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stovetuna · 5 years ago

Note

would you ever consider,,,,,,writing a fix it fic,,,,,,for endgame,,,,,,,pls im starved but also I love you so fuckin much your writing brings me joy

HEART EYES oh my gosh, thank you, anon. I hope this is sufficient.

full disclosure, I’m absolutely useless when it comes to the “logic” of time travel, so a lot of liberties are being taken here for the sake of story.

- - -

Moments after the bright blue light of Tony’s arc reactor goes dark, Steve knows what he has to do.

He grieves, at first. He could hardly do anything else. Hell, it’s everything he can do not to let a howl out, the one clutching at his throat right now that’s equal parts devastation and rage. He swallows the raw, unholy sound and he weeps instead, like he’s never wept before—not for Bucky, or Peggy, or the Commandos, or Natasha, or Sam, or anyone—and then he falls to his knees in the ash and mud, everything that’s left of Tony’s last act of defiance.

The words echo across the years like the worst kind of phantom pain as Steve looks and looks and looks at Tony, Tony’s corpse, Tony’s unnaturally lifeless body that doesn’t make sense to see, I think I would just cut the wire.

Always a way out.

Steve wishes he could go back in time and punch himself in the teeth, just like Tony said.

Around him, heroes kneel, silent. No one talks about what has to be done, what the world will be like without Tony Stark, how they’re supposed to go on—for the moment, everything is still, and just as the blue light of the arc reactor had flickered out moments ago (wrong wrong wrong it should be shining like a solar flare he should have lived it should be him against that rock) Steve feels something flicker to life inside his own chest. It’s faint, but glows steady. Only he can see it, feel it; only he knows what it means.

It’s a choice, an easy one, that Steve’s already made.

After the funeral, Bruce sends him back with the stones. Clipping branches takes time, but it’s hardly tedious: First he returns to Morag, walks past Quill’s prone, snoring figure, and returns the Power stone to its place in the timeline. Like something out of Indiana Jones, Steve thinks to himself as he does it, but it’s not his voice he hears. It’s Tony’s, because only Tony would see a dangerous, precarious situation like this and make a pop culture reference.

They watched that one together. Just him and Tony, early on, when things were still good. Tense, maybe—brittle, but good. Before Steve knew about Bucky, or HYDRA, or Tony’s parents; before Steve realized he did in fact know how to lie, but only when it came to Tony Stark. They’d drank good beer and talked gingerly around the subject of Steve’s adjustment to the 21st century; Steve couldn’t help but think of Tony when Indiana shot the swordsman, remembering what Tony had said on the helicarrier with startling clarity, the opposite of how he’d been thinking in the moment: I think I would just cut the wire.

Now, Steve pushes the orb back through the energy barrier, mouth pressed in a firm line. The burns will heal, in time. He has plenty of it, after all, and the pain is a cheap price compared to what he felt watching Tony die, and it’s a price he’s more than willing to pay if this works.

•

The Soul Stone is hard, not because of the climb, or the Red Skull (although, in fairness, it does throw Steve for a moment), but because he has to watch the soul stone plummet to the earth knowing it won’t bring Natasha back. There are only so many things he can fix, and this isn’t one of them.

“What’s done is done,” Schmidt says, sadder than Steve ever heard him in life. Turning around, Steve looks at the cloaked figure floating, weightless, a few inches above the ground. He doesn’t feel pity, per se, but there’s a misery to Schmidt’s expression that looks deeply carved. Earned. Painful. He looks the way Steve feels, standing there in the place where Nat died.

“What was it like?” Steve asks, meaning the moment when Schmidt held the cube and disappeared. It doesn’t even register that he’s spoken until Schmidt is looking at him and speaking back.

“Death would have been preferable,” comes the reply. Steve doesn’t have to go far to remember Tony’s slack, expressionless face, how sickeningly wrong it felt to see death in a place it didn’t belong. It would be unbearable to even imagine that moment for more than a second if Steve didn’t have an extra vial of Pym particles tucked away in his belt.

“Yeah,” Steve mutters. “I know what you mean.”

Natasha would be proud of him, the way he punches Skull clean through the side of the mountain on his way out.

Returning the Reality stone is…complicated.

Rocket and Thor had conveniently forgotten to mention how they got the stuff out of Dr. Foster—maybe Thor didn’t even know, since he’d been having a conversation with his mother at the time, according to Rocket’s later recounting of events—which means Steve is left standing over a sleeping stranger with a syringe filled with dangerous miasma with no clue what to do.

He can hear Tony in his head again, a welcome rupturing of the tension that’s making it hard for Steve to even breathe, let alone think his own thoughts: stick ‘er with the pointy end.

It’s solid advice, actually. But for a moment, all Steve can think about is how dearly he misses that voice in his ear, his head, his life, even though he’s lived less than seventy-two hours without it, but that’s seventy-two hours (plus/minus seven years and change) too long. He’s getting impatient, putting things back the way they were just to get to where he should have been all along, and he doesn’t want to waste a minute watching Dr. Foster sleep when he knows he could be spending that precious time getting back to Tony.

Life, Steve’s learned too many times in too many devastating ways, is too goddamn short. Tony didn’t hesitate, in the end, so Steve won’t either. Not now.

Holding his breath, Steve sticks Dr. Foster with the pointy end and then runs like hell.

The Sanctum Sanctorum is remarkably unscathed despite being surrounded on all sides by Chitauri carcasses and broken alien tech. Dust from the rubble and ash permeates the air so thickly it’s like trying to breathe plaster of Paris without a mask. Steve coughs as he knocks on the front door, grateful all over again to be cured of his asthma.

The person who opens the door is far from expected, but like Nat told Scott that fateful day back at the compound, nothing’s crazy anymore.

“You’re not who I was expecting,” they say, lackadaisical like they’re not surrounded by dead aliens that just fell out of the sky. Bruce and Stephen had told him the Ancient One was a bit, well, strange, but Steve certainly wasn’t expecting this much archness wrapped up in sunflower yellow.

What, did Big Bird suddenly decide to take up transcendental meditation? Tony’s voice snarks. Steve bites his tongue for a second to hold off the snort threatening to escape him. The Ancient One raises an eyebrow (or lack thereof) at him with a smirk.

“Is he close, still?”

Steve’s thoughts go silent so fast his head spins. “I’m sorry?”

The Ancient One steps forward. “I’m sure you are,” they say. It feels dangerous, standing out here on the front steps like this, but if the Ancient One doesn’t flinch at being exposed, then neither will Steve. They hold out their hand with a beatific smile.

“I won’t ask how it all went,” they whisper conspiratorially, “but do tell me one thing: is Bruce alright?”

The Time stone flashes a vivid green from the safety of its cradle of dense foam inside the carbon steel suitcase, which Steve holds out to the Ancient One like one would a box with an engagement ring inside.

“Bruce is fine,” he says. The but goes unspoken. One look at Steve and the Ancient One knew exactly what his plan was, apparently. He’s still reeling from their earlier comment. He watches the stone float up from the suitcase and drift toward the amulet resting against the Ancient One’s stomach; their hands flicker and move as it opens with a whisper of metal and gears that reminds Steve poignantly, painfully, of Tony.

There had been a couple of years there, the good ones, when he’d spent a lot of time watching Tony in his workshop, learning the ways in which Tony’s genius applied itself to the world. Everything from DUM-E to JARVIS to the suits to their comms to the reactor powering the tower to proprietary satellites to pasta carbonara, Tony’s mind was capable of it all, and then some. And it all lived inside a man who drove Steve crazy with anger and frustration and awe and lust and who gave Steve so unbelievably much without asking for anything, anything in return except Steve’s friendship and trust and instead Steve had given Tony the awful truth about his parents two years too late.

After Siberia, Steve spent most nights awake, standing on balconies and rooftops just holding the flip phone and thinking back to those earlier days with the kind of bitterly pitiful regret of the truly stupid: of course he’d been infatuated, back then. Of course he’d run away from the very thought. There’d been Pepper, obviously, and it was Tony. More to the point, it was them: Steve and Tony, oil and water, north and south, futurist and idealist, stubborn and stubborner still, always opposite in all the ways that mattered.

Of course he’d used that as an excuse. God forbid Steve Rogers ever admit to being afraid.

The Ancient One closes the amulet with a slow, gentle glide of their pale, steady hands. Tony’s were darker, bigger, stronger, more. Not capable of this kind of magic, but to Steve, Tony’s mind was magic. And his heart was made of pure light. He’d placed it in Steve’s hand. Steve never told anyone how it burned him to hold it, or that he’d prayed for the wound not to heal.

