Of Veils and Polish, Part One (2015-07-09)

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“It looks like we have a stowaway!”

The heavy cloth which she is hiding under is suddenly lifted, the harsh, bright sunlight filling her tiny alcove between crates and barrels. The silhouette of a man, wide torso, short legs, breaks the wide expanse of sky. She blinks, blinded and scared.

“Come on out, now, there’s a lass,” the man–one of the sailors of the ship–says, in a loud gravelly voice that, nonetheless, manages to be comforting. It’s rough and honest and so removed from what she came from that it nearly brings her to tears from relief, even if it conflicted with her plans. She had been found before the ship left port.

“You’ve gone and scared her, Ed,” another of the sailors, shadow a little thinner and shorter, knocks shoulders against the first man.

“Have not!” Ed immediately protests, jostling the newcomer in return, before softening and asking, “I haven’t, have I lass?”

She shakes her head, tremulously, before crawling her way out of the cargo, careful to keep a hand on her small pack.

“Oh, wow,” says the second sailor, as she finally stands in the sunlight, “Red hair.”

She twitches–or perhaps, flinches–before hastily pulling her fallen hood back over her head.

“Don’t be a gawking barnacle, Ram,” Ed scolds, smacking his friend, “Don’t you have other things to be doing?” He not so subtly suggests.

“Right, yeah, sorry about that, lass. It’s nice, is all,” Ram says in a rush, before climbing up some ropes to the mast.

“He won’t tell anyone,” Ed reassures, before briefly patting her on the shoulder and gesturing with a head toss towards the cabins, “I’ve got to bring you to the captain, though. Stowaway protocol.” He explains.

She nods silently, unsurprised. She had expected to be found eventually, she was just ashamed she had been found so soon.

Almost as if fate is mocking her, it takes them a while to find the captain,. He’s not in his cabin as Ed had expected, because apparently Captain Delano is a very hands on leader.

When she first sees him, she thinks he’s just the cook’s hand, peeling potatoes in the corner of the kitchen, which Ed explains to her is called the galley. The cook, a man shorter than even her, yet twice as wide–from muscles, not fat–takes one look at her and Ed, then barks out, “Stowaway!”

She jerks, startled. So does the captain.

But where she, at least, remains standing, the captain flails off his makeshift barrel seat and lands in the pile of peelings. He then sits back up, meets her eyes, and gleefully exclaims, “A stowaway!”

It’s a fairly perplexing beginning to an extremely perplexing relationship.

~

A/N: This is vaguely part of an old fic I had planned out called Of Veils and Polish. This part is actually the end/not even mentioned in the fic proper; I guess I’ll try to find a different title then. I’ll… probably do a part two to this in which narrator and the captain actually speak to each other and there’s some ~expository dialogue! for why she’s in this situation.

Trailblazers drabble (2015-07-08)

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During one of their monthly cake eating gatherings (which Kyoko and Haru keep trying to make a weekly occurrence) the topic of box familiars came up. In particular, everyone’s box familiar’s names.

Unsurprisingly, Tetsuki named hers after archery, Yuzuru’s sinuous yet firm shape reminding her of a stringed bow. Haru’s Koushaku was certainly intimidating enough to be considered royalty, but the massive antlers and freaking tusks were more nightmare fuel than fairy tale prince. Kyoko’s kamaitachi were somehow collectively named Yakushi, after the god of healing, though they were three separate creatures. Although, when not in use at the clinic, they were a force of mischief and more often than not called ‘those damn weasels’ than their actual name.

The less said about Chrome’s box familiar–which might actually be Mukuro’s box familiar or, possibly, Mukuro himself–the better.

Hana refused to have a box familiar because, as she often ranted, having an animal manifest itself from some mystical energy within her was ridiculous and impossible and stupid. Hana wasn’t a nurturer and liked her solitude–whether to escape from idiots, children, or animals–so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she didn’t want a box familiar. But in theory, if she were to have one, it’d probably be named something like Momo or Fuku.

“So what you’re saying is, you want a pet goldfish,” Tetsuki asked with a raised brow, lightly teasing.

Hana, in a rare fit of immaturity, stuck her tongue out in response.

They moved onto discussing the others’ choice for their familiars’ names. Everyone agreed that Ryohei’s Kangaryuu was so obvious, but very typical of him. Takeshi’s Kojirou (and Jirou) likewise made sense, considering the historical sword-master was known for a technique named after a swallow. They were all rather confused as to why Hayato chose melon of all things to name his storm cat. As for Hibari-senpai’s hedgehog, a consensus could not be made on whether the name Roll should be attributed to his bluntness or his not-so-secret fondness for cute things.

