roxy or have you and John talked about this before?

ROXY: like i said the other day its not like this shits figureoutable in 1 sitting anyways JOHN: yeah... ROXY: sooooooo ROXY: movin on

It’s just fine for Roxy to slow-roll this yeah, if she’s going to pry open that door a little

ROXY: dont be mad but theres a part of the house u didnt know abt the whole time u lived here JOHN: what? ROXY: yea ROXY: i got a secret lair ROXY: for my sciences

OH FUCK YES SCIENCE LAB, of COURSE Roxy would want a cool science lab basement because she always wants a cool science lab basement

ROXY: and i get to it via a transportalizer underneath our bed ROXY: which is 2 heavy 2 move by my lonesome so i just needed to borrow some o your aforementioned powers of wind

Okay no. Wait. What the fuck?

First of all, as funny and MSPaintAdventures-y as furniture being in the way of things is, why would you block it with a bed too heavy to move, but,

Second of all, more importantly, how is a GOD-TIER ROXY not strong enough to lift a heavy bed?!?!?!? Either she’s lying to get John involved in things or this is a gendered cop-out because these characters are superheroes at the TOP of their echeladders, given obnoxiously powerful video-game strength and athletics only to then have ascended into DEITIES. God-Tier Roxy could probably have lifted a bed like that when she was SEVENTEEN! And now she’s an ADULT, out-of-shape or otherwise! If this were a whole CAR I might be willing to handwave it, but just a heavy BED?!? And none of the GUYS are going to have this much trouble lifting a bed like this, are they?? This just feels like following classic cartoony gender tropes in the complete absence of these characters’ super powers, what the fuck, and also Roxy if you didn’t make it Transportalizer-only access you could have given it an entrance you could phase through with your fancy powers to get to. FUCK.

This feels stupid.

ROXY: so if u dont mind woosh away JOHN: uh ok, well... JOHN: a secret science lair, sure, i can deal with that. JOHN: why not! JOHN: it doesn’t work out great when i do the windy thing indoors, though. ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

You’re already THIS sensitive about gendertalk?

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push ROXY: we both got sick muscles ROXY: no other adjectives necessary JOHN: yeah ok. ROXY: on 3?

Please, please reinforce the idea that they both have sick strength, because they fucking do and the idea that Roxy actually a hundred percent NEEDED John to do this is BS.

> (==>)

JOHN: holy shit? ROXY: sorry to lop yet another huge scoop onto ur lil brains ice cream revelation sundae JOHN: so wait, if this thing's always been under the bed, how’d you get down here before without me? ROXY: well thats neither here nor there john JOHN: i mean it is kinda. Here. ROXY: fine ok checkmate ROXY: i dont ACTUALLY need ur nerdgrit for this escapade ROXY: like im sorry but i said it ROXY: i mostly just wanted to see you and show u wats down here

THANK FUCKING CHRIST.

If that wasn’t actually just a lie to get him involved I was going to stay SO mad. Of COURSE Roxy can move a fucking BED no matter how heavy it is. OF COURSE.

ROXY: and also uve been ~sent for~ JOHN: ok but like ROXY: john i am inviting u 2 my inner sanctum ROXY: i am literally bringing out the word "sanctum" in case u werent already clued in 2 how cool this is ROXY: so do u wanna go into my secret lair or wat JOHN: yeah!? JOHN: yes? i guess? ROXY: aight good

Yes John of course you want to stop fighting it

ROXY: then as they told me in the hospital before lil h a was born ROXY: just push

eyeroll, but yeah, of course

> (==>)

Oh cool, sprite form version of her loungewear.

> (==>)

Sorry for my compulsion to post every full-frame image of Roxy in this awesome outfi-WERE YOU KEEPING CALLIOPE UNDER YOUR BED THIS WHOLE TIME?!?????

