#anti-sia | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rogueshadeaux · 13 days ago

Text

Chapter Forty-Two - Eye of the Hurricane

“It’s gonna be okay,” He hummed gently into the top of my head before kissing it. “We’ll figure it out.” “There’s no figuring it out,” I retorted, voice muffled. My arms came up almost involuntarily and wrapped around him anyways. “Dr. Sims made that pretty clear.” “You know me,” Dad said, the chuckle that followed sounding forced. “I’ll try to find a way.” “And if there isn’t one?”

9k words | 45-50 min read-time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Death/Illness, talk of death/illness, alluded to attacks on schools/facilities

I came to in a hospital bed a few hours later. Seizure, Dad told me, stiff as a board as he paced so hard I was pretty sure he was going to cause grooves in the grout. Whatever words Garrett had used my mouth to say obviously had him in a fit, especially when he realized I was conscious and that meant he could harass me.

The questions came too fast for my fuzzy head to think through; What did Garrett show you? How are they sure it’s Celia? What else did you see? What did they mean by key? Dr. Sims tried to warn Dad that after a seizure, I may have short-term memory loss—especially considering it was my first attack. But he acted like he didn’t hear the man.

And I didn’t forget.

I tried to answer. The experiments. The implant in Garrett, since that seemed to pique Aunt Sia’s interest. The Conduit they found that could render someone’s power useless in their proximity, and how Augustine wanted to find a secondary power to make the attack physical. Physical, like how I physically became sick when sitting on the fact that the tar that made me sick made Mom sick, probably even Garrett if the scientists in the secluded lab got away with their efforts before the DUP were forced to clean house.

I mumbled it out, broken by the want to cry and the need to dry heave: “They poisoned Mom with the tar. Celia. I saw it.”

Dad’s fists clenched at his sides and he paced over to a wall, clenching and unclenching before he finally yelled, cried out this desperate, enraged pained sound I’ve never heard before and never wanted to hear again. His fist became encased in video powers before it hit the sleek tile and the smack sent an EMP through the room that sent every machine I was hooked up to haywire, making everything beep or screech or scream before he turned, that same infuriated scowl on his face that was there when I saw him kill that man on the Marina.

The nurses didn’t really like us after that.

I shut down. Between the pain I was in, and the thousand of thoughts swirling in my head, I couldn’t function anymore. Dr. Sims and Aunt Sia tried to ask me more questions and it just felt like I was staring at them from somewhere miles and oceans away, meeting their gaze but not really seeing into their eyes. From how they looked, they didn’t seem to like what they saw in mine. And that wasn’t even the worst of it; every muscle in my body was sore, worse than it’d be after gymnastic competitions. I had a migraine so strong part of my vision was dipped in static, and something felt wrong with my sinus cavities.

“We don’t need to keep her under observation,” Dr. Sims had decided after realizing they weren’t going to get anything from me, “We know who caused her seizure.”

Who.

Garrett.

I was discharged and allowed to rot in Aunt Sia’s room alone—she stayed behind at the hospital, something about Garrett having had a seizure too. Suffering is better when one’s not alone in it, I guess. “You get her home, put her in my bed, and let her rest…you all have something more important you need to talk about, anyways.”

My conducrinopathy.

There were rules to my existence, now. Conducrinopathy caused every ‘good’ protein in my system to be replaced with a ‘bad,’ and that would eventually lead to more symptoms. Right now, there weren’t enough in my system to heal me normally. I’d lose powers the more 'good' proteins that disappeared, and once there were more bad than good…my power would start attacking me in some autoinflammatory response. That’s why Mom looked sick in her final photos. That’s why Garrett was trapped in their own mind.

Which is why Dr. Sims told me to use my power as little as possible.

No more running my hand under the tap and absorbing the water; showering was risk enough as is, as I couldn’t stop myself from absorbing that water and the draining apparently made new proteins be made. No humidifying into thin air, no weaving streams between my fingers when I was bored. They were concerned with how many proteins I’d already expended, between drowning Seattle and barely staying alive in the Sound. If it were up to Dad, I’d live in the desert and hydrate via saline drip. Take sand baths like a chinchilla. They wanted me to cut myself off from that side of myself, ignore it in the hopes to prolong the inevitable.