He’d cried the next morning—for their losses, yes, but mostly because he had healed. It was torture, feeling one way but appearing the opposite. It was one of the ways he and Tony had come to understand each other, over the years prior: sometimes what appears on the outside isn’t the truth of what lives on the inside.

Looking up into the Ancient One’s eyes feels like falling headfirst into time, itself.

“I would caution you against your choice,” they say, wise and mischievous at the same time, somehow, “but I know you will set things right, when the time comes.”

Steve closes the suitcase and nods. He tries not to think about Tony’s funeral. The way the first arc reactor Tony had ever built floated off on a wreath of flowers across the surface of the lake, quiet and all heart, the way Tony had been at the last.

He has to go back there, one day.

But not yet.

His past self is still lying unconscious on the glass walkway where Steve left him when he returns. Arms and legs akimbo, that charmingly ridiculous uniform stretching to compensate for the awkward splaying of limbs, Steve Rogers of 2012 looks like a child who went down for a nap, hard. In so many ways, he was a kid, back then, and yet so old. Too old, too soon.

You’re just a little unstuck, Billy, Tony had said to him once when he’d found Steve awake in the communal kitchen at 4 AM, too riled by a nightmare to go back to sleep. At Steve’s confused look, he’d smiled—kind, soft, caring—and two days later gave him a first edition signed copy of a novel by someone named Kurt Vonnegut.

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

He read it cover-to-cover twice before he went looking for Tony in the workshop to thank him with a hug. One of the few they’d ever shared, and all the more precious for it.

Steve Rogers of 2023 knows this kid won’t hesitate to seize the opportunity he’s about to be presented with.

“Look alive, soldier,” he barks. Rogers coughs and splutters and springs to his feet like something stung him right on the ass. As soon as he registers Steve, his copy, standing in front of him, he falls back on his heels into a fighting stance. It’s wobbly around the knees, but Steve doesn’t bother correcting his stance. This isn’t what he’s come to do.

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he says, and then he tells him everything he needs to know.

Bucky is alive. You can save him.

Peggy, too. You can be with her.

The war is over. You can live without it.

You can go home. You get to have one.

Imagine it.

Rogers looks at the time-space GPS with a degree of skepticism Steve forgot that face was capable of. After talking trees and raccoons and living Norse gods and alien armies from outer space and Titans and time travel—after Tony Stark—nothing seems impossible anymore.

Finally, finally, Rogers holds out his hand, palm to heaven. Steve’s stomach tightens painfully to remove the device from his hand, but he thinks of what’s waiting for him downstairs, and letting go has never been so easy. Rogers holds it like a bomb waiting to go off, wary and fearful, but excited, too.

Then, he looks at Steve, lit up the way a child whose parent has just given them a whole dollar to spend might be.

“Are you sure?”

“More than I’ve ever been.”

Rogers’ face tightens. “What about—” he glances down through the glass. “The others? Will they know? Will they be alright?”

“I’ll handle it,” he says. He’s taking a page out of Tony’s book here, winging it where he’s used to planning. Bucky was proud when Steve told him his half-cocked idea to go back in time to be with Tony Stark, however Tony would have him.

How’re you gonna figure out being both Steves at once?

I’ll handle it.

And if they figure it out?

They’ll handle it.

Rogers is hesitating. He doesn’t want to be selfish—that’s not in his nature. Steve smiles and reaches out, cups his hands around the one with the device and closes Rogers’ fingers around it.

“It’s okay,” he says. You’re allowed to be selfish, when it’s the right thing to do.

Looking at his younger self is dizzying, like vertigo. Tony once mentioned having a huge crush on Jimmy Stewart when they watched that movie as a team, which is how Steve learned Tony Stark liked men, too. That was the night his world really turned upside-down.

Steve reaches into his belt and hands Rogers the extra vial. Enough for one trip. He’ll never get his dance with Peggy, but she’ll get hers.

Steve will just have to dance with Tony, instead. What a hardship.

He’s smiling, looking vaguely downwards where he knows Tony is, when Rogers looks at him and asks, “Why?”

Steve dials the date and time and coordinates from memory.

A week from Saturday.

The Stork Club.

Eight o’ clock, on the dot.

The past is past, except when it’s not. Rogers is unstuck, but Steve isn’t. Not anymore. He hasn’t been for a long, long time.

He shrugs. Smiles, easy, the way he couldn’t when he was Rogers’ age, fresh out of the ice and soul-broken, hopeless.

“I’m home.”

The last test is the hardest. Steve goes down to the lobby via the elevator, carrying the scepter in one hand and the suitcase containing the space stone in the other. He’s dressed in his 2012 uniform again, and he didn’t miss the way it rides up his ass, but he’s got more important things to think about.

There’s still a commotion happening in the lobby, the fallout of Tony’s self-inflicted heart attack diversion, but Steve manages to force himself away from where he knows Tony is to walk right up to Alexander Pierce. He would dearly love to drop the man right here and now in this lobby, audience be damned, but he has a part to play, yet.

Steve tamps down the urge and rage long enough to present Pierce with the last stone. The look that flickers behind Pierce’s shrewd blue eyes is telling enough—Steve could punch himself, it’s so obvious. Glee, hunger, intent, all there, malicious and toxic. HYDRA, right out there in the open.

He’ll deal with it later. With extreme prejudice.

“The cube was just a housing unit,” Steve explains, slipping back into his old by-the-book tone of voice like one slips on a pair of well-worn leather shoes. Pierce takes it with an eerie smile.

“Very good, Captain.” At Pierce’s nod, Steve straightens, looks back with a knowing smirk, and nods in return. Rumlow would have already updated him about Steve’s words in the elevator; now the rest of it—rescuing Bucky, infiltrating SHIELD, destroying HYDRA and Pierce with it—is up to Steve.

But first.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” Steve says deferentially, already moving away from Pierce toward the circle of black suits hovering around Tony and Thor like expectant vultures at the feast. His heart is in his throat, racing.

“Get your hands off me!”

Tony.

Thor is running interference on the suits, pushing and holding them back, Mjolnir in hand. He clears a space for Steve to walk through with a nod. Steve nods back, but his eyes are elsewhere.

Tony.

“I said let go of me, Mall Cop! I’m fine, I don’t need your help.”

Pepper always says I’m the best at taking care of others at the expense of myself, Tony had told him once. They’d been sitting on the edge of the landing pad near the top of the tower at sunset, going over what went wrong with whatever battle had happened that day. Steve had spent the entire conversation with one hand shoved under his thigh to stop himself from reaching out to hold Tony’s, who’d put himself in the line of fire—unnecessarily—and had nearly given Steve a panic attack.

A panic attack. How quaint, compared to a shattered heart.

She’s right, Steve had replied, but then Pepper’s right about everything.

Most things, Tony said. I’m still not sure if she’s right about me.

Steve still remembers the way his hand had clenched under his thigh at those words. What do you mean?

Tony had looked out over the city, not gloating or smug the way Steve had assumed he would be when they first met and Steve learned billionaires were a thing that existed—quite prevalently—in the 21st century, but wistfully, like he couldn’t believe he had the view at all.

Most days I wake up expecting her to be standing by the bed fully dressed, waiting for me to open my eyes so she can tell me it’s over, he’d said, quiet so only Steve could hear, like the whole city was listening in and Tony wanted to keep this moment between them. I don’t think she’s right about choosing me.

Steve could have painted Tony in that moment: vulnerable, eyes and skin and hair glowing like fire and honey and whiskey in the light of the setting sun as it glinted off the cityscape. He was handsome, small but strong, nervous but brave, and so unbelievably worth choosing it took every ounce of Steve’s strength to keep his hand under his thigh. To not reach out and take Tony’s face in his hands and just—

Tony, he’d said softly, urgently but without force, waiting until Tony looked him in the eye to say what he’d been holding back for years and even then it was only the tip of the tip of the iceberg: You are worth choosing.

The way Tony had stared back at Steve then is not unlike the way he looks up at him now: from the floor of the lobby of Stark Tower, roughed up and shellshocked from the battle and his brief introduction to outer space and a minor cardiac episode, but relieved and inarticulately happy to see Steve there among the suits.

“O Captain, my captain!” Tony crows, wheezing slightly on the last syllable in a way that is far too endearing for Steve to handle, especially given his own fragile state. When Tony reaches a hand up, Steve doesn’t hesitate to take it and haul him to his feet.

