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beyondspaceandstars · 3 years

Text

While You Sleep

Chapter 3

Relationship: Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: angst, mention of violence, slow burn Summary: Soulmate!AU - Throughout life, you’re given glimpses of your soulmate through dreams. As you sleep, memories flash in your mind showing you the life your soulmate has lived. Everyone around you raves about how their soulmate reads great books or volunteers in their spare time. But you can’t relate as your dreams end up being more like nightmares. Through initial images of death and violence, you come to learn your soulmate is the Winter Soldier.

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Okay -- that little pep talk you had given yourself was slowly dying as you walked into work the next day. Suddenly, nervousness was replacing it all, washing over you quickly.

You didn’t exactly know what to say. The extent of conversation you’d ever had with Steve was reserved to you saying “here’s your order” and he’d promptly respond with that shining smile and the most meaningful thank you.

Bringing up the fact his ex-assassin best friend was your long-lost was just not any kind of coffee shop chatter.

You were trying to ponder it during the morning rush. Mindlessly making lattes and frappes, you worked on some kind of script that could be thrown together. But your thoughts were interrupted by the bell over the door ringing. This wasn’t unusual giving it being early morning but for some reason, your eyes shot up — landing right on the man you were anticipating.

As always, he looked so casual yet so large waiting in the back of the line. Eyes wandered over him shamelessly but Steve genuinely didn’t seem to notice. He kept his forward, browsing the menu as if he ever got anything but a large black coffee. You just knew it because, well, it was the easiest order you ever served up. Like the world giving you a break.

Knowing his order brought some advantages for you. Since he was one of the few people actually ordering straight-up coffee in the morning -- the shop was quite frequented by college students and young entrepreneurs -- you simply didn’t start the coffee pot that morning. Your plan was to start it right after he ordered giving him a wait time of about thirty minutes. Possibly annoying for him, a great chance for you. He’d be forced to wait at the bar and you could chat. Chat about what, though, you still didn’t know. You couldn’t exactly dive in.

But you weren’t given much more time to plan. Steve was at the cashier before you knew it. You waited, watched as he paid, and then clicked the coffee pot on.

You walked over to the pick-up area. “Sorry,” you said. Steve turned to you. “It’s going to be a few minutes. I had to put on a new pot of coffee but you’re welcome to wait at the bar area.”

Steve gave you a small smile. “That’s fine,” he said and made his way to a stool. Your plan was rolling out perfectly. Now if you could only figure where to take it from here.

You leaned against the counter, watching the pot brew and waiting for another order to come through. Secretly you had hoped some big, ridiculous latte request would come in but so far the customers and seemed to die down. You couldn’t do much but stand across from Steve who was looking around at the decor.

The machine was about half full when you finally decided to open your mouth to at least say something -- but Steve beat you to it.

“Is everything okay?” He asked. Your eyes widened.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry,” Steve coughed and readjusted his posture. “I just meant, you look like something is bothering you. Are you okay?”

You couldn’t do this today, you realized. Your brain suddenly went on a mission finding some lie to pop out.

“Yeah, yeah,” you dismissed his comment with a wave of your hand. “I- I Just… Didn’t sleep well last night.”

Alright. Your lie suddenly was dripping with subconscious truth. You cringed at your own words, rubbing your forehead with two fingers. This was the dumbest idea you had ever had and now you were forced to see it out as the coffee pot suddenly felt like it was brewing at half-speed.

“Oh,” Steve frowned but leaned forward, a bit intrigued. “Unpleasant dreams?”

You sighed, “You could say that.”

“Were they from…” His words trailed off unusually. The discussion of soulmates was somewhat of an accepted one. Usually, just in hopes that one could lead them to their significant other.

Steve, however, seemed leery about the subject. You were certainly in the same boat. That let you relax just ever so slightly.

“My soulmate?” You blurted out the question. Steve nodded, slowly. “Yeah, they were. He… he hasn’t seen very nice things in his lifetime.”

It felt so weird talking about Steve’s best friend while Steve most likely knew nothing about who you were referring to. It was like a giant weight in the conversation for you. You wanted to blurt it out, wanted to maybe meet your other half and just see what everything was about, see who he really is but it felt so heavy on your chest. It just wasn't right yet. You'd get a sign, you knew. Then you'd proceed but not here, not today.

Steve sighed, his gaze dropping to his hands that were resting on the counter. “No, I don’t think he has.”

Your stomach dropped. Did -- Was he -- Did he know who you were talking about? Steve no longer would meet your gaze but your eyes grew wide again in possible realization -- or... maybe you were just being absolutely paranoid. Perhaps he didn’t even say that and you misheard him --

DING. The coffee machine rang making you jump in surprise. You forgot for a second where the hell you two even were. Steve’s eyes fell on you again but you quickly turned to the coffee, refusing to let him see your blushing, flustered state.

He knew. He had to know. Or at least he guessed. But how could he know? Steve wasn’t in yesterday, he wouldn’t have witnessed your panic. Did your co-worker tell him? When the hell would she have done that? Maybe… Maybe Bucky knew… What did he know then of you? And if he did, why wasn’t he here? Steve knew you so what the fuck was happening…

Your mind was a maze. A painful, winding maze. You could feel yourself trying to make it through the thoughts and theories but nothing was working. You forced yourself to push it all down, just for the rest of your shift.

Continuing, you quickly filled Steve’s to-go cup and placed it on the counter. He didn’t take it right away, opting to stare at the cup for a second. You pretended not to notice and instead began grinding espresso beans for a latte order that came in.

“It’ll get better,” Steve said, making your motions still completely. Such a simple thing that could mean so much. Was he offering comfort? A taunt? Your brain was back at it again.

You forced yourself to look up, wanting so badly to say just one more thing, maybe even plead and confess it all, but he was already gone. You felt like crying as you went back to brewing the beans. That unmistakable, inescapable tinge of heartache filled your chest.

***

It’ll get better. Steve’s words rang in your head tauntingly as you laid in bed that night. Staring at the ceiling, you had been trying to fall asleep for over an hour now hoping this “better” Steve spoke of was right around the corner.

So far, though, no luck. Tonight’s flicks were of an older kind, thankfully still not as powerful as the more modern ones, but the images didn’t get any better. They were quick looks, sure, but violence and bodies, a horrendous combination produced horrendous results. The feelings behind it went straight to your soul.

You gave up even trying to decide what the hell this memory could’ve been from. You didn’t want to register the potential victim’s faces. You didn’t care about the scenery and whatnot.

The better had not come yet — whatever the hell that actually was which Steve had promised.

He knew something. Something very deep and useful for this situation. It was laced in his words and written on his concerned face.

Or maybe you were going crazy. The more you thought about it, the less it all made sense.

There was just that hope you were able to go off of now. That hope of “better.” That hope of fate.

Hope was your only weapon against the heart-wrenching memories flooding their way into your brain as your eyes were forced to give in, too heavy and defeated from today.

It was maybe all you had at this point and the whiplash of life was certainly throwing you a new one.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

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#bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff #mcu #mcu fic #fanfic #fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #marvel #soulmate au #writing #fluff #angst #slow burn #the winter soldier

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lizaloveslevihan · 3 years

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Hii!!! Many people are feeling kinda mixed meh about the latest chapter, especially due to the way Levi-Zeke rivalry thing ended. Did you read the official version? What do you think?

Hi! Thank you for bringing this up because I was meaning to post my thoughts on this regardless. I’ve seen a lot of discourse regarding this matter, especially when it came to Levi’s character. I’ve done my best looking at it in an unbiased way because the truth is, who you ship him with tends to cloud your mind from his real intentions as a character. I’ll also do my best to talk a little more about Zeke, even though I honestly still have a hard time figuring out him out .

Levi’s promise to Erwin has undoubtedly become a large part of his character and has been what was driving him for years. But to say that it’s all he has, to reduce him to this mindless, revenge-seeking machine for me is just so wrong on so many levels.

My take? That his intentions have always been about doing what was best for humanity. That along with these intentions is his sense of duty to carry the hopes and dreams of his dead comrades. These things have always been the embodiment of his promise to Erwin, which is to kill Zeke.

When he made that promise to Erwin, they were under attack — the Beast Titan was throwing rocks and they would have failed in their mission to secure Shiganshina. By killing the Beast Titan, Levi would be able to secure their front and make sure that the sacrifices all those Survey Corps members made were not in vain. This was for the sake of both humanity and his comrades. When he wasn’t able to do so, this created a sense of guilt inside of him. And of course, we can’t deny his bond with Erwin. We can’t deny that he cares deeply about him, that he was about to choose him over Armin. But he chose the latter, and so the only way he can pay tribute to his fallen comrade, to the person whom he respected deeply and introduced him to his life in the Survey Corps — was to fulfill this promise.

But then we enter the final arc. If Levi was really a mindless, revenge-seeking machine people ought him to be, if killing Zeke was just all in the name of revenge, then he would have had no hesitation to kill him back in the forest. Let me remind you, Zeke had turned all of his subordinates into titans and forced him to slaughter every single one of them. But despite that, despite feeling incredible loss and hatred, Levi still didn’t kill him. Why? Because he believed in the secret plan he had. Why? Because they all believed that was what was best for Eldia and because it was what was seemingly going to help free their race. He didn’t kill Zeke yet because that was what he believed to be best for humanity. In the end, no matter how you look at it, he was looking at the bigger picture. Yes, he still wanted to kill Zeke to satisfy his promise, but he was willing to see to it that his death would be through him getting eaten by a titan of their own.

And then we come to the Alliance. His objective is to still kill Zeke, yes, but killing Zeke aligns with the interest of the Marleyans and is potentially the key to stopping the rumbling. And of course, he had just lost his subordinates. He has to give their deaths meaning as well, on top of all the others. But then Hange died too, and more than anything their final wish was to stop the rumbling. So I’m going to reiterate this for the nth time: the promise has always been about saving humanity and giving meaning to his comrades’ deaths. Chapter 136 also confirms this.

If keeping Zeke alive was the key to stopping the rumbling, however, then I’m sure Levi wouldn’t have killed him.

Now we have the actual part where he does what he’s been wishing for so long. Personally, I need more context for this and I hope we get some insight into his thoughts next chapter, but you can tell that killing Zeke didn’t give him the fulfillment he ought to have. He’s pained and distressed the entire time. Did he recognize Zeke's sacrifice? I can’t tell. But I think that this all points to the fact that he’s just tired.

The entire time we see him in his crippled state — from Chapter 126 till now — he’s just, to put it quite plainly, dead inside.

Yelena pointed this out to him in Chapter 128, and you can just tell how tired he is. All his life has been about violence. He’s thrown into every single conflict, over and over again, and honestly, I’m having a hard time right now expressing my thoughts over this because my heart just hurts revisiting these chapters and thinking about it. He’s disassociated so much after Hange died and went as far as to say he’ll see them later. He’s just so done.

And I think that’s what he was thinking when he finally did it. He gave Zeke as much of a quick and painless death, despite all those years of wanting to savor his demise. Perhaps he didn’t realize how easy it would be. (Damn okay I thought it would be easier now to talk about this but I guess not, I’m just incredibly attached to Levi if you can’t tell.)

Regarding Zeke, well, I thought his last statement to be rather beautiful. How for so long he’s always thought of things somewhat in a black or white perspective. I love how Armin made him realize that life was all about those little moments, about those small things that give us joy in our everyday lives. He rose up and finally appreciated the beauty and simplicity of the day. And his interaction with Levi, saying how he wanted to meet him but he couldn’t say the same? How he just openly goes “Hey! I’m right here! You can kill me now, buddy!” like two old friends seeing each other again? I wouldn’t go as far as saying they were friends, but the light and comedic moments they always share amid their difficult and brutal relationship is something I truly appreciate and will miss.

I really would love, however, if the situation with paths would be explained more. That whole dimension is so tricky and difficult to understand, and as much as I love reading other people’s theories, it sets me up for disappointment should my expectations not be met. And if I’m being completely honest, I also would have liked to see more of Zeke. He was out of commission for almost, what? A year? But then again, the manga timeline itself isn’t that long so I suppose it makes sense.

To wrap it up, Levi isn’t just a mindless tool for revenge. His promise to Erwin perfectly embodies his consistent intentions and principles as a character -- to help humanity and give meaning to his comrades’ deaths. His bond with Erwin is also something we can’t deny being there, and though it heavily influences him, it’s not what makes up his entire character. He’s incredibly tired of violence, which may be the reason why he looks the way he does in this chapter. Zeke is such an interesting and well-developed character and though I would have loved to have seen more of him, his epiphany and death were beautiful for me. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this was Levi’s last act of violence? Hopefully, the next chapter would give us more insight into his thoughts and explain things in regards to the bigger picture.

#i hope i was able to convey my thoughts properly #sometimes i feel like i'm all over the place #aot 137 #snk 137 #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan spoilers #levi ackerman #levi #zeke #zeke yeager #zeke jaeger #my thoughts #ask box

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scoundrels-in-love · 3 years

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Almost 300 years a week later, here are some of my thoughts on Dan Ah and her actions through ep 11 and 12. I will try not to repeat too much of the points I made here, or elsewhere in my rambles, but if it happens, it happens. + I won’t operate on mindset that you’ve read it.

First, I think her saying ‘apologies are meaningless, I can’t take back things I said, only make up for it’ is incredibly telling of her as person and the kind of environment she grew up in - the high society and family where apologies are dished out hollowly and never followed through with intention of changing something for the better or your behavior. Time and how you spend it is very important to her. She even says as much in her confession and I think it only outlines how much her time is the one thing she tries to have control of, and exert it (over herself as well). Considering the concept of possibly terminal illness that she suffers from, it makes sense. She doesn’t have time to be patient, no one will wait for her, including her own health. Yeong Hwa is the one immovable object that forces her to slow down and readjust her whole approach to life and it’s been... Not comfortable, necessarily, but it’s been functional, so she struggles to redefine it, especially without real example.

Second, there’s lot of parallels to be drawn between her and Mi Joo. And I ended up writing this all backwards, so I am not sure if I’ll manage to include it, but in some ways, Mi Joo’s line about ‘I value myself more than anyone else’ both in the sense that she’s the most important to herself and that no one else values her truly highly is very reminiscent of Dan Ah’s attitude and the way she admitted she isn’t in control of her life entirely o Mi Joo.

And there’s. of course, that moment when Mi Joo responded sarcastically to Seun Gyeom, later to apologize for it, which he took in a stride (much as he had said that he had never felt Dan Ah walked over him unjustly), because he does understand where they come from and how they work, on a certain level (even if he underestimated just how his father would strike and manage to hurt Mi Joo). I think Dan Ah isn’t at place where she cay say that yet, but I do believe sentiment is within her.

If someone asked what motivates Dan Ah, her answer could be similar to Mi Joo’s - fear and obsession, rather than Seun Gyeom’s regret. Fear of being controlled, of being weak and sick, obsession of having and exerting certain power and keeping yourself safe. Now, this point altogether is purely speculation on my part, of course, but that’s my read on the character, but also her anxiety has been mentioned several times and anxiety is basically that - fear, especially of things going wrong/being out of control, if we wish to trivialize it.

And although Dan Ah merely adds that whatever she had, got taken away from her, she basically used same method as Mi Joo - set her goals and opted for the best ‘fake’ that she could get, in this case her company, rather than being football player or the gallery. Both, in the same way, would rather put up walls to not lose what little they have but the men in their lives just... Bypassed them.

It’s interesting to note that similarly as Mi Joo is currently trying to sort ouf what is real and to go for, instead of relying on having a ‘fake’, so does Dan Ah - it’s likely she is planning to expose the illegitimate status of both her brothers to gain what is technically rightfully hers (hence asking her younger brother to side with her even when it will not be comfortable for him).

Third, I think the way she’s seeking out Mi Joo and her opinion is very interesting. And it does loop back to Yeong Hwa as well!

From the very start, we see that Dan Ah actually cares to listen to other people to an extent (she asks her secretary what she did wrong to upset Seun Gyeom, even if she ends the conversation how much simpler it’d be if all of us thought were similar, which is strongly undermined by all of her interactions with Mi Joo and even Yeong Hwa essentially). She is interested in experiencing being opposed and challenged in a way that is not downright demeaning as she does in her family. She finds their view on world interesting, if somewhat incomprehensible, and listens to it, processes it inwardly, even if her initial reaction might be defensive. (Also, it shows from start she’s willing to admit she doesn’t have all answers, same as she does with Yeong Hwa telling him that she doesn’t know what answer he wants - as she would need to know in business deal which is what most of her world consists of.)

But in some ways, I also think she is interested in what Seun Gyeom and Mi Joo have created and how. She basically instantly could tell Seun Gyeom is interested in Mi Joo which is implied as rare occurrence (or perhaps even the only time since she says she’s the last woman he liked and he debunks the theory), she asks several times what Mi Joo sees in Seun Gyeom that makes her so protective of him (which I think is both a way to see how deeply Mi Joo cares for him and to see more of Seun Gyeom). But also in some way, although it is her own act to let Seun Gyeom, she “loses” him to his own path and Mi Joo both. Because I do think she cares for him as a friend, perhaps only one she has.

Although she puts Seun Gyeom’s picture by the trash, it’s actually not taken out for several days and it’s definitely not because the secretary or the cleaner are neglecting their duties. Rather, same way as he didn’t throw away the honey but handed it back to Yeong Hwa, the secretary is aware she’s not really emotionally throwing him away. Because once she likes something, she never really stops, as per her own admission.

So there’s this certain feeling of loss that she can’t quite admit to herself and want to know both what Mi Joo saw and supported in Seun Gyeom and how and a yearning for something similar, because this is basically the first friendship/not work based relationship of the kind that she sees. (The same way she marvels is this how full-blood siblings are supposed to be when Eun Bi is upset about Seun Gyeom’s picture and how she defends her brother and then, Dan Ah actually ‘tattles’ on her so he can protect her, which can be covered up with excuse it was over the schedule, but was it really?)

In fact, she seems to be somewhat envious of relationship her brother has with her secretary, saying he still cares for her brother more and also the way she wanted to be included in the whole cat talk. She is upset when he doesn’t say he’s her person, but employed by the company, she protects him the way she knows how to (regarding revenge kick) and generally cares for him. She just wants someone truly and personally on her side, even though she probably has a hard time admitting it to herself which results in these odd and halfway there and nowhere attempts, especially paired with the fact she doesn’t really know how to establish not-work-related connection on a deeper level.

I will add point fourth here, although it’s still technically third. It’s safer, far more practical and logical to stay detached. But the heart wants what it wants and it’s friendship, connection, being liked for who she is and being challenged but not seen as lesser, with someone who won’t smile because she’s his boss, although that sort of control is precious and hard fought to be had in part of her life.

Caring for something or someone is relinquishing this control, basically inviting the same result Seun Gyeom got taste of at ep of 12, the result she already experienced with her dreams of being football player crushed. Except if it involves another person, it increases the chances of being hurt by them exponentially. And it’s also worth considering that if her relationship with mother was close, she’s also already experienced abandonment and grief of losing someone dear and close. (Which, of the leads, only Mi Joo knows and even then it’s more the absence of reflection what other people around her have which hurts, but in a different way, as per my experience.)

Concept of Mi Joo’s friendship, and Yeong Hwa as a whole, become very images of these unsaid wish fulfillment because they’re not trying to be.

They’re themselves, argumentative and challenging, and teasing, despite her being ‘above them’ in power hierarchy, leveling the field by merely ignoring it, and, initially, she doesn’t even try to get Yeong Hwa sign a contract, it’s only when her own yearning for his work (and for him), and him denying her any of it becomes a problem that she ‘admits’ it was her own fault for not drawing the sort of lines she’s used to with everyone else, and even then she’s not really thrilled about him agreeing to it, because it’s not really what she wants from him, although it’s what would be the safest and make the most actual sense within her world.

Even then, as her employee, he refuses to follow her orders and tells her plainly - if she wants something, she is to be vulnerable and invest herself into it (she actually tries, by smiling because he had said it was cute) and she has to admit to herself and to him, that he has grown onto her, not as a ‘vending machine’ or ‘employee’, but person whose opinion and feelings toward her are very important to her.

Also, it’s very telling how she tells him she belongs to herself, of course, and that he, too, can still belong to himself. She wants him as individual separate from herself, but the thought that he is firmly on her side obviously makes her very happy. In some ways, it’s also upgrade from ‘my person’ claim she makes toward her secretary, a learning curve.

Fifth, I suppose. While I rewatched some scenes to make sure I wasn’t actually misremembering, I started to think of another motif that repeats through her conversations.

Dan Ah repeatedly tells him not to have expectations, sentiments, disappointments toward her. From one side, it’s to draw a clear line of employee/employer and view each other in a detached way (that she tries again and again herself, but fails to), but from other, is it that simple?

She is almost crying when she asks him if he’s really stopped liking her and from preview, we learn that no one has asked her out before, seemingly? Probably because she was too much of a boss ass bitch, but still possibly left with a certain sense of inadequacy and that ‘when I am being apologetically me and I will always be that, I am not likeable although I do not entirely understand why’, as per her wondering why people always think she’s mean when by most of her society’s standards, she is rather thoughtful.

Her want of gallery has been brought up several times, her older half brother often says her pick of artist will never be good enough, her father still sees her as a tool to marry off. She as person with her goals and dreams and what she has achieved, just isn’t good enough for people around her at large.

