#I swear to every single GOD in this universe and every single molecule on planet Earth

[goldenamaranthe-blog]

Being Second Parent is Tough

Yang: (takes a deep breath and enters Raven's tent at the bandit camp) Hey... Ma? Do you have a minute?

Raven: (blinks in morse code from surprise) Oh... um... of course. What is it? .....Wait.... Why are you here?

Yang: I was on a mission in the area. Don't worry. Kali is back home helping Blake. I wasn't about to leave my pregnant wife alone when she looks like she smuggled a watermelon.

Raven: Alright. So, to what do I owe the pleasure? It's not very often you come to me for help.

Yang: Honestly, I feel like you'll actually talk to me straight with this problem I'm having. Dad will just sugar coat everything, and Qrow... well, he's Qrow.

Raven: That's fair. What is it?

Yang: (visibly shaking and tears in her eyes) I feel... like such a horrible partner....

Raven: (immediately stands up and starts going through her things) Sit down. I'm going to make some tea.

-One Tea Brewing Later-

Raven: Okay, start from the beginning. Why do you feel like a horrible partner?

Yang: Because... I feel like I need support....

Raven: ....That's it?

Yang: Mom! Blake is pregnant! She's growing a person inside of her! This pregnancy has been absolute hell on her! She's had horrible morning sickness, aches, pains, heartburn, high blood pressure, and at least three other issues that I can't even think of right now because I'm so damn tired! I'm supposed to support her!

Raven: And you have been. Quite wonderfully, I might add. Your dad didn't do that much when I was pregnant with you.

Yang: He also told me that you tried to bite his hand off once.

Raven: I had an iron deficiency and his fingers looked tasty. But back to you. Why do you feel bad for feeling like you need support?

Yang: Like I said. I'm technically the "dad" here. Dad's aren't supposed to complain about things being hard or rough.

Raven: Who said that?

Yang: Basically everyone. There's no "support for second parent/dad" websites. When I looked that up, I got a lot of "How father's to be can help make their pregnant wife's lives easier" journals. I tried to bring it up with dad, but he just said "It'll get easier. Just help Blake as much as possible."

Raven: But you're stressed.

Yang: Very.

Raven: Because Blake has been stressed about the pregnancy, and you've been stressed about her health and welfare and the pregnancy.

Yang: (tears up again and nods)

Raven: Yang, look at me.

Yang: (looks over to Raven)

Raven: You can be stressed. You can ask for support. This is a big change in both of your lives, and it is a lot. Blake might be dealing with the hormones and body changes, but you've been supporting her every step of the way. It's exhausting. I know it is. You can admit that you need help and support. It doesn't make you a bad partner.

Yang: (wipes eyes) You mean it?

Raven: Yang, you specifically came here because you know I'd give it to you straight. This is me giving it to you straight.

Yang: Thanks, Mom.

Raven: Don't mention it. If you ever need help or feel the need to vent discreetly, give me a call. I can get to you a lot faster than you can get to me.

[planetsam]

“Alex: I think I’m going to pass out.” Malex angst with a happy ending please.

Michael watches as Isobel and Max retreat.

He doesn’t blame them for staying. Truly. He has that same feeling of bittersweet relief. They have a home, they have a place here. He hopes to God that the control panel might one day let him see them again. But if they live their lives out long and happy here, he can be okay with that. He hits the final controls. Pink light emits from the control panel. Soft and warm and tangible. He pushes aside the feeling of worry that creeps through him and focuses wholeheartedly on it as it climbs up his body.

“Guerin!” He ignores the shout of his name. He’s going home. Max will stop whatever is going on outside, “Guerin—Michael! Michael no!”

He’s pink light and warm glow and he really wishes that alien technology didn’t load with the speed of a dial up connection. Because he’s becoming transcendent right up until Alex races into the room, that same look of stupid desperation on his face that fills Michael with hope. Hope he shouldn’t have when it comes to Alex. Alex didn’t even show up to say goodbye. In his hand Michael catches a flash of paper before it’s obliterated. The light hits him full force and for a single moment he feels the raw panic of thinking that Alex is going to be obliterated too. He freezes, that’s for sure. And that look of desperation morphs into something horrified. But before Michael can ask he turns pink and transcendent and vanishes. The last thing he thinks he hears is Alex giving a pained shout.