Their discussion of box familiar names, which had the potential to go on forever, ended when Tsuna’s choice was brought up.

“I think it’s a nice name. Very poetic.” Tetsuki stated simply, appreciative of the symbolism involved in naming a sky lion after summer.

They stared at her incredulously. Kyoko’s lips were pressed tightly into a line to reign in her laughter. Haru wasn’t even bothering with that, curling her face into her arms, fists banging against the table as she snorted into her elbow. Chrome gently pressed both hands to her mouth, as if to ward off a scathing correction from the part of her mind that may or may not be Mukuro.

Hana, deciding to have mercy on her senpai, or perhaps to spare everyone second hand embarrassment, said, “Say the stupid lion’s name five times quickly.”

Confused, but unconcerned, Tetsuki did just that. “NatsuNaTsuNaTsunaTsunaTsu–Oh my god!” She shrieked her realization, “It’s just his own name backwards!”

At that, Kyoko couldn’t stop herself and burst out laughing alongside Haru whose guffaws gained a renewed strength. Chrome, shaking her head in sympathy, gently patted Tetsuki’s shoulder in an attempt at comfort.

Hana could only face palm, despairing at the other women around the table.

~

A/N: Because I only realized belatedly that Natsu’s name is literally Tsuna backwards and I felt so ashamed I figure Tetsuki should also get to feel it too. And also, well, for all that she’s the “sensible” Guardian that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s observant. Rather, she’s almost hilariously unobservant and probably the only reason why she never falls for various lies/disguises is because she’s mistrustful not because she’s particularly clever.

Untitled drabble (2015-07-07)

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The math department thinks she has narcolepsy, which is pretty convenient, even though that’s not really how narcolepsy works.

“I don’t know, math is just really soothing okay?”

It’s somehow both frustrating and hilarious because on the one hand, she sleeps through math class–has slept through math classes–and yet somehow still has the best grades on test and exams. On the other hand… well…

There was a math teacher whose resting facial expression wasn’t so much “bitch” face so much as it was “I’m meticulously planning your journey to hell” face. So you can imagine how terrifying he was when he was actually angry.

Needless to say, he was pretty mad when she fell asleep in class even though he assigned her middle seat in the front row. Just. Right there. Where everyone would see her. At some point, she did actually wake up, looked around fuzzily, locked eyes with the teacher’s soul-rending glare, then promptly went back to sleep.

Everyone stayed silent, not out of respect, but out of fear that they would burst out laughing and have that glare turned on them instead.

“I’m going to be honest, I maybe didn’t go back to sleep so much as I might have passed out from fright.”

Of course, then she would effortlessly score A’s on all the exams turning her, while not into the teacher’s pet, certainly into the category of whatever works.

What’s surprising is that she’s not some kind of math genius. She’s actually learning in classes while she sleeps.

She’s a fairly popular choice for study sessions, not only because of her good grades, but because she somehow remembered which concepts were taught during which lesson. And, hearing her interpretation of their coursework through her sleep-lens is fairly entertaining.

~

A/N: Yeah, I know, pretty blah. I’m pretty tired but I didn’t want to have a missed post. I also could not think of a way to make math ludicrous at this point in time. I dunno. Happy 0707, everyone.

Untitled Darcy Lewis drabbles (2015-07-06)

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Darcy Lewis looks a lot like her grandmother: Rebecca “Becca” Lewis, née Barnes.

—

When Darcy was younger, in the rare times when she could sit still for longer than two seconds, her grandmother would tell her stories. But that is not such an unusual thing, many grandmothers tell stories to their grandchildren, more often than not stories about their own childhood. But Grandma Becca’s stories were different. Although Darcy would only learn that in hindsight, almost twenty years later.

“They both were such punks,” Grandma Becca would sigh fondly, eyes catching on Darcy’s second-hand Captain America and Howling Commandos action figures scattered on the carpet. They’d been her dad’s originally, and so the paint was a little faded and scuffed. They weren’t like the new versions with the lights and the voices, but these ones were better because sometimes her dad would play, too.

“Even when they were grown men, soldiers, all I could think about was the idiotic boys I grew up with.”

Darcy would nod solemnly in response, because every eight year old girl knows that boys can be stupid sometimes.