The moment he cares for her, the moment she inherently becomes capable of disappointing him. The moment she cares for him, the moment she becomes capable of disappointing him. And that thought, of doing that and not enough to Yeong Hwa who has sneakily smiled his way into her heart, the growing awareness she truly doesn’t know how to be in some aspects, is overwhelming and painful and she tries to shut the door to it.

Also, he tells her he likes her no matter what he does, but he hates it, which I imagine is double the punch and she tries to find a solution that would make him happy and stop hating it - the perfect answer, as she would in a business deal, but she can’t, until she commits to the truly mortifying ordeal of being known (as suggested by Mi Joo).

Sixth, I really liked that she (or the narrative) didn’t make fun of Yeong Hwa crying. In fact, she’s eyerolled about her younger brother’s temper, but not really in the present made fun of him for apparently being a ‘crybaby’ in the past. I think that in a sense shows her actual streak of empathy and maybe the fact that she’s familiar with need to cry herself and doesn’t find it ‘weak’ as most ‘tougher’ characters would. Also perhaps that she cares for her younger brother more than she has admitted to herself, similarly as she kept denying she cared for Yeong Hwa and went rather far to hurt him.

#run on #jtbc run on #kdrama #rainy watches kdrama #it's only midnight and I've been writing this on and off for two hours...#and it's 1 of 4 rambles #and I don't even know if it makes sense

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hermannsthumb · 4 years

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Idk if you doing requests or not rn buut, feriowind has been posting a bunch of vampire!Hermann and I needs some modern vampire Hermann and professor Newt...

uwu ily

SO I feel like I should open by saying a WIP fic with this concept by @coloredpencilroses exists and I Love it, so read High Stakes for something much better than this lol (and leave a nice comment). HAPPY OCTOBER!!!! warning for very mildly implied sexy stuff. EDIT: and of COURSE I forgot to tag @theloccent for my extremely belated fill for the “Vampire” square on my bingo card :/

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

Newt has always been an extremely persistent type. He considers it, naturally, one his greatest strengths—no theory goes untested, no question goes unanswered, no experiment goes…well, unexperimented. You don’t get more PhDs than you can count on one hand if you’re not persistent. You don’t get a date with the hot new engineering professor down the hall if you’re not persistent, either, but Newt is finding this venture is taking a little more effort than usual. That’s fine, though. He likes challenges.

Dr. Gottlieb was hired by the university at the start of the semester, after the head of the engineering department—who’s nearing her seventies—finally decided she’d had enough and announced her retirement somewhat last minute. He is, frankly, unlike anyone Newt’s ever seen before, a weird combination of cheekbones, wide lips, and a turn-of-the-century old-fashioned air that carries over into everything from his wardrobe to the stiff way he carries himself. He wouldn’t look out of place in a black and white photograph, Newt thinks. Or maybe even the illustrations of a Dickens novel. That’s not why Newt’s into him, though—well, not the only reason why.

In the entire month and a half Gottlieb’s been here, he hasn’t spoken a single word to anyone his contract doesn’t require him to; when he is forced into conversation, he scowls and snaps and mumbles his way through before making a polite excuse as to why he needs to leave the room right now, immediately. No one knows anything about him other than the bare minimum—that his name is Dr. Gottlieb, he lectures in engineering, and he exists. Shit, Newt doesn’t even know his first name. The little plaque outside his office just says Gottlieb.

The mystery just makes Gottlieb all the more alluring to Newt.

Anyway, his continued failures in winning Gottlieb over aren’t a result of a lack of trying. On Gottlieb’s first day, Newt stopped by his office to introduce himself. He didn’t bother knocking. Maybe that was his first mistake. “I’m Newt,” he said. “My office is a few doors down from you. You’re the new department head?”

Gottlieb looked stricken, but he nodded. “Yes,” he said. He didn’t say anything else.

“Cool,” Newt said. “Anyway, I’m technically in the bio department, but I teach a few interdisciplinary courses with engineering, so I requested they stick me over here to get a bigger office.” He cracked a grin. “I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb said.

Newt tried again the next day.

“Your office is so dark,” he said, conversationally, because it was—lights all off, books stacked up everywhere, maroon drapes drawn tightly in front of the single small window. Dark and stuffy. “Feel free to stop by my office whenever you want a break from it. I have a corner one, so I have two windows.”

“I requested this office,” Gottlieb said, not looking up the article he was marking up.

Newt became desperate by his third attempt and did something that’s left him burning with shame even now, weeks later, and that would probably warrant the immediate transfers of sleep-deprived engineering majors out of all his courses if word ever got out it was him: he deliberately broke the department coffee machine. “Man, I can’t believe that thing is busted again,” he declared to Gottlieb. “Good thing I have a Keurig in my office.” Newt had gone out and purchased a Keurig immediately before destroying the coffee pot. “Seriously, come by whenever you need caffeine.”

Gottlieb blinked at him, long and slow, and Newt had the strangest sense that he knew exactly what happened to the coffee pot. “I never drink… coffee,” Gottlieb finally said.

For all Newt’s troubles, the list of things he knows about Gottlieb has expanded by two pitiful points: that his accent is English and posh, and his voice is low and sexy. Helpful.

It’s a chilly day in late October when Newt finally decides to enlist the aid of his interdisciplinary undergrads. Some of them—he learned after poking around their registration records—have a seminar with Gottlieb, and they seem his best bet at learning anything. A spouse—a first name—Newt would take Gottlieb’s favorite color, even. “So,” he starts class, unwinding his scarf off his neck, “that Dr. Gottlieb sure is weird, huh?”

In Newt’s firsthand experience, undergrads love to gossip about their professors, and his certainly don’t disappoint. Gottlieb’s classes are all held in the basement of the engineering building. All run well into the evening, after the sun’s set—most not finished until nine—and Gottlieb hustles out of the lecture hall the moment he can. He walks with a cane and a slight limp. He always dresses like that. He’s never mentioned any sort of family, and wears no wedding ring. He’s scary good at math. No one knows his first name.

“You’ve been an invaluable help,” Newt tells them all seriously.

He mulls the new information over in his office later as he grades some tests. So Gottlieb is a bit of shy, reclusive, genius. No surprise there. Well, his apparent hatred of sunlight is kind of weird (if unsurprising, given how pale he is) but maybe he just has sensitive eyes or something. Who is Newt to judge? At least he knows how to improve his next plan of attack—he just has to ask the guy to come over and sit in a dark room in silence with him. That’s probably Gottlieb’s dream date, actually.

There’s a knock on Newt’s office door. Newt looks up and drops his pen: it’s Gottlieb.

“Uh. Hey, dude!” he squeaks, unsure of how to proceed in this entirely unfamiliar territory. Gottlieb, willingly interacting with him? Willingly leaving his office? “Is there…can I help you with something? Did you want that coffee after all?”

“Most definitely not,” Gottlieb says coolly. He’s standing far enough back from the door that not a single sliver of lamp light from Newt’s office hits him, instead shrouded by the shadows of the dark engineering department. Newt didn’t realize how late it had gotten. “My students informed me that you were interrogating them about me.”

It’s not a question. Newt is struck by a wave of nervousness that he doesn’t quite understand—maybe it’s the sour expression Gottlieb is giving him, something in those dark brown eyes that are piercing through Newt. He feels, foolishly and briefly, like cowering under his desk. He swallows. “Yes,” he says, and adds, stammering, “I mean—I wasn’t interrogating them. I was just asking a few questions.”

“Why?” Gottlieb says.

“Uh,” Newt says. “I guess I was…curious, about you?”

He works up the guts to look Gottlieb in the eyes; he sees Gottlieb’s eyebrows jump the tiniest fraction of an inch. “You’re attracted to me,” Gottlieb says, another non-question, though Newt hears a flicker of surprise.

“Yeah,” Newt admits.

“I see,” Gottlieb says. Then, to Newt’s surprise, he suddenly smiles. “I’d like if you invited me over for dinner, Dr. Geiszler.”

“Dinner,” Newt says. He feels strangely dizzy; but, shaking himself, he quickly gets over it. “I mean, dinner! Yes! Shit! When?”

“Tonight, I should think,” Hermann says.

Tonight is Friday, which means they don’t have work tomorrow. By the time they make it off campus it’ll be almost ten—way later than people eat dinner—and besides, Newt already had a sandwich at around seven. Is dinner a euphemism? Is Gottlieb propositioning him? God, why didn’t he wash his sheets with the laundry this week? “Tonight,” Newt says. He stands up abruptly and grabs his leather jacket with trembling fingers. Why is he trembling? Nerves, he guesses. He’s about to hook up with total hottie Dr. Gottlieb, he’s allowed to be nervous. “Fuck yes. Let’s go now.”

Gottlieb is not impressed with the messy state of Newt’s apartment, and even less impressed with the state of Newt’s refrigerator and freezer. “Dinosaur chicken nuggets and canned Lime-A-Ritas,” he says with a sniff. “Hm. You ought to be getting more vitamins, Dr. Geiszler. I’m certain you’re deficient in something.”

“You sound like my dad,” Newt snorts. He throws his car keys on the counter and shrugs off his jacket. “There’s some leftover Chinese on the second shelf if you want it—just some lo mein. Or I could put a frozen pizza in the oven. Or I guess we could order something too?”

Gottlieb shuts the fridge door delicately. “How kind of you to offer,” he says. He doesn’t sound like he means it. Newt is suddenly struck by how bizarre a sight he is in the midst of Newt’s chaotic kitchen: buttoned up to the throat with his stupid shirt and blazer, prodding at the fraying lime lizard-shaped rug by the sink with the end of his ornately-handled cane. Out of time and out of place.

“It’s Newt,” Newt says. “Please don’t call me Dr. Geiszler, it makes me feel ancient.”

“Hm,” Gottlieb says.

“And what,” Newt says, deciding to test his luck a little, “uh—what should I call you?”

Gottlieb considers him. “Hermann,” he says.

The name rings a bell in the back of Newt’s head. He swears he’s heard it somewhere before—an article, maybe. A book. Has he stumbled across Dr. Gottlieb’s research before without even realizing it? He’s on the verge of asking what publications Gottlieb’s been featured in when Gottlieb suddenly snags hold of his hand; then, raising it to his mouth, he kisses it. His lips are as cold as his skin. “Would you like to show me to your quarters, Newton?” he murmurs.

Newt shivers; he nods.

“Hermann Gottlieb,” Newt says aloud later, while Hermann redresses himself. “Now I know where I’ve heard that name before.”

“Yes?” Hermann says. He’s lacing up one of his Oxfords.

“I worked with his research in one of my dissertations,” Newt says. “Another Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, I mean. He was a brilliant mathematician from—God, 1830-something. German. His work was groundbreaking for the time, or shit, for our time, too.” He remembers seeing a portrait of that Hermann Gottlieb in one of his sources; the whole of the similarities between him and Newt’s Hermann Gottlieb (the dark eyes, the mouth, the cheekbones) are a little too much to be entirely coincidental. “You must be related to him, right? Like, he’s your great-great-great—”

“Yes,” Hermann cuts him off quickly. He turns to Newt and smiles. “A distant ancestor, certainly. I believe you are the first in some time to have made that connection.”

“Always thought he was cool,” Newt yawns. “Man, I’m tired.” The romp with Hermann had been fun, if not unexpectedly exhausting, and a little…out of the ordinary. The dude apparently has some sort of weird biting kink that left Newt’s neck stinging a little bit, but it’s cool, Newt doesn’t mind. It was like boning a vampire or something. Kinda hot. “Do you need me to show you to the door, or can I just stay here? I’m serious about spending the night though. I really don’t mind.”

Hermann fiddles with the laces of his other shoe, then, slowly, draws the whole thing back off. “If it’s not an imposition,” he says, and smiles again, shyly. “Though, I warn you—I’m a bit of a late sleeper.”

“Good, so I am,” Newt says. “Could you toss me the sweatshirt hanging on that chair? You can grab one for yourself too, if you’re cold, I’ve got another hanging in the closet. No, not--yeah, that door.”

They dip under the covers and get cozy, Newt taking on the task of big spoon, because Hermann is a cold sonofabitch and could use a little insulation. The last thought on his mind before he drifts off to a comfortable sleep is how strange it is he can’t feel Hermann’s heartbeat—though, he realizes, it’s probably just muffled by their clothing.

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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anika-ann · 4 years

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Nothing but the Truth - Pt.8

The Resolution

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 4070

Summary: A fake dating AU. You’ve been moping for two days now; despite some surprising visitors in your hospital room, there was one person who haven’t made it yet. It’s just your dumb luck it was the one person that mattered very much.

Warnings: swearing, light angst, brief mentions of violence, fluff, extra dialogue-heavy chapter

Story Masterlist

The first thing your foggy brain registered as you woke up was that you must have a flu. There was no other explanation for how you felt.

Every single muscle, every single joint in your body, simply everything hurt and was so, so heavy… confusing images flickered through your mind, images of a dark room and the burning blue of irises, the pain and the poor attempt at a smile, the ring and leather straps, the maniacal grin on the vendor’s face—it was all adding to the splitting headache that was keeping you from opening your eyes; because no, no sharp light, thank you very much-

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” a velvety voice caressed your ears, gentle fingers lightly squeezing your hand. “You had us worried.”

Mind still fuzzy, you groaned, attempting to squeeze the warm hand back, but with zero result.

God, why is it so, so hard to move--

“I’ll call a doctor, yeah?”

Grunting something incomprehensible in disagreement, because fuck it, I just want to sleep, you drifted back into blissful ignorance, not having a care for the world.

When you woke up again, it was to Sam’s concerned gaze and you did not like that expression on his face one bit.

To your utter shock, he was soon replaced by Tony Stark; though Sam still stayed in your corner while the billionaire gushed about how you had led them right to the bad guy.

“He was crazy, alright. His brain was a like bag of cats and that coming from me? Real deal. Anyway… we couldn’t save anyone else. He was… eh, systematic. Putting trackers into the rings, stalking the couples and then he moved onto his mission of testing the true love bullshit and everyone failed, so he had the shocks to-“

Sam cleared his throat meaningfully as you winced, the ghost of the very unpleasant sensation running through your nerve endings, biting chill curling at the base of your spine, flashes of Steve’s face, the mask, the vendor, the chairs and the electricity crackling-

“Sorry. Just wanted to say… you did really great. You saved a lot of lives by helping us to lock him away. You basically entered the hero kindergarten,” Stark announced almost brightly, earning another ahem from your friend.

You smiled at the genius tiredly. “I’m not planning on joining your superhero group, Mr-“ you faltered when he made a face, “-Tony. And… I’d feel better if we could have—if the people who were taken-“

“Hey. Not your fault,” Sam interrupted you swiftly, voice as serious as his face. “You did amazing and I hope you’re never getting into this kind of shit ever again.”

Now he looked like a father torn between being proud of his kid punching a bully to their face and being exasperated because the said kid had earned an exclusion from school for it. To be fair, he possibly felt exactly like that.

“Yeaaaah, I guess that’s my cue,” Tony backed out with an awkward grin, stopping in the doorway to toss few more words over his shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry for the delay. The deactivated trackers took us a while. Get better, hon!”

You couldn’t but grin at his demeanor, but your mood instantly shifted back to grim when you saw the look on Sam’s face. The air of an overexcited genius which Stark was carrying around was sucked out of the room, suddenly making it hard for you to breathe as the horror images filled your mind once more.

You shook your head and gulped, trying to push them back to the corner, focusing on something else entirely; namely on the black eye which Tony was nursing, one of which had a good idea how happened.

“You gave him the black eye, didn’t you?”

Sam’s furrowed brows rose at the probably unexpected remark, but he didn’t bother lying. “Damn right, I did.”

Who would have guessed that two days, only 48 hours, could last an eternity?

You would.

You knew; you had your fair share of experiencing that. Still, every hour crushed your chest as Tony Stark visited once more, Sam was at your bedside at nearly all times, Irma came to see you, hell, even Natasha freaking Romanoff stopped by and yet, yet, no Steve in sight.

Sam had told you he was busy; you could imagine. He must have probably been filling out mission reports, recovering himself, had to answer to authorities, to reporters-- and your eyes filled with stupid and pathetic tears when you thought of the reporters every single time.

Recalling your own encounter with the sensation-hungry sharks, the intrusive memory of the interview wormed its way to your brain and more importantly, to your heart; a memory of the time when everything had seemed alright, better even, almost as if there could be something more —and then Steve had said yes--- and then-

Then all you had was a hazy memory of his voice at your ear when you had been pulled out of unconsciousness, a wistful dream, a fata-morgana which you made up to console your mind when your body couldn’t quite comprehend the exhaustion and pain tearing you from your sleep only to slip back again.

He hadn’t come.

For two full days, he wouldn’t as much as shoot you a text, send flowers or something awfully sweet and Steve-like and you were starting to question just how much of what had happened down there you only imagined.

You were almost certain he had said he loved you, you would swear on it even; but if it truly happened and Steve was still not showing up, well… then it opened a whole new number of possibilities of what his motivation could be.

You refused to believe he didn’t care at all. However, you had met Steve a while ago and if you understood something about him, it was that his sense of duty was just a tiny bit inferior to his sense of loyalty. In other words, he would look out for his friends, as much as they would look out for him – more even.

So, even when Steve was supposedly busy – unless he was out of the country, naturally – he would let himself to be dragged out of the gym, out of his office, dragged away from anything that seemed urgent, yet not urgent enough for him to refuse Sam or anyone else who was concerned and insistent enough.

Hence you coming to the conclusion that he simply didn’t want to spent a single second in your presence, because he had in fact figured out that you had been about to confess your feelings to him and now he was doing everything to avoid you, because he had somehow tricked the machine when saying that stupid ‘yes’ and he had no clue how to turn you down gently now-- because Steve was nothing short of gentle.

Yep, that was your elaborate theory.

Say yay for your super-inventive brain, you thought darkly. And try not to choke at the thought of Steve ghosting you for the rest of your life.

Burying your face in the pillow and letting it soak up with your tears, you lulled yourself to sleep, grateful there was no one in your room at the moment to witness your break-down.

You were woken up from your slumber by three swift knocks on your door. It snapped you to full consciousness at instant, mostly because there weren’t many people who bothered to knock; it was quite common for them – and that included the doctors – to simply enter.

That difference in approach was essential, because your mind traitorously drifted towards the idea of Steve finally paying you a visit and it was both exciting and mortifying.

Also, it gave you hope of which you were certain would be crashed the moment the door open, so there was that.

The knocks echoed in the room once more, this time softer, as if the person behind the door worried about intruding your sleep.

Huh. Cute and considerate. How could you not get your hopes up at that?

“Uhm… come in,” you encouraged the mystery person cautiously, your heart nearly giving out when a blond head hesitantly poked in.

Yep, it’s Steve.

Or maybe I’m just high and I’m imagining him.

Hard to tell.

He offered you the weakest of smiles as if he could hear your thoughts and whispered a very shy ‘hi’.

You felt your heartbeat pounding in your temples in panic and excitement.

“Steve… uhm. H-hey. What-eh- what are you doing here?”

You would have been ashamed for stuttering like an idiot, except you were too busy freaking out over looking like a hobo, having red-rimmed eyes and chest filled with dread at this encounter, feelings spoken and unspoken sitting heavily in your ribcage—and well, generally just losing your mind.

Also, Steve was unable to speak like a normal person as well, so that helped. “I-uhm… came to check up on you.”

He stepped fully into the doorway and you expected him to come all the way in. Instead, he wavered there, not quite entering and it only caused your chest to tighten. You swallowed against the lump in your throat, trying your best to seem collected and not like desperately looking for a clue, anything to give away a single of his thoughts.

Was he hesitating because he wasn’t sure if he was welcomed after ghosting you or was it because he wanted to have an escape route open? He was a strategist, after all; it would be wise to have a chance at escaping the moment he sensed the situation going off rails.

A somewhat torn expression crossed over his face, followed by an expectant one, and you realized he must have been waiting for you to lead.

Again.

Ever the gentleman.

You would have appreciated it and possibly melt into a puddle of sappy goo, because Steve was a sweetheart always… except you hadn’t a clue what you wanted and where you wanted this to lead—well, you did know, but you doubted that would happen.

Your heart ached, a reminder of his confession possibly not being sincere and you being left on your own in your pining.

Shaking your head to free yourself from the cage of your own mind, you attempted a small smile, one that probably came off as super-awkward.

But he needed to cut you some slack, alright.

“Oh. I’m fine,” you finally said, answering the question not quite asked. “I mean… my head spins a little-“ And you’re not helping. “-but mostly I’m here because Tony Stark is being an overbearing ass. I don’t think he would admit that, but he probably feels guilty.”

It was another conclusion your brilliant mind had come to. You know, apart from the fact Steve was ghosting you because he was waking up in cold sweat dreaming about you being interested in him and all that.

But why were you telling him about Tony? Were you really that desperate to see him for a bit longer that you babbled? So desperately trying to postpone the inevitable conversation for later, because once it happened… God only knew what the outcome would be?

Your ears might have been playing tricks on you, but you would swear you heard him murmur ‘I know how that feels’ under his breath.

Hm.

“Good,” he stated, nodding his head as if he needed to assure himself that it was indeed good. “Uhm… it’s good that you’re almost fine.”

“Yeah.”

He was still standing in the doorway and your eyes started burning with unshed tears.

