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scribbles97 · 4 years

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Left Behind - Chapter 32

PART 1 / PART 2

Chapter 22 / Chapter 23 / Chapter 24 / Chapter 25 / Chapter 26 / Chapter 27 / Chapter 28 / Chapter 29/ Chapter 30 / Chapter 31

It hadn’t been Val’s plan to go the the simulator quite so soon after they had gotten home, but John had said something about familliarising himself with Thunderbird Three and Alan had been on the edge of another teenage temper tantrum. It had seemed like the easiest compromise to diffuse the situation.

When she had heard Thunderbird Two launch, both had looked at each other, concern on both their faces. A quick call upstairs had confirmed the launch to rescue a father and son trapped aboard an out of control hot air balloon. John seemed to have taken control of the situation, claiming his mother’s desk to work from whilst Scott had hovered over his shoulder.

Val had left the pair to it, trusting both to support each other and hoping they would manage to find their feet quickly whilst on the clock. John had been right, they did need a full time qualified pilot for Thunderbird Three, and when she had looked into it his stats from both NASA and the simulators placed him as the best man for the job.

Except, perhaps, his younger brother.

As a challenge she had thrown up the live feed from Little Lightning, Beta Team had launched just as they had arrived home with Lucy. A TV satellite knocked out of orbit and into the path of another orbiting station needed realigning. Alan had taken it in his stride, reacting exactly as the other team had done, talking through his actions and glancing up to her for reassurance.

The kid was still just a teenager though, not even old enough to drive or vote. Lucy had made it clear, he had to do it the same way as his brothers, specialist training at the academy. He wouldn’t be allowed near an actual Thunderbird for another five years.

Not that Val could see him waiting patiently.

“What’s your closing distance?” She prompted, hovering at his shoulder, the first time he was flying without someone as Copilot to assist his actions.

“Thirty meters.” He responded with only the briefest of pauses, “Rotational vector still matched. Twenty meters… Ten.”

The simulator jolted as the grappling arms engaged, lights above Alan’s head turning green to indicate a secure lock.

“Confirm successful lock?”

He nodded.

“Verbally.” She prompted again, “Remember your black box can’t see what you’re doing.”

“Lock to satellite successful.” Alan confirmed, “Firing thrusters to counter spin.”

She kept watching as her phone buzzed in her pocket, making Alan look up with a grin,

“I didn’t think there was any signal in space?”

Laughing, she shook her head at him, “You watch your flying,” Glancing to the caller ID she frowned slightly, “Take her for a spin, but don’t crash whilst I’m EVA.”

Alan sat straighter, eyes wide as she turned away and left him to it, stepping out of the simulator before she answered the call.

“Casey.”

“Val, it’s Ridley.”

She had known the from the caller ID, what she didn’t know was why she was receiving the call.

“Not that it isn’t nice to hear from you Ridley,” She smiled perching on the steps up to the simulator, “But I would have thought you’d call John.”

Ridley tutted softly, “I didn’t want to stick an idea in his head before I’d okayed it with someone higher up.”

Val hummed and tilted her head to herself slightly, “Scott would be the one to speak to in that case.”

“Scott won’t like what I have to say.”

Val couldn’t help but snort as she looked down from the training balcony to the rest of the hangar where Thunderbird One sat, belly open and guts spilled out across the floor.

“So you want me to tell him to listen?” She asked, shifting to stand so she could watch Hiram and his pet robot as they organised the mess of wires trailing from the ship.

“The parts have arrived here for Thunderbird Five’s retrofit. I know the focus is on Lucy right now, but from what John and I have read and understood, this retrofit is our best chance at finding out if Jeff is out there.”

Val sighed, they had all read the update Kyrano had provided them with to ensure everyone was on the same page regarding Gaat, the Mechanic, and Jeff. How much he had downplayed Lucy’s desperation, Val wasn’t sure. On reflection, it explained a lot though. Lucy had been antsy for weeks, constantly chasing an order for parts and making a point of reminding them that Five was due an upgrade.

An upgrade she had insisted on completing.

“John said the upgrades were based on a program he wrote, he probably has a better idea than anyone on what needs to be done up there.”

With the explanation, the problem became clear.

“Scott still isn’t convinced John should be on the team.” She sighed, “I am working on persuading him.”

“As is John,” Ridley murmured, “I don’t understand why Scott won’t let him up there immediately. This is their father we’re talking about.”

Val knew the exact problem, but she knew she couldn’t voice it to Ridley.

Whether it was fate or convenience, she would never know, but it was right at that moment that Scott walked across the hangar floor to talk to Hiram.

Dropping her voice, Val turned back to the simulator, “Make plans for John and yourself to go up to Five for a week. I’ll speak to Scott.”

The smile was clear in her voice even across the line, “F.A.B. Val.”

“Scott!” She called across the cavern as she leant over the raillings of the balcony, “Get up here.”

The frown he shot at her was visible even at the distance, making Val roll her eyes. The young man took more after his father than he realised, the furrowed brows and deep lines that cut into his forehead when something bothered him. Like his father, Scott would never admit it, not openly at least.

She was still leaning on the railing when Scott approached her from behind, his frown deeper again as he stood next to her.

“What is it?”

She kept her focus on thunderbird One as she spoke, “That parts have come in to upgrade Five.”

His swallow was visible as he turned and leant on the railing alongside her, hands clasped together in a single fist as he took a long slow breath and let it out.

“I’m not sure that should be a priority right now.” He uttered, “We haven’t exactly the man power.”

“We could spare John and Ridley.”

“No.”

The statement was quiet but firm. Scott had a decision made and it wasn’t going to be easy to make him change.

“Your father could be out there Scott.”

His head dipped, eyes screwed shut as his forearms tensed. The dimples in his cheeks deepened as he pressed his lips together, shaking his head.

“I know.” He whispered, “I knew all along alright? But she told me not to get involved! To worry about keeping my team safe.”

“Scott,” She started, watching him carefully, able to feel the hurt and anger radiating from him.

“No. Listen Aunt Val.” He snapped, blue eyes snapping open and piercing her, “Mom is down there in a coma because she made a rash decision. For once in her life she made a decision based on how she felt and what she wanted, and it damn near killed her.”

She wanted to cut in, break him off and make him see that it wasn’t the case. The floodgates had opened though and she would have been fighting against the tide.

“It was my rash decisions that made her tell me to not get involved.” His voice dropped again, the rush of the flood gone as quickly as it had come, reduced to a trickle.

“I can’t trust myself to make a decision on this. Not when we almost lost Mom. Not when it could mean losing someone else.”

It was as Val had expected, a man with the weight of his family’s safety on his shoulders and a fear that he wasn’t the right person to protect them. Except he was forgetting just how that fear helped him.

“Don’t you think,” She murmured, reaching out to touch his arm, “That being afraid will make you more cautious? That it could remind you to stop and think before you sent your brothers out there, or did something yourself?”

He nodded with a sigh, “Yeah. It does. I was going to go with Virgil before John sent him on his own. I thought it would be safer than using the autopilot and wrist controls.”

His point was right, and she made a mental note to bring it up with John later.

“Good,” She nodded, “So what’s the danger with sending John and Ridley to Five for a week?”

Scott snorted, shaking his head again, “Space.”

It sounded like the single word was meant to answer her question. Scott must have seen the confusion on her face though as he continued.

“Space is the worst, it only takes one tiny thing to go wrong for everything to go wrong. And when it goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Do you know how many space calls IR gets that we physically can’t respond to fast enough?”

“What if there was a way to respond faster?”

Val turned, wary of the voice of her second nephew at such a vulnerable moment for Scott. Not that she needed have worries, John was a master of managing his older brother and apparently knew that approaching too close at that moment was a bad idea.

“Rids and I would watch each others backs. Plus if we were up there semi permenantly, we could respond to those calls that would take too long otherwise.”

It didn’t seem to phase him that Scott hadn’t turned to look at him. From where she stood, Val could see that the oldest didn’t want to be listening to John. That he hadn’t simply walked away from the conversation was definitely promising.

“Dispatch are getting more calls by the day, too many for the current team to handle. Five acts as relay for the calls anyway and I’ve run comms enough times for NASA--”

Scott turning to face him cut John off. Val stood straighter, ready for the eldest to snap at the younger.

“You said you needed to join as someone to fly Thunderbird Three. Now you want to sit up on the space station and run comms?”

John shook his head, “With the space pods we could still run rescues from up there. Little Lightening would be able to manage most other space rescues, Thunderbird Three would only be needed for anything further than the Moon.” He tilted his head with a small smile, “I thought it might make it seem a little less like I was stealing Alan’s ship.”

Val glanced to the simulator that had long since become still and quiet. She wondered where Alan had got to, if he’d heard the conversation and was simply remaining quiet, or if he hadn’t heard a thing.

Scott’s face fell as he sighed, looking away with a shake of his head, still clearly not convinced about the whole suggestion.

“This is our chance at finding Dad, Scott.” John murmured, “We can’t pass that up, can we?”

Val would have looked back to Scott, except movement from the corner of the simulator caught her eye. Alan approached, looking to John with wide eyes.

“You can’t live in space all the time though John! It’s dangerous. I don’t mind you flying Three, not really. I was just being a brat before.”

John shook his head, “It won’t be all the time Alan, we’d work out a rotation or something.”

“You’d do that?” Scott raised an eyebrow, “Actually work on rotation? You won’t get obsessed?”

John scoffed and shook his head, “Coming from you?”

Val could see his point, the eldest pair were as bad as one another for becoming too determined in their goals. She’d seen it before, each of them becoming obsessed with something so wholly that it took over their entire lives.

In her eyes Scott was the one at a higher risk of falling into that trap.

“I have Ridley now,” John shrugged, “She’ll keep me straight.”

Scott’s sigh was loud in the open space, his shoulders tense as he shook his head, “If you get in to trouble out there…”

“You can ground me for the rest of my life.” John shrugged, “We always said Scott, five of us, five ships.”

“Best place for star gazing.” Alan murmured, eyes widening, “Hey, maybe I can--”

“No.” Both older brothers stated, making Val snort as she shook her head. At least there was something the pair of them could agree on, even if Alan didn’t approve.

“So?” She prompted, “Does this mean we can get Ridley to bring the parts over when she comes home?”

Scott shrugged and nodded to John, “Talk to him about it, she’s his girlfriend.”

John grinned, “Oh so it’s going to be like that is it?”

Val had to hide her snigger behind a cough as she shook her head at the pair. Yes, she didn’t doubt, it would be exactly like that.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #Scott Tracy #John Tracy #Alan Tracy #Aunt Val #Lucy AU #Lucy Fic #scribbles writes #Left Behind Part 1 #Left Behind Part 2 #Left Behind Part 3

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eoleolhan-a · 3 years

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I am STILL on my MonProm bullshit bc I’m grinding through Monster Camp so let’s do some more headcanons! This time it’s gonna be Jin’s opinions on the some of the more prominent characters from the two games, and what I think their relationships (platonic or otherwise) could be like. Obviously these are just my opinions, anyone who has any of these muses is free to disagree, ofc. I won’t include player characters (yet, maybe once Reverse comes out I will update) since the PC personality is kind of fluid to interpretation and change based on the player. There are spoilers for both Monster Prom and Monster Camp regarding main and side characters.

This is in alphabetical order just to make it easy to navigate.

Aaravi

He doesn’t trust her, straight up. She’s a monster slayer with a history of targeting demons and even with her therapy and growth in Monster Camp he’s wary. He’s worried she would turn on him and try to slay him too. He steers clear when possible but could learn to trust her if he could see her progress with monsterkind more directly.

Batniss

He really doesn’t know what she’s talking about most of the time. The main character thing is weird to him, but at least she’s interesting. He respects her combat skills and her archery prowess.

Calculester

He thinks Cal is cute, in the way someone thinks a puppy is cute. He’s just so clueless sometimes it’s endearing, like watching a baby giraffe take its first steps. On the other hand, though, something about this sentient computer robot is a bit uncanny. Since Cal is generally so nice, though, he tries not to let the whole “potential robot uprising/singularity” thing bother him.

Dahlia

He has absolutely no interest in being anywhere near Dahlia because of her reputation as a warmonger. He thinks she’s dangerous and doesn’t want to risk being the one who gives her the idea to try and invade the 2nd Circle. He absolutely doesn’t trust her, and is honestly a bit afraid of her. If he were able to give her a chance (ie probably forced to do school or camp things with her, or if they had mutual friends for some reason) he could grow to appreciate her determination and at times enjoy her exuberant personality. She has the capability to grow on him if given the chance.

Damien

Similar to Dahlia, he distrusts Damien. He knows of the LaVeys, and as mentioned in my big ol 2nd Circle/Cubi lore post sees their whole “we made love popular” reputation as a bit unearned (because I’m sorta canon divergent, but see that post for the details of that). He also doesn’t want anyone from the 8th Circle’s royal family to get anywhere near the 2nd Circle lest they try to take that over, too. He would also probably resent having to go to school or camp with a prince from Hell juuuust a bit, especially since Damien is considered one of the coolest/most well known students/campers. He would be envious of Damien’s wealth and status since that’s something he lacks, which colours Jin’s perception of him. He doesn’t know about Damien’s softer side, so he sees him as abrasive, dangerous, and annoying. Like Dahlia, if he were to give him a chance though he’d grow to like him, especially his fondness for hairstyling and makeup since Jin enjoys the latter (and being fashionable in general). He does, however, reluctantly admit that Damien is indeed hot even if he is an annoying LaVey baby.

Dmitri

Jin doesn’t really know Dmitri but he knows of him. He doesn’t really care about whatever the Coven is doing, but hey at least Dmitri is a hot vampire who never seems to wear a shirt. He doesn’t mind seeing him hanging around because he’s easy on the eyes. Jin would probably find his dramatic villain monologuing and cape swishing a bit funny.

Faith

Out of the Coven members he would probably like Faith the most. She seems pretty relaxed and chill, and he would respect her intelligence and skill as a witch. In general he appreciates the Coven’s colour scheme and fashion sense, though.

Hex

He thinks Hex is straight up irritating but if he was high then he’d probably like their company more.

Hope

His feelings towards Hope are similar to Faith. He isn’t all that bothered with their Coven shenanigans but does respect them. He would be confused by all of the Hope reincarnations but he doesn’t have much of a problem with her. She seems nice enough.

Interdimensional Prince

Although he can be kind of weird at times (maybe even a bit creepy) Jin has to admit the idea of being whisked off to another dimension by some handsome anime-alien-looking prince is kind of appealing. He would like the attention and ego-boost it would cause if the Prince ever flirted with him.

Joy

Jin would enjoy her company. They’d probably get along, but he does find her “main character saving the world” thing to be a bit Intense at times. Despite that he think’s she’s smart and cool and likes being around her, especially given how wild some of their classmates/campmates can be.

Kale

They smoke weed together and vibe. That’s all. 10/10.

Leonard

Jin wants to kick him in the face so hard that he flies into the sun. -10/10.

Liam

Usually he likes Liam and likes being around him. He appreciates his creativity and sense of taste, but sometimes Liam can be a bit pretentious and annoying. That’s fairly manageable though, and sometimes he’s quite the breath of fresh air compared to some of the more exuberant characters he encounters. Jin would especially enjoy indulging in fancy, rare artsy gourmet food so Liam could take pictures of it and he could eat it.

Milo

Out of everyone, Jin is fondest of Milo. Their sense of style, taste (wine and cheese platters? yes please), flirtatious streak (and not to mention good looks) would have Jin swooning. He would also find their personality a lot more calm in comparison to some of the other monsters at camp. The only annoyance would be Milo’s constant attachment to their phone and their somewhat self-centred nature. It takes attention away from Jin, after all. Competing egos.

Miranda

Jin likes Miranda most of the time. Sometimes he thinks her royal merfolk ways are a bit confusing, and he is a bit distrustful of foreign royalty in general but less so of Miranda; he doesn’t see any reason why the Merkingdom would attack the Cubi or really have much to do with them at all, but he knows that royal life can be vicious. He does find it interesting to hear about the culture and society of the Merkingdom, though. He also appreciates her manners and poise. Plus, they’re both pink so he’s a bit biased in that regard. Sometimes he does find the more murderous aspects of the Merkingdom a bit unsightly, and it can be a little frustrating at times trying to explain commoner things to her. He doesn’t like that he would sometimes feel a bit condescended or spoken down to by her, but sometimes this has more to do with his perception than anything she would be saying or doing.

Morty

He likes looking at Morty but his personality is a bit too self absorbed and intense even for Jin. Still, he appreciates the confidence and the sex positive energy. Sexual tension always makes rivalries better so Morty is a perfect candidate for Camp Rival Camp in Jin’s opinion and his presence is at least entertaining and engaging. Also he quite likes the heart-hole shorts, a bold fashion statement.

Polly

Polly is fun to be around. She can be boisterous, but at least she knows how to have a good time. Jin also likes that she isn’t bloodthirsty or a war criminal or something, so in theory they could just hang out like normal monsters/people. It doesn’t hurt that she can get good drugs, too.