Tony is alive. Standing there, in front of Steve, alive. Younger, smoother around some edges and sharper in others, beautiful like a sunset and a sunrise rolled into one—an astronomical anomaly of the rarest kind. The Black Sabbath t-shirt is singed but mostly whole, and Steve wants to linger on that detail, except he can’t.

“You alright there, Cap? You’re looking a little blue around the gills…”

Blue. Blueblueblueblueblueblue.

The burning light at the center of Tony Stark is so blue, a glowing circle shining out from behind that silly threadbare band t-shirt like a beacon in the night, guiding Steve home. How is no one else marveling at this? At Tony Stark, alive?

He’s staring. At Tony’s chest. He knows he is, but there’s no helping it. Just like there’s no helping the way he reaches out and pulls Tony into a hug like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. It wasn’t long ago he’d carried this same body, suit and all, off the battlefield, crying himself hoarse even as he laid Tony out on a patch of grass in the sun away from the smoke and desolation. He’d watched this man die not seventy-two hours ago, and here was Tony, in his arms the way Steve should have held him years and years and years ago, alive.

It shouldn’t be possible. But as he’s learned ten times over, when it comes to Tony Stark, impossible is only a matter of perspective (and a little bit of elbow grease).

Steve muffles his hitching breaths against Tony’s shoulder, trying desperately to compose himself even as he falls apart. He’s failing, but can’t bring himself to care. Tony returns his embrace haltingly, like he can’t believe it’s happening, but then neither can Steve.

“It’s alright, big guy. Party’s over,” Tony chuckles into his ear, nervous, patting Steve on the shoulder from under his arm in an awkward bend. “I’m fine, I promise.“ He does the unthinkable, then, Tony: he steps back and takes Steve’s hand and lays it flat against his chest so Steve can feel the strong thud of his heartbeat and the low, steady hum of the arc reactor at the same time. “See?” Tony says with a quicksilver smile, “alive and well.”

Steve knows his eyes are wet. His hair is a mess and he’s still grieving his Tony, and that grief is a ten-ton weight in his stomach. And yet, standing here looking into this Tony’s big brown eyes, faced with that benevolent (if teasing) smile and generous heart, Steve feels young and limitless, weightless, like he’d float off the floor if it weren’t for Tony, who’s still holding his hand against his chest.

Steve knows this is selfish and reckless and his staying here could break the fabric of reality itself, but he would choose this—he’d choose Tony, warm and alive and smiling at him—every time. There are battles to be fought and truths to be told and lives to save, and he may never get to have Tony in all the ways he wants him in this or any timeline, but he’s willing to wing it and see.

Who knows—they could very well end up married.

Crazier and more impossible things have happened.

“Alive is good,” Steve says, locking a sob away behind a smile so big it strains his cheeks. “It means you can still pay for shawarma.”

Tony’s face goes slack with surprise, and then he’s laughing so hard he’s cackling, leaning into Steve’s steady hand for support. Steve can feel Tony’s laugh as much as he can hear it: it feels like home and sounds like rock music and looks like sunlight spilling out between his fingers, bright blue.

- - -

also on AO3! https://archiveofourown.org/works/22299358

#steve rogers #tony stark #stevetony #superhusbands #stony #rachel writes fic #yes I did pull the title from the most cliché death cab song out there #SHRUUUUG #endgame fix it #I'm riding this pining!steve wave for as long as possible lol #responses #prompt fic

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redactedrichie · 7 years ago

Text

Uhh, a Reddie soulmate fic?

Based on this post I made, some people wanted me to write it out, so I am! Here’s the first one with RichiexEddie, and I plan on doing the other 2 soon. It’s not very well written oops but hey it’s my best shot at sitting down for an hour??????? It’s also longer than intended so oops???????

Richie Tozier was going insane.

It wasn’t the missing person’s sign that convinced him, even though he knew for a fact that the aged paper he held was somehow just a figment of his imagination. It wasn’t three doors that definitely were not there before now blocking his path, and it wasn’t even the psychotic clown actively trying to murder him.

No, the thing that finally convinced Richie that he was going insane was the unmistakable pulse twitching just beneath the flesh of his palm, and the immediate, frantic understanding that Eddie was in trouble.

It had started just as he and Bill stumbled out of the door marked Scary and into the hallway, trying catch their breath despite the dust clinging to the air. Just as his right hand sunk to the rotting wall for support, a pulse shot through the palm of his hand and up his arm as if he had been shocked, sending him reeling backwards into Bill. He had assumed that the clown would be there, or maybe a corpse would be ripping its way out of the wall, but there was oddly nothing but the peeling wallpaper in the place he was just leaning up against. Not even a burn mark from the electric shock he felt.

“You okay?” Bill asked, but Richie hardly heard him over his own sporadic thoughts. The pulsing in his palm continued steadily, vibrating his entire hand as if he had taken up a sudden twitch. It came from just beneath the skin, nestled somewhere deep between the nerves and veins. Although he knows it’s there—that somethings there—there’s no mark, or light, or beep, or anything to give away that something out of the ordinary was going on and that he wasn’t just losing his damn mind.

Possibly weirder than the thumping itself was the fact that he knows it has to do with Eddie, no doubt about it. It was like instinct, screaming at him that out of everyone and everything in this whole damn world, this pulse somehow was about Eddie. He wasn’t positive about a lot of things; hell, he wasn’t even positive he knew the name of the current president, but somehow, he would bet all the money in the world on this one, single fact.

The pulse was for Eddie.

“B-Bill, there’s something wrong,” Richie muttered, shaking his hand frantically as if he could shake off the rhythmic pulse. It didn’t hurt per say, but everything about it felt unnatural and off-putting, like some kind of warning beacon. “It’s…It’s Eddie…”

“What?” Bill questioned, squinting over at Richie. “W-what about Eddie?”

“There’s something wrong,” Richie repeated shakily, pushing his hand against Bill’s shoulder to prove he’s not crazy. “Eddie’s in trouble, see?”

Bill could feel the pulse, Richie could tell he does from the way Bill flinches away from his hand. He opened his mouth to reply, to assure Richie that his hand hadn’t suddenly be possessed, but a muffled scream of terror coming from downstairs caused them both to turn.

Shit.

Richie’s feet hammered across the hall and down the stairs in time with the pulse, which had only grown stronger and more demanding as soon as Eddie screamed. His thoughts scrambled in a mix of adrenaline and fear, somehow knowing exactly where Eddie would be and not having the time to question it.

With Bill at his heels, they stumbled over each other upon the sight of Eddie corned on a broken table, body curled defensively into itself, his face contorted in pure fear as that fucking clown held him with one clawed hand.

At his side, Richie’s right hand had curled in a fist in an attempt to muffle the shockwaves going through his palm. It could be the adrenaline—it had to be the adrenaline—but he swore that it beat in time with Eddie’s rapid breaths.

You’re insane.

Richie’s body moved in autopilot as Bev speared the clown, running over and dropping down to his knees at Eddie’s side without a second thought. The fact that he corned himself wasn’t lost on him; he could have run the other way when the clown was distracted. It was suicide coming to Eddie’s side, this whole plan was suicide from the start, but he couldn’t find the strength to care.

He’d rather die at his friend’s side than to face a reality where he was gone.

“Look at me Eddie, look at me!” Richie cried, cupping his hands around Eddie’s shaken face, forcing him to turn his attention away from the clown. His wide eyes bore into Richie’s, looking for a salvation that wasn’t there. But for a moment, just a mere moment as their eyes met amid the screaming and the chaos, the pulsing stopped thudding against Eddie’s cheek. The scene slid away, the clown and this hell house and all their friends were a mile away. It was just a single moment, less than a blink of an eye, but Richie was not crazy. He didn’t imagine the look in Eddie’s eyes where for just a moment, he thought he was safe.

Reality came crashing back into place like a tidal wave, and the pulsing came back in full force, causing Richie’s right hand to bounce off Eddie’s cheek no matter how hard he tried to hold on. His own fear kept him from watching the clown slither off; the only way he knew it was gone was how the thudding dulled into a faint pulse, a soft vibration that buzzed across his nerves.

For the moment, they were safe. He was sure of it.

Richie wanted nothing more than to ask Eddie if he felt the thudding, if he knew what was going on, but Eddie didn’t stick around long enough to be asked. He was pissed, rightfully so considering how he was walking out with a broken arm, and wouldn’t even let anyone so much as ask if he was okay once the shock wore off.

So he was helpless to just watch Eddie get into his mother’s car, eyes trained determinedly forward and mouth set in a hard line. He couldn’t even think of a joke to lighten the situation this time.

