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steve0discusses · 4 years

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S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell

Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)

This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!

Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)

Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.

I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.

We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.

The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.

Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.

Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.

Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.

(read more under the cut)

Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.

Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.

Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.

And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.

Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?

Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”

Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”

Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.

We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.

And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.

THE RECOVERY.

Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)

Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.

These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?

Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?

Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.

Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.

Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.

After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.

One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.

Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.

Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.

Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.

Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.

Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.

Good. I hate him.

Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.

So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)

And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.

Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?

Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.

My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?

I have fully failed him.

The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.

Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.

Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?

Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?

Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?

Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own

-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove

-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time

-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.

-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.

-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.

-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.

-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?

-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.

-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.

-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.

-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.

-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.

-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator

-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.

-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.

-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.

-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.

-This episode

And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:

(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)

The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.

Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.

Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”

Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”

(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)

What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.

Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”

According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like

“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”

But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.

But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:

youtube

Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.

#yugioh #ygo #yu gi oh #photo recap #recap #episode recap #yugi muto #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #Joey Wheeler #Apdnarg #Grandpa muto #tea gardner #tristan taylor #professor hawkins #and then I ranted about BTS #but please don't quiz me about BTS I know nothing about them aside from the music #I actually thought there were over 12 of them because every time I see them perform it feels like an entire stageplay production of people #like a 101 dalmations situation where every time I saw BTS there were 3 new people #I assumed it was like the Gorrilaz where people just show up and then disappear in a rotation #but no. There's 7 BTS members #that can't be right #there has to be more than 7 #is this a berenstein bears situation?#how is there only 7?#I swear there used to be like 16 #and they would be introduced like here's jimin and Jungkook and red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and pea #like is google seriously telling me there's only 7 kids in this band?#this is the biggest scam google has ever played on me #this weird alternate timeline that not only has an epidemic but also only 7 members of BTS

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bosspigeon · 3 years

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one for sorrow

Pairing: Gen, M!Detective/Mason Word Count: 3483 Summary: Juniper Fenn reflects on memories, nursery rhymes, loneliness, and wanting to be wanted.

Just a little (uh... kinda big, actually?) character study for my soft boy, Juni! It wound up a lot more emotional than I originally intended, but I like having this insight into his character.

CW for (implied) deadnaming, misgendering, coming out, and in the last portion a non-graphic post-sex scene with some allusions to said sex ahfdsjh.

One for sorrow, two for joy.

He thought the needle would hurt more than it did. He closes his eyes and looks away, and the artist gives him the hairy eyeball when he clutches at Tina’s knee, like she’s afraid he’ll jump off the bench and bolt for the door. He wants to ask if that’s happened before, but he thinks he’s made enough of a fool of himself so far.

“You sure you’re good?” she asks, giving him an out. Somehow, that just strengthens his resolve.

He takes a slow breath and nods, closing his eyes.

He hears the buzzing, and when the machine first touches skin, he almost jumps, but he’s more worried about looking like more of a baby than he already does than he is startled, so he bites his lips and forces himself to holds still. And it does hurt, but not like he thought it would. He squints one eye open to watch the progress of the first line over his skin. He expects to be repulsed, like when he’s having bloodwork done, and he has to look away from the needle going into his arm. But this is different, somehow. Doesn’t make his stomach turn.

“This is the quietest I’ve ever seen you,” Tina teases, when the first wing has taken shape. He almost jumps again, but he manages to contain it to a twitch. He’s going to tip the artist as much as he’s able after this is done, just for dealing with someone as fidgety as him.

He chews at his lip. “It’s… I dunno. I wouldn’t say it feels good, but it’s kind of soothing, in a weird way?”

She leans over, watching, and the artist gives her a bit of a look, so she backs up again. “Have you told your mum?” she asks.

He snorts out a laugh and looks away, back at the stencil on his arm that will soon be filled in with black feathers and ringed with flowers. “Of course not. She’d probably kill me.”

“She doesn’t like tattoos?” Tina tilts her head, watching his face like she’s waiting for him to start whining about how it hurts. She’s always been the tougher of the two of them, and he’s got no illusions about that, so he’s sort of proud of himself for keeping his cool—as much as he’s got anyway.

He shrugs the arm that’s not under the machine, and wonders when he’ll get his next tattoo. He’s already got ideas for more, and knowing that it’s not so bad as he was worried it would be is exciting. Not to mention, it’s something that’s just for him. Not for anyone else. He’s… never really done anything like this before. “I don’t know what she likes, but I doubt she’d approve.”

She sucks her teeth and he squeezes her knee again when she gives him that soft, sad look she sometimes does when his mum comes up in conversation. “What’s it going to be?” she asks suddenly. Tina’s a good friend, changing the subject before he can get moody about it.

“A magpie,” he says softly, looking back down to watch the lone bird slowly taking shape on his skin.

Three for a girl, four for a boy.

He asks what happened to all the pretty paintings around the house when he’s ten, because they disappear sometime after one of Mum’s visits, when she seemed more distant than usual. Maybe she hopes he won’t notice, but he misses them immediately. The house is too bare without them, it feels so lonely. It’s always been lonely, ever since Dad passed, but the bare walls make it even lonelier. Mum brushes it off, of course. He’s used to it at this point, so he doesn’t push her, but he’s also stubborn, so he goes looking. He’s even more determined when she tries to shut him up by replacing them all with clean, impersonal prints in neat little frames. He finds them in the attic, tucked away in a box, each one slipped carefully into a protective sleeve or folder and wrapped in tissue paper. He finds a dreamy matted watercolor of him as a baby, fat and freckly and smiling with no teeth, and he has to take a minute to sit down and cry as quietly as possible before he can start going through the rest. There’s a folder of scrawled pencil portraits, too. He finds one of Mum sitting on a pier, peeking back over her shoulder with her hair blowing in the wind. She’s smiling. He can’t remember the last time he saw her smile.

There’s a self portrait that makes him laugh through his tears, because the reflective surface Dad seems to have used as his mirror is a Christmas ornament, so his face is distorted, one eye huge, his tongue out, drawing himself drawing. He keeps that one for sure, and a few of the other ones he thinks he can get away with. An oil pastel of a wooden swing dripping with honeysuckle, a colored pencil drawing of the library, a few studies of people and plants and animals, and another watercolor of the three magpies, sitting in a juniper tree.

There are three magpies painted on his bedroom wall, from back when it was his nursery. Dad painted them right after he was born, before they brought him home from the hospital. They’d waited until he arrived to know what his gender would be. Of course, he went and messed that up, like he did most things. Sometimes he wonders if Dad would be disappointed, or if he’d think it was funny.

They used to be above his crib, and then his bed when he outgrew that, but he moves his bed to the opposite side of his room when he’s fourteen, and covers them with a poster. He thinks for sure Mum’s going to give him an earful about it, but he’s surprised she hasn’t tried to cover them up herself. He supposes it’s not really an issue, since when she is home, it’s not like she spends any time in his bedroom.

And then he's sixteen, and he’s been practicing his watercolor for years at this point. Sometimes, he creeps into the attic when he’s got the house to himself, rifles through Dad’s paintings, studies his style for as long as he can. He’s been old enough not to need a proper nanny for years now, though someone comes to check up on him frequently and make sure he’s got food and necessities, but beyond that he’s got plenty of time alone. He sits in the attic until he's sore from the wooden floor, trying to think of how Dad’s hands might have looked while he worked, the speed and angle of his brush strokes. He doesn’t think he can find anything new at this point, as many times as he’s snuck up here to look at Dad’s work, but out of the blue, he finds what might have been a really nice landscape, if it weren’t marred by fat little handprints in bright yellow and green, as if he’d smeared his hands across the palette the second Da took his eyes off it, and slapped them down in the middle of the paper. He comes back to it a lot, when he spends time in the attic, because when he looks at it, he swears he can hear what he imagines Dad’s laugh sounded like, his voice calling him a little menace with all the fondness in the world.

And then he’s eighteen, and he’s alone on his birthday. Mum calls, tells him she loves him and she would come and visit him later on, so they could do something together, but she couldn’t take the day off. She tells him how proud she is of her daughter being all grown up, and he winces, but keeps his mouth shut.

And then he maybe gets a little bit drunk, drags out his paints and brushes, rifles through the portfolio hidden carefully in the back of his closet, and finds the painting with the juniper tree and the three magpies

He takes another shot to steady his nerves, and paints in a fourth.

Five for silver, six for gold.

He shouldn’t be surprised Mum doesn't come to his graduation, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. She’s busy, she’s always been busy, she’s been busy since he was a toddler.

He was stupid to believe anything he did would be important enough for her to bother with. To believe that he could matter to anyone enough.

Tina’s stepmum had more foresight than he did, inviting him along to her and Tina’s celebration dinner at a fancy restaurant out of town, and he has to take a minute to cry in the bathroom after they proudly present him with a messily wrapped gift and a card that practically explodes with glitter when he open it, but he can’t even pretend to be annoyed because it has his name in it, and while he's trying very hard not to break down crying in public, Tina hugs him so tightly his spine creaks and tells him she couldn’t have wished for a better brother.

When they drop him off at home, his eyes are still red and a bit wet, he’s full of good food and affection, and he’s smiling like an idiot in spite of the fact that he can’t stop sniffling. The heavy sterling silver magpie skull charm rests against his collarbone, the weight comforting in a way he can’t hope to put into words. He'll never forget Tina’s dewy, smiling eyes as she clasped it around his neck and told him proudly, “Now you’ve got two.'"

He falls into bed holding the charm, reluctant to take it off, but knowing he should put it somewhere safe before bed. He exhales a happy sigh, laughing a bit wetly to himself.

And then his phone vibrates in the pocket of his slacks, and his heart seizes in his chest.

He doesn’t have to check the ID to know who it is. Nobody ever calls him, and his eyes flicker anxiously to the pressed dress in its plastic garment bag still hanging untouched on the back of his closet door. He’d given Tina the expensive name-brand heels for her own graduation outfit, because even if he did want them, he couldn’t walk in the damn things anyway. Lucky for him, they wear the same size shoe.

He takes a moment to calm his breathing, but that means he has to fumble to answer the call before it ends, and he winces when he sees two more missed calls in his log. “Mum!” he blurts, his voice instinctively pitching higher. “Hi! How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she tells him easily. “I’m sorry again I couldn’t make it today. There was a—”

“A big project, I know,” he finishes. It’s always a project, or a trip, or a meeting. The details are always scant, but Mum knows how to make it sound big and important and in need of her attention. He’s tried not to be bitter about it, but there’s always been a part of him that wishes, for once, she’d decide he was important enough to need her attention. “It’s okay, Mum.” It’s not, it never was, but it would be selfish of him to tell her that. She’s got enough to worry about.

“Well, I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten, so I had a gift delivered. It should have arrived today.”