Scott

Scott is a himbo, Jin likes himbos. Case closed. In all seriousness, he would find Scott endearing because of his good nature and cheerful personality. Sometimes his airheaded antics can be a bit annoying, but he knows Scott means well. Jin thinks Scott would be a good friend because he seems honest, loyal, and kind. Those are also qualities that would make him a good date, plus he’s a big cute wolfman who Jin wants to pet in more ways than one.

Valerie

He respects the hustle and the on campus hook-up for all sorts of oddities. Plus she’s Vera’s sister, and he has mostly positive feelings about her so by relation he thinks Valerie is pretty alright. Also soft because cat.

Vera

Vera is intimidating but he respects her, in a sense. As someone who isn’t affluent he’s more wary of her scams and often disapproves if he thinks it’s taking advantage of vulnerable people, but so long as she’s scamming rich people he’s down for it. He definitely thinks she’s smart and an interest conversationalist.

Wolfpack

Bad, stinky, 0/10. Only tolerable because of their connection to Scott but otherwise obnoxious.

Zoe

Last but not least, Jin would like Zoe. He’d appreciate her creativity and particularly her ship fics. They would have a good time talking about crushes, who should date who, and the latest books in their respective favourite series (or perhaps shared shows or books). She also tells Leonard to shove it and since he wants to punt the kappa into the sun he likes that a lot.

#yes im still on my bullllshiiiiiit #hc #ooc #v; monster mash

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halorocks1214 · 4 years

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the law of action

AO3 Link

Word Count: 10100

Summary: The Law of Action must be applied in order for us to manifest things on earth. Therefore, we must engage in actions that support our thoughts, dreams, emotions, and words

Previous Parts (in order): Alan | You are here! | Virgil | Scott | Gordon

these just keep getting longer fellas i dont understand how thats possible but it is. ALSO: REMEMBER IN ATTRACTION WHEN I MENTIONED THAT THESE WERE BEING WRITTEN OUT OF ORDER. HA, UH, KIND OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT I GUESS. but its here! johns pov chapter! im pretty satisfied with it, albeit a few kinks i wasnt really able to work out, so i hope you enjoy it too!

thanks again to @gumnut-logic for the prompts! "Where?" and lightning were this fic's choices. sad to see the last ones go away, but this was still a blast so thank you once more! also, just because the prompts are gone doesnt mean this series will be too ;3

Anger was a rare emotion for John Tracy.

It had to be. When dealing with the cold hard truth of data telling them something wasn't possible or dealing with annoying people who thought they knew better than him or dealing with people panicking in his ear because nobody expected the aftershock of an earthquake to be that bad, he didn’t have a choice. There were a lot of deals in life that had to be made and someone needed to play peacemaker, even if it wasn’t deserved.

It was true that he got the least angry out of his siblings, even compared to Virgil. Virgil might not get necessarily violent like Scott did, or threw caution to the wind like Gordon, or, hell, pulled off whatever John does when someone somehow manages puts him in a bad mood, but Virgil did get angry quite a lot. He just didn’t have as many blatant ways of showing it. John, on the other hand, didn’t have a lot of ticks. Pet peeves, definitely, John was no stranger to annoyance (especially with siblings like his), but not outright anger.

That didn’t mean he never got angry. He was Tracy born and bred, so that meant one the few ticks he did have surrounded the topic of family.

Specifically, his family being threatened.

John wished he was the youngest sometimes. That meant he could say things like let Scott punch the idiot already, he’d be doing the world a favor, and not get lambasted for the immature response. It also meant he could throw tantrums to hell and back and not feel like a total loser.

Like right now for example.

“EOS, I swear, if you don’t open the elevator door for me--”

“No, I won’t.”

Unbelievable.

Groaning and rubbing his face, his hands found their way up to his forehead and through his hair, holding his bangs out of his eyes for a moment. His eyes had many emotions in them, the most blatant being this shit cannot be happening right now, “EOS, do you know you’re amazing? I don’t think I’ve said that enough.”

EOS whirled for a moment, “John, I’ve seen that grin on Gordon. I cannot believe you would stoop that low.”

The grin she pointed out fell flat off his face, “Yeah, okay, you’re right about that--”

“Like I always am.”

“--So thank you,” John was going to strangle whoever defined sass so thoroughly in the dictionary. It left a bad example, “For the reminder, but seriously, I need to get up to ‘Five. It’s… important.”

It’s been a week since Alan was taken.

They’ve exhausted all options.

The only thing that could possibly get him back to them had to be International Rescue’s resources.

But EOS over here wasn’t getting the memo. Her words had that hint of childish innocence behind it. In that way that said there was no innocence whatsoever and she knew exactly what she was doing, the little shit, “John, do you really need to, or do you want to?”

There’s the inflection that John taught her. An inhale through the nose and… Uuuugghh, “EOS, I know the difference between needs and wants, this is definitely a need.”

Another lens blink, another moment of disbelief, “It seems like you have a lot of needs, John Tracy.”

John grimaced and ground his jaw together, mumbling his grievances with the current situation, “Yeah, well, if there’s any trait I truly share with my siblings, it’s that we’re all high maintenance.” His next words were more clear and designed to get the point across, “EOS, I’m not kidding, unlock the door.”

EOS stood her ground, “John, you going up there is one of the most detrimental things to you’re health at the current moment. I won’t let you.”

John threw his hands into the air, “EOS, there’s are whole lotta things that are currently detrimental to my health currently happening, one more thing won’t hurt.”

EOS lens shuttered again and John felt like it was nails on a chalkboard, “You have a point, but I’ve seen you with Scott when he’s in a similar mood. Don’t you tell him he needs to take a moment and think when he gets like this?”

John groaned as quietly as possible. Not too loud, but loud enough that EOS hopefully got the point, “Yes, I do, but I’m not Scott. We are two very different people, you have pointed this out numerous times. We have different ways of handling things, this, and ‘Five is exactly how I can fix this problem.”

That was not how he should’ve worded that. Her lights flickered in sympathy, sympathy, and he knew she finally figured out what John was trying to get at, “John, there may still be a lot I have to learn, but at least I understand--”

“No, EOS!” John snapped before he could help himself. Before she could finish explaining her point of view that was most likely right, but his desperate brain didn’t want to hear it. His brain that was running on zero energy telling him this was taking too long, fix that, “You can’t understand!”

Just like that, John was reminded of why he hated getting angry.

As soon as the words left his mouth, so did the air in his lungs. Through sheer will and determination, the only thing that didn’t leave his body was the little amounts of food he ate over the past seven days, though it really wanted to. He became very pale, and EOS could detect the not-so-trace amounts of fear that fell over his eyes.

Dammit, you idiot. Months upon that past year of work were now going to go down the drain because you blew your lid just this once! First, the call with Alan, now telling the one thing that could kill you in your sleep she’ll never essentially be good enough was--

“I know, John.”

His food came back with a vengeance, but he was bullheaded as hell, and he already caused enough damage. The last thing anyone needed was to clean up vomit. It would’ve been nicer if she got angry at him. He could handle being thrown out into space. He couldn’t handle EOS admitting he was right, least of all over blatantly cruel words.

He channeled the energy his stomach wanted to use into weak words, “E-EOS, I…” What the hell was he supposed to say? Sorry surely wasn’t going to fucking cut it.

Well, whatever he wanted to cut didn’t come up, as EOS continued as if John wasn’t the worst thing on the planet, “I’ve been doing some reading. I understand that I’ll never really understand certain human-based things like you do. You, humans, have gotten close, me being one of the better examples, as long as that’s not considered bragging, but even I’m not at that level yet. But I do at least know you and your habits. I put up with them on a daily basis.”

Because if there’s anything else John needed to fail this week, it was the one promise he made to her. His promise to keep her safe, to make sure she wasn’t treated like a mindless robot by some crazy scientists ready and willing to cut her circuitry wide open like a middle-school science project. While he would never even get close to being a quote-on-quote crazy scientist, never in a million light-years, he surely didn’t follow that middle part of his promise, “EOS, listen, I--”

“Please, John,” and now she was pleading, thinking he was going to ask to use the elevator again. Thinking he wasn’t going to give up, even after all of that. John might’ve laughed if it wasn’t his fucking fault, “I’ll help look for more options if it means you’ll stay here for a little while longer. You should stay with your family. I know how they affect you in those positive ways that you currently need.”

John was abruptly aware of his heavy, almost wheeze-like breathing. If he wasn’t careful, it could delve into one whopper panic attack, which would be so great right now, “Y-Yeah, okay. They probably won’t understand the effects of gravity over an elongated period of time like I do, so I can stay and help with that, at least. Thank you.”

As John turned around, he heard EOS whisper to herself. He could blearily tell it was actually fondness that filled her vocal waves for once, but it still stung regardless, “Idiot.”

Yeah, he really was, wasn’t he.

As he helped look over his Dad’s med-scan with Virgil, when Virgil went looking for something on the other side of the room, his father whispered, “I know this is a bad question right about now, but, is there anything we can do for you? Maybe even I? You look dead on your feet.”

John could only reply to the first half of his father’s statement with a meek, “I don’t know anymore.”

---

16-year-old John Tracy was seated atop his roof, making sure he got the perfect view of the Big-Dipper.

He was hoping to spot a more exciting constellation when he first used his new telescope, but dangit! He was just so excited to get cracking right away! He just got back from his birthday party, Alan and Gordon snoozing in their rooms while Scott and Virgil secretly finished off the cake. That was okay. John was too busy focusing on his new expensive toy to worry about having any more sweets.

His dad could pull some strings when it counted.

Newest model. The only other people who have this baby are scientists at NASA. Happy birthday, John. Sorry I didn’t get you a car like Scott.

Fuck cool cars. John would be on cloud 9 for days with this thing. Scott would call him a nerd for it. Jokes on Scott, he couldn’t zoom about 10 thousand miles into space now, could he?

Right as he nailed it, the world shook. Large arms snaked around his waist and he involuntarily found himself giggling at the contact. As soon as those limbs let go, he blushed at his reaction and cleared his throat. Suddenly, the arms were an entire body sitting down right next to him, speaking with their ever-comforting burly voice, “Hiya, son, I see you just couldn’t wait, huh?”

Rolling his eyes, John turned back into his serious, analytical self once more, “Yup, this thing’s crazy. I’m glad I got out here as quickly as I did.”

Jeff simply grinned. John was always reserved, but Jeff was a good translator for all of his sons, and he could tell that John meant this is one of the best things in my life holy crap, “That’s great to hear. The look on your face when I brought this out of the closet was certainly good enough to last me a few lifetimes.”

John snorted, “I bet it was. I heard Gordon joking about it with Alan. I don’t think I need to see any pictures anymore. I have a pretty good mental image of what I looked like.”

Jeff smiled and sighed, “No kidding. “Like a goldfish with a broken jaw.” Not the most eloquent, that Gordon is.”

Laughter rang out throughout the roof, followed by a few moments of silence. Not awkward, but not really welcomed on John’s part either, “Do you…” Stop it, John, you’re asking for too much, “Nevermind, it’s dumb.”

Jeff tilted an eyebrow, “Oh, is it? I guess you would know if something were smart or dumb, so I trust your judgment.”

Dangit, Dad, why are you so manipulative, and why are you so good at it, “I don’t know. I’ve established I wanted to be an astronaut, right?”

Jeff nodded, “Mmhmm.”

John, for some reason, felt like he needed to tread carefully, “You are also an astronaut. If there was any way for you to be able to… could you… could you come up with me the first time?”

Jeff blinked in shock, and before his son could register that as disapproval, “Huh, well, that’s certainly wasn’t what I was expecting. Sure, I don’t see why not.”

Now it was John’s turn to blink, his mouth gaped, “Wait, what? Are you serious? Aren’t there rules for this kind of stuff?”

Jeff shrugged, his shoulders clearly saying rules shmules, “I’m also one of the biggest entrepreneurs on the planet itself, and one of the most renowned ex-astronauts there are. You would not believe the lengths people are willing to go to kiss my ass. Would you feel better if I pinky promised?”

John’s nose scrunched, “You can never truly promise anything, you know.”

His father chuckled, used to his son’s antics. John was reserved, remember, “Well, you boys always credited me with doing the impossible.”

John continued challenging him, “When we were all less than 10, yeah, sure. I think Alan still thinks you can breathe in space. You. Specifically. No one else. I think he said you only wore the helmet to “protect your secret so the evil movie scientists don’t take you away.””

Chuckles turned into laughter and a clap on John’s shoulder, “Well, glad to see I still got the magic touch at least.” That same arm that playfully smacked him was now wrapped around his shoulders, “Just you wait, Johnny boy, if I can’t get on that ship with you, then you bet your ass I’ll at least be the loudest one cheering in the crowd.”

Then, suddenly, John was right, like he always was.

A promise that never should have been made: broken. A wish never fulfilled.

Dad was swallowed up by the very thing John loved.

No more space stories, no more fun moon facts, there was a void in John’s life as big as the galaxy itself, and he wasn’t sure how to walk around it, or God forbid even into it.

He tried to be the healthy sibling about it. He tried so hard. Getting through high school quicker than most so he could just worry about his family. Scott and Grandma were doing their best, and in so many ways, it was enough, but even they couldn’t bear all of the stress themselves.

But then his high school graduation came and Grandma gave him one of the biggest hugs of his and her life and he realized that he would never get one from his father again. His mom leaving this world was already bad enough, but at least his dad was there and knew how to fill in the gap after years and years of his marriage with her. You didn’t marry a woman like Lucille Tracy and not fundamentally understand how the gears in her brain turned lest you were truly insane. Maybe Dad was. Certainly would explain a lot of things from John’s perspective. Certainly would explain why she married him in the first place. Crazy attracts crazy.

Regardless, the one thing closest to his mom’s warmth and care was gone, and if he spent the night of his graduation party quietly sobbing his eyes out while the others slept, well, then he was glad they kept snoring.

Try as he might, he became just as unhealthy and unbalanced as the rest of his family, but he was more subtle about it. His self-destructive ways weren’t bad if other people had them, but when it came to him, oh, he knew it was the worst thing he could do in terms of recovery. That’s probably why the rest of the family didn’t notice (Good). John was smart, he would know better. Yes, he did, which is exactly why he dived headfirst right into it all.

Focusing on college, getting up into the star-filled void closer to his dead relatives as quickly as possible, focusing on the here-and-now to make sure this shit didn’t happen again. Making sure no family went through what theirs did.

And maybe that’s why, why he couldn’t handle the touch of others wanting to comfort him. Because it reminded him too much of what they used to have, of what they used to be. Too many hugs and kisses from others might wash away what his mom’s and dad’s felt like, and out of all the things they could potentially lose from this, those were the worst possible ones.

John was a Tracy, which meant he was stubborn.

He wasn’t going to lose the last few things he remembered about his parents if he could help it.

---

It had been just under a month, and John finally got what he wanted.

And it wasn’t working like he thought it would, if at all.

He’s been on ‘Five for three days, and for just a fleeting moment, it washed away any uncertainty. He felt back in control, if only minorly, and he held the world at his fingertips once more. Too bad the world he wanted to fix was so far away it felt like it was on the other side of the frickin solar system itself.

He promised his family four days at most. Please, just one chance. We won’t know unless we try. He wasn’t sure what cracked them first, them coming upon dead end after dead end, them finally seeing reason behind John’s argument, or if they just got annoyed with the space monitor after endless nagging and relented like tired parents.

The tiny part of John’s mind that still allowed him to joke kinda hoped it was the third option. “Easy child”, pfft. John’ll show them.

Right, right, a clear head, the most focused of IR, he can’t get unfocused or go too far off track. He’s saved many lives throughout his life, all of them thanks to his level head, but right now, he was arguably saving the most important life of all, so that meant he had even more incentive to stay focused.

In fact, he was so focused, he jumped at the sudden, feminine voice filling the room, “John, I found another article I think you would like to see about most common places criminals… John?”

Crap, he was halfway into the fetal position. Slowly uncurling, John nodded, “Oh, thank you, EOS. I’ll start reading it shortly.”

The noise of her lens adjusting sounded throughout ‘Five again, “Of course. Let me know if you would like me to start searching for a different topic, though. There has to be a limit to how many “You wouldn’t believe this” articles one can take, and I think I’m finding it really quickly.”

For the next few seconds, John was suddenly filled with a rush of determination he had been trying to get after their little confrontation in front of a locked elevator door to ‘Five.

She had been helping him out so much the past couple of weeks. Running unnecessary tests for him, searching parts of the web only she could search without getting tracked by some secret mafia, letting him know it was okay if he couldn’t get everything right the first time when two months ago she snapped at him for getting a simple algebra equation wrong due to lack of sleep. She had been especially patient with him recently, even after their little spat in the hangar, and John wasn’t sure how to process it. A tiny part wanted to resort to anger again because he clearly didn’t deserve her, but the more prevalent parts preferred something like depression or even apathy.

She had been making sure his world didn’t spin off its axis, and John couldn’t even tell her sorry until now.

“EOS, I’m sorry.”

She stopped moving, turned around and let her lights blink yellow for only a moment, “For what, John?”

