JackSGreyson Says

Let’s talk about us.

Let’s talk about our relationship and our future.

Let’s talk about what we’re going to do with the twelve dogs, four cats, two falcons, and one pig that we collectively own.

Let’s talk about your crappy excuse for a car and my, admittedly, hideous old couch.

Let’s talk about how my mother still dislikes you and your brothers keep borrowing money and never paying us back.

Let’s talk about how much I love you, how much I want the rest of the world to know, how much I want us to be official in the eyes of our oppressive, bigoted government.

Let’s talk about us.

–

We met because we were both in line to buy tickets for some concert I don’t even remember (that’s a lie, that concert was the winter holidays concert of The ABZs, my favorite song is their power ballad, but I do enjoy your favorite song too).

Our first date was dinner and a movie–the former which was excellent, the latter which was terrible, but that was okay because we had fun mocking it and pissing off the teenagers in the row in front of us.

I broke your hairdryer during our first fight–not because I was throwing it, or because I purposefully wanted to destroy your things, but because I tripped over it when I was trying to run after you to apologize.

For my birthday, you tried to surprise me with zip-lining. I appreciate the effort, it’s not your fault that’s how I discovered my debilitating fear of heights. Or my tendency to get violent when scared (sorry Steve of Aerial Adventures).

For your birthday, I brought you to paintball. We accidentally got mixed in with a business retreat and ended up winning their free cafeteria desserts. We had to run away when they found out we didn’t actually work with them.

Last week, you made me poptarts even though I drank the last of the orange juice the day before. Yesterday I walked the dogs (yes, all twelve of them) even though Fritz still doesn’t like me and barfed on my shoes.

So, let’s not talk about the past. Because we loved each other, and that’s not in question. Let’s talk about us as we are now. Us as we might be and may be and will be.

Let’s talk.

~

A/N: aaaagh. it totally counts still… no, I’m at my cousin’s house again. but yeah… this is what I write, apparently.

“You need to come home, now. This isn’t you. You’re sick. Let us help you,” He says to her, hands open in front of him– empty and nonthreatening.

Or preparing to ward away something.

“Don’t talk to me like that. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me what I am or am not,” She reprimands him, but she’s not really angry. She’s disappointed. Because he still doesn’t see. He still doesn’t believe her.

“I’m not, I–okay. Okay, sorry,” Electricity sparks along the wires running along the ground, along the wall. He flinches, but doesn’t leave.

The warehouse isn’t exactly welcoming, it’s big but shadowed on both sides by building much taller. The windows along the top of the walls hardly let in any sunlight, and it’s all grey and murky like the cement. There’s a bathroom–which she’s retrofitted to include a a shower–and a small cubicle which may have once been the floor managers office, back when this was still a car factory. That’s where her futon and clothes are, heaped into a small mountain of cloth and stuffing.

The rest of the warehouse is full of her things. Or, well, not her things. Their things.

On an old conveyer belt, neatly laid out, is Poppy’s weapons. Her knives and wires and caltrops and needles. She has a bow and a quiver full of arrows, no guns. Poppy prefers things to be low-tech. Quieter, sneakier.

David has a desk, smooth sturdy dark wood, but his forging equipment on top his new and shining. A few almost-passports still in the works are lined up next to each other, a row of fake identities waiting to be brought to life.

Tess has crates, terribly unorganized, but the things in there are used rarely. They’re more like mementos, little knick-knacks. A rabbit stuffed toy, a woven straw hat, an Easy-Bake oven, a fake plastic lightsaber.

Patrick’s area is the second largest of the warehouse, technically, but that’s because he shares it with Soleo. Or he says he shares it with Soleo, the only person to see Soleo beside Patrick is Kay and… well, her sanity’s currently being called into question.

She tells him this, gesturing to the different areas. He watches with eyes that don’t understand, that don’t believe.

But she doesn’t care, because all of this warehouse is hers. She has her own machines set up: she has her mythril loom, she has her golem robots in each corner and two at the entrances, she has her suit and three different variations for different situations, she has her scanning simulator to help her design what she wants, she has her 3-D printer to turn those designs into reality, she has her computer. Her computer is a work of art.

It’s giant and it looks like what the very first computer must have decades ago, giant towers and wires running every which way. But this computer is to them what dolphins are to single-celled organisms.

And Theo wants her to leave it?

“Please, Kay. Won’t you come with me? Everyone will be glad to see you. To see that you’re still alive. Don’t you miss everyone? We missed you,” He tries to convince her. But she grew up with him, she’s basically immune.

“You didn’t miss me, you mourned me.” She was both flattered and heartbroken to see her friends and what little remained of her family in the aftermath of her ‘death’ because they honestly mourned her.

But then she remembers the way Alexander sold the rights to her inventions to the highest bidders. Remembers that all of her hard work is now in the hands of some scumbag with more money than morals.

“I wouldn’t have if I knew you were just here hiding! I hated it!” Theo yells back, body language all aggressive and looming, but he catches himself, eyes wide. He didn’t touch her, but he shoves his hands into his pockets anyway. Just in case.

“Go home, Theo. Tell Auntie that you love her. Tell Evan to stop going to the brawls–he’s going to lose soon, and there’s only so many times Poppy will throw her fight to pull him out of trouble.” Both of her cousins are foolhardy idiots, but at least Theo has some semblance of a survival instinct.