I was the most human a Conduit could be.

This was it. I was broken, permanently, with a failing organ and a disease with a life expectancy. Cut off from a half of me threatening to be my end. No matter what, I wasn’t going to get better. This wasn’t going to improve. I remembered learning about this disease when Tommy’s grandfather was diagnosed with it, when a tear in his muscles after a fall healed over with solid concrete. And when I looked it up online, I saw that it wasn't some sort of freak case—hundreds of old DUP experienced the same. Concrete replacing torn muscles, ulcers on the skin from concrete mixing with sweat and ripping at their flesh. When the stories started diving into pulmonary fibrosis and other health issues with more than five syllables, and a Mayo Clinic page that made me cringe, I only got out of the bed to bury my phone in Aunt Sia’s dirty laundry basket.

The time after that was a blur.

There was this horrible hollow feeling in my chest that attacked whenever I wasn’t staring straight at the wall, one that made me gasp in air until I sobbed. Mourning. I was mourning for everything—my future, my powers, the person I was. Crying over everything that could’ve been—because this took away so many options, didn’t it? If I was gonna get sicker, if my own power was going to turn against me and make me ill like Garrett, like Mom—

Who knew what I’d become?

If I wasn’t crying or sleeping, I was staring far past a point I couldn’t see. One I wasn’t even really concentrating on—just looking forward. Dad brought in my favorite fast food at some point, but the smell of it made me want to vomit. Breakfast the next morning did the same thing, though I stomached a few bites since Dad refused to leave otherwise. He looked at me with a little concern, but I could see the thousands of unasked questions in his eyes, everything he was biting his tongue to hold back to not overwhelm me.

He was back to treating me like glass. And at this rate, I felt like it.

I was wiping my eyes with one of the blankets in the pile I was hiding under when the door creaked open, and I stilled; Dad would do this a lot, throughout the day. Quietly pop a head in to check on me and retreat just as quickly when he saw me in the same position he had left me in two hours before.

The door did none of that this time. The copper hinges groaned when it was pulled wide, and sighed when it was fully closed again. A few creaking steps on the wooden floor of the second story bedroom, and then the other end of the bed dipped down as someone sat on it.

A few beats of silence passed, and then Brent said, “I know you’re not asleep, Jean.”

A part of me debated not acknowledging him at all and pretending I was anyways, but then I felt his hand gently thwack the back of my leg and he said, “Get up. I’ve got water.”

I shifted in my cocoon, slowly peeling my upper half out of it and leaning against the headboard as he held out the water bottle. There was a flash of something in his eyes when he first saw me—a smirk and the thought about making fun of me for my hair, probably—but he thankfully held it back when his phone’s flashlight caught my red eyes and still tear stained cheeks.

Admittedly, between the consistent crying I’d been doing and the concerns about water in general, I was pretty dehydrated, downing two thirds of the bottle in one go before separating my lips from it with a slight gasp. “Thanks,” I murmured.

Brent took the bottle and downed the rest, the crackle of the plastic the only sound in the room for a moment before he chucked it towards the door. “Woke up when Dad left, went piss, heard you crying.” The shadow of his profile turned towards me. “You okay?”

Was I okay? I was debating whether or not to brush Brent off or burst into tears when the first part of his sentence registered in my ears and I paused. “Wait—Dad left?” I asked, voice scratchy and raw. “Where did he go?”

“Yeah. Aunt Sia called him like ten minutes ago, it woke me up,” Brent sighed, moving till he was propped up on the headboard too. His hand moved to run through his hair as he seemed to debate saying something before finally coming out with, “Garrett’s dead.”

I froze, the blood in my arms running as cold as it did when I was actually frozen solid. “What?” I whispered, looking at Brent with wide eyes.