“For one of my birthdays, they took me to Coney Island. Which was very fun, don’t get me wrong, but Bucky spent the entire time trying to stuff Steve full of hotdogs and candy then made him ride the Cyclone. I don’t know why they were so shocked when Steve threw up,” she would reminisce, laughing as Darcy wrinkled her nose in disgust, “Yes, it wasn’t a very elegant way to end my birthday. But it was certainly funny.”

Technopath!Darcy (related to this drabble)

—

She has spent so long hiding her ability, that it comes as a surprise when, somehow, it’s her silence which gives her away.

Tony Stark’s strange desire to collect all of the Avengers–like living, breathing, action figures–in his giant compensation skyscraper extends to Avengers’ significant others and, apparently, said significant others’ BFF/intern.

Which, Darcy isn’t complaining about because it’s rent free room and board in the middle of Manhattan and also, a lot of sexy neighbors. Sure, these neighbors happen to be highly destructive and/or lethal but… well, it’s New York, right?

But living in the Stark/Avengers tower is what eventually causes her secret to become… not a secret. More specifically, living in the Stark/Avengers tower with JARVIS.

See, the thing is, Darcy’s ability doesn’t really make any sense. It doesn’t. She majored in political science, but even she knows that her ability makes no sense. Telepathy doesn’t even make sense, but at least that’s two people’s minds and not whatever she can do. Somehow she can communicate with machines. Which sort of begs the question, do machines have minds for her to communicate with?

JARVIS, she knows, is an artificial intelligence. He can speak and think and do pretty much whatever a person can. So there’s that. It makes sense for Darcy to be able to communicate with JARVIS. But it doesn’t explain how she knows her iPod prefers techno to pop or how her taser wishes it could be used more often or how her phone has a strange fascination with Etsy.

So she treats JARVIS much the same way she does other highly intelligent technology, with as much respect as she does with people. Perhaps more so, because the supercomputer at Culver was a major snob and she knows a lot of people who are nowhere near as great as JARVIS. But the important thing is, she interact with him silently.

Simply put, machines with personalities aren’t anything new to her. Machines with personalities which other people know about and can react to? Yeah that’s what trips her up.

It takes about three weeks before someone notices that she doesn’t need to speak out loud for JARVIS to understand her. The surprising part? It’s Bruce who notices.

~

A/N: Two Darcy Lewis drabbles for the price of one! Wooooh.

Unsure what to do with the Darcy, Barnes descendant drabble. It was just an idea I wanted to articulate. At some point, I imagine Steve and/or Bucky eventually try to track Becca down. Whether they actually find her, aged but still alive, or find Darcy instead I don’t know.

I was going to continue the Technopath!Darcy one with how Bruce keeps her secret since he’s basically the closest thing to a mutant the Avengers have and he kind of wishes the Hulk were a secret. I don’t know why I chose Bruce, but I like the way the story could evolve from there.

Fake Fic Summaries 2/?, The Play It Again edition (2015-07-05)

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These two “fake fic summaries” are really more like fake fic titles. I guess this is kind of a cross-post, too, since I’m really just rehashing a rant I had on my lj a while ago. In response to metisket’s WONDERFUL Teen Wolf fic, Play It Again. So really, this post is just SUPER derivative all around. Hooray!

So, if you haven’t read that fic. Seriously, go read it. This post will undoubtedly have spoilers and be nowhere near as fabulous as the fic in question. If you’re still here for some reason, then let me present to you today’s fake fic, aka fic that I would love to read/write and etc, as it relates to metisket’s Play It Again.

Here are the TWO fake fic titles:

Play It Again (There’s Always Tomorrow Remix)

and

Play It Again (You’ll Never Get To Heaven Remix)

Because, if I’m going to be derivative about these fake fics, I might as well give credit where it’s due, right? The thing is, neither of these are really remix fics per se (or at least, what I understand to be remix fics), but I just like the way they sound.

Here’s the premise for metisket’s Play It Again which would be necessary to understand for the fake fics. Stiles jumps into an alternate universe via a ~mysterious~ Hale artifact which sends the soul of the wearer into a compatible body such that they can better protect/aid the Hale family. Derek gave that pendant to Stiles. Before Stiles, the wearer was Derek’s older brother, Philip.

—

The “There’s Always Tomorrow Remix” would be a prequel/side story of sorts, and is actually about one of metisket’s OC Hale characters, Philip Hale–aka Derek’s older brother and the only human born to the Hale wolf pack. In the fic, Stiles briefly wonders what happened to his universe’s Philip since he was wearing the pendant the night of the Hale House fire. But because Stiles is a little bit sociopathic, he drops the matter and goes on with protecting the few people he actually cares about.