“Richie,” Bill whispered as they watched the receding image of the Kaspbrak car turn the corner. “That p-pulse in your hand, how did you know it was about Eddie?”

For once, Richie Tozier was speechless. He didn't have an answer, he just knew that he was right. Nothing could explain the desperation of that pulse, the scream of warning in his head that immediately scrambled every other thought he had. He couldn’t even figure out a way to explain that this wasn’t the first time he felt this, that he felt it days earlier when Eddie had apparently seen the leper. He wrote it off then as a muscle spasm, and the thoughts of the medical explanation is what made him attribute it to Eddie.

Richie simply shook his head, wishing that he could ignore how blissful it felt for that thudding to stop, and how heart wrenching it felt under his skin. There was no logical explanation for what he felt, and he told himself for the thousandth time that his thoughts of Eddie were nonsense too.

He was going insane.

Eddie Kaspbrak was dying.

Or, that’s what he thought, at least.

He took the pain medication the doctor prescribed to the exact dosage, followed all the safety precautions that the nurse repeated twice as the cast was applied to his arm, had the side effects written out neatly on a piece of paper on his bedside table, and input all his increments into his wristwatch. He had done everything perfectly, and the doctor gave him the OK to go home.

So why, if he was otherwise in healthy shape, was there a dull throbbing in his palm?

It only started up once he had settled in his room for the night, vibrating his hand like his watch would sometimes do as it went off. In a panic, Eddie had immediately attributed it to the broken arm and assumed the worst. The doctor had said nothing about vibrating, maybe this was some sort of side effect they had never seen? One they would have no cure for? Maybe some kind of infection had gotten in that they didn’t see, something the clown had done to him, and the pulsing was only the first step before his whole body shut down.

In the confines of his suddenly uncomfortably small room, his breath would only come in short bursts as the thoughts of what alien illness could be in his body doubled over themselves, forcing him to reach his spare hand out towards his inhaler.

It was only as he raised it to his lips that he realized it was gently shaking in time with the pulse, the pulse in his left hand.

Eddie hardly noticed his breathing returning without aid of the inhaler as he contemplated his left hand, the one completely unaffected by the break.

That doesn’t make sense, there’s no reason this hand should have any side effects at all.

Eddie shifted uncomfortably in his bed, debating whether to go ask his mother to go back to the hospital or not. The pulsing didn’t hurt, but it felt too alien to ignore. If it was something that It did to him, bringing it up to his mother would only get him checked into a psych ward. If Bev’s dad couldn’t see the blood coating every inch of her bathroom, what are the chances any adult would be able to feel the pulsing?

Scoffing, Eddie slid down into his bedsheets and shoved the vibrating palm under his spare pillow. Something—maybe common sense—told him that going to the hospital would lead to no answers, and telling his mother would probably lead to him getting it amputated.

Deep down, he knew that it had nothing to due with the broken arm, or even a side effect of that clown or leper. He knows because he’s felt this pulse before. The pulsing is what woke him up in Neibolt house, passed out on the ground from the fall. And before then, it somehow felt familiar.

He never knew how he could always tell when Richie ran his stupid trash mouth and got beaten up before he even saw him. Without fail, Eddie could predict finding Richie with a new bruise under his eye even if he was out with Bill with Richie nowhere in sight. Stan especially always questioned how he knew, and Eddie shrugged it off as an intuition for stupidity.

He had never taken notice of the twitch of his left hand each time this happened, nor did he think the sudden alert of Richie getting beaten up was out of the ordinary. He merely wrote it off as an attribution of seeing him nearly every day, and maybe a feature of his growing fragile fondness for that idiot.

But now, the pulsing was hard to ignore. Maybe because neither of them had really pissed off Bowers enough to nearly be killed before.

Shuddering, Eddie tried to shove his left hand further in the bed, curling his fingers tightly around the pillowcase to ease the tension. But no matter how hard he tried to slip into sleep, the pulsing refused to let him rest. Sleep dangled just out of reach, jarred away by the rhythmic thump thump thump.

It felt like he was holding a heartbeat in his hand.

Richie’s heart.

With a soft cry of frustration, Eddie sat up, abandoning his bed in favor of padding over to the window. As he gazed out upon the stillness of 2 am, Eddie Kaspbrak knew 3 things to be true:

1. He was absolutely pissed at Bill, Richie, and the others for getting him into this shit that got his arm broken. Going into that shithole was a disaster waiting to happen, and he was the only one who had even gotten hurt. It wasn’t fair. He almost died today.

2. He 100% looked death in the face and somehow came out the other side of it. There is absolutely nothing that can convince him to go back.

Well, except for,

3. Somewhere, Richie Tozier was in trouble. Eddie didn’t know why, or how, but he knew it couldn’t be anything worse than getting pushed around by the Bowers gang from how soft the pulse is. But no matter how faint, and no matter how angry he still is, there’s no silencing the uneasy urge to push open the window and finding Richie, pulling him away from whatever danger he was in. The pulsed begged him to, pulling at his hand to find Richie’s.

Even when he wasn’t around, Richie still was making Eddie’s life harder than it already was. He wasn’t ready to even begin to consider what it meant to have this thing beneath his skin linked to Richie, or even wonder if Richie had one too.

But there are worse things, he decided, than having an alarm system for Richie Tozier.

There was a good chance that they all were going to die down in the sewers.

Most of the Losers knew this due to sheer common sense and a pinch of pessimism that comes with trying to fight an evil deity from space that shape shifts into literal nightmares.

But for Richie and Eddie, there was something else that was constantly reminding them just how real this danger was. The instant they set foot in the Neibolt house once again, both of their hands began to dully pulse in sync.

It knew they were there, and It was already watching them.

Richie had immediately glanced over at Eddie when the pulsing began, hoping that Eddie would be looking back. But Eddie had his head trained down towards his feet, his free hand clutching determinedly at the base of his cast.

Richie swallowed down the rejection thickly and curled his hand into a fist, trying to turn his attention back to the matter at hand. He doesn’t feel it too; you’re insane, Richie.

But the deeper they went into the depths of the sewers, the more intense the pulse became. Eddie could hardly conceal it any more, choosing to eventually just shove his entire hand in his pocket. If Richie saw how badly it was trembling, he’d probably make some smartass joke about Eddie having the shakes that would somehow either turn into a dick joke or a mom joke. Probably both.

In all honesty, the last thing he wanted to do is look Richie in the eye again. He’d been actively ignoring him altogether, and hoping it wasn’t too obvious. He still wasn’t sure what this pulse thing meant, and now was not the time to be figuring it out. For all he knows, if they kill the clown, maybe the pulsing would go away too.

He’d been lying to himself with fake pills for years, what harm would one more lie do?

And so both boys avoided each other, hands both clasped tightly around themselves in an attempt to sate the urge to reach out to the other. But by the time they found Bill face-to-face with Georgie—or what looked like Georgie—the tugging was too hard to ignore.

Despite both of their efforts, they had ended up standing right next to each other. The shock of seeing Georgie had completely caught them off guard, and it was enough of a distraction to forget to resist the thudding in their palms.

Like magnets, their hands met in the small space between them at once, causing both boys to flinch. Despite the sight of Georgie and Bill, their attention flew to their intertwined hands, and then slowly, slowly, their gazes trailed up to the other boy’s face.

They didn’t speak—they couldn’t right now—but a wordless, mutual understanding passed between them. Neither of them needed to say that they felt the pulsing too, or that in that moment, the pulsing had silenced. Regardless of the very present danger only a few feet away, for a brief moment, they were safe.

The sound of the gun going off is what startled them apart, and the pulsing began again like clockwork. But now, this odd thudding in their palms wasn’t unwelcomed, or even all that uncomfortable now that they knew that the other felt it too.

It was something else to motivate them to stare fear in the face and conquer it. More than just themselves, they had a new reason to kill this damn clown.

They had barely gotten out of the Neibolt house when Richie grabbed Eddie by his shoulders and whirled him around.

“You feel it too!” he excitedly quipped, nearly yelling. If the others hadn’t already set off for home, they surely would have tuned into the odd conversation. “The pulsing, you feel it too!”

“Yeah,” Eddie nodded, a smile slowly building on his face. “I thought I had some disease, Parkison’s maybe, but no it was just…you, I guess."

“Wow, Eds, you sure are a charmer. Call me a virus next, I’ll swoon!”

Eddie grimaces, punching Richie’s shoulder at the unwelcomed return of his shitty jokes. “You know what I meant! And don’t call me Eds, you know I hate that.”