Brent chewed on his bottom lip. “Didn’t hear much, but it sounds like Garrett became lucid and…well, they took matters into their own hands,” Brent shrugged, not elaborating further. He didn’t need to; I could imagine what he meant. “Can’t say I blame them—can you imagine living like that for the rest of your life?”

Oh, I could. It’s all I had thought about for the last day and a half.

Brent caught how my lower lip pulled down as I frowned and sighed, rubbing an eye. “Jean…” he started, groaning a bit as he grappled with what to say. I couldn’t blame him; if the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t know what to say to him, either.

“It’s okay,” I murmured, moving to lie back down and burrow in the blankets once again. I wasn’t up for a conversation like this, not now.

I was still in the middle of pulling a soft cotton one over my head when he said, “You promised.”

Moving the blanket to peek at Brent like he was a strange bug in a jar, I asked, “What?” What the hell was he talking about?

Brent met my eyes, the muted light from his phone somehow still catching the fire in them. “Back in the hospital in Seattle,” he said, almost accusatory. “You promised you wouldn’t die before me.”

God, that felt like years ago, too; New Years Eve in the hospital, when I had just woken up from whatever coma I was in in the Sound. “I thought you died,“ he had said.

“To be fair, so did I.”

“Well, now you can't die before me. It's my turn, next time.”

I blinked. “You can’t be serious—“ I started, but his bite cut me off quick.

“Well, I am. So just—don’t do anything stupid, and when Dad figures this out, you’ll be fine.” He said, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. I could hear the layer of concern in the alcoves of his request, the silent plea that he was really trying to say; don’t die, not yet. “Just….Dad will fix it.”

“I don’t know if this is something you can fix, Brent,” I deadpanned, laying my head down and looking at him from under my mound of blankets.

Brent huffed. “Yeah, well, tell Dad that—all he’s been doing is making calls and emails and whatever, trying to figure out how to help you.”

I blinked. “Really?”

Brent rolled his eyes, like I just asked the world’s dumbest question. “C’mon, you really thought Dad would just let it go? Now give me a blanket, it’s fucking cold.”

Brent stayed. He wasn’t good at pep talks, or making someone feel better—but then again, I don’t think there were any glittery words that could make me feel better right now. But he stayed, and that’s what mattered. During the day, I was left to rot alone in my room, but once night game, Brent would end up on the other side of the bed, taking the top layer of my cocoon off of me to sleep.

It was always easier, having him a bit closer. At least the worst of the nightmares subsided then.

The days passed by slowly as hell, if the shifting light behind the blackout curtains was any hint—though I didn’t keep track of it well. My mourning shifted to some sort of dissociation—I did what people asked of me mindlessly. Aunt Sia’s special dumpling soup was eaten when she asked with her big, pleading eyes; Dr. Sims got to give me exams with Dad watching. It was easier to just…go with the motions. It made everything easier, to not have to think about any of it.

I was there rotting in bed when I heard the door open again from beyond the covers over my head, a strong smell following close behind. Coffee. Was it morning already? Must’ve been—Brent’s heavy body wasn’t making the bed bend in on itself. I could hear more than one mug settle against Aunt Sia’s nightstand, and a weight settled near me as someone sat down.

“Jeanie?” Dad called gently, a hand coming to my side and rubbing gently. “You up?”

I was quiet for a moment, trying to decide whether to feign sleep or just admit I was when I chose the latter. “Yeah,” I muttered, grabbing the end of the blanket and pulling it off my head, popping out of the duvet like a snail out of its shell. Dad’s phone was on the table, flashlight on, the only source of light in the room. The end of his nose was bright pink like he had been out in the cold, thick flannel wrapped close.

“Hey,” he greeted, smiling softly. His eyes searched my face. “How are you feeling?”

Like shit. “Alright,” I lied.

Dad hummed. “I texted your phone earlier but you…never responded.”

“I, uh—“ I shot a look at the laundry basket before deciding my best course of action would be to run my hand under the pillows, acting like I lost my phone. “My phone’s probably dead, so,”

Dad nodded. “Ah, probably. Alessia said you didn’t eat much dinner last night.”