The man in question waved his hands around in front of his face, lost, confusing her more. With a sigh, he explained, “For a lot of things, but mainly from a few weeks back when we had that argument. I said something that wasn’t okay, and I didn’t have the balls to own up to it until now. So, I’m sorry. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have even been near.”

For a little bit, it was quiet. John waited as the A.I. contemplated his words. Then, she spoke her judgment, “Well, I know you are. You haven’t exactly been working off your butt over nothing, right? Plus, reliable sources say one of the ways guilt manifests is anger. I’ve seen that with the rest of your family. It would make sense yours would too.”

John blinked. Part of him was expecting her to not fully understand why he was apologizing, but the other wanted her to just so he could get over this, just so he could let go of even just the teeniest amount of guilt he had, “EOS, anger isn’t a valid excuse. What I said was wrong. I don’t believe those words and you shouldn’t either. The whole point of this partnership is to show you that there’s more to life than just calculations and probabilities. It’s kind of hard to see that when the one person who promised to be different went and screwed it up anyway.”

John hoped EOS was at least questioning things now instead of letting his words go in one ear and out the other. Her next words said she was doing exactly the latter, “Okay. I don’t disagree with you, John, but I don’t know why you’re so hooked on this. I understand. We don’t have to worry about this unnecessarily anymore.”

Yes, you do understand. That’s the fucking point.

They weren’t getting anywhere, yet John didn’t even have the energy to groan in annoyance. He could even get his eyebrow to twitch.

All he could do was simply lean his head back against the wall and let his hair stick up against it like static electricity was flowing through it. The real reason it was sticking up was probably due to a mixture of Zero-Gs and grease from all of the showering he hasn’t been doing, however. His eyes had deep rings around them, and for a second, EOS thought about how relative age could be as a number while John softly spoke, “The Hood was an angry man, too, you know. He felt slighted by our family and wanted us to feel the same. It still doesn’t make what he did right.”

EOS thought about his words before coming to a logical conclusion, “Well, that’s certainly a leap in logic. There’s a big gap between simply yelling because you’re annoyed and literal kidnapping. One gives people a sour mood, the other gives them a significant amount of jail--”

“Yes, EOS, I’m aware of that,” John brought his hand to his face, but underneath it was a grin, telling the world that he was feeling fond exasperation more than anything. EOS was more obtuse than him sometimes. It was one of the few things of himself he wished she didn’t copy so easily. He sighed and brought his hand back down, “I’m just... putting things into perspective. I want you to see why my words were wrong. It would make me feel better if you did.”

EOS hung still, letting John’s admission roll over her wiring like a wave of electricity, “You have a lot of needs and wants. What takes precedent?”

More inflection. This time, John welcomed it. It gave him something to stand on. John wanted a lot of things. Alan to be home safe and sound, Dad to have not disappeared for nearly a decade, for his brothers to stop slowly killing themselves, for himself to stop, but the needs of the many, even the needs of one, outweigh the wants of a singular man like him, but, “Well, needs obviously, they’re necessary, however… it’s okay to be selfish every once in a blue moon. It doesn’t make you inherently bad.”

It was advice he parroted many-a-times to his family, some of them more often than others, seldom to himself if at all.

Scott, it’s okay if you have to tell them you can’t make this business conference.

Virgil, you can count inventory in the morning. You didn’t get any sleep last night either.

Gordon, if you can’t smile for a day or two, that doesn’t make you a bad person.

Kayo, you don’t have to patrol every night. We have security cams for a reason.

Alan, I know we tease you, but you missing a chore or two isn’t the end of the world.

Grandma, you already do enough for us, you barely cooking for us is the least of our worries.

That last one might be more for the rest of his family than not, but hey, two birds and one stone. Keeping his back against the wall, John stood up straighter against it, face suddenly serious, “In fact, wanting to be selfish is one of the best ways to tell that you’re human. You can’t escape it. It only becomes bad when you end up only being that.”

EOS sat in silence, her lens flickering in that way it always does when she was signifying she was about to pass judgment like a Goddess, which she seemed to be doing a lot more recently, “Well then… If I’m allowed one moment of self-reprieve, I suppose I should say that those words did… hurt.”

John grimaced despite very much understanding that he deserved it. The return of the inflection didn’t exactly help. Pushing himself away from the wall, he felt the metaphorical weight fall off his shoulders, “Yes, they did, and while they weren’t okay, it is okay to say that they weren’t. I still am very sorry.”

EOS adjusted her camera, probably to stall for time, “I know you are, John. I still forgive you, but am I correct in assuming I’m allowed some time to… recover isn’t the word I’m looking for, but--”

“Yes, EOS,” John helped her explain her own point, “Recover is a good word. You’re allowed that if you want it.”

John wasn’t sure how, but it seemed like EOS visibly relaxed, “Thank you, then, for letting me do that. This.”

For some reason, John did too, “Of course.”

It was a soft kind of awkward silence, where both parties had something on their mind but they weren’t entirely sure if they wanted to say it out loud. This is why EOS appreciated John more than the others, he simply let silence be silence. It allowed her time to think, unlike how Scott and Virgil kept asking questions, or how that awful duo made noises and messes only to have a chance at making people laugh. As if that was the most important thing they needed to do.

The nights the youngest called John were endless with his constant babbling that tended to grate her circuit boards. The only reason she let it happen was that John seemed to loosen up at the interaction. He became less weary, less worried-filled. He seemed to greatly enjoy the audial presence of Alan Tracy, let alone the way he lit up when the youngest actually showed up in person. It was just unfortunate that it seemed like the kid could never keep his mouth shut.

Then again… from what John said, the whole reason there wasn’t any more Alan was because he did keep it shut. At the worst moment possible. Now there wouldn’t be any more babbling period. Alan was gone, and the whole family was suffering from the new silence. EOS reasoned it was from the general idea of forced silence instead of just freely being able to leave the room or being able to tell him to quiet down, but maybe it was more than that. She could make another list of options to consider.

Plus, it was weird to think about a future where all of those video game walkthroughs she was forced to save would never be used again. John insisted that they weren’t just wastes of megabytes, so...

Hmm.

“Could you…” EOS trailed off, and before John could comprehend the unusual behavior of the A.I., she started speaking again, “Could you tell me more about Alan? I’m starting to think I judged him rather harshly.”

John took a moment to register her words and promptly snorted, “Well, most of your assumptions about him aren’t entirely unfounded, but that’s one of the joys of being an older sibling, I guess. Surprises around every corner,” there was regret in her voice and John knew he had to treat this as gently as he would a newborn child otherwise he would never hear it again.

EOS flickered, “I thought you didn’t like surprises.”

Uh, “Well, not usually, but there are a few from time to time that I could look back on and call them… quaint, in a sense.” Suddenly, a memory resurfaced, and John found himself grinning like he was doped up on nitrous oxide, “Yeah, they can have good surprises occasionally…”

It was a week before his next rotation. Scott would be back home in about three days, which allowed the second born to actually have a few moments with his only older brother. He was looking forward to it just as much as Scott was. Right now, though, he had to make sure he got the right angle.

Right as he did, he heard the soft pitter-patter of footsteps come up the ladder, and when he turned around, he was met with a bundle of freckles, “Oh, hey Alan.”

Hi, Johnny, the kid squirmed out, Is it okay if I sit next to you?

At first, a list of things wanted to fill John’s head. You look dead on your feet, you should be asleep, you have a lot going on this week so why are you wasting sleep? but instead of any of those filling the void that was his brain, John simply nodded, “Yeah, sure, come pop a squat, Sprout.”

John looked away right before he could watch Alan’s nose wrinkle in displeasure. Despite the usage of the nickname (that Alan secretly liked, don’t think you could pull that wool over our eyes, little bro), the kid still toddled over and flopped himself down right next to his older brother. Sighing, the kid leaned his head on John’s arm and absentmindedly stared out into space, both figuratively and literally. Satisfied his brother was comfy, John went back to his current objective.

As John examined the night sky, he also carefully looked over Alan out of the corner of his eye. Every bruise that John could see was finally dulling out into that familiar greyish-yellow as bruises do, and the sight was enough to calm any negative emotion being created from the reminder. John refocused on his telescope to help as well.

The kid had been through one hell of a week, bullies being their typical selves. Every Tracy outside of Scott and Gordon had their fair share of their own experiences with nasty people, and it wasn’t even the first time they’ve left their special kind of blue-and-black marks, but seeing it on Alan was… worse, somehow. Virgil had unsavory anonymous notes at ‘best’, and John knew first hand that their hits bruised more than just physical skin. So to see Alan get the same treatment and not say anything...

John was starting to understand why his older brother greyed so easily.

Speaking of which, Scott was pretty peeved at the idea of not being there for Alan. Because of this, John made sure to be the sole one to call him and inform him of the awful news while the older brother was out at his designated Air Force base. John wanted to see with his own two eyes that Scott wouldn’t do anything rash and made himself liable to be put on some kind of list.

You would think he wouldn’t be that stupid, but the Tracys are known for breaking expectations over their sweet, sweet kneecaps.

(“Scott, you’re not going to steal an Air Force jet just to come and beat up some dumb kids.”

“Watch me.”

“They’re only a year older than Alan.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose, “Listen, we already scarred them enough as it is, let alone their expulsions. Grandma’s threats to the adults were liable for a government-mandated therapist, Virgil just being there had them running for the hills, the computer I was sporting sent chills down their spines and throughout the hallways, and that’s not even to mention Gordon’s threats to the kids themselves. Seriously, where would a 15-year-old even get the tools to do that?”

Scott visibly relaxed at John’s point, but he still sat a little taut, not fully accepting the idea of people being cruel enough to hurt a literal ray of sunshine, “Fine, fine, I still want to talk to the kid over a call at some point. He was the one who dealt with those idiots.”

John’s shoulders deflated, “Yeah, you got me there. He’ll be back with Virgil and Gordon soon enough, you can see him then.”

Scott smiled in a way that washed away the greys in his hair, if only for a moment, “Awesome, I--”

John wasn’t completely done, “But I’m going to be with Alan while you talk to him. I don’t trust you to not be in search-and-destroy mode, and the last thing Alan needs is an angry you with no buffer. Besides, I’m pretty sure we have the same questions. I can play the angsty-Scott translator tonight. Usual fee, 10 bucks each word.”

The groan that managed to fill the whole house despite the tiny speakers was one John would never forget.)

Too lost in thought, John didn’t catch Alan’s movements at first. Leaning away from his telescope, John focused on Alan, “Sorry, Allie, did you say something?”

The child simply shrugged and smushed his chubby cheeks against John’s side, shaking his head, followed by his hands, I just wanted to see what you were doing.

Ah, that made sense. Alan had been continuously signing for the past year because of the obvious, so John rolled with the punches. It was always funny when they talked about these years in the future. Alan talked, Alan said, Alan brought up: it was always metaphorical, and nobody could believe them when they said Alan was fluent in ASL, let alone because he could actually go half a day without talking.

It was ironic because even with no words, Alan still managed to be the loudest thing on the planet. His hands always screamed with excitement whenever he felt like ‘talking’, and no brother ever felt like shutting him up. Especially when it was so easy for Alan to simply not shake his hands to hide the fact that he was in trouble--

Right, don’t go there. John shook his head to bring himself out of his thoughts and replied to the non-verbal admission, “Just looking at the stars. Recording their coordinates and whatnot.”

A small gasp had John jerking immediately away from his scope to see Alan suddenly very worried, maybe even fearful, But won’t you lose your eyes?!

Aha, what? “Allie, you’re going to have to give me more than that.”

John almost didn’t catch what Alan was trying to explain with the way he frantically shook his hands even faster than before, Mrs. Gatsen explained to us that the sun was a star too, but we’re not allowed to look at it for too long because it’ll steal our eyes! I don’t want you to lose your eyes, Johnny!

Ohoho, the part of John’s brain that was all about the smartsy stuff was gearing up to have a full-blown seminar of sorts, but the way the kid seemed so sincere in his worry, in his fear, John felt partially bad for giggling instead, “Oh, Allie, no. Here,” John was activating his inner Virgil and Scott with the way he grabbed the youngster and placed him in his lap, “Yes, the sun is a star, but there are many kinds of stars. Most of which don’t hurt your eyes. Take a look.”

Alan gave one last sentimental look at John, who nodded again just to reassure the blonde before the boy gulped and put his eye against the tool like Johnny did. This time, the gasp that came from him was more magical, more child-like, as it always should be. John watched on as the kid became stuck to his telescope like glue.

Suddenly, Alan leaned back into John, somewhat knocking the wind out of him. Honestly, now that he was thinking about it, John realized he was pushing it by letting Alan sit next to him in terms of his personal comfort zone. He loved Allie just as much as the rest of the family, but letting them in, letting them get close, was veering dangerously close to that specific ‘hug’ territory like he and his parents had.

Before John could explain that in a child-friendly way, and hopefully in a way where the too-smart-for-his-own-good kid couldn’t pick up on the hidden message, Alan looked him directly in the eyes and confidently signed his wants, Can we do this more often? Can we?

Just like that, John’s mind blanked. Alan wanted to do something with him. Not swim with Gordon, not music with Virgil, not do, well, anything with Scott, Allie found something that he would like to do with John.

Huh, interesting, “Yeah, sure. If we can’t do it in the next week, then the first thing we’ll do when I come down is stargaze, because that’s what it’s called: stargazing.”

Alan started gripping his arm tighter and leaned more into his chest, nodding vigorously at the news and looking back to the sky with newfound wonder. Letting Alan be, abruptly forgetting his grievances with things like touch, John went back to his telescope. After another minute or so, John reached a point where he needed both sides of his body, except it looked like one of them was going to be kept immobile unless the spaceman said something to Alan.

John tried doing just that, just without looking away from his device, “Hey, Allie, I don’t mind the sitting-in-my-lap and stuff, but I do need my arm back to--”

Snoring.

Oh.

Jerking his head to physically look at his sibling, John found Alan passed out and squeezing his arm like a freckled koala bear. The ginger flinched a little bit at the drool dripping onto his sleeve, but the way Allie melted into him made him-- actually, he was very suddenly aware that this whole night he hadn’t really been thinking at all, and that thought made him continue to stare mindlessly at the dozing brother.

He always thought about, well, everything. What he was going to say, what he planned to do tomorrow, about what the future held now that they were down their second and last parent. If he didn’t think about it beforehand, he rarely did it. He had to make sure he went through all of his options before haphazardly jumping into the pits of hell.

Yet the way his younger brother looked at him like he was the world himself tonight made John throw all of his training to be as cautious as possible out the window in a need to comfort and care for the small thing in front of him.

It was shocking to his mind, yet he didn’t resent just being able to do without worrying too much. Was this how smother complexes started? Did he ever drool on Scott’s arm? Still staring at Alan, John’s mind continued to be robotic as he simply let his younger brother be and went back to his telescope. Alan had been needing to get a little more sleep lately anyway.

Yeah, it was fine. He could figure out how to follow up on his words later. It wouldn’t be that hard to figure out a way to squeeze Alan into some of his already-planned stargazing nights while making sure the kid still got sleep. Also, John’s used telescopes wearing a cast and sling before, he might prefer two arms, but he has been okay with only one.

If Grandma yelled at John for spending too much time on the roof again, well, she would have to get over it. Alan got an extra hour of sleep and that was all that mattered.

EOS watched as John finished the story. Once he was done, he continued to be quiet while grinning at nothing. All he was doing was simply staring at the floor… It was slightly creepy, and EOS cleared her nonexistent throat, “Huh, I didn’t realize he got a lot of his interests from you. Maybe… maybe you could show me why he did. He can too. More perspectives always get more data.”

John blinked and was immediately taken out of his trance. He brought his hand to his mouth and cleared his throat, “Yeah, he-- wait, what?”

EOS sighed. This is another reason why she snapped him out of it; his inability to listen to someone right in front of him. She simplified her words, “If Alan comes back, can you two take me stargazing? I don’t think I’ve ever seen what the stars look like down there, or, at least, I never looked at them long enough to understand what you all find to be so fascinating about them.”

John blinked a few more times with his mouth slightly gaped. He looked around nervously before bringing his turquoise eyes to look EOS directly in the middle of her camera, “Yeah, sure, EOS. When Alan gets back, that’s the first thing we’ll do.”

EOS didn’t mention anything about the correction of if to when, “Thank you, John, I would like that very much.”

John nodded and floated back to his tech, “Of course. Now then, we’ve got work to do. I’ve been meaning to stargaze recently anyway.”

He still had one more day up here.

And a baby brother who needed saving.

How hard could it be?

---

Very.

Growling in frustration, he thumped his fist against the wall next to him rather harshly.

Not enough to leave any kind of mark or dent, but enough for him to focus on the tiny amount of pain it gave him. He vaguely heard EOS’s lens flare at the sudden noise, but he was a little too focused on why he felt the need to hit his girl.

It was the end of the last day, and he didn’t make it any further like he thought he would.

Some bleak part of his mind was hoped, prayed that his girl would have the tools to find their baby brother. He was willing to bend her entire satellite to be able to reach the far ends of the galaxy if he had to, but even he had to concede that she wasn’t enough. The Hood wasn’t dumb, unfortunately, and he wasn’t going to go easy on them. That is if he was even going “to go” on them to start with.