Richie disinterestedly patted him on the arm, signifying that he wouldn’t be letting up in the least, and held his right palm out flat. Eddie did the same, and they both stared down at their outstretched hands. There was no pulse now, and they both took it as a sign that It was truly gone.

“Whaddya think it means?” Richie wondered aloud, eyes trailing back up to Eddie’s face. He couldn’t even start to try to wipe his wide grin off his face. “You think we’re soulmates, Eds?”

“Soulmates?” Eddie spluttered, drawing his hand away immediately. “Where’d you get that idea from!”

“I dunno, maybe those sewer fumes rotted my brain,” Richie shrugs, winking down at the flustered boy. "You got a better answer, Dr. K?"

Eddie wanted to argue, to yell at him for the onslaught of nicknames once again, but the mere idea of soulmates sent a warm shiver up his spine—a pulse not out of danger, but delight.

Maybe he could think of a better answer, but he didn’t necessarily want one.

“Just try to keep yourself out of trouble, I don’t need my hand turning into an alarm clock all hours of the day,” Eddie finally replied, hoping the snarky answer would aptly hide the blush climbing on his cheeks.

“I think I’ll be getting myself in even more trouble, just so you always have to be thinking of me!” Richie teased as he patted Eddie’s cheek, turning towards the street so they could finally distance themselves from the cursed house. “Buzz buzz, paging Eddie Kaspbrak. You know, I can’t believe it, I’m actually not insane!”

Eddie ran to catch up as Richie rambled on, meeting his longer strides with his own quick, small ones. “You’re rude, inappropriate, and an all-around asshole, but you’re not insane, Richie.”

“Gee, Eds, you really know how to make me blush! Whisper more sweet nothings to me, darling!” Richie jokingly tried to drape himself over Eddie, his head dramatically thrown over his shoulder before getting shoved away.

Richie continued to ramble on as they made their way towards Eddie’s house, filling the empty space with thoughts of nothing and everything. Eddie didn’t mind at all, happy to let the other boy jump from topic to topic at his own whim. Normally they would be worried about keeping their voices down as the evening sun dipped down towards the horizon, the curfew clearly broken and the risk of going missing present. But not anymore, with that stupid clown laying in pieces in a well somewhere and their hands serene at their sides. Richie could be yelling, if he wanted, and the only danger they would be in was one of the neighbors threatening to call the cops with a noise complaint. They never had to wonder about being at risk ever again.

“This is your stop,” Richie noted softly as they came to a stop at the curb of Eddie’s driveway, nodding towards his house. “Don’t be getting into any fights now, I’ll know!”

“You’re the one whose more likely to get into trouble with your trash mouth,” Eddie shot back.

Although Eddie didn’t mean it as a legitimate insult, Richie’s face softened, a rare moment of insecurity flashing behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Yeah, you kinda pulled the short straw on this whole connected thing,” he muttered, averting his gaze. His hands tucked into his pockets, suddenly guilty about the situation. Eddie was right: he was always getting himself into trouble, he just couldn’t control his mouth sometimes. The last thing he wanted was to burden Eddie’s life with his own problems. He was tired of feeling like a burden.

But Eddie smiled softly up at him, brushing his fingertips over Richie’s reassuringly. “No, I think I got pretty lucky.”

Richie’s eyes went wide behind his glasses, words stuck in his throat. Not even the fading evening light or his mop of dark curls could hide the rare blush climbing up his neck. Stumbling backwards, Richie tried to yell out, “That’s what I said to your mom-er, I mean, what your mom said to me…tell her I’ll see her tonight, same time as usual! Don’t wait up, Eds!"

Eddie waved at Richie as he quickly slipped away down the street, not used to being the one in control but enjoying it all the same. He stood on the curb, letting the end of summer chill send goosebumps up his arms until he couldn’t see Richie anymore.

And, although there was no way Eddie could know, Richie had stopped just as he turned the corner, peeking back around the edge to make sure Eddie got inside his house safe and sound.

Although their thoughts raced a mile a minute, there was one thing that Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak agreed on as they stared down at their hands that summer night: it was nice knowing that no matter where they went, they carried a little bit of the other with them.

#this went on longer than expected OOPS #MY BAD #HONESTLY MY BAD DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME #IM GONNA TAG THIS SHIT NOW #reddie #it #it movie #it movie 2017 #it 2017 #it headcanon #soulmate au #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #bill denbrough #reddie headcanon #ithc #the losers club #pennywise #okay good night gyn out

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thehalfworld · 7 years ago

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Fanfic MST: ITS MY LIFE!, a Portal fanfic [part 12]

Oh yes, friends, it’s back! It’s been entirely too long (two years too long, to be exact) and I hope you’re all ready for some more vaguely Portal-flavored nonsense.

No real warnings for this chapter, just typical MarissaTheWriter ridiculousness. And canon character death, maybe, depending on whether or not you take the events of this chapter at face value (and, if I remember this story correctly, you probably shouldn’t).

Recap: Chell and GLaDOS have fused into one entity, P-body is pregnant, and Marissa for some reason decided that Rattman is the only one who can prevent disaster even though dude is strictly a non-action guy. She located him and now the two of them are planning on taking down the Chell/GLaDOS fusion.

Chapter 1

Previous chapter

AN YOU GUYSARE ALL SO WEIRD! YOU WERE GIVIN ME GOOD REVIEWS THEN YOU SAY IM A TROLL AN THAT YUR GONNA KILL ME AN PUT SALT IN MY THINGS?

That is pretty weird, yeah.

(I’m not even sure what she’s referencing. Maybe a play on “assault”?)

IF IT WERENT FOR THE PEPOLE HOO REALLY LICK MY STORY LIKE THE BUZINESS GUY AN SEPHRAL AN CAT NOT BOUNCY ID STOP IT RITE NOW!

I dunno who Sephral is, but “the buziness guy” is user ASBusinessMagnet (later a recurring character in MarissaTheWriter’s stories; I’m pretty sure we got married at one point), and “Cat Not Bouncy” is Tumblr user catbountry, who was going by “Not Cat Bountry” on Fanfiction dot net and who did a dramatic reading.

PS - I NO THAT GLADOS IS SPELLED GLADOS I CALLED HER FUSION CHELLGADOS BECOS CHELL ALREADY HAS THE LS AN IT SOUNDED MORE COOLER!

See, I told you she’d explain that. All makes sense now, right? Perfectly logical writing decision.

ITS MY LIFE!

CHAPTER TWELF: THE FINAL BATTLE

Bit of a misnomer, since this is not, in fact, the final chapter.

(Actually, if I remember correctly, MarissaTheWriter may have been writing by the seat of her pants; it’s possible she initially intended this as the True and Honest Final Battle.)

Ratman an I were goin thru the air ducks to get to CHELLGADOSs layer were the final show down wold be.

Oh my god, she means her lair, not her layer. That literally took me years to figure out. Holy fuck.

Wheatly was growlin an tryin to be scarry becos he didant have weapons so he was lick are cheer leader.

Considering what happens when Wheatley actually tries to be the bad guy, I think this is preferable.

We intered the layer an saw CHELLGADOS buildin turrents but these ones was speshal becos they cold walk a round an shoot an stuff!

Hey, I played Portal 2, I saw the turret assembly line. It’s pretty much autonomous. She doesn’t have to build them herself, and honestly I think she’d find it beneath her.

But maybe things have changed since I left the building.

"INTURDER!" One of the turrents called to CHELLGADOS. CHELLGADOS looked at me with all the angry she ever had.

That’s a phenomenal amount of anger. Surprised Marissa didn’t combust on the spot.

"Marrissa Roberts you have interfeared with my plans for the last time becos now I will kill you."

All right! Time for some murder!

Then she seed Ratman an got more angry. "RATMAN IS A LIFE? NOW YOU WILL BOTH DYE!"

I doubt she cares about killing Rattman, considering that she didn’t do so before and that he poses basically no threat on his own. Like I said… non-action guy.

CHELLGADOS taked out her portal gun wich was modified to shoot bullets lick a reel gun but cold shoot portals to just in case.

Okay, but does it really shoot bullets? I ask because the turrets use spring-loaded action in order to fire the entire bullet, which is obviously a hell of a lot less effective despite delivering more bullet per bullet. Explains why Chell can take so many hits without dying.

Point being, there’s no evidence Aperture Science knows how guns are supposed to work.

She fired the portal gun an it hit Ratman with a boom an I thot he was dead for sure.

But Ratman gotted up!

What? Is he still alive?

