#gift for mechanic

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[cryptile]

Yea you could say i like Brian

@reegis i did it, i did the thing, here he is. Consider this fanart for YOU

[ageremoji]

Updated April 7th 2024 ☀️

It’s not finished yet, but there’s so much more to come!

[theguardianace]

anyways mutuals this is your call to go watch pokemon horizons its the series currently airing and for once you don't actually need to know anything about what's happened before. its a new series with new characters to follow in a brand new narrative style. and it slaps. and if genuinely incredible characters, beautiful animation, and riveting battles aren't enough to convince you- shinonome ena's va voices liko, one of the protagonists.

just. go watch the first two episodes at least. for me. ok thank you

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

I don’t care what the plot of the community movie is as long as it starts with a shot of Troy and Abed cuddled together in bed and sleepily singing “Troy and Abed in the morning” as they wake up

[oblonger]

@sincerely-sofie I will try and make some more Shadow Virus or Body Swap AU chapters after this one. I promise. (Unless I have another good idea lol)

Grovyle is Tired

Keeping track of infinity is pretty difficult when the most formative years of your life were defined by finite things.

Grovyle walked through the ever-shifting, halls of the space between time. Yawning so hard that it made him feel light-headed.

Grovyle pulled out his notes from the satchel he wore. And yawned again. He irately pulled out a chesto berry to eat as well.

He stared at the notes while taking bites out of the berry. His vision was blurred from sleepiness, but it quickly dissipated as he took more bites of the disgusting, overripe fruit.

Ugh, he remembered a time when those were his favorites. But now he felt like puking whenever he even thought of the taste.

Still better than Lum berries.

He briefly reminisced of a time when his notes were much more specific. Diving into excruciating detail of when and ‘where’ timelines were located. Taking note of every possible danger he might face.

Nowadays, it was just a few, hastily written bullet points.

He figured he didn't need to write down the ‘where’ of the timelines, he only messed up one other time. And that also led to another timeline being fixed, so whatever.

This timeline had something written down about an apocalypse that turns mortals into mindless monsters? He didn't really care that much. It's just another job.

It's not something Grovyle likes. Far from it. He hates it.

It's rotten work, but it needs to be done.

Grovyle yawned again as he approximated where the timeline was. His thoughts briefly shifted to wondering if he could take a nap with how all the timelines in danger of crumbling have a while before he needed to fix them.

The passage between times opened. Grovyle stepped in, briefly thinking of sleep and of how Twig would take naps near him. Back when he wasn't a legend.

*********

Grovyle stepped out. Late at night. His eyes took a moment to adjust.

He's standing near the entrance to Sharpedo Bluff. Right on the edge of Treasure Town.

But, things weren't what he expected. The town looked a lot bigger than what he would have expected from a timeline plunged into an apocalypse.

The passage closed behind him. The lack of a light source from it lent better to his vision.

In fact, from this far away, he could see lights in some of the windows.

He'd learned a long time ago to never assume anything, but seeing Treasure Town in a similar state to how it was when he left his original timeline, in a timeline that had supposedly been ruined beyond repair…

It didn't make any sense-

“Clover?” A soft, shaking voice asked behind him.

Grovyle's heart leapt in his chest. He spun around and was face-to-face with a mega Charizard.

Why was she mega evolved? Was she wanting to fight him? Why was her tail flame a dark maroon color? Were those spikes around her neck?

… Why were there tears in her eyes?

“Clover? Is- is that really you?” She asked. Her voice shaking, tears started streaming down her face.

Ah.

He'd recognize her voice anywhere.

This is Twig. Or someone with Twig's voice at least.

Why did she look like this?

… On second thought that's not any of his business.

“Look. I'm-”

Grovyle barely got started when she bolted forward and wrapped him in a tight hug.

“Oh Arceus! I've missed you so much!" She sobbed.

Grovyle stood there for a moment, letting her hug him. Before he pushed her away.

Grovyle stared at the ground, even though he knew the way she was looking at him.

“Clover?”

Grovyle folded his arms and sighed. “I hate explaining this.” He muttered under his breath.

He looked at her.

“Twig, right?” He asked.

She blinked in surprise. Then nodded.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. Of course you are.” He whispered under his breath.

He hated how she flinched. Grovyle looked back up. Sighing deeply.

“Look. I'm not your C- Grovyle. I'm from a different timeline.”

Twig pulled her head back in surprise. “But. Celebi told me that she can't move people to and from different timelines.”

Grovyle huffed. “I’m an exception.”

Twig's eyes widened. The two stared at each other for several seconds. Grovyle then sighed, and turned so his side faced her.

“Now with that out of the way, I realize that I came to the wrong timeline. So leave me alone for about ten minutes to recharge, then I can leave and you'll never have to see me again.”

The two stood in silence. A growing sense of worry rose in Grovyle's chest the longer he looked at Twig's expression through the corner of his eye.

Eventually, he looked at her. “Do you have any questions?”

Twig pursed her lips. “Did you-... Did you kill your Celebi?”

Grovyle flinched so hard he stumbled backwards. “How did you- Did Celebi tell you? ” He breathlessly asked.

Twig closed her eyes, a few tears escaping, and shook her head.

“No. I just- I figured it out myself, just now.”

Grovyle stared at her like she had just grown a second head, before his brow furrowed. “Why on earth would you assume something like that about me?” He growled.

Twig paused for a moment, then huffed. She lifted her arms and motioned to herself. “Have you ever heard of a legend named Darkrai?” She asked.

Grovyle's eyes widened as he pieced together what had happened to her. His vision fell to the ground.

“Oh.” He voiced.

The two stood in an awkward, mournful silence.

“Do you… Do you want to talk about it?” Twig asked.

Grovyle pursed his lip. “Not really, no.” He responded.

Twig stood there and stared at him. “Then… Do you just want to like, hang out?” She asked. Her voice shook slightly.

“No.” He said. Turning around so his back was facing her.

