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apparitionism · 2 years

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Run 11a

Well. Where were we? I keep having to reintroduce this story because it takes me so long to get to and through each part... in the large, it’s about the ethics of the use of advanced technology in athletic competition. But in the more-important small, it’s also about a Myka and a Helena trying to work out their own ethical differences, with regard to both that technology and a whole host of other issues, including their romantic past and possible—but not assured—romantic future. In the previous part, these two would-be ethicists seemed to have found themselves at the put-up-or-shut-up point, in that Helena had just asked Myka “What now?” There are a lot of answers to that question, and this part commences some forward-and-back time-shifting in order to explore them... I did a lot of that in part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7a, part 7b, part 8, part 9a, part 9b, and part 10.

Run 11a

Myka stood next to Steve, as tall and strong as she knew how to stand. For once, he needed her support: a tiny but significant wrinkle of solemnity creased his brow, marring his usual placid air yet fitting the momentous nature of this, his wedding day.

Fitting, too—in both senses—was his bespoke tuxedo, which rendered him even more handsome than usual... Myka allowed herself to feel a little pulse of handsome of her own, for her dark suit, a softer echo of his, was equally bespoke, its smooth silk an expensive privilege against her skin.

The suit’s so-careful design, its so-intentional function, made her think of Deceits... a slightly incongruous thought, and yet: as they had turned Myka into A Runner, this suit turned her into A Best Person. She allowed as how she was always going to have needed some help with that latter. In this case, she welcomed the augmentation.

The wedding was a bigger event that she had thought it would be, and she’d remarked on that to Steve when suit-fittings and other prefatory activities seemed to escalate. “Bigger than I’d thought,” he agreed, “but Liam’s parents said ‘go all out,’ with the checkbook to back it up, so we did. Who turns down a party?”

Who turns down a party. Funny that he would put it that way...

****

When Helena had asked “What now”, Myka had enjoyed a flash of certainty... because the moment their hands had touched, everything had seemed so very obvious. And based on that, “what now” had to in fact be a question about where, not what, for how could they not be on the same page of escalation?

An instant later, the where answer struck her just as certainly: “We’re actually in a hotel,” Myka said. “Right this minute, that’s where we are. In a hotel.”

Helena didn’t say anything.

The lack of reaction gave Myka pause. “And it has rooms?” she offered, but with less conviction.

“My plane boards in less than two hours,” Helena said. A stolid utterance. Unmoved.

So much so, in fact, that Myka’s initial response was to snap to match it, adopting a correspondingly aloof “If you’re unmoved, then so am I” stance—but no. That was counterproductive. Helena just wasn’t convinced yet, and who could blame her? All right, then: Myka would have to do more to establish her truth. “Are you saying we need more time than that?” she asked, trying for light, yet feeling her grip on certainty slacken. Trying harder, she said, “But also, people sometimes miss planes.”

Wrong response: Helena’s jaw took on a clench; her lips, a press. (Her jaw. Her lips.)

“I’ve told my father I’ll be home soon,” she said. “He told me I should come round.”

Myka couldn’t quite locate the genre of wrong into which her “people sometimes miss planes” play had fallen, but she did know that she had always been on the same continent—in the same country, even—as her father. And “he told me I should come round” sounded less like an obligation than that “should” suggested, more like... something sought? As if Helena were pleased by, yet defensive about being pleased by, having been told to “come round.”

How could Myka even begin to think of putting herself in the way of that?

But she had to think of it, so she did think of it, because what she sought was right here, right now—her breathing matching Myka’s as it always did, always had done, even when they could not bridge such expanses as a broken-glass-hazard hallway, or a dangerously not-quite-deserted elevator lobby—with no guarantee she ever would be again. And even now, Myka was sure that if she pressed, Helena would be moved. That inadvertent hand-touch, with the generating jump it had delivered to Myka: Helena had to have felt it too.

Had to think, had to have felt; so much had to, and so Myka fell, fast, into a consequent, seemingly inevitable, had to: she had to try the touch again—try it this time deliberately, moving her hand to Helena’s, moving her hand against Helena’s—and there again was the jump, the rush, and Myka’s heart jumped and rushed too, because surely now—

—but Helena flinched. She withdrew her hand. “Don’t,” she said.