He bites back a sigh. He wonders if it would be easier if she had just forgotten. If it would hurt less than knowing she always made the decision not to see him. “Oh, I’ll go check!” he blurts, trying to inject as much enthusiasm into his voice as possible. He rolls out of bed and heads for the door, poking out to check the mailbox. Of course, inside there is a slim, rectangular package, wrapped in tidy brown paper. The address and names are printed on stickers.

He takes it inside with the phone tucked against his shoulder, weighing the box in his hands. It’s light, and he wants to be excited about whatever it is, but he’s suddenly drained from the day, from crying and laughing and crying some more.

The dining room, somehow, has always felt more lonely than anywhere else in the house, and he’s never been able to figure out why, but he puts the package on the table and starts picking at the neat wrapping. Mum is quiet on the other end of the phone, waiting, and Juni wants to break the odd silence, but can’t even begin to think of what to say. He wishes he didn’t bite his nails, because it takes him way too long to break into the pristine paper, and inside is a long red jewelry box. When he lifts the lid, there is a delicate gold necklace resting on a soft velvet pad, understated and objectively lovely, if not really his style, but it’s the note that flutters out of the box that catches his attention. His eyes skim the note, expecting her usual platitudes that he sometimes wonders if she has someone else type for her.

I am so proud of the woman you’ve become.

His breath leaves him in a painful, strangled rush, his lungs squeezing tight in his chest. And before Mum can speak, he blurts "I can't take this," trailed by a ragged sob.

“Of course you can,” she says gently, kindly. “I know how you get about expensive gifts, but really, it’s no trouble—”

His head fills with screaming static when she calls him what she’s always called him, what she doesn’t know better than to call him, because he’s never told her. He’s never had the chance, it’s never been the right time, it felt wrong not to do it in person, but whenever he sees her in person he feels like he shouldn’t waste the time with her by bringing up something so…

“My name is Juniper!” It explodes out of him, louder than he’s ever been with her, and it stuns her into silence. “I’m not your daughter!” he cries desperately, “I’m your son. You can’t be proud of the woman I’ve become, because I’m not a woman!” He sounds insane, he knows he does, shrill and frantic, but his heart is hammering so hard he feels dizzy, the walls are yawning wide around him, the dining room feels huge and so empty and so bleak. He’s never felt more alone in this dark, quiet house he’s spent his entire life rattling around in than he does in this exact moment, and it’s suffocating. His phone drops from shaking fingers onto the floor, and he drops with it, curling into a ball and struggling to remember how to breathe, dizzily hoping he won’t need to go scrambling for his inhaler. His fingers clench so tightly around the heavy silver charm he’s almost worried he’s going to snap the simple leather cord, but he needs to ground himself or he feels like he’ll dissolve entirely.

He hears Mum calling the name that’s not his, and when he finally manages to fumble his phone with nerveless fingers, he winces seeing the screen is cracked. “I’m sorry,” he sobs weakly, his eyes burning with tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He can’t even be sure what he’s apologizing for, but he knows he has to, especially when he slams the end call button and buries his face in his knees so he can cry alone in the dark.

Seven for a secret, never to be told.

Juni’s skin is starting to get clammy, but he’s too comfortable to move. Eventually, he’s going to have to, if for nothing else than to get up and get cleaned up, but for now, he’s happy, if a little chilly. He nuzzles into the soft curls dusted across Mason’s chest, and lets his eyelids fall to half-mast, just open enough to absently count the freckles hidden under the chest hair, inevitably lose count, and start counting again. Mason smells good, cooling sweat and sandalwood, and dozy as he is, it takes a moment for Juni to realize he doesn’t really smell like smoke at all anymore. His room doesn’t smell lke smoke, either, he realizes. His heart thuds hard behind his ribs.

He gets distracted when a shiver rolls over him, the chill suddenly overwhelming against his sticky skin, and he curls further into Mason’s chest in an attempt to leach some of his warmth.

Mason clicks his tongue, and Juni’s whole body stiffens, worry zinging into his gut to rattle around there like a bird in a too-small cage. Mason shifts underneath him, and he starts to roll away, to apologize, to get out of his hair, before a strong hand clasps the back of his neck.

“Hold still,” Mason grunts, sitting up and patting around for the edge of the blanket. He pulls it out from under them both, which almost sends the detective rolling off the bed against his will this time, but Mason's hand shifts down to spread across his lower back and hold him steady until he can get them both tucked underneath.

He flops back against the pillows again, one arm tucked under his head and the other loose at his side, and slowly, cautiously, Juni crawls his way under it. The hand lands on his hip and squeezes, and Juni settles his head back on the vampire’s chest just in time to hear the pleased little rumble there. He flushes down to his chest and bites his lip, distracting himself by petting at Mason’s chest hair.

And then he pokes his flat, brown nipple and says, “Boop!” on some stupid impulse, and giggles like an idiot.

Mason scoffs and rolls his eyes, but shifts so that Juni’s thigh hitches up over his. “Keep that up, sweetheart, and we’ll be going into round two sooner rather than later.” Juni can feel the truth in that statement against his thigh, and he blushes so hotly he knows Mason can feel it at every point their bodies are touching. He might be approaching supernova levels of heat when Mason smugly adds, “Well, round two for me. Three for you.”

He hides his face in Mason’s chest with a long groan. “I’m going to explode,” he declares. “I’m going to collapse like a dying star.”

Mason laughs, sharp and startled and shockingly bright, and Juni’s head shoots up so he can see his face. His hair is a mess, but of course it still looks amazing, hanging around his face in loose, sweat-damp spirals. His vulpine grey eyes are crinkling at the corners, even his sharp nose wrinkling in a way that makes Juni’s heart almost stop. And his mouth, usually either pinned into a scowl, or twisted into a sly (and stupidly attractive) smirk, is curled into a smile, breathtaking in its open softness.

God, I love you, Juni wants to cry, his heart pounding in counterpoint to the desperate, silent declaration he traps behind his teeth by digging them into his lower lip so hard he’s almost afraid he’s going to make himself bleed. And it doesn’t stop. I love you, I love you, I love you drums in his chest, hums through his blood, and when Mason catches him looking, he reaches out to push the tangled forelock of curls hanging in Juni’s eyes out of his face, cupping his cheek to pull him into a kiss. Juni shivers and braces his hand on Mason’s chest, feeling the vampire’s heart thumping there, steady and stable and achingly familiar. His own matches it beat for beat, and thankfully his mouth is too occupied for the pulsing plea of love me, love me, please love me to spill out. So he dives into it, clings to it, and when Mason breaks away to let him breathe, Juni buries his mouth against the arch of his throat instead, presses messy kisses to his collarbones, his chest, his shoulders, throttles the words before they can escape him and pushes them into touches instead. Touches can’t damn him the way words can.

There’s a soft, shameful part of him he ignores like he always has that whispers to him that maybe, just maybe, if he pours enough of himself into every kiss, every touch, that the words will finally be understood. That the weak little part of him he buries deeper and deeper every time it cries out will finally be seen, and answered, and cradled tenderly in someone’s strong, freckled hands.

But until then, it will sit there in his chest under lock and key and ache, like all his secrets do.

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neutral-emerald · 4 years

Text

SILVER THE COSMIC TIME-JANITOR (or: dude, what's with all the alternate futures)

silver the hedgehog has a very simple backstory. he's a kindhearted, sorta-naive but altogether very driven psychic hedgehog here to save the world by time-traveling to the past (also known as present-day) to prevent the apocalyptic future he was born into from coming to pass!

[ID: A screenshot of Silver from Sonic 06. He’s glowing with cyan energy as he flies over a dark, post-apocalyptic city.]

...wait, if he's time traveling 200 years into the past to completely change the shape of the timeline, how do the stars manage to align such that he manages to be born at the exact same point in the new timeline with the exact same genetics? how are his parents born? does silver have parents?? and how does he do this no less than THREE SEPARATE TIMES??!

hey everyone, i'm tumblr user neutral-emerald here to make good on the idea i vaguely gestured at yesterday and point out silver's wildly inconsistent backstory(s) and then explain to you how this isn't just sega playing hopscotch with the concept of time travel, but actually TOTALLY EXPLAINABLE if you don't mind a whole lot of conjecture and "fuck dude i just think it'd be cool."

LET'S GO.

before i get started, a few things to establish.

first, this is about… half serious, tops. it’s less of a theory and more of an observation of something that’s weird and then throwing some possible explanations at it because i am a massive sucker for time-based nonsense. if you wanna take my observations and build your own conclusions, go for it. i’m not your boss.

second, i'm basing my conclusions off of both the games and the idw comics. the conclusions i draw are applicable to either continuity, but the logic does rest a decent amount on the comics, so just a heads-up in case you were expecting pure game canon from this.

and third, i'm working off like half a brain and very intermittent checks of the wiki and cutscene compilations, so there's probably many things i'm missing! if you notice something i said was wildly off-base, go ahead and correct me in the replies and i'll either edit the post or explain to you just how that detail doesn't actually matter, depending on whether it. y'know. matters.

with that out of the way, let's get into the first topic of discussion!

part 1: the future is inconsistent, y'all

now, i'm not sure if you've heard, but in the year 2006 sonic team released this little indie game creatively entitled Sonic the Hedgehog. it was a smash hit, won countless awards, and for some reason went down in history as a messy, incomplete bugfest. but that's not what matters. what matters is that it introduced Silver the Hedgehog.

silver hails from 200 years in the future. the world is a bleak, fiery place, and has been since the monster iblis was unleashed after princess elise's death. silver was born into this world, which we know since it's literally the first thing he says in his story.

[ID: A cropped line from Silver's story in Sonic 06. "This world was devastated before I was born."]

i'm not going to drag you through a beat-by-beat summary of the entire plot of sonic 06, you should know it already. silver meets mephiles, gets lied to about who caused the apocalypse, mephiles yeets him and blaze into the past, he tries to murder Sonic the Hedgehog™, and so on. eventually he helps kill god, and then sonic and elise travel further back in time to kill god even deader so that none of the game ever happened, and the bad future into which silver was born never happened, thus thoroughly scrubbing silver's existence from the timeline!

...until.

sonic rivals.

i'm not going to speak much on sonic rivals, mostly because i'm not super familiar with it. but what matters is that silver is back! he's still from the future, he's still here to change the past, and most importantly he wasn't deleted from existence by the destruction of solaris, unlike everything else from sonic 06 including everyone's memories of it. and obviously, whatever state his future is in, it's not the same as it was in sonic 06.

now, i don't have a single clue what is going on in rivals 2, so do inform me if there's some big information i'm missing from that one. all i know is he's fixing yet another possible apocalyptic future, like always. correct me if i’m wrong, i don’t have the patience to trawl through it myself.

then we've got sonic colors, in which silver is again from the future. notably, he’s definitely not from an apocalypse!

[ID: Some screenshots from the DS version of Sonic Colors, again cropped to just the text. Tails and Silver are talking to each other.