Twig's breath caught on itself briefly. Sending a pang of guilt through Grovyle.

“Clover. Please. I-”

“Can you stop calling me Clover?! I'm not Clover!” He snapped.

Twig paused for a moment. “Right. Sorry…It's just-” She hyperventilated. “It's been so long since I've seen you- um, Clover. That I- I just-.” She choked up on her tears and couldn't finish.

Grovyle bit down on the inside of lip. Then sighed.

Curiosity got the better of him.

“How long has it been since you've seen him?” He asked.

Twig took in a shaky breath. “I think like, a hundred years?”

Grovyle pinched down on his arm.

“I'm sorry.” He said gently.

Twig sighed. “It's okay. I'm sorry for assuming you were him.”

Grovyle felt a bitter anger well up inside him. Not unfamiliar, but different from what has been driving him for so long.

The two went back to standing in silence. One that he was more uncomfortable with the more time that passed between them.

Grovyle's arms dropped to his side, and he sighed. Then walked past Twig to the entrance of Sharpedo Bluff.

He turned back to look at her after stepping down a stair. “Are you coming?” He asked.

Twig flinched a bit. “I thought… I thought you didn't want to talk to me?” She asked innocently.

Grovyle bit down on the inside of his lip again.

“Frankly I don't really want to. But I need to wait to recharge so I can open another passage between times. Not a whole lot else I can do…”

Twig stared at him, and then nodded. Following him inside.

*********

Gosh, when was the last time she'd cleaned in here? It was a mess of old decorations and mystery dungeon gear. He could see dust gathered on just about everything, save for the couch cushions, and a clean path, one that was noticeably smoother than the rest of the floor, in straight lines between the couch, kitchen and exit.

“Sorry it's such a mess. I haven't had guests for a while.”

Grovyle looked at her. “Why? Aren't you friends with Celebi?”

Twig shook her head and forced a smile. “Oh no! We are friends! I just, visit her, and not have her visit me. You know?”

The two stared at each other for a moment.

“Uh-” Twig started. “Why don't you have a seat? I'll go make us some tea.” She briskly trudged into the kitchen.

Grovyle slowly walked towards the couch. Looking through the various piles of stuff strewn about. Some corners had pots of dirt that were so dehydrated, that no weeds were growing from them. Even in Grovyle's presence.

He sat down on one end of the couch and was startled by just how far he sunk down. It had a noticeable dip near the middle seats, but he didn't think it would sink down this far.

How many years has she been sleeping on this thing?

Wait, if she took on Darkrai's powers, then she can't sleep.

If that's the case then does she just, lay on it?

Grovyle glanced around in silence as he could hear the clattering of dishes in the other room. He spotted a glass frame with several lunar feathers inside. He counted four. Maybe five?

He sat on the couch and waited for several seconds. Tension grew with each moment as he thought about just how much time he was wasting by being here.

He repeatedly tapped a claw against the armrest.

He'd experienced a small eternity before, but this felt even longer.

Eventually, Twig stepped out from the kitchen.

“Sorry it took so long! I had to clean the dust off the kettle… and the cups and tea leaves. You don't mind Oran leaf tea right?”

Dust on the leaves??? Well now he doesn't want to take it.

“I don't mind.” He responded. She nodded and handed him his cup as she sat down on the opposite side of the couch. The wood inside it creaked in such a way that he was worried it would fall apart.

The two sat there and sipped on their tea in silence.

Well the tea was better than that berry he ate.

Not much better, it still tasted awful, but it didn't make him want to vomit so that's a positive.

They finished their drinks.

And then continued sitting in silence.

Deafening silence.

The only sounds being their breathing, and the distant crashing of waves on Sharpedo Bluff.

Grovyle glanced over at her multiple times.

He wasn't sure what her expression was.

The silence continued. Dragging on and on.

Were it not for the occasional crackling of Twig's tail flame, and the rhythm-less sound of waves outside, he would have assumed they were somehow put in a loop.

Grovyle's thoughts start to run in their own loop. Thoughts of how this won't amount to anything. How doing this is so much less important than going and helping other timelines get fixed.

“So… Uh… You wanted to talk?” Twig finally broke the silence. Her eyes continued to stay locked to the floor.

Grovyle sighed. Right.

“I'm sorry for getting angry at you.” Grovyle responded, then paused. Deliberating over what to say next. “I… know how you feel.”

Twig huffed. “Right… How long has it been? Since, uh. You know…”

Grovyle rubbed his eyes. That Chesto berry was starting to wear off.

“I dunno.” He mumbled. “A couple of centuries at least. I think. Too long.”

Twig sadly hummed in acknowledgement.

The silence fell between them again.

It was starting to get infuriating.

Like, what is he supposed to say!? He hated it. It's been so ridiculously long since he's talked to anyone, much less any Twigs, like this that he didn't even know if he could talk to her.

Should he be talking to her? It's not like he can fix her. His whole thing is fixing timelines. Not other people's problems.

Then what about other you's that were about to commit to what you did?

Grovyle killed the thought. That wasn't just his problem. It would be everyone’s. That's an exception.

Grovyle's thoughts swirled in spirals. It's a good reason.

“So… um…” Twig voiced. Grovyle glanced at her. Her lips pursed, brows furrowed, and her eyes looking in every direction except towards him.

Grovyle waited for a few seconds then sighed. “Say it.” He grumbled.

Twig paused for a moment. “What's it like? Looking ahead in the timeline I mean.”

Grovyle shot her an angry look, one he was hoping she was looking away for.

She wasn't. Their eyes locked. Her's widened.

Grovyle sighed and leaned back before she could apologize. He then began.

“It's… Hmm. It's like you're given a…”

He pondered for a moment. Trying to think of a way to conceptualize this. He briefly thought of a Human Twig he had adopted once, and how she explained her math homework to him…

Until she grew up, and then…

A wretched feeling twisted in his gut. He pushed the thoughts away.