Michael’s molecules rearrange on a different planet.

He has no time to think about whether or not everything’s in the right place. He’s got to figure out a way to make sure Alex is okay. Which is easier said than done when you’re standing on a planet with no return way. As sure as he’s standing there, Michael knows he can’t just wonder if Alex is alright for the next however long he lives. He can’t spend every second thinking about why he shouted in pain. What if it was actual pain and not just surprise that Michael was actually leaving? Michael drags his hands through his hair. A lifetime spent trying to get off the planet and if he doesn’t find a way to make sure Alex is alright in the next five seconds he’s going to insane. They’ve never parted on good terms but this? This is a level of hell he never could have imagined.

“Shit, shit—“ he looks around, “sh—“

Alex crashes onto him before he can properly swear.

Michael barely manages to keep them both upright. Alex is pale and slack jawed and wheezing like he can’t fathom what’s just happened. His fingers are balled in Michael’s shirt as Michael stares at him. Alex is here. Alex is here and alive. All that Michael knows about first aide goes flying out the window as he grabs Alex and hugs him as tightly as he can. Alex grabs him back like he’s the only real thing in the world and Michael dimly realizes that he very well might be.

“Why?” He gets out almost desperately.

Alex just makes a noise and buries his face in Michael’s shoulder. Belatedly Michael remembers they are on Antar. And Alex, who is very human, has been flung across the entire goddamn universe. Are humans even compatible here. Though Alex is clinging to him, he has to make sure he’s alive. Carefully he pulls back and holds him there. Trying to inspect him but it’s fucking hard. Alex is clearly more or less in shock, but he does seem to be breathing. He’s not collapsed or choking. Michael thanks whatever God is listening that Alex being human doesn’t mean instant death when he’s here. He grabs Alex’s arm and slings it over his shoulder. He at least has to get them off the cliff they’ve crash landed on. Maybe he belongs here, Alex sure as hell doesn’t.

“I think—“ Alex dry heaves, “I think I’m going to pass out.”

“What? No—shit!” He turns and grabs him full as Alex collapses against him, “Alex! Hey, Alex!” He hauls him up against him and tries tapping his face, but Alex’s head lolls and Michael feels like he might be sick as well at how limp he is. He’s got a pulse though. And he’s breathing. Michael keeps that in mind as he gets a hand under Alex’s legs and hauls him up into his arms. There’s no help but there’s a cave and Michael will take what he can get, “hang on,” he says, carrying him into the shelter and laying him down, “Alex,” he says his name firmly, “Alex!”

Alex’s eyes open and he looks at Michael for a moment.

Then he passes out again.

Michael swears.

This was not how it was supposed to go.

He doesn’t even know if Alex can survive long term on this planet. Or if the machine didn’t know what to do with human insides. It’s not like any of his foster parents really cared about his physical health. Plenty of doctors were willing to do the bare bare minimum and sign off. Michael isn’t even sure if he has human insides. Alex passing out though, that’s bad. Even he knows that. He sits back on his heels and then immediately moves forward, tapping Alex’s infuriatingly high cheekbones.

“Alex, come on,” he says, “open your eyes,” he gets no response, “Alex! Come on!” He clenches his jaw, “you have to open your eyes for me,” Alex groans, “come on, that’s it, look at me,” Alex blearily opens his eyes, “look at me,” Michael repeats, “can you breathe?” Alex just stares at him, “Alex!” He injects more force into his voice, “can you breathe?!”

“Yes,” Alex whispers. Michael sits back, relieved, “I—“ Alex tips over and Michael grabs him, holding him upright, “something’s wrong.”

“Of course something’s wrong,” Michael says, trying desperately to figure out what the hell that could be, “you teleported across the galaxy. Why’d you do that?” He says, pressing a hand to Alex’s ribcage like that will stop him.

“I was trying to stop you,” Alex says faintly, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Regret not saying goodbye?” He asks, attempting to smile, “I told you you would.”

Alex frowns and tries to look around but stops.

“I had a list,” he says.

“Yeah?” Michael says, “tell me about it,” Alex nods, “Alex, what was on the list?”