Tails: What's the future you came from like, Silver? Silver: A lot brighter than this. Silver: The sky is blue, and everybody's got a smile.]

sonic generations doesn't add much. again, correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think we learn anything about what kind of future silver is from, and he's definitely not here to fix it this time. that's sonic's job! he's just hanging out like everyone else.

now, up until this point the future has been reasonably consistent, setting aside my somewhat abstract understanding of the rivals games. there's nothing to say that silver's not coming back in time from the same point in a single timeline, which is the one and only version of the future ever since the destruction of sonic 06.

UNTIL.

[ID: Two panels from the comic Sonic Forces: Stress Test. In the first panel, Silver looks worried as he lands in front of Knuckles, who looks skeptical.

Silver: We've got big trouble! Eggman— Knuckles: How can you be here? I thought you returned to the future?

In the second panel, Knuckles looks away with a self-assured grin, while Silver looks more panicked.

Knuckles: Oh wait— I must be dreaming! Silver: What? No! I've come back with a dire warning from the future!]

i have a lot of issues with sonic forces, especially with how its story is written. something i do NOT take issue with is the supplemental comics, mainly because they are WONDERFUL evidence for my crackpot time travel theory.

like i said, up until this point we don't really know whether silver has been experiencing separate instances of the future, or simply traveling back in time to prevent an also-time-traveling eggman nega from messing things up in the past. but here, we get some very juicy information:

[ID: Knuckles and Silver again. Knuckles has his arms crossed and is looking at Silver, who has a nervous look on his face as he slams a fist on the palm of his other hand.

Knuckles: Come again? Silver: Something happens that brings the world to ruin! But the historical records are sparse or make no sense. I came back to hopefully head off whatever's about to happen and save the future.]

silver travels back in time to prevent a terrible apocalypse. this is not the beautiful future silver came from in sonic colors— but this is the same silver. everyone recognizes him. he recognizes everyone. and yet, the future he came from is different.

part 2: silver is a walking paradox

allow me to remind you of what i pointed out when i was talking about sonic 06. silver was born into the iblis-apocalypse. considering no elaborate timeline nonsense happened to him before the events of the game (by his reckoning) i think we can safely assume he was born like a regular person with parents.

in the first post-06 timeline, silver was probably also born. let's be charitable, acknowledge that sonic team doesn't overthink the butterfly effect like i do, and say that silver was born to the same parents, because the universe likes to keep things nice and simple and contrive itself to make this particular character exist in this time period.

so, it's entirely fair that silver comes to exist in a post-06 timeline at the equivalent point in time, aka 200 years in the future. it's also fair that he travels back in time to prevent some kind of apocalypse, because that's his narrative role! it's what he does. when it's time for him to exist in the story, that's what he's there to do.

what isn't fair is the fact that it keeps happening.

[ID: A panel from the IDW comics. Sonic is stretching his legs while looking faintly exasperated at Silver, who is nervously holding his arm.

Silver: Er… No. I came back because defeating Eggman didn't save the future. Sonic: Couldn't even play along. Had to bring the mood down. Sonic: *sigh* Okay, what happened this time?]

[ID: The following panel, cropped to just Silver's text bubbles narrating over a starry sky.

Silver: When I left, my time had been conquered by the Eggman Empire. Everyone lived in fear, choking on polluted air. Silver: When I went back, the Eggman Empire was gone— but so was everyone else. Silver: There was nothing left. No people, no animals, no machinery. Only water and sparse, metallic plant life.]

allow me to summarize my understanding of all this: silver is from the future. normally, the future is good. sometimes it isn't. when it isn't good, he goes back in time and fixes things, then returns to the future to check if that fixed things.

the least conjecture-y interpretation i can come up with is that sometimes silver will go into the past, then go back to the future but end up in a Bad Timeline and thus go into the past again to fix things. there's no weird warping directly between bad timelines, he only gets there by way of the past.

but that's boring, so here's my PREFERRED interpretation.

silver hails from a good future, but sometimes it just changes. he's unstuck from time— if something weird happens in the past, he's the only one to know that the passage of fate was changed, because he went to bed in one timeline and woke up somewhere categorically worse, and the only way he can fix it is by figuring out just what caused this and going back in time to fix it.

or, to say it in a meme:

[ID: A picture of someone lying in a hospital bed with a nurse standing next to them, edited so that Silver is in the bed.

nurse: sir… you've been asleep for 2 hours silver: oh boy i can't wait to wake up in the same timeline i went to sleep in]

part 3: how did this happen?

it's one thing to point out that silver doesn't experience time like a normal hedgehog, and another thing to explain how and why this happens.

fyi, this is the part where i go wildly off the rails and start saying whatever i want. there's a ton of explanations one could come up with, most probably stemming back to sonic 06. i'm just going to go with my own, and probably not come up with a whole lot of concrete evidence because i'm just spitballing. this is me having a fun time. going "heeheehoohoo time traveling hedgehog go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

so. something i haven't touched upon is that in all games after sonic 06, silver can time travel. we never see him do it, it's never explained how he does it. all we know is that he's doing it under his own power.

which is kinda odd, don't you think? should he be able to do that?

in sonic 06, we see three mechanisms for time travel. first is the chaos emeralds. if two people perform Chaos Control with a chaos emerald apiece, they open up a swirling rift in the air which can send them to different points in time and space. silver can't be doing that, for obvious reasons— he's only one hedgehog, and he's not exactly running around with a chaos emerald at all times. that can't be how he does it.

second is a time machine eggman built. that obviously can't be it; the machine doesn't exist at all after the timeline gets wiped, and again, silver is doing this on his own. he's actively antagonistic towards eggman, even. absolutely not this one.

third and finally is mephiles, who can make big purple orbs to take himself and passengers to different points in time. this obviously can't be it either, for similar reasons to number 2, right? after all, mephiles is one half of solaris, who was destroyed before he could be split off. he doesn't exist to be silver's time-traveling uber driver.

...right?

well, obviously. i'm not going to try and tell you that mephiles is secretly alive and shepherding silver back and forth between timelines for no reason. that's ridiculous. no, i'm going to try and tell you that silver is mephiles.

or rather, he's solaris. or RATHER, he's the new solaris, sorta-ascended to the role of Time God after the old one got blown out like a birthday candle.

like i said, i'm going wildly off the rails and as such don't have any concrete evidence to explain why it's this instead of something else, but hear me out. after elise blew out the flame of hope, the universe was left in an interesting situation. someone needs to be in charge of the flow of time, but the previous time-god was just unceremoniously destroyed. but all the power and energy of a time-god has to go somewhere, in some form, in some time.

with nothing else to go off of, the role of time-god starts flipping through every notable being it had interacted with. they're all solidly accounted for in the timeline, except for one. silver the hedgehog was born into a timeline that cannot exist. silver the hedgehog does not, and cannot exist. silver the hedgehog interacted quite a bit with both sides of solaris— he spent a substantial amount of time fighting back iblis, and associated with mephiles, even being one of the few people to directly experience his time travel abilities. silver the hedgehog tried and failed to absorb iblis into himself.

here's my theory: after sonic 06, the universe reasserted itself such that silver was the new Solaris. silver is not consciously aware that this is what he is, but he knows that he can time travel. sometimes the timeline will rearrange itself around silver. he is unaffected by this because he is a higher being unaffected by such petty trifles as "an origin" or "paradoxes".

silver the hedgehog probably doesn't have parents. he sprang into existence one day and everyone just kind of went with it, himself included.

oh also something i thought was neat but couldn't think of where to put:

[ID: More cropped dialogue, this time from Team Sonic Racing.

Silver: I'm fine. It's just, something bad is gonna happen. I can't explain it. I just feel it. Blaze: Have your travels through time given you precognition? Silver: I don't know. Maybe they have. Or maybe I'm just thinking too much.]

silver might be becoming psychic in a future-vision kinda way. that, or he’s riddled with anxiety. possibly both.

TL;DR

silver hails from no less than three separate timelines, his existence is a tangled web of who-knows-how-many grandfather paradoxes, and i choose to believe that he's god.

if anyone who cares more about evidence wants to gather up like, little one-off clues that support or conflict with my conclusions, go right ahead. or just throw your own arbitrary headcanons for what's going on with this at me. or incorporate these ideas into an au or something! i just want more people thinking about what the Fuck is up with silver post-06, because by god there is a WHOLE lot of potential packed in there

anyway thanks for reading make sure to like comment and subscribe—

#hey guys check out how hard i can gesture at a corkboard #is it remotely coherent? not a clue! i cannot process my own writing #sonic theory #silver the hedgehog #text #dot txt

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hello-yue-here · 3 years

Note

About your atla ship songs, I have a couple of questions (sorry if my phrasing comes out wrong, english isn't my first language and I worry it might across as accidentally defensive): how did you end up with the choices for zukka, jetko and yuekka (note: I haven't seen the great comet, so feel free to obsess over it, I'm intrigued now and the hype is appreciated!)? Sidenote: I think the mailee choice is HILARIOUS and the tokka one just make me sad, I didn't expect to be attacked like this😭

kdjfha;s i love you im gonna obsess SO HARD over great comet now. you may regret this

this is gonna be so long so the rest is under the cut whoops

yuekka: no one else from great comet

where do i even begin. WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN

okay so background information on this show: it's based off of a 76 oages excerpt from war and peace and its centered around a woman named natasha (and this guy pierre but he's irrelevant to this song so we wont worry about him) and natasha's bethrothed is off fighting in the war right now. she hasn't seen him in a while but she is in love with him.

every single lyrics of this song SCREAMS yuekka to me. the innocence and purity of their love. the love at first sight. and even the melancholy ending just- i go apeshit for this song. i love this song so much. and denee benton's voice??? kljsdhflwksugf please listen to this song if you haven't already. listen to the whole show. your life will be changed forever.

onto the lyrics (i stg this is ab to be the whole song whoops)

"the moon"

THOSE ARE THE FIRST WORDS ON THE SONG. natasha and andre (her bethrothed) met underneath the moonlight. Sokka and Yue first spoke to eachother at night and always met each other for their most intimate moments under the moonlight. also yue is LITERALLY the moon so like: right of the bat with those two words it's yuekka.

"and i saw your eyes / and i saw your smile / and the world opened wide"

sokka fell in love with yue the moment he saw her in the canal. she literally enchanted this motherfucker. everything about her made his heart go crazy. and 'the world opened wide' to me is from yue's perspective. Yue had never left the north pole and sokka had seen a good chuck of the world at the point. He took her on appa, he told her about his adventures. he saw the world yue wished to see and you know damn well that Sokka would have done anything to give it to her.