“Number line of sorts.” Twig looked at him with a strange sort of surprise.

“There aren't any kind of markings on it, but you can see yourself moving along it.” He continued. “But you can like, zoom into it. And then it branches out from that point, and you're given a list of things that can happen.”

He paused again. “I guess it's more like a combination of a sideways family tree and a list, than a number line.” He paused again. “What about you?”

Twig pulled back a bit. She forced a grin and raised her hands. “Oh, I never really tried to use my powers. Those lunar feathers Celebi gave me, meant I didn't need too! So, it's fine, really.”

Grovyle narrowed his eyes on her. He's met Darkrais from before they tried to end the world. He knows for a fact that what she's referring to is that nightmare aura.

So, it's fine, really.

He was thoroughly convinced at this point that Twig is a terrible liar in every timeline.

He was about to call her out on that when she hurriedly spoke.

“Well, if it shows you every possibility all at once? Doesn't that get super overwhelming?”

Grovyle shelved the thought. It's not like he was going to see this Twig again after this anyway. He was just waiting to leave.

“Well, not really.” He responded. Twig tilted her head in confusion.

“It's like… how to phrase this…” he mumbled. “Like, you pick a specific thing to think about. Then you can see a list, I guess? Sorted from most likely to least likely. In other words, we only see the two or three most likely possibilities and their consequences at any point. Significant ones that split the timeline being 'highlighted' so to speak."

“Ohhh. Okay. That actually makes a lot of sense…” Twig's somewhat satisfied expression fell. “So is that how it works for you?”

Grovyle nodded. “Not the first time. But yeah. It is.”

Twig flinched a bit. “What… What was it like the first time?”

Grovyle shrugged. He leaned back in his seat and folded a leg, to rest his foot on his knee. He stared at the wall to his side.

“I didn't know about all that stuff about lists and branching timelines and stuff. Turns out that's more of a rule that Celebis’ follow than how it works. So the first time I did it, I saw everything.” He casually mentioned.

“... wwwhat was it about?” Twig asked.

Grovyle sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I wanted to see what would happen to my Twig. So I tried looking ahead. I watched her live long, fulfilling lives, and die peacefully in her sleep. And watched her die from a random heart attack milliseconds from when I did that. I watched her die countless times in countless ways. All in the span of a few seconds.” Grovyle stopped for a moment and took in a breath. Twig was silent.

Grovyle shrugged again. “Obviously I'm okay now. In fact, it's better that I did that since I do it all the time now. It's a whole lot faster than cherry picking which branches to look down. I got used to the flood of information. So, yeah. It's fine, really.”

The silence returned. Grovyle continued staring at the wall as his skin started to prickle.

The tension felt absurd. Why was the air so heavy?

“Twig?” Grovyle asked. He turned his head to face her. “Are you oka-”

He stopped when he saw her face. Her eyes wide, and her mouth hung open in complete and utter horror. Tears silently ran down her face and fell onto the couch.

Twig stood up off the couch and stepped towards him, and then wrapped Grovyle in a tight hug, as she repeatedly took in shaky breaths.

He then realized he just told her what he'd never told anyone before.

Grovyle felt wrath rising in his chest

He tried to push her away. Her arms tightened.

“Twig!? What are you doing!? Let me go! I need to leave!” He demanded.

He kept trying to push her away. He even tried using his legs. It didn't work. She was shockingly strong.

Grovyle stopped struggling after nearly a minute of this.

“Twig?” He asked.

“I'm so sorry that happened to you.” Twig sobbed.

Grovyle felt a bolt of shock run through his heart.

To hear her say what he knew the Celebi would say if he told them. He dreaded hearing them say it.

But her?

Twigs arms wrapped tighter.

“W-what happened to you wasn't okay.” She choked out.

Grovyle froze. Then he returned her hug.

It felt so nice.

He was finally hugging Twig again.

What happened wasn't okay.

The phrase repeated itself in his mind over and over.

He was barely holding back tears.

It wasn't okay.

And then the tears started running down his face.

Grovyle was choking back his sobbing. He would allow tears. But not sobbing. He won't cry like that in front of her.

It wasn't okay.

It's not okay.

None of what happened, should have happened to you.

A sob escaped Grovyle's mouth.

You're not okay.

In an instant, all of the walls Grovyle had standing for hundreds of years came crashing down.

Then he sobbed some more.

And then he sobbed and wept and wailed and screamed.

That ugly, bloody viscera that had been pulsing, filling him with a dull ache for so long had just been torn out of his chest for her to see.

And despite that, she was holding him in her arms like a crying child.

The way he would comfort the abandoned Twigs he used to search for.

He clutched at her. Pulling her closer to him crying even harder at the thought.

He cried for hours. Releasing centuries of pent up sorrow out for her to hear.

You're not okay.

But, maybe you will be.

*********

Grovyle's eyes stung badly as he tried to open them. The sun shining across his eyes was what woke him up. His stomach ached with sharp pain.

The memories of what happened last night returned as he pushed himself into sitting upright. Groaning at the effort it takes. His entire body has never felt so heavy.

He barely remembers anything after crying for so long. Did he pass out?

“Hungry?”

He glanced up to see Twig holding a plate of food. Smiling at him.

Grovyle pursed his lips, tears once again filling in his eyes as he nodded.

Tears silently ran down his face as he ravenously ate this, his second, and his third servings of this food. He didn't know what was in it, but it tasted greater than anything he could imagine.

He almost started sobbing again when he realized he truly did forget just how good real food can be. Not that grimy food or the chesto berries or the occasional apples.

Real, genuine, cooked food.

Twig began talking after he finally told her that he wasn't hungry anymore.

“Gosh Grovyle. When was the last time you ate or slept? You've slept for an entire day.”

Grovyle tilted his head, and glanced backwards into the timeline.

It was morning, but the day after. He'd slept for nearly twenty-seven hours straight.

Grovyle weakly chuckled. “I dunno. I've been going this long just by eating Chesto berries.”