Unlike Stiles, I AM CURIOUS AS FUCK as to what happened to Philip. And… don’t need to protect any of my friends/family from supernatural disasters so…

But, I digress. In “There’s Always Tomorrow Remix” the fic follows original universe Philip on his journey throughout multiple alternate universes as he tries and fails to figure out why his family (and therefore he) keep getting burned to death. I like the horrifying potential for the most depressing and frustrating Groundhog Day on earth where he keeps getting shunted into different realities in which he keeps dying horribly and can’t figure out for the life of him why. I mean, we know it’s because of Kate Argent, but the way the Hale family missed her creepy molester act on Derek the first time means it’ll take a while for Philip to get to that conclusion.

At some point he either does figure it out–but, as the remix title suggests, not on his own (yeah, it’s a reference to the song Lean On Me). In Play It Again, Deaton and Philip are close enough such that Philip designed Deaton wards and they’re comfortable discussing various magical matters. Maybe not quite friends or mentor relationship, but close enough. Also in PIA, Stiles is ridiculously magically powerful. Whether or not Philip gets help from yet another pendant-wielding alternate Stiles or actually a child who just happens to have crazy amounts of magical potential Stiles or even Claudia Stilinski (who I personally think would be the parent from whom Stiles inherits his magical ability), Philip manages to figure out what’s going down and stop it. And stop dying. Hooray for him!

Here’s a tiny ass snippet/possible fake fic summary for it:

You are Philip Hale. You are a human born to a pack of werewolves. You can do magic. You can do anything. You can do this.

“I can’t do this,” you say to yourself, tugging at your hair in frustration. The vigorous motion knocks your glasses askew and the scribbled rune-work in your notebook becomes even more useless.

“I’m majoring in library science. I volunteer at the vet clinic on the weekends. I don’t know anything about stopping a mass murder.”

—

The “You’ll Never Get To Heaven Remix,” a reference to the Dionne Warwick song, is an exploration of the Sterek ship through the Play It Again lens. Which, perhaps, does not make much sense, so I will explain. Play It Again, for all that it’s a story about a boy crossing universes and fighting monsters (of the human and creature variety) with magic and saving the day, is really a character study of Stiles. It throws Stiles into a bunch of situations, shows how he reacts to them, and shows how other people react to his reactions (mostly confusion). There are some internal musings, but for the most part Stiles is very goal-oriented in PIA and so doesn’t let himself stop to wonder about certain matters.

At the end, though, after all the action/adventure part of the story is over, Laura asks Stiles if he was in love with his original Derek. And, really, you should read that fic because his response was so very elquently poignant that it got me wondering about the almost Sterek in the original universe.

Stiles’ answer basically amounts to: he didn’t yet, he could have, and he maybe wanted to. And it’s almost like you can taste that lost potential love. And I have to wonder if any of that was at all reciprocated on Derek’s side. Because the fact that he even gave Stiles his family’s magical pendant and, sure, maybe he assumed it was a human-only thing but he still gave one of the last remnants of his family to Stiles. That speaks of something right there.

An aching, potential, something that grips my heart and squeezes because it ends with death and alternate realities and mourning and not-quite-regret but something similar. Because even in canon they always risked their own safety to save each others’ lives. They would die for each other, had died for each other (at least Derek had), but they didn’t necessarily love each other (yet or maybe never) and there’s something poetic and forceful about that. A deeper connection than the implied romance with the alternate Derek that Stiles gets.

And also, while it would push it almost too far into the alternate reality of an alternate reality, I kind of have to wonder if Stiles hadn’t definitively known his Derek had died. Because PIA ends with Stiles staying in the alternate reality since basically everyone else in his original reality is dead. He wasn’t super sure about his dad or Scott (but there had been a sort of vision/dream sequence which implied death), but he had actually witnessed Derek dying. Confirmed dead Derek. But… I kind of feel like Stiles would have worked harder to get back to his original universe if Derek were alive, or even possibly alive. At the very least, I think Stiles would consider that too. 

The way I see it, Stiles would consider it his duty to keep his dad and Scott safe, but ultimately his self worth means he would think their lives are better without him. But Derek? Stiles knows Derek’s life is better because of Stiles. Or at least, Derek is alive thanks to Stiles. Subconsciously, being needed by Derek would be a greater motivation for Stiles to get back than his perceived duty to his dad and Scott. And maybe Stiles would ponder on that as his relationship with alt!Derek grows, because even if Stiles and original!Derek hadn’t been romantically involved they were mutual life savers which is a stronger bond than what he has with alt!Derek even without the possible unresolved emotional tension.