“Wasn’t hungry.” I deadpanned, realizing my tone probably wouldn’t work in my favor if I was trying to brush him off.

“Well it’s—“ Dad lifted his phone to look at the time, nearly blinding me, “—almost one in the afternoon. You should eat something.”

I glanced at the nightstand, raising an eyebrow. “So you brought me coffee?”

Dad chuckled. “I just got in from shoveling outside. Figured you could use a kick before I forced you to go to the kitchen.” Then, as a final bargain, he added, “I sugared it up.”

Damnit. He knew my weaknesses.

Minutes later I was sitting up in bed, willing the warm drink to do something to this coldness in my chest as Dad beside me, quietly working on his own mug. I knew this dance and I was trying to put it off for as long as possible; he’d sit there awkwardly until finally asking me what was wrong, I’d bat away the concern, he’d press, and my usual go-to was to bring up something about periods or boobs to scare him off. Usually worked.

Which is why it threw me off guard when he said, “If you’re feeling up to it, I wanna do something with you today.”

“Wh—“ I cut off, looking over at him. He didn’t look worried or apprehensive—he actually seemed…sorta excited? “You want to…do something?”

“Yeah,” he threw me a sideways glance, smiling gently. “A cold front’s supposed to move in tomorrow, and we’ll be having snow. I wanna do something I planned to do on your birthday now, before the snow ruins it.”

I stared at him, narrowing my eyes when he didn’t crack. My birthday? I had forgotten about that entirely.

What the hell did he have planned?

“You’re kidding.” I said in disbelief.

Aunt Sia had it pretty good, honestly. For a woman that lived alone, she had a spacious house; two bedrooms, a walk-in closet she gutted out to shove a gaming computer in. Nice kitchen and, apparently, a decent backyard—not nearly as big as ours in Chapman, but enough for a wooden privacy fence to wrap around and it not feel claustrophobic, snow bordering the decorative stepping stones. Her patio furniture was tucked away from the elements, motorbike tarped beside the porch. She didn’t shy from personalization; the fences were painted and weathered, a few road signs nailed to them, the stepping stones each had little designs on them.

None of that really mattered to me, not in weather like this—what did matter was Dad standing by Aunt Sia’s paint-covered fence with a pile of cardboard on a cleared-off table, a thermal cooler…and a spray paint can in his hand.

“Nope,” he said, smile wide. “I promised you we’d do this one day, right?” He then motioned for me to hurry up. “Come on, before the can gets cold again.”

It took me a moment to move; holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. I only just got used to the idea that Dad was Delsin Rowe, the Conduit pioneer guy—but meeting Delsin Rowe the artist had always been a dream of mine. For that to be Dad and for him to be offering some sort of private session, here and now?

The smile that crept onto my face felt like it was going to rip it apart.

I bounced down the steps and jogged to Dad, looking around. God, every question I’ve ever wanted to ask, I could! And I could actually get answers! The first one slipped out almost immediately as I took the can he held out for me: “Why spray paint?”

“What?” Dad asked, humor in his voice.

“Out of everything you could have done, you chose spray painting. You were doing street art way before Seattle, right?” I asked him. “Why?”

Dad huffed, “If I said it was originally because of the vandalism, would you believe me?”

“What?”

Dad barked out a laugh. “I wasn’t a good kid, Jean. I fought against society for all the wrong reasons for a while. What better way to be an inconvenience than to inconvenience others? Now put the can in your armpit under your jacket, you want it to stay warm.”

“Did you ever get caught?” I asked, trying to snake the spray paint can up past my jacket’s hem.

“Oh, all the time. Reggie seemed to have a radar for finding me mid-piece, would take me in.” Dad straightened, murmuring to himself, “He always had my location, now that I think about it…”

“Reggie?” I asked, incredulous. “Your brother would arrest you?”

Dad huffed, smiling to himself. “Yeah. Guy would go on and on about wanting me to do something better with my life than build a rap sheet.”

I watched him turn around to the cardboard pile, beginning to space them apart. “So you have a record? Are you allowed to be a lawyer with one?”