While it wasn’t the first time he failed spectacularly, this failure certainly hurt the worst.

Half of him wanted to curl up into a ball and forget everything for a moment (or maybe forever), but the other half won out in terms of what his body contorted into. Instead of curling up like a prickly hedgehog, he leaned backward to be floating with his back to the ground and his face to the ceiling with his face in his hands. Meanwhile, EOS silently gazed from her camera in the corner. Watching John struggle this way was… new, and it twisted her wires in a way she wasn’t sure she could describe.

EOS watched him mumble something. Huh, peculiar as ever. Adjusting her camera, she tried small talk, “What was that, John?”

Still mumbles, but more intelligible, “... I need to drop the ‘s’.”

A flicker of yellow, nothing but pure confusion for once in her robotic life, “The ‘s’ of what?”

Suddenly, the astronaut was standing (well, floating) upright with a look of disdain, but EOS could see that it wasn’t meant for her, “Of ‘she’. It’s not ‘Five’s fault, God, it never is, but maybe… maybe it’s mine.”

All of her programs should allow her to say something. Anything, sugarcoated or not, would be beneficial to this seemingly one-sided conversation, but this was the moment she learned that humans could be faster than computers since John steamrolled right to the point without hesitation, “He wasn’t good enough sounds better. Nothing I’m doing is getting any results. I gave my family false hope that I would find something and now I have to go to them and essentially break them. They were already barely holding it together as it was, but when the “smart one” in their family says there’s nothing he can do…”

She found herself going against the logical part of her program-- because despite the idiot John Tracy could be, when he made an argument that had any kind of evidence you never could go against it-- the first time in, well, ever, in an attempt to comfort her partner, “John… I think you’re grasping at straws here.”

He looked up from the floor, and EOS had to shrink her lens at the sight of unshed tears in his eyes, “Who was the one that called him?! Me! He was standing there only a few rooms over, probably terrified out of his mind, and I didn’t know. I let him slip between our fingers because I was so caught up in the moment and I hate myself for it.”

EOS found herself speechless for once, and the few droplets of tears that floated in front of John’s face didn’t help. She had been trying her best recently, especially recently, to understand the fluctuations of human emotion, and she was pretty sure she had decent tabs on at least John nowadays, but this was something unexpected, a thing her programming never really liked to deal with. It involved lots of new calculations and new sims, why, it made things seconds longer when they didn’t have the time to deal with it!

Her electronic voice box made a noise with the intent to say something, as she thought she finally had the time to deal with it, but just her luck, more unexpected things made her reapproach the issue at hand, “John, look out! The Chaos Crew!”

Blinking out of his self-deprecation train, John was uncharacteristically panicking, “What, where?” After doing a full 180, John eventually saw one of his comm radios with the familiar pink symbol floating above it.

John’s pupils shrunk and his eyebrows tilted downward in that unfamiliar emotion: anger.

Fuck this.

The mood change was as fast as the speed of lightning. John practically flung himself to the communication device on something akin to a warpath. No longer regretful or depressed, John was filled to the brim with fury at the sight of one of the men that was a constant thorn in the Tracy family’s side, “What the hell are you doing here? How the hell did you--”

“Wait wait wait!” Fuse pleaded, making John momentarily pause enough to listen, “I’m not good at this like my sister is, so this connection is going to drop soon. I need you to reopen the line yourself so I can explain what I’m here for! Trust me, I swear I’m not--”

Zip.

Blinking at the lack of noise, John slowly turned his head to look at his A.I. to get her opinion on the matter. It wasn’t a positive one, that’s for sure. Her dots were bright red, and for the first time in a while, he found himself flinching at the sight and sound of her, “It wouldn’t take much of me to get rid of the nuisance, you know.”

Taking a few deep breaths, John shook his head, “No, EOS, give me a sec. Don’t send him careening into space.”

Yet.

With shaky hands, John did as Fuse begged and found the comm line the guy haphazardly threw together. Right as Fuse jumped at the sight of one of the Tracys actually hearing him out, John’s voice spoke coldly, “You have five minutes. Go.”

Fuse gulped, “W-Well, I suppose the first thing to do would be to apologize. I’ve caused a lot of messes for you and your family-- heh, ‘messes’ probably doesn’t even come close to explaining what I did-- and I realize that now, so I want to--”

Ah, that tactic. The one where they try so desperately to seem like they were repentant. John wasn’t familiar with it, but Scott sure was. Shady business owners trying to shy away from their consequences made the eldest very aware of how slimy those in power could be. Scott complained about it a lot, so John made sure to always remember it just in case he ever ran into it himself.

Preplanning wins again in the Tracy household. You should listen to John’s advice more, Gordon, “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.” John muttered mostly to himself and moved in a way that signified something was going to happen.

Fuse sputtered and stopped immediately. Crap, he was going about this wrong. These were all things he was suddenly genuine about, he really was, but the Tracys didn’t want useless apologies at the moment, and he understood that. Hopefully, he didn’t understand it too late. Right before John could do anything to him or give any kind of command to his satellite, Fuse blurted the information he should’ve said the first place, “I know where he is!”

John felt like the Earth flew right off its axis.

Everything froze, including EOS. His hand was out in front of him for some reason, probably subconsciously reaching for some kind of button, as he absentmindedly listened to the whirl of ‘Five and his brain fully processed what Fuse was promising, “... What?”

John was keenly aware that sounding so weak, so hopeful, was something that Fuse could spinelessly abuse if the man wanted to, but John had a good lie detector. The words that fumbled out of half The Chaos Crew’s mouth were sounding good, great, and John could tell that he wasn’t bullshitting anything, “I know where he’s keeping your bro. I mean… shit, what The Hood did wasn’t right, maybe it never was, but I know this specifically is--” a break in his speech in an attempt to words things better. Fuse failed, “Bad. I just…”

John’s head involuntarily tilted at the way Fuse trailed off. For once in his life, John was at a loss. This was highly uncharacteristic from what John had seen of The Chaos Crew, and the astronaut was so flabbergasted he couldn’t even begin to come up with any possible ulterior motive behind Fuse’s actions at the moment.

Suddenly, Fuse looked back up with big eyes, almost reminding John of Alan a little bit. Not in the obvious ways, because Fuse was on the verge of seven feet tall and built like a truck whereas Alan was the teeniest thing on the planet, but… John could see similar traits of innocence in them. The eyes of someone desperately clinging onto the last few shreds of hope they had, but still ready to do what's right because of it. Because even if the light at the end of the tunnel was small it was still worth fighting for.

Fuse, seeing that John wasn’t going to say anything, bit the bullet, “I don’t know, call it selfish, call it smart, but if The Hood is willing to do something like this to someone so young, I… I don’t want to be apart of it. I can’t give any information about my sister, I’m no snitch, but I want out, even if it means spending the rest of my days in a GDF cell.”

John was suddenly aware of a burning question, “Wait, how old are you, Fuse?”

A tired sigh, aging Fuse to something that was probably three times what he was going to say, “I turn 20 in two weeks.”

John sharply inhaled, “Jesus, I… I didn’t realize you were that young.”

A lot of things made sense quickly and abruptly like they always do for the ginger.

If The Hood was willing to do this to someone so young, that didn’t stop him from doing this to someone like Fuse. The logical conclusion the now ‘ex-villain’ made probably danced the wildest jig in his head, and before anyone could clap their hands, he got as far away as possible. John wouldn’t be surprised if The Hood made idle threats for not following orders or for “being stupid”, so Fuse had every right to feel threatened.

Jeez, he was probably terrified at the implication. A dark, buried part of John selfishly thought good, it sucks you had to learn the hard way, but now you see why we all hate him, but the first thing that came to his mind was something unexpected yet expected all the same.

John was reminded of Alan again.

Except Alan had four older brothers to run to when the monsters got too big or too frightening.

…

Scott was going to kill him, “Park her over on the left and come in. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Bring inside whatever you think will help.”

EOS’s shrill John! ringed throughout the room, yet it was overruled swiftly. Fuse’s mouth was wide open, “For real?”

John couldn’t tell if he was losing the knots in his stomach or forming completely new ones, “Yes. Don’t do anything funny, though. I have eyes everywhere.”

Fuse gulped again, yet he was very business-like with his next words, “Of course.”

The line cut a millisecond before John wanted it to. John knew exactly why, “Listen, EOS--”

EOS was suddenly in his face, and it spoke miles at how far she’s come that she wasn’t blaring any alarms in anger, “No, you listen, John Tracy. I cannot believe the level of ignorance you are displaying!”

Gordon always joked about her being his daughter, but right now, John’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the feeling of being scolded by an overbearing mother, “I get this may seem like I’ve lost it--” jokes on EOS, who says he hasn’t at this point? “Listen, there’s nothing else left to go off of, and I know this makes me look like a crazy man desperate for information that might not even be there, but--”

“No buts!” EOS shrieked, “You told me that if you followed a sentence with a “but” that what you were about to say shouldn’t even be considered an option! What is making you throw all of my training out the window?!”

John’s mouth became very dry. This conversation was taking a very different turn, “Wait, EOS, why is this all about you suddenly--”

John was starting to regret giving her more mobility at the sight of her jamming her camera directly in his face even more, “It’s not just about me! This affects you too! You said you always based your decisions on the here-and-now, so I should too, so why am I the only one doing so?! You’ve seen what he’s capable of!”

John’s mind tended to be made of gears, and all of them began spinning at the same time. Dammit, he didn’t pick up on this because he didn’t even consider it a factor: EOS being scared. Hell, it wasn't even considered because the last time he remembered her being this scared was when she thought he was a threat during the first time they met (was it really that long ago?). She was scared that Fuse was going to hurt John like he hurt the rest of the astronaut’s family. Like he hurt Gordon.

The only difference is that nobody could get to John like they did Gordon, so that left the ginger at an impasse if the small chance that Fuse was here to hurt him came true.

John found it very hard to breathe all of a sudden. Closing his eyes and struggling to get enough air in, he realized a fundamental problem. EOS was based on data and things that have been recorded, and so far, the only things recorded about Fuse was that he was hellbent on hurting the Tracy family, a family that John was apart of.

She didn’t know any other way to feel about the guy, she didn’t have any other example.

John would love to be that way too, honestly, to just focus on the data. Numbers never tended to be wrong, and the idea of being a simple number-crunching bot would make life a shit-ton easier, but he can’t. He’s human. One that’s very much willing to go against the numbers and probabilities if it meant helping his family.

A rarity for John, to follow his gut and nothing else, but at the end of the day, he was a Tracy, and following his gut was as familiar to him as it was to name all of the immediate constellations in the summer’s nighttime sky, “EOS, I know it’ll be hard to believe me, hell, I’m having trouble believing myself, but Fuse isn’t here to hurt me. The here-and-now is different for reasons I don’t have enough time to properly explain, okay? If there’s anything to believe, believe in the trust you have in me to make the right decision like I always do.”

EOS made no noise, not even a flicker of her lens. He expected her usual sass, something along the lines of, Who says I trust you, moron? but what he got punched away what little air he managed to collect, “... Do you promise?”

That was the million-dollar question. Of course, he couldn’t. He didn’t like making promises after the age of 12. Too many probabilities, too many what-ifs, made promises somewhat of a theoretical impossibility. But just like that night on the roof with Alan, John was able to not think, “I promise, EOS. You wanted to go stargazing with me and Alan, right? Fuse might be able to let us do that again.”

‘Family’ was a Wild Card. Nothing was possible, yet everything was at the same time when it came down to it. ‘Family’ was what made Scott go from day to day without keeling over. ‘Family’ was what got Virgil to sleep at night when he just couldn’t by himself. ‘Family’ was how Gordon managed to keep smiling and joking despite everything in the world trying to make him stop. Hell, ‘Family’ was how their father kicked the word impossible right in the groin and live.

‘Family’ might have been why Alan was stuck in such a shitty situation, but it was also the reason the kid was willing and able to go that far in the first place. He learned that selflessness from his ‘Family’, after all.

John was intent to use that fact to the fullest.

EOS’s lights blinked in contemplation before she quietly spoke once more, “Do I have permission to shock him if he makes even the slightest suspicious movement?”

John rolled his eyes yet grinned all the same, “Sure, only just a little voltage, though. Right in the ass. Would be a nice pick-me-up after all of this.”

Well, despite the year they’ve had, John wasn’t aware EOS could snort. Another sign things might be going right for once.

The door swwwshed open and Fuse floated into where the two hyper-intelligent beings were hanging about and got straight to the point, “Thank you. I hope… I hope I don’t let you down.”

John found himself light as air, and it wasn’t just the zero-gravity this time, “Sounds good. Let’s get cracking.”

While the first thing he did back on Earth was scare his father and his immediate younger brother shitless, the way they and the rest of the family lit up at the plan he and Fuse came up with (after making sure nobody killed the dude, which was surprisingly more difficult than expected, and boy was it expected) made it all worth it.

Well, maybe the sight of Fuse occasionally jumping and yelping at a strange pinch in his bottom with no known cause was worth it too. John wouldn’t tell his brothers that, though, he was the responsible one, remember?

You always made me look at things differently, EOS. Thank you.

#fabfivefeb #fabfivefeb2020 #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #john tracy #alan tracy #eos #fuse thunderbirds #jeff tracy #my post #my fic #series: rules of alchemy

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jaspitch · 4 years

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Five Nightguards At Freddy’s

September's Archives- Archive 2

Tonight was no different than most other nights. Show up to take over the last half of the week for whoever was there originally. Thank God Mike called in sick. Despite September practically hating Mike, he didn't want him to get killed. That was plain and simple. The only one who could die and be fine was William, but that's besides the point.

September stepped out of his car with a groan. Last night a friend of his had coaxed him into going to a party and he was feeling the final drag of a hangover kick in. Brushing a thick lock of hair behind his ear, the tall man started walking towards the large red double doors. Somebody was standing there, and on further inspection, September let out a mental groan. It was fucking Justin. Since when did he do Day Shifts? Or locking up?

Eventually he stopped as Justin looked up from his phone. "Hi, Grumps! Aren't ya happy to see me?" Justin threw an arm around September's neck with a laugh. "Just give me the damn keys," The other man stated, rolling his eyes. "Hey, what's up with the deeper voice? Are you going through pubery?"

With that, September shoved his cousin away. He turned and glared at him, "People don't go through puberty twice, dumb-fuck." With that, he snatched the keys away and started for the back entrance, which was by far easier to unlock and lock. Of course, September finally locking up would depend on him surviving another night of Hell. After doing said process, a sigh of relief flowed through his body. The lights were still on, but he only had a few minutes to get into the office before they turned off.

He walked towards the office, running his hand through his thick, fluffy hair. That reminded him of Storm, who always loved to pet his “silky locks.” Honestly, just because he used Old Spice didn’t give the girl a right to be treating him like a dog. Upon reaching the office, September grumbled before almost tripping over something. The man looked down to see a bottle of what looked to be Pepsi-Cola and he kicked it into the hallway. Why the hell did they even have a damn janitor? He never did his job.

Unlocking the drawer with the tablet in it, an even more anoyed groan left the male. Why in the name of God was the fucking tablet not charging in the drawer? The clock chimed right on time, which just panicked the usually calm man. He looked around for about twenty minutes, in a cold sweat, before finding the tablet, some sort of sauce smeared on it, and almost completely dead. Well, fuck that. If some people can’t do their jobs, why should he?

September ran down the hallway, right to Henry’s office, and found it locked. There wasn’t any animatronics roaming and ready to maime him just yet, thank the Lord. He used his pocket knife to pick the lock because that skill was definately needed to survive here in this hell-hole. Placing the tablet on the dark oak desk, September relocked the door and sat down next to the device, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. This was, by far, the worst night ever. A hangover, having to run around the pizzeria, not being able to find the tablet, and then the tablet being dead.

Tomorrow he was dead ass asking for a raise. If he didn’t get one, he would be moving to Loisianna to go be a District Attorney. Of course he wouldn’t actually do that, seeing as how he couldn’t leave Storm here by herelf. Actually, rewind, Storm here with Michael Fucking Schmidt. His hatred flared up immediately. The slacker was such a nuiscance. One moment he’d be cursing the living life out of someone and the the next he’d be flirting with Storm. Weird, considering Storm was playing matchmaker and was trying to get her friend Doll to give it a go at him.

The mere thought of Storm and Mike together rose some sort of anxious feeling in September’s chest. Alongside bile in his throat. He could imagine it now.

“Hey, September! September! Guess what?!”

“What, Storm?”

“I’m pregnant! And getting married!”

“What!? Who are you marrying?”

“Mike! I’m gonna marry Mike!”

Yeah, that’d never happen. He wouldn’t let it. A large bang burst the young man from his thoughts. The door was being hit multiple times, as if someone, or more like something knew he was in there. After a few minutes of this, September relaxed. The door is way too solid for that. Just as he though this, the door exploded off the hinges and went flying right past him. There, in his beautiful purple glory, was Bonnie. The large rabbit’s eye were pupil sized with black floating around them. Not unusual to see, but definately odd. He locked eyes with September before the man threw the tablet at him.