Basically, a lot of feels.

I actually think second POV would work for this fake fic too. But very disjointed, time-skippy sections.

—

The related lj post is here. For anyone curious enough to read my stream of conscious of what I basically rehashed above.

Ode to 11010201 x Avengers drabble (2015-07-04)

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He’s in the middle of chemistry when he feels a sudden drain in his energy. He begins to droop immediately, face smashing alarmingly close to the lab equipment on the table. He can’t help the pained yell that follows.

“What is going on here?” Mr Lui asks, torn between concern and confusion.

“I don’t know,” he answers through gritted teeth, a strangely empty sensation of pulling going down his spine. He’s never felt anything like this before, doesn’t have a frame of reference for what it might be.

Except… maybe he does know.

“New York,” he tries to mumble, but his face in general does not seem to want to cooperate with him. Not that such a statement would have explained much.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to.

“Teachers,” says Principle Henao, voice somehow carefully mild over the school’s PA system, “I apologize for the interruption, but please turn on your televisions at this time.” She repeats the sentence again, no offers of explanation, no opportunities for disobedience. Homeroom period, when announcements are made and TVs play Channel One–the high school equivalent of a news station–had just ended ten minutes ago. The request, then, is both strange and unproblematic.

What the TVs are showing, is strange and problematic.

All the TVs in school are connected to a central monitor in the main office. Usually set to play only Channel One and the occasional video announcement, now it must be set to an actual news channel.

On the screen a bright red banner reading BREAKING NEWS is at the top; below it footage of what looks to be… some kind of war zone. Rubble and explosions and fast paced everything, details too shaky and indistinct to make out. But the captions say that it’s New York; Manhattan, to be specific.

His aunt works in Manhattan.

His lab partner, the only one to have heard his attempt to speak earlier looks at him sharply. His other classmates stare entranced at the screen. Even Mr Lui, torn between concern at a possibly unwell student and the sheer horrifying devastation on screen, can’t help the unconscious turn of his head.

The draining sensation grows stronger, as if someone is desperately pulling on the other end.

Ostensibly, he and his aunt have equal, complementary shares in their magic. It’s how Gemini witches are supposed to function. But she had never had full access to their magic until he discovered his ability. And Pollux was always more powerful than Castor.

He can hardly hear himself breathe, much less pay attention to what the news reporters are saying on the TV. But something dangerous is going down in New York, and his aunt works in Manhattan.

Go, he thinks to himself, to his magic, to their magic, to her. Go.

Then he lets go.

In the future, when asked about what he was doing during the Avengers’ debut in the Battle of New York, all he will say is that he was in chemistry class. He will not add that he passed out, had to be brought to the hospital, and woke up three days later in perfect health with the doctors and his dad relieved but extremely confused as to what happened to him.

His aunt’s story is much cooler, anyway.

~

A/N: Hahaha, the Ode to 11010201 take on the first Avengers movie. No, R does not get recruited into the Avengers Initiative, because the supernatural world has been trying to keep their existence on the down low. Basically, though, she was fueling a giant ass semi-sentient force field around her company’s building with the help of Zim’s share of their magic.

If you cannot tell, I’ve been reading some MCU fic lately.

I don’t think I’ll continue this, really, it was just a passing idea.

Untitled drabble (2015-07-03)

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An apology to a once, but no longer, friend of mine.

Let’s be honest–we had a pretty shaky start. I was the new girl, literally only two days late–or maybe two years, depending on how you look at it–and you were the queen of the pack. My first day you tricked me and locked me in the bathroom–I only spent maybe fifteen minutes in the dark until the teacher, concerned, sent someone to look for me.

When I came out I wasn’t scared–I was pissed. When the teacher made you apologize, you certainly didn’t mean it.

We somehow became best friends after that.

I must have dragged your popularity down, hoarding your attention all to myself, but you didn’t seem to mind. You chose me for your team during recess even though my near-sightedness made me terrible at nearly all of the playground games. We slept over at each others houses, which surprised your parents–given how much of a tomboy you were–and mine–given how reticent I usually was.

This continued for years. You had other friends, sure, and I had other friends, sure, and those groups of friends never really overlapped except for the two of us. But it worked, somehow.

Until… it didn’t.