Small talk. Awkwardness. Things unsaid, hanging in the air, heavy and suffocating.

Was this how it was going to be between the two of you now?

And what else did you expect it would be like after you pretended to be a couple? After you kissed? And got tortured together, just in the case you forgot about that?

“What about you?” you forced yourself to ask, willing your voice not to crack. “How you’ve been?”

“Huh? Oh, uhm. Good. Yeah, good. Busy.”

“Right. I-- uhm… I bet-“

“No, actually… that’s a lie.”

You blinked, utterly taken aback at the blatant admission. It was so unlike Steve to be this cruelly honest that you barely registered that his words felt like a punch to your face.

Not that you had ever been punched to your face. Only nearly electrocuted. Which you guessed wasn’t any better.

“Oh.”

Steve shook his head, chuckling bitterly, still not moving from the fucking doorway and you wished you were in his place, so you could just flee.

“I spent half of the time staring at a wall in my office.”

“Oh… uhm.” And like an idiot, because you were one and you had no clue how to react besides bursting into tears, because he hadn’t come to see you and had been staring at a wall instead, you said: “I mean… I guess Stark Tower has some pretty interesting walls.”

This time when he chuckled, the sound was just as breathless, but lighter. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and gestured towards the chair by your bed.

“May I?”

No. Nope. You let him in here and the more you look at him and do small talk, the more you’ll want to cry. Tell him no-

“Sure.”

Idiot.

Closing the door and finding his seat, he spoke again.

“Thank you. I… I should have visited. But… I spent hours and hours wondering how to apologize, and I know that it isn’t the best excuse, but I- you--“

You tried to blink away your tears, grateful for Steve staring at the bedsheets and not watching your face when talking. That would be pretty humiliating if he saw your awe-struck, humiliated and entirely confused face; this already was enough.

Apologize? For what? For lying and getting away with it? For telling the truth and then ignoring you? For pretending to care? For caring and suddenly not caring enough? Or for what?

What, what, what-

“-what happened in that basement-“ he continued and the tone he spoke with was already too much to bear— you knew at instant that you didn’t want the answers to your questions.

Not if it meant that you‘d have your heart broken, a wedge driven into the already wide enough raw crack in it.

��Steve-“

“I got you hurt. And I’m sorry,” he whispered hoarsely, leaning his elbows onto his thighs, fingers interlacing as his hands hang loosely between his knees. Wait, what? “I am so, so sorry. That never should have happened-“

Your heart skipped a pleased and relieved beat.

You shouldn’t be getting your hopes up just yet – this wasn’t about what you thought it was, he wasn’t telling you he hadn’t been lying down there, but this possibility hadn’t even crossed your mind. It should have, it made perfect sense that he was feeling guilty, because he was the captain of the team, responsible for them—

You were so wrapped up in your own head, clinging to the fact he admitted he loved you (or not, who the fuck knew), that you hadn’t even considered this.

The revelation explained so much and sounded much more like him than you could imagine and your mind started racing with new possibilities. Maybe… maybe he didn’t—or did he- this was far from him denying that he never wanted to talk to you again and had literally nothing to do with your little truth-or-lie issue, yet you felt an enormous weight fell from your shoulders, a blanket of lead that had been lying on your chest for a while now lift.

You wiggled up so you could sit straighter in the bed.

“Steve, that guy was insane. He drugged you with god knows what, he had you-- wired to something-“

“We shouldn’t have been there in the first place.“

Oh. Oh.

You gulped, your head pounding all over again, ribcage constricting.

Yeah. You supposed that was true. It didn’t mean that it hurt less; no, hearing him to say it out loud hurt more, actually, however, you tried your best to focus on the problem at hand, which was giving Steve whatever forgiveness he craved, no matter it wasn’t his fault in the first place.

“Well. I was the first to agree, if I remember correctly and you were radically against. So if anything, I kinda got us into that mess, so-…”

His cerulean eyes bored into yours, sorrow, self-torment and stubbornness incarnated, as he interrupted you.

“Maybe, but I agreed then and I promised to protect you. You trusted me and I failed you,” he accented, anger lacing his voice. He sighed then when he took a note of that and slowly breathed in and out, sounding much softer when he spoke again. “I’m sorry.”

It was as if you hadn’t said a word in the past minute.

“Steve, you’re… you’re just human. Serum or not, you’re- hell, even superman had his kryptonite and he’s fictional. You’re just— what--what he did to me--- after which I’ll be alright, by the way – that happening doesn’t make you any less of a hero,” you explained sincerely, minutely forgetting your weeping uncertain heart. “I know that you did everything you could. You don’t need to apologize for that.”

The implication that there was something else he should apologize for hang heavy in the air.

“I… about what I said down there-“

“Steve, don’t. You don’t need to explain anything. Whatever happened, however you managed to do that-“

“You think I lied,” he stated dully and you avoided his gaze at that.

You didn’t respond.

If you were being honest, you weren’t sure what to think anymore. Everything was just so damn confusing; his yes, his apology, his sorrow, him avoiding you… it was making you dizzy and it all the wondering had you honestly exhausted.

“I’m a coward.”

That got you snap your head back to him, hundreds of question marks in your eyes. “What?”

A humorless chuckle was the answer.

“I didn’t lie. I mean, I did lie down there once, and the machine caught that. And I got you hurt-“

You wanted to protest, because you’d been over this, but his previous words rang in your ears, confusing and disgustingly hopeful.

He hesitantly reached for your hand, gingerly taking it between both of his own, thumbs tenderly caressing its back. You swallowed the choked noise threatening to escape your throat at the soft touch; deliberate, yet seemingly not uncomfortable to him.

“I was forced to admit how I felt right after I got you hurt and I had no single clue what to do with that. Still don’t. I-I spend hours just sitting here and staring, trying to figure out-“

You successfully – ha, you wished – tuned out the first part, focusing on the latter one, not any less surprising.

“You’ve been here?”

He seemed distracted by that question. “Yeah, uhm-“

“Were… were you here when I woke up?” you asked, another foggy memory flickering in front of your eyes, a memory of him in the chair, the concerned frown on his face, dark circles under his dry eyes, raspy voice-

“You… you remember that? You weren’t even conscious for a full minute. You were out again before the doctor arrived, both times.”

‘Both times.’ He had witnessed you conscious twice.

Just how long had he spent here by your sleeping form?

“I thought-“ I though that I dreamed that up. Apparently, you hadn’t. He… he had been there with you. Oh. “I—so you- oh.”

He waited patiently before all of his words registered in your brain; including the ones about-

“You… weren’t lying?” you asked breathlessly, astonished and warmed from inside out for the second time in the past few days as the realization took roots in your brain, finding the remnants of your previous belief and euphoria.

“No. Not when I- when I said-”

“-yes,” you finished for him, your lips parting in amazement, your heart fluttering in joy.

There was no need to specify which question you were talking about – it was clear as day; about the only one that truly mattered.

“And I’m an idiot. I hurt you again, letting you think that I didn’t care at all and I should have come here, but I had no idea what to do next and if you-- what did you think about it- and I got you hurt-“

“We’ve been over this. Not your fault,” you chastised his distractedly, staring at his face because he was breathtaking and he… he-

His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously and you couldn’t but give him the reassurance he was no doubt seeking; you knew you would in his place.

“I… I was about to say yes. And it wouldn’t have been a lie either,” you offered quietly, a slow smile spreading on your lips.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He gave you a watery smile, tears still crinkling in the corners of his eyes as he carefully raised your hand, watching every micro-expression on your face, searching for the tinniest trace of disapproval; finding none, his lips brushed your knuckles with the gentlest kiss.

You melted into the pillow, feeling warm all over, your smile turning goofy as you finally, finally got your answer and wanted to scream it at the top of your lungs, because it was delightful.

Steve loved you.

Steve loves me.

And you loved him.

There was a mess for you to deal with for sure, a lot of explaining ahead, but… what else than the fact that you loved each other was important here?

Nothing. Not really, not at the moment at least.

Something told you this might be the true start of a beautiful relationship.

The non-faked kind.

--and you hunch turned out to be true.

The next day, the very hour of your discharge from the med-wing, Steve was waiting for you; all ready with a car to drive you home, a bouquet of cream-colored tulips in his hand to make your day downright wonderful and for some reason, also with daggers in his glare whenever he sized up the nice doctor who had been keeping you company until Steve arrived.

It earned Steve a kiss on his cheek as he led you to the car with his palm lightly resting on your lower back and if your lips brushed his before you got in, well, no one needed to know.

“Mr. Wilson, you wished me to tell you when the confessions would be made. They were just now.”

Sam glanced up from the screen and stopped scrolling mindlessly through his phone, letting out a long exhale.

Judging by the not-so-ominous tone of the AI – nope, he would never get over the fact that an artificial intelligence could speak in different ways and be sassy on top of everything – the talk didn’t end up tragically. At least Sam hoped; he didn’t think there had been much space for messing it up worse, to be honest.

“Thanks, Friday. It was about damn time. How did it go?”

A record of the infamous interview, showing his two friends making out on live TV lighted up his phone—fucking rude to hack his phone like this, especially showing him that.

“About like this, Mr. Wilson,” Friday explained nonchalantly as if that fucking thing wasn’t in control of his phone.

Sam breathed through the shock caused by the intrusive AI, focusing on the good news before planning on giving Stark another black eye because what the hell, SOME privacy left would be nice and very much appreciated-

“Didn’t exactly need the visual,” he muttered, adding a louder ’but thanks.’

His screen returned to normal and he found himself too tired to get up and find Stark right now; he could always throw it to his face later.

Speaking of planning on throwing words and things at someone’s faces…

Sam realized he had to stand up anyway, because he had a different job to do, now that the two idiot friends of his finally made it past the mutual pining phase and actually got together.

Shoving his phone to the pocket of his jeans, he went to polish his guns; just in case that the big blond dumbass planned on making Sam’s favorite almost-sister cry again.

Note: White Tulips – representing purity, innocence, forgiveness and respect, they would be a great flower for a wedding or to give with an apology. (Cream-colored tulips are closely related and have also a meaning of commitment.)

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Thank you for reading and leaving likes! You’ve all been amazing :-* Special thanks for commenting and/or spreading my work, it is greatly appreciated ❤️

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glorious-blackout · 4 years

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Self-Indulgent Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino/Simulation Theory Crossover Part Four

@rock-n-roll-fantasy Still don’t have a working title yet, but the current favourite is ‘Mark Needs a Hug’ 😅 This one is set directly after the teaser. I’ll hopefully be able to post some more tomorrow but that depends entirely on how much the next part fights me during the editing process...

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Any hopes that the warm fuzz clouding over his mind would lift by morning are quickly dashed.

A shrill alarm snaps Mark out of a light doze, sentencing him to the wrath of a crushing headache which cannot be blamed entirely on alcohol. Any thoughts of getting up and facing the day are discarded. Heavy, unblinking eyes remain fixed to the ceiling above, the muted colours swirling as his vision blurs, and a shuddering exhale tears through his chest as fatigue immobilises his limbs, confining him to the mattress. Contrary to what he’d hoped as he drifted into slumber, he retains enough memory of the previous night’s events that he doubts he can ever convincingly slip back into normality.

It takes tortuous effort to direct his gaze towards the bright red phone resting on his bedside table, but the thought of calling his friends is enough to have his throat closing from dread. They wouldn’t understand. Words have a habit of eluding him even at the best of times, and he doubts he has the ability to string together a sufficient explanation for why he feels like his life has been irrevocably altered. Not in the space of a single phone call at any rate.

Eventually he does summon the strength to drag himself out of bed, albeit the specifics as to how he accomplished such a monumental task elude him as he stares blearily at the bathroom mirror. He even succeeds in throwing himself beneath a scalding spray in the shower before locating a shirt and jacket combo which almost matches, but that’s the extent to which his normal routine is preserved. Breakfast is not an option of course; the mere thought of searching through his fridge for something to eat is provocation enough to have bile rising in his throat. No doubt he had clear plans for the day at one point, but those too are mercilessly cast aside. Instead, his focus becomes narrowed to one very specific focal point. Matthew may well have vanished into the night, but his influence stubbornly clings to Mark like a terminal disease.

Countless hours are spent retracing his steps from the previous night. As the thick haze pressing against his skull intensifies, he allows instinct to take over as his feet carry him through the now-deserted ballroom. Seven identical corridors ultimately lead towards this room - the beating heart of the hotel - but it takes Mark no time at all to identify the unassuming door through which Matthew slipped away. Traversing the convoluted maze which lead to that impossible corridor takes significantly longer, but in spite of the many random twists and turns, the route appears to be fused to his brain like a hot brand. His innate familiarity for the hotel’s many secrets has always served him well, though he wonders how long that will last considering the location he seeks shouldn’t exist in the first place.

It’s less surprising than it should be when his memories direct him to a dead-end. Mark had expected little else, though disappointment still hangs heavy in his heart as he draws to a premature halt outside Room 217. The sleek black door stares at him enticingly, daring him to turn back the way he came and try another route, but he knows for a fact that he has not taken a single false step. Last night there hadn’t been a hotel room here at all. Instead, the hallway had stretched onwards to yet another junction, directing him onto the impossible corridor with the impassive statues and the cupboard which played host to a menacing red light, right up until it hosted nothing but a broom and several layers of stacked bedsheets.

Mark must linger a little too long. His funk is shattered when the door opens to reveal an ancient woman with papery white skin and pursed red lips, dressed in elegant black furs with emeralds draped around her neck. She surveys him intently with deep hawk-like eyes, wordlessly demanding an explanation for his presence which he is incapable of offering. When he makes no attempt to break the spell, she simply shoves past him, muttering something about “bloody day-drinkers" as the door slams shut behind her. Mark sways on his feet, wondering if the old bat’s assessment is somewhat correct and if he’s still trapped within the throes of an alcoholic daze, but he discards that thought quickly. In retrospect he barely had anything at all last night, and he suspects that his mind has been poisoned by something far worse.

Undeterred by the corridor’s absence, he spends the rest of the day searching the length and breadth of the hotel for answers. It occurs to him at one point during his mad escapade that he doesn’t even know what he’s searching for. A solid hour is wasted flitting among slot machines and poker tables in the vibrant casino, half-expecting Matthew to appear around every corner. He would certainly blend in here with greater ease than he accomplished in the ballroom, given the neon colour scheme and lurid eighties aesthetic. Many of the guests frequenting this establishment choose to do so in hideously expensive suits which become less and less affordable the longer they stay, but the oddballs are more numerous here than anywhere else in the complex. The specific oddball he seeks does not make a reappearance however, nor do any of the patrons admit to knowing him when Mark lures them into a casual interrogation, and he eventually abandons the gamblers to their vices with an air of dejection.

When he’s not searching for Matthew, he preoccupies himself with trying to convince his brain that he didn’t imagine the strange corridor last night. He does a pretty terrible job of it too. The endless twists and turns of identical hotel corridors with their identical high ceilings and identical oak doors and identical potted plants become dizzying fast. Even when he’s certain he’s covered the guests’ quarters from root to stem, the overwhelming sense of déjà vu with every new hallway he stumbles upon makes him wonder if he’s been trapped within an endless maze.

Christ knows what he must look like when Jamie eventually finds him. Mark leaps out of his skin when he’s dragged back to reality by the gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder - frantic and wild-eyed - and not even the sight of his friend is enough to calm his racing heart. Jamie looks equally startled, raising his hands in mock-surrender as a fleeting smile betrays his deep concern, and Mark can only stare blankly when his friend explains that he’s somehow missed three meetings today including a guest pick-up and their band rehearsal and oh, by the way, what the hell is going on?

Whatever sorry excuse leaves his mouth must suffice. He even manages to play a show that night, sans rehearsal and with his mind a million miles away from the stifling overhead lights and the gawping guests. He performs the entire show on autopilot. Lyrics he’s been singing for years escape his lips with the aid of pure instinct and little else, and while he fumbles the words once or twice, the crowd don’t seem to mind. The concerned glances darting between his bandmates aren’t lost on him, but he cannot bring himself to care. Instead, he uses what little mental faculty he has left to scan the faces in the crowd in search of Matthew, or one of Matt’s pursuers at the very least. His efforts ultimately prove to be fruitless, though he can’t say he expected anything else.

The show ends in the usual uproarious applause, despite the fact that Mark’s investment in performing has never been lower. Before the crowd has even begun to disperse, he finds himself galloping towards the stairs. He pointedly ignores the naked concern in Jamie’s eyes and Nick’s questioning “Mark?” in favour of abandoning the stage as quickly as his feet will allow, storming towards his suite without so much as a backwards glance as he swallows down the sting of defeat.

The following two days pass in a similar blur, albeit a far less productive one. This time around he has the foresight to cancel his meetings and rehearsals first thing in the morning, feigning illness as a half-baked excuse. He even manages to convince the orchestra’s conductor to play some additional shows in exchange for a lofty fee. Beyond that, however, he accomplishes very little. The strain of exhaustion confines him to bed for the most part, and any sleep he gets is scattered and restless. More often than not he wakes with his heart in his throat and a dull throb tearing his skull apart, emanating from the spot where the dreamlike apparition of Matt’s pursuer has just planted a bullet.

(On occasion the nightmares will involve him discovering Matthew’s body instead, pale and sightless, though he can’t say those dreams make him feel any better than the ones in which he is the one reduced to a lifeless mass of flesh and bone).

**************************

An insistent, nagging voice tugs at his attention from the periphery, but for once he feels inclined to ignore it. At the present moment, the small poker chip in his hand seems much more fascinating as he flips it between his fingers. Much as he tries, he cannot remember where he found it. Perhaps he acquired it on his wild goose chase through the casino; either that or it was already living on his desk as a souvenir, won during a wild night out many moons ago. Its origins don’t particularly matter in the grand scheme of things. What matters is that its weight provides a pleasant distraction from the lecture he is currently fighting to drown out.

“-ark!”

He clenches his eyes shut and flinches as his peaceful bubble bursts into vapour, leaving his nerves exposed and frayed. The poker chip slips between his fingers, clattering on the hard wood of his desk before slipping to the floor, and he forces himself to take a steadying breath before his resolve can shatter. Breaking apart now will do him no favours. Especially considering that the one who’ll bear witness to his unravelling is the last person he wants to reveal any weakness to.

“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?” Murphy observes when Mark finally draws his eyes towards the screen. The scathing edge to the man’s tone is not lost on him, but overall his voice is impressively calm. One could be forgiven for believing that he wasn’t seething with liquid rage, but Mark knows better. This call is taking place a whole four days earlier than scheduled, which is a frankly terrible omen as far as he’s concerned.

A particularly startling detail is the fact that Murphy appears...unsettled. He’s clearly trying to conceal that fact with all his might, but Mark knows how to read Murphy’s expressions better than anyone. That same anguish has faced him in the mirror too many times to count. Upon answering the call, he had been struck by the messier appearance of Murphy’s hair – eyes fixated on the stray curl obscuring his forehead – alongside the added lines carved into his brow; had found himself honing in on the tightness of his jaw and every minute twitch that rocked his slender frame. Something is preying on Murphy’s mind – more so than his usual troubles – and Mark doubts he wants to uncover the source of that unease.

“Sorry,” he forces out eventually, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and taking an exaggerated breath to sell his exhausted façade, not that there’s much falsehood to it. “Haven’t been feeling well lately. Zoned out for a bit.”

As excuses go, it’s rather paper-thin and they both know it. Mark reluctantly meets Murphy’s gaze, schooling his expression into one of apologetic sincerity, and he can’t help but wonder if the persistent impassivity on the other man’s face is equally forced.

“Hmm,” Murphy hums dismissively, settling against his high-backed chair and capturing Mark with eyes which appear almost black in the office’s dim light. It must be late wherever he is, which only heightens the impression that Mark is eating into his time like a disruptive child having to be held back after school. “And are you back with us now?”

“Yeah,” Mark says without thinking. Experience has taught him that any other answer will not be tolerated. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Murphy doesn’t appear convinced. Large, piercing eyes continue to bore through Mark via the computer screen, and he cannot help but shift uncomfortably in his seat. The similarities between the pair of them appear starker in this moment than they have in years, albeit Mark imagines he must look like a second-rate version of the put-together businessman facing him. Their resemblance has never felt like a crueller coincidence, especially as any certainty about his own identity is already crumbling to dust in the wake of Matthew’s weighted farewell.

Eventually, Murphy stops trying to dissect Mark with a gaze and merely huffs a sigh, before launching into the topic he seems to have been waiting for all evening.

“I’ve been reliably informed that you had some...interesting company the other night.”

The man’s delivery remains remarkably flat, but the accusatory undertones are clear as day and Mark releases a choked laugh that surprises even himself. Of course this is about Matthew. Mark is honestly stumped as to why that fact even surprises him. Why else would his boss call him out of the blue if not to address the weird fucking circumstances of the other night?

He wonders who the whistleblower was. One of the guests? Andrew? The barman had certainly struggled to keep a straight face when he’d served Matthew the other night; his judgement of Mark’s choice of drinking partner clear as day with every sideways glance. Shame. Mark has always liked Andrew. Not enough to trust him, perhaps, but enough that the possibility of his thoughtless betrayal stings.

“Y’know what, I’m actually impressed!” he admits, a crooked smile lingering on his lips as he shakes his head. “Didn’t expect you to be so upfront about the fact that you’re spying on me.”