Bolting to the side door, September opened it to be met with the hallway to the bathrooms. He ran down it, Bonnie on his trail. Side swiping a chair in hopes to trip the damned robot up, he nearly ran straight into Freddy, who was coming out of the girl’s bathroom. Ew, what the Hell? Weirdo! Was all he thought before being picked up by his collar and being screeched at. The mere force of the yell startled September and must have overdone his nerves, because within seconds, he was fast asleep.

It seemed to be decades before he awoke, but when he did, some sort of smell almost impuriated his nostrils. What. The. fuck. Was. That. Smell? It smelt like rusted iron..... That’s what blood usually tasted like and smelt liked, isn’t it? Slowly opening his amber orbs, fear immediately set in. Oh God, Oh God. His legs and middle torse were almost completely filed and stuffed into some sort of suit. It looked to be like one of Freddy’s so it wasn’t tight fitting, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t indeed some rods and wires sticking into mainly his legs. September tried to slowly inch his left leg to the right and a jolt of pain flashed through him.

He looked up, his vision blurry at first. Then he caught note of Chica spazzing out in front of him, Bonnie and Freddy walking away, and Foxy peaking in before shutting the door. Chica turned and looked down, meeting eyes with September. Her beak was fixed and not hanging off to the side oddly enough. “Se..ptemvar.” She groaned, her voice cracking and making a high pitched squeak. “Sep..tem..bar. Do vu rec..on..ide mee...eee?” W h a t? Narrowing his eyes, the male tried to move back a bit, only a small portion of pain filing through his legs. “Fucking bird, just go join your damn friends!” He yelped, hoping that whatever had stopped the others from completely stuffing him would be the same for the chicken.

“But.. I... em... su..cie.” Chica squeaked again and the mascot’s head twitched. “Su-cie?” It took a second, but the name registered. Suzie was a girl September had known when he first moved here. She was eight and he fiffteen upon meeting. September had been hired to babysit the girl before she died, they would always play games. She made him feel like he could be himself- funny and outgoing. Even a bit silly. That was then, of course. By the time sixteen rolled around, he was cold and a bit narcassistic. “Suzie?” He asked, narrowing his eyes.

Chica smiled and let out some weird “AhrGhGhgahG” sound before leaning down and starting to slowly take the suit’s pieces off. Her movements were jerky and robotic, but nonetheless helpful. And painful. After an hour or so, September was sitting by the chicken, rapping bandages around his legs. Chica was staring at him, watching his every movement. This probably explained why she had never shown up at the door but once, and when they met in the hallway after a power outage, she would just stand and stare at him.

“Okay, done. So, Chica, let me get this right. You’re suddenly not wanting to kill me because I’m well, me. However, the others aren’t going to kill me either because you said so. And this only goes for me when Suzie is in control because she knows me. Also, this further enhances my knowledge that this place is hella haunted?” Chica nodded, which made him drop his eyelids half way and give her a ‘really, bitch?’ look. He wanted to play another yes and no game. That would be how they would talk from now on. “Okay, yes or no, somebody killed you and stuffed you in the suit?” She nodded.

“That somebody works here but you don’t know who, you just know it’s not me because you already know me?” Chica gave a nod, making her head squeak. “You can’t determine genders, can you?” For a second, he thought she was going to shake her head, meaning she couldn’t, but she then nodded. “Wait, so what gender killed you?” That was when everything clicked into place: she shrugged saying she had no idea. Somebody didn’t just kill these kids, they dressed up as a character and killed them. Holy crap, Storm would love to know that. Love to know she could try and talk to them so she could survive and find out who did this. That, besides Mike, was their main mission all along. However, this also just furthern intesified his thoughts that he couldn’t trust anyone.

“I have a few ideas on who it might be. Let’s see, William, because he’s a fucking creep and I wouldn’t put it past him. Scott, because he’s so damn jumpy. Malayn, because he’s a sadist, and maybe Mike because I don’t know if he’s completely sane or not.” As soon as the list was done, Chica blinked oddly. She closed one eye before the other before suddenly bolting out the door. Narrowing his eyebrows, September was about to follow her before the bell rang. Damn, he just barely survived tonight. William was waiting by the entrance, seemingly arguing with Scott. Scott noticed September approaching before abruptly shutting his mouth. “Hello, ladies. Need these?” He dropped the keys on William’s head, turning to look at a concerned Scott.

Through his peripheral vison, he noted William untangling the keys from his hair and settling them in his pocket. “What hapened to your legs? And your uniform?” September shrugged, “Y’know just got dragged into the back room and nearly killed. The usual.” William snickered at his sarcasm, but he really wasn’t joking. “Holy crap! Are you okay? We can take you to a doctor!” He seemed to be about to have a nervous breakdown so September just waved him off. “I’m fine, woman. You need to get off your period.” With that, he walked towards his Falcon(It’s a ‘67 Ford if you didn’t know that. Most people don’t know much about older cars :’) ) and drove himself home. After falling asleep on the couch due to intense lazines, September decided to take a shower, change, renew his bandages, and call Storm. They had a lot to talk about.

September’s Archive Ends Here

#FNAF Archives1 #FNAF Archives 2

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itsmyfandomandilikeit · 5 years

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I'm 26 arcs into Worm: The Stick Up Brian's Butt

So I'm listening to the We've Got Worm podcast and they keep talking about KingBob, the guy on reddit who really related to Alec and ended up understanding him (and by extension Aisha) far better than most of the other readers.

I haven't really gone into this on this blog, I've been reading Worm for like six months now and I don't update that often, but throughout this read I've been the KingBob to Brian. It's gotten to the point where I actually took a few mental health breaks from reading Worm. I know a lot of people thought Brian was boring and dumb. I'm almost done with Worm now and I feel like the inclusion of Brian this story elevated it, for me, from a fun superhero story to something intensely personal, something that was almost a struggle to read. I know from spoilers that Brian's part in this story is almost over. He isn't my favorite character (Dragon) or even my favorite Undersider (Aisha) but I felt like I should write something before this is over. It wouldn't be an honest blog otherwise, as infrequently as I post.

But Kuno, you say. You're a 22-year-old white female engineering student. Why the hell is this the character you relate to?

For a collection of dumb reasons that add up to a large part of who I am. From the time I was eleven to the time I was about twenty-one, I had night terrors. Seven times a night sometimes, I dreamt vividly of the people I loved getting hurt, hurting me, getting killed, killing me. My students and pets melting in my hands. My mom and I clutching each other on the freeway as we're stopped in traffic, a terrorist approaching our vehicle with a shotgun. We don't make it. The dreams made life almost impossible. Seeing people during the day and being absolutely certain they would die before I saw them again. It didn't matter how many times I saw them come back okay. They never would.

I'm afraid of everything. Every missed phone call is a sudden death. Every text message brings terrible news. Every possible situation brings danger, but if my friends go, I can't let them go without me. Something could happen. They'd be safe as long as I could see them. If I was looking at them, everything would be okay. Some child psychologist I spoke to at a young age noted I was a "natural leader". To this day, I lead because I am a control freak. I am afraid of what would happen if I let someone else be in control.

Interlude 15 fucked me up.

My fatal flaw extends from this. I'm terrified that people will see me as weak. I dated a boy on my robotics team when I was in high school. I treated him like shit in public because I didn't want anyone to think I cared about him, even though he was my boyfriend. What would they think of me if they saw there was a person I treated as an equal? Horrible things. I became a better girlfriend to another boy, years later, because someone mentioned to me they thought I could be a good girlfriend, and that it was rough, calloused girls who were the weak ones. It was the perfect two sentences to convince me that for people to see me as strong, I had to be a good girlfriend.

In the We've Got Worm podcast, Scott and Matt always mention that each of the Undersiders brings the team down somehow, their inputs to every situation silly or stupid. I was confused. I always thought Grue's avoidance of conflict, always taking the slow, deliberate path, was the right way to go. Then I realized that, to many, this behavior indicates brokenness. Maybe they're right.

Yeah so I said I'd talk about the stick up Brian's butt in arcs 25 and 26. I don't think he has much to say for the rest of Worm so here we go. I'm building off a lot of what the WGW guys say, but I think I can take it a little farther.

So in arc 10 the WGW guys point out that Brian resists letting Taylor back on the team until the precise moment when it becomes apparent that everyone else wants her back, when he suddenly changes tactics to talking about how they "need her for offense". They make the imo correct deduction that this is because he's afraid of looking weak. Everyone knows Taylor likes him, so, logically, to be Stoic Leader Man he should want her to go away. He needs permission to want her back on the team. Once he has that permission, he is all for it.

I know that sounds convoluted but trust me as a person with exactly these issues this makes perfect sense.

Arc 11, Brian has still not decided to be Taylor's friend again. This is because she's on the team to be offense. Their friendship doesn't help nobody's offense. When Lisa calls him and tells him he needs to lay up on her, that to be her friend would be good, he goes directly to Taylor's house and declares them... best friends. Because Lisa has given him permission to do so.

I hope you're following because I'm aware this is stupid.

In arc 12, I'm gonna veer a little to the side. Let's talk about Brian's second trigger, just so that I can educate the public on exactly how this came around. Keep in mind that trigger events happen from a long period of a specific type of stress coming to a head. And that Brian's previous trigger happened from feeling like he maybe couldn't help Aisha for a long time, and then suddenly being hit with the fact that he definitely couldn't help her.

Arc 1: The Undersiders save Taylor who was saving them from Lung Arc 2: Brian punches Rachel for attacking Taylor Arc 4: Taylor gets blown up by Bakuda, Brian sits in her hospital room and stares at this for presumably a while Arc 5: Taylor looks like she's been hanged, having fought Lung again Arc 7: Taylor and Rachel are attacked by the ABB, Brian shows up late. Taylor is attacked later the same day by Sophia, Brian shows up pretty late. Taylor propositions the boy, he tells her he thinks of her like he thinks of his sister. I am 100% certain at this point, looking back, that this was an early indication that the second trigger process was starting towards a lack of ability to keep up with Taylor. He wasn't just saying he thought of her like he would think of her if they were related, he thinks of her like Aisha specifically, the one his power is attached to. His little brain is drawing the equivalences already. Arc 8: Broken spine, betrayal, yadda yadda Arc 9: Sophia attempts murder because it's Tuesday Arc 10: Brian pretends to not want Taylor to come back Arc 11: Brian does his now-classic "walks into room/why is Taylor injured/maybe she should not be doing this" routine Arc 12: Repeat of arc 11, except now he starts stumbling over her name. He tells her she should have let her people die. If there's a point onscreen when he realizes there might be something going on, this is it.

Point is, this has been stewing in the background since as early as arc 1 and as late as arc 7 but probably actually started in arc 4. It wasn't out of the blue, it was the logical culmination of the entire story's events thus far from Brian's perspective.

Arc 13: Yeah, you know what happens here. In the final chapter, he tells her he thinks about her too much, but even though he received a new set of superpowers and a vision from aliens telling him that he probably loves her, the vision is definitely wrong and he just feels like he can't keep up with her.

She's been attacked by everyone. Lung, Rachel, Bakuda, Sophia, Armsmaster, Leviathan, the Merchants, Mannequin. He doesn't want her to keep fighting, he feels he needs to be the one to do it. At the same time, he knows he's not powerful enough. No one power is enough to deal with all of these threats.

No single power.

But he doesn't love her. That would mean he was weak.

He doesn't even agree to have dinner with her in 15. He allows it to happen because Aisha set it up. She knows what's going on, and she has given him permission to have this.

Aisha had to be the one to give him permission because his previous powerset was for her, and now it doesn't work with her, either. At the same time as his second trigger was stewing under the surface for Taylor, he was losing his power's connection to Aisha because their powers didn't work together and he kept being forced to forget she exists. He had lived for her before, and being Super Big Brother was exactly what Brian wanted to be. Now, Aisha doesn't want to be lived for. She wants to be her own person.

Brian spends the next several arcs simply living for Taylor.

I strongly suspect that the side effect of Brian's power is that it makes him pathologically need to be 100% responsible for others. No matter how dumb everyone's plans are, he always has to be there. No matter how stupid it is, Coil told him being a villain will allow him to get his sister back. No matter how dumb it is, he tells Taylor she has to sit out running from the Nine in arc 13 because she might be tired. He pays for it.

Brian's powers will probably never actually allow him to get over Taylor Hebert. It's like Taylor and bullies. No amount of therapy or time will get Brian's shard to let the fuck go.

So when the girl whom you are physically incapable of not thinking about leaves and goes to prison and tells every single person on the planet exactly how weak you are, who goes to an even more dangerous situation where you cannot follow her, what can you do?

The only possible thing. Try your absolute damnedest to pretend you never knew her.

You walk out of that meeting with the most powerful people in the world because she is there. You go find yourself somebody else. Another girl. Taylor hated her little boobs? This girl has big boobs. Taylor can't stay away from violence? Cozen seriously appears to have never even seen a corpse.

When Taylor comes back, Brian greets her with the new girl on his arm. He tries to shake her hand. Time has passed. There's nothing between them any more.

The next day, Grue is presented with the choice of pushing back against Taylor and standing with the new girl, whoever she is, or supporting Taylor. He chooses Taylor.

Of course he does. The situation calls for it. The situation has given him permission.

#worm #parahumans #brian laborn #ward #kuno speaks #thanks for reading to the end #i know this was long and personal #talk to me about it if you want #please

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elisaphoenix13 · 5 years

Text

(AT) To Bring Them Home

A more in depth version of Remembering The Departed (but with Harley and Cassie added so other fics fit).

"Hey Mama Bear. If you find this recording, don't post it on social media. It's gonna be a real tear jerker." Tony sighs heavily and leans back against the wall of the ship. " It's not like you're ever going to see these anyway. I watched you fade to nothing in front of me after all. You and Peter. I guess I'm recording these for my own sanity. It helps to pretend you're getting these messages. Totally lame right?"

The engineer clears his parched throat. He was desperate for anything to moisten his mouth at this point.

"Today's day twenty-one? No. Twenty-two. You know if it wasn't for the existential terror of staring into the literal void of space, I'd say I'm feeling a little better today. The infection has run its course thanks to the blue meanie back there." He weakly motions to Nebula somewhere in the vicinity behind him. "Oh you'd love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic."

Stephen probably would like the cyborg. He may have been cautious of her at first, but if she treated the kids well, the sorcerer would have immediately warmed up to Nebula. The poor woman just needed a friend.

"So the fuel cells were cracked during battle and we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge by ourselves and bought 48 hours of flight time. But it's now dead in the water a thousand light years from the nearest 7-11. Oxygen will run out tomorrow morning, and that'll be it." Tony rubs his eyes. "It looks like...well you know what it looks like. Don't feel bad about this. I mean actually if you grovel for a couple weeks and then move on with enormous guilt..." He trails off as he fights off the impending lure of sleep.

"I should probably lie down for a minute. Rest my eyes. If by some miracle I make it back home, the first thing I'm going to do is look for Harley and Diana. God I hope they're still at home. If I go home and they're gone too...I don't know what I'm going to do." He would very likely off himself but he didn't need to say that. Tony was sure that if somehow, Stephen was able to see these messages, he would know. "Please know, when I drift off, it'll be like every night lately. I'm fine...totally fine. I dream about you. God it's always you." Tony says with a broken whisper.

He was hungry, dehydrated, and lost in space with a robotic woman and for once he looked forward to sleep. Dreams of Stephen and their family was his only salvation in this terrible situation he found himself in. He was already hallucinating blue butterflies, and he tried to touch one the first time he saw it, but it had disappeared as soon as his fingers went through the illusion. Tony just ignored them after that. He never asked Nebula if she saw them, because he knew the answer would be a 'no', and she would watch him like a hawk.

With a sigh, he shuts off the recording mechanism in his helmet and pulls on a jacket before laying down. This would quite possibly be the last time his eyes would be open, but at least when he went, it would be to pleasant dreams. Dreams, and the part of him that believed that the blue butterfly settling on the arm he was laying on, was Stephen watching over him.

________________________

Carol had miraculously come across them and took them back to Earth, and once an IV was shoved into him, the remaining Avengers held a meeting. Tony really just wanted to keep to his promise and looks for his other two kids, but he also needed to know who else they had lost. Picture after picture popped up on the multiple screens in the meeting room at the compound, and Tony had to hold himself together when Stephen and Peter's picture came up. He almost lost it when Harley's appeared as well, but then the pictures stopped and the screens vanished.

He never saw Diana and that made him jump to his feet and almost fall over from how weak he was. Pepper had to step forward and steady him as he points a shaky finger as the previous location of the screens.

"D-Diana?" He mentally curses when he stumbles over the single word. "Where...is she...is she alive?"

Steve steps over to his other side to help keep him steady, and offers him a small smile. "She's alive. Out of all of the kids, she and Cassie are still here."

Tony nearly sobs with relief. "Clint and Scott?"

Natasha frowns. "Neither of them are responding to any of our calls. We have to assume they were victims too."

"I want to see my daughter." The engineer whispers, and Pepper gently rubs his back.

"You will, but you need rest."