It must have been something I said, because for nearly a decade after, your mom would murmur to mine about how she had never seen you cry so hard. And, frankly, I can be an asshole, especially as a child. But honestly, for the life of me, I cannot remember what I said. I’m sorry for that.

After that disastrous sleepover we just… stopped. There was no more we or us. Just you and your friends and me and my friends, stuck in the same classes at the same schools for the next ten years. The strangest thing was the complete lack of hostility. There was no grudge held… it was as if we had just ceased to exist to each other.

This lasted for eight years.

We evolved into different people, shaped by different cliques, likely different than who we would have been had we stayed friends. Or perhaps our differences would have pushed us apart anyway.

Then, our senior year of high school, you complimented by socks. Which, by the way, thanks again. I loved those socks. But, also, what the fuck?

It was, in the least bitter way, too little too late. I said thanks of course, and after that it was like we could suddenly see each other again. We’d wave at each other in the hallways and occasionally complain about homework in the classes we shared. But nothing substantive enough to salvage the broken dusty thing that was our friendship.

We graduated. Our lives drifted further away from each other. We went to different colleges, I don’t even know which school you went to, I just know it wasn’t the one I did.

Last week, I heard from a high school acquaintance that you had gotten married. After double checking with other old classmates, it turns out that it was your sister getting married to a girl with a similar sounding name as yours–which must make family dinners confusing–but still, it gave me a shock.

And it made me remember. And it made me consider.

I’m sorry that I hurt you and don’t even have the decency to remember how. I’m sorry that I put it all on you to even attempt to rekindle our friendship. I’m sorry that we aren’t in each other’s lives any more, or at least that we never got to find out if that’s how it would have gone naturally.

I’m sorry.

I hope you’re content. I hope you’re happy. I hope you–if you want to that is–do find someone you’ll love enough to marry. I hope you look back on your life and are satisfied with it overall, even if some little details still make you cringe.

And I’m sorry that I may be one of those little, cringe-worthy details.

I hope whatever I said to you was something that made you cry only the once. I hope you never look back on that moment, but if you do, I hope it is only for a fleeting glance. I hope you buy as many socks as you like in the style that we like. And I hope you remember, even briefly, those years when we were we and not just you and me, and I hope you remember them fondly.

~

A/N: Semi-autobiographical… changing some details around, though I guess I was vague enough that it didn’t really matter, huh?

Untitled drabble (2015-07-02)

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Two months after the new kid arrives, he leaves, as suddenly and silently as he came. Kevin wouldn’t necessarily say he’s happy or proud– because he’d have had to have cared for the guy in order to feel anything and that goes against the nonchalantly apathetic vibe he’s rocking–but inwardly he’s pretty damn pleased by the abrupt departure. It’s not like anything the new kid did would have dethroned Bellwood High School’s unofficial king, but Kevin did not appreciate being paired with him in chemistry and constantly corrected by him during labs.

That high follows him for a few days, coasts him through the weekend and even the first few classes of the following Monday. Until they show up.

The usual long lunch break for seniors is halved by an assembly. Ostensibly, they are supplementary counselors from the school district to help the senior class prepare for graduation and the transition to college and adulthood. But unlike Bellwood High’s own set of counselors–a pair of enthusiastic twenty-somethings who have yet to be worn down into cynical thirty-somethings–they are stoic and true examples of apathy. And they both wear black suits. It’s not that big of a deal, really, since the principle is a big proponent of somber pantsuits, but Bellwood’s counselors try to wear bright colors.

Kevin’s last name starts with an S, so they don’t get to him until most of the other seniors have already been in to meet with them. What he hears is suspicious. In that, he doesn’t hear much about what the meetings are about. Which is ludicrous because this is a high school–why is the rumor mill failing him.

Rebecca, who isn’t exactly Bellwood High’s unofficial queen but is on the shortlist for it, is the only one to tell him anything on what to expect. “It’s not about fucking colleges,” she mutters to him, sitting down in the desk behind him for Calc class, just barely audible above the ringing bell. It’s nearly useless, but confirms what he already guessed. And adds yet one more suspicion. Her timing, right when the bell rang, as if she was afraid she’d be overheard otherwise.

No one talks because they’re scared to. If it were boring, there’d be complaints about how it was a waste of time. There hasn’t been any of that. Kevin’s not sure what to expect, but at least he knows to expect something.

Bellwood is a small school, each grade is maybe only 150 students, 200 max. They get to the S’s by Thursday.