“Enough with the games, Mark!” Murphy snaps, his resolve finally shattering. A twinge of satisfaction tugs at Mark’s heart as he watches that impenetrable exterior bend a little; the cracks beginning to show at last. Whatever game is truly afoot is clearly shaking Murphy to his core, despite his valiant attempts to hide it. “Do you mind explaining to me why you were with him?”

Him. No name, no identity of any sort, yet Mark doesn’t need to ask who exactly has Murphy so riled up. Treacherous curiosity sinks its claws into his brain as he wonders what influence Matthew could possibly hold over a man like Murphy, but he doesn’t dare ask. Not yet anyway.

“I wasn’t with him,” he retaliates, with perhaps more bitterness than he intends. The underlying insinuation hardly offends him, but the thought of his every move being observed and speculated upon even in the supposed freedom of his evenings is enough to make his skin crawl. “I wanted to get drunk. So did he. We just happened to do it in the same place and figured we might as well chat for a bit like normal people.”

There’s a minute shift at that, so subtle that Mark doubts anyone else could have picked up on it. The moment is so fleeting that he finds himself second-guessing if what he saw was real or imagined, but the heaviness settling in his chest - coiling around his heart and lungs – is enough to assure him that it was genuine. That Murphy’s eyes had widened, albeit only slightly, and his breath had caught on a sharp inhale. If Mark didn’t know him better, he may even begin to suspect that the man was afraid.

“Did you discuss anything in particular?” Murphy asks eventually, schooling his voice into one of flippant curiosity. His effort to convey only mild interest is admirable, though Mark has to conceal a proud smirk when the man’s eyes dart to the side, betraying his lingering unease. He thinks he can just about handle the suffocating awkwardness of their conversation so long as he gets to watch Murphy squirm as well, like a feeble woodland creature caught in a trap.

“Good scotch and theoretical physics if you must know,” Mark snaps, exerting far less energy on keeping his voice level than Murphy is. He pulls his gaze away from the screen as white-hot rage simmers in his veins, making every breath feel as though they’re being yanked from his ribs. The temptation to plant his fist in the screen is momentarily overwhelming – it would certainly put an end to this infuriating conversation – but he settles for clenching his hands in his lap until the knuckles go white. On any other day, he would be able to control himself where Murphy is concerned, but at this particular moment he finds he cannot even recognise himself. No doubt the fault for that lies more with Matthew than Murphy, but Matt isn’t here to face Mark’s confused wrath. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business.”

Silence washes over them like a towering wave during a storm. Mark’s breathing suddenly feels unbearably rapid and, in the absence of external stimuli, his heartbeat pounds against his eardrums with enough ferocity that he can feel the blood rushing to his head. On the screen, Murphy recoils as though slapped, and his body stiffens as the weight of Mark’s outburst settles in the air. Mark forces himself to look and wishes he hadn’t; feels dread coil in his gut as Murphy’s face goes white and his jaw clenches with the effort of containing his unmistakable loathing.

Such ugly rage is not something Mark ever wanted to see on a face so strikingly similar to his own. The mere sight of it makes him feel like a child. Suddenly he’s five years old again, crouched beside his mother’s shattered vase with the football-shaped culprit cradled in his arms; heart in his mouth as he waits for her to return home with hot shame flaring in his cheeks. Only, Murphy’s temperament is nothing like his mother’s, who had simply laughed off his mistake and urged him to be more careful in future as he hugged her tightly (“Or at least aim for the green one next time love, you know I hate that one...”). No doubt if it were physically possible, Murphy would reach through the screen and throttle him until his eyes rolled back into his skull, and Mark has never been more grateful for the colossal distance between them.

Hours seem to have passed by the time Murphy’s deep scowl morphs into a sardonic smile, the edges of his lips tugging upwards with visible effort, and it occurs to Mark that the man’s undisguised fury may have been preferable.

“Careful now,” Murphy says in a low voice, head tilting to the side as he traps Mark under the weight of his gaze. “Need I remind you that you still answer to me?”

Mark thinks that even if he wanted to speak, he wouldn’t be able to. His throat feels tight, to the point where he wonders if Murphy has figured out how to wrap his fingers around his neck from thousands of miles away. His heart continues to race as though he’s just completed a sprint at the Olympics, and his eyes feel impossibly heavy, seeking recompense for all their hours of lost sleep. In the end he settles for answering Murphy’s question with a minute shake of his head and hopes that it’ll be enough. He’ll be damned if he utters an apology as well.

The gesture seems to suffice. Murphy drops the degrading smirk and draws his lips into a tight line, but his eyes soften and he sits back with a sigh which seems to carry all his pent-up frustration with it. In the ensuing quiet, Mark is left with the distinct impression that he’s just dodged a bullet; not for the first time this week.

That thought, as so many others have over the past three days, bring him back to Matthew. Or rather, to Matthew’s mysterious assailants. They certainly hadn’t been associated with the hotel any more than Matt himself had, and Mark can’t help but wonder if Murphy was the one who sent them. Sending armed individuals into a hotel full of innocent civilians seems extreme even for Murphy, but his apparent hatred for Matthew may have overwhelmed any sense of moral decency he still possesses.

Which of course brings his mind back to Matthew himself. For all his eccentricities, he certainly hadn’t seemed threatening. Nor did he seem to have a particular agenda, and even if he did, he hadn’t been particularly forceful in trying to convert Mark to his cause. All they’d really done was discuss some theoretical possibilities which Mark had no interest in believing. While he cannot deny that Matt’s questions have been looping around his brain endlessly, he still can’t bring himself to question the nature of his reality with too much scrutiny. Whether that’s because he truly believes Matthew to be a madman or because the possibility that he may be right terrifies him more than he’s willing to admit, Mark cannot say. All he knows is that life was much simpler before he met that mysterious traveller, though that doesn’t mean he has any desire to betray him on Murphy’s behalf.

Murphy considers him a threat though. He may not have admitted as much out loud, but his demeanor has been screaming it loud and clear from the moment Matthew was first referenced.

“Who is he?” Mark asks, inwardly scolding himself for doing a terrible job at hiding his desperation for answers. At this point in time, he thinks he may burst if forced to endure any more mysteries.

“Nobody you should concern yourself with,” Murphy offers dismissively, though he must sense Mark’s curiosity strongly enough to throw him a bone. Albeit a paper-thin one that’s been used as a dog’s chew toy a tad too long. “In saying that, I would strongly advise against interacting with him further. He’s dangerous, Mark. If left to his own devices, he will destroy everything you’ve built.”

‘Everything I’ve built or everything you’ve built?’ Mark finds himself pondering as his brows furrow with confusion, though he thinks better of voicing it. ‘Dangerous’ is not an adjective he would have used to describe Matthew, and if he’d sought to harm Mark or damage the hotel in any way then he’d done a piss-poor job of showing it. Contrary to his hopes, Murphy’s response has simply left him further in the dark, and he’s beginning to doubt he’ll ever be able to crawl out of it.

It occurs to him that he hasn’t yet addressed the biggest question remaining from that night. The detail which had left him unable to sleep as his mind replayed one specific moment over and over, like a highlights reel condensed down to ten critical seconds.

“He recognised me,” Mark admits, voice small and lifeless as though all traces of energy have been sapped from him. Perhaps he truly has been drained. Murphy’s always had that effect on him even on the best of days.

“Of course he did,” Murphy scoffs, and the bitter amusement in his eyes is enough to make Mark’s blood boil. “You’re rather famous, or so I’m told.”

Oh, he’s well aware of that. Except that isn’t the issue, not the crux of it anyway. Matt had certainly acknowledged his status often enough to make it clear that he knew who he was, but as the night had worn on, his aloof attitude had morphed into something approaching fondness. With his final words, Matthew had bade farewell as though addressing an old friend, despite the fact that Mark could have sworn blind that he’d never laid eyes on him in his life.

Only, as time has passed, that line of thinking has started to feel less and less accurate. Even during their conversation he’d been plagued by a nagging sense of familiarity which had been quickly cast aside, though the fact that Matt acknowledged that same familiarity has reignited his curiosity in the aftermath. And while he cannot pin down a specific memory, he has found himself plagued by occasional... flashes. Tiny details, like remnants of a half-forgotten dream or individual components of a jigsaw puzzle with several missing pieces.

He sees a mass of people sitting at round tables in one flash. The spark of a camera in another. Scattered laughter and a lingering sense of self-consciousness as he takes in the faces of the crowd. A desperate need to be anywhere else coiling in his alcohol-soaked gut. Perhaps the setting was a fancy dinner somewhere, though at one point his brain brings up the possibility of an awards ceremony and something vital clicks into place.

He only catches a glimpse of Matthew in one of those puzzle pieces; the fleeting memory coming to him during a fitful doze in the wee hours of the morning. He looks markedly younger, with tamed flat hair and a suit that somehow appears more awkward on his skinny frame than his ridiculous neon jacket had, but his eyes are bright and his smile is sincere in an environment where so many smiles seem feigned for Mark’s benefit. Any concrete recollection beyond that image remains locked away, though Mark had awoken with the words, “Saw you guys playing the other day, you sounded great!” circling his head like a pack of vultures.

Despite his efforts, he cannot combine those flashes into a coherent whole. They feel too scattered, as though someone has taken a scalpel and carefully removed all the connective tissue from the scene. At times he finds himself doubting that the memories are even his. They feel too detached from his current existence to slot easily within his known lifespan, and surely a fancy dinner or ceremony with that level of grandeur would have stuck in his memory beyond mere snippets of recollection? Surely such a significant event would be memorable enough on its own, rather than concealed behind an impenetrable brick wall?

“That’s not what I meant,” he manages to spit out, and he could swear that some of Murphy’s smugness fades at that utterance. As his next words threaten to spill forth, Mark takes a deep breath and lowers his gaze, feeling his resolve waver with each passing moment. “He called me Alex.”

With his eyes trained on the hardwood floor beneath his feet, Mark misses the way Murphy freezes as his admission is released into the open. At the end of the day, this is the true issue which has been gnawing at his heart since Matthew christened him with that random name; one which he’d mindlessly accepted without argument. The name has spent a considerable amount of time circulating his mind these past three days, bringing with it a persistent ache which grows in severity the longer he dwells on it. It’s the same ache which plagues him whenever his mind strays towards home, or whenever a childhood memory returns to him unbidden, or whenever he considers taking someone back to his room only to be seized by an inescapable sense of guilt. It’s an ache which shouldn’t belong, yet is as much a part of him as his flesh and blood. And much as the prospect disturbs him, the name ‘Alex’ seems to fit him like a glove in a way that ‘Mark’ never has.

Which doesn’t make sense. One of those names was given to him at the moment of his birth, whereas the other has only been used in reference to himself on one occasion. His attitude should be the complete opposite, and yet somehow hearing the name ‘Alex’ felt like he’d been handed an important puzzle piece without knowing what he was supposed to do with it.

Realising that the silence has stretched for far too long, he lifts his eyes to meet Murphy’s once more, unable to mask his surprise when he notes an amused smile creeping across the man’s thin face. It doesn’t go far enough to reach his eyes – Murphy's smiles never do – but it has the desired effect of sending a chill down Mark’s spine as a sudden wave of dread sinks in his gut like a stone. He feels once again like he’s caught in a trap, and that impression only intensifies as Murphy’s voice spills into the room like melted butter.

“Well he was clearly mistaken, wasn’t he?”

As if on cue, an unmistakable fog descends upon Mark’s mind and caresses his scalp like a lover’s touch, attempting to soothe his anxieties and banish them to the lost recesses of his subconsciousness. Only this time he knows it’s coming. This time he knows to anticipate it. The instant a familiar numbing haze slips into his skull, he clenches his eyes shut and curls his hands into tight fists, resisting the mental intrusion with all the strength he can muster.

“His name was Matthew,” he inwardly screams into the void. “He knew me. I think I must have known him too. He called me Alex. His name was Matthew...”

He clings to those truths with a desperation he can’t explain, repeating them like a mantra in his battered mind. The fog doesn’t abate, but his efforts go some way in holding it back; securing his consciousness to the present moment, even as the temptation to drift into a pleasant lie persists.

And then, just when things are beginning to feel a little too easy, he forces out an agonised cry as sharp pain lances through his skull and explodes behind his eyeballs.

The agony is so intense that he curls into himself, body taut and aching. Tears stream down his face and a fine line of sweat trickles from his brow as the pain pulses in time with his heartbeat; a persistent throb which feels like someone has stuck a hot poker through his temple and is now moving it back and forth. Forcing air through clenched teeth, he casts aside any sense of humiliation over his tears or involuntary whimpers, and instead focuses on the task at hand; clinging to his mantra with renewed desperation as he wards off the brutal assault on his senses.

“His name was Matthew. He knew me. I knew him too. He called me Alex... Am I Alex?”

He cannot say how long the pain lasts. The moment seems to stretch on for eternity with no end in sight, and he wonders whether the agony will cause him to pass out or simply kill him outright. Every breath escapes in the form of a choked gasp and long hair clings to his face as a film of cool sweat coats his brow, but he refuses to stop fighting no matter how sweet the thought of release might be. At one point his eyes must have opened again, but it makes no difference at all. His vision whitened out long ago, banishing the relative comfort of his suite to the realm of distant memory.

And then – at the critical point where he begins to consider surrender – the pain stops. A choked sob tears itself from his throat and he has to swallow his own bile before it can spill onto the floor. His breathing remains shaky and uneven, but he no longer feels like he’s suffocating, and with considerable effort he loosens his grip on the armrests before they can snap. For those first few seconds his mind feels so blessedly quiet that he’s tempted to let exhaustion claim him right there and then, but he somehow manages to cling to consciousness. Something still feels wrong. There’s a wave of anxiety creeping beneath his skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake, and it occurs to him far too late that his vision has yet to clear. All-consuming white has morphed into a muted blur, the image before him crackling like television static, and when he lifts his eyes in the general direction of the computer screen, long seconds pass before he realises what’s wrong with the image before him.

Murphy is gone. That much is evident even before his vision starts to clear. The image on the screen is too dark to resemble the light teal shade of the man’s office, and the vaguely humanoid blob in the centre of the frame is clearly not the outline of the man Mark knows all too well. Nothing can truly prepare him for the moment his vision clears though, and he finds the air being sucked from the room as his blood turns to ice.

In Murphy’s place is a creature which looks as though someone has dug up a corpse and bathed its yellowed bones in molten silver. Only the lower portion of its skull is visible; a gaping socket resting where a nose may once have been and a wide jaw braced in a wordless snarl. Obscuring the eye sockets and cradling the upper half of its face is an oversized helmet - not unlike a motorbike helmet on Earth or the VR mask resting in a case by Mark’s feet - with thick grooves embedded in the metal lining and a pair of screws giving off the impression of eyes. The image looks like the monster a child would conjure when asked to describe the creature lurking under their bed, and the mixture of assorted screws and plates embedded in a fading skeletal torso make Mark wonder if the being was once human, before someone set about replacing all organic components with metal.

It occurs to him that he hasn’t dared move a muscle, nor has he so much as breathed since his vision cleared, and he can feel his lungs screaming in protest. He doesn’t dare move, however. Not even to breathe.

“-ark?”

The spell breaks. The image before him shatters in the blink of an eye, though not before Mark sees the creature tilting its head and relaxing its jaw into what might be a smile. Light returns to the room and his lungs sing with relief as he finally provides them with precious oxygen, though his heart is still promising to exhaust itself if it doesn’t slow its pace soon. Frantic brown eyes turn to see Murphy sitting in his usual spot with an unusually relaxed expression, as though nothing untoward has happened in the interim. In comparison, Mark imagines he must look like a frightened deer caught in the headlights; wild-eyed and rigid, with hair clinging to his forehead and sweat soaking through his shirt. The grotesque image of that... thing still lingers in his mind like a horrifying echo, even when he casts a glance over the room to see nothing out of the ordinary. The only plausible explanation he can summon is that the creature was a hallucination, similar to the impossible corridor from the other night.

And yet, somehow, that explanation doesn’t sit right with him. No matter how impossible it may seem, his instinct screams at him that the vision was real and not simply the product of pain-induced delirium. He cannot explain where this certainty comes from, other than this; when presented with the most horrific sight his brain could possibly conjure, the main impression which lingers in the quiet aftermath is a vague sense of recognition.

“Earth to Mark?” Murphy says, forcing Mark’s attention back to him once more. To his surprise, there’s a sense of enjoyment lurking beneath the man’s tone rather than anger, and the crooked smile combined with a single raised eyebrow betrays a pervading sense of amusement. “I was merely suggesting that if you should run into dear old Matthew in future, I want you to report him to me immediately. Do I have your word?”

He isn’t sure what to say to that. The words make sense individually, but in combination they make a jumbled soup which refuse to coalesce into anything solid in Mark’s mind. In light of everything that has transpired in the last ten minutes, Matthew seems like an insignificant memory, though Mark imagines that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every inch of his body hurts and his brain can’t focus on anything without being rocked by aftershocks of pain and terror. He wishes he could wipe the smug smile off Murphy’s face. God only knows what spectacle that man must have borne witness to as Mark fought off wave after wave of agony, but his clear enjoyment of Mark’s discomfort is setting his teeth on edge. It almost feels like Murphy knows what Mark has just experienced; as if he knows what he saw and is now basking in the satisfaction of watching his plaything’s torment. Almost as if...

As if he’d orchestrated it. As if he’d planned every second of Mark’s anguish and set it into motion from the safety of Earth, like a bully holding a magnifying glass between the sun’s rays and an unsuspecting ant and watching it burn.

“Mark?”

That assumption can’t be right. Matthew’s theory can’t be right. And yet, all other explanations are currently in the process of eluding him. Even when he turns away from the screen, he cannot get the image of Murphy’s smug satisfaction out of his head.

“You have my word,” he utters, almost as an afterthought, too tired and defeated to argue further.

Not that it matters in the end. They both know the promise is a lie.

#Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino #Simulation Theory #Arctic Monkeys #Muse #my fic #writing

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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The multiverse trip trope, with the canon Batfam ending up in a No Capes AU, where their counterparts, being equally hyper-competent but having no secret identities to hide or vigilantism as the primary focus for channeling their energies into....are equally ridiculous to all vigilante versions of the Batfam, but in vastly different ways.

With no need to hide his athletic abilities or to try and distance himself from immediate association with his past acrobatics, Dick focuses his time and efforts on gymnastics after Bruce takes him in. He’s an Olympic gold medalist before he’s twenty, hailed for practically reinventing the nature of high-bar routines thanks to his innovative ways of melding elements of his former acrobatics with his gymnastics regimens.

Because of his many medals and natural charisma, he’s also a highly sought after brand face, asked to endorse or act as a spokesmodel for all kinds of things. He takes a particular savage joy in having his revenge on society as a whole, for the grief they gave him growing up, between the jokes about his circus background and ‘garish’ ensembles he patterns after his old costumes. Each year, he himself quietly seeks out talented designers who because of their backgrounds and the elitism of the high fashion world, are only able to advance so far in that industry.

Acting as a silent investor for them with the funds from his endorsement deals, he charms his way through backroom deals and opens the necessary doors to get his designers into the high profile fashion shows that can make designers’ careers, allowing them the much needed opportunities to showcase their designs and get them out into the world and in front of potential buyers.

But in addition to their own designs, Dick then commissions the designers he patrons, to design for him the most absurd things they can come up with. The kind of high fashion wtf’s that Ugly Betty’s wardrobe department could only dream of making, and then making into a punchline. Design for me an outfit you wouldn’t even inflict on your most hated enemy, Dick says to them.

And each year they do, and Dick models those looks personally. Then he sits back with his siblings and cackles with malevolent glee as the snobby ‘it crowds’ of his generation later turn out in droves to purchase his ‘signature looks.’ Strutting around town in imitation of the poise and charisma he pulls off effortlessly - but those, no amount of money can buy, and given they’re the only reason Dick Grayson alone can get away with wearing this stuff and still look as good as he does when doing so - well, the socialite circles inevitably end up looking utterly ridiculous. The harder they try and sell it with artificial confidence that Page Six and talk show hosts see right through, the more they get shredded to pieces with scathing jokes and headlines that put anything they ever managed to come up with to shame.

Meanwhile, the revenue from their frenzied purchases of these ‘must-have’ looks of the season? More than enough to launch the careers of Dick’s designers, right up to the A-List, where Dick leaves them to do what they want and make the most of it, with his eternal gratitude for humoring him and his rich kid eccentricities. (Not that his designers haven’t all since long figured out the joke and gotten vindication of their own out of it, as the designers and buyers who tried previously to shut them out because of their humble backgrounds, now all rush to try and rip off their more out there and high profile ‘Dick Grayson Looks’ with their own versions, over-saturating that particular market demographic just as people start catching on that these designs were always doomed to fizzle without Dick wearing them himself......leaving Dick’s designers with an open, uncluttered path right to the demographics they actually want to sell to, with the designs nobody’s attempted to imitate yet because they were too busy keeping eyes glued to Dick’s peacock ensembles).

Bruce has long since given up expecting he’ll ever understand his various children without them making an effort to translate first.....so the first time he walks in on Dick, Jason and Duke watching E! with a focus they’ve never displayed for sports, and with the coffee table covered in so many papers and flow charts and graphs, the den looks more like a War Room rather than just three of his boys watching Entertainment Tonight with frightening intensity.