“Poppy–Kay. Kay, I’m here because Evan said he was saved by someone that looked like you. Kay. You saved Evan. Not… not Poppy.” He looks like he’s going to be sick. The trash can is metal, so she can send it his way without moving from her seat.

He is ten feet away from her chair.

When it comes to a stop three inches from his left foot, he takes one small step away.

He looks at her, then at the trashcan, then back at her. He looks even sicker, but he’s determined and he steels himself.

“Poppy doesn’t exist. None of them exist. It’s just you.”

He still doesn’t understand.

~

A/N: Is she actually mentally ill? Is this a reincarnation OC fanfic idea I’ve readapted into something else? Who knows…

He meets her in the early morning, a gray weak dawn, weak beams of light barely breaking through the clouds. He is tired and achey and sore. He is covered in dirt and there’s pieces of leaves in his hair and all over his jacket.

He had slept in a bush last night, because it was safer that sleeping in a tree–where his restless movements could cause an unfortunate fall–and less risky than sleeping out in the open, where someone could stumble upon him. And potentially kill him.

He’s only fifteen, he’s too young to die.

But when he meets her, he can only feel relief. Because she doesn’t have a partner yet either. Which means she won’t automatically kill him.

And, obviously, she hadn’t because he could recall their first meeting and such an act excludes his death. Well… if he were a ghost…

“Focus, focus.” He murmurs to himself, treading clumsily in her wake. She’s the one with a better sense at navigating the forest–her powers pretty much ensure that–so her footsteps are steady and sure.

“We need to get to the edges soon, it’s been four days–people have already gotten accustomed to the situation, and they’ll begin attacking each other.”

The way this… situation came about is that those with magical potential are granted a wish. Any wish. And in exchange they are entered into a tournament of sorts. You can only work in pairs–not alone and not in larger teams. You have to survive.

And that’s it.

There will be teams who kill others off to increase their odds. But he knows that ultimately, it’s useless. It doesn’t matter who lives or who dies. The moderators have already chosen their winners.

It’s not the players.

~

A/N: I dunno? I’m at my cousins’ house so I know I’m late 😦

Related to these posts.

You are descended from royalty; from magicians, warriors, and scholars. The blood of rulers run through your veins, leaders of people by gold and by charm and by strength. Your ancestry is rich with history and culture and power.

What have you done with it?

You are told by your father of how his father was a great man, a generous man to people and land alike. An environmentalist before that word existed. A wordsmith upon which a generation was raised. A just and generous man.

Your aunts whisper to you of their mother, your grandmother. That what she spoke would come to pass through hard work or through spells. How in she gave blessings to those who asked, and curses to those who deserved them.

What will be remembered of you?

You remember them, vaguely, the way most people only recognize a memory when it’s already been brought up. You remember a warm hand running through your hair. You remember soft scents and a soft voice.

You remember your grandfather sitting next to you, the two of you outside away from the noise and bustle, staring out as the wind danced and weaved through the trees. He talked to you, in his deep rumbling voice, but you can never remember what he said. You think it may have been life advice, unfortunately wasted on a toddler too young to heed it.

You remember your grandmother taking you out on trips, wandering through the town, in and out of stores. She would ask your opinion on things, on what to buy or not. You remember once refusing a string of gems, but picking out a figurine of a pig. She bought you sweets.

What do you do now?

It’s been decades since then. They died long ago, no more warm hand through your hair, no more sweets and adventures. You haven’t thought of them recently, and you’re not sure why you’re thinking of them now.

Except… except now you are facing the end of the world. And those things that you didn’t really learn at your grandparents’ feet. The things you should have had proper training in. Those are what can save the world. You just have to remember.

~

A/N: … ? Vaguely autobiographical. VERY VAGUELY.

When people ask me for my story, I know already what they want to hear. The thing is, I don’t want to tell that story. I’ve told that story before, other people have repeated that story. It may be comforting and familiar to others. But to me, that just means it’s old and outdated and boring.

I want to tell a different story. I want to tell the story that I wasn’t allowed to tell. That I was too afraid to tell. That I tried and failed and regretted failing to tell.

When people ask for my story, they want to hear about superheroes. About being part of a team of vigilantes, right wrongs and saving the day. Sometimes they want to hear about the struggles, the betrayals, and the conflicts.

But they never want to hear about the love. The everyday life of bickering over toast and trading laundry duty for dish duty and waking up to find that someone painted my toes while I slept and not being sure of who.

They never want to hear about the friendships that made our team so successful. That made the struggles easier to bear, the betrayals cut all the deeper, the conflicts to burn even now. Now that I’m the last one left.

No one even thinks to ask about love. And it’s just one more thing I regret. Because no one even knows it exists to ignore it. 

I just want to tell one last story. About a boy, who was so in love with another boy who would never love him back. This idiotic, overly proud boy was too scared to say something. Too busy. Too weak.

And that boy, the other boy, who I had loved. He never loved me back because he never got the chance to.

Maybe I don’t want to tell that story. Maybe I want to tell another story. A story where that foolish boy was brave enough, made his love a priority, was willing to try. I should have tried.

~

A/N: Yeah, this one did not need a word prompt! Uh, I guess this is… a retired elderly superhero was too afraid to admit his love to someone and no one ever knew even though he was super famous (since superheroes are celebrities).