“That you should stay,” he says, reaching up and grasping Michael’s hand where it grips his shirt, “but you went early.”

Michael can’t respond. He wanted to leave the planet but leaving the people? That was hard. It wasn’t a decision he came to lightly. He’s not too proud to admit that Alex not being there helped. Logic and Alex have never gone together with him. And Alex, Alex had been keeping his distance so Michael had taken the opportunity. It reeked slightly less of cowardice when Alex wasn’t slumped in front of him on a cave in a distant planet.

“Says the king of being late,” Michael says, but there’s nothing angry about the words. Alex lets out a dry, raspy laugh, “You gotta hold on,” he says, “I gotta get you back.”

Alex shakes his head.

“No,” he refuses, “I can’t.”

“What? Of course you can. You’re Alex fucking Manes, you can do anything,” Michael argues. Alex looks up at him. The pain in his eyes makes Michael’s stomach bottom out. It’s like they’re kids again and Alex is that boy who wears his heart on his sleeve with such earnestness that it hurts to see. Michael had already learned by then to ignore his heart. “Please, Alex, you gotta go back. You have everyone on earth. I’m not—“

“Worth it?” Alex tips his head back, “of course you are. You always were.”

Michael’s throat tightens. This isn’t what he wants. Alex dying on some far away planet just to say shit Michael already knows he feels. How Alex feels has never been the problem. And some undercurrent of fear has always been in him that one day Alex will do exactly this. Make some big, dumb romantic gesture. Wind up hurt or worse. This is worse. This is the worst possible thing. Michael can live with them being a universe apart. He thinks. But Alex being gone? That’s not something he can stomach. Especially not because of him.

“No death bed confessions,” he says sternly, “I’m getting you home.”

“I’m not going,” Alex says, just as stubborn as ever when his mind’s made up.

“Yeah you are,” he says.

“No,” Alex snaps, “I’m not living on a different planet than you.”

“You’re not living on this one. You can barely stay conscious. This planet isn’t meant for humans.”

“It’s not meant for you either.”

Michael stares at him. That fucking hurts. Michael shoves himself up and back. Alex stays upright because he uses his powers to keep him there, but he can’t just sit there. Standing on the planet of his birth a million lightyears from everything important, he knows Alex is right. But fuck if he doesn’t want to believe there’s a place out there that’ll accept him without demanding his soul in return. That won’t have baggage or take until it finally decides to give. He wants a place of his own. But stupid, stubborn, brilliant Alex has him locked in.

“That isn’t fair,” he says. Alex chuckles, properly this time, “screw you! You can’t say shit like that and die to get out of the follow up conversation,” he continues, “this is supposed to be my new start.”

“You don’t need a new start,” Alex argues, “can’t you see that?”

Michael hates him and loves him more and more as the seconds tick by. He knows he should be getting help but the only help he has is back on earth. He has to trust that Liz can figure it out. And fast. Before Alex’s raspy breathing becomes worse. Or stops.

“So what?” He demands, “I’m supposed to come back for you? You’re just going to leave again.”

Alex looks at him steadily.

“We’re on a different planet,” he points out slowly.

“Yeah because I was leaving,” Michael says, “not because you were.”

“So pick a place,” Alex says, “Preferably one with a breathable atmosphere.”

Michael swears and runs back over. Because, shit, Alex is dying. Theoretically he could wait and then just keep going but the thought is purely theoretically. His chest feels like it’s cracking with every inhale that Alex takes. he wants to be on this planet but not at the expense of the people he’s left behind. He doesn’t feel at home here. He feels small. Rejected. In an entirely different but no less unpleasant way.

“What if I don’t believe you?” He challenges, “you always leave.”

“I do,” Alex agrees, “I’m sorry,” Michael feels winded at the lack of objection.

“It’s too late for us,” Michael argues, “you know it’s too late.”

“Liar,” he breathes out, his eyes struggling to stay open.

“No, no no no,” Michael fumbles, “Alex. Alex!”