Bruce just waits in the doorway for them to notice him and arches one eyebrow when they do. Oh, there’s a point to all of this, he’s sure. But damned if he can figure out on his own just what the hell it might be.

His eldest just beams at him with his thousand watt smile.

“Love me or hate me, they all want to be me,” Dick sing-songs. Then he shrugs innocently, as though that explains it all.

It doesn’t, Bruce is fairly certain.

“Why?” He asks somewhat plaintively, after his struggle to select one of the many, many questions buzzing in his head glitches on that one syllable and refuses to budge until he at least voices that much.

“We’ve been over this, B. Its part of our Twenty Seven Step Plan to Destroy the Upper Class,” Jason says impatiently, still jotting notes in pen on one of the graphs, eyes still locked on the TV. “God, its like you never listen, I fucking swear.”

“That running joke you two had when you were in high school?” Bruce asks blankly, focusing on his two eldest. Duke is paying absolutely no attention to him any way, leaning over to cross something out on the same graph Jason’s working on, scrawling some kind of correction while Jason nods like that makes total sense in whatever bizarre arithmetic they’re all working off of.

Dick sighs in the fond manner of a parent whose child has just done something particularly endearing. “You gotta admit, its kinda cute he still thinks we’re joking when we talk about class warfare.”

“Eh,” Jason grunts noncommittally. “Benjamin Button he is not.”

“If you boys don’t mind, could you do me a favor and make sure to clarify when you’re making fun of me? I have trouble spotting the insults otherwise,” Bruce says dryly.

“But that’s what makes it fun!” Duke says, beaming with his own version of Dick’s thousand watt grin. Equal in intensity, but where Dick’s tends to burst into being all at once like a supernova, Duke’s tends to sneak up on you, slowly increasing the illumination until you realize you’re blinking spots out of your vision and it hits you that you haven’t been able to see anything but blinding luminescence for awhile now, and you don’t even know for sure how long.

“Well how about just this once, you boys take pity on me and cut your old man a break,” Bruce says, still in tones as parched as Saharan dunes. “Explain what I’m looking at here as though I’m five.”

“Christ, B, you’re not freaking geriatric,” Jason mutters. “You’re only in your forties, its way too soon for you to try and milk the senility angle.”

“We’re documenting record of public reactions to the latest fashion crimes of Gotham’s A-List,” Dick cuts off Jason, taking the aforementioned pity on his father as he provides an explanation that is in no way helpful.

Bruce squints at the screen. “But aren’t those the same outfits you wore during your Fashion Week thing last month?”

“Well yeah, but on me they look good,” Dick shrugs.

“Don’t gloat,” Jason says to his brother. “It’s tacky.”

“Facts are facts,” Dick says without a hint of apology. “Lying in the name of false modesty would be the true dishonesty.”

“Incredible. You even manage to put a pious-sounding spin on being an egotistical shit,” Jason marvels. “How do you do that?”

Dick shrugs again. “It’s a gift.”

Bruce clears his throat. “And what’s all this documentation for, anyway?”

“Dick’s book,” Duke says matter of factly. Bruce would be flattered by his children’s apparent belief he can intuitively leap from one esoteric comment straight to an epiphany like some kind of goddamn gazelle - if he weren’t still so lost.

“Dick has a book? Since when? I thought Jason was the writer in this family,” Bruce frowns. “And I’m quite certain there was a big to-do made when you were all much younger, where it was decided that each of you would focus yourself on distinct pursuits not overlapping with any other siblings’, so as not to kill each other in your inevitable quest to be number one.”

“Well first off, Dad, if you couldn’t handle a little competition between your children, you shouldn’t have adopted competitive children,” Dick lectures absently, still scribbling away at those damn pages.

“Its not like you all came labeled with future character traits,” Bruce says crankily. They ignore him.

“And secondly, upon discovering that the agreement we all signed was the end product of carefully dropped hints aimed at making us believe we all came to the table of our own volition, when in fact, they were merely the machinations of the mastermind known as our meddling father,” Jason intoned, finally looking up at Bruce to raise one eyebrow at him significantly, “the Treaty of Wayne Manor’s South Family Room circa 2012, was thus deemed by all signatories to be fruit of the poisonous tree, and subsequently rendered null and void.”

Bruce’s frown deepens. “How did you figure that out? And why are you suddenly talking like a Bond villain?”

“Well it was mostly more of a theory until just now,” Dick beams at him. Dammit. You’d think he’d know better than to walk right into things like that by now. “But Tim had a hunch pretty much from the start, except then we all ended up branching out towards different interests anyway so it didn’t seem to matter that much, and we figured why not let you keep thinking you got a win there, you know?”

“I have the most thoughtful children.”

“We do try,” Jason hums.

“We try,” Duke snorts. “You add snarky commentary.”

“That was implied.”

Duke rolls his eyes and rolls right past that. “And Jason’s talking like that because he’s got that book tour coming up in a couple weeks, and he’s test driving new Eccentric Author Aesthetics.”

“Gotta give the people what they want,” Jason shrugs. “My fanbase expects the precociously grumpy darling of the New York literary circuit to be baffling and unpredictable, I give them baffling and unpredictable.”

“And here I thought you’d said you hated your fanbase. And rather then giving them anything, last I heard you were claiming to be withholding your sophomore manuscript just to spite them,” Bruce says. His voice is still lost and wandering in the desert, not a hint of precipitation to be found. “In fact, I distinctly recall wanting to take you out to celebrate the rave reviews of your debut novel, the week of its release. Only you were busy having a diatribe about how ridiculous the reviews were and how nobody had any business calling the barely coherent linguistic finger paintings of an emotionally stunted twenty-one year old the ‘next great American novel’ and it called the entire slate of reviews’ credibility into question as any brains capable of producing thoughts that erroneous should be required to display a count of their individual brain cells before anyone even considers viewing any thought produced by them as potentially being credible.”

“And you thought he never listens,” Duke snickers at his older brother. “Sounds like a direct quote to me.”

Jason just shrugs again, not remotely moved. “Yeah but I hate everything, so its not like that really means anything. Also, I’m full of shit. I thought everyone knew that.”

“He’s not subtle,” Dick informs Bruce.

“Subtlety’s for losers,” Jason defends himself. “Like tact.”

Bruce clears his throat again. “Back to the matter of Dick’s book?”

“Oh, right!” Dick chirps. “I have a book. Well, will have. This is research for it.”

“So you are taking up writing after all?”

“Hah!” Jason barks out loudly. “Dick can’t write for shit. He can’t even write a thank you card, forget about a whole fucking novel.”

“Umm, I can write, I merely choose not to,” Dick sniffs pointedly. Then he rolls his eyes in disgust. “And Jesus Christ, chill, Prince Passive Aggressive. I can’t believe you’re still making such a big deal about that. Let it go already.”

He and Jason both shoot quick looks over at Duke about two seconds after Dick’s last sentence. Duke looks up just in time to catch their glances darting away again.

“Hang on, why did you both look at me, like you thought I was about to start singing that stupid song from Frozen?” Duke frowns at them suspiciously. “You guys do know that I’m not Stephanie, right?”

“Yeah but you have been hanging around her an awful lot lately, and she’s contagious,” Jason points out. Duke’s frown deepens for a moment, but then it wings out of sight and he shrugs, perfectly at ease again.

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Anyway, its Dick’s tell-all book on Gotham high society,” Jason continues on. “I’ll be the one actually writing it of course. He’s just the pretty face getting slapped on the cover, but I mean, that’s the only reason people are gonna wanna buy it, so I’ll probably just phone it in anyway.”

Bruce focuses on the only part of that reveal he can handle at the moment. “Jay, you’re not remotely capable of ever phoning something in.”

“How dare you accuse me of having a work ethic. Rude and disrespectful. My reputation isn’t built to withstand that kind of slander.”

“And feel free to mock all you want, but my pretty face on that cover is what’s going to earn me my first SCPF,” Dick announces loftily.

Duke looks up. Opens his mouth. Shakes his head. Closes it. Looks back down. Sighs. Looks back up again.

“Not that I don’t know better than to ask, but what the hell is an SCPF?”

“My version of an EGOT that I just made up while Jay was being offended by a compliment to his work ethic. Spokesmodel, cover model, print model, fashion model. The four cornerstones of the modeling world, which I will then have conquered, leaving me free to move on to other endeavors.”

Jason studies his older brother gravely. Then he shakes his head.

“Even as a complete and utter joke, that combination of words disgusts me. You make me physically nauseous sometimes, you know.”

“Another gift of mine, I suppose. I have so many,” Dick muses, leaning back and examining something on the chart he was scribbling on, as if trying to take in another angle for some no doubt ridiculous reason. Why were his children like this.

“Before this migraine finishes settling in and pitches its tent for the night, anyone care to tell me just what exactly this tell-all will be telling?” Bruce sighs. It was never too early to start damage control when this particular combination of his kids were conspiring together.

“Oh, everything,” Dick says breezily. “Who had affairs, who embezzled from their companies, who bribed or blackmailed or bought off this or that. All kinds of juicy sordid stuff, real page turner stuff, you know? You’d think important people would do a better job of keeping high stake secrets all hush hush instead of dropping them all willy nilly at various galas over the years, but c’est la vie.”

“Its almost like there are potential hazards to condescendingly assuming the uneducated circus brat someone adopted as an obvious PR stunt, like, just can’t understand a lick of what people say around him, what with his thick foreign accent obviously conveying he just don’t know English words so good nope, nope, nopers,” Dick concludes merrily, a familiar sparkle in his eye. One that usually heralded social cataclysms to come.

“And so you’ve taken it upon yourself to warn the public of those potential hazards. Good for you, son,” Bruce says sardonically. Despite his best efforts, the corners of his lips keep tugging stubbornly upwards.

“Just trying my best to give back to the community that’s given me so much,” Dick shrugs in the closest approximation to an ‘aw shucks’ vibe that Bruce has ever seen his son manage in as long as he’s known him. Jason reaches over and smacks the back of Dick’s head.

“Hey!” The elder brother snaps back, rubbing the back of his head with wounded dignity. He glares at his smirking brother.

“My bad. I thought you were against false modesty. Just trying to help keep you honest, bro.”

Dick narrows his eyes at him. “Touche,” is all he says.

“Last question before I give up and admit defeat,” Bruce interjects before that escalates. As tends to happen in moments like the previous. With no limit to how long or how far that escalation might last. By his count, his two eldest boys were somehow still engaged in four entirely different extended, longterm feuds they seemed somehow able to treat as separate and distinct from each other, with one of those stretching all the way back a good ten years, and still no end in sight as far as anyone knew.

How did they determine what fights would end in minutes and which warranted stretching out over a course of years? Bruce really couldn’t say. How did they manage to stop and start the same argument off and on for all that time, without letting the last-addressed state of the argument affect how they interacted when their fight was back on ‘pause’? No idea. How did they seem able to treat each different matter they fought about as its own distinct entity that had no bearing on anything outside that particular argument, with no overlap or cross-pollination as far as anyone else had ever been witness to, and why did they even bother doing so in the first place? God, Bruce dearly wishes he knew.

Unfortunately, for all that his entire horde of children often at times seem to exist on a wholly separate and private plane unreachable by the rest of humanity, Bruce’s first two children to fill the halls of Wayne Manor with laughs, screeches and occasional declarations of war and an intent to maim, dismember and murder -

Well. They at times seemed to possess a language and extra senses unique just to them, and baffling to the entire rest of the world and their own siblings as well.

Oh well. At least Bruce could take some small comfort in Duke’s occasional glance of wary confusion, thrown towards one or both of his brothers when they weren’t looking.

“Yo, this is Planet Earth, hailing one eternally out of touch bachelor billionaire way up in the atmosphere,” Jason sharply cuts into Bruce’s distraction with a snap of his fingers. “Are you trying to milk the senility thing again? We’ve been over this. You need at least another decade of mileage before we’ll validate your senior citizen card.”

“Right.” Bruce rolls his eyes at his son, but shakes his head to clear it nevertheless. Ah, yes. “Yes. Indulge me, please. What exactly does what you’re watching have to do with Dick’s....tell-all, and how does whatever all of this is count as research?”

“Oh, we’re just keeping record of public shaming of every snobby rich jackass to buy one of the fashion monstrosities Dick wears at Fashion Week, only to then look utterly ridiculous and absurd when they try and wear it in public and everyone points and laughs,” Duke chimes in.

“I see,” Bruce says, his lips twitching again. “And this of course all ties back into class warfare and...what was it again...oh yes, the Twenty Seven Step Plan To Destroy The Upper Class?”

“That’s right,” Duke nods.

“I even know what the title is going to be already,” Dick smiles with bared teeth. “I’m going with: ‘Weapons of Choice.’“

“Of course, as I keep explaining to him, nobody gets final say on the title of their book, and there’s every chance the publisher will end up changing the title to something they pick,” Jason says with a pointed look at his brother.

Dick’s willful obliviousness visibly deflects Jay’s arched gaze long before any point can hit and make an impact. “And as I keep explaining to him, if they try and change the title, I will simply explain to them that they are incorrect and it already has the perfect title and one can not improve upon perfection.”

Jason strangles a gutteral, incoherent growl before it can fully escape from his throat. “I want to throttle you.”

“I know,” Dick says sunnily.

“Well, as long as you’ve thought this through, which you clearly have, I have no doubt you’ll get the results you’re after,” Bruce says. Doubtfully. Though of what, he’s not entirely sure. His sanity, thinking that yes, half a dozen precocious, willful and utterly incomprehensible children, that’s the ticket, exactly what my life needs. Yes, that was probably the matter actually in doubt.

“Ugh, B, you’re not getting it,” Dick complains. He exchanges frustrated glances with his brothers. “He’s not getting it.”

“It’s not rocket science,” Jason says patiently. “Basic rule of street fighting....the most effective takedowns come from aiming at someone’s weakest point. Whenever possible, go for the throat. What’s the equivalent of the throat as far as Gotham’s upper class is considered? Public image.”

“Destroy their public image, destroy them,” Dick finishes cheerfully. “They crack, get egg on their face like the nursery rhyme says, and bam, Humpty Dumpty has a great fall and all the queen’s knights working as a team still can’t put them together again and while they’re distracted the pawns can slip past them and become queens!”

Jason stares at him. “I know what you’re doing and its not going to work.”

“What am I doing?”

“Deliberately mangling the fuck out of a bunch of different well known sayings that you know perfectly well how they really go, while doing that thing where you act like you’re the most airheaded ditz to ever live and have a brain that runs off of helium instead of oxygen like the rest of us. Because you know damn well how obnoxious that is to anyone who knows exactly how intelligent you really are and that you actually have a mind like a steel trap that remembers fucking everything, no matter how inane, which is fucking rude, because that’s wasted on you and also, stop it. I told you. Its not going to work.”

“Oh Jay.” Dick tilts his head to the side and grins wider. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Uh huh,” Jason says, unconvinced. “Then what, pray tell, are you doing?”

“That thing where I trick you into believing I’m doing the more obvious seeming thing and then annoy you with my fake airhead routine until you end up flattering me and paying me compliments when pointing out why my airhead routine could never work on you and is thus just annoying,” Dick says brightly.

Jason’s eyebrows inch incrementally together with the slow, ominous scrape of stone grinding across stone. Dick is entirely undeterred, and simply shrugs again with a painfully fake display of innocence.

“Its dinner time and my ego needed feeding. Thanks for that bee tee dubs, it was getting hungry. Nom nom.”

“Yeah,” Jason says casually, after a good ten second pause. He nods decisively. “Okay, I’m going to murder you now.”

He lunges for his brother, but Dick’s resting pose is the equivalent of anyone else impatiently waiting at the starting block of a race. He’s up and on his feet, gracefully dancing out of range of his younger but bigger brother’s wider reach, and has darted halfway towards the other exit to the room by the time Jason finishes scrambling to his feet. Not that any of that delays the younger man from taking off in a dead sprint in pursuit of his laughing sprite of a brother the second he does.

Bruce stares after them for a moment and then shifts his gaze down to Duke, who’s still seated contentedly on the floor, blithely unaffected by Dick and Jason’s mad dash out the room as he continues scribbling down notes.

“I will pay you all the money I have, not to grow up to be like them,” Bruce says in the gravest possible tone he can manage. “You don’t even have to wait til I’m dead.”

Duke sighs and shakes his head. “B, c’mon, man. I’m clearly on Team Class Warfare. I’m insulted you think I can be bought.”

Bruce frowns. “You all are way, way too fond of this trolling thing you do.”

“Mmm. Agree to disagree.”

445 notes · View notes

ill-will-editions · 4 years

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QUARANTINE LETTER #4

A fourth letter in our quarantine series, from our friend Icarus.

-----

EVERYTHING IS TRUE, NOTHING IS PERMITTED

“They’ve already destroyed everything, all the structures we believed in, trusted. Maybe we’re in a transitional phase, you know? There’s some sort of substitution going on. Meanwhile, we’re navigating in a tremendous vacuum, vaguely oriented by the stars but with no true reference point. Our compasses have gone wild, spinning madly, attracted by thousands of magnetic poles. We might as well throw them out the window, they’re obsolete. It’s just us and the night sky, like it was for the early explorers, while we wait for new, more advanced navigational devices to be invented. My only fear is that the stars have somehow gotten out of place and will be no help as references either.”

- Ignacio de Loyola Brandao, “And Still the Earth”

Dear friends,

It can be strange to intervene in someone else’s debate, but I don’t believe you’ll hold it against me if I do. Over the past weeks, I’ve rather enjoyed the commentary and exchange of letters between my friends, August, Kora, and Orion. Something about the reflections of my friends is missing for me still, so I’ll chime in without wasting too much time, I hope.

QUARANTINE: INCOMPLETE—WHAT WE THINK IS HAPPENING IS ONLY SOMEWHAT ACCURATE

Today, millions of people are working. In warehouses, in offices, in fields, kitchens and storerooms; from the computer, the sorting room and at construction sites, millions of Americans are sharing the coronavirus with each other and with their neighbors. Many of them are asymptomatic, a portion are not sick yet, and certainly some of them are still hiding their symptoms from their families, employers, and coworkers. No zombie apocalypse is complete without the inconsiderate hot-head who insists, deceptively, that his injury is “nothing, it’s fine, let’s keep moving”. Orion wrote that the virus imposes “its own temporality, which immobilizes everything.” If only.

Logistics, shipping, freight, warehousing: these are some of the largest sectors of the 21st century workforce, and they are all on overtime. From Whole Foods to Old Dominion, these disposable workers are simultaneously killable - insofar as the market facilitates their endangerment via assured contact with the virus - and indispensable, insofar as they must not be allowed to strike, unionize, or cease working that this society may minimally function. In these industries, overwhelmingly, black men and immigrants are crammed into job sites without any protective equipment. In other words, they are proletarians in the classical sense, and they are still at work. A true quarantine, a dignified exodus from the commodity society and its extensive productive apparatus, would halt all forms of labor and toil, a circumstance as yet unrealized. If we can say we are living in a quarantine, we must say that it is still incomplete.

AUTONOMY OR AUTOMATA?—THE PANDEMIC AFFECTS ALL OF HUMANITY—WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS AS SUCH

What we once called "society" (an entity which now insists it can survive unity and distance simultaneously, even distance for the sake of unity), has been replaced by billions of apparatuses. These apparatuses constitute a vast ACEPHALOGRAM - a system of machines designed to trace and retrace the consciousness of a world that has definitively lost its head.

The period of real domination opened by the aggressive economic and political restructuring in the 70s, 80s, and 90s - “globalization” - has pushed a vast quantity of workers out of manufacturing and into service related industries. Services being overall less profitable then commodity manufacturing and heavy industry, other technological implements such as we see emerge from Silicon Valley have filled the gap, so to speak, of lost profits for the economy by allowing large advertising and analysis firms to mine directly the collective human ambitions in art, sex, politics, culture, and society. To open up this mine, which has produced an existential ruin comparable to the environmental ruin associated with mineral mining, the internet has developed as a global network of pseudo participatory information systems. The data thirst of these industries cannot be sated by the administration of facts from the center or top, they must be produced by the masses directly. But technology does not simply catch data falling naturally from the sky or running off the gutters of consciousness. It produces data by arranging relations such that they produce content that can be bought and sold. Under such conditions, the medical, political, technological and ontological crisis of a pandemic cannot help but be experienced as a video, a collection of tweets, graphs, memes, as background noise, as a conspiracy theory, as a genre in the endless relay of notifications.

THE MIDDLE OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END—WHAT MAKES INDIVIDUAL INTERPRETATION POSSIBLE, MAKES COMMON UNDERSTANDING IMPOSSIBLE.

The truth is that social media has allowed billions of people to coordinate themselves into large and small containers of meaning and virtual energy. These containers, ecosystems of signs and signifiers, by dint of their polycentralized arrangement, function as an epistemological subversion of established truth-making infrastructures that require a certain amount of hegemony or global purchase: the scientific method, fact-checking, and debate. Occasionally, the understanding produced in these containers, theory-fictions more than anything else, incidentally conform to an intensity with physical correlatives capable of overpowering police infrastructures and seizing public space, as we saw across the world in 2019. More often, the echo chambers, as they are often called, curtail feelings of common dialogue and the perception of shared futurity that would be seemingly embedded in such a “global” sharing of information. This curtailing allows people of all “types” to be bundled together as data sets, insulated from the experience of true diversity of thought, of experience, of analysis. The polycentralized arrangement of the internet today may be even less participatory than previous eras of information sharing, even though it doesn’t feel that way.