This simple slip of my skin on your skin unfolds an entire world and you say “Don’t”? A world-destroying prohibition. “Don’t now? Or don’t ever?”

“Don’t now,” Helena said. “I can’t speak to ever.”

Was that a reprieve? If so, it was far, far less of one than Myka wanted. “Can I speak to ever?”

“I’m sure you can.”

Those words, overlain with a slight satirical cant, were reminiscent of Helena’s historical didactic streak. Intentionally? With hope, Myka re-inquired, parodically dark: “May I?”

That got a half-smile. It seemed a break... into which Myka placed, with some sadness, “You don’t believe me.”

“I want to believe you,” Helena said, the half-smile reducing by half. A quarter-smile... too fractional. Not really a smile at all. Not anymore.

The diminishing hurt Myka’s heart. “But it’s risky,” she said, adding, “that want?” As if it were a guess and not a statement of absolute truth.

“Yes. I see what you’re doing.”

Well, this should be illuminating. Or something. “What am I doing?”

“Illustrating why you were correct to reject the risk of believing me. Offering an object lesson.”

Oh. Oh. Because Myka had herself said “don’t.” And she had pressed on to “don’t ever,” and she had meant it, and this... was this revenge? Or was Helena willfully, self-protectively, misinterpreting? “And if I am? Offering that... lesson,” Myka said, hoping for some sign.

“Effective,” Helena said. She raised her glass to her mouth and drank. An emphatic swallow.

Myka watched Helena’s throat. Wine in her mouth, descending; what followed. What used to follow. Not a sign, but a reminder: why she was here right now. “And if I’m not?” she asked.

No answer.

“Because I’m not,” Myka said. Helena’s face gave her nothing to go on, neither encouragement nor warning, so she went forward with what she could: “Don’t go. I can’t say it any more plainly.”

“But I am going. I can’t say that any more plainly.” And yet her hard mouth softened—or was Myka only wishing it had?—as she continued, “Dan Badger will call me, you said, so it’s likely I’ll come back.”

“To AAI,” Myka said. She left the now-obvious, cutting corollary—“not to me”—unvoiced.

“Yes,” Helena said. It seemed painfully final.

****

“What is taking him so long?” Steve murmured to Myka, as they stood together. And kept standing. She had walked out first, followed by Steve; Liam and his best person (who was in fact not a person at all, but Rita Hayworth, the couple’s red Afghan hound) were to have emerged next, leading into the true start of the ceremony. But there was as yet no sign of either of the pretty pair.

“His hair,” Myka assured him. “Or his tie. Or Rita’s ears. You love how particular he is.”

“Making me wait,” Steve fretted, that brow wrinkle becoming more pronounced. “At the literal altar.”

“First, we’re in a hotel ballroom, not a church, so not literal. But second, anticipation isn’t so bad.”

She had meant it to mollify, but he gave her a brief, sly smile, its sunshine sneaking through his solemnity. “Isn’t it?” he asked, also sly.

In the moment, she was glad to have distracted him this little bit. Still, if they hadn’t been the focus of several hundred people, she might have given his shoulder a shove. Gently, of course; he wasn’t Pete. As it was, she murmured, “This isn’t about me.”

****

Helena had risen from the bar stool, then leaned down, choreographically perfect, to heft her carry-on bag (elegant, so elegant). As she bent her right arm up to position the bag’s strap over her shoulder, her jacket strained close around that curling biceps. The tight convexity of muscle, another reminder that was not a sign, called out to Myka, and Myka called back: “Wait!”

That did gain Helena’s surprised attention: a prize now, one that Myka wanted to hoard. “What?” Helena asked, and Myka similarly wanted to salt away that slightly breathless question, regardless of whether its slight breathlessness signified annoyance or something more meaningful.

Wavering internally, for the briefest of worries—was she really going to try to call this into being?—she blurted, too fast, too unmeasured, “I have to go to a wedding.”

Helena squinted. Myka found the confusion betrayed by that squint perfect. If she could perpetuate that perfection... “This minute?” Helena asked.

She wasn’t quick enough to come up with any way to perpetuate it. “Of course not,” she said.

“Well, not your own, I hope,” Helena offered.

Whatever Helena was trying with that, it seemed altogether too lightheartedly possessive, given how she had been ready to leave things. But fine: “Why would you hope I wouldn’t have to go to my own wedding?” Myka asked.