"Silly CHELLGADOS you cannt hurt me becos..." He pulled down his pants an I saw that he had replased his man thingys with... the space an rick cores!

…I know we’re leading up to a “balls of steel” joke, and I shan’t comment on that, but this raises so many goddamn questions. How do you replace your testicles with personality cores? A personality core is a hell of a lot bigger, and heavier, than a human testicle. Also, Space Core is in space, so how did Rattman get ahold of him? Did he shrink the cores somehow? How did this make him immune to bullets? How did he fit two personality cores in his pants? Why did he need to flash everybody?

My brain is hurting over this and I know it’s only in the story because the author wanted to make a stupid pun. Moving the hell on.

"IVE GOT BALLS OF STEEL!" (Thats from a game called Duke Nukum Forever its funny) The space core was still thing he was in space but Rick was mad at been one off Ratmans tentacles.

One of his tentacles? Are we in a hentai now?

"Well then ill just portal you into space like Wheatly an see how you like it you wont!" CHELLGADOS shooted a nother portal unner Ratmans feet an he was sucked into s space. "No dont you are my dotter Chell!" Ratman yelled as he got sucked in.

Uh… what? How? I thought Marissa and Chell were both Cave and Caroline’s kids in this story. Wasn’t that established several chapters ago?

"OMG HOW?" CHELLGADOS an me said at the same time to gether. "It all storted a long time ago..." Ratman gave us the down lo as he was just barely hanging on to the portal. "I used to work for Gabe Jonson affer he changed his name to Cave in onor of his dead brother. Caroline was got shot as you no Marrissa an was put in a robot body that was called... GLaDOS!"

Right, we know. How is he hanging on to the portal? Can you do that? I don’t think you can do that.

CHELLGADOS o-mouthed at his shockin words.

Did she forget she spent the beginning of this story being a goth emo over the revelation that she used to be human? Like… this isn’t news anymore.

"Gabe new he wold have to dotters named Marrissa an Chell but since GLaDOS was a prototip she an Cave coldnt make baby normal way an instead used the artificial enseamanation an grew test toob babys.

Hey, what the fuck is the “normal way” to have sex with a giant robot? Seriously, please inbox me if you know. It’s for a friend. I swear.

But there was a miksup an my dna got used instead of Gabes for one of the toobs that toob was... CHELL!" Then Rutman coldnt hold on any longer an fell into space an died.

Why did Aperture Science have a sperm sample from Rattman on file? How did they get DNA from Caroline, since her physical human body no longer exists? How does Rattman know about the mixup? Who carried the baby to term? How did two white people birth a woman of color? How did two white people birth a woman of color? I don’t know if I brought this up earlier in the MST, but I am directing that question at every “Chell is Cave and Caroline’s daughter” theorist too. You’re not off the fucking hook.

Then CHELLGADOS started shackin an looked funny. Chell was fightin back a gainst GLaDOSs control! "Marrissa there is not much time left you must kill me to stopped GLaDOS once and four all!"

Okay, but we know what happens when Marissa kills Chell — thanks to having consumed the “zombie taters,” Chell will just turn into a zombie. You don’t want the most tenacious woman in the world after your brains, but especially not when she’s fused with the most massive collection of wisdom to ever exist, who also hates you.

I o-mouthed becos Chells brane damage was cured so now I coldnt put her out of MISERY lol.

That’s actually not the concern I expected Marissa to have. She has no problem killing disabled people, but being fused with a homicidal AI who is using your body as her puppet is A-OK, even when the victim is begging for death?

Man, this girl could use some new priorities.

"But I cannt kill you Chell yur my sister there must be a nother way! Chell got sad "Hurry GLaDOS is takin control!" An she started lollin with evil. There was no way I cold kill Chell an then I rembered that GLaDOS used to be Carlion an that made me not want to kill herr neither.

Yeah, and remember how she used to be a well-written and complex character who cannot be reduced to a mere villain and who actually likes Chell so much she keeps writing songs about it?

Sorry, there I go talking about canon again.

"Bloody hell Marrissa shes powerin up!" Wheatly screemed from inside my jump soot an I looked up an saw CHELLGADOS was floatin in air an electric stuff was comin out off her. "THANKS MARRISSA YUO REMINDED ME THAT I USED TO BE CARALIN SO I REMBERED THAT I HAVE POWERS TOO!"

Hey, uh, what the fuck?

I o-mouthed, that dumb ingineer forgot to make it so only I gotted the powers! I didant no what to do now an it seemed hope less when a herd a sound. "Hey b**** were heer for backup!" It was... ATLAS AN P-BODY!

Who are they here to back up?

"OMG why are you jersk helpin me?" I asked while o-mouthin from the shock. "Becos CHELLGADOS is half yur sister an we dont lick you so we dont lick Chell neither!" Atlas eksplained. "An I rembered that you gave us the drugs an beer in the first place so if it wasnt for you we woldnt have drugs an beer!" P-Body added an Atlas nodded like yeah!

I guess that’s reasonable. I, too, feel indebted to those who give me drugs and beer.

We started ti fire are portal guns at CHELLGADOS an the portals combined to make a big portal black hole.

Co-op mode would benefit from the inclusion of this feature, I think.

"OH SH**!" CHELLGADOS screamed as the GLaDOS parts were all sucked out off Chell.

Should have attached them better, I guess.

Ones all of GLadOS was gone we closed the portal an Chell falled down on the ground. "Chell I safed you!" I rant to my sister an gave her hug. "Marrissa Im sorry, but the damaje from GLaDOS was to much..."

“…not to mention, having my butt sliced off after someone used their powers a little too recklessly…”

An she dyed in my arms. "Nooooo Chell my sister you are died!" I cried soooo much an Whealty cried to becos they was frends even Atlas an P-Body looked kinna sad.

Isn’t Chell gonna turn into a zombie now or are we not doing the zombie stuff anymore? Was that only because she was brain-damaged? This fic is confusing.

I put down Chells body an stand up when there was a clikclak nose be hind me.

Oh no! Not a clikclak nose!

"LOL we tricked you to get yur guard down Marrissa! Now die b****!" An Atlas an P-Body lolled an shot me in head.

I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I love that the author of this mess has no problem writing over-the-top violence but feels the need to censor the word “bitch.”

"Marrissa!" Wheatly screamed an ever thing got really black an I died.

Love the prose.

TO BE CONTINUED?

Yes, indeed, we’re not done with this fic yet!

OH NO MARRISSA IS DIED!

Oh, yes.

CAN WHEATLY SAFE HER?

Well, seeing as she’s dead, I think it may be a bit late for that.

FIND OUT IN THE NEXT ONE PS IM THINKIN OF MAYBE WRITIN A SPINNOFF A BOUT TEEN FORTRESS 2 AN GABE JONSON AN CARALION LIVIN IN PORTAL HIGH SCHOOL WHAT DO YOU GUYS THIN?

She actually did write that spinoff, by the way. I’ll put my MST of it up on this blog at some point.

Next chapter

#itsmylife.mst #fandom:portal #halfworld.mst

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stevecoleridge-posts · 5 years ago

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SPANISH LOCKDOWN …DAY14

Saturday night s all right for fighting.. on Facebook of course,

i was just casting my mind back to a Ninurta Night , as there called their Saturdays Night in Uruk, capital of Sunny Sumeria, and imagining what a great time they were probably having 5000 years ago , getting pissed on the local beer, because they invented that ,as well as the seven day week. Of course they did nt have Netflix, but they got to go out more..i don’t have Netflix either , yet , but have axs to lots of stuff including Music documentaries , which we are watching in order , chronological order that is..starting with The Birth of Country music .. and Mr Ralph Peers,from new York, who looked a little like Brian Epstein by the way , who set up a temporary recording studio above furniture shop, there you go agin , NEMs , well no, it was nt , but anyway I digress, and into this temporary Studio walked The Carter Family..3 of them .. and Jimmie Rogers.. yes.. that Jimmie Rogers , the Singing brakeman..i mean ,Okay , i can hear you mumbling about Sam Phillips, and the Chess brothers etc.. but this was Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia..a place no-one who doesn’t live round there has heard of..its like discovering the Beatles and the Rolling Stones..or rather signing them.. After that we watched a newish doc about the King , E.V. Presley..and it was mad by some guys driving round America in his Rolls royce..great stuff That led to the Fab Four , Eight days a Week.. which was about their touring years and the whole world has seen it except me… its absolutely.. the F word , second letter A..anyway this time 55 years ago they were filming Help. inSt Margarets..Twickenham..and taking photos for the infamous Butcher cover , in the Vale , Chelsea, where my first nursery school was located..ah well.. don’t want to get too carried away on Beatles Lore..or i ll bore you to death , because i don’t mind admitting i am well versed in that subject… The Beatles represented the 60s in the same way Elvis represented the 50 s…and someone told a story about how the disgusting Colonel Parker, in inverted commas,used to put a cover over Elvis Cadillac so the girls could nt see him when he drove on to the Movie lot in hollywood… well once the Beatles arrived the Colonel still put the cover on , so Elvis could nt see there were no longer any girls..A sad figure..but his mantle of loneliness was later to be worn by Michael jackson and especially Prince..Do these Royal titles always end with a solitary death on the loo or in a Lift

From there we moved too the Seventies… and surely the quintessential Seventies hero is Bowie..well now it so alluringly sunny outside ill have to go and play guitar on the terrace .. and leave David for another time..