Commentators and critics have used the ongoing crisis to delay the moment of our collective education with unwavering ideological entrenchment. At work, it is not uncommon for me to hear small business owners and day traders talk about the failures of socialized medicine in Italy, implicitly endorsing greater privatization in the US. Among activists, liberals, and leftists, it is impossible to imagine a greater indictment on the privatized, decentralized, healthcare system than what is taking place. Apocalyptic Christian sects believe the government is going to repress churches for gathering, and social justice advocates believe the coronavirus crisis will be “the same, but worse” on every oppressive axis. It’s hard to imagine another reflex.

While they recognize that the internet has plunged billions of people into a pulverized simulacrum, some of my comrades would have us devote ourselves to the dissemination of real news, of verified and sober analysis, of scientific rigor, in order to combat the prevailing disarray. This warms my heart just as it saddens my intellect. We have always been machine-breakers, in a way, revolting against the forward and crushing movement of industry to preserve a less alienated experience of reality, labor, and community. We aren’t wrong for that. We should be reliable sources of information, but not because we will convince people with our reports — which may no longer be so possible online — rather because we believe it is the right thing to do, and because we can at least proceed on a clear and shared basis with each other. But what other strategies could we utilize for analyzing the world that would allow us to act within the protracted vertigo, without trapping ourselves or others in ideological camps, and without losing revolutionary aspirations in a world where global verification of facts seems impossible, but where universal need for a transformation, fascistic or revolutionary, feels like common sense?

EVERYTHING IS TRUE, NOTHING IS PERMITTED—THE SYSTEM REDUCES ITSELF TO A PURE FLUX OF DYNAMICS

“We dreamed of utopia and woke up screaming

A poor lonely cowboy that comes back home, what a wonder”

-Roberto Bolano, “Leave Everything, Again”

For millennia, the administration of public facts was the cornerstone of political power, and stamping out alternative readings the chief objective of the repressive machinery. The ruling bureaucracy has organized itself to prevent any global loss of control. They’ve always done that. What is surprising is how readily, since 9/11 at least, perhaps much earlier, they have abandoned many important methods for doing so. As the possibility of imagining its own future became increasingly stamped-out, the reigning order abandoned any pretense of pursuing the ideals it propped itself up on, its sole promise being to ward-off unforeseen eventualities. Without embarrassing myself with long-winded arguments about things I am ill-equipped to discuss - certainly less knowledgeable than my dear friends are on such matters as philosophy and critical works - I’d prefer to refer to an argument advanced by Brian Massumi in his essay “National Emergency Enterprise”. In this piece, he argues that a primary strategy of governance is to identify all possible causes of a scenario. The market refashions environments that submit the living tissue of relations one and all to technological “dataveillance”, information which, in principle, allows the administrators of such a system to model its every possible outcome, translating every action into a trans-action, while ensuring that every aberration meets a form of control. He utilizes the example of a forest fire, but we can just look at the pandemic and it’s consequences.

The ruling class everywhere, has argued and governed as if the coronavirus is "merely the flu", justifying late responses and insufficient care, while also closing borders and taking emergency measures as if we are living in a veritable plague. There are strategies attached to every discourse, interests silently advanced with each interpretation, and powers produced and mobilized by every kind of theory and operation. Anyway, we have been living in the fall out of multiple convergent strategies for controlling and responding to this situation. The governors of the world, at least of the democratic countries, are basically throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks. We can imagine that modeling and predictions are conducted endlessly based on analytics produced through data mining and network analysis purchased from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. As technocratic governments subordinate welfare states to the "science" of neoliberalism, the nihilism of the powerful today subordinates everything to the "science" of control.

Anyway, who organizes oblivion today acts with no principles and can only speak in lies. What does this mean for the rest of us?

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING, TRUE IS PERMITTED—TRUTH DOES NOT REQUIRE A SUBJECT ONLY LIES DO. LET'S KEEP IT REAL, WHATEVER THAT IS.

We can and are responding to this situation. The most important thing, from my perspective, is that we develop a vibrant enough ecosystem of strategies, corresponding to the largest possible interpretation of facts, without dividing our sympathies and concerns into rival fiefdoms and ideological sects. There are benefits to arguing that nothing of the situation is unique, that in fact the worst off before are the worst off now, that today simply represents an opportunity for us, etc. I am not among the comrades advancing this position, but I want to see the results of that framework as soon as possible, if it does not in fact raise the threshold for meaningful interventions. There are benefits to arguing that the quarantine is not deep enough, that the politics of mobilization have failed utterly to devastate the economy, but that a true lock down of the world could resemble the worlds first ever international wildcat general strike. I want to hear advocates of this position contend with the possibility of carceral interpretations of this argument. For those planting survival gardens, for those running autonomous rent strike hotlines, for those training in firearms, I want us to develop a shared enough perspective to see that there is a simple unity in our strategies, which is what is precisely, and incorrectly, attacked in Kora’s most recent letter to Orion: our autonomy. Beyond any individualistic misinterpretations, it is my perspective that the ability of human beings to self-authorize our activity, to determine our shared destinies, to control supply chains, vital infrastructures, and means of subsistence without the mediating factors of the market, are necessary prerequisites for a dignified life on earth. This is not to say, as Kora has intelligently argued, that anyone could come to control the unfolding course of history - a delusion that preppers, governors, and revolutionaries have all held - but precisely that autonomous, self-organized, structures are the only structures capable of responding quickly enough to the destabilizing, frightening, and uncertain futures lying in wait regardless of what we or anyone else do. We must utilize the current situation to repolarize the circumstances to the best of our ability around foundational concerns of power: on the one hand, there are all of the people of the world, some of them bastards we would not live with, and our shared need for dignified healthcare, housing, sustenance, and livelihood; and on the other hand there are all of the bastards waiting this out on yachts, manipulating public data for the sake of a geopolitical PR battle, utilizing the pandemic to pursue totalitarian power fantasies and clampdowns. We don’t need to steer the ship forward, we need to be able to swim in the wreckage.

Sorry, I wrote too much. Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading what others think soon.

-- Icarus

04.11.2020

STATE OF EMERGENCY, DAY 40

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

#Quarantine letters #COVID19 #USA #articles

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rixxy8173571m3w1p3 · 4 years

Text

The Truths Found On Petram Viridios IV (2/?)

A/n: I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Read Part 1

____________

Chapter 2: Getting Along

There was so much you still had to learn about mice and Salamandrian men; minus the mice part. You were surprised by V'gha's chattiness. Why, it was no sooner when you two had taken a seat that he began asking about your culture, interests, as well as to what you did for occupation. It seemed that he was fascinated by how both you and Zeta-7 lived; being that you were the only human he's officially met, he wanted answers for the questions which his home world's databases could not answer. You couldn't fool him when it came to your acquaintance with Rick as his neighbor, but you played it off by saying that he was the local mad scientist that everyone knew of but gave little importance to; it hurts you to say this, for he was worthy of the highest praise, with his extraordinary mind and his winsome personality, but V'gha was more familiar with Zeta-7 then you had known; it seemed Rick had a bigger reputation then you had thought, and the chemist hoped that he could make his acquaintance once all this was over; how he could be interested after all your initial rudeness was inspiring and in its own right.

You found his straightforward nature refreshing, albeit at times coming across as nosy, but first impressions at times gave allowances for this; to discover that despite how one may come across in passing, is not always the sincerest, true version of oneself. There was no malice or ill intent in his inquiries or reactions to your answers, and while you had redirected many of his questions, he didn't seem to mind; whatever you shared gave him delight. Over and over you wondered why Rick couldn't have been seated at this table, for this creature could have shared all that fascinated him with a fellow scientist and they could have debated in peace over theories and experiments; for your part, you would have sat there raptly, admiring the like-minded individuals who might or might not have been jealous at one point or another over understandings, discoveries and what not. As you two talked, you scanned the garden with your eyes, and searched for Rick, but couldn't spot his bowl cut anywhere; you trusted that he'd show up one way or another, but you hoped for sooner rather than later. In the meantime, you two discussed how fascinating the planet and its inhabitants were while making remarks on the flavor of the food "My soup is thin and looks as though I stuck my foot in it, but it tastes like honey." you commented as you set your spoon back down. "I'm not sure whether to drink it or to jar it."

"Neither. It's what your utensils will go in once you are done eating."

"Oh, I probably shouldn't have tasted it then."

"No harm will be done." he chuckled, which exposed his fine, sharp rows of teeth. "I've taken the liberty of scanning it to make sure."

If Zeta-7 had been here, he might've tried the utensil cleaner on purpose in the good ole' way of tasting the chemical when he should've tested it. Yet, since he wasn't here, you were ready to admit that you found V'gha a bit more intriguing then you had anticipated. When you had initially boarded the ship and met him upon entering a cabin, you were determined to despise him for you didn't want to appear weak in front of strangers, but it melted away as he decided to apologize once you two had reached your assigned table. Sure, you weren't really into reptiles, but whether it was how his skin glistened in the starlight, his intellect, or how his bright oval eyes seemed to bore into you as you spoke, it was somewhat flattering; you thought only Rick could make you feel this way; hopefully, it was his simple charm and newfound politeness, and nothing more. To ease the anxious thoughts which were building in your chest, you glanced at the empty third chair. "Do you think Noathamas is in trouble?"

"I'm not sure." he confessed in all seriousness. "After all, he did violate one of their laws which was not to eat any of the guests. I don't know what came over him, but hopefully, whatever consequences come his way, will simply be disciplinary action and nothing more."

"Yeah, that would be good."

Though, you blamed the fact that the knight had returned from battle not long ago, and might've been triggered by something done or said; you hoped he'd survive. To distract yourself further, you stabbed your synthesized meal. It was a mass of congealed worm meal, and you pretended to eat it, but you weren't really hungry; it was supposed to be calcium-rich if you were correct. "So," you wondered as you pushed away your dish. "where you're from, do you do stuff like this?"

"You mean attend formal gatherings where I'm not allowed to have fun? Or meet total strangers that I'd rather study then stand next to? Hmm, more often than I'd like. It does have its perks. I'm highly respected in my field and get paid well, but I don't get out much unless it's work-related. A majority of my free time is used to study journals or to sleep. Occasionally both."

"That's a bummer. Not the studying part, because that can be fun if it's a topic you're passionate about, but you strike me as someone who enjoys good company. I'm surprised that at this point you haven't mentioned hanging out with friends or family."

The pause in conversation didn't seem long enough for your liking, but neither was it short enough to keep its natural flow. There seemed to be a distant, far off look, as though he were staring through you, at someone else; longing; one which would've gone without notice if you hadn't been used to reading people who were like Rick; intelligent, curious, lonely people who were less like normal men, but were no less mortal, and not quite a machine. When he started, you hadn't expected the familiarity in his words. "I consider my lab as my friend and my lab samples as my family. It's where I am most of the time."

Before you met Rick, would he have said the same? Almost, for his inventions and things bought, made, or salvaged held meaning; he was very sentimental but desperate to cling on to good feelings; maybe, these two weren't so different. "I used to feel the same way about the characters I wrote," you started, wondering if this was a good idea. Yet, now that you've shared this much, you couldn't stop now. "and the stories which I typed for others consumption and entertainment. It's as though you spill and pour a bit of yourself into these dreams and passions. As a famous singer once sang, 'You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.'"

"What a way to put it. I think I might've heard the song you quoted some years ago. I believe my satellites picked up the transmission."

You smiled at that. You had heard the stories, read the theories, and admired man's will of wanting to make contact with the unknown; if only they would have known what they were getting themselves into. It wasn't all bad, and could very much be as Star Trek would put it, 'To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!' And to watch an intellectual man like Zeta-7 to almost wax poetic about the marvels and atrocities which were in the depths of space, and listening to how an alien admired what was in another quadrant of space, why it warmed your heart. "That's neat. It's funny," you admitted a bit quietly at first, then you raised your eyes towards him. "I'm not used to these kinds of events, but I gotta admit that it hasn't been so bad. You've made an otherwise tiresome task a joyful one."

You had long since noticed that his face was very stiff when it came to expressing emotions, but he still managed a smile that was no less winning. And unlike most of the evening there was an unaccountable silence. Till now, it seemed nothing could stop the Salamandrian from talking, but whatever had come over him went away as a danceable tune began to play, and you felt a subtle shift as he stood and wondered if you cared to dance. Keeping in mind the strict rules of this planet, you raised a brow, but he seemed to know what to do. "Come, I'll show you how it is done."

With a nod, you followed him all the while keeping a fair distance. Beneath your feet, you felt the bumpy path through your thin flats and relished the strong gust of wind that whipped your hair about. If you had closed your eyes, you could almost imagine yourself back home in Rick's backyard, remembering one of the first times you urged him to dance under the moonlit night, admiring how he colored when you realized it was a first for him; reluctant he stood on the patio unsure of what to do, but you smiled at him and told him there wasn't much to it because it was simply more romantic. Oh, how your heart ached for those days, but there wasn't much time to continue reminiscing, for you were dragged back to reality by the candor of the chemist's voice. "We're here."

On a raised platform was a honeycomb pattern of tiles, which illuminated when stepped on. V'gha took his place and stood very still until a see-through chamber enclosed him in. There was no panic or surprise, which led you to believe that he had done this before. In like manner, you followed his lead and took your place a few feet away and stood still until a chamber rose to encapsulate you in it. You felt a tightness in your chest, and took deep breaths in order not to panic, but a new tune began to play and it struck you with a sense of deja vu.

A glance at the stage revealed the appearance of a tall, veiled figure surrounded by six guards. You pressed a hand over your heart, feeling it quicken as he swiftly, but gently passed his fingers over a golden orbed plant which had very stiff leaves, and when it detected movement, it vibrated, and this, in turn, caused it to emanate a sound a little more delicate than that of a kalimba. Its melody seeped into your bones, buzzing against your skin, and in it you felt a sense of belonging and warmth to a moment. Along with the veiled figure was the being made of pure energy, whose voice added body to the already beautiful tune; flowers bloomed at high frequencies, and thread-thin roots spread along the stage and dance floor; illuminating at rhythmic intervals.

You imagined yourself dancing with Zeta-7, on a plane of nothingness; submerged in a viscous sweetness then rising to the surface; floating, falling, losing yourself in a funny world, with every intrinsic, idiosyncratic, and inviting thing in your path; laced fingers, shared breaths, surrounded by his warmth, secure in the nearness of him, and sure in his grasp; he was incandescently happy, and he was as much yourself as you were of him. "C-can you hear me princess?" he whispered.

You could hear him, but you couldn't answer. Lips ghosted over yours, whispering phrases you thought you recognized; haunting you; trying to tell you something of the utmost importance, but the song ceased, and the figure was gone; breaking the trance you hadn't known you'd been under. When the chamber returned from whence it had come, you followed V'gha back to the table; confused, embarrassed, lost, but with a sense of knowing. You thought to yourself that the veiled figure could've been Rick, for who else could evoke such feelings except for Rick; that or it truly was a tune which was out of this world. "You're quite a dancer." he commented, which interrupted your thoughts.

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything."

Taking a sip of his murky beverage, he explained. "There is no physical dancing done on this planet, except to those exclusively done by royalty and that of the Milleannos guardians. What the rest of us did, including yourself, was dance with our soul. None of us can really discern what the other is dancing to, which makes it appropriate and is in line with the laws, but while the others might not have understood what you were about, I could tell from the bliss which you exhibited on your face when we came back this way. It made me conclude you had enjoyed yourself. Call it instinct, but I believe this is the happiest you've been all evening."

Again, he wasn't wrong. Yet, how could you not know? It's possible that Zeta-7 didn't know it would take place either. You remembered how you felt, how real and tangible it seemed, but if that was the case, were you really dancing with Rick, or the idea of him? Did it matter?

The music now, albeit stimulating, was light and nearly silent as though someone was lightly humming. It was not as provoking as the tune earlier had been, but perhaps the experience you had was exclusive to your own feelings. "I did enjoy myself," you replied. "did you?"

"It was fascinating," he admitted smoothly. "but I much more prefer the view of all twenty-nine of this planet's moons. I cannot study the intangible thought of a feeling."

"If it helps, I much would've preferred regular dancing, but the experience...it's… it's one I wouldn't mind trying again."

One you wouldn't mind trying again, but only with Rick.

Tbc

#Doofus Rick #Doofus Rick x reader #rick sanchez x reader #Rick Sanchez #multi chapter #j19ζ7 #rick j19z7 #rick j19zeta7 #j19zeta7 #j19z7 #My writing #My works #my fanfiction #Fanfiction #rick and morty fanfiction #Rnm #Rick and morty #Rnm fanfic

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jinmukangwrites · 5 years

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From the Ashes (1/???)

Summary: In a modern version of Hyrule, a young man finds himself in a world filled with nothing but white walls, studying faces, and tests after tests. Something is different about him, and the world seems very interested is seeing what makes him tick. (A modern, BOTW/LOZ "Labrat" AU)

You all asked for this, so I’m delivering. Slight note, this is a normal Legend of Zelda AU, not a Linked Universe one. Though, that doesn’t mean the other incarnations of Link will never make an appearance.

Word count: 1,422 // Total word count (so far): 4,774

Warnings: there's a lot, not all of them appear in this chapter but they will in later ones. Experimentation, non-consensual touching, child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, suffocation, needles, restraints, death, graphic description of injury, basically I kill Link a bunch of times and do horrible things to him, anything horrible you can imagine happening to him will eventually happen, (there is NO sexual abuse in this story)

MAKE SURE YOU READ THE WARNINGS, READ AT OWN RISK.

Chapter 2 will upload June 13th.

-o-o-o-o-

He used to have a name. A life. He can see it in his dreams and taste it at the tip of his tongue. When he closes his eyes, he can see blue sky, something he doesn't ever remember seeing with his eyes open. He can hear a happy voice call his name behind him, and he turns and he sees people. Not scientists, not these white cloaked creatures that has become all he's ever known. He turns, he sees them, and he can just tell that he knows them somehow. One is large, bearded, the other short, woman, long strawberry blonde hair, and the last is very small, a girl, sparkling eyes.

He can't discern much more than that. He reaches out to them, his wrists free of tubes and needles, his feet move without him being dragged, he goes forward without restraints. His hands stretch out in front of him, he's so close, but then awareness starts to ebb into his dazed mind and somehow, they get further and further away. The girl yells something, the man calls out, the woman falls to the ground, sobbing.

There's a flash of light, a crash, and he's thrown around with the sounds of screaming and crunching metal, the howl of tires struggling to find traction on the road, and then everything goes dark.

Every time he closes his eyes. He has a name. He has a family.

But then he opens them, and he's the Subject. He's alone, no one to call Mom or Dad or little sister, no one there but the faceless men and women who study him through the glass of his cell. His world.

-o-o-o-o-

He doesn't remember much. Days bleed and blend together like white paint on a blank canvas. He doesn't know what he was doing last week, let alone what food he had the night before. He only knows right now, and he can't think further back. Well, actually he can take guesses. Last week he was most likely strapped to a table like he is now, what he had to eat was probably that gray, goopy substance that they forced down his throat a few hours before.

But it's not like he has any memory of that. His memories are just itches at the back of his neck or invisible bugs clawing at his wrists. Sometimes the memories are stabbing pains in his abdomen, burning fires in his lungs, stiffness in his legs. He doesn't remember much, but he supposes he remembers the pain.

There is one memory he can proudly say he remembers. It's horrible to say he's proud of it, because it's not a happy memory, but it at least give him an idea as how long he's been here, it gives him hope that he used to fight, that the straps on his body wasn't just precautionary, but actually used to keep him down and keep him from fighting.

It's the first time he's ever died, and he's somewhat confident in saying that he's died many, many times. It's the reason he's here, it's the reason they took him, he knows it. This memory is proof.

He's tiny in this memory; probably standing to the middle of his thigh at his present height. Hands are gripping his wrists so tight that he couldn't feel his fingertips, leaving bruises as he's grabbed around the middle and dumped on a white, stiffly padded table. He's screaming, screaming, the only evidence that he could have ever have had a voice, he doesn't scream now. He's to numb, his voice too gone. Anyway, he's screaming, lashing out and trying to claw at the people trying to pin him down.

He's small, but he's furiously fighting, biting and kicking as they grab hold of his soft, cotton tee-shirt and force it over his head. Bear chested, they press his upper body to the table where they start looping soft, velcro restraints around his wrists and chest while hands grab at his hips and force his jeans down.

They left his underwear on, but now he's practically naked as they now strap down his thighs and ankles in similar restraints and soon he's screaming and bucking but going nowhere. He tugs at his arms and jolts his legs, hard enough he can feel his shoulder smarting. Though, he's completely powerless when a hand falls over his face and forces his head to the side where they jab a needle into his neck.

His yells and protests turn into soft cries as the fluid they jammed into him starts to relax his muscles. The light is so bright and the fear pounding in his heart makes it easy for tears to slip out. In seconds, he has no strength to even lift a finger as they clip something on the tip of his pointer. He lets out a sob when they press small circular items connected to wires leading to machines to his chest, neck, stomach, head, thighs.

He wants to go home. He wants to go home, he's so scared, so confused, so alone. He wants to go home.