He tried to chuckle again, and it sounded like it was mixed with a sob.

He glanced around to avoid Twig's gaze, and saw that most of the clutter in the room was missing. It was far from perfect, but it actually looked like a living space now.

Twig sat down on the couch next to him. It creaked, but didn't seem like it would give up the ghost just yet.

The two sat in silence for several minutes.

This time, he didn't want to leave. It wasn't uncomfortable. He wanted to stay here forever…

But he had work that needed to be done.

“Twig.” He started.

“I know.” She responded. “I wish you could stay here too.”

He pursed his lips again. That wasn't what he was going to say. But it was what he wanted to say.

She gently pulled him towards her, and he leaned towards her. Resting his body on hers. She slowly rubbed her hand in circles between his shoulder blades.

“I'm going to miss you Grovyle.” She broke the silence eventually.

He glanced up at her eyes, then looked at the ground.

A few tears escaped his eyes as he choked out; “Can you… Can you call me Clover?”

Twig leaned towards him and pulled him into a hug. “Of course I can, Clover.” She responded.

He hugged her back, and they stayed like that for a few minutes.

Clover eventually spoke. “I'll miss you Twig.”

Twig sighed. “I will miss you too, Clover. Promise you will come and visit me?”

Clover pulled her in tighter. Tears fell down their faces.

“I promise.”

[sincerely-sofie]

Celebi: "What is holiday what is it for"

Also Celebi: "I can make people smooch this is the best one"

(Referring to these tags on this post:)

[barmadumet]

New, gorgeous comm by detail-oriented @kana7o for Ch 44 - Streets of Gold 😍

This was gifted by faithful Streets reader @aigoos 🥲 I selected this adorable scene from a few of her recommendations. MECHANIC ANAKIN 🔥 Why didn’t I do this sooner? Thank you both SO much 🥹💕

[deadpresidents]

"[President] Coolidge chose to celebrate July 4 [1927] -- which also happened to be his fifty-fifth birthday -- by remaining in South Dakota, where he was having the time of his life. In recognition of all the publicity he was generating with his trip, the state of South Dakota presented him on his birthday with a cowboy outfit and horse. Named Kit, the horse was charitably described as 'spirited.' It was in fact all but untamed. The President, who was by no means a horseman was prudently kept well away from it. Instead his delighted attention was focused on his other main present -- a cowboy outfit consisting of a ten-gallon hat, bright red shirt, capacious blue neckerchief, chaps, boots, and spurs. Coolidge retired to put it all on and emerged clankingly, and a little clumsily, in the full regalia a few minutes later. He looked ridiculous, but very proud, and posed happily for photographers, who could not believe their luck. 'Here was one of the great comic scenes in American history,' wrote Robert Benchley in The New Yorker that week.

Coolidge loved that outfit and wore it for the rest of the summer whenever he could. According to lodge staff, he often changed into it in the evening after his more formal day's duties were done, and for a few hours ceased to be the most important man in America and instead was just a happy cowpoke."

-- Bill Bryson, on President Calvin Coolidge's genuine love for an utterly goofy cowboy outfit given to him as a birthday gift during a vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota in July 1927, recounted in Bryson's book One Summer: America, 1927 (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

[mattastr0phic]

This was for Cassidy’s birthday on October 26, but I hadn’t come back here yet!

[puppetmaster13u]

The little baby of the family got a pair of mech suits to use. He wanted to be able to go out with his family :>

[rocksanddeadflowers]

I now have all the tools to make my own DVDs and I'm pacing around trying to figure out what to actually put on them because I want to make them !!!!! I want to learn them !!!! But I don't wanna waste the blank discs !!!!!! I don't actually have many files of things to put on them you know !!!!!

I will probably make a DVD of my favorite mechs liveshows.... WAUFFIDJD I'm fixating on adding a new Skill to my arsenal of Things I NEED TO MAKE MECHS DVD !!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

[apparitionism]

Bonus 2

Here’s the second part of a holiday story, begun in part 1, about how Myka and Helena, in a vaguely season 4 world in which nobody’s going to go to Boone but through which they have thus far been separated, are reunited for a day-before-Christmas-eve retrieval in Cleveland. Helena has been summoned by Claudia to serve as Myka’s backup, for Pete is spending some holiday time with his family... but as it turns out, the retrieval is necessary because—plot-semi-twist!—Pete Christmas-gifted his cousin, who is a bigwig at an accounting firm, with an artifact, a pen that apparently has something to do with Santa’s naughty/nice list. Which said cousin used to confer end-of-year bonuses—and penalties. As this part opens, Myka is just beginning to process the fact that the whole situation is Pete’s fault...

(And no, I didn’t manage to bring this thing in for a landing in this part. Nobody faint from the surprise.)

Bonus 2

“Okay,” Myka acknowledges, because what else can she do? The fact is that in any Warehouse-related context, “coincidence” is a non sequitur, and she begins formulating a plan to Christmas-gift Claudia with a T-shirt featuring that sentiment. How fast can she get a custom T-shirt made?

The irony is that Claudia would know.

“Yeah,” says Pete’s cousin—Pete’s cousin! She might be affirming the Claudia-irony in Myka’s head, or the situational irony Myka is now stuck in, or any of the vast array of ironies that make up the Warehousian unfolding of time itself. Myka would not have expected Pete’s cousin’s words to contain multitudes. And yet.

“He told me it was the kind of thing he thought I’d like,” that cousin continues, “and he was right. Effects aside, it’s a gorgeous implement. Perfectly balanced... which I guess works on an existential level too, doesn’t it? Naughty, nice.” She shifts the pen to rest a delicate crosswise on an extended index finger, testing its equilibrium as a chef might a knife.

The pen—or is it merely a different species of knife?—basks in Nancy Sullivan’s regard. “Resonant little instrument,” she says, with clear affection. “Anyway, we were talking about Pete.” A different sort of affection now colors her voice. “He went into this big production-number apology about it being sort of secondhand.”