"oh the moon /oh the snow in the moonlight / and your childlike eyes and your distant smile / ill never be this happy again / you and i and no one else"

natasha sings fondly about the moon and the snow, seeing as it was where she fell in love with andre. yue and sokka LITERALLY fell in love in the same place: in the snowy nothern water tribe under the light of the moon. childlike eyes: THEYRE CHILDREN!!! distant smile: this is where it gets a little sad. theyre both children with way too many duties during a world that has known nothing but war for the past century. they want to be happy but yeah, theyre smiles are distant and far away because happiness seems out of reach for them most of the time. i'll never be this happy again: the moments yue and sokka shared together were probably the happiest either of them ever were. they were able to ignore the war and the world in the moments they shared together. and with no one else. no one else would be able to give each other this sense of peace and happiness and love.

"joy and life inside our souls / and no body knows just you and me / it's our secret"

Yue and Sokka had to sneak out in secret at night to go and see each other. Yue and Sokka couldn't be together for real because Yue was already engaged, but they were literally in love so she decided to see him anyways in secret. kasdjfhklasjd im losing my mind over them at this point.

"this winer sky / how can anyone sleep / there was never such a night before / i feel like putting my arms around my knees / and squeezing tight as possible / and flying away"

these are my FAVORITE lines in the entire song. yue and sokka had never felt this strongly about anyone before and that's why they are so drawn to each other. they had never experienced love before and they wanted to hold onto it for as long as they could even though they knew they couldnt. Sokka takes yue up on appa and she is wistful and wishes she could live like he does every day: ie flying away. oh my god these two deserved so much better. so much fucking better.

now for the saddes part. the saddest fucking part.

"maybe he'll come today / maybe he came already / and he's sitting in the drawing room / and i simply forgot"

natasha misses andre so intensely at this point. when i first listened to this show and heard this song i was like "wait a min... is andre like... dead?" and im sure i wasnt the only person who assumed that this was why natasha felt so sad by the end of such a beautiful song. (spoiler alert andre is fine)

but this line really exemplifies how sad natasha is, and hints at the fact that andre may never come back. it implies that their relationship is doomed (at least in my opinion) and that's all yuekka. Sokka misses yue intensely when shes gone. Yue accepted her fate almost immediately but sokka was in denial. he thought there had to be another way. but in the end it wasn't meant to be. and sokka will go on, loving yue, wishing for her back, even though it's not possible.

fuck im gonna cry.

zukka: all i've ever known- hadestown

"i was alone so long / i didn't even know that i was lonely / out in the cold so long / i didnt even know that i was cold"

sokka is from the swt so theres where the cold comes in. also in the gaang (initially) it was just him katara and aang. and katara and aang were much closer to each other than sokka was with aang and the two of them were benders so sokka was kind of an outsider with the two of them. He also represses a lot of his emotions and feels the need to do everything himself so i do see a lot of loneliness in sokka. and the fact that so many people in his life have left him (his mom, yue, his dad, suki briefly, etc...) he is known to keep people at an arms length. i see a lot of loneliness in sokka.

zuko's loneliness is a lot more obvious: he has literally been cast out and abandoned by everyone except iroh. and even then he still feels the need to be alone (remember zuko alone? thought so) these boys look after themselves and push others away and revel in their loneliness in order to keep themselves from getting hurt. at least in my opinion on canon and also some fanon because id be a liar if i said fanon didnt influence how i view ALL my ships (not just zukka)

"all ive ever known is how to hold my own / but now I wanna hold you too"

COME ONE MANNNN, they just wanna hold each other. theyre both very big protectors as well and kljhflkasdhg they wanna protect eachother like kljdhfl im gonna lose it rn.

"You take me in your arms / And suddenly there's sunlight all around me / Everything bright and warm / And shining like it never did before / And for a moment I forget / Just how dark and cold it gets"

SUNLIGHT SYMBOLISM. zuko is literally powered by the sun. i don't think i even NEED to elaborate on this one anymore lol. They find comfort in each other away from all of their trauma. when they're together nothing else matters and i personally love that for them. they both deserve love.

"I knew you before we met / And I don't even know you yet / All I know is your someone I have always known"

these two are extremely similar in canon. many parallels. older brothers overshadowed by their prodigy little sisters. longing to make their fathers proud (granted one dad is good and one is fuckin evil), both are pretty bad with emotions. both are seen protecting others before themselves (sokka protecting suki during the serpant's pass, sokka protecting toph on like multiple occassions, zuko protecting katara in the final agni kai), the list goes on. they know who the other is because they see themselves in the other person. they already know each other because they are each other (in a way, not entirely, but the similarities are strong in my opinion)

"I'm gonna hold you forever / The wind will never change on us / Long as we stay with each other / Then it will always be like this"

i just think this line is so cute and sweet (ignoring all the symbolism and foreshadowing that comes with the last line in the musical itself. im gonna pretend this is nothing but happy) and i think these boys deserve happiness so yeah. this song is zukka to me lol.

jetko: thrill of first love- falsettoes

if you've never listened to this song go an do it now. you will know INSTANTLY that it is jetko because of the dynamics alone. marvin and whizzer are pure jetko and i take no crticisms.

marvin and whizzer are both extremely stubborn, and they don't always get along, and they fight a lot, and they get mad at each other a lot, and they are both passionate as hell, and they will bring this passion into everything. they love each other that is without a doubt, but they arent perfect and they are once again stubborn and determined as fuck.

sound familiar? it's literally jetko.

the lyrics aren't what remind me of jetko, but the dynamic itself. the lyrics are too on the nose for a gay couple in 1970's america so that rlly cant apply to jetko all that much. but the way these two characters bounce off of each other and get annoyed with each other and argue with eachother reminds me of jetko. because let's be honest: these two are the most stubborn characters in the whole show. they will fight for what they believe and it will take literally everything to change their minds.

i love jetko but i think they would have petty arguments all the time and get aggravated by one another so easily. and this is even seen in canon: they work so fucking well together but they did not even HESITATE to fight one another after neither of them would give in and let the fight about whether jet was right or wrong about zuko being a firebender. like i cannot say it enough they are stubborn as fuck.

but underneath all that stubborn pettiness and bickering: marvin and whizzer still love each other. and jet and zuko would still love each other. because even though they are stubborn when it comes to arguments, they are even more stubborn and determined when it comes to each other. these two passionate motherfuckers are in love.

(now when i chose this song i decided to ignore the fact that this song literally spells out the fact that marvin and whizzer's relatinoship is doomed because they literally say passion dies. thats the difference between jetko and whizzer and marvin because i dont think passion dies. i chose this song strictly for the bickering lmao)

and i know you didnt ask about tokka but,,,,

i rlly wanna talk about the tokka one

so im going to

tokka: on my own- les mis

look. i KNOW this song is about unrequited love and i love tokka as a couple but,,, the unrequited love in this song just SCREAMS unrequited tokka to me so thats what i went with.

eponine is a girl who has neglectful parents who lives life by her own rules: toph. eponine is shown to be tough and confident and spunky to others but behind all of that she has emotions, she feels love, she hides her vulnerability so much: toph. she is in love with a guy she cant be with because he loves someone else: TOPH

eponine is toph to a t and toph is eponine to a t. this is not up for debate lmao

"without him i feel his arms around me"

toph is always seen grabbing onto someone (and its almost ALWAYS sokka) when she's somewhere where she can't use her feet to see. FEEL and ARMS cmon. look at it.

"and i know / i know that he is blind"

COME ON. IMAGINE TOPH SINGING THIS LINE. this line is already powerful enough in les mis but having toph, a blind character, sing it just makes the symbolism even deeper. toph sees the potential relationship they could have together. toph sees that sokka is oblivious to this. toph is not blind to the truth or the potention, but sokka is blind to her feelings. im about to lose my mind over this line.

"I love him / But every day I'm learning / All my life / I've only been pretending / Without me / His world will go on turning / A world that's full of happiness / That I have never known"

i need to sit down for a moment. toph grew up in a household where her parents did not understand her. she has learned to hide her true emotions and vulnerabilities from everyone. and its the fact that toph knows that she and sokka will never be together and the fact that she still loves him in spite of that is what makes this even more heartbreaking.

"but only on my own"

TOPH AND EPONINE SWEETIES I LOVE YOU

thank you for indulging my theatre kid nonsense. you are very sweet and kind and lovely and awesome and i hope you have a lovely day bestie :) <3

ask me why i think these songs go with these ships

#asks #liv is a theatre nerd #liv is an atla nerd #yuekka #zukka #jetko #tokka #ask me about my ship songs

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etirabys · 4 years

Text

Downbelow Station, a fanfic summary

I’ve been writing fic for this tiny book fandom and have at least a few fandom acquaintances who want to read my fic but don’t want to read the book. This is a summary of what happens in the novel, whose heart, to me, is the relationship between a mindwiped ex-slave and a cross-cultural married couple who take him in under their protection.

The premise

People are in space, since the Earth Company started establishing space stations around increasingly distant stars for manufacturing/trade. There are several types of people:

Stationers stay on one station – stations were originally established by the Earth Company but have since gained de facto independence because Earth is so far away

Merchanters live on ships and trade – family very important to them, so is family name, regularly deal with Stationers as part of their life but find settling down very foreign. More sexually opportunistic than Stationers, possibly less monogamous.

Earth Company Fleet soldiers live on ships; originally under the control of Earth Company, as of novel start have gone kind of rogue, will continue to go even more rogue over the course of the novel

Citizens of Union, a... nation in space that grew in the deepest reaches, furthest away from Earth's influence. Union is currently trying to annex everyone else. Earth Company is trying to resist this through their Fleet. However, Earth Company is not very enthusiastic about this war and have been drawing out; the Fleet thinks it's important to keep fighting and keep doing dipshit moves like impressing Merchanter ships and ?? maybe looting stations a little bit to keep going.

Azi of Union – a genetically engineered underclass specific to Union. Basically designer subs. I believe the word azi is never brought up in Downbelow Station, but it's very clear a character is an azi, and what that means is explained in Cyteen, which takes place in the same universe. Union citizens use 'tapes' casually and at-will for fast learning and entertainment and conditioning, but starting later in life. Azi grow up on tape – their psyches are designed to be good at whatever they were designed to do, whether that's soldiering or psychologizing or childcare. Azi require varyingly regular check-ins with a Supervisor, who is an assigned person who tells the azi they are Very Good and On Course With Their Lives and give them tapes to keep them aligned with their values and mentally stable. Azi have normal human names but also an ID that looks like AO-1234, where the first alphabet character indicates what ‘class’ you are – an Alpha-class azi is probably far smarter than your average citizen and is more capable of functioning independently. Azi can win citizenship, but so far the only people onscreen who’ve done so are Alpha-class azi.