“Delsin Rowe has a record.” Dad stressed. “Technically, I’m not him anymore.”

“That’s quite a loophole.”

“I was trained to find them.”

Dad motioned to me, something in his hands flying, and I flinched as I caught the roll of duct tape, some embarrassing little squeal coming out of my mouth. Dad laughed, grabbing one specific cardboard cutout, prompting me to ask, “So, why stencil art?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions, you know that?” He glanced over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised.

“Just curious,” I hummed, trying to sound cool. Chill. Like this wasn’t somehow a dream of mine and yet it was with the dorkiest man I knew.

Dad huffed, a knowing look on his face. Okay so maybe I ranted that I’d love to talk to Delsin Rowe about his art one day to him without knowing I was talking to Delsin Rowe. How was I supposed to realize? I thought the guy in front of me was just Dad.

At least Dad didn’t press further, deciding to answer me. “It’s quicker. Easier. If someone catches me while I’m spraypainting and calls the cops, I can get out of there quickly and get the piece done before they arrive.”

Of course—efficiency. Probably helped a lot when the DUP were using him as target practice. “Mr. Moyer thought your use of stencils was cheating.” I teased gently. “Said it wasn’t real art if you weren’t willing to commit the effort.”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Moyer got fired for cheating on his wife with a senior, so what does he know?”

Dad began separating the cardboard into two piles propped up against the fence, seemingly able to make out the difference in the slivers cut from their square shapes as he said, “I also really like the strong lines stencils make in the layers, though. Especially with how much shading I use—keeps the piece from looking like a pile of black and white goo.”

“Is that what all this cardboard is?” I asked. “Layers?

“Yep.” He hummed, setting down the last cutout on the left. He turned around, hands going to rest on his hips. “Each piece I do has about four layers minimum? Adds depth.”

“But why monochrome?” I asked. “You usually only use one bright color in a piece.”

He shrugged. “Catches the eye. Plus it makes shading less of a hassle.”

He moved to the cooler on the side and opened to reveal a bunch of spray paint cans and the rice heating pads Aunt Sia would make, decorative discount cloth full of white rice and microwaved for their heat. “Your art, the style—is it pop art?”

“Is this an interview?”

I could feel my face turn bright red, warm enough to combat the nip of the cold air as Dad questioned me with an entertained, almost incredulous look on his face. Granted, I would love nothing more than to post a big exposé interview on my dumb little art blog years after everyone has tried—and failed—to get quotes from Dad regarding his art. But right now, this was more for my curiosity. “Sure, fault me for wanting to know about the life you hid for sixteen years,” I joked instead.

Dad huffed, pretending to be annoyed. “Do you wanna actually, you know, make the piece or are you gonna keep acting like we’re on The View?”

“Okay, okay! Fine, jeez.” I laughed, watching Dad as he moved closer.

“Pro tip?” He started. “Don’t call my stuff pop art. Fuck Andy Warhol. Now, ” He stood beside me, turning to look at the fence. There was nothing on it but weathered pain in what used to be firebrick red and a ‘detour’ construction sign. “Alessia said we could make whatever we wanted, but I also wanna make something she’d love.”

He glanced over at me and we both said it at the same time: “Rats.”

I had to suppress the giggle fit that threatened to crawl up my throat as Dad shook his head, smiling to himself. “Alright, maybe I’m not original,” he hummed, “But you know she would. The thing is, though—you could put any rat right here and call it good. But that’s not fun, is it?”

I stared at the fence, brow furrowing. “You were…your art was known for interacting with the environment, too. Using whatever’s around it as part of the piece.” I looked over at him. “Is that what you mean?”

He looked…proud. Which wasn’t much coming from Dad, he never shied away from being the supportive father figure, but this was way different. I felt like I was getting a good grade in some sort of quiz right now. “Exactly.” He then looked back to the fence, zeroing in on the ‘DETOUR’ sign hanging on it, and his grin turned a bit sly.

“And I have just the thing.”