“Oh?” Myka says, distracted by pens, knives, resonances... but, right, secondhand. Of course it’s secondhand. No new item could be an artifact. Or could it? This seems like a Steve-conversation topic.... and it certainly beats “H.G. is god knows where” for philosophy.

“Not because it’s not new,” Pete’s cousin says, apparently reading Myka’s mind, “but because he initially was thinking he’d give it to somebody else.”

Myka repeats her interrogative “oh?”, but she’s getting a feeling again.

“Yeah,” says Nancy Sullivan, and Myka really has to applaud her talent for broadly applicable affirmation. “He said he wanted to give it to his partner because, and I quote, ‘she likes the old-fashioned stuff,’ but then he realized he shouldn’t because, and I also quote, ‘she’s got this whole family feathery-pen dealy-thingy and I don’t want to upset her.’” She waves the pen again, this time directly at Myka, like a conductor imploring the oboes to pick up the pace. “And he told me his partner’s name,” she concludes.

“I’m sure there are lots of Myka Berings in the world?” Myka tries, weakly, raising her hands as if to offer Nancy Sullivan all those other Myka Berings. The last vestige of defensibility... then her hands drop, because really. She looks at Helena in apology, with only an indistinct, tangled sense of what she’s apologizing for. I’m sorry I occasioned this is part of it, yet there’s a deeper fault she feels but can’t quite ideate, one more consequential than an anodyne “oops.”

“Listen, he’s a really good guy,” Nancy Sullivan says.

“I agree completely,” Myka assures her. But in the interest of full disclosure, she adds, “Mostly completely. I mean, I’m going to kill him for this.”

Helena says, “Are you.” Her tone brings Myka up short: it’s impossibly knowing, suggesting insight into everything Myka has been thinking, about someday and talking and things.

Again with the reading so right.

Myka would love to have the panache to do more than glance furtively at Helena, to pull off a playful, similarly knowing response, like “that depends on my backup” (or something actually clever that will doubtless occur to her during some post-holiday post-mortem). Instead she goes with a not at all interrogative “Oh.”

Nancy Sullivan looks from Myka to Helena. Then she says, “Okay, revision: A really good guy who might be hanging onto some unreasonable hope.”

Myka wishes she could keep from glancing yet again, now, at Helena—now as she grasps the fullness of her underlying error, now as she formulates a hopeful plan regarding someday saying out loud “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that he had any such hope and that I didn’t make completely clear that any such hope would never have been anything but unreasonable”—but the wish doesn’t work. She glances... thus proving Nancy Sullivan’s point.

“He didn’t mention you,” Pete’s cousin tells Helena. “I think I see why.”

“I’m both offended and pleased,” Helena says, with her customary little thank-you head-bow.

Rather than luxuriating in the familiarity of that head-bow, Myka tries to head off a more detailed discussion of Helena’s role in it all (and what a nondescriptively limp phrase that is) by observing, “The sixth-sense thing is quite the family trait.”

“Ah. Sure. You’ve had experience,” Nancy Sullivan says, a little droop in her voice.

Has she taken Myka’s words as criticism? Myka hurries to reassure, “Sometimes it’s very helpful.”

“But. Other times.” This is heavier, and now she must be referencing her own vibe-related experiences.

“Your family get-togethers must be really... charged?” Myka tries.

Nancy Sullivan offers another all-encompassing “Yeah.” Then she laughs. “But at least we don’t have a feathery-pen dealy-thingy like your family does.”

Helena clears her throat, an attention-garnering ah-ha-hem, as if it’s in the stage directions preceding her next line in some farce. She inclines her head: more stage-direction drama. Finally, “You do now,” she says in benediction.

Nancy Sullivan’s jaw drops. “Wow,” she says, and “wow,” she repeats. Then she laughs again and says, “He really should’ve mentioned you.”

Myka might laugh too, but she is preoccupied by the way in which Helena’s well-chosen articulation has persuaded her body to remind her that it and she have reached no mutually satisfactory agreement about appropriate reactions.

And that in turn sparks Myka to a realization: once the retrieval is accomplished, there may be a nonzero chance that she and Helena could enjoy a bit more of that liminal together-presence...

Myka’s body makes its best effort to crash through the gauzy ideating her brain would prefer to do about what such time could entail, and after no small amount of nethers-vs.-cerebrum struggle, she manages to propose, truce-wise, a simple Let’s just hope it exists.

Surprisingly, body and mind are willing to shake on that, giving Myka leave to slip on a glove and pronounce, “Just give us the pen. Then it’s over. Mostly. The money will probably revert... so you’ll most likely have to redo the bonuses the old-fashioned way.” Hearing herself, she amends, “Well. The regular way.”

“I don’t mind redoing. But reverting...” Pete’s cousin tightens her fingers around the artifact, pulling it near to her body as if she might be considering, for one last “maybe,” the idea of punching her way out.

Myka tenses, and she doesn’t need to cast a glance to know that Helena is doing the same.

She glances anyway... and indeed, Helena alive with wiry readiness is a sight worth the seeing. So worth it, in fact, that Myka is genuinely, if improperly, disappointed that said sight doesn’t cause the truce to collapse.

After a moment, however, color returns to Nancy Sullivan’s knuckles, and Myka removes the pen from her slackened grip.

But then Nancy Sullivan cocks her head. “Is it really over though? I feel like something else might be happening.”

No. No. Absolutely not. “Something else is always happening,” Myka says, affecting nonchalance as she slides the feathery foolishness into a static bag, ignoring its yipping sparks of protest. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nancy Sullivan casts a skeptical look at the barky little bag. “If you say so. Anyway seeing Pete’s face when I tell him you and I –and he and I!—are fellows in family feathery-pen dealy-thingies now? Might end up being the second-best end-of-year bonus of all, given everything.” There’s a little mockery in her voice, echoing the cousin Myka knows so well.

“And the best such bonus?” Helena inquires.