—-

To be honest, Kevin didn’t think they were at all related to the new kid. Which, in hindsight, was pretty dumb of him considering the timing. New kid leaves, they show up. Not exactly a stretch to connect the two incidents.

Kevin goes into the meeting thinking that, because he’s expecting something, he won’t be completely caught off-guard. That is not the case.

“What do you know about Gregory Lauson?” Asks  the one who introduced herself as Ms Camilo, but would probably react more to Agent Camilo.

“I heard his dad was some kind of drug lord,” Kevin responds automatically, because the previous five minutes had been a rapid-fire back and forth that all he could do was blurt out the first thing that came into his head.

“Who did you hear that from?” Mr Sheridan, more like Agent Sheridan, replies immediately. While Camilo sat across the table from him imposingly, stare never wavering from Kevin’s own fearful gaze, Sheridan had spent the time circling casually around them, only speaking when not in Kevin’s line of sight. It was, frankly, unnerving.

“I–” he started, then choked, the first time since this interrogation began that he didn’t answer immediately. I made it up, he doesn’t say.

They don’t need him to say it. Camilo’s stare somehow becomes even more piercing, as if she could drill straight into his brain via eye contact.

“What do you know about Gregory Lauson?” Sheridan parrots his partner, one hand leaning on the table just barely within Kevin’s peripheral vision.

“He got kicked out of his old school for killing someone,” Kevin blurts out another of the rumors that had been passed around. This one, at least, hadn’t originated from him.

“What do you know about Gregory Lauson?” Camilo repeats. It is the only question that the two agents will ask for the remainder of the meeting.

Kevin answers. He answers and answers and answers. Not all of the rumors were made by him, but a good number of them were. None of them were positive.

At the very end, when the excruciating fifteen minute appointment is up, Sheridan says to him, “We’ll speak with your parents.” It’s not a question or a request or even a demand. Just a statement of fact.

Kevin nods, barely able to tear his gaze away from Camilo, before fleeing on shaky legs.

He slides into Lit class silently, Mrs. Palmer hardly batting an eye at his entrance. Across the classroom, Rebecca looks away in sympathy; not having eye contact is a kindness, after what just happened.

—-

The agents do, in fact, speak with Kevin’s parents. Of the entire senior class, the agents speak to six sets of guardians, his and Rebecca’s included.

Then they just… disappear.

None of involved students are grounded which should be good, except Kevin’s parents look at him with thinly veiled horror and sorrow instead, which is somehow worse. Rebecca reports the same thing with her parents, as do his other four classmates.

It’s hard to think that there are any consequences when they’re not concrete. But there are repercussions, and they linger.

Most notably, all of them have a red flag attached to their names. It’s not quite a criminal record because beyond having the agents speak to their parents, nothing happened, but it might as well be.

Rebecca, who had been volunteering at the police station for three years, is strongly suggested to stop and ‘enjoy her final year in high school’. The number of colleges scouting Victor for their swim team decreased dramatically, and certainly not of the same quality. Elijah, proud recipient of an early admission from Yale, thankfully is still on track to be a Yale student but had his full-ride scholarship rescinded. And so on and so forth.

Kevin personally doesn’t get affected quite so tangibly but there is an influence. He gets accepted into Annapolis, no problem–a combination of near-perfect grades and fantastic extra curricular activities–but it’s not easy actually being there. For the first few months he attributes it to no longer being the big fish in a little pond and now being a little fish in the ocean. But it’s not quite that.

His fellow midshipmen aren’t necessarily reacting to him so much as they are following their instructors’ leads. They don’t sabotage him, don’t pick on him especially, they just look at him, sometimes. Even when he scores the best they look at him as if he somehow disappointed them. Kevin realizes that none of the instructors like him. None of them. And in turn, his fellow midshipmen steer clear.

Despite all that, when they graduate, Kevin is in the top tenth of his class. It’s pretty impressive. Nonetheless, his commission… well, a lot of midshipmen lower ranked than he are becoming ensigns on ships he had been hoping to serve on. Some are becoming Marines, even the ones he consistently beat out in pretty much all aspects of education. In comparison, his commission is lackluster, to put it nicely.

Something is going on, and he is highly confused as to what.

Which explains why he is completely thrown when he sees Agents Camilo and Sheridan at his graduation. They’re a little older looking, not that he remembers the exact details of their appearances, but almost five years have passed. They’re not as frightening–maybe due to age or his training or the situation–but they still carry a weight of dominance. As if he were still a kid mindlessly answering their questions, ruining his own future in the process, while they watched, uncaring. Even now as he stands in his dress uniform, just another body in rows and rows of white, they still watch him, uncaring.