“Jeanie, you’re killing me here. You point the can down, not press the nozzle down like that—”

“The can is huge! I can’t hold it like that, my cast is in the way—”

Dad’s hand went to his face and he sighed hard, laughing in that exhausted way he would when he would try to teach us something that he thought was stupid simple. Which wasn’t fair! He tagged for years before this, I only just got here—how was I supposed to know there was a certain way to hold the can? I just thought you pressed down and sprayed.

But when I argued that the first time, he just laughed harder.

Dad was…something else entirely. When I looked at the little patch of wall, I couldn’t really think of much to put on it beyond a rat in different poses. Him, though? He managed to map out a story. A standing rat in a construction hat just as orange as the stolen sign, directing the viewer away from the mousetrap on the opposite side rigged with cheese, orange and white cones around it. And watching him work! Oh my god. Not only was it a dream come true but he really did make this look easy. I barely finished half of the mousetrap by the time he completed the shading on the rat, and had only just gotten to the cheese when he was putting the finishing touches to the piece with the markers hanging out of his back pocket. The cones weren’t even there yet!

I cracked, laughing, looking down at the paint on my jeans and shaking my head. This was a mess.

“Hey!” Someone called behind us. We both turned our heads to see Brent standing on the porch, arms out and looking at us incredulously. “Who was gonna tell me we were doing this?”

Dad sniffed, trying to calm himself down. “You were busy, I didn’t want to—”

“I was taking care of Aunt Sia’s rats,” He interjected, bounding down the steps. “I wasn’t doing anything important!”

“You mean you were playing with them.” I corrected.

“So?”

“To be fair,” Dad said as Brent came closer, looking around at all of the supplies that were already spent, “I did promise your sister we’d do this together one day.”

“You know, you could admit you have a favorite child. It would hurt less.”

Dad rolled his eyes as Brent unceremoniously snatched the spray paint can out of my hand, making me teeter in my crouch and fall on my ass. “Brent!” I hate brothers.

“Nope, don’t wanna hear it, it’s my turn.” Brent cut me off playfully, aiming the spray can. “You got to do everything else—”

“Brent, wait—”

“Son, the—”

We tried to warn him. Tried. But in his childish banter to inject himself in the middle of our project, he neglected to realize he was holding the can backwards.

The can hissed and Brent flinched like he was shot, the spray launching backwards and immediately painting a misshapen orange circle on the stomach of his black long-sleeved shirt. He choked on his spit, the can falling from his hand, glaring down at the spot on his stomach before looking up at Dad and I with that same puppy-faced look of betrayal.

And I absolutely lost it.

Maybe it was the way his eyes widened or the indignation, or maybe after everything I had finally cracked—but for some reason, his fuck up was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. There was a hard huff to my right and I glanced over to see Dad with a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle his own laughter.

Brent glared at us. “It’s not funny!” He insisted like a child. Dad snorted, which got me to guffaw harder, and Brent scoffed at us both. “I hate you both.”

“Go inside, get Alessia to help you,” Dad chuckled. “She’s got a trick to get paint out of clothes but it has to still be wet.”

Brent glanced between us both before rolling his eyes, a smile threatening to play on his lips. “You both suck,” he complained, starting towards the house. “Don’t do anything else without me!”

Dad clapped Brent’s shoulder as he jogged past, shaking his head and chuckling under his breath. I bent down to grab the can Brent had dropped and tossed it to Dad when he motioned for it, watching him work to shove it under his jacket in an attempt to keep the can warm. “Why did you wanna do this now, of all times?” I asked him, laughter subsiding.

Dad tried to shrug, the movement hard with a can under his arm. “Just seemed like the best time for it,” he responded. “There’s nowhere in Salmon Bay we could and…I figured you could use the pick-me-up.”

He then looked over at me fully, and asked that dreaded question: “How are you doing?”

My eyes fell; how was I doing? God. Horribly seemed the simplest way to sum it all up, but I didn’t say that—instead I gave my own half-hearted shrug, saying, “I’m alright, I guess.”

“‘You guess?’”

I sighed, but I didn’t respond; I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Dad noticed my shift in demeanor and called “Hey?”

I only hummed back.

“I’m sorry.”