“Docking Bob’s pay,” Nancy Sullivan says instantly.

Myka snorts, and Nancy Sullivan turns back to her and says, “Are you okay with me being glad we met?” Like she’s mostly but not entirely sure of the response she’ll get, and that’s another echo.

“Only if you’re okay with me being glad too,” Myka says, her own voice sounding a familiar note—one she’s pretty sure Pete would recognize.

After a nod, Nancy Sullivan turns to Helena. “I’d say it to you, but I feel like there’s something extra going on with you, like—”

Myka steps in: “Honestly, always,” and then she’s hustling Helena out of the office even as Helena chirps, “I’m both offended and pleased by that as well!”

Back in the elevator, Helena speaks first. “I did not expect that,” she says, sounding entertained by—practically bubbly about—the entire scenario.

“I should have,” Myka grumbles.

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“Oh god no,” Myka says, involuntarily. “Too easy if anything.”

Helena’s eyebrows rise, and her eyes accuse. “I’ve known you for no small amount of time,” she says.

Myka’s previous review fights that statement, but she doesn’t speak of it.

Her lack of response prompts a heavy I-am-no-longer-entertained sigh. “Must I return to the phrase ‘your truth’?”

“Please don’t,” Myka says. That’s also nearly involuntary, but it sounds too harsh, like she’s dismissing as unimportant that bookstore interaction, as well as the entirety of those in-extremis manifestations of herself and Helena. Rather than apologizing for that, for surely it would prove far too entangling, she tries to draw Helena’s attention back to the entertainment. “I like Nancy Sullivan. She reminds me of Pete and his mom.”

“Pete’s mother? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

That’s a bit more jousty, backed by curiosity. Good. “She’s a Regent,” Myka says, for it’s the most salient piece of information she has about Jane Lattimer.

Helena stills. Her jaw hardens. “Then perhaps I have indeed had the... pleasure.” Cold. Cold. Cold.

You idiot, Myka scourges herself. Why couldn’t she have done the normal thing and left Pete’s mom as “Pete’s mom”? But now, but now: now she’s seen this wound, down there under the ice, and she wants to test that ice, but she can’t, regardless of her wish and want to know know know, to know everything Helena has been put through, so as to know whom to hate (and she hopes that doesn’t include Pete’s mom) and whom to someday thank (and she double-hopes that does include Pete’s mom). “Anyway I think the cousin had the right idea,” she says, pushing back to the now, to what just happened. “Using an artifact to do what are really decent things, even if they were judgmental.”

“Rather Old Testament,” Helena says. “Strangely inappropriate for this holiday, no?” She asks that like she’s really thinking—wondering—about it.

Myka congratulates herself on having provided a distraction, however minimal, from whatever Regent-pain her unthinking reveal caused to surface. “I hadn’t thought about Santa being more Yahweh than Jesus,” she says, to enhance it, “and I’m not sure what it says about my position on salvation that I genuinely wish we could have let her keep that pen. Or even better, if we could maybe ferry it around to deserving arbiters... wouldn’t that contribute to the greater good, even if it’s in a judgy Old-Testament way?”

Helena’s face moves as if she’s about to answer, but before she can, a rupturing screech of metal-on-metal complication resounds decisively through the space, and their ear-popping descent slows, slows, slows...

...and stops.

After an appropriately irony-bearing pause, Helena says, “This elevator seems to disapprove of your suggestion. Or perhaps it’s your theological indecision that displeases?”

All Myka can manage is an extremely resigned “I am not surprised.”

Efforts to summon help strengthen the “disapproval” interpretation: they’re fruitless. No one answers the emergency line, and this mirrored box is, according to both their phones, the place where cell service goes to die. Or where that service is interfered with by a theologically offended pulley-based mechanism.

“I genuinely cannot believe we’re stuck in an elevator,” Myka says. It may be the most true statement to which she’s ever given voice.

After a beat, however, she concedes, “But of course I can.”

Helena casts her gaze around. Once again, exaggeratedly stage-direction-y. “At least it’s reasonably well-appointed. For an elevator in which to be... stuck.” She seems to relish articulating “stuck,” so she’s back to being entertained. Not quite bubbly, but definitely entertained.

Myka can’t get past her annoyance with the elevator’s disapproval, so she says a peevish, “I don’t like mirrors.” She’s painfully aware now that they cover not only the walls, but also the ceiling. She can’t even look heavenward in supplication, sarcastic or otherwise, without regarding herself. It really is too much.

Given that no other communication technology is working, she resorts to the Farnsworth. She gives thanks for Warehouse mojo, or whatever enables it to elude the elevator’s wrath, when Claudia answers with, “No info on ‘lists, making them’ yet.”

“We dealt with that,” Myka tells her. “New problem.”

“Another artifact?”

“Who knows? Maybe Pete’s in an elevator somewhere else in this town making bad decisions, and they’re redounding to our detriment.” She’s vamping. Stuck in an elevator with Helena, she’s vamping. Instead of simply basking in such fantasy-made-fact, she’s vamping.

She doesn’t bother wondering whether Helena knows she’s doing that; if this little adventure has done nothing else, it’s reminded Myka that Helena always knows. It’s both wonderful and terrible to be so legible, particularly to someone Myka so often finds frustratingly illegible.

“I’m not following,” Claudia says.

Speaking of illegible: Myka, heal thyself. “We’re stuck. In an elevator,” she clarifies.

Claudia makes a noise that, impressively, marries a gasp and a snicker. “Are you really? Or did you push the stop button, like people do?”

“Like people... what?”

“When they want to have a little uninterrupted chat,” Claudia says, pedantic, as if now she’s the one who’s “clarifying.”

“Nobody does that in real life,” Steve says from offscreen. Myka is pleased to know he’s around.

“Myka just did,” Claudia insists in his direction. “Didn’t you,” she insists at Myka.

“If I did,” Myka says, “why would I be calling you to get us out of here?”

“Yeah, why would she?” Steve asks, but from farther away.