That’s like... almost a fucking metaphor isn’t it???? For the relationship you preferred in the other timeline and possibly THIS one TOO or

ROXY: hey callieee i got him ROXY: o damn john sorry i shoulda also told u callies here weve been hangin out again ROXY: 1 more freak for ur bean

Oh huh, so this isn’t an always thing. And these two can get close in more than one timeline where it would’ve worked out nicely. :)

JOHN: oh it's ok, my bean feels pretty well adjusted to freakage at this point so keep them coming if you like! ROXY: k cool i will JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is? ROXY: hmmmmmm no JOHN: oh ok. JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room. JOHN: space. JOHN: wherever we are. ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi ROXY: and by that i mean ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn JOHN: right, sorry. JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain. ROXY: u catch on fast egbert ROXY: anyway theres more cool info coming so just follow me

I don’t have any big theories. Is it just the Hiveswap device or something? If Calliope helped with it it’d help explain the Cherubic theme.

> (==>)

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs? JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done. ROXY: well no not x actly ROXY: were in the old meteor JOHN: under the house??? ROXY: ok so ROXY: in hindsight it may have been a bit misleading 2 say like ROXY: "downstairs" ROXY: in reference to a place which is hells of buried underground and may not actually be literally under the house ROXY: but there is no time to explain all that rn john so instead im going to refer u to my adorable little green friend here CALLIOPE: #U_U# ROXY: (hehe) CALLIOPE: *AHEM* CALLIOPE: hi john! CALLIOPE: long time no see. ^u^

Cherubs just really like dark cavelike places full of weird tech don’t they.

> (==>)

THEY’RE SO CUTE

JOHN: oh, uh. hey callie! JOHN: it sure has been a while huh. JOHN: now that i think about it, the last time the three of us hung out like this... CALLIOPE: was when i was aggressively third wheeling yoUr prenUptial coUrtship? CALLIOPE: if yoU dont mind, john, i'd rather not rehash that period of oUr lives. CALLIOPE: it was more than a little painfUl for me. JOHN: oh. JOHN: god, jeez, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to-- CALLIOPE: hee hee john i am only pUlling yoUr leg, don't worry. CALLIOPE: if anything i was personally a little thrilled with how things shook oUt in that respect. CALLIOPE: imagine, if yoU will, a yoUng cherUb raised in solitUde, whose only solace was the convolUted and tUmUltUoUs romantic schemata she projected onto her only friends from another Universe. CALLIOPE: and then fUrther imagine that this yoUng cherUb, throUgh varioUs even *more* convolUted contrivances, ended Up in the company of those selfsafe friends as an eqUal participant in their sphere of social discoUrse! CALLIOPE: it is a joy the like of which yoU possibly cannot fathom. u_u

Reinforcing that things turning out this way was in fact the FANTASY that Calliope was writing over in the Canon timeline. Just, heavily, HEAVILY implied that the Candy timeline is -- or at least originated as -- Calliope’s fanfiction as a Muse of Space, and its competition for audience interest with canon is the essential conflict between alt!Calliope and Dirk (or Dirk and Andrew Hussie).

CALLIOPE: so to pUt it simply, getting to experience sUch emotional drama myself was an impossibly enriching experience. CALLIOPE: possibly a first for my species! CALLIOPE: it's actUally qUite interesting, if yoU ROXY: *nudge* CALLIOPE: oh, right. yes. i'm getting a little carried away, haha. CALLIOPE: argh, i'm sorry, this is not how i planned to begin this vital conversation.

Vital conversation? What sorta truth-bombs are coming?

CALLIOPE: but to sUmmarise, what i was trying to say is: CALLIOPE: don't beat yourself Up aboUt it john. CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr. CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point. JOHN: hahaha!!! JOHN: okay, well that's good to know! CALLIOPE: ^u^

Holy SHIT that was savage! And we’ll NEVER know whether or not she really intended it so savagely, either.~

JOHN: so um... JOHN: i hear that there's this big secret thing you wanna tell me about? CALLIOPE: oh right, yes of course! CALLIOPE: let me jUst say first of all how thrilled i am that yoU're on board. CALLIOPE: i wasn't sUre if yoUr natUral inclinations woUld have preclUded yoUr coming to such a place as this, and yet here yoU are. CALLIOPE: this whole endeavoUr will be *so* mUch easier with yoUr help.

Uh oh.

Hopefully babies aren’t involved.

JOHN: oh! well, shucks. JOHN: not really sure what that means but i'm just glad to be of use somewhere, haha. JOHN: which, speaking of somewhere, CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are. CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes? JOHN: um... like, the big space things? CALLIOPE: they aren't always big actUally, and in fact their relative smallness is practically their defining qUality. JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: bUt okay i think we are on the same page. CALLIOPE: so, what if i told yoU that we are inside of a black hole right now.