Huh? I looked up at Dad, brow furrowed—what on earth did he do to apologize for? “What are…” I drew off, too confused to even finish the question.

“For the hospital, on Monday.” Dad started. “When…when Eugene and that other doctor diagnosed you, I never…checked on you. Just went straight into trying to solve the problem. Your aunt may have chewed my ass out about that.” He added with a huff.

Of course she did.

“I didn’t even ask how you were doing,” Dad shook his head at himself, then glanced over at me. “So—how are you?”

I moved my shoulder, readjusting my own paint can under my arm. Stared at a nice mucky piece of snow. Did everything I could to not meet his eyes. “I don’t know,” I muttered pathetically. And I didn’t! This tagging lesson was a great distraction but even then, it felt like I was watching it through the lens of someone else’s life. A nice glimpse at escapism before being shot back into my trash body.

And as that reality resettled on my shoulders, I asked Dad, “Do you think it will get bad?”

He didn’t have to ask what I meant. “No, no,” he reassured me. “If you keep your power use in check and you’re just…careful, everything should be okay.”

I nodded slightly, saying “I know.” I had heard the speech. Minimal power use. Try to be as not me as possible. “It’s just…”

How do I even translate how shitty that felt? That I’d have to suppress me, my power, forever now if I didn’t wanna die gruesomely before thirty? Or suffer a lifetime of pain?

Dad breathed hard, and then his feet came into view near mine milliseconds before he was hugging me, my face pressed awkwardly into his chest. “It’s gonna be okay,” He hummed gently into the top of my head before kissing it. “We’ll figure it out.”

“There’s no figuring it out,” I retorted, voice muffled. My arms came up almost involuntarily and wrapped around him anyways. “Dr. Sims made that pretty clear.”

“You know me,” Dad said, the chuckle that followed sounding forced. “I’ll try to find a way.”

“And if there isn’t one?”

I could feel something in Dad’s back tense at that, and I imagine he probably had that same look he reserved for those nights when he was missing Mom. That look when something from the past pulled at him in a threat to unravel him fully. He seemed to carry that expression a lot more often, now. “Then we’ll figure out how to live with it.” He decided. His arm squeezed me tightly, pressing my face further into his chest. “But it’s our issue to deal with. Together.”

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Oh shit, sorry,” he said, hands moving to my shoulders and pushing me away from his chest, chortling. The sound died the moment he looked at me though, and how hard I was trying to keep the tears in my eyes from spilling over. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying—was I just sad about everything? Relieved that Dad made it so obvious this was an us issue and I wasn’t alone? Maybe I finally broke from my apathy and decided to have another mental breakdown.

His hand came up and pushed loose hair out of my face, and he said, “We’ll figure it out, Jeanie.”

I sniffed hard, nodding, Dad giving me the grace of wordlessly wiping my eyes without pushing further on what was wrong. And for some reason, my brain thought now was the perfect time to ask, “You don’t think I’m boring now that I’m human again?”

Dad snorted, rolling his eyes. “Can’t stay serious for five minutes without cracking a joke, can you?”

“It’s your go-to, you taught us—“

“Hey, we’ll deal with my coping mechanisms later.” He cut me off, shaking his head. But then he looked at me softly and murmured, “I didn’t care about that before your powers. Just you. You’re no different to me now either.”

He gave me another side hug, turning us both to look at the construction rat and his uncolored hazard. “You only did this ‘cause you wanted to make me come out of the room, huh?” I asked.

“I did it because I promised,” he corrected, “And you needed a reason to smile.” After a beat, he added, “And also so you wouldn’t be so upset when I told you that you’re starting your online classes tomorrow.”

“What?”

I didn’t get the chance to run away when I came back inside.

We finally came in after Brent got to add a bit to the mural, excitedly looking for Aunt Sia to show her our masterpiece. The woman grabbed Dad’s shoulder to bring him to her height, whispering something in his ear and pushing him towards the laptop on the tables before moving to follow Brent.

“Jean?” She called when I hesitated, watching Dad move.