"I'll rest when I..." Tony blinks away the black spots forming in his vision and the room begins to spin. "When I--"

Then he collapsed. The little bit of effort he had put into talking and standing was too much for his body, and it forced him to rest. He slept for two days without waking, but he woke up on third day and Rhodey all but forced him to eat. In any or he scenario he would have fought, but Diana was alive and all he cared about was seeing her. Tony caved when his best friend promised he could see her as soon as he ate, and he did. He ate as much as he could stomach and Rhodey kept to his promise by having Natasha bring Diana to him. Big blue eyes brightened when his six-month-old daughter saw him and she squealed happily as she reached out for him.

"Dada!"

That one simple word was what broke Tony when he finally got to hold his baby girl. She was all he had left if his family. His husband was gone, his two sons were gone, and half of his friends were gone too. He was broken and tired and wanted to get away from it all. All of the memories.

So as soon as he was able again, Tony took Diana and Cassie with him to a lake house he bought. Cassie's mother and stepfather were out of reach since they had been traveling over seas when the snap happened, so they didn't know if they were even alive. Scott was MIA as well, but Tony promised to take care of her. She was surprisingly happy that the engineer told her to get her things and she did without a fuss.

Tony watched Diana and Cassie grow up over the next five years. As Cassie got older, she helped with Diana and eventually took a liking to cooking and baking that she was starting to throw Tony out of his own kitchen. Like now.

"You're kicking me out of my own kitchen?! You have a lot of nerve Miss Sass." Tony moves away from the island counter and accidently knocks a glass cup off of it and watches it fall and shatter on the ground. "Shit."

Cassie giggles. "That is exactly why. How did you manage to feed us before I took over?"

Tony picks up the broken glass with a towel and dumps it all in the trash bin. "I'll have you know I made dinner plenty of times. I make a mean sauce. Even Peter drank--"

He immediately clams up at the mention of his youngest son. Tony locked those memories away tears ago, but every once in a while, one would slip through. What were once pleasant dreams when he was dying in space, now haunted him in the safety of his home. In his dreams and just looking at Diana. She reminded him of Stephen every day and it was hard to ignore. She even inherited the man's cheeky mouth.

Cassie learned how to read him over the five years they lived at the lake house, and she could tell that talk to him about his family wasn't a good idea right now. "Can you see if there are any raspberries left? They would be good in the salad."

Tony scoffs. "If there are any left."

"With the way your alpaca eats them I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone!"

"My alpaca? You and Dia were the ones that wanted a pet!"

"Yeah! Like a cat! But you had to be extra and come home with a freaking alpaca!" Cassie snarks as she points a knife in his direction and Tony holds his hands up.

"He has a name." The engineer says with a smirk.

"Gerald is a terrible name." Cassie throws a walnut at his head, and narrows her eyes when Tony catches it in his mouth. "Check for berries."

"I've adopted a slave-driver."

Cassie sniggers as he walks out the back door and he pats Gerald's head as he passes by the mammal and into the garden. It was Cassie's idea and he had to admit it was nice having fresh vegetables and berries a few feet away, even if he had to beat their pet alpaca to them. The girls wanted a cat, but it only would have reminded him of Tibbs, and even the poor cat had been a victim of the snap. He just wasn't ready for another one. Tibbs was a pretty awesome cat and Tony kind of missed him sometimes.

"Alright Gerald, I hope you left us some raspberries or we'll both be in the dog house." Two more steps and he found a plant full of the berries. "Small miracles." He glances over at the blanket fort a few feet away and smiles. "Princess Diana! Come help me pick berries!"

"I'm coloring Daddy!" Diana shouts from inside her fort and Tony chuckles quietly. She definitely had Stephen's snark, and she even said it in an exasperated tone.

"I guess you don't get Cassie's chocolate chip cookies for dessert!"

A loud groan follows and Tony grins as Diana comes out of her fort and joins her father. "It was important."

"Oh yeah? Well you'll have to finish after dinner."

Diana doesn't argue any further and the two of them pick enough berries to fill a small container that Tony gives the responsibility of holding to his daughter. A couple of raspberries disappear into her mouth and Tony gives her a fond look as he wipes away some of the juice at the corner of her mouth before it stains. Sass aside, he was lucky that Diana was so well behaved. She even stopped asking about her mother and brothers because she didn't like the forlorn look Tony always wore when they were brought up, but he was also pretty sure that Cassie was telling her instead. Tony always kicked himself over that. Diana should be able to ask him without worrying about him getting upset over it, but instead her pseudo-sister was telling her the stories. Sometimes Pepper, Happy, and the other Avengers whenever they had time to stop by.

"Don't fill up Little Miss. You think we have enough?"

Diana nods. "Uh-huh."

"Alright. Let's get these back in to the Alpha Female if we want to have dinner. I can smell it from here." He kisses her on the cheek before standing back up and lifting Diana into his arms, and he stops next to Gerald when the exit the garden. "Give one to our loyal guard alpaca."

The five year old grabs a raspberry from the container in her hands and gives it to Gerald who eats it out of her hand happily and thanks her with a nuzzle. With that done, Tony walks back toward the house until he hears the unmistakable sound of tires crunching over gravel. He and Diana look at each other before Tony makes his way around the house to the driveway, and his eyes widen when Scott all but falls out of the car in his haste to get out. Steve and Natasha followed after him as the ex-criminal approaches the billionaire and Diana pushes Tony's mouth closed.

"Scott?" Tony wonders with surprise.

"Cassie? Is she here? They said she was here." The man rambles, but before Tony could even reply, the front door opened and Cassie stepped out.

"Daddy?"

Scott's head whips around and the fifteen year old girl immediately runs over to him and hugs him tightly. Everyone else watches the small reunion as Scott hold his daughter close, and he eventually moves away to study his grown daughter.

"You're so big!" Scott looks Cassie over for a few more seconds and then sniffs the air. "Is that food? Oh my god, I'm starving."

Both Cassie and Tony laugh. "You have good timing Thumbelina. You guys can stay for dinner and tell us where the hell you've been."

"Good, because according to Nat and the Cap, I literally haven't eaten for five years."

Tony looks over at the other two adults. "Dinner?"

Natasha smiles. "Only if I get the baby."

"You heard her Little Miss. Go to Auntie Nat." The engineer says as he takes the container of berries and Diana happily goes to Natasha before they head inside.

Scott was quiet for the majority of dinner because he was too busy eating, but when he eventually slowed down so he could at least breath and taste his food, he told them where he had been. The Quantum Realm. What felt like an hour to him had been five years, so when he finally escaped, he was confused when he saw all the missing posters and the monuments with the names of the Snap victims. He explained that he went straight to the tower but when he found he empty, he went to the compound where he found Steve and Natasha. He told them the same thing he was telling Tony and they jumped right back into the car and came straight to the lake house when he asked about Cassie.

Steve clears his throat and Tony watches Natasha suspiciously when she mumbles in Russian and herds Diana away from the table after dinner. An adult conversation was coming up and he wasn't sure whether or not he was glad that the assassin took the initiative to distract his daughter. As soon as the two were out of ear shot, Scott opened his mouth again.

"Tony...we think we can reverse what happened. Bring everyone back."

His breath catches in his throat. "What?"

"Like I told you, it only felt like an hour in the Quantum Realm for me when realistically it's been five years. Time works differently there. Maybe if we can manipulate it--"

"You're talking about a time machine." Tony interrupts.

Steve grimaces. "For lack of a better word, yes."

"I can't take that chance." Scott opens his mouth again but Tony cuts him off and points toward the direction Natasha and Diana disappeared to. "She is all I have left. I can't risk that for a chance. Diana is the only reason I'm even still here!" He admits and the other two men wince and Cassie frowns. "I lost my wife, and my two sons. I can't lose her too."

The three stare at each other in silence until Diana and Natasha return, and Tony's heart clenches when he finds a familiar leather book in his daughter's hands.

Peter's photo album.

"Where..." The mechanic starts and Scott sighs.

"I told you I went to the tower. I grabbed that just in case." He says quietly as Diana sets the album on the table in front of Tony.

"Tony...at least look through it." Steve says quietly. "Even if you still don't want to help, you and Diana both deserve those memories."

Cassie places her hand on the album and pushes it closer to Tony. "I think it's a good idea."

Tony sighs. "Even Miss Sass is ganging up on me."

He reluctantly agrees though and they all eat their dessert of cookies before everyone sans Tony retires to bed. He offered for them to stay since it was a long drive back, and they accepted gratefully. Cassie was nice enough to take Diana to bed since she knew the little girl's schedule and Tony had gone into the makeshift lab to look through the photo album. Not until he had FRIDAY working on potential ways to be able to use the Quantum Realm as a time machine though. He highly doubted they would find anything, but he could at least say he tried. Looking through the album was hard but it was necessary if he was going to have to tell Diana the stories behind each picture. His daughter deserved that much if FRIDAY couldn't--

"Test run successful Boss."

Tony's head snaps up to the hologram and he drops the album so he can cover his mouth in disbelief. He did it. He found a way to time travel. Something he never thought possible if he were honest. A Time Stone was one thing, but a machine? Even he had been skeptical.

"Shit."

That one single word about summed everything up.

He could bring his family back.

#ironstrange #mama bear stephen strange #supremefamily #tony stark #cassie lang #diana stark strange (oc)#pepper potts #james rhodes #rhodey #scott lang #steve rogers #natasha romanov #peter parker #harley keener

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themassivemonsterfamily · 5 years

Text

Monster Family Ch 1

Ch 1 My Dad is King

Within the state of New York just off the island of Manhattan the HEAT team was just laying around their base with no mutations that were currently threatening anything, so HEAT was on an unofficial vacation. That was until the base was flashed with redlights and the sound of sirens screeched throughout the dilapidated building, soon the team began to race to their boat.

“What’s happening?!?” Elsie yelled out as she began to sprint towards the HEAT Seeker.

“Apparently the G-Man is making a beeline somewhere, and he’s booking it majorly.” Randy explained as he ran towards the service elevator, it took ten minutes for the team to get ready to follow Godzilla but during that time the mutant king had gained an enormous head-start. As the team followed the massive mutant’s path they began to feel a sense of familiarity as the boat sped forwards.

“Monique where are we heading?” Nick asked the French agent at the helm, she quickly looked at the navigation equipment and realized something.

“We are heading to Scotland.” She answered though she sounded more confused than assured, but Nick had a theory on why Godzilla was traveling to the land of lakes. As they entered the River Ness they saw the damage from Godzilla’s travel, fishing boats strewn aside or beached, docks destroyed and deep gouges in the soil and dirt. HEAT just looked at this destruction in shock and in Monique’s case her views were strengthened by looking at the damage, as they maneuvered through the damages they could hear a voice.

“Ey, could ya elp me out ere!” A gruff, deep voice called out the owner of the voice being an Scottish man with wet silver and copper hair clinging to a piece of driftwood. Nick signaled his team to move port side and to throw the rope ladder to the stranded man, in a few short seconds the soaked man climbed onto the the boat as he began to rub his shoulders trying to get warm.

“Thank ya kindly, the water was gettien nippy.” The Scottish man graciously told the team of heat as continued to try and get warm. “Can you tell us why Godzilla caused this much damage?” Nick asked the Scotsman as Elsie gave the man a blanket to stop the shivers, the Scotsman gratefully took the thick piece of cloth. “I dun know laddie, I even let ta fish go but dat beastie was focused on something. Names Hammish by de way seems rude if I didn’t intaduce meself.” The Scotsman introduced himself to the mutant hunters, Hammish’s response confused the team even more so. “Thank you Hammish, would you like us to drop you off somewhere?” Nick asked the man wanting a way to repay the man for the troubles that happened. “Nah, I want te come wit ya. Always wanted ta see te beasties since I saw dem on te news.” Hammish told the team with a wishful smile on the olds Scott’s face, though the team had a few reservations about this but there were almost no docks to drop off the man. So the team went ahead to the lake and as they did they came across a rather odd site, it was the juvenile Nessie was splashing around seemingly happy.

“Ummmm, shouldn’t a big angry momma somewhere.” Craven whimpered out as he began to scan the water for the larger mother’s skin, tail or whirlpool caused by the large creature. Oddly enough besides the adolescence Nessie there didn’t seemed to be any other sign of giant reptiles, which someone quickly took notice of.

“Where are ze creatures?” Monique questioned the group as she began to critically scan the area in case of any traps, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. Until the young Nessie began to act odd as it began jump in the water, splash around like a happy child; and soon the little reptile began swim towards a certain area of the loch.

“Woah, what's got Nessie Jr in such a rush?” Randy asked the group as they watched the young monster rushed towards to the east side of the lake, and carefully the Heat team began to follow the young monster. Once the young Nessie stopped the team began to notice an odd site, it was Godzilla hiding among the trees. The younger monster let out something that sounded like a mix between a human chuckle and a sea lion bellow with her head aimed at the larger monster. Soon the massive dinosaur like monster rose up and showed the the passengers on the Heat Seeker a rather odd or amazing sight, the king of mutations leaned down to the young monster and nuzzled it like cat would do with a kitten.

“Did he just?” Elsie turned to look at Nick who looked just as confused as the rest of them. Hearing waves splash against the side of the boat, everyone braced themselves as mother Nessie rose her head out of the water nearby, giving a gentle rumble before spraying both Godzilla and Nessie Jr with a broad blast of water from their maw.

“Are they...playing?” Craven asked in disbelief as Nessie swam over to nuzzle her child and Godzilla, the larger Kaiju letting out an answering rumble, making a weird sort of tune that echoed across the water.

“It seems like they are.” Nick answered just as surprised, Randy already pulling out a hand camera to get the sight before them as Nessie, Nessie Jr and Godzilla all seemed to talk to each other and were more relaxed than any of them had seen, outside of being asleep. “When do think this happened?” Nick said, seeming to put the question to all of them,

“I don’t think this is a recent thing. I mean they were okay with each other when they met the first time” Craven mused aloud. As they thought they hadn’t noticed the boat drifting on the current closer to Nessie Jr. As they were all talking amongst themselves the young kaiju took notice of them and made their way over, poking their head over the edge to listen.

“Mutation distance at maximum.” Nigel beeped out as he began to drive away from the young creature and to the otherside of the boat, as well as into the loch.

“AAahhhh.” The robot screeched as it sank to the bottom. Hearing the scream the entire crew turned to see Nessie Jr watching them and a few of them yelled in panic. The sudden noise made the mutant jerk back and make a small, upset sounding noise, Godzilla and Mama Nessie’s heads immediately swung around to look at them.

“Ooooh crap” Craven hissed,Nick quickly put his hands out and put himself in between the HEAT crew and the kaiju,

“It’s okay. You’re okay” he said softly, Nessie Jr cocking their head to the side, as if trying to understand and was curious about Nick. Godzilla nudged the young monster to the scientist as if to tell her it’s true, but that moment was ruined when an angry voice called out over the sound of an approaching outboard motor.

“Oi, ya bloody gits leave those two alone!!” All heads turned to the voice to see a small metal dingy carrying a barrel-chested, middle aged man with shocking red hair and beard streaked with grey, dressed in a heavy, black trench coat, and a kilt.

“Bless me bagpipes! That’s Bearnard Allanach, wot is e doing ere!?!” Hammish exclaimed in shock as Bernard’s boat pulled up alongside them. Nessie Jr looked confused and slid back into the water, moving behind Bearnard’s boat. Nick moved to the edge of the Heatseaker and looked down,

“Um, hello there. Can we help y-?” he asked before the man cut him off,

“Yes you bloody can!” Bearnard barked, “Ye can leave Nessie and Nelly alone fer one. And fer two ye can get the hell off the loch” Nessie Jr gave a soft sound and nudged Bearnard’s shoulder, making the man pause his tirade, turning to pet her nose, “You doin’ alright wee Nelly? I didne mean to scare ya, ye know that righ?” he cooed and Nessie Jr gave a happy, chirping noise. Nick watched on amazed, even more so that momma Nessie was seemingly talking with Godzilla to calm the larger kaiju.

“Wait. They like you?” Nick said and Bearnard shot him a glare,

“A’ course they do. The Allanach Clan have looked after the Ladies of the Loch fer generations, e’er since we settled here” he said bluntly, still stroking Nessie Jr’s nose. Nick smiled,

“If that’s the case can we invite you on board? I think we have a bit in common” Bearnard looked a bit wary but Nessie Jr gave him a nudge,

“A’right. Toss a ladder and I’ll be right wid ya” In a few short moments Nick and Randy tossed down the rope ladder for the rather cross Scotsman, and soon enough he was on board the Heatseeker.

“Alright, I’m here now get off the Loch.” Bernard demanded and Nick held up his hands defensively,

“Hang on a second Mr Allanch. If I could direct your attention that way” he said as he pointed over to where Nessie and Godzilla were ‘talking’ to each other, Nessie Jr swimming over to the two larger kaiju to nuzzle at them both.

“Wot’s the big lizard with Ness and Nell?” he asked and Nick smiled,

“That’s Godzilla. From America. And I think he sees me how Nessie and Nessie Jr-”

“Nelly” Bearnard huffed and Nick nodded,

“Right, Nelly” he amended, “how they see you” he explained and Bearnard raised a brow,

“So, Godzillah there listens to ya?” he asked.