Someone approaches his side and he winces as another needle enters his skin at the wrist, this one staying. Tears pool out his eyes when another goes into the crook of his elbow and draws out red. There's chatter above him but the blood running in his ears makes it hard to listen.

He's dizzy and nauseous by the time the needle taking his blood leaves his arm. They're touching him, taking notes, bouncing theories, and suddenly, they all step back, silent.

He whimpers and tries to get his arms to move, but nothing is working. He's going numb, he can't even feel where they poked him with needles anymore. A man approaches, something that looks like an oxygen mask in his hands, though it's connected to an intimidating looking machine. Scared, he tries to turn his face, but it's all for naught when the mask is slipped over his mouth and nose and secured around the back of his head.

The man goes to flip a switch and pure terror fills his body because he has no idea what's going on and he can do nothing but cry and scream, he can't ask them what's happening, or where he is, or why he's here, he can't even twitch his fingers to sign.

"Wait," a voice says; a woman, white hair, red eyes, Sheikah. She reaches towards the man's hand and he stops. "He's just a child. You'll kill him."

"That's the point," the man growls, whipping his hand out from hers, "or have you forgotten that?"

"No, there must be a way to study his abilities without having to kill him-"

"This is a project demanded by the King himself," the man snarls, "we cannot make guesses and maybes on a project so important. Now, do you're job, Purah, or do I need to remind you what happens to people who go against the King's direct orders?"

The woman stares at the man for a second before she lands her red gaze down on the boy strapped to the table, lazily yet fearfully watching them. She sighs and the boy feels something shatter in his chest when she turns away from him and steps back.

The man nods before he turns with no more delays to flip the switch connected to the mask on his face.

There's a whir, then suddenly it's getting harder and harder to breath, like the air is replaced with peanut butter. He shutters and gasps, eyes wide and unblinking up towards the bright lights above him. Tears stream down his cheeks and the edges of his vision begin to go black, and it spreads until he feels nothing.

He continues to feel nothing. Not the table, not the restraints, not his entire body. Then, there's a blue warmth reaching out to him like a sad song.

The memory gets blurred at this part. He somewhat remembers waking up again to a flurry of white coats and clipboards. Beeping fills his ears and pounds against his skull as machines struggle to make sense of what happened. There's a pinch in the crook of his elbow and the need to throw up almost becomes unbearable until suddenly he can't breathe again, there's yelling, then air rushes into his lungs. It's all too much for his small body to take at this point and he let's a different kind of black take him once again.

#jin writes #fan fiction #fan fic #legend of zelda #botw #breath of the wild #link #whump #gosh if anything in this fandom counts towards whump #its this #there will be a lot #it gets worst from here folks #then it will get slightly better #then really worse again #enjoy #all you sickos asked for this

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earworkinggroup · 4 years

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Hand-Antennas: Protocols from Extrasensory Aesthetics | 2017

20/10–19/11 2017 Exhibition @ Josef Sudek Studio, Prague Part of Fotograf Festival 2017

more info

How to understand each other without words? How to perceive without the senses? How to change something from the inside? How to move someone remotely?

HAND ANTENNAS

When Vilém Flusser – in his book Do universa technických obrazů (To the Universe of Technical Images) – says that today, when the world has disintegrated into abstracted points, we do not take things in our hands but rather control them by pressing buttons and keyboards, he actually describes new manual economics and a new attitude toward the world booming with the expansion of digital technologies. Hands represent a model of simple tools. They are extended by the form and function of these tools. But what if some devices are similar to hands, whether morphologically or functionally? The RUKA (Hand) antenna, whose name is an abbreviation of the names of its Czech inventors, František Kahuda and Aleš Rumler, resembles a hand not only with its name. As its creators say: “All psycho-energetic experiments prove that the head and hands–palms are parts of the human body emitting the most radiation [...].” Under certain circumstances, “a hand with outstretched fingers acts like an antenna”. For “psycho-energetics” or “psychotronics”, the special relationship between the biological and the technical is symptomatic. Like Flusser’s buttons, psychotronic technologies and devices ask for a different way of dealing with things. The materialistic approach to seemingly immaterial phenomena brings unprecedented possibilities for communication and manipulation. In a way, the dreams of telepathy, telekinesis and telegnosis or clairvoyance come true in technical apparatuses available today. From the perspective of psychics, however, the current state does not mean meeting their goals, but rather a new challenge.

METHOD, DISCOURSE, INSTITUTIONS

Psychotronics is trying to establish itself as a new science and meet the methodological, discursive and institutional requirements to do so. In Czechoslovakia, the most ardent promoters of psychotronics included František Kahuda and Zdeněk Rejdák. The local parapsychological tradition adapted to new conditions, absorbing many ideas from the USSR. The very term of psychotronics expresses the intention to take a “more scientific” approach to the studied phenomena. While similar phenomena were historically explored mostly by curious individuals or interest groups, new professionalism reached official institutions as well. Since the late 1960s to the early 1990s, there was a number of psychotronic institutions in Czechoslovakia, including the Coordinating Group for the Research of Psychotronics, the Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL) at the Technical University (ČVUT) in Prague and later at the Institute of Chemical Technology (VŠCHT) in Prague (headed by Kahuda), the Research Institution for Psychotronics and Juvenology at the same institution (headed by Rejdák), the Section for the Research of Psychotronics at the Committee of Applied Cybernetics of the Czech Science and Technology Society (ČVTS), the Department of Experimental Psychotronics at the Research Institute of Animal Production, the Commission of Psychotronics of the Gerontological Society of the Slovak Medical Society, the Commission of the Slovak Council of the Czechoslovak Scientific and Technological Society for Psychotronics, and more. Since 1973, there were also conferences of the International Society for Psychotronics. The first edition was held in Prague on 18–22 June 1973.

In Czechoslovakia, the term psychotronics is promoted by Zdeněk Rejdák who refuses the term parapsychology. According to Rejdák, psychotronics includes telepathy, telekinesis and telegnosis. Rejdák also refers to his French colleague Fernando Clerc who says: “We already have electronics, cybernetics, stereotronics – and what do we still lack? We can suggest the term psychotronics for the phenomena using the energy emitted during the thought process and the energy carrying the impulse of the human will.” According to Clerc, “every one of us has the ability of certain, though extremely weak action at a distance. It will not be long before we can focus our will, safely protected from external influences, to run relays and servo motors.” František Kahuda distinguishes between the Western psychotronics, which tries to explain the phenomena studied with “known forms of energy”, and the Czechoslovak and Soviet psychoenergetics, which assumes the existence of a distinctive psychic or mental energy. However, Kahuda did not maintain this distinction consistently and even he later resorted to the concept of psychotronics. The idea of the specific nature of the Eastern concept of mental energy compared to the Western one is somewhat misleading: although the Soviet scientist N. I. Kobozev came with the theory of bio-energetic particles, the so-called psychones, the Soviets generally concentrated on physically explainable psychotronic phenomena (such as electrostatics and electromagnetism) and explored the relationship between parapsychological phenomena and the known types of radiation. Kahuda resonates with the Leninist theory of reflection, which sees the psyche “as an image (projection) of the objective reality”, as “the supreme product of the matter organized in a special way” which is “the result of the transformation of the energy of an external stimulus into to the fact of consciousness.” Moreover, Kahuda, referring to V. M. Bechterew and P. P. Lazarev, assumes that “the interactions in the process of thinking in the human nervous system energetically manifest themselves also outside the human brain”, as attested by cases of telekinesis or telepathy. The theory of mentions is supposed to complement scientific knowledge: it describes the “third signal system” (in addition to the two signal systems defined by I. P. Pavlov), “the fifth type of interaction” (in addition to the four types of interaction – nuclear, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and gravitational – studied by physics), and “the sixth sense” (called “temp” by Kahuda). Kahuda’s belief in the material mention character of mental energy is still a subject of disputes among those who are interested in psychotronics, as can be seen chielfy in the discussion about the nature of the telepathic transmission.

Rejdák describes psychotronics as an interdisciplinary discipline and puts it into the context with other sciences studying the aspects of psychotronic phenomena: physics, communication science, mathematics, cybernetics, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, neurophysiology, physiology, anthropology, geology, cosmobiology, sociology, and bionics. The “limit” nature of the studied phenomena asks for a certain interdisciplinary approach as the interdisciplinary dimension of research is emphasized both by Rejdák and Kahuda. Kahuda frames the discipline by the Marxist notion of “one science”, which includes physics, psychology and psychophysiology, biology and sociology. Like his Soviet colleague P. K. Anochin, he believes that the research on the brain must combine the findings of neurophysiology and behaviourism. He finds the “systemic approach” particularly suitable.

STR AND SHR

According to its proponents, psychoenergetics will substantially influence the ongoing scientific and technological revolution. Kahuda predicts “that the first half of the twenty first century will be the age of a new, yet unknown, though existing mental energy. Its control as the highest value of man should have the form of an active intervention into the confident shaping of mental processes to form the human for the benefit of the future society in a more rational way than ever before.” Scientific knowledge and rational application of this mental energy will then ensure “not only technical and economic development, but also the elevation of interpersonal relationships in the advanced socialist society to the highest attainable level. The scientific and technological revolution also and, perhaps above all, concerns the man and all workers who make it possible.” A different view is held by Břetislav Kafka, sculptor and hypnotist from Červený Kostelec, in his book Člověk zítřka (The Man of Tomorrow, 1947): “Technical sciences take the man away from the human. They confirm his notion that progress is about having more perfect machines, not about being better today than we were yesterday.” According to Kafka, “the aim of humanity” is “material and spiritual well-being. Industrial civilization defers this aim. Modern civilization sacrificed the sense to the matter. The man had become accustomed to his life by repeating the same movement every day, by processing one element.” Zdeněk Rejdák, who used to visit Kafka like many others, later speaks of the need for a “scientific and human revolution”, which should complement and counterbalance the ongoing scientific and technological revolution if we do not want to “flood the world in the next century with mechanical and human robots and enhance the alienation and social decay”. In Rejdák’s model, the man and mankind stand in opposition to the dehumanizing technology although they are complementary with it. Kahuda’s psychoenergetic dialectical materialism and Rejdák’s psychotronic socialist humanism are quite similar.

PSYCHOTRONICS, INFORMATION SCIENCE AND CYBERNETICS

Most generally speaking, psychotronics deals with unusual or unexplained types of information transmission. According to Valdemar Grešík, the last director of the Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL), closed in 1991, psychotronics “is based on the assumption that man is able to acquire and transmit information in other, so far unknown ways or paths. [...] To a great extent, diagnosing and looking for various objects and healing, all represent kinds of information transmission – in an energetic form, of course.” In this context, Kahuda speaks of “mental information science” which “lies in decoding the information encoded in substances. Such use of mental energy emitted by a psychic as a subject of an information process, when the energy has a similar role like the quanta of electromagnetic energy broadcast by an antenna in short wavelengths (radio microwaves) to the target subject, from which the wave is reflected and received in intermittent broadcast by an image tube which then receives the information about the observed object [...]. In this process, the quanta of mental energy function as a mental radar while the emitted clusters of mental energy are qualitatively directed to the object of the process, i.e. contain the required information in the form of instruction and query on the way to the target, and in the form of feedback response on the way back to the source (brain). The detection of the target during the mental reflection is not only about a mere physical reflection, but also about finding the qualitative characteristics of the detected object.” Moreover, according to Kahuda, the mentions – unlike the known particles – can penetrate any obstacle, which makes them suitable for the “action at a distance”. Before Kahuda, the striking parallelism of telepathy and radiocommunications was mentioned also by Upton Sinclair in Mental Radio (1930) and B.B. Kazinskij in Biological Radio communications (1962). The effort to clarify the physical nature of parapsychological phenomena and the recurrent recognition of similarities between these phenomena and technological apparatuses is also noteworthy.

Kahuda says that “the use of a variety of devices for contactless communication with both the living and nonliving matter, using a psychophysical method, will certainly be very important one day”. According to Kahuda, the role of mentions is to transfer “quality-oriented information in various types of nonverbal mention communication”, including communication with animals and plants. Mental energy is supposed to be useful “especially in the area of communication, control, management, influencing various events”. This statement is strikingly reminiscent of the definition of cybernetics by Norbert Wiener as a science of control and communication in living organisms and machines. Besides the contemporary fascination with cybernetics (developed in the Easter Bloc since the late 1950s), there is also a certain structural similarity attracting the psychics. If hands in the eyes of psychics resemble antennas, the second key part of the human body, the head – and namely the brain, is obviously associated with computers. This comparison often occurs in the texts. Kahuda concludes that “man is not [unlike computers] only a ‘product’ of the social environment, a passive object of the internalized (interiorized) effects of the external environment, but uses its own self-regulatory system to create and change the external stimuli, to exteriorize them with ideas and work, thus actively influencing the world and acting as an active creature”. At the First International Conference of Psychotronics, Rejdák presented his paper “Psychotronics reveals new possibilities for cybernetics” which concluded that psychotronics “can help cybernetics solve one of the most difficult tasks – to help teach machines to create”.

The context of psychotronics and cybernetics can be detected at multiple levels, as shown by American researchers Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander who described the state of Czechoslovak psychotronics in the late 1960s in Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain, describing the Czech experiment whose executors decided to “think of telepathy as a channel with such a high degree of noise that it almost drowns the entire message. Information theory knows the means to overcome the problem of noise, such as calculations indicating, among other things, how many repetitions of one bit of information is necessary for proper reception. The Czechs used these calculations when they asked two people to try to telepathically send messages in a binary code back and forth while the computer found the necessary formula according to information theory.” In the experiment, telepathy reportedly proved to be more reliable than a field radio.

PYRAMIDS AND GENERATORS

Although psychics announce the immense impact of their discoveries in the near future, the practical application of the research is limited to relatively marginal cases. In 1959, one of the most important representatives of Czech psychotronics, radio engineer Karel Drbal won a patent for the “method for maintaining shaving knives and razors sharp” using small pyramids, made from for example, cardboard or plastic. To achieve the desired effect, it was necessary to orient the pyramids of certain shapes with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field. Drbal’s repeatedly applied for the patent which was allegedly granted to him only after the sceptical director of the Patent Office successfully used the invention himself.

The present results exceed the expectations and concern. The most attention is raised by the possibility to use mental energy for military purposes. Psychotronics seems to be a very strategic weapon for the cold war. A CIA report says that psychotronic weapons would mean a “serious threat to the military, diplomatic and security functions of the enemy. Transmitted energy would be quiet and hardly detectable by electronics (although the Soviets claim to have developed efficient sensors of biological energy) and the only needed source of energy would be a human operator.” Given the scarcity of available information, the US agents took the East European psychotronic research very seriously.

In this regard, CIA reports and the StB (Czech state police) were considerably interested in the so-called psychotronic generators produced by Robert Pavlita in his workshop in Lázně Bělohrad since the 1940s. These are mostly metal objects of various sizes and shapes that can be charged with biological energy under certain conditions. The efficiency of the generator depends on the form and material. Pavlita sees his generators as a kind of bioenergetic batteries that can be effectively controlled and regulated thanks to this technical extension. Using the generators, he can, for example, magnetize wood in a scientifically inexplicable way. Pavlita, who works as a textile technician, suggests that the generators can be used to purify water heavily polluted, among other things, during the production of textiles. Pavlita and his daughter Jana demonstrated the generators at the First International Conference of Psychotronics in Prague in 1973 as part of the lecture titled “The inductive effect on the human body mass”.

DOWSING RODS AND COAL

In 1991, physicists Luděk Pekárek and Milan Rojko published an article where they wrote: “In the past few years, the promotion of dowsers on TV and the radio, in daily press and entertainment and popular magazines in our country has caused that the national committees issue trade licences even to dowsers. Recently, geopathic zones on land and in flats are marked not only by individuals but also cooperatives and private companies. During the First Republic, dowsing was not even listed as a recognized craft by the Trade Chamber.” Since the late 1970s and 1980s, The Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL) conducted research on the possible use of dowsers in coalfields, and carried out projects like “Research of non-traditional methods of searching of anomalies in the mining front and quarry foothills and non-traditional forms of care for people in the North Bohemian brown coalfield” (for the North Bohemian brown coal mine in Most) or “Research on the protection of people in difficult mining conditions using mental energy” (for the Research Institute in Ostrava-Radvanice). These projects reportedly belong to the most successful PEL projects. Based on one of Kahuda’s suggestions to “implement the psychoenergetic research in the 8th Five-Year Plan”, a “scientific and production telesthesic association Ostrava Most, with a joint scientific council and specialized workplaces in the Research Institute in Ostrava-Radvanice (VVUÚ) and the Research Institute of Brown Coal in Most (VÚHU)”, was supposed to be established. The attitude of psychics to dowsing is still far from clear and depends on its application, as evidenced by Zdeněk Rejdák who joined the discussion in the Education Club of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement (ROH) on physics and modernized superstition, held on 16 February 1989 by the Prague branch of the Union of Czechoslovak Mathematicians and Physicists. He said that marking “pathogenic zones in flats and prefabricated houses is for absolutely ‘untrustworthy and nonsensical’ and he thought that such activities should not be allowed and one should against protest against their authorization.”.

AUTOGRAPHY AND ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHY

The techniques deployed in psychotronic research also include photography. Attention is also paid to various forms of autography and electrography that makes invisible forms of radiation visible. In the Czech society, there were some prerequisites for such an interest, as evidenced by references to the pioneer of autography, Bartoloměj Navrátil, who discovered the “New kind of electrical patterns” (published in Časopis pro pěstování matematiky a fyziky in 1889). A special place belongs to Kirlian photography, which was the subject of lectures of many speakers at the First International Conference of Psychotronic in Prague in 1973, including the Kirlians themselves. According to Kahuda, to explain the Kirlian effect, though proven in many experiments, one needs the “materialistic mention theory of fundamental material radiation”. Kahuda’s materialism, however, still pays attention to the social dimension, stating that the intensity and colouring of pictures of human organs depend on the mental state of man and vary “particularly according to the function of the man in nature and the society”.

One of the PEL research groups attempts to capture the mysterious radiation from Pavlita’s bio-generators on photosensitive material and experimentally prove the existence of mentions. These experiments are inspired by the research led by psychiatrist Jule Eisenbud in the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital in Denver in the 1960s. Eisenbud worked with psychic Ted Serios who used his psychic powers to create “thoughtography” on Polaroid film. Milan Smrž describes a series of experiments trying to capture mental energy on photosensitive paper in his research report for the project entitled “Physical chemical detection of mental energy” carried out by the PEL in 1980. On some photographic materials, there were strange spots, including “characteristic colons”. Although the report, written by Milan Smrž, mentions a number of inconclusive tests and does not provide a definite conclusion about the origin of the mysterious patterns, Kahuda summarizes the experiment in the darkroom in the following way: “To avoid doubt that it is the interaction of aura, existing in the space around the head of the psychic, with the film emulsion, and not a direct contact of the emulsion with the head surface, a film strip was inserted into a ‘crown’ made of stiff/drawing paper and deposited in the emulsion to the outside circumference of the crown, so that the fundamental primary mention radiation first passed through a strong paper barrier, then ionized the air in the gaps before the film emulsion, and continuously exposed the film emulsion with the resulting secondary photon radiation. This action took place simultaneously in the space around the head of the emitter. Different colours in different places of the film strip indicate various actions and functions of the human brain tissue at the time of exposure under the psychological and medical condition of the emitter. This function of the human aura could also be used in practice to distinguish between different kinds of the brain activity, similarly to the AG and EG [...].”

Vojtěch Märc

#exhibition

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hollymartinswrites · 5 years

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Chapters: 7/? Fandom: IT - Stephen King, IT (Movies - Muschietti) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh Characters: Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Original Child Character(s) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Domestic, Light Angst, Family Feels, Childhood Trauma, Adoption, Kid Fic, Adopted Children, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Marriage, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier Are Parents, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Catholicism, Richie Tozier Has Issues, Extended Tozier Family, Medical Examinations, Stephen King References

Summary:

Eddie and Richie embark on the most terrifying experience of all—parenthood. Or, the author desperately needed a domestic, family fix-it for Richie and Eddie and it turned into a much longer, angstier exploration than I expected.

Chapter VII: Eddie struggles while he and Richie search for answers about their daughter. But perhaps there's light in the darkness.

“This is crazy,” Eddie muttered, straightening and walking away from the desk. “Absolutely fucking crazy.”

“Eds, come on,” Richie implored him, turning away from the open laptop screen where Mike’s face gazed up at him. “This is interesting stuff.”

“Interesting but bullshit.”

“You don’t know that,” Richie insisted.

“No, but I do know our daughter isn’t a fucking science experiment,” Eddie declared, whirling around, his hands waving wildly. “This is real life, not that show on Netflix.”

Richie sighed as Mike hurriedly said, “I’m not saying Tess is that, I’m just saying, we have evidence of children with...with…”

“Powers?” Eddie provided, raising an eyebrow. “Like fucking Superman or something? Come the fuck on.”

“Charlie McGee claimed to start exhibiting pyrokinetic abilities as a toddler,” Mike said, flipping through a stack of papers. “It’s all right here in that Rolling Stone article from 1980.”

“And in the same article, it’s explained that her parents were mentally ill drug addicts and that the ‘explosion’ she caused with her mind was from an anti-government terrorist attack, Mike,” Eddie continued. “It says it right there in the link you sent us. Besides, even if this is true, our daughter isn’t exactly setting things on fire with her mind.”