No i don’t want to see the News..

DAY 15..Sunday…

The clocks have gone on to sensible time..even in lockdown this is cheerful news.. I was wondering how long it will take for people with imaginary ailments to return to their plastic chairs in Hospital waiting rooms throughout the Western world.. these people presumably will be the ones most frightened of Covid 19..there s nothing imaginary about that..but if you have ME and you re lying on the sofa all day, and you feel depressed , and your bones are aching etc.. well how do feel different from everyone else..and as for food intolerance .. that should be interesting when the statistics come in about consumption in Supermarkets..i know there are allergies and allergies.. but the possibility of imminently drowning in ones own mucus does concentrate the mind wonderfully, and a lot of people will find themselves in the second category once shortages begin of certain previously essential items..suddenly one has to be tolerant of a whole raft of things one had previously considered unacceptable ..two weeks ago i could not have imagined four days without bread.. but its no big deal.. onions likewise..thats what happens when you shop with no list.. bit like going on stage without a playlist.. its a gamble … it can produce unexpected benefits in that you try stuff you had nt tried before.. but you often forget the best songs..

We watched the film about the Kursk, the Submarine which was on the seabed and owing to bureaucracy and politics the Crew were allowed to die..even though t5here was a foreign Ship with equipment nearby that could have saved them.. reminds me of something..are we the mariners or are we the mariners wives?

Does the Chinese government have a cure? are they just waiting for the US economy to completely collapse?..Will we ever know?

Day 16

Each day just goes so fast , i turn around , it s past..

One of my fave tracks from Revolver..anyway playing in E7 , as usual , in fact I’ve been stuck in E 7 since Lockdown started..Catfish , Smokestack lighting ,Good Morning Blues , Take Out Some Insurance..however now the time has come to expand ..and try Freight train..the classic finger picking song..so ,if i observe radio silence for a while you ll know why..

Saw the news…The government had adopted some economic measures which seemed very well thought out , in the sense they were are determined not to let the mistakes of the last crisis , where the poorest people got the rawest deal. I won’t go into details , its all online if you re interested..it was more a sensation than anything logical , but it made me feel a bit less pessimistic for the first time in a few weeks,i found i was nt thinking about Death quite as much , even in the abstract. that may sound overdramatic , but i think everybody is thinking about it subconsciously a great deal more than they were, say, last Christmas..well actually in our particular situation , where we had been frequenting cancer wards and the like , maybe i should go back to 2018…but the awarerness of death affects every facet of how you think about everything else..i don’t just mean concentrating the mind wonderfully..anyway its half past two, and tomorrow ill probably delete all this..The gist was that for some reason things don’t feel quite so bleak..

Day 17

Yesterday was a 3 own a scale of ten as far as ding anything worthwhile was concerned. After watching a film i unreservedly recommend..The vanishing.. about 3 men who disappeared from a Scottish island where they were repairing th elighthouse , i watched Tolkien , the movie about one of my heroes , but not one of Auroras heroes apparently as she fell asleep during the first reel, so to speak, anyway she s not huge Tolkien fan , having been made to sit through the fellowship of the ring seven times..be that as it may , the sofa is not designed for sleeping comfortably so she had a severely cricked neck the next morning and stayed in bed, leaving Tina and i to our own devices..this meant i ate a packet of chocolate biscuits for brunch and did nt eat again till midnight , which goes to show how lucky I am not to be on my own.

to entertain myself between bouts of fingerpicking i decided to9 look up on google what English people disliked the most.. while i did nt find the answer to this question i did get seriously sidetracked and found out the answers to several more pressing questions about Europe,and i m proud to say the british isles scored very highly

The Dirtriest City..Yay .. London The Ugliest people..The British and the irish and the Germans ..okay , so we cant beat the Germans but at least we drew The Rudest people..That was easy..The French win every time, when i lived in Paris i prided myself on becoming Parisian, and adopting local customs , but one day , in a moment of absent mindedness , and for a subconscious second imagining myself in Spain , i said Good Morning to my next door neighbour, a short fellow with a mop of dark hair and glasses, who i passed on my way to the metro in Boulevard St . Germain… i am not a Physiognomist.. he replied…i made a not e of that , hoping i could use the phrase Je ne suit pas Phisionome, myself on some future occasion..but sadly , said opportunity has not arisen. Most boring City..Brussels .. for the third year running…Hasve nt these people been to Oslo? Most Friendly Country..wait for it… Scotland..most friendly capital .. Dublin Worst Cuisine..Malta , tied with Kosovo Best ..Italy Most Beautiful Women ..Norway ..and Bulgaria..i would have voted for Madrid..but you cant argue with Norway Most ignorant Country in Europe ..italy. Most Rapes..Sweden..well that was no surprise..however i won’t analyse those statistics or Ill be done for Isamolophobia Most ignorant country in the World ..Indonesia Most depressed ..World..China , India, Brazil,..what??..USA.. and Bangladesh Most mental Illness..Estonia,Belarus , Russia Most Obese Europe..Yes We won agin .. Britain

And so on .. there was more , i could nt stop , but i did check the criteria..and obviously ruled out anything from the Daily Mail or the Independent.. which are not really newspapers at , but sheets of opinions conforming to the prejudices of their readers.

When i got tired of this i got the Scythe out of the tree and cut the grass for half an hour .. feeling like a peasant woman in Quiet Flows The Don..its quite restful when you get in rhythm. Aurora was still ill so i made her some chicken soup.. well , packet chicken soup with some noodles and chicken added.. anyway , she did nt eat it .. so i had it saved for my supper.. I did nt watch TV..i could nt be bothered to work out how turn it on to be honest , thats how lazy i felt, and i just sat by the fire and went through all the fingerpicking songs again.

Spanish lockdown..Day 18

Aurora s feeling a wee bit better, but cant eat anything , so cannot take Iboprufen, or whatever it is in English ..but says she could probably handle bread.. so..that means a trip to the heart of Fukushima, err..well ...on with the masks , gloves etc and to the shop in El Llano.. small village near here , a lot more isolated than Carboneras..I was feeling fairly confident as i trundled along the track , that the town hall had tarmacked before some election or other..anyway , rounding a corner there was a woman of un certain age in the road waving me down,.,.

What to do?…You re are not allowed passengers , plus she was not wearing gloves or a mask..

Should i observe the Law, or basic good manners? i d vaguely recognised her.. and had she she been a total stranger i would have passed on by , but , hell , she was Local, so i had to pick her up..

She did nt recognise me.. obviously , as i was wearing a cap , two masks with a scarf on top, and polo neck unrolled over the bottom half of my face , like a character in the Bash Street Kids..an way i had the window down , and was almost sticking my head out as i drove..

@ Chilly out @.. she observed…

i pretended not to understand this hint that i should close the window..

@ Do you think it s going to rain ? @

@ I think probably not @

@All these people with masks @ she observed ,as a car squeezes by us, going in the opposite direction . I began to wonder if she knew there was such a thing as Covid 19,and saw the driver studying us..I was hoping he would nt recognise me either.. and was weighing up whether what i was doing would meet with his approval. i.e. helping a distressed local, or would be considered a breach of community sprit. On coming into the village we received more enigmatic looks..and i felt uneasy as i got out in front of the shop and followed her to the door … pausing to read the safety notices outside.and thus give her a head start . i won’t reproduce them ..wherever you are you ve probably seen the equivalent..anyway ,no sooner did i enter the shop than she was next to me selecting suit and veg..and ignoring safe distancing, which i agree was academic , as we d just been in much too close proximity,..thus forcing me to leave the fruit and go and study the options in frozen fish..while she was having a conversation wi the owner

@ Do you think it will rain?@ @ Its chilly out @ etc..