Michael tries to remember CPR as Alex nods and then jerks back. But if the atmosphere is poisoned, he doesn’t know what putting more of it into Alex will do. He hasn’t taken them far but when the pink light flashes, he knows they don’t have long. Using everything he has, he hauls Alex into a fireman carry and races them over to the light. He could throw him in. It would be so easy. But somewhere across the infinite expanse of time and space, he hears Max and Isobel shouting at each other. And he hears Liz ordering things around. He grabs his phone and takes as many hasty pictures as he can. Then he shoves it back into his jeans and steps into the pink light as Alex stops breathing against his back.

He steps out of the pink light and drags Alex over to Max, ignoring everyone’s obvious surprise at him being there as well. Max is already helping him lay Alex down, which is great because Michael’s head feels like it’s about to explode. Isobel is there instantly to prop him up but doesn’t move him so he can’t see Max work. Max presses his hands under Alex’s ribs and concentrates. Several things happen in rapid succession. All the lights vanish. He hears the pods crack. And best of all, in the dark, he hears Alex take a ragged, deep breath. The pounding in his head increases tenfold but he just focuses on Alex’s breathing and lets everything go dark.

When he opens his eyes, he’s in the holding cell. He recognizes the bench digging into his back and the clang of the station, even if they’ve given him a pillow this time.

“No,” he groans and presses his hand to his eyes, “this isn’t happening.”

“Sorry,” his pillow says from somewhere above his head. Michael opens his eyes slowly and looks up to see Alex staring down at him, “it is.”

Michael presses his hand to his forehead. He’d got a pounding headache. But given that Alex was dead, he has a feeling he knows why that’s not healed. Alex cards his fingers through his curls and Michael swallows against the lump in his throat. His chance at a new start is gone and he can’t escape the disappointment that clogs his throat. Alex is alive and here though. All the emotions feel jumbled together and to his great embarrassment the breath that escapes him is shaky at best.

“I’m sorry,” Alex repeats, fingers moving to Michael’s face, “it’s okay.”

“You just died,” he says, moving to sit up and stopping when a hand goes to his chest.

“And you just sacrificed your planet for me,” he says.

“Yeah, well,” Michael sniffs back his tears, “I know how stubborn you can be.”

“Good,” Alex says, easily shouldering the blame, “you knew I was bringing you home one way or another.”

“This isn’t home,” Michael objects. Another planet away and he feels the same thing, “damn it. This isn’t—“ he refuses to cry. He sits up, “this isn’t home.”

“Yes it is,” Alex replies. He touches Michael’s cheek and Michael knows his emotions are written all over his face, “it’s home, Michael. You’re home.”

He fights for another moment, chewing hard on his lip before he folds against Alex’s shoulder. They’re in public, or as public as any jail cell can be, and Alex stiffens momentarily before he wraps his arms around his shoulders. Alex holding him somehow makes him more emotional than him flinging himself across space and time for him. Which is something that he has all the time in the world to puzzle over.

“I’m gonna thank you one day,” he tells Alex finally.

“I hope so,” Alex says, “but i get it if you hate me right now.”

Michael leans back against the cell wall.

“What’d you think?” He asks after a moment, “of Antar?”

“It looked amazing,” Alex says and Michael finds himself pleased at that.

“I took pictures,” he offers, letting his head drop onto Alex’s shoulder. Maybe if he just focuses on Alex’s breathing everything will be okay, “if you want to see them.”

“I’d love to see them.”

[ernmark]

Have i requested a time travel au yet? Because if not please write a Jupeter time travel Au.

I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of time travel you were wanting– Ars Paradoxica? Doctor Who? The Time Traveller’s Wife?

So here’s something else entirely.

Peter doesn’t like untethering himself from the timeline. It’s painful, dissolving himself down past the molecules, the atoms, the strings, the god particles that make him semi-divine. And then he has to collect what’s left and drag it with him. Every minute he goes back is grueling. He can feel their passage like sandpaper against his consciousness.

It isn’t a skill Peter uses often– it saved him from the murderous sky on Brahma more often than he can count, but without the imminent threat of death from above, it’s too exhausting to be practical. Better to let quick thinking and sleight of hand get him out tricky situations. Unlike the lasers of New Kinshasa, people can be reasoned with.

But viruses can’t. And right now, that’s what’s burning its way through Juno’s system.

It’s a designer disease, manufactured in some military lab with too many aspirations and too little security. Some bastard stole it, and Dark Matters hired Juno to retrieve it.