“No, but I did find something that sounds an awful lot like what Tess is doing,” Mike continued.

“She’s doing nothing but being a kid,” Eddie said, exasperated. He looked at Richie. “I’m done with this. You want to stay up all night talking conspiracy theories and thinking our daughter is something out of The X-Files, go ahead, but I’m not listening to anymore of this.”

“Why not?” Richie begged. “How is any of this any crazier than what we went through?”

Eddie closed his eyes and sighed, a prickling of fear spreading through his body. It had to be crazy, it had to be, because if it wasn’t, then Pennywise wasn’t the worst of what this universe was capable of.

“Here,” Mike said suddenly, “I’m sending you some more links.”

A new email appeared in Richie’s inbox and he quickly opened it, clicking the first link. It was an article from an academic journal.

“The fuck’s this?” Richie mumbled, trying to make sense of the scholarly jargon in the first paragraph.

“There’s a girl out there, well, a teenager, and she has exhibited a lot of the same things Tess has done,” Mike explained. “She’s been studied by several different universities and they all admit, no one has given such accurate results in multiple tests.”

“Tests in what?” Richie asked.

“ESP, telepathy, clairvoyance, even astral projection,” Mike said, sounding terribly excited. “And she’s not the only one. She claims there are others like her out there.”

“That’s it,” Eddie groaned, rubbing at his eyes, “I’m going to bed. You and Mike have fun. I’ll handle the Tooth Fairy tonight since you’re so busy.”

Richie waved his hand distractedly as he squinted at the screen, clearly engrossed with the article. Eddie rolled his eyes, said good night to Mike, and walked out of their home office. He glanced at his watch. It was near midnight. He hadn’t stayed up this late on purpose in a long fucking time.

Quietly, he inched into Lydia’s room and reached into his pocket for his wallet. She was fast asleep, starfished on her bed, and Eddie allowed himself a relieved smile. He glanced at her nightstand, on which sat a piece of paper with the words FOR THE TOOTH FAIRY written on it in crayon with an arrow pointing to said tooth. Eddie was once again grateful he had had the forethought years ago to insist that the Tooth Fairy was too busy to go digging under pillows all night. Quickly, he slipped the dollar bill in the tooth’s place and, just a quickly, crept out of her room and down the hall.

He passed the office, and could hear Richie and Mike talking behind the closed door. His shoulders drooped, and he fought the desire to walk in there and demand Richie stop freaking himself out and come to bed. But Eddie had the sneaking suspicion Richie needed this, even if it was all bullshit.

And it had to be. It was bad enough they lived in a world where an ageless entity from space could terrorize children, erase their memories, and know their deepest fears. Eddie had to draw the line somewhere. Superheroes, magic, whatever, didn’t exist. His daughter was just that; his daughter. A little girl...with just an odd ability that had to have a somewhat rational explanation.

He opened his hand and gazed down at the tooth in his palm. He sighed, went to their closet, and found the leather travel bag. He unzipped it, took out the tiny jar, unscrewed the top and placed the tooth in it. He returned the jar and bag back to the closet. He still found it a somewhat creepy practice to keep their daughter’s baby teeth but Richie had insisted it was totally normal (“Besides, she can make a necklace out of them when she gets older, Eds!”).

Eddie closed the closet door and turned towards the bed. It looked terribly inviting. He was about halfway to collapsing in it when the door creaked open, and a little face peeked through.

“Tess?” he said softly. He headed to the door and opened it fully. “What are you doing up, sweetheart? It’s the middle of the night.”

“Daddy,” she whispered, her voice thin.

“What is it?” he asked, crouching down. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Her mouth fell open, and for a split second, Eddie thought she was about to vomit. Instead, she slumped, as if she was a marionette whose strings had just been cut. She remained standing, but her eyes dimmed and her body appeared boneless.

“Tess? Tess, answer me,” Eddie said firmly, gripping her little arms as cold fear gripped his heart. “Tess, sweetheart, look at me. Answer me.”

A great shuddering gasp escaped her and this time, her legs gave out fully. He gathered her into his arms and stood, repeating her name desperately.

“Daddy,” she repeated, slurring slightly and her head lolling, “Papa’s...get ‘im.”

“Tess, baby, just breathe with me and keep your eyes open, okay?” Eddie hurried to the office and kicked open the door. Richie jumped and immediately paled when he saw Tess languid in his arms.

“Oh, God, Tess, Tess,” he gasped, rushing up to his husband and daughter. “Tess, look at me, please, kiddo.” “Get your car keys, and wake Lydia, we’re taking her back to the hospital,” Eddie said, shifting her in his arms.

Tess turned her bleary gaze to Richie. She reached out for him.

“Papa,” she mumbled.

“I’m right here, baby,” Richie said, his voice thick, taking her little face in his shaking hands.

“You…” she shuddered, blinked, and all at once, was their daughter again, her eyes clear and her voice strong. She burst into tears. “You almost flew away!” she wailed, as she all but launched herself out of Eddie’s arms and threw her own around Richie’s neck. Both men stumbled.

“Tess, I…” Richie looked at Eddie over her head, his own eyes wide and frightened. “I’m right here. It’s okay, kiddo, I’m right here. Are you alright? Does your head hurt or something?”

“Don’t fly away,” she begged through tears.

“Hold her,” Eddie said and maneuvered her into Richie’s arms. “I’m starting the car. We’re going to the hospital.”

“What was that?” Richie demanded over Tess’s sobs. “Another seizure?”

“I don’t know what it was,” Eddie said. “But I’m not waiting for another one.”

Pennywise couldn’t have been all-knowing, Eddie realized, because if It had, It would’ve shown Eddie and Richie this—their daughter sedated and lying, helpless and vulnerable, on the table before the yawning mouth of an MRI machine. This was worse than the leper or Paul Bunyan’s grinning razor-sharp teeth; worse than losing your childhood memories—because now, now they were really fucking helpless.

“It’ll take about ten days before we get the results back,” the neurologist explained. “And she’ll definitely be feeling the effects of the sedation afterwards. She should spend the next twenty-four hours resting.”

“Neither of us are working today,” Eddie muttered, clutching the shitty, cold coffee a nurse had given him earlier. He glanced back at Richie, but he was clearly lost inside his own head and not listening. He was sitting in a seat against the wall as they waited for the procedure to finish. Lydia—poor, patient Lydia who had been woken up in the middle of the night and thrilled by the sight of a dollar bill on her night stand, only to be told to put on her shoes, they were going to the hospital—was curled up, asleep in his lap, his jacket around her protectively.

Eddie sighed and rubbed at his forehead. The MRI technician smiled sympathetically at him.

“I know it seems to take forever,” he said, “but we’re nearly done.”

Eddie nodded. He was familiar with the process, having gone through it when the migraines became too much. Myra had insisted on second and third opinions. Eddie clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. The idea of Tess waking up after an MRI only to have Myra, or worse, his mother, waiting for her turned his stomach.

“How can she sleep through all that banging?” Richie muttered suddenly. Eddie remembered that Richie had never even seen an MRI machine until now.

“It’s loud, I know,” the technician said gently, “but between the earplugs and sedation, she doesn’t notice a thing.”

If he had said that to make them feel better, it only did the opposite. Eddie stood and stepped towards Richie, brushing his husband’s hair off his forehead.

“You need a haircut,” he muttered.

Richie glanced up and somehow, smiled.

“That’s the least of what I need right now,” he sighed.

Eddie leaned down and kissed the top of his head, uncaring that the technician was less than three feet away. Richie smiled again and for a moment, Eddie thought that if he could keep Richie smiling, then maybe they could get through this.

Recovery rooms had always been Eddie’s least favorite part of a hospital. He hated the waiting, the fact that you were trapped with other patients, that you had virtually no privacy. But now, he especially hated that they were surrounded by other children and their families, all nervous and on-edge.

Tess was one of the lucky ones. She hadn’t gone through surgery, but the doctor still wanted her to sufficiently recoup from the sedation before she went home. Richie and Eddie were miserable.

Eddie sighed and shifted Lydia, still sleeping, in his arms. Richie had needed a break and also desperately wanted to hold Tess’s hand as she slept. Eddie remembered how despondent he had been when he had woken up after surgery in Derry, only to discover he was the one patient in the recovery room without any visitors waiting for him. It was only later that he discovered the doctors had not allowed a single Loser in, seeing as they were not family and not listed as an emergency contact. Luckily, Mike knew one of the nurses, and when Eddie was transferred back to his own room, they were all there, beaming at him—except for Richie,who still looked terrified, as if certain he was gazing at a mirage.

“She looks so tiny,” Richie suddenly whispered.

Eddie blinked and turned his gaze to his youngest daughter, her little chest rising and falling steadily. He nodded.

“Even tinier than when we first got her,” he agreed.

“She was underweight,” Richie continued, his thumb running over her little hand. “Remember how light she was?”

Eddie nodded again and rested his cheek on the top of Lydia’s head. He closed his eyes and immediately saw Tess in their doorway, hours earlier. He sighed.

“She looked like you,” he whispered. Richie turned towards him, confusion on his face. “During her seizure tonight. She looked like you when you were caught…” he lowered his voice, “when you were in the deadlights.”

Richie swallowed.

“Maybe that’s what she saw,” he replied quietly.

“The deadlights?”

“No, me,” Richie said, reaching with his other hand to stroke Tess’s hair. “She said, don’t fly away. Maybe she saw me in the deadlights, too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie noticed movement. He glanced over, and spotted a nurse hovering across the room, who quickly looked away. Eddie frowned. He doubted the nurse could overhear them, but he felt nervousness form in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps he was a fan of Richie’s, but surely no nurse would dare approach him in a recovery room, right?

“Eddie, that girl Mike told us about,” Richie whispered, his eyes wide, “I think you should read what he sent.”

“Rich, not now, please.”

“It sounds like...like this is real. She’s seeings things from before she was born. How is that possible?”

Eddie spotted the nurse again, who was making quite a show of reading a chart a few beds away. Eddie frowned.

“Can we at least wait for the MRI results before we jump to conclusions?” he begged.

Richie followed his gaze and spotted the hovering nurse, too. He swallowed and looked back down at their sleeping daughter.

“Alright, Eds,” he sighed. “Whatever you say.”

The next ten days went by in a blur of family visits and constant check-ins from the Losers. Apparently when a small child gets her brain scanned, it’s all hands on deck. Richie’s parents and sister babysat, brought food, and distracted the girls while Eddie and Richie walked around in a daze, waiting for the results that could potentially change their lives.

Mike Facetimed everyday, never bringing up any of his research, but simply listening. Bill, stuck in Europe with limited wifi on a movie shoot, sent goofy videos and uplifting emails when he could. Bev called multiple times a day and Ben fucking flew in, because he was just that sort of kind-hearted bastard.

“Bev can’t get away from work until Sunday,” he explained gently. The results were due to come in on Friday. “She wanted to be here.”

“It’s fine,” Richie said, faking a smile. “You guys are acting like this is a wedding. We’re just getting a bunch of paperwork telling us what the fuck is going on in our daughter’s brain. No big deal.”

Ben offered one of his patented You’re making jokes about being sad and that’s sad faces and Richie just shrugged.

“We’re glad you’re here,” Eddie admitted softly. “Besides, Lydia’s thrilled.”

“That’s true,” Richie said, “Lyds loves you, Ben. I think she wants you and Bev to adopt her.”

Ben laughed gently and ran a hand through his hair.

“Tess still needs to warm up to me,” he said.

“Tess still needs to warm up to me,” Richie shot back.

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“She adores you, Rich,” he said, brewing another pot of coffee. “She even lets you read to her now.”

“Yeah, Berenstain Bears, not Dr. Seuss,” Richie muttered. “I hate the fucking Berenstain Bears.”

Ben laughed and squeezed Richie’s shoulder affectionately.

“Having kids seems a lot more complicated than I thought,” he admitted.

“Trust me, man, you have no idea,” Richie said, scrubbing his hand over his face.

Friday came in a blink. Ben and Richie’s sister Sarah watched the girls while Richie and Eddie went to get the results. They drove together in tense silence, waited in the waiting room silently, and when they were finally called into the office, still said very little.

Later, Eddie would realize that for something that caused such overwhelming anxiety for so long, it was all very anticlimactic. The results showed nothing in Tess’s brain. Once again, the doctor insisted there was no physical reason for her apparent seizures. It was good news...right?

As they walked out, stunned and exhausted, both men were lost in their own thoughts. Eddie felt weak with relief but he still couldn’t get the image of his daughter in that MRI machine. Time to make another appointment with his therapist, he figured.

By the time he reached the door, he suddenly realized Richie was not beside him. He turned around and spotted Richie down the hall, hurrying after him.

“Where were you?” Eddie asked tiredly.

“Nowhere, nothing,” Richie said quickly. “Let’s go home.”

“Rich?”

“I wanna see the girls,” Richie continued, rushing through the doors.

Eddie sighed and shook his head, following his husband.

“But that’s good news!” Ben exclaimed when they got home. “Isn’t it?”

“It is,” Eddie said, running a hand through his hair. “I mean, she has nothing physically wrong in her brain so thank God. But we still don’t have clear answers.”

Sarah frowned and shook her head.

“There has to be one,” she insisted. “Did they talk about medication or anything?”

“A bit,” Eddie sighed. “I just...something about it feels wrong. I can’t explain it.”

“What does Richie think?” Ben asked.

“I...I don’t know,” Eddie admitted.

“Where is Richie?” Sarah asked, suddenly looking around her. She peeked into the living room where Lydia was playing with the Wii. “Lyds, did you see where your dad went?”

“I think he’s in Tess’s room,” she answered. “Aunt Sarah, it’s your turn to play. You promised.”

“I know but—”

“Please,” Lydia begged, putting on her best puppy dog eyes.

Sarah sighed but smiled affectionately. “Duty calls,” she said, and walked into the living room.

“I should go check on Richie,” Eddie said tiredly.

“Sure,” Ben said before placing his arm on Eddie’s shoulder. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but is there something else going on? Like, you and Richie don’t seem...yourselves.”

Eddie tried to offer a smile but Ben saw right through it. He looked genuinely concerned and Eddie had to admit, it was nice to have someone else worry, too.

“It’s fine, we’re just...figuring this out,” he admitted softly. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked down the hall and knocked on Tess’s half-opened door. He peeked in. Richie was sitting on her bed with Tess on his knee, speaking quietly to her.

“You two okay?” he asked.

“Eds, come here,” Richie said quickly. “And close the door.”

Eddie did so with a sense of unease. He stepped towards the bed and gazed down at his husband and daughter expectantly. Richie turned back to Tess.

“Now, kiddo, tell Daddy what you told me,” he said gently. “Just the same.”

“Okay,” Tess said, shrugging as she looked up at Eddie. “‘Member when I fell down?”

Eddie huffed a laugh.

“Yes, I definitely remember that, sweetheart,” he said.

“Well,” Tess began, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, “I fell because Papa fell and it hurted.”

“Papa fell?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Yep, he was flying,” she said. She turned back to Richie. “How come you don’t fly at home?”

Richie shook his head.

“Because I can’t really fly,” he admitted.

“But you did in the cave.”

“I wasn’t flying,” Richie explained gently. “I was floating.”

A wave of nausea rolled in Eddie’s stomach.

“Richie, stop this,” he insisted.

“Wait, listen, go on, Tess. Tell Daddy the rest.”

“Daddy saved you,” she said, shrugging. “And then Daddy got hurted. And you was sad but now it’s okay.”

“Yes, it’s all okay now,” Richie agreed, kissing her on her forehead. “Why did Daddy float?”

“‘Cause of the light. Aunt Bev saw it, too,” she answered nonchalantly. “Can I have a snack?”

“Of course you can,” Richie said happily, hugging her tightly before placing her on her feet. “Go on, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ben are in the kitchen.”

She rushed out. Richie and Eddie stared at one another.

“You can’t deny it, Eds,” Richie said, his voice oddly light. “She sees our past. I don’t know how or why, but she does.”

Eddie swallowed and suddenly realized his hands were shaking. He closed them into fists.

“It?” he whispered.

Richie shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “This is something else. Like something you’re born with.”

“Richie…”

“And earlier, at the hospital, a nurse stopped me,” he said, standing and reaching into his pocket. “He was in the recovery room with us last week. I saw him looking over at us and I thought he was just being a dick but he heard us. He stopped me on our way out today and gave me this.”

He pulled a crumpled piece of paper out and handed it to Eddie. Eddie looked down at an unfamiliar name.

“What’s this supposed to be?” he asked.

“He said he used to work with this guy, he has what Tess has,” Richie said excitedly.

“For fuck’s sake,” Eddie sighed. “This could just be a crazy person. That nurse could be a crazy person.”

“His name is in one of the articles Mike sent us,” Richie insisted. “About that girl.”

“And? What are we supposed to do about it?”

“We can reach out to them.”

“No fucking way,” Eddie said, raisng his voice in shock. “You wanna read articles or look up theories on the Internet, fucking fine, but there is no way we are opening ourselves to some fucking lunatics. Especially when it comes to our daughter.”

“I’m not saying we introduce Tess to them, I’m saying we ask some questions.”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie hissed.

“So what do you want to do?” Richie asked angrily. “Wait around until this happens again? Throw some meds at her and hope for the best?”

Eddie threw his hands up and turned away.

“This is crazy, Rich, totally fucking crazy,” he gasped.

“Eds—”

A knock at the door. Ben stuck his head in.

“You guys want lunch or something?” Ben asked gently. “Tess and Lyds are hungry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie said, taking a deep breath. “We’ll be right there.”

He nodded, gave a penetrating look at his two friends, and left. Richie stood and gazed down at Eddie, his eyes soft. He took Eddie’s face in his hands, caressing his cheekbones with this thumbs.

“We need to figure this out,” he whispered, “and I can’t do it alone.”

Eddie sighed, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. He didn’t see Richie smile but he felt it in his kiss.

Life went back to normal—or as normal as it ever was in the Tozier household. Bev still offered to fly out but there wasn’t any point, so after thanking him profusely and offering to visit soon, Richie and Eddie sent Ben back home to his wife. He looked oddly reluctant to leave, but he hugged his two friends tightly and told them he loved them before his flight. Eddie caught Richie blinking rapidly before turning away.

Sarah still visited often, along with Richie’s mother, but they had their own responsibilities, too. And, as far as the medical world as concerned, Tess was physically fine.

Soon, they had less than a week until the new school year, and the Tozier family was busy. Last minute supplies had to be bought, schedules finalized, Tess reassured constantly about the safety and fun of preschool, and teachers informed about her seizures. The preschool took the information well, and assured them that they had plenty of experience with children with epilepsy. Richie and Eddie considered explaining that Tess did not have that, but let it go. Perhaps it was easier to pretend she had an ordinary diagnosis.

Lydia and Tess’s first days started together and, in an effort to make the preschool drop off as easy and meltdown-free as possible, Richie volunteered to take Tess alone. She’d still freak out but it wouldn’t be as violent if Eddie was there, they figured. Eddie agreed reluctantly. He hated the idea of his daughter breaking down at the front steps of the preschool, but he hated the idea of missing her first day even more.

“I’ll film everything,” Richie promised. “It’s only for half a day, anyway.”

Eddie nodded and finished packing her snacks and blanket. Lydia was practically vibrating with excitement, showing off her back to school outfits and re-organizing her Batman backpack. She was, both men had to admit, better at distracting and empowering Tess than they were. She spent their last day of summer vacation going on and on about the excitement of school, of how much fun she has with her friends and the nice teachers, and when Tess starts kindergarten next year, she’ll just love it.

Tess listened carefully and asked many questions. Lydia, always a fan of being in charge and all-knowing, was in her element. Eddie smiled and felt his heart twist as he watched his two daughters. Perhaps everything will be okay, he thought hopefully.

That night, he and Richie helped the girls wash up, change into their pjs, lay out their first day clothes, and climb into bed. Lydia needed very little encouragement and simply kissed them both good night before asking for her copy of Ramona Quimby, Age 8, and promising not to stay up late reading. They left her room, content in the knowledge that Lydia was quite fearless and adept at rolling with the punches.

In their younger daughter’s room, Richie tucked Tess into her bed, her night light on and her eyes heavy. Eddie brushed her hair from her face and she smiled sleepily.

“You’re going to have a great day tomorrow,” he said gently.

“Yeah, you’re going to have so much fun,” Richie agreed. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Tess yawned.

“Yep,” she said, “a good day.”

“And you’re so smart and brave,” Richie continued. “You’re gonna blow everyone away tomorrow.”

“I know,” Tess replied, rubbing at her eye with the back of her hand. “‘M not scared. ‘M not scared of anything anymore.”

“Good,” Eddie said, impressed. Lydia should become a motivational speaker, he thought briefly. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“Nope,” Tess replied. “The nice girl showed me.”

Unease, like a blanket, fell over Richie and Eddie. They glanced at one another, both frozen. Richie licked his lips and swallowed before asking, “What girl?”

“The girl who visited me,” she yawned. “She showed me lots.”

“What did she show you?” Eddie whispered, terrified of the answer.

“Magic,” Tess replied, closing her eyes. “She says I’m magic, too.”

“Tess…”

She smiled as her breathing slowly evened out, and they knew she was falling asleep.

“She says I shine like her,” Tess whispered.

#Reddie #Reddie Fanfic #richie tozier #Eddie Kaspbrak #it chapter 2

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