As we went about our purchasing i saw more and more foodstuffs i would nt normally consider..and soon had over a weeks supply..which , considering how much we already had at home made me hope this lockdown was going to go on for a while ..or otherwise id feel a fool .. no , i did nt really think that.. Much as i wanted to prolong my shopping experience there was queue forming outside , so felt obliged to go more quickly that i would have liked..especially as i hoped to delay long enough not to have to take the woman back to her house..vainly as it turned out as she was a quarter of a mile along the track when i was obliged to pick her up again..

We passed the garbage truck.in a lay-by. @ My nephew..@ she explained..I began to feel id made the right decision..as i doubted she d been more than a mile from her house in the past few months… nonetheless i observed full protocol on arriving home..even disinfecting the car having a shower and putting all my clothes in the machine.

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writeanapocalae · 6 years ago

Text

The World of Gray

The World of Gray | The Sleeping World | The World of Gray

There was nothing there, but the fog, and the white, and the endless lake. Casteval stood there, in what he assumed to be the center, and searched out something, anything in the distance. He was still in his work clothes, still hungry, still reeling from the conversation he’d had with his boss in the back office. He couldn’t have been hallucinating again, he couldn’t stand the idea of it.

There had to be something. It couldn’t have been void forever. He started to walk, either to leave this horrible place or to find the point of it. There were shapes out there, if he squinted, but the fog obscured them to the point that he didn’t know what they were.

He was lower in the water too. Before, he’d mostly been on top of it, but now, he’d sunk a good inch, and the water was thicker than he remembered, splashing up and soaking into his old oxfords with each step.

There had to be a point to this. There had to be a reason for it. He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing before this. He thought he was off work but he didn’t remember leaving the building. He wanted to know what was causing this.

He felt like he’d been walking for hours and no time at all. When he looked behind him, there was no difference. Everything looked the same. That couldn’t have been right but nothing here was. He felt as if the whole of reality had been torn from him, that he was being tortured by the lack of life, that this was a hell that he was doomed to stumble through forever.

He fell to his knees, emotion heavy in his head, his arms wrapping around his chest. He could feel tears in his eyes, hot and heavy as they poured down his chilled cheeks. He didn’t know if it was fear, frustration, or despair that made him cry, the emotion too strong to be quantified.

There was a heavy sound, a fan against the ears of a bat, rhythmic and approaching. Casteval wiped at his face, the emotions no where near purged, but they were too thick and he could not see through them. Looking up he could see a dark shape, something more real than whatever lay beyond the never-ending fog.

The dragon landed on top of him, one of its massive talons planting on him, gripping him in his kneeling position, before lifting him up. It brought him close to that bland human face, devoid of emotion, and the dragon was so much larger now, Casteval so far away from the ground.

He hadn’t been held in a long time. Somehow, even though the grip was that of a monster, the pressure felt pleasurable, as if such a tight hold promised safety.

“You have returned, yet you do not seem prepared to slay me,” the dragon murmured. It sounded bored.

Casteval turned his head away. He knew that the dragon had seen him sobbing, though being so close made the humility burn through the other intense feelings.

“You did not even bring a weapon, nor armor. I could eat you whole like this.”

It would be a tight fit, but Casteval was certain that the dragon could do as it said. “I don’t care about slaying you.” His throat was tight and his words thick, too much mucous within. “I didn’t even want to come here. Please, let me go home.”

“Home? But that is not a place that exists, not anymore, not since the death of the greatest of foes, since the stars turned to rubies and the oceans to embers,” the dragon rambled. “Unless, you mean that privy place you came from, with the spires and the lights and the daily grind.”

Casteval did not know what the dragon was talking about, with the stars and all that, but he knew the latter was the real world. He nodded.

“I showed you how to get there before, are you not capable of retaining knowledge?”

Casteval looked around, into the gray world, not seeing the way home at all, not seeing anything through the fog. “I got turned around. I had no landmarks. Please.”

The dragon sat down, and a slow ripple pushed out from around its flanks. Slowly it lowered its talon and released Casteval to the lake surface before crossing its front legs, in the same position in which they had first met.

“It matters not if you return to that land, you shall return here,” the dragon explained, looking out into the nothing. Casteval followed its gaze but found fog. It must have been able to see more though. “You shall return here until you falter and fall, your death worse than the semblance of life you’ve been keeping, or until you step forward and make your decision.”

“Decision?” Casteval stared up at the dragon, begging it to let him go, to not force him to come back to this place. If it were only a dream, that would be fine, but this, the fact that he didn’t know, that the only explanation was hallucination, it was just so wrong to him. And there was a feeling, like being in a funeral home, or a walk in freezer, or a forest at night when you can’t see any lights, that twisting his insides. “I’m not going to fight you. I don’t want to fight anyone.”

“I have an important position in the story,” the dragon looked him over and he suddenly felt very vulnerable. The dragon could have crushed him and he had felt safe, but now he could feel those eyes peering into him, as if searching through him. “I am the first obstacle that Casteval must face. I am the claw that tore into him and the blood that he drank. I am the first death at his hands and the black spot on his soul.”

“But the story is over!” Casteval argued, “and I am not that Casteval!”

“As you keep saying. Stories, though, can be repeated. You can finish the book before turning it over and starting again. I am the dragon, who must be slain, and I am trapped between the lands of the living and the dead, waiting for the book to be opened once more.”

Casteval was shaking, his hands in fists at his sides. He could feel himself losing himself over emotion once more, though this was much more obviously anger that was taking him. The universe did not understand that he was his own person, as much as he demanded it. His own poisoned mind was trying to convince him to be something that he was not.

“You don’t seem to think that there is a choice. I have to slay you and I’ll keep coming back until I do.”

The dragon tilted its head, as if in thought. “There is choice. There is always choice. You say you are not Casteval, I say you are not Casteval yet. You need not be Casteval if Casteval already is.”

None of that made any sense, not the words and there order or what Casteval assumed they meant. “What?”

The dragon rolled its eyes and lowered its head, bunching up its long neck so that its chin could rest on its talons. “If you were to awaken Casteval, you would have no reason to become him. That route would be much more difficult and there is no guarantee that you would survive or even return to the real world. The chances that you’d return to the world from which you came would be even less probable.”

The real world was the world that he’d come from, he knew no alternatives. He did not know what the dragon meant by separating it like that. He did not want to come back here, did not want to be forced out of logic and understanding. If the best way to do that would be to get the story to repeat, then he’d do what he could.

“Tell me, what would you lose by becoming yourself? The hero you were meant to be?” the dragon pondered, “It seems to me that you are a small and pathetic little thing. Becoming Casteval would have no downside.”

At that Casteval’s anger consumed him, burning him like a flame, and his nails dug into his palms as he screamed out at the dragon, “I am myself! I am exactly what I am meant to be! I have spent a lot of time and effort to be myself, to get people to stop comparing me to that fairy tale! The amount of bullying I’ve had to get through for it, the amount of pain caused to me because I should have been stronger, should have been a goddamn hero? I’ve had to live with that as me! I’ve had to fight to like myself, even if I am small! Even if I am pathetic! I’d rather be me than ever take a single characteristic of that name!”

The dragon smirked and then the smirk spread into an impossible grin, too wide, showing off all of those sharp teeth. “Then I think your decision is clear, little fake Casteval. You must go to the east, through the red door in the base of the waterfall, to get to the sword. From there you can get the armor and from there still you can get the blood. Only with those three can you awaken Casteval, if you have not succumbed to becoming him by then.”

The anger fell from Casteval as if a bucket of water had fallen onto him, smothering the flames of his rage. He’d never said it like that, never fully explained it, and the dragon not only seemed to understand it, but accept it.

He unclenched his hands, feeling his knuckles ache and his palms tingle. His shoulders slumped as the strength that came with his anger dripped into the water around him. He was being too emotional. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so emotional. It was cathartic though, healing, in a way.

“Which way is east?”

The dragon’s smile twitched and faded. Casteval had never been good with directions. It did raise one claw though, not bothering to even lift its talon.

“This is not a world for you, little one. You may not remain here forever. Regardless of where you are, what you are doing, you may be forced into the world you came from. It may feel like waking, but it not something you should delight in.”

Casteval nodded, trying not to show how much of a delight that would be. He wanted nothing to do with this world, but it would drag him back until he either found a cure for it or did as it wanted with him. He did not say more as he started to walk through the fog, heading east.

@anhathaway

#legends of casteval #casteval #the dragon #the world of gray

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