“It depends if Junior is in a mood or not.” Elsie joked but was shot a glare from Nick to act like an adult for this moment.

“Yes he does, he sees me as an adoptive father.” Nick seriously informed the scotsman who looked unconvinced but seeming to understand,

“From what I hear yer Godzilla’s been a menace” he huffed, “Maybe cause ya still treat ‘im like a wild animal”

“How else are ve supposed to treat him?” Monique asked Bernard,

“How about like family?” he said, moving over to the edge of the Heatseeker and his demeanour seemed to flip, “Nelly~! Come here ya wee troglodyte~! Uncle wants a cuddle~!” Nessie Jr’s head shot up and, getting an affirmative from Mama Nessie, sped through the water towards the boat. Stopping short she bowed her head down to nuzzle at the scot, making a sound akin to a happy purr, Bearnard cooing all the time. The Heat team and Hammish just looked in shock at what just happened, the mutation just allowed a human to pet it like it was an animal at a petting zoo. Meanwhile Bernard just gave the team a cocky smile as he continued to pet the young monster. “Y’see. This is what happens when ya act like family” he looked over to Nick, “Care to try it with your beastie?” he asked, motioning to the dingy.

Nick seemed hesitant at first but he then walked toward the dingy and boated to the two monsters, the two looked down at the lone scientist especially Godzilla. Soon he outstretched a hand,

“Hey Junior. It’s me” he said softly, kinda feeling a bit awkward and unsure. Soon the giant lizard mutation leaned down to the scientist and closed his eyes, and Nick began to pet him like a dog. The scientist just let out a small chuckle as this happened. “That’s it son.” Nick said softly, Godzilla making a soft, rumbling noise, seeming to enjoy the attention, “is this all you wanted? A little bit of love?” he asked and Godzilla gave a louder rumble, as if in affirmation.

Back on the boat, Randy had the camera out. Elise, Monique and Hammish were looking stunned, Craven was thinking about what this all meant and Bearnard was just smiling, still with a hand on Nelly’s neck.

“See what I mean. A little bit a’ trust ‘nd affection can do wonders” Bearnard said proudly. Soon enough Nick came back to the boat, an expression of true wonder on his face and Bearnard moved over to clap him on the shoulder, “C’mon lad, let’s get back to mine fer some tea and a chinwag” he said and Nick nodded,

“Lead the way” he said. Bearnard jumping back into his dingy and leading them to a rather large four story house with a dock on the south end of the Loch by the river. All of them piling out over the dock and up into the home that felt like it had been lived in and fixed up over generations. “C’mon, let’s get comfy” Bearnard said, leading them into a sitting room filled with soft couches, chairs and low coffee tables, “Settle yerselves, I’ll make tea” he said before leaving them all to talk.

“ I gotta say jefe what you did took some guts.” Randy complimented as he began to make himself comfortable on one of the couches, taking up most of the space as he laid on it.

“How did you know he wouldn’t kill you?” Monique asked as she leaned against the wall, looking at the area to see if they needed an escape route. Soon though Bearnard came back with a large silver platter with refreshments ranging from simple tea to ale, with a few sandwiches as well.

“Aight laddies and lassies, how long ave ye known the black beasty?” Bearnard asked the Heat Team as he sat down in a rather large ornate chair with what seemed to be fangs on top of the it , his eyes hard and unmoving as he judged the group.

“Well, since Godzilla was a baby. I found him in the sewers just after he hatched” Nick said, grabbing a cup of tea, “He seemed to have bonded to me, like a baby chick to its mother” Bearnard smiled

“It’s more than that laddie” he said, picking up a glass of ale, “You showed that today. That there beastie has picked ya ta be their spokesman, so ta speak” he said and the entire crew looked at Nick then at Bearnard,

“What do you mean? Godzilla bonded with Nick because he was the first living creature he saw out of the egg” Elise said and Bearnard shook his head,

“They’re smarter than ya give them credit fer lass” he said, “All these big beasties could be smarter then all’a us. They feel like we do, as you could see with Nessie, Nelly and your Godzilla” he said with a smile, “And as I said, me family’s been lookin’ after the Ladies of the Loch fer generations. They know who are good folk and who ain’t” he added proudly, though there was still an air of confusion in the room.

“Wait so Jefe is going to start signing the Big G for contract deals?” Randy asked as he picked up a sandwich from the tray, of course the more adult members just rolled their eyes at the terrible joke.

“ Tha's not wha' 'm gettin' at ya numpty. I mean yer the one they go ta fer talkin' ta people!” Brandon exclaimed to the young the young hacker a glare which caused him to slightly falter under the gaze of the scotsman.

“Wha’ I mean is ‘aht the beasties ‘re protectors and they need someone ta speak to and fer ‘em.” Bernard further explained as he took a sip from his cup to soothe his throat from all this group of tourists were giving him. Nick currently had his hand stroking his chin in thought, but soon a thought came into his mind.

“Bernard if us and our respective monsters have this type of bond who else does?” Nick asked the Scotsman who quickly tried to answer but no answers came out and began to think about what the mutant scientist just said. As he did all around the world odd occurrences, an earthquake in the desert, a volcanic island began to smoke, all over Australia sandstorms were blowing across the continent, just off the coast of Africa the ocean began to froth and bubble, lastly inside a secret lab a new life and a new sport was born.

#godzilla #zilla jr #nessie #nessie jr #nelly #godzilla 1998

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such-a-random-rambler · 5 years

Text

Happy Christmas

Since @tagsecretsanta works so hard to arrange our secret santa exchange, I thought it was time they got something in return.

So, as with the rest of us they gave me three prompts and the one I choose was ‘Scott and Virgil and kids at Christmas’ so here you go - Merry Christmas and thank you @tagsecretsanta

“Would you want one of these, one day?” Virgil asked.

Scott peered at him in the dim light. Though only sitting against the opposite wall, Virgil’s features were difficult to make out. Scott gave a one shouldered shrug in response, being careful not to disturb anyone.

“Weird.” Said Virgil “I always thought you would make a great dad.”

They had been trapped in this room for nearly eight hours now. A combination of high winds and acid rain had meant it wasn’t safe to take off. The flash flood made it impossible to leave the room. Damage to this mining complex’s communications array made Thunderbird Five indecipherable due to static, at least until the storm passed. It had been a crazy day, not the normal Tuesday.

The only place to seek refuge had been this cramped supply closet. Okay it was large as supply closets went, but still far too small for six people, even small people. Far from the best place to spend the night, let alone this particular night.

“I haven’t really thought about it.” lied Scott.

“Sure.” Scoffed Virgil.

It would have been alright if it was just the two of them - well not alright: it was always tough to be on a callout on the important days – but they could manage. It came with the job and no-one took a missed birthday or anniversary personally. It was the kids that Scott felt sorry for.

They had managed to evacuate all of the miners before the storm swept in, but the children had been holed up in their school room across the camp. Scott and Virgil had barely made it to them before the weather got too bad and there was no way to get them out.

To their credit they had been very brave: comforted by the soothing tones of confident adults who never let their own fear show. Virgil and Scott had been hard pressed to distract them though.

Tonight they should have been in the main compound with their families, putting the finishing touches to the Christmas tree. They should have put out stockings and a plate of mince pies for Santa (plus carrots for the reindeer). There should have been hot chocolate while wrapped in blankets and watching The Muppets Christmas Carol.

That was Christmas Eve, not this: stuck in their school store room with two strangers.

When Scott and Virgil realised they were going to be taking up temporary residence they set to wearing out the four energetic ten-year-olds as quickly as possible. They raided the school supplies without compunction and the room was now full of pictures, Christmas lists, paper chains, garlands, paper snowflakes and origami stars. They used every craft and game in their arsenal to fill the time and stop them all dwelling on what a shit Christmas Eve this had turned out to be.

When the wind had picked up further Scot and Virgil had told the children that it would be most fun –meaning safe – to camp in this small room with no windows. Now they were both trapped with one child sleeping on each side using their legs as a pillow, blankets wrapped tight. Scott couldn’t blame them for taking what comfort they could despite the absence of their parents.

“What?”

“You’re Scott Tracy, you plan everything. Of course you’ve at least considered it.” Virgil said.

Scott frowned. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with being prepared and I seldom hear you complaining when I’ve bought along just he piece of gear we need.”

“Then what do you think?” Virgil nodded at the forms sleeping on them. “Do you want a family of your own?”

“Well, in theory yes, but practically is a whole different ball game.”

“Why?”

“For one thing we are spending Christmas Eve holed up half way around the world from home, and will do to well into Christmas Day. It takes a pretty special person to be prepared to put up with that sort of crap.”

“Special people do exist though.” Virgil countered, ever the optimist.

“Sure, but first I have to find them, and to find them I have to talk to more than just people I happen to be rescuing at that moment.”

“So take a day off. Go to a club – I’d make a great wingman.”

“That’s not really my scene.” Scott scrunched up his face in distaste.

“Stop seeing problems! We’re solutions people.”

Scott gave a deep sigh.

“I don’t think I could do that to someone, do that to those hypothetical kids.”

“Do what?” Virgil asked.

“Make them sit and wait every time. We get a taste of it sure, but for every mission, every rescue, they would be sitting at home wondering if this was the time that we were too daring. If this time the problem was too big. If this time someone wasn’t coming home.”

Scott had often wondered if they would be in this line of work if Mom were still alive. Would she be sitting at home right now, checking and rechecking the equipment, waiting anxiously for them to get back in touch? Maybe she would be pacing – she was always full of energy so Scott didn’t know if she could sit and wait. Or maybe she was doing something – cleaning, cooking, painting – anything to fill her hands while her thoughts were far away.

“Or they could be sitting there thinking how proud they are.” Virgil was saying. “I’m not going to say I’m not worried when one of you guys is out there without me, it makes me feel sick I’m so scared for you. But that’s nothing compared to the look on people’s faces when we get them out of trouble. Think of what these guys parents are going to look like when we get out of here.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason I do it, but that’s not good enough to put someone else through it.” Scott told him.

“Thing is Scott, you don’t necessarily get to make that choice for someone. If I manage to get you off the island long enough to run into this special person you don’t get to decide how much they can cope with.”

Scott thought about that, really thought about what it would be like to raise children on the island. They’d learn to walk along the beaches. He would need to put in guard rails around the pool until Gordon taught them to swim. Maybe John could home school them for a bit - because he was by far the best teacher – just until they were old enough to spend some time away. Not that he would want them to go to boarding school as such but they didn’t exactly live in any school’s catchment area and he would want them to have meet other kids. He would teach them to fly, of course, in one of the light aircraft they kept for when a Thunderbird would be overkill. They’d spend time baking with Grandma and drawing pictures of the rain forest. Kayo would tell them stories about hero’s and villains, Virgil teach them the piano, Alan would game with them and Brains would probably make a robotic pet.

In all his musing – now or before – it never occurred to Scott that neither he nor his family would be living anywhere but the island.

“I’ll tell you one thing, no child of mine will be joining International Rescue.” Scott said gruffly.

Virgil laughed, being sure to keep it low and quiet. “That will be another thing that you don’t get to decide. But I’m glad we’ve moved on from ‘it’ll never happen’ though.”

Maybe Mom wouldn’t have been waiting at home. Maybe she would have been out with them. She never once asked someone else for a favour she wasn’t prepared to do in return: maybe this would have been no different. Part of Scott knew that his memories were coloured through the lenses of childhood, time and the firm belief that he had the best Mom ever. But the other part believed that his Mom would be as fearless in the face of natural disasters as she was fighting for the last of that year’s must-have toy.

Yeah, his Mom would have made a great Thunderbird pilot. Scott felt a smile spread across his face at the thought. Virgil looked puzzled, not knowing where Scott’s musings had taken him.

“What about you? See a family in your future?” Scott asked his little brother.

“Yep.” Virgil grinned. “A whole football team’s worth.”

“And maybe that’s something you don’t get to decide” Scott chuckled.

“Probably.” Virgil agreed without any less humour.

“Then maybe we should go out together at some point – meet some people who aren’t scared to death for a change.”

Before Virgil could answer a high pitched beep started to emanate from Scott’s wrist. He moved to silence it as quickly as he could, but one of the children still woke slightly, muttered, and then snuggled in closer.

It was always a challenge to keep up with who was in which time zone. John could tell you who had recently eaten, who had slept or who was three days younger than they should be because they’d crossed the International Date Line too often without even looking up from his coffee. Scott couldn’t do any of those things and had a hard time keeping straight where was day and where was night, so he kept his watch set to island time – a small anchor to home.

The beep could only mean one thing – back on a small friendly island in the middle of a large uncaring ocean it was midnight. It was Christmas day.

Everyone might be fast asleep right now, the turning of the day going unnoticed. As Thunderbird Two was still mid-mission they were probably still awake and exchanging the first greeting and hugs of the day, John giving his virtually for now. Scott wasn’t about to let thousands of miles get in the way of joining in.

“Happy Christmas Virgil. Not how I wanted to start the day.”

“Happy Christmas Scott. Be neither, but ” Virgil looked down fondly at the sleeping forms that were pinning him down. “It could be worse.”

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noddytheornithopod · 5 years

Text

MML New Episode Commentary Dump

There’s a lot of them soooooo

Lady Krillers:

“You recast all the men as women? You got a greenlight.” Ugh, it’s gonna be one of THOSE episodes.

Melissa is the voice of reason of course

“I had the most horrible dream... they were making a Krillhunter movie without Tobias.” Narrowly dodged a bullet there. And it continues through the episode. Too close, guys.

Tobias is wealthy, your gag just ruined any investment I had in this. :V

“Milo’s friend girl” bleh

Melissa is joining in, so much for voice of reason.

Okay, the alien fight in the background was funny.

“Lindana” we get it, Phineas and Ferb was a thing.

That song montage... it was uncomfortable. I’m cis so I’m an oblivious weirdo, but I do think there’s a couple of things that are kinda transmisogynist in here, with stuff like the shaving and the “lol ‘she’s’ strong ‘she’ put a guy down”. Not to mention it feels so sexist in that he has to be a woman in the most conventionally feminine way possible, bah.

Tobias puts on a shitty “guy as woman” voice, of course he does.

Okay this Cavendish and Dakota subplot is so forgettable I was literally zoning out. MML, what happened?

Tobias Trollhammer is embodying male entitlement, seriously.

The whole “she’s just like a female Tobias” thing is dumb too, it feels like it casts people out to want the exact same thing but women. These reboots are always new takes, or even outright new characters. And like... that’s the issue. Tobias isn’t irrelevant, he still has a fuckton of Krillhunter movies. I’m not interested in some whiny old dude with a million dollars. :V

He’s cast as the villain, ha ha ha.

“We do what we want with no regard to plot or character or making sense to the people watching.” MML, are you lowkey admitting something? ;P

The bison thing at the end is so lame. Seriously.

Okay... Tobias is actually satisfied with being the villain, and Milo is only concerned about the sudden character change. For a rather stupid episode, this is a surprising compromise. I’m not quite sure how to feel about it, TBH? It’s better than what I expected, but I’m not sure I’m satisfied.

Still though, this episode is dumb. The end.

The Goulash Legacy:

Goulash dude is meh.

“Humans and machines had a friendly relationship.” oh, so there IS some robot uprising at some point.

That kid finding the idea ridiculous seems to be the audience surrogate. :V

“Let’s go outside and see what Dr D is up to”. THIS IS TOTALLY NOT PNF GUYS

Doof sung the Moon ice-cream song... we get it, Phineas and Fe- oh wait Doof is here in general.

Norm is back... huh. He seems irrelevant though, just another invention.

Okay, chicken-replace-inator is eh, but Doof being insistent on how it works is kinda funny.

“Did that man just kiss his chicken?” What’s wrong with showing affections to pets, Miss Chase? :V

Zack is going in to get an inator even though they always fuck up... is Jackie supposed to be here again? Seriously, this feels so OOC. No reason for it, and he’s meant to be the most cautious.

Norm seems like he’s just a gag for now. Meh.

Diogee has four feet, why do his forelimbs have human feet now instead of usual dog feet, or even dog hind feet????

Zack is really carrying the idiot ball in this episode. You deserve better, man.

Diogee has hands... okay, that actually made me laugh.

Recurring raccon isn’t dead. SIGH.

So the Goulash robot comes to life. Okay.

“Paprika!” That’s going into outright so bad it’s good territory.

Love Handel. Seriously.

And the fucking robot gets stuck in a time capsule and also comes to life and is the statue at the start. Okay then.

Yet another “meh” episode. I kinda feel like the show is trying too hard to be weird now, TBH? Also seriously, Norm feels like his character is reduced to a punchline again and Zack was an idiot.

Also... I kinda feel like they treat MML on the same level as PnF too much when it REALLY isn’t.

The Dog Who Knew Too Much

Diogee episode, huh.

Lol I wonder why the museum of sharp objects doesn’t attract families

Perry is here at the talent show. Okay then.

Oh great, Doof being a pain at home, just what I want. Also... Sara has a few clothes lying around too even if it’s mostly Doof. :v

The mum thing is now even worse with Brigitte saying Doof is Sara’s brother. Ugh.