The cast

Damon Konstantin is a head of Legal Affairs on Pell Station, and the son of the Stationmaster, which is apparently a hereditary position. Despite the hereditariness Pell seems to have the most familiar culture to me, a 21st century American expecting democracy and rule of law. Pell Station is special – it orbits a human-livable planet called Downbelow, and there are only three such planets under human control. This means the planet can be used as a base for ‘bioform production’ (a vague category encompassing everything you can grow on a planet but not a space station) and makes Pell strategically valuable. The other two livable planets are Earth, under the control of the Earth Company Fleet’s nominal masters, and Cyteen, the base of Union operations. Pell is neutral, as many star stations try to be.

Elene Quen is a Merchanter who stepped off her ship to marry Damon. They’ve been married for four months at novel start. Her formal role is liaison with Merchanters.

Joshua Talley is a soldier of Union who was captured when Union forces sabotaged (blew up) a station called Mariner Station. He was tortured for information on another station – Russell’s – whose inhabitants feared the same fate for themselves. He had nothing to give them – he was a medium-level technician/soldier, an ‘armscomper’, which I think means he was the person pressing buttons to fire on targets or programming the weapons to fire on targets. During his interrogation Russell’s station was also sabotaged, ensuing in a mass evacuation.

Signy Mallory is one of the ~10 captains of the Earth Company Fleet. She is commanding and very deadly, commands fanatical loyalty from her soldiers. She’s also a sexual sadist. When she comes to evacuate Russell’s Stationers from a failing space station she finds that they have a Union POW who is very pretty, and takes him into her personal quarters for their journey to Pell. It is not said how she rapes him but it was a lot. Joshua thinks of this part as worse than the previous interrogation.

The events from there

When the Fleet arrives at Pell Station, they are convoying huge ships full of thousands of refugees from stations sabotaged / fallen to Union. It has been weeks or months since they started out. The ships were overpacked, many inside are dead, the culture of the ships has quickly turned anarchic/violent.

Angelo Konstantin, master of Pell, says "wtf, we can't take all these people, we don't have space. We literally cannot do this." The Fleet says, “You better,” unloads the highly upset and sick refugees, and leaves. Pell Station clears out two sectors of their station and makes it the 'quarantine zone', later shortened to Q. Conditions are very bad in Q and what to do with the violent, desperate people inside, many of whom cannot prove who they were in their past lives, when Pell doesn’t have the capacity to relocate them, is an ongoing problem throughout the novel.

Before leaving, Signy Mallory also said, "in addition to the refugee crises we unloaded on you, here is a Union prisoner of war we transported separately because the refugees would have killed him", and dumps Joshua on Pell leadership.

Around this time, Elene Quen finds out that her ship was destroyed when Mariner Station blew up. She now has no blood family, and Merchanters put great cultural emphasis on having clan and name. She decides to have a kid, talking Damon into it.

Joshua Talley is extremely depressed and keeps asking for a mindwipe so he can live as a normal citizen on Pell rather than being indefinitely detained. Mindwipes are used on stations as a consensual way of rehabilitating criminals. His captors are reluctant – it’s tantamount to execution. Damon Konstantin is the final permission-giver on the issue and gives it in the end. The process of mindwipe (or Adjustment) necessarily causes the person to regurgitate their whole life. This is recorded. Due to this, he discovers only after the mindwipe is complete that Josh was tortured on Russell’s with mindwipe drugs (presumably for the same regurgitating-your-whole-life property) and then raped on Signy Mallory’s ship on the way to Pell, and that wanting to wipe out the trauma was the real reason he wanted a mindwipe.

Damon feels really bad about this. He checks up on Josh Talley a lot when he's recovering from the mindwipe. He and his wife Elene decide to 'sponsor' him when he's rejoining normal society on the ship. Elene does so through some personal resistance – Josh once belonged to the military force that wiped out her family. They check in with a guy who doesn’t remember much of anything but definitely has abandonment issues and is afraid of emotional entanglement with people.

Josh Talley quietly converts much of his internal body mass into gooey loyalty.

Plot chaos. The station comes to be formally occupied by the Fleet, who wants to use it as their new base of operations, and a Union saboteur named Gabriel who talks to Stationmaster Angelo Konstantin’s main rival and conspires to bring him to power instead...

There’s a part I really really want to summarize here where Josh tries to fall on grenade for the Quen-Konstantins – literally, trying to take an action that would end in his death but keep them safe from the Fleet – and they show up and say “you idiot, never do that again” and bring him back to their apartment and say “while the Fleet is suspicious of you, you are living HERE, so everyone knows you are under our protection. Forget your old job, we’ll find you something working closely with Damon every day – while you’re in sight they can’t get at you.” But I can’t find a non-confusing way to relay it, sorry.

Soon after that, the Union saboteur succeeds. Angelo Konstantin is assassinated. His rival, Jon Lukas, takes his place, and starts enacting subtly Union-friendly policies. I think this somehow happens concurrently with the Fleet still using Pell as a base of operations. It’s highly chaotic. Elene flees the chaos on a Merchanter ship whose family she knows. Damon and Josh, fearing whoever assassinated Angelo, hide within the more bad and chaotic parts of the station (I honestly don’t believe the author when she says they managed this for months – Pell has tens of thousands of people, that’s not a lot! You could close each sector at a time and sweep everyone!). This part feels like big missed opportunity to me – they spend their time moving from hiding place to hiding place, coming up with hopeless schemes that they know they’ll never enact. One infers they got much closer, but the author doesn’t go into that either. The one delight that comes out of this sequence is that Josh becomes more assertive and competent than we’ve ever seen him – being in hiding, under danger, brings out submerged training. He’s not a dependent anymore – arguably in some places he’s in lead.

In the middle of this, Josh makes contact with the Union saboteur, Gabriel, who hails him as a colleague and informs him that they’re of the same kind. They have the same training. The story Josh gave Russell’s interrogators, and Pell, that he was a mid-tier technician, is an implanted set of memories that automatically flushes his real ones when he was under duress.

This means, although the author never explores it, that Josh was probably integral to destroying Mariner Station, and concomitantly responsible for Elene’s family’s deaths.

Josh asks Gabriel for safe passage to the planet Downbelow for both himself and a companion. Gabriel acquiesces, but is shocked when the companion Josh brings to the meeting is the Konstantin heir. He starts to say, “Well, well, what a useful person you have brought me –” and then gets shot by a Fleet soldier who’s following reports of a suspicious person. (My fic Half-Silvered Mirror diverges from canon at this point, and asks what would have happened if Gabriel had his way.)

Now in the hands of the Fleet, Josh and Damon meet with Signy Mallory again. Josh isn’t what Mallory remembers – as a rape victim he was passive, inward-turned. This Josh is articulate and emotional and loyal. Damon isn’t what she expects, either – he manages to jab at her conscience about what the Fleet has become, lawless and unmoored from any democratic interest. She plans to execute both of them the next day.

Due to convoluted plot reasons, she doesn’t. She turns against the rest of the Fleet, which for their own reasons is headed back towards Earth – to conquer. Her ship, Norway, enters a standoff against Union warships over Pell. Which isn’t on course to go well for her, until someone broadcasts at both of them that Pell is now under Merchanter claim. Elene, while out in space, has been convincing Merchanters to form an unprecedented coordination bloc. She demands Pell for the Merchanter Alliance and informs the Union military leader, Azov, that if he doesn’t acquiesce all Merchanter ships in her fleet will refuse to trade in Union space.

She wins. The scene when she docks at Pell and walks in, pregnant and victorious, to kiss her husband, is one of the most visually !!! scenes.

In the aftermath, Azov tries to take Josh back for Union. Damon says nope, he’s ours. Josh, what do you want? Josh says nothing. Looks at nothing. But when Azov and the other Union soldiers leave, he stays.

And afterwards, he goes to Signy Mallory – whose ships now constitute Pell’s militia – and asks, sincerely, to work as crew on her ship for a while. He says he can’t live on a station comfortably. That the stationers know him, and his past. (Not sure how true this is.) Mallory says it’s nothing another mindwipe can’t cure, and he says he doesn’t want to forget. “I’ve got something. The only real thing. All that I value.”

“So you go off and leave it?”

“For a while.”

Comments

There’s... so much I want to write about and explore.

Did Elene know when Josh left that he was probably responsible for her family’s death? (My fic Awarding Damages is about one way they could resolve this)

What did Signy Mallory do to Josh? Can he handle working under her?

Damon and Elene are so parental to Josh, and they're also embarking on having a family in a dynastic way where having a clan is their way of asserting that they exist and are rooted in the world. And of course Josh is going to feel really weird about how he fits into that – he's only watching it happen because he's a charity case, of course he's going to have no involvement in that project – what place is left for him anyway, he has no one and is nothing. I want this man to have feelings about family and how he doesn't have one and then HAVE A FAMILY I want him to hold the baby and go "OH. You are a biological composite of the two greatest people in the world. I cannot hold it against you that you are now going to push me out of my current living situation with the two greatest people in the world"

Due to the amount of mindfuckery Josh has gone through, it’s unclear to both him and the reader how many his memories are real. What does that do to a person?

From what I know of azi from Cyteen, Josh has psychological needs – again, he’s like a bred sub – that non-Unioners aren’t going to understand. Can he get them met? How does he negotiate that?

#rambl #downbelow station #cj cherryh #small book fandom pitch

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eunsthings · 4 years

Text

Museums

Part 3 I Questions?

Part 2 II Series masterlist II Part 4

Back in your class. the professor in front of you was talking about parasites. The last lecture for the day had passed with a series of slides filled with “fascinating” illustrations. With your back hurting, you subtly stretch your body; careful not to draw unnecessary attention. It was a long day, yet it was only two in the afternoon.

“Thank goodness I have time to relax,” your lazy self has emerged once again.

The click of your dorm door and the welcoming presence of your bed was the greatest feeling ever. Painfully switching your attention, you prepare for a quick shower. You took your phone to put on your bed, took some clothes to change into afterwards, then proceeded to head to your floor’s communal bathroom.

As the water was pouring down on you, thoughts invaded your head. It had been the other day that you were hired for a huge job. They still haven’t reached back out yet and you aren’t able to do anything regarding the job since you had no idea what to do. They… or Tsukishima rather, hadn’t contacted you despite saying he will—within a day or two. It had almost been 48 hours.

“Why am I such an over-thinker?”

You recover and assure yourself that it was all fine. It’s out of your control anyway. They can message you anytime. After all, you had given him your number.

Finished, you dry yourself up and change into your fresh clothes before heading out and back to your room.

You're greeted by the presence of your roommate sitting on your bed—the bottom bunk.

“Hey,” you called out to her.

“Hello,” she replied, eyes not meeting yours, still occupied with her phone.

Holding your used clothes, you proceeded to fold them and put them away to be washed along with your week-old towel. Now your self-relaxation can begin… but where was your phone?

Lazing around would not be complete without it, you needed to scroll through YouTube comments while watching a video.