Don’t leave! Myka wants to exhort. She would never admit to needing backup in a counter-Claudia sense... but she does appreciate when Steve provides it.

“Oooh, because maybe the chat didn’t go so well,” Claudia says with great, and to Myka’s thinking entirely inappropriate, relish.

Trying for calm pragmatism, she says, “Wouldn’t I just... unpush the stop button then?”

“Myka,” Claudia says. It’s the most chiding, disappointment-laden use of her name Myka has ever heard, even when measured against all the times her father has uttered those two designating syllables. “Believe me when I tell you I’m a fan,” Claudia goes on, turning mollifying, “but you really need to lean in when it comes to tropes.” Myka can’t imagine how to respond to that, so she doesn’t. Claudia sighs—seemingly everyone’s preferred go-to when Myka fails to produce words—and says, “Did you try calling maintenance? Pushing the emergency button? Using your cell?”

“Yes, yes, and no service. Do you genuinely think I don’t understand modern communication technology?”

“I think you pretend you don’t understand newfangledness all the time. Particularly when you’re trying to show off how sympatico you are with H.G., who incidentally doesn’t seem to be piping up like I’d expect. Did you knock her unconscious after your terrible chat? Or maybe during it?”

Helena has indeed been very—very surprisingly—quiet while Myka has explained the situation to Claudia. And she doesn’t step in to help Myka out now. So much for any counter-Claudia backup.

“There was not a chat,” Myka says.

Helena is regarding herself in the mirrored ceiling.

“But there could be one now?” Claudia nudges. “Let me see if I can see what’s up. I’ve got cell service.” She disconnects.

Helena abruptly abandons her ceiling self-contemplation, focusing her gaze upon Myka. It’s disconcerting. “Are you attempting to avoid an uninterrupted chat?” she asks.

Myka can’t suss the question’s sincerity. And notwithstanding all her ideas about talking, she suffers a cringing internal “yes.” Externally, however, she says, in what she hopes offers at least a veneer of sincerity of her own, “No.”

She doesn’t follow up by asking “why would I be doing that,” because Helena would probably have a guess. And because that guess would probably be accurate: “You are a coward,” Helena might say, and Myka would regrettably have to either tell the truth and agree, or lie and disclaim any emotional investment in whatever the outcome of such a chat might be.

Silence. Longer than it should be... or is it as long as Myka deserves?

You wanted time together. Don’t bellyache about the form it takes.

“Your objection to mirrors,” Helena eventually says.

“What about it?” Myka asks. Her very soul flinches.

“What is it?”

Myka has never before stated her dislike of mirrors aloud, and she regrets having done so now. To play it off, she says a dismissive, “An artifact.” And yet the truth is that despite the unnerving nature of her interaction with Alice’s mirror and how it continues to prey on her mind, it isn’t really that—or rather, that only intensified her dislike.

But when Helena proposes, “Yet another ‘dealy-thingy’?”, clearly (and preciously) trying the phrase out in her mouth, Myka misleadingly (intentionally misleadingly) nods and says, “They’re all dealy-thingies.”

To that, Helena says, “Interesting.”

Myka would probe that word, but to do so might destabilize the ground, here in an elevator. Instead, for the moment, she tilts her head in the direction of the Christmas muzak, the literal elevator music, being piped in. “Oh, sure, that still works.” She gestures at the speaker, a thin dark stripe between two mirror-panels, from which the sound is emerging. The elevator is nothing if not insistent.

In truth, she doesn’t mind Christmas carols. She does mind the bowdlerization thereof, and isn’t that an attitude the dogmatic elevator really ought to share? O holy night, the stars are brightly... synthesizing? It’s wrong.

Now even her mind is vamping. Great.

Helena tilts her head toward the speaker, however, and Myka appreciates her willingness to be redirected. At least for a moment.

In fact, for all her vamping, mental and otherwise, Myka finds herself absurdly content to simply stand against a mirrored elevator wall and regard Helena... who in that instant of Myka’s acknowledged contentment seems to accept their predicament as unlikely to be resolved in a timely fashion: she sits down, of course elegantly, resting her back against her side of the box and stretching her legs (her legs, Myka’s body notes, just to let her know it’s still paying close attention) out in front of her.

The looking-down perspective is a bit disorienting—although at least this time it has nothing to do with being stuck to a ceiling—but Myka has no time to process it, for Helena’s next salvo, looking up, is, “You’ve been expecting me to remark further on naughtiness, haven’t you.”

Reading, yet again. “I kind of have,” Myka admits. It seems an overly judgmental statement, particularly given that Myka has to deliver it as if from an elevated bench. And yet... she kind of has.

“I’d rather not fulfill that expectation,” Helena says. “If we could speak of other things.”

Myka is a little thrown, but thankful. “That is entirely fine by me. What do you want to talk about?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly,” Myka says, meaning it as an answer to either interpretation of Helena’s interrogative: Are you asking what I want to talk honestly about? or Are you asking, with honest intent, what I want to talk about? She hopes Helena will respond similarly.

“Something that interests you,” Helena says.

That’s not in any way what she was expecting. “Really?”

“Really.”

It’s a word similar to, yet very different from, “honestly.” What, in a real sense, interests Myka? In this moment, all she can think to say is “you.” And perhaps because her normal inhibitions are disordered, here in this stopped elevator, that’s what she blurts out.

And that seems, incongruously, to take Helena aback. “What about me?” she asks.

Myka can’t say “everything.” It’s the real answer (really), but it’s far too... big. For an unexpected reunion, an unexpected uninterrupted chat—although Claudia or rescuers could at any point interrupt it, which Myka should hope happens (should)—it’s far too big.

So: smaller. What occurs first to Myka is “where have you been”—but that would most likely seem accusatory. She needs something else. Something something something...

In the aftermath of the Warehouse not being destroyed, she’d felt herself full of hard-earned wisdom and bravery: enough, surely, to stop hesitating. Enough, surely, to act. Or enough, at the very least, to articulate.