“Why does he live here again?” Because the writers said so.

The cops are targeting Murphys. Well then. Poor Martin though.

So Perry and Diogee escape from new random dudes because Diogee ate the USB shaped like a cookie. Okay.

Doof is still mad at Perry, and he just leaves. Okay.

Oh it’s that old lady again. K.

omg the eye balls lol

And Milo returns at the end. Wow.

Another meh episode, you know how it goes. Guess if you want a proper Perry and Diogee team up you might get something out of it. But eh.

Adventure Buddies:

OH HI VANESSA, YOU ACTUALLY STILL EXIST

“You’re spending too much time alone.” Just outright say he’s fucked off for too long and forgotten about you until now. :P

Oh, Vanessa reminding Doof of Perry, hmm?

The breakup drama, it’s glorious.

Vanessa is now gone, RIP. Guess like Norm it was literally just a “hey I still exist” moment. :v

Vanessa casually walks out and says hi to Brigitte. This is so fucking weird. So she’s visited before? Okay then. I mean good that Vanessa and Norm still exist, but it feels weird they’re still really neglected.

Doof is looking for Diogee now, K.

Milo looking dreamily at Zack- oh wait it’s just him having a thing written in someone’s book he’s happy about.

Brick and Savannah on Pistachio Duty is much funnier than the majority of the stuff I’ve just watched.

Doof waving to Vanessa at the start and saying to Milo to tell her he found an adventure buddy is sweet, not gonna lie.

Doof going on an adventure with Scott. Okay then.

Zack suggests a tetanus shot. Vaccination is good, kids! Vaccinate! Don’t listen to those Walking on Water founders or Greg Cipes, vaccinate!

I was starting to be lost on the Adventure Buddies thing but... Doof misses Perry and Scott with Mildred (who are clearly presented as a couple, mind you) doesn’t help things.

And they butt heads over it, with Doof even making his own girlfriend. Ooooh.

Professor Time mention. Fun.

Doof goes back home and he goes back to being all “I’ll go where they accept me” and it’s the Murphys. Granted they’re not into him being covered in sewer water, but this episode was setting up him realising how much he misses Perry, I swear.

This episode I felt was better... but then the ending came and fucked it up. So another to the mediocre pile regardless of Vanessa and Perry moments (which again despite being nice are still “why is there so much PnF?”).

Ride Along Little Doggie:

“Late in the season when the writers are tired.” Bleh.

Milo gets Amanda a drink, heh.

“I’m nominated for most tolerant friend.” “Is that a joke?” “Don’t push me lady.” WELL THEN.

Also... Zack pulling Melissa away when she was getting feisty. Kinda shippy if you ask me. :P

Elliot is fun thankfully.

Okay, I’m kinda tired of the Zippy gag now.

The recurring raccoon appears without the annoying theme song. This is a first. :V

Don’t tell me Diogee is gonna be a fucking cop dog.

Bradley is back with the stupid plant arm for a green thumb gag. Meh.

Yep, Diogee is a cop dog.

Murphy’s Law really stopping the award lol.

Greatest perseverance, what a surprise. Also lol, she kisses Milo and before she caught him. Are they a thing now?

Where the heck did Melissa go? And why wasn’t she staying around with the Murphys, nevermind Zack?

It was okay I guess? Pretty forgettable, but I had less issues than the other episodes. Milo subplot actually wasn’t too bad, it still had quite a bit that was just average but it had a few nice moments.

#mml spoilers #milo murphy's law

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cannibalisticshadows · 5 years

Note

AHSHAAUGAFAF MEGAMINDS TAIL OAO - anyways - metro mans kinda a lil bitch for being so “creeped out” at megaminds alien biology when really he probably has his own alien problems too and thats the tea

AO3

Loving The Alien (Part 12)

(trypophobia warning toward the end of the chapter)

(I also want to thank @the-megamind for helping me generate ideas :D)

Roxanne nearly drops a pan when she hears the banging on her door. It’s obvious whoever is knocking at not even six in the morning is here for a reason, and a major one at that. Huffing, she sets the pan on the stove and wipes her hands on her robe. With shuffling feet she goes to the door.

“Who’s th—“

“Miss Ritchi!” The robotic screech of Minion’s suit voice tore through the door with clear agitation.

She blinked rapidly, because one, how on earth did Minion get up the flight of stairs, or the elevator, without causing mass panic, and two, why was he here? How did he know Megamind was here (assuming that’s the reason he’s here)? Without another thought she unlocked her door and found—she found not Minion, but also Wayne, standing in his superhero get-up with the most miserable look on his face.

“Can…I help you two?”

Minion, without saying another word, marched past her into her apartment with barely a second look. She opened her mouth to protest, but Wayne was following Minion’s lead by more or less forcing himself inside uninvited.

“SIR!” Minion belows, spinning around in his suit’s bowl head as he searched for his friend. “SIR, I’M HERE!”

Roxanne pinched the bridge of her nose. She had no patience for nonsense this morning but it was clear Minion wasn’t here to kidnapping. Clearly. Megamind said so himself he was stopping that. But did Minion know? Did he know why his boss/friend was hiding here with her?

“What are you guys doing here?” She hissed at Wayne, pulling her robe tighter around her when his eyes drifted below his face (her sleep tank top wasn’t the most modest thing).

“When you said… uh… that the little guy was all right now, I kind of went searching for Minion.”

She stared at him.

“Turns out he was looking for him too!”

She sighs. Honestly, a very selfish part of her just wanted to spend a lazy day off work with none other than Megamind. However she knew that the one who knew Megamind best was not her, not in the slightest. So Roxanne motioned to Minion, and says, “He’s up in my room.”

Minion doesn’t so much as give her another second because he’s already storming up the stairs with his big mechanical gorilla feet. She winces, hearing the stairs creek in his wake.

“SIR,” Minion yells again and throws the door open before vanishing inside. If Minion wasn’t a literal (alien) fish, Roxanne would feel terrified of a man throwing himself into her bedroom like hell in a suit. But, this was Minion and had probably spent more time with her unconscious than anything.

She hears Megamind squawk in surprise, and then Minion is marching back out again with him thrown over his shoulder. Megamind kicks his limbs and shouts, “Damn you! Put me down!”

“This is so inappropriate, sir!” Minion cried. “In Miss Ritchi’s bed?! WHY didn’t you call me when you lost your tail again!?”

“PUT ME DOWN, MINION.”

They’re yelling, now, with Megamind climbing all over this friend’s impossibly large robotic suit and Minion trying to grab Megamind by the waist to keep him still. Megamind is clumsy, though, and she can tell the “phantom pain”, as he put it, is evident as he tries to regain his balance.

“Okay, stop! Both of you!” She yells. Both of them turn to her with wide eyes. “Minion, there’s nothing to worry about. Megamind’s just been resting here.”

“And that’s incredibly unethical!”

“Don’t be a prune, Minion,” Megamind grumbles, having been caught and forcefully squeezed into a bridal position. It would be almost comical, seeing him struggle in the big mechanical arms of his friend, but right now all she worried about was Megamind being “kidnapped” in a weird scene, or his tail stub to start bleeding from all the struggling.

“What are you even DOING here!?” The fish asks, clearly in distress. Roxanne finally takes pity on him and sending a glance to Wayne, who looks just about ready to leave as quickly as possible, she walks over to Minion to insist he put Megamind down.

“Minion, it’s okay. We had… a date last night.”

The fish looked at her like she was the weirdest one in the room.

“A date,” he echoes.

“Not really,” Megamind whines. “Before anything happened, Mr. Elephant here showed up.”

“Look, little buddy…”

“Don’t even start with me.”

“Mr. Scott informed me that he caught you two in a very inapt position,” Minion barked, to which Megamind blew air out of his cheeks, blushing lilac. “I’m taking you back home now, Sir. Enough playing.”

Both she and Megamind jolt. “For one, I’m not playing, and you can’t tell me what to do,” the blue alien whined. “I’m quite…” he glances at her, a clear question in his eyes. She nodded. “I’m quite comfortable here!”

“Sir, this is completely—“

“Minion, this is SO not your place—“

“I’m sure Miss Ritchi has to go to her job, now! She’s much too busy for—“

“She’s taking a sick day!”

“Miss Ritchi doesn’t know how to care for you like I—“

“We ate together!”

This was not the response she’d expect from Megamind to quiet Minion. Yet it was everything that needed to be known, or at least understood, for the otherworldly fish. His jaw dropped open, a few bubbles exiting his mouth. She shared a glance with Wayne over the unfolding scene.

And then the little fish grits his fangs. Roxanne knows without a doubt these two are going to be fighting, and it probably shouldn’t be anything she or Wayne should be privy to. So, she takes the more humanoid alien by the hand and leads him to the balcony. Once outside, she shuts the door behind her. Immediately the two inside start yelling. Oh, boy, she thought gloomy. Megamind hadn’t mentioned their new relationship status at all.

“So… you and him?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“But, he’s… Megamind. I can’t really imagine him as the boyfriend type.”

“You’d be surprised.”

When she heard a chair being knocked over, she winced. So did Wayne, but he covers his head in his hands.

“If your superhearing is that bothered, then you shouldn’t have come.”

He frowns. “Look… Roxie, I know it’s not really my business, but…” He winces again.

And Roxanne understands his pain. The physical pain, that is.

They’ve known each other for a while. Actually, a little longer than she’s known Megamind. After all he was the one to originally kidnap her because of her affiliation with Metro Man.

It goes to say that she and Wayne are somewhat like friends. Sometimes he’s taken her out for coffee after a particularly grueling kidnapping, or they’ve gone out for sushi, a shared enjoyment (she tended to avoid fish-based things after years of knowing her two serial kidnappers [that is, apparently, until now]).

She’s seen his little hideout by the bay, under this old one-room schoolhouse.

So, naturally, it wasn’t strange for them to pick up on the little things in the other. Quirks. Pet peeves. Hobbies. Tastes. Strange alien abilities she’d never guess.

Ooh yes. Wayne was so not off the hook for last night. No way. Not after what happened with Megamind. Especially so, since Wayne wasn’t one to talk.

So, yes, Wayne, she thought to herself bitterly, you had no room to talk about Megamind’s alienness. He has his own little alien quirk, too.

“If you make one nasty comment, one, on our relationship I am throwing you over the balcony myself.”

“That’s not gonna—“

“I don’t care, and you better apologize to him.”

“It’s not—“

“You removed his tail.”

“It comes off on its own!”

“How is that any less wrong!?”

She hears something being turned over in her living room, and with a great strength, she holds herself from turning around to look inside. She did trust Megamind enough not to turn her home into a complete disaster. More or less. Yet before she can say anything she hears, in a loud insisting yell, “Well maybe I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore!”

And then Minion’s squeal of shock.

And then a long silence.

And then the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut.

She waits there for a whole second before the glass doors open.

“Roxanne,” Megamind states. She turns around and swallows.

He’s looking a little worse for wear. Clearly the signs of a passionate fight show on his face, with puffy purple cheeks and ears. He hangs his head and steps aside from the entrance way. “It’s just me, now.”

“Are you okay?” She asked awkwardly, tentatively touching his shoulder. He shrugs, giving her little information as to what just happened between them. She and Wayne follow him inside, watching him collapse on the sofa.

She quickly moves to sit beside him. He looks so tired, now. He pouts, with his brows scrunched together so hard she wonders if he’ll hurt his face.

“Do you want breakfast?” She asks him, patting his head.

“Sure,” he sighs, but pressed against her in a loose fetal position and closes his eyes. Not sparing a glance at Wayne, or even warning him for what she’s about to do, she tugs his sleep pants down an inch to expose his stump. He grunts but doesn’t move her.

It’s still the same dark pink color, not as glossy anymore but still puffy with the blood pumping through his slim body. She’s been keeping an eye on it this whole time, but even so, she wants to cry or cringe because this appendage she’s so accustomed to seeing is literally gone. It’s just gone. Not forever, but it’s… gone.

Wayne looks away.

Good, she thinks bitterly. Let him see it. She gently pulls the elastic band back up, this time letting it pop his skin a little. It’s ineffective.

When she leaves the couch in favor of making him something to eat (and for herself), she gives Wayne a look and crosses her arms. “You need to apologize to him. Big time. For all the times!”

He rubs the back of his neck.

She picks up a spray can of olive oil and coats a pan, quietly placing it on the stove because as much a she felt like slamming it down, Megamind was already asleep on the couch.

“Things are changing, Wayne,” she sighs, pulling a carton of eggs and a variety of vegetables and other foodstuffs out of her fridge. “He’s already trying to accept that. You need to, too.”

He sits at her bar and is just… quiet. For a long time, as she’s already whipping eggs together in a bowl with chopped onions, spinach, pepper, tomatoes, and cheese, the apartment is eerily quiet for once, with the only sounds being her puttering around.

With the omelet starting to fry on the pan, Wayne finally moves off the stool.

Out of the corner of her eye, still hovering over the stove with her spatula in hand, she watches him approach the other alien by crouching down beside him.

“Hey… Blue…”

She briefly wondered where the naming of his color of skin came from and wondered if Megamind would see that as if a white person called an African “Black”. However, when Megamind opened one eye, face half pressed into her red cushions, he regarded this life-long energy with just a suspicious glare.

“Look. I’m sorry about last night. I may have overreacted….”

She’s two seconds from blowing up on “may have”, but Megamind beats her to it by saying, quite quietly, “One time too many. Five times I can count, including last night.”

“Those times happened as kids, man.”

“Tell that to the growing pains, jack hat.”

She knows he’s being literal, Roxanne thinks with a wince.

Wayne smacks his lips and gives a glance to Roxanne. She glares and just vigorously nods her head.

“Look… I think half the reason we all really felt… threatened by you was your—“

“Yes, yes, my appearance,” Megamind hisses, sitting up now. His borrowed top slips off one of his slender blue shoulders, the one with a tattoo. “The tail. The extra fingers. The eyes. The teeth,” he bares them. “Not to mention the time I lost my tail or had my shoes stolen.”

Why would stolen shoes be so bad?

“You,” Megamind goes on, laying on the truth very, very thickly. “You were Mr. Perfect, all smiles and charm and charismatic heroism. Winning the other chee-ildren with a single look. Despite your freakish strength and powers, they all flocked to you, didn’t they? Oh, no, no one could hate Mr. Perfect. Not him! Not even if secretly all the other children had somewhat of a fear for an indestructible child, in which no-one could stop if he had so much as a temper tantrum!”

The room is so quiet that Roxanne thinks she can hear her own heartbeat.

Wayne stands up. He hangs his head. “I’m sorry. I really am. But… would you believe me if I said I was jealous?”

Megamind doesn’t buy it for a second and leans over to rest his chin on his fists. “Oh? Was it my incredible genius that intimidated your tiny mind?”

“No. It was because your alien abilities weren’t as freakish as mine!”

Megamind stares at him. “How so?”

Wayne tries to search Roxanne’s eyes for somewhat of a backup. And though she is still furious at him, she does nod and encourages him silently.

Wayne then brings his hand up to his head and runs his fingers through his graying hair, moving away a chunk of greased locks to expose the hundreds of tiny, little holes in his scalp.

Megamind says nothing, and sits very still.

“They’re… ears. Like. I can hear basically everything in this city. It’s frustrating as heck! And not to mention ear wax. This sounds disgusting but most of the time my hair looks this good is because of the wax. It’s—ew. I know.”

“Is that all?” Megamind is massaging his temples now, but in no way does he appear to be grossed out. Or even that tased.

“Um… not really. No. But. Look. I’m saying sorry. And I really mean it.”

He say nothing. He turns and his eyes meet with Roxanne, but for once she doesn’t know what to say to this. This is between them. It’s probably not even okay for her to be present for this conversation, but she does need to make him something to ea—OH SHIT, she’s forgotten the omelet. She throws herself over to the oven and flips it, cursing as it’s scorched on the bottom.

As for what happened next between the two aliens, she is not privy to, because when she turns around Wayne is leaving through the balcony.

She scavenges the good parts of the omelet and fills a glass with organic orange juice. Walking over to him, she gives him a look over. He’s hunched over, still massaging his temples.

When she sits beside him does he finally look at her.

“I’m on better terms with him,” he nods to the balcony, “than with my best friend.”

She brings a hand up to rub his back, balancing the plate on her lap. “Minion… is quite protective of you.”

“You’ve no idea. I fear I’ve kept this from him for too long for him to take it easy.”

“He’ll come around. You two are the closest friends I’ve ever known.”

He smiles ruefully at this.

She runs her hand down his back once more. He’s so slim she can feel the ridges of his spin. Is that normal? “Here. Eat something,” she offers the plate.

He takes the plate but keeps it where their thighs are touching. “Eat with me.”

“Anything you need.”

“We need. You haven’t had anything to eat since last afternoon? If you hadn’t already had dinner. I saw your news report before coming to look for you.”

“Oh?” She chuckles. “And how did you find me?”

He turns purple. “I may… have a few brain bots around the city to alert me of your wear-a-boots.”

She shakes her head, but can’t find an atom in her to feel creeped out. As long as they were in this together, it felt like nothing could tear them apart.

#loving the alien #megamind

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