“Wait just a minute-,” you face your roomie. “Isabella…”

Whilst sitting on your bed, she gave you a cheeky expression; caught scrolling through your phone. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it. It was just sitting there.”

“How did you even know the password?” A kind of annoyed amazement washed over you. You had nothing to hide anyway so there was no major problem.

“In case you forgot, I live up–” she gestured to the top bunk, “–there.”

“Dumb. Dumb as hell,” You had been careless. She could peek from above.

“Anyway… Who is this guy?�� Her tone was teasing with a mischievous face to go along with it. It made you worried.

“What guy–” Oh no. It can’t be. Can it? You grabbed your phone from her and saw why the idiot was smirking. It was a message from Tsukishima.

The message was straight to the point and yet your blockhead roommate still kept giving you knowing looks. She didn’t even know the reason for the message. She was jumping leaps and bounds to conclusions. This, you felt, was not going to go away anytime soon.

“I was hired for another job”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure~” She got up from your bed and languidly went for her desk. “Just don’t mind me, I’ll be studying here...” She dramatically gestures to her small workspace. Facing her, you couldn’t help but feel embarrassed yet wanting to take that grin off her face.

On your bed, you go back to the message. “On Wednesday.” It is a few days from now.

Checking your schedule, you were free on that day and the morning after. The timing though. Well, it wasn’t as if you were complaining, in fact, it was very good news. One less problem for you.

You replied to Tsukishima then. The anxiety was eating you. A simple reply yet so many ways to screw up.

“WHAT. DID I SEND?! Did he really leave me on ‘read’? Anyway~” So that is done. Now to relax. No need for self-criticism.

On Wednesday, nine on the dot, you arrived in front of the museum.

Draped around your neck, you show your loaned ID to the guard and pass through on to the building. Inside, some big boxes and various pieces have been placed on the hallway’s floor.

That must be for the event... wow they are already starting this early on. It again dawned on you how big of an event it is; starting to make preparations this early on. The pressure was beginning to feel real.

“Hello.”

“Oh, that voice again” you turn around to greet him but you didn’t get the chance to.

“(L/N), this is Kazumi Keiko, my fellow intern,” he gestured to the lady beside him. Looking up at her, she seemed friendly, motherly almost; her long hair tied back and with freckles on her face. Although you take it, she was older than you and Tsukishima.

“Hello, nice to meet you Kazumi,” you reply although softly. She smiles a warm smile at you.

“So now we're just waiting for Kazumi’s partner, Ike--- never mind she’s here”

“Hey guyssss!” A female about your age was waving behind the glass doors. Kazumi was gesturing with her hand beckoning the girl to enter. “How come she gets to be partners with Kazumi and I’m with the boy Tsukishima? This will just be utter awkwardness from me I bet,” you try to see the reasoning why it couldn’t have been you partnered with Kazumi.

“Hey, I’m Ikeda, Satsuki,” she was very direct, it caught you off-guard.

“Hi. I’m (L/N), (F/N).”

“Wow, nice name! It’s foreign, I like it. Do you want a Snickers?” Glancing down, she had in her hand a Snickers bar being handed out to you. “Uh, no, no, I’m fine. You--” you got caught off by Kazumi. “(L/N), you better just take that or we’ll be stuck here a long time.”

“Oh ok, sure. Thank you, Ikeda,” you take the Snickers bar from her hand giving her a tight but genuine smile. She returned the gesture. From what you observed, she has a pretty happy-go-lucky character and you realize why Ikeda might be partnered with Kazumi; it was to manage Ikeda, Satsuki.

Tsukishima continued, “So for today Mr. Yasuhiro instructed us all to divide the work and just find a plan around it...”

That meeting ended about 15 minutes ago. Now, you’re walking the streets of Sendai, side-by-side, with the tall man of partner for work. How did it come to this...?

The central matter you discussed was how the work was going to be divided. You and Tsukishima were to handle the main big projection for the event while Team Kazumi will handle multiple small displays around the museum. You didn’t get into too much detail but for now that was it. The details were to be discussed by the pair. Great... By the time your gathering finished it was past noon; late lunch.

“There’s still the rest of the day so I’m bringing Ikeda with me to lunch. We’ll be talking about ‘this’ after.” Kazumi was definitely wasting no time. “How about you guys?” She faced Tsukishima.

Oh no...

“Uh...” he glanced at you. Oh no. No, no. “You don’t have anything to do this afternoon right?”

I have no escape from this. “Yeah, my whole day is free”

“Well, I guess we could all get lunch.” He asked Kazumi now, “Where are you guys going?”

“A Western inspired cafe just a walking distance from here, it just opened so I wanna try it out”

Tsukishima took his coat and bag then went for the door. “Let’s go then.”

“Wait... I still have to buy some things along the way, I want Kazumi to come with me. Can you two go ahead and reserve seats for us?” Ikeda protested, as childish as ever.

Kei halted, “Uh, yeah sure. I don’t see how that’s a problem.”

Not a problem... right.

“(L/N), are you fine with this?” The ever-motherly Kazumi made sure to check up on you.

Without any excuse whatsoever, “Yes, I’m ok with anything guys.” Darn it. Social Interaction.

“Ehem...” After a rather long walk of silence. Tsukishima cleared his throat. “Are you fine there?”

“Hmm...” You glance up at him; not expecting any talk. “Oh yeah, I’m fine here. You?”

“Uh-huh. Same here”

Awkward...but still you continue to walk side-by-side.

“You know, I’m not really a talkative person,” Tsukishima started again, “but Mr. Yasuhiro told me to ‘make an effort’ because you ‘tend to be shy,’” oh, is that how this guy sees me too? Ouch.

“I get what he means but...” he side-glanced to see you, it made your eyes meet his for a small while, “…some people prefer not talking at all and some are uncomfortable doing so. In short... I’m asking you if you would be comfortable with me trying to talk to you...”

Ohhhh... man, this guy is considerate. What a nice person.

“Yes, yeah. I’m really fine with people talking to me first. I just don’t really like to initiate a conversation plus I don’t want to be a nuisance to them... and like you said, I ‘tend to be shy.’”

“So, are you fine if I ask you questions?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.” You really felt delighted; a person actually respected that not all people are the same in terms of talkativeness. It’s not every day you meet someone like that.

Unbeknownst to you, it was Tsukishima’s goal in earnest to make you comfortable around him; to the best of his ability. You do have to work on a project together after all.

A few moments of walking and you both arrived in the café. True to her word, what Kazumi said by “western inspired” actually really means an absolutely western café.

Tsukishima, the unexpected gentleman, opened the door for you as you both entered. You give him a smile in thanks; he returned a small smile too.

Looking around, it seems like rush-hour has passed and the café is almost empty. That means you don’t have to worry about reserving seats for Kazumi and Ikeda, then.

“Would you prefer seats by, or away from the window?”

You imagined eating by the window as others pass by... “I think away from the window”

“Same here.” He then led you to a table for 4 by the wall. He breezily pulled a chair and motioned for you to sit on it as if it were no big deal.

Oh my. This is kind of flustering.

Tsukishima received a text from Kazumi saying that they’ll be late and to order and eat ahead of them; and so, you both did. A waitress handed you menus then left the both of you to choose your orders. He ordered smoked salmon while you went with lasagna. For dessert he asked you what you wanted but you’d told him you’ll have bobba instead; he got a strawberry shortcake.

“So, while waiting for our food, and Kuzumi, I do have to bring back the fact that we're going to be working together on this project and we barely know each other. So...” across from you, he gives you a “you get where I’m headed with this” look on his face.

You nodded. “Mhmm”

“Right, should we ask each other questions?”

“Yeah, I think that’s the easiest way.”

“Ok, I’ll go first. You’re in university, right? What are you studying?”

“Oh, I’m a veterinary student”

“Oh, wow. That’s very impressive.” You responded with a smile and small chuckle, “Oh, no... not really.”

It was your turn. “If I recall correctly, you are in the museum as an intern. What are you doing if you’re not there?”

“Well, aside from attending school, I also have volleyball to face but that’s all.”

Confused with his vague answer, “Volleyball?”

“Hm... uh,” for the first time ever since you met him, the usually stoic guy looked... bashful. “I play for V.League Division 2,” he looks unsure if you knew what it was and made an attempt to explain it. But when he saw your eyes wide with amazement, he stopped fidgeting with his hands. “I’m taking it that you know what that is...”

You didn’t really dabble too much in sports, volleyball was no exception. Sure, you watched an anime about volleyball; got addicted, and friends mention volleyball from time-to-time too, all that was enough to know what V.League meant. “Now that’s impressive.”

He grinned. “Heh. Well, I don’t really know about that…but now it’s my turn to ask. How did you get into animating?”

“Oh,” you let out a heartfelt laugh, caught unaware of the question.

Hearing it, Kei couldn't help but suppress his blissful smile.

“I always liked animating but it was a friend who forced me to actually do something about it,” remembering your laziness and your pestering friend was a goofy memory but a treasured one.

“Is this the same friend that left you in the museum?”

Joy came over you and you chuckled again, “how did you even remember that?”

“I mean, that was just a few days ago and who can forget someone who got left behind by a friend?”

“She isn’t bad, she just had to hurry out. I swear, she’s a reliable person most times.”

You haven’t noticed it but Tsukishima's goal was slowly realized as the air of awkwardness and tension gave out. You were too giddy to realize anything; you felt weirdly safe and became chattier.

In front of you, Tsukishima looked to be amused; a rare smile plastered on his face. “I had a somewhat same experience back in high school,” again, he sported a surprisingly charming smile on his face.

Curiosity overtook as you continued to prod, “what happened in high school?”

“Well, simply put, I wasn’t overly fond of volleyball then. A lot of people paved the way to make me love it. In a way, I relate."

“Wow, your friends were really good for doing that.”

“Hahaha.. yeah. I was kind of forced the first time around,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s your turn to question.”

“Oh, right.” Attention span of a goldfish. “What position do you play?”

“I... Am a middle blocker”

“Well, that’s fitting to say the least. Is it fun playing your position?"

“Yes. I find it fun especially seeing anguished faces across the net after a good block.” You cracked a smile at that, he didn’t seem to be the type to find fun in that manner.

“My turn to ask. Are you comfortable talking to me now?” Upon asking that, he faced you with genuine concern, you didn’t even realize you were talking to him casually and without uneasiness.

“Yeah, I think so.” You finish it with a smile.

He flashed a quick smirk in response. For he, after a lengthy while, has finally made progress with the person in front of him.