Oh dear, we’re getting into the canon/noncanon divide?

JOHN: um... JOHN: like, HERE? JOHN: we just transportalized into a black hole? CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole. JOHN: ok.

Yeah, that’s gonna be John’s reaction. “ok.” Pretty much inevitable.

CALLIOPE: earth c, or at least oUr version of it, has, from the moment we crossed the victory threshold, been inside a black hole. JOHN: ok. CALLIOPE: and not just any black hole, bUt the very black hole in which the green sUn Ultimately met its demise, allowing oUr victory in the first instance! JOHN: huh! ROXY: ("huh!") ROXY: (rofl my fucking ao egbert) JOHN: (shhhh!)

And Roxy enjoys his non-reaction reactions as much as we do, hehe.

CALLIOPE: bUt, paradoxically, the critical moment which determined its capture within the black hole happened *after* that point. CALLIOPE: i refer of coUrse to yoUr decision not to retUrn to the mediUm and fight my brother. JOHN: wait, wait. JOHN: you mean, the meat and candy thing? JOHN: oh my god. JOHN: you mean i actually DID make a mistake that day. CALLIOPE: well, that's not exactly what that-- JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it! JOHN: i'm so sorry. JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ): ROXY: john ROXY: listen ROXY: u have got to get out of this mindset i am begging you JOHN: ):

Yeah shake him out of this shit.

ROXY: your choice literally didnt matter ROXY: the whole thing was symbolic in the first place ROXY: literally symbolic in the case of the picnic i mean come on ROXY: it was just some steak and a plate of candy suckers JOHN: oh. CALLIOPE: i mean, i wouldn't go so far as to say that the meal we shared was unimportant, given the sacred significance of the two options i presented. CALLIOPE: but yes, yoUr choice of snack was infinitely less important than the choice which it presaged. CALLIOPE: and even then, calling it a choice woUld be sorely misleading. CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip. CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads". CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads. JOHN: you mean we ended up with the bad possibility. CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are". JOHN: o...kay... CALLIOPE: u_u

Yeah, it’s going to take a bit more than that to convince him he didn’t make the “wrong decision”.

CALLIOPE: i realise that this may be a lot to process. CALLIOPE: it's easy to forget that this wasn't obvioUs to everyone from the beginning. CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity. JOHN: oh, wow. JOHN: um. JOHN: ok so, sorry if this is a dumb question to ask suddenly, but what does being inside of a black hole actually... mean for us? JOHN: is that bad? JOHN: is it like in movie, um, JOHN: shoot. JOHN: roxy what was that matthew mcconaughey movie from your earth that we watched? ROXY: u mean interstellar JOHN: RIGHT. JOHN: the one with the organ. JOHN: man. i cried at that movie so much. ROXY: lol u can say that again ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you JOHN: listen. JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given. CALLIOPE: i don't believe i'm familiar with this particular film ^u^;; ROXY: oh dont worry cal you didnt miss much JOHN: (gasp)

This is all gold

ROXY: but the important point is that no its not really an interstellar type situation here egbert ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love JOHN: aw.

Dammit, now we have to be on the lookout for that possibility. Or it did sort of already happen more than once to John. ...Whatever.

CALLIOPE: to go back to your original question, john. CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them. CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish. CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart! CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been. CALLIOPE: in everyday, practical terms, being inside of a black hole has very little bearing on Us. CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary. CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence. CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon. CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist! JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...? CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

No? So this doesn’t have to do with the divide?

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal. CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific. JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that. CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley. CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u= CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

What the heck? Calliope SAW all this? Is this her Muse powers at work, letting her observe these things, or was she there? And John certainly did NOT see ANY of what Calliope just said happen.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So we’re going to find that out if we haven’t already. Maybe something to do with the way Vrissy just conks out narcoleptically?

JOHN: ...right. JOHN: so... let me just get this straight. JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything? JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal? CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not. CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm. JOHN: oh.

Um, what?