For the first time in years, he contacts the others. Technology has made keeping in touch easy, but high school friends still drift apart regardless. Rebecca is the first to confirm that they were at her graduation, followed by Elijah. Vincent and Amy’s graduations aren’t until a few weeks later, but they know to keep an eye out. Drew didn’t go to college, but he’ll keep an eye out too.

Kevin regrets not knowing anything real about Gregory Lauson, because at least then, maybe, he’d know what the fuck is going on.

~

A/N: Missed the midnight deadline, but only because this thing was so long that I excuse myself 😛

To be honest, I’m a little surprised, proud, and confused by this piece. Because… well… I guess this is anti-bullying but I didn’t start with that intention. It was going to be about how a bunch of teenagers accidentally blow a WITSEC cover by being a bunch of douchebags and spreading rumors that hit a little too close to the truth. And then how their own lives got ruined in turn because they possibly endangered another kid by being assholes. Unsure if I want Gregory Lauson (by the way, I apologize if your name is Gregory Lauson. I mean no disrespect. The events in this drabble are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental) to have been killed or just relocated with a different name.

Uh… don’t know if I’ll continue this story, which is why I left it kind of open-ended. So, maybe…

Untitled technopath!Darcy drabble (2015-06-30)

jacksgreysonLeave a comment

As a child, her ability had always been passed off as an active imagination or, simply, growing up in the generation that she did. Given her middle-class background, it wasn’t too odd to see her with some kind of handheld gaming device, or later, as a teenager, a cell phone. Much like others her age, they seemed to be glued to her hand. She liked music, even if she had never been particularly musically talented, and had a walkman until it died then a CD player until that died then, finally, an iPod.

And she does mean died in the literal sense. Her parents, while pleased at how careful she was with her gadgets, had always been confused by her heartbreak over their inevitable end.

Her walkman had been finicky, both electronically and personality-wise. It had lamented at her music choices, but had done its duty to the best of its abilities until it could no longer do so. Her CD player, in contrast, had been perky and eager to play new songs, as fascinated in different genres as she was. She broke Evan Thoreau’s nose when he snatched and broke it, in an attempt to get her attention.

Her iPod, ever since she had gotten it, had always been a bit precocious. Perhaps because it had a slightly higher computing power than her previous music players, but probably because most Apple products tended to be a little quirky. Her iPhone certainly enjoyed downloading random apps–thankfully, it restricted itself to free ones and only when using Wi-Fi–for her to flick through and discard as chosen. Similarly, her iPod liked to create brand new playlists for her everyday, so that each day would be a surprise. It had also taken to rick-rolling far more than she’d prefer, but that was just another facet of its slightly annoying, but lovable identity.

So it wasn’t all that surprising that, when jack booted thugs stole her iPod, she was more than a little pissed.

~

A/N: Uh… a mini-attempt at that technopath!Darcy idea I mentioned before. It’s harder than I thought it would be to articulate.

Cross-Post: Hoodlums (2)

jacksgreysonLeave a comment

original here. dated 2013-11-07.

[A/N: Part two of this previous post/idea. Again, it wasn’t a fully formed/planned thing so it kind of… wha?]

~

We take hits, sometimes. Well, like I said earlier, we don’t kill–we find them, clean them out, wrap them up nice and tidy for the police, same as usual–so they’d better be called jobs. But specifically, they’re kind of hit-like. Sometimes the patrols fail–they’re really just a matter of timing, of coincidence, being in the right place at the right time–so we don’t always catch all the bastards and creeps that violate our territory before they act. But we can always get revenge; we may not be able to make it right, but we can do that at least.

Sometimes we get names and some basic information–a lot of crimes are committed by people the victims know–but other times, we only get what they did, their crime and their victim. It’s in these situations where things get a little difficult. The police like what we do, it makes their jobs so easy, but they don’t like us. We’re a gang and we’re not ashamed of it; usually our justice is illegal and sometimes their laws are unjust–it’s not surprising we clash with them. Which is why, whenever a crime is committed in our turf, it’s a race against the police to find the perpetrator and dole out punishment.

We don’t always win: for all that the police move so slowly and have to jump through all sorts of hoops, they do have better resources than we do. And sometimes, well, patrols aren’t the only things that have their faults. Some crimes never go avenged, by either Hoodlums or police.