“Wisdom” and “bravery” now seem nothing more than labels on empty containers, and so “faintheartedness” is the fullness with which Myka here initially accuses her today self. But as Helena breathes and waits for an answer, Myka revises that, gentling it to “caution.” And she adds “care.” Because she is trying to attend to, to appreciate, that breathing. And that waiting.

These might be nothing more than self-indulgently comforting shifts in vocabulary... but then again they might be akin to the shift from “Christmas” to “end-of-year.” Gentle. Inclusionary.

The something something something that occurs to her—because in attempting to avoid her own reflection, she is confronted instead with multiple Helenas—concerns a topic she probably should censor but doesn’t: “When you were a hologram... or a projection, or whatever we should call it... did you have a reflection?” She then reflexively backtracks, “It shouldn’t matter? But I don’t know.” That last, she means both ways. She doesn’t know: whether the reflection existed, or whether it matters. But maybe it’s a sneak-up on things, because she shouldn’t ignore things, and because a seemingly inconsequential tangent might tiptoe toward importance.

“I don’t know either,” Helena says. “I suppose I would have?” Her face contracts. “Or perhaps not, as I don’t know how that holographic projection of myself was... projected. But I do intend to look into it.” She says this last as if Myka has caught her in some inattention, a recklessly uncompleted assignment.

“I never even started majoring in physics,” Myka laments, which is true but also, she hopes, reassuring in an I didn’t do the homework either sense, “so I don’t know the optics of it. Projections. Light and mirrors. “ She doesn’t mention that in the wake of Pittsburgh, she had indeed tried researching such things... she’d got as far as some advanced volumetric displays, ones using dust particles as screens onto which lasers projected light, but at a certain point, a tipping point, the idea of Helena existing as—being relegated to—nothing more than light and dust screamed a surpassing insult, a degradation conjuring death, and it was more than she could bear.

For now she puts that away. She shakes her head, shakes it free, and changes tack. “Anyway, that’s probably the wrong approach. This is Warehousey, so thinking outside physics, the laws... okay, all I know about reflections, unphysically, is that vampires don’t have them. So if you didn’t have one, then maybe all holograms are vampires?” Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. She would have done better to speak of dust, that and light and despair. Going with vampires instead? Talk about vamping...

“Presumably not vice versa,” Helena observes, seemingly taking Myka’s words far too seriously. “Certainly fictionally. Also not overly flattering, in the syllogistic sense of ‘Helena was a hologram, therefore.’”

“They’re very popular though,” Myka temporizes.

“Stoker’s novel was all the rage,” Helena allows.

The chat stalls out. Interrupting itself?

Myka nevertheless feels pressure to fill the silence: it’s her fault. Will a simple truth suffice? “I didn’t expect to be spending the day before Christmas eve with you,” she says. “Or any day with you. In Cleveland.”

A small smile from Helena marks this as a more welcome fill than a question about reflection. As do her next words: “Nor I with you. In Cleveland, or any place. Equally, I didn’t expect to be sent on a mission with you.”

“That part of it went well.” Myka gestures at her bag that contains the artifact.

“We did—and now do once again—make a good team.”

“I’m glad we got the chance to do it again. Glad, but also... relieved.”

“Relieved,” Helena echoes.

That wasn’t a question, but Myka answers anyway, “Well, obviously, first,” she says, feeling herself launching into an explanatory babble that she fears she’ll be powerless to stop, “because you didn’t have to talk anybody out of using Joshua’s Trumpet, so that really makes a difference in terms of how we—”

“‘First’,” Helena quotes, interrupting (stopping), conveying her full knowledge that that too is a vamp. “And second?”

“That we still are.” This, Myka says simple and frank.

“A good team?”

That is a question. Myka knows “yes” is the only sensical answer, so she tries to say it. But the depth and weight of the ways in which she and Helena “still are” choke her: they “still are” in the basic sense of existing, which was never a certainty; and even better, higher, these hours they’ve spent together today have made clear, to Myka at least, that they “still are”... well. She’d like to finish that with something like “in love,” but instead she tries to leave it, even in her head, at “still are,” with their time-crossed, maybe-destined predicate undefined.

“A good team” should be good enough—true enough—for now.

So after a stretch of time during which Myka knows she’s been focusing her gaze far too intently on Helena, she manages that “yes.”

Helena waits to speak.... are her eyes glistening more brightly than usual, or is Myka hallucinating? “I’m relieved as well,” she says, and Myka chooses to simply delight in whatever prompted such a saturated sparkle.

It draws her closer.

She crosses the small-yet-large elevator-width that separates them. “I need to either sit down beside you or help you up,” she says. “Do you have a preference?”

“For?” Helena’s eyes continue to glow.

That shine... Myka has hopes. They may not be realized, but she has them, the product of relief, “still are,” and an unknown predicate. “Whatever’s next,” she says.

A bit of time passes, with Helena now being the one focused most intently. “I’ll stand,” is her verdict.

Myka reaches down with both—both—hands, offering, and Helena reaches up, accepting. Their fingers meet and clasp, and too cold, Myka thinks, for both of them have a chill in those extremities... but first impressions of temperature promptly fall away as the new reality of the clasp roars into precedence.

Myka has never been so certain of, so certain of and enchanted by, what must and will happen next in her life. Never in her life so certain, as the clasp tightens, as their torsos lean, as Myka’s body begins an at-last congratulation, one that will become a celebration—

A voice from somewhere overhead barks, “Everybody okay in there?”

TBC

[purple-boi-clefairy-god]

Drew a little bit of fanart of @marchy-emmet ‘s Robot Emmet! He was incredibly fun to draw :]

[jo-march-wannabe]

is “please im just a twenty-something year old teenage girl” a valid excuse to my quantum physics professor for my late homework

[myebix]

consider! what if jax wound up in the digital circus when he was 14, and his avatar reflected that? there's so much potential here...