“Are we speaking in the realm of the hypothetical or the real?”

That seemed not lighthearted but absurd. “This airport seems pretty real to me. You’re making it that way.” As opposed to the dream it could be if you would just let me get a room.

“I’ll accept that,” Helena answered, as if she’d heard the thought and wanted to affirm Yes that is what I am rejecting. “So this wedding is real as well?”

Nice dodge of why it matters what realm we’re speaking in... or maybe in the end it doesn’t matter at all. Myka sighed. “Of course it’s real. My good friend—best friend—Steve is marrying the man he loves.”

“I’m sure you have a reason for conveying this information,” Helena said. But not as dismissively as she might have done, standing there in her bag-on-shoulder impatience.

Could Helena truly be curious? Was Myka’s flash of an idea actually going to work? She said, “I also have to be in the wedding.”

“That information as well.” Still impatient... but Helena was nevertheless still not moving.

“I need a plus-one.” Myka said. She didn’t, not really. “I’d feel foolish if I were the only person in the wedding without a plus-one.” She wouldn’t, not really. But she paused, waited... because maybe Helena would stop willfully misunderstanding and take the opportunity. Because that would mean that she wanted an opportunity.

But no. Helena said nothing: no taking. Thus no wanting? But Myka, hopeful because Helena was still not moving, began a new push, a true push, with, “Would you consider being my—”

“I can’t.” Helena forced her words over Myka’s, as if letting her finish would be a disaster.

For the length of an inhale—just that—Myka felt herself on the edge of bursting into world-changing tears, unleashing a new violence that would lead her to beg answers from Helena to the most important questions. Tears, violence—but then she exhaled. Fortunately? The small, not-quite-steady question she settled for was, “Why not?”

Helena didn’t answer immediately. Was she trying to hide a truth? Or working out how best to express one? “Because I like this look in your eyes,” she finally said.

How was that a reason to say no? “I’ll have this look”—whatever it is, Myka added internally—“at the wedding. I promise.”

“But for how long after?” Helena asked.

Myka could tell her words weren’t intended a real question; rather, they seemed a fatalistic statement, resigned to the idea of some inevitably horrible result. Some let-down of a look in Myka’s eyes.

In their first iteration a horrible result had been—in retrospect—inevitable, or very close to it, but Helena certainly hadn’t wanted to head it off then. “Since when are you this person?” Myka asked, and her utterance was a question.

“Since,” Helena said, and then she stopped—punctuation. She smiled a beatific smile and continued, “Sainting.”

Sainting, Myka fumed internally. I am going to kill everyone at AAI, starting with Dan Badger and working my way down, and I will die jailed, yet content.

But she couldn’t sustain anger; her fume dissolved, forlorn: And also lonely, but apparently lonely is just going to be the baseline.

“It’s for the best,” Helena said, seemingly taking Myka’s hesitation for... hesitation.

“That isn’t what you thought before,” Myka reminded her. If only she could impress upon Helena the renewed importance of every single instance of that “before,” if only, if only, if only... but there was no opportunity, for:

“No, it isn’t,” Helena agreed.

And then she left.

****

When at last Liam began his walk down the aisle, with Rita gliding next to him, he did chime absolute perfection: the tie, the hair, the elegant dog... whatever had made him make Steve wait, it had been worth it. Myka knew that for truth, because Steve, regarding that perfection, wore exactly the dazzled disbelief Myka would have wished for him, if she had known how to wish it, so many law-school years ago.

Standing both as witness to the marriage coming into being before her and as necessarily excluded bystander, Myka found herself prompted to consider what “marriage” really was: Steve and Liam’s in particular, but also marriage as such. For the two impossibly beautiful men here at the non-altar, it was a sign of faith in the future, a belief that the future would be like the past... or, no, a wish that the future could be like the past; that a lovely past, their lovely past, could presage and motivate a lovely future.

She herself suffered from the belief, but she rejected the wish. She clung to a contrary hope: that a disastrous past could motivate—or at least not impede—a diametrically opposed future. That might not be marriage. But it might not not be marriage either. Steve and Liam’s beautiful achievement gave her the space to believe in possibility.

****

As she watched Helena disappear into the airport, Myka had, for that strange, estranging stretch of time thought on how she might leave the bar, go to the hotel’s front desk, hand over her credit card, and let herself disappear, for a day or two or three or a week, taking time out of time, sitting and settling in to mourn her inability to ever, ever, ever do the right thing at the right time where Helena was concerned.