Part 2 II Series masterlist II Part 4

Notes:

Y/N doesn’t really use Tsukki’s name in her head’s dialogue cause she’s still uneasy🤕

and yes we use messenger... pls don’t mind 🥺

guys this is a veryyy slow burn i hope you guys stickkkk around☺️

it’s been a very long time since the last. but better late right??😅😅

𝑨𝒍𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒐. 𝑷𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈!!! ^-^

𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈♡

=tags below=

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onebizarrekai · 4 years

Text

Meme Waker: That Final Thing

okay aight here we go here’s the big idea compilation you’ve all been waiting for or something like that

since I’ve finally accepted meme waker’s inevitable fate, I’ll share what I’ve had laying around about it. prepare yourself for a wild ride.

first of all, what existed of the planned character key:

Nightmare = Link Dream = Aryll Cross = Tetra Ink = The Entire Pirate Crew Granny Gertrude = Grandma Horror = Quill Killer = Medli Color = Komali Dust = Makar XGaster = Tingle (yes, you read that right) Fresh = Fado (?) Geno = Laruto Blueberry = Niko Error = Ganondorf Giant Flying Chicken = Helmaroc King Core Frisk = The King XChara = Zelda

So XChara was going to fill the role of Zelda–basically, what was going to happen was that when Cross and Nightmare reached sunken Hyrule, which was replaced by the Omega Timeline, they encountered Core Frisk and with their magical Core Frisk powers that apparently exist, separated XChara from Cross’s body. Because Error was hunting him down for whatever villainous reasons (I dunno, maybe he wanted to find Overwrite or something), XChara was going to spend the near remainder of the comic hiding in the Omega Timeline from Error. It was a pretty neat reference to the fact that Error doesn’t know where the OT is.

Unsurprisingly, considering when I was working on this, Nightmare and Cross may have eventually started dating. They were going to kiss during a fight that involved them accidentally rolling down a hill and then likely spend the remainder of the comic referring to each other as boyfriends, with no further indication of romance between them. I never really mentally decided whether I was actually going to incorporate this or not.

In moments where someone needed to present a musical instrument, Cross was going to play a keytar.

There is a very high chance that the entire comic was going to end up being an elaborate prank set up by Ink and Error.

After being rescued from the Forsaken Fortress, Dream was going to get crossbows and… I dunno, maybe be useful with them sometimes. One consideration was that he was going to complain about being stuck in a glorified retirement home and request joining the party.

Nightmare was going to have a fake ID with the name “Nathaniel Meyer” on it.

When Nightmare eventually pulled up the Gaster Sword, he was basically going to do a magical girl transformation and get a new outfit. I was considering holding a contest where people would submit new designs for Nightmare before I realized that I may have wanted to do it myself. Meanwhile, Cross’s design change at the same time was going to pertain to the fact that he had such a hard time with his uniform that he just wanted to start wearing normal clothes.

When XChara was separated from Cross, it would indicate that Cross can’t use the hack knife anymore, so I had to think of a new weapon for him. I considered giving him arm mounts with knives in them for no reason other than being extra, but I was probably just going to end up going with a regular sword.

Nightmare and Cross were going to be mistaken for missionaries at some point due to Nightmare introducing Cross as his ‘companion’.

Nightmare’s fake ID is actually a driver’s license. Cross questions how he could get one when he’s only fifteen, and Nightmare responds with “what can I say? I live in the country.”

The Giant Flying Chicken was going to evolve into the Cyborg Giant Flying Chicken before Nightmare and Cross fought it. It was already a robot, but someone decided it would be fun to make it look more robotic for some reason. Maybe too many people tried to eat it.

Because Blueberry was going to replace Niko, that meant there was going to be a form of challenge that he would present to Nightmare and/or Cross. They were probably just going to play Dance Dance Revolution.

The dress that Granny Gertrude gave Nightmare was actually going to be infused with magical powers. Either Nightmare could only access the power of the Triforce when he’s wearing the dress, or it was going to be a piece of equipment that turned his sword into a fire sword.

Nightmare was going to come back to the Village of Old People to see that his grandmother had conquered it with capitalism.

Dragon Roost Cavern was going to be replaced with a Pokemon gym.

When Nightmare supposedly kicked Error’s ass at the end of the story, he was going to say something along the lines of “Because fuck you!” and it would be the first and only f-bomb in the whole comic. Nightmare would proceed to say that it was the first time he’d ever said fuck and that he felt dirty.

The Triforce of Courage was just going to be called the Triforce of Porridge for exactly zero reason.

Some incarnation of Buffmare was going to exist in the comic, but only in a sequence taking place in Nightmare’s imagination.

When Cross realized his backpack was missing, it was because I realized his backpack was missing. I forgot to draw it. I decided that the backpack actually fused with him to create a Zelda-style magic pocket.

Nightmare was going to try to control a seagull with the command melody, but he was accidentally going to start controlling Cross instead and make him run into a tree.

The Tree Spirit was going to hold official interviews for placeholder guardians in Dream and Nightmare’s absence. These placeholder guardians were going to be Neil, the overenthusiastic French furry, and Ccino, the local emo kid who is absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit, and exclusively because they were the only ones who applied for the job. Neil was going to have an ulterior motive of becoming Gaston’s successor.

Neil and Ccino were eventually going to ‘get together’, if you can even call it that, and for no other reason than shitpost reasons.

Nightmare may have had a showdown with the Giant Flying Chicken while riding the Great Charizard from Dragon Roost.

Another possible concept for whole story was that it was a bad self insert fic written by a younger version of Nightmare, but it’s really unlikely that I would’ve gone through with that.

Nightmare and Cross may have needed to go on a fetch quest to find Ink’s brush in the ocean because they accidentally lost it, but honestly that would’ve served nothing for the progression of the story. Because XGaster put a tracker on Ink’s brush, they were going to have to enlist his help.

and that about wraps up my notes, now let me throw what I had sitting around of a script draft–reading this was a trip because I forgot that literally 60% of it existed:

(inside the mountain)

Cross: holy shoe, EVERYONE has wings? how is this a thing??

Cross: I’m frickin jealous

Chief: Oh. You must be. Those guys.

Horror: yeah man, I enlisted their help to capture the Chicken Terror, but then they were all like yo, it’s a robot! 

Chief: horror robot or not I told you that we weren’t going to capture the chicken terror for food because we’re not cannibals we don’t eat birds

Horror: but

Horror: we’re hardly even birds!

Chief: you know your job Horror. now get back to work. your actual work.

Horror: But… being the mailman sucks! 

Chief: Do I need to confiscate your axe again? 

Horror: OKAY FINE. I’M GOING. (flies away in a huff)

Chief: AND DO YOUR GODFORSAKEN LAUNDRY!

Chief: I apologize for that… so, how can I help you two today? 

Nightmare: You guys have like, some pearl thing or something? We need to like, collect three of them in order to… save the multiverse… or something like that.

(Camera dramatically darkens.)

Chief: It’s just as the prophecy foretold…

Nightmare: oh god what

Chief: You see, young whippersnappers… legend tells of a great hero that would rise up and save a bunch of people in times of desperation that they don’t even realize are desperate. the great hero would travel far and wide in search of the Pearls of Shiny to finally retrieve a great weapon that he would use to strike down the evil that few knew existed. also the hero would have a sidekick wearing stupid clothes.

Cross: EXCUSE ME

Chief: THAT’S JUST WHAT THE PROPHECY SAID

Nightmare: okay, y’know, I’m just gonna roll with it. where can I get the pearl?

Chief: Well… that’s where the hard part comes in. You see, the pearl belongs to my son… but he’s been acting like an edgy teenager lately.

Nightmare: Great…

Cross: Is there a reason he’s being edgy? Maybe there’s something we can do to appease his hormones.

Cross: Free food works like a charm for me.

Chief: No, it’s more complicated than that. When one of our people becomes of age, they climb to the top of Charizard Island to receive a scale from the Great Charizard that will allow them to grow wings.

Nightmare: the… great charizard.

Chief: But lately, the Great Charizard has been throwing inexplicable temper tantrums. No one can get close to him anymore. And with my son being of age, he’s decently pissed off about this.

Chief: We’re thinking that the Great Charizard is displeased about something, and it is also causing our shortage of food.

Nightmare: Wait, you worship something named after a Pokemon? 

Chief: Anyway, perhaps you two will be able to talk some sense into my son. Maybe he just wants to talk to someone his age that isn’t Horror or Killer.

Nightmare: What kind of names are those? 

Chief: There’s a letter that I wanted my son to read, and I’ve given it to Killer to hold onto. You can go get it from him upstairs in the first room near the stairs, just tell him I sent you. He’s the little guy in the short shorts, you’ll probably recognize him when you see him.

Nightmare: Can’t you just call him here? 

Chief: No, it is of upmost importance that you experience a basic fetch quest in order to become a great hero, because those fetch quests will become needlessly complicated before you even realize it.

Nightmare: ?????

Nightmare: I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not–

Cross: dude let’s just go get the letter

(scene transition)

(Killer dramatically turns around and it zooms in and says his name SSB style)

Nightmare: Wait, why do you get a dramatic introduction? 

Killer: Dayum. New faces.

Nightmare: Why is everyone ignoring my questions??

Killer: (needlessly sensual voice) So, what brings you here? (walking closer) 

Nightmare: (backs into wall) NO BUENO

Cross: You have a letter or something? 

Killer: Oh. Yeah. Chief gave it to me for some reason. Yo, catch.

(He chucks it like a ninja star. Cross catches it between his hands in front of his face.) 

Killer: Ey! You actually caught it! 

Cross: I’m a trained ninja.

Killer: So like, who are you guys?

Cross: I’m Cross. He’s Larry.

Nightmare: NIGHTMARE. MY NAME IS NIGHTMARE.

Killer: Aw man, I know the feel of having a really lame name and wanting one that’s cooler.

Nightmare: No. Like. My name is actually Nightmare. My senile grandma called me Larry earlier today and this loser picked up on it.

Killer: There’s no need to lie. I understand.

Nightmare: I’M NOT LYING!

Killer: anyway make sure you get that letter to Color there’s something I have to do–

(Killer zips out the door behind them.) 

Cross: what even the frick? 

Nightmare: that guy freaks me the frick out.

Nightmare: literally. I felt like he was coming onto me.

Cross: you’re imagining things.

(SCENE TRANSITION)  Cross: all right Nightmare I literally do not trust your ability to communicate with another person in a way that will make them feel inclined to give us something so just let me handle this okay

Cross: okay better yet wait outside the room

(Nightmare makes a less than amused face.) 

Cross: it’s for the greater good

(Cross walks into the room.)

Cross: hi my name is Cross and

Color: LEAVE

(Cross immediately exits the room.)

Cross: this is a lost causeNightmare: what

Cross: go make him bleed with your words

Nightmare: dude isn’t this the part where we give him the frickin letter

Cross: (pauses) :o

Cross: OH RIGHT

(Cross takes the letter and goes back into the room, leaving the door open)

Cross: oh yeah this letter is for you it’s from your dad or something

Color: Oh, wow. Can’t even be bothered to talk to me in person.

Color: Give me that thing.