Only they never bothered telling him what was inside that case. Maybe if they had, he would have been more careful. Maybe it wouldn’t have shattered. Maybe he wouldn’t have touched the broken pieces with his bare hands.

Maybe he wouldn’t be dying right now in an isolation chamber.

But that was days ago-- before Juno started manifesting symptoms. Before those symptoms got bad enough that Juno let Peter take him to the hospital. Before the news feeds started reporting quarantine zones and started throwing around words like ‘plague’.

It stops here.

This timeline stops here.

Security at the hospital has tightened since the quarantine began, but the measures they’ve taken are safeguards against panicked citizens and curious rubberneckers. When Peter steps inside in a nurse’s scrubs and forged credentials, the guards stationed at Juno’s door don’t look twice.

They also don’t look inside. Because then they’d see Peter slipping inside the oxygen tent and bending over Juno.

His detective’s eyes flutter open. He’s too weak to sit up, but he tries.

“Peter,” he rasps. “Dammit, Peter, you--” His whole body folds with the violence of his coughs, and Peter tries hard not to think about what the doctors said is happening to his lungs. When the fit ends, blood is sprinkled across the bedsheet. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s alright, Juno,” Peter murmurs, stroking a hand down Juno’s back. “It’s alright. I won’t be here much longer.”

The little color left in Juno’s face drains away, and he’s an alarming shade of gray. “Are you sick? Jesus, Peter-- did I--” He’s interrupted by another hacking cough, and Peter wraps around him protectively.

“No, Juno,” he whispers, once the coughs have subsided and Juno’s gasping in his arms. “No. I’m alright. And I’m going to fix this. I swear I will.”

“It’s too late,” Juno rasps. “Peter, it’s already out of control.”

“I know.” He leans in and kisses Juno’s brow. “That’s why I have to do this.”

“Do what?” There’s panic in Juno’s eye. “Peter!”

“It’s alright,” he repeats at a whisper. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

He presses his lips to Juno’s one last time.

And then he lets it happen.

The world shifts with his perspective. The man that is Juno Steel stops being a whole and becomes a conglomeration of organs made up of molecules made up of atoms made up of protons and neutrons and electrons. The harsh light of the room becomes a series of waves-that-are-particles-that-are-waves. The fabric of space-time stretches out before him like a canvas, dipping and stretching around every cluster of mass.

Peter Nureyev ceases to exist as the pieces of himself dissolve into their barest components, just small enough that he can swim against the flow of time. His consciousness unspools, spreading across the universe before he can gather it up and keep going. The universe is expanding, the Galaxy is shooting across it at a breakneck speed, its arms spiraling as it twirls. In one of its lesser arms, the Solar System shoots like a laser, its planets and comets and satellites whirling around and around, and little Mars is spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning.

It’s all moving so fast, and he can barely take it all in. He’s losing his grasp on himself, on here and now and why it even matters. A single word echoes across his awareness, but it repeats so often that it doesn’t make any sense. Just sounds that don’t do any justice to the feeling behind them.

JunoJunoJuno

In the end it’s that feeling that steers him. When all of reality is meaningless entropy, that feeling is the only thing he can cling to. It’s the only reason why he takes the time and effort to find that particular cluster of particles among all the rest. It’s the only reason why he takes the pains to reform at all.

One name, too absurdly small for the miracle it contains.

Peter finds his own cluster of particles, and he folds his own consciousness in with the old.

It only takes an instant, but it feels like an eternity. His legs fold underneath him and he gasps in shock and pain. The other cluster-particles-atoms-molecules-organs-person-Juno-Juno-Juno is at his side in an instant, catching him and easing him to the floor.

Vibrations and moving air distill into sound and syllables, and Peter can hear again. His own name is on Juno’s lips. Juno’s one eye is wide in concern and fear.

Peter raises a hand to Juno’s face, but his hand is shaking. The motion is uncoordinated. His past and future selves are too distinct at the moment, still too unevenly mixed to sit properly. In time they’ll meld into each other, blending into a seamless whole. The memories of a time that no longer exists will fade into nothingness until they’re little more than a dream.

But for now, at least, he remembers. And he’ll keep remembering long enough to save Juno.