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval. CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality. CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

No plot-armor for your entire timeline, I guess, yep. Outside of canon, we can imagine and write about ANYTHING happening to the characters, or just drop their existence entirely, much like a doomed offshoot timeline. It’s a plot stability that depended heavily on the threat of Lord English and being trapped in a story, and without it things are bound to see a BIT chaotic (or “degrading” if you view it as subjected to the whims of fanfic writers, certainly).

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth. CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher. ROXY: its total bs is what it is CALLIOPE: right, yes. CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite. CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Ah fuck. You’re going to regulate non-canon? “Canonize” it? Is the fact that you eventually succeed at whatever it is you’re trying to do part of why we have the story presented to us in this bifurcated structure?

ROXY: this is finally where u come in jegbert ROXY: we gots quests for yous CALLIOPE: hee hee, yes. CALLIOPE: or *a* quest, to be specific. JOHN: oh boy! ROXY: (this fkin nerd i s2g)

Roxy and Calliope setting him on this quest as a Rogue of Void and a Muse of Space feels fitting.

JOHN: i'm not sure how i can go about freeing us from a hellish space prison, but i'm up for giving it a try i guess? JOHN: i have... literally nothing better to be doing at this point. except for maybe hanging out with harry anderson. ROXY: nice save lol

YEAH WE’RE STILL GLOSSING OVER HOW YOU LEFT HIM UNPROTECTED, JERK

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix JOHN: oh. JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then. ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity. ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan. CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more. CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it. CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak. CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself? CALLIOPE: ... CALLIOPE: phew. okay, i'm finished. CALLIOPE: CALLIOPE: sorry, that took longer than i expected to go throUgh.

..............................

OOooooh, kay.

Whatever this is, it’s going to be really weird and PROBABLY infuriating and/or shippy, and I’m probably not going to like it. Plus it seems like it’s some sort of inverse belated canonization of some other black-hole-rescue theories I went on about at some point. Although, related to that link, “aspect of freedom” if anyone wasn’t paying attention! That’s a (sorta-)canon mention of the purpose of it!

They’re going to attention-wh-- attention-hog themselves out of the black hole so that they’re “considered canon” too, or close enough. Huh.

ROXY: what r u talking about cals that was great ROXY: i could listen 2 u plotsplain for years CALLIOPE: oh you >u< ROXY: fyi this was why i wanted u to get a move on eggbread ROXY: so callie could have more time 2 infodump ROXY: thats love bitchhhhhh JOHN: hahaha. JOHN: ok, well, i think i understood all that?

Love with who? Callie, John, both?

In reality, John isn’t sure what most of this means. But on balance, it feels okay? He’s gone back and forth about a hundred times in the last week about where his place in everything is, so he might as well ride this out. Plus, the last time a Lalonde kind of told him to do something, he thinks that he chose not to, and look where that got him. And it’s not like he has other plans. He may as well do this! It’s at least going to get him involved in things again, if nothing else. He turns to go, and then hears a sound. It’s the sound of feet and knocking on doors, echoed through stone and digital static.

Oh shit. Is Andrew trapped behind some fourth walls behind the curtains.

> (==>)

Oh RIGHT also that DEVICE is where they want to bring Vriska. Are they going to overturn part of canon itself with a super-retcon thus making this timeline unbelievably relevant or--? Maybe make all the PESTERQUESTS canon or something?! I don’t know. Maybe they’re INTENTIONALLY starting the game like Vriska wanted to??????

Guh, this is something so big that I don’t WANT to theorize about it, do I.

JOHN: did you hear that? ROXY: wha ROXY: oh yeah uh ROXY: i may have messaged rose and kan and jade to check on them too ROXY: so its prob onea them showin up ROXY: they don’t need to know bout all this tho ROXY: we got time to chat with them b4 u go get vriska

No, even if it’s a knock at the somehow-top-level-house-even-under-buried-- oh, right, maybe it’s covering in part a monitoring system that looks up there. But still, part of that sound was DOUBTLESS these two hiding something, all standing in front of the curtain like that.

JOHN: i’ll go stall em. ROXY: thx babe ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine. ROXY: oh good ok see u up there soon!

How is calling your significant other “babe” not cool REGARDLESS of gender?! Like wasn’t that always cool? --Oh wait is it because they’re not together or... but... guh, I don’t know.

Anyway, see y’all after the holidays at least.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers #Roxy Lalonde #John Egbert #Calliope

17 notes · View notes