(Color stares at the letter. It’s actually a letter from Killer filled with really bad pickup lines and other really creepy compliments.)

Color: What the hell, you said this was from my dad!

Cross: We thought it was–??

(Killer teleports in behind them, scaring the shit out of Nightmare) 

Killer: Suuuup~

Color: Killer I swear to god.

Killer: Here’s the actual letter, though you might not be happy with it.

(He flings it at Color and it lands in front of him. He reads it over, rolls his eyes and throws it in the trash.)

Cross: So uh… I don’t know what the letter says but apparently we’re prophesied heroes collecting a bunch of pearls to save the multiverse and the pearl you have is– 

Color: Can everyone just get out of my room already?

(everyone just leaves)

Nightmare: What even was the point of that stupid fetch quest?

Killer: Oh yeah, can you guys help me with something? Just a smalllll favor. And I can’t ask anyone else because I’m not supposed to do it.

Killer: I need some strong, reliable people…

Nightmare: Don’t touch me.

Killer: It’s just a small favor! And I mean actually small, it’ll take like two minutes.

Nightmare: I have doubts about this.

Killer: Great! Meet me out back by the spring.

Nightmare: Wait which side is the back–

(Killer is gone)

Nightmare: Cross which side is the back.

Cross: I don’t know??

(after spending twenty minutes going through the various exits trying to figure out how to get there)

Killer: What the hell took you so long.

Nightmare: Directions would’ve been helpful. There wasn’t even a freaking map anywhere in there!

Killer: The hollow is like the size of a middle class house! How difficult could it be to find out where to go?!

Nightmare: IT’S A DOME THERE IS NO BACK

Cross: OKAY, what matters is that we’re here, what the heck do we do now.

Killer: Okay, okay. (steps backwards) Look, if you look around here, it’s all a dried up spring. The Great Charizard was throwing a tantrum, a boulder fell down and it coincidentally plugged up the spring for the third time this week, which is literally our main source of fresh water. I’m honestly getting sick of this so I’m going to climb the mountain and see what’s going on because everyone else is too scared to do it.

Nightmare: God. You’re not gonna make us go with you, are you? 

Killer: Oh, no way. I just need you to throw me up that cliff over there so I can get into the cavern that leads up the mountain.

Nightmare: Can’t you fly?

Killer: Not thirty feet straight up. Do these noodle arms look like they can manage that? 

Nightmare: Whatever. But quick question. How the hell does one throw a person.

Killer: I weigh like fifty pounds. It shouldn’t be that hard. Also, if you’ve noticed, the wind is rapidly changing directions, so you’ll probably have the best effect throwing me when the wind is blowing that way.

Nightmare: Mhmm. Sure. Let’s just get this over with.

(Nightmare crouches down and Killer fuckin walks onto his shoulders)

Nightmare: Hey! Watch it!

(some way or another he throws Killer and Killer barely makes it to the cliff, face planting into the ground)

Nightmare: Well I guess that worked.

Killer: THAT WAS TERRIBLE!

Nightmare: YOU’RE WELCOME! COULD’VE JUST USED A DAMN LADDER!

Killer: NOBODY OWNS A LADDER HERE BECAUSE EVERYONE CAN FLY!

Nightmare: Then how the frick do people get up this cliff?!

Killer: THERE’S NORMALLY A BRIDGE BUT IT BROKE AND PROBLEMS LIKE THESE ARE PRECISELY WHY I’M CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN TO BEGIN WITH! ALSO I’M LEAVING BYE. (turns and leaves)

(cricket cricket)

Cross: Nightmare we should probably follow him.

Nightmare: No.

Cross: What else do we have to do. We solve their problem, Color can get his wings and then he stops being emo and gives us the pearl out of the goodness of his heart.

Nightmare: I’m not risking my life for this! If that guy is willing to do it himself I’m going to let him do it!

Cross: Dude, look at that guy. He looks about at capable fixing whatever the problem is as Ink is at providing emotional support. If this happens to be anything like a video game, we’re the only ones capable of solving anything. Besides, what else are we supposed to do? Hang around and wait for something to happen?

Nightmare: All right, fine. But how are we supposed to do something? It’s not like we can climb up a thirty foot cliff.

Cross: No, but we can swim, right?Nightmare: What?

(Cross draws a line around the rock covering the spring. It dematerializes into red squares and water starts to spew out of the spring. They both run back towards the side and climb up the cliff they came from)

Nightmare: Dude, what the hell was that?

Cross: I can draw lines around things with my sword and they do that and go away.

Nightmare: … do they go somewhere? 

Cross: I dunno.

(Meanwhile in Xtale, a boulder slams into the floor and almost crushes Fresh because of course he’s there)

(The spring fills up) 

Nightmare: You know I’m starting to have second thoughts about this swimming thing seeing as how I’ve never actually–(Cross kicks him into the water) 

(LATER) 

Nightmare: YOU ASSHOLE I ALMOST DROWNED

Cross: You’re exaggerating.

Random Dude: STOP RIGHT THERE! 

Nightmare: who.

Random Dude: YOU AREN’T GOIN ONE STEP PAST THIS POINT! YOU’RE LIGHT YEARS FROM FACING BROCK!

(nightmare squints)

(comic suddenly goes into a battle sequence)

Nightmare: whoa whoa what the hell is happening

Cross: oh my god it’s pokemon NIGHTMARE IT’S POKEMON

Nightmare: I DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON CROSS THREATEN HIM

(Random Dude sent out MEWTWO)

Cross: DEAR GOD

Cross: LISTEN THERE’S A HUGE MISUNDERSTANDING WE’RE NOT TRAINERS WE DON’T HAVE POKEMON

Random Dude: tHEN WHY ARE YOU IN A POKEMON GYM HUH

Cross: Uh… touring?

Random Dude: OH

Random Dude: I SEE

(The Random Dude returns his Mewtwo.)

Random Dude: THERE HAS BEEN AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING

Cross: Say uh, you didn’t happen to see a scrawny dude with wings pass through here, did you?

Random Dude: Oh yeah, he went into the next room and took the elevator to the top.

(silence) 

Nightmare: Why are there always elevators.

(two seconds later, they reach the elevator and there’s a dude standing in front of it) 

Nightmare: um excuse me we need to use the elevator

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: excuse me I said move

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: HELLO

Dude: oh man I can’t find my glasses anywhere what do I do

Nightmare: MOVE ASSHOLE

Cross: I think it’s a preprogrammed NPC.

Nightmare: UAGGGGHHHHH

(Nightmare throws himself into the person, but he slams into the STEEL WALL OF NPC)

Nightmare: CROSS TELEPORT HIM AWAY

Cross: wait are you serious what if that freakin kills him I don’t know where these things go

Nightmare: YOU SAID IT YOURSELF HE’S AN NPC

(Cross shrugs. He draws a line around the NPC and the NPC disappears)

(one elevator ride later)

Nightmare: (chokes) oh god

Nightmare: the altitude

Cross: nightmare this island is still lower than ink’s house.

Nightmare: PSYCHOLOGICAL ALTITUDE

(fwip)

Cross: Oh look, it’s that guy from earlier.

Nightmare: Got captured somehow. Why am I not surprised?

Killer: YOU KNOW WHAT SCREW YOU GUYS

(A really buff guy abruptly slams into the ground)

Buff Guy: FEAR MY WRATH, FOR I AM BROCK! LEADER OF ALL THINGS ROCK HARD

Nightmare: Look man, we really don’t have time for this, just let the shota hoe go, we’re just checking up on the huge-ass Charizard up there.

Killer: excuse me

Brock: I AM THE LOYAL GUARDIAN OF THE GREAT CHARIZARD! You can only pass if you defeat me! 

Cross: what the hell is even happening anymore

(Loud gym battle music as the gate at the entrance of the clearing slams shut)

Nightmare: LOOK WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS WE DON’T HAVE ANY POKEMON

(Brock war cries as he sends out a very anime geodude)

Nightmare: can someone please tell me I’m hallucinating all of this

Brock: WELL, IF YOU DON’T HAVE POKEMON, YOU’LL HAVE TO USE A RENTAL

Cross: What? But rental pokemon always suck.

Brock: YOU MUST PROVE YOUR WORTH SOMEHOW! AND BECAUSE YOU’RE SMALL CHILDREN YOU OBVIOUSLY CAN’T PROVE IT THROUGH SUMO WRESTLING.

Nightmare: I’m fifteen!

Cross: Nightmare I think you’re missing the point.

Killer: Good god, just let them through and let me out of here, they’re the heroes of prophecy.

Brock: PROPHECY

Brock: GOODNESS ME I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT

(Brock returns his geodude)

Brock: YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING

Nightmare: That would have worked?

Brock: BUT! IF YOU WANT TO FREE THIS TINY FELLOW HERE, YOU MUST COMPLETE A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE! FOR YOU SEE, HE TRIED TO PASS THROUGH HERE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION! 

(Killer rolls his eyes. Nightmare squints, literally pulling a notebook out of his shirt. He writes something in it, walking up to Brock and holding it up. It says “Let the guy out of jail you dick”)

Brock: AHA

Brock: WELL

Brock: I CAN’T ARGUE WITH THAT

(He stomps his foot on the ground and the bars in front of Killer go up)

Brock: DON’T BE CAUSING TROUBLE NOW KIDS 

(He ascends back into the sky) 

Cross: I’m not even going to ask. That entire conversation felt like a drug trip.

(Killer dramatically throws himself onto Nightmare) 

Killer: I knew you would come around, my knight in–

Nightmare: Why did I assume that you had become any less creepy in the last ten minutes. Why did I even do that? 

Killer: Because your heart told you to.

Nightmare: Dear god stop touching me or I will literally pick you up and slam you into the floor.

Killer: Feisty. Anyway, I figured out why the Great Charizard is freaking out all the time. His tail is hanging down into the room below him and something is chewing on it like all the time.

Cross: What? Then why doesn’t it just, I dunno, pull its freaking tail out of the room like a reasonable creature? Or maybe take care of the problem on its own?

Killer: The Great Charizard is like a five year-old. It’s self aware, but it expects all of its problems to be solved by everyone else and throws tantrums when that doesn’t happen.

Nightmare: Well that’s stupid. Why does everyone act like it’s some holy being then?

Killer: Because it’s a massive, terrifying dragon that can breathe fire?

ok unfortunately this is where the script ends but I hope you enjoyed that

oh yeah, and some extremely old art that I found:

as well as a brief consideration to make the characters human before deciding that I just didn’t want to work on the comic anymore.

basically you will notice that most of this doesn’t have a solid outline, and you’d be right: I never actually planned it that meticulously. I mostly just winged it and threw stuff in over the course of time and never even really planned anything close to a definitive ending beyond “maybe it was a prank”. sorry if this is like… anticlimactic, but it’s all I could find!

#meme waker #long post

119 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!

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