When she had initially approached Helena in the bar, she’d felt the lift of renewed and renewing power, as if her side hustle—no, her main hustle!—really was running the world, as if she could bend any circumstance to her will, as if her presence and her perseverance would certainly, obviously, be enough to convince Helena to stay. Really stay.

So much for power. So much for bending anything at all. Pathetic, she berated herself, and her “disappear” thought was pathetic too: What, seriously, her rational, punitive side asked, would you do in a hotel room, for a day or two or three or a week or any time at all? Sit there?

If she was going to sit somewhere, it should be her desk at work. She could sit, blessedly calmly, at her desk at work. Sit calmly at her desk and work, with no overlay of worry that someone uniquely disconcerting would invade her space.

Be thankful for that.

****

“You seem like you’re alone,” Pete greeted her as she entered her—their—space.

She’d hoped it would be late enough that he’d be gone, but all right, he wasn’t. She tried to not resent his presence... she didn’t quite succeed. But she was able to say, with reasonably good humor, “I’d be lost without your powers of observation.”

“Seriously. You totally would. But also, what’s the story? I’d say what’s the story morning glory, but you look way too droopy to be one of those.”

“They get droopy at night,” Myka informed him. “Morning glories. And it pretty much is night. So why are you still here?”

“Aha, so I got it right the first time: what’s the story, morning glory?”

“When Dan Badger calls Helena, she’ll take whatever job he offers.”

“And?” he prompted, clearly ready for excitement, titillation, outrageousness—something to whisper and shout about every time he got near the elevators.

She hated feeling sorry that she couldn’t give him that reward. “And that’s the story, morning glory.” She had a vague thought that she should try to qualify that with a joke about how he wasn’t droopy and so wasn’t really a morning glory at this time of day. It was beyond her.

“FYI, that isn’t a story at all,” he said, as if that was really going to be news to her. “Stories have beginnings, plus middles—”

“Plus ends. Yes, I know.”

The minute she said “ends,” his demeanor downshifted. “Aw, man. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Myka told him, honestly.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She knew he meant it sincerely, but all she could manage was, “I don’t know that either. I’ll work it out later.” She felt he needed a boon, so she asked, “How’s Kelly? Are you two engaged yet? When’s the wedding? I like weddings.”

He perked up a little. “You do?”

Obviously she was not yet recalibrated for reality. Anybody’s. But why bother? “Yes,” she said. “In fact I have one in a couple of weeks.”

“You’re getting married?!?” he exclaimed, downshift entirely reversed. “I’m pretty sure that’s the story, morning glory!”

Okay, there was reality, right there meeting the road. “Not the story, because not my wedding. Why do people keep thinking it’s mine?”

“People? Who’s ‘people’?” But he knew. She could see it in his rising eyebrows.

He was altogether too quick sometimes. “Never mind,” she said. “Never mind about weddings at all. Just tell me some work to do, and I’ll do it.”

Now he snickered. “Oh, I’ll tell you some work to do. That’s really why I’m still here. And trust me, you’ll laugh when you hear what it is.”

“I could use a laugh. Hit me.”

“We’re supposed to rejigger the Mechanical Aids guidelines.”

Okay, maybe she wasn’t only not recalibrated to reality, Pete’s anyway, but also untethered from it entirely, because: “That isn’t funny.”

“It is when you hear the reason: they’re worried somebody’s going to try to claim they need Deceits—or something like ’em—as an aid. I gotta say, it’s times like this I can’t believe how lucky I got, you being a lawyer. You know how many back-and-forths I used to have to do with Legal before anything got finalized, back in the pre-Myka beforetimes?”

“I’m not a lawyer,” Myka said, and uttering those words for the second time this day did hurt... but she had to be honest: she was at the same time delighted. For did she take pride in consistently saving Certification and Compliance from having to go back and forth? Of course she did. She’d always thought, and now she had some real confirmation, that this was why she’d got her AAI job in the first place: to make this department work more efficiently.

It wasn’t the reward she’d wanted, wished for, dreamed of, to end her day, but it was what she had. In her first Helena aftermath, she’d had her anger but no job; in this one, she had a hollow where her anger had once been, but she did have a job. She had work to do—useful, valuable work.

So she put her head down and did it.

TBC

#bering and wells #Warehouse 13 #fanfic #Run #part 11a #AU week #apologies for having returned yet again to an old structural trick #but I needed to goose myself into thinking a little harder #and as I mentioned with regard to those appreciation week pieces #sometimes it takes an intellectual puzzle #to start (and keep) the gears turning #however slowly and laboriously they end up going

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ghostedeabha · 1 year

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imagine like simon goes into some sort of surgery and has to be put under anesthesia, and when he gets out hes like still high asf on it 💀 and hes being a lil silly goose

okay this is such a cute idea omg, this is 100% based off that tiktok audio where it's like "my wife wouldn't like you touching me like that" "i AM your wife."

thank you so much for the request nonnie, a forehead kiss for you MWAH MWAH

simon 'ghost' riley x reader

wc: 563

warnings: none really, lots and lots of that good ol fluff, mentions of surgery, goofy simon, maybe a little ooc simon (he's high so it's fine)

a/n: i hope this is okay, i'm feeling a bit rusty with my writing but i've finally got back some motivation and energy to do so after the past two months of low energy and bad mental health. if you guys want to know a bit more about it and my mental health (i don't see why anyone would but lmao) let me know, i don't mind making a post about it if you guys want an explanation of some sort or whatever. anywho, sorry this is so short but i hope you still like it!! <3

a/n 2.0: i recently applied for a part time job at a bookstore so y'all pray for me that i get this job because i want it so bad. i am just gonna decide that i WILL get this job, because why wouldn't i?

simon had been out of surgery for just over an hour now, being a soldier you 'd think perhaps he was going under surgery for some kind of wound he had inflicted upon him on the battlefield but no, he was just getting his tonsils removed after a bad bout of tonsillitis ended up with him developing really bad tonsil stones.

so here you were, waiting by his bedside for him to wake up. the doctor and nurses reminded you just as he had gotten out that he may still be a little, well loopy, off of the meds depending on how quickly he woke up. you waited in a chair at his bedside, reading a book when you heard the blankets of the bed rustling just a little.

looking up from your book you see simon starting to wake up and you reach out to grasp his hand, only for him to rip it away from you when his eyes were fully opened.

"uh, si? you okay, hon?" you ask gently, maybe he just wasn't feeling too well after waking up, or perhaps he wasn't wanting physical touch, that happened quite often and you always respected that space he may want when he wanted it.

"don't call me that." simon said, voice hoarse and scratchy from the surgery, he sounded a little angry.

"what?" you questioned, this wasn't like simon, you couldn't understand why he wouldn't want you speaking like this to him.

"i'm taken."

"i know." you replied with a short laugh.

"you should be touching me like that then."

it hit you then, he was woozy from the meds and didn't recognize you. the realization made you laugh a little more. you decided to have a bit of fun with this high version of your boyfriend.

"sorry about that simon. wanna tell me about your partner?"

"oh, (name)? they're amazing, you know they're so pretty. and they're funny too. they always know how to make me feel better, i miss them." simon replies, ranting and raving on and on to you about his partner, about you.

"you love them a lot, don't you?" you ask him with a smile, it felt so nice to hear all these lovely things about yourself, your boyfriend clearly unfiltered by the effects of the anesthesia he was under.

sure he definitely said sweet things to your face, but something about hearing it when he was basically high as shit made your heart pound a little more.

"i love them with my whole heart." simon replies, a goofy little smile on his face.

you can't help but reach out to gently caress his face at those words, body filling up with some much adoration for the soldier in front of you.

"hey! what did i say about touching me. i have a partner!" simon scolds, trying to dodge your touch.

"simon, love... i am your partner. it's me, (name)." you reply with a laugh.

simon takes a good long look at you when you tell him this, he stares at you, looks you up and down before letting out a soft and quiet "oh."

you begin to hear the beeping of his heart rate monitor speed up, his cheeks turning slightly pink as he stares up at you.

you couldn't help but laugh a little more at this. what a sweet idiot. your sweet idiot.

#ghostedéabha #éabha writes #éabha's 💌#ghostedéabha: ghost #ghostedéabha: simon riley #simon ghost riley fluff #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x reader fluff #ghost riley x reader #awnie's amazing nonnies💞

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