That happiness that was on his face just a bit ago had slipped away the moment he wasn’t looking at us, his expression something far more solemn. The mask slipped, if only for a moment, and really showed just how stressed Dad was.

I hated when he looked like that. He looked twenty years older.

Aunt Sia grabbed me by my wrist and gently pulled me away. “Come on,” she said, that soft and chipper voice having its own underlying tone of stress. “I want to see what you three made.”

It seemed like Dad and Aunt Sia were pulling some sort of coordinated effort to keep us distracted, like two toddlers who couldn't be trusted to be alone for three minutes without getting into the chemicals under the kitchen sink. And I knew why; in some part, it had to be because of me. What was happening to me. Every time those thoughts started coming back and I'd stare off into space, someone would come in to try to and distract me from them.

There was a point, a brief period, where Aunt Sia and Dad seemed distracted by something on her laptop, and I took the chance to pull on Dad's black jacket and slip out of the front door, intent on getting some sort of peace and quiet to myself.

Should have known it wouldn't have worked out like that.

“Hey, kid,” Zeke greeted, immediately putting out the partially-smoked cigarette on the concrete steps when he realized it was me.

I smiled a bit awkwardly. Well there went the chance for peace and quiet. “Hey. Aunt Sia said you went to the store a while ago.”

“I did,” Zeke reassured me, storing the cigarette behind his ear and sliding to the side, making room on the stairwell for me. I took the silent invitation and sat beside him, tucking away in Dad’s jacket as the soft winter breeze tried to give me a chill. “Got back a bit ago. Just wanted to…give your family some space.”

I glanced over at him as he leaned forward, elbows going to rest on his knees as he stared off towards the skyscraper-riddled horizon. Why did that expression seem to haunt everyone I knew? A vacant face and emotional eyes, staring at something far bigger than whatever was in front of them.

It wasn’t hard to guess what was bothering Zeke, either. Dad had been completely cold-shouldered after nearly killing him, and the atmosphere between them felt more like sinking in the gunpowder of the storage keg waiting for the spark to ignite it. “I’m…I’m sorry about Dad—” I started.

Zeke cut me off immediately with some noise in the back of his throat. “Nope, don’t be.” A hand came up to pull his sunglasses back on over his eyes, and I had to wonder if it was more because of the sun reflecting off of the white snow, or to hide his stare. “He has a right to be upset. All of you do. If I’d have known messing with that damn thing woulda started all this…”

He shook his head, letting it fall. I wanted to say something, anything, that would have reassured him—but how do you? What do you even say to someone when they learn that one selfish action killed thousands of people?

That one choice caused their best friend to die?

I faltered. I didn’t think it was fair to blame Zeke, personally. Not by a long shot. But I just…didn’t know what to say.

Zeke sighed, deciding to fill in the silence with, “I went to go get supplies for the road. I’m thinking I’ll head out tomorrow, go back home.”

“Wh—you mean New Marais?” I asked, surprised. Back home? Why would he be going back home?

Zeke nodded. “Yep. Think it’d be best if I skedaddled. Don’t think I’m much use to y’all anymore, anyways—”

“I don’t think that.”

Zeke paused, turning a bit in place to look at me. “Huh?”

“I don’t really think we would have gotten this far if we didn’t have your help,” I admitted. Was he really just gonna leave because of Dad? “I know you and Dad don’t…don’t really get along, but—you should stay. We could use your help.”

Zeke chewed on the inside of his cheek before slowly shaking his head. “I think it’d be best,” he gently rejected. “Y’all only need me for information, right? You guys can call for any of that. Think I’d just be getting in your way if I stayed here—it’s not like I can shoot lasers outta my eyes or do anything useful. I’m not being helpful much.”

Anything useful.

It was that moment that I realized, in a way, I did have someone who got it. The guilt about death, that sinking feeling that you were in the way. After Zeke’s confession and how Aunt Sia defended him…I couldn’t say I didn’t understand. With my new diagnosis, it was exactly how I felt. I hated that feeling, and if Zeke was honest, he’d been feeling it for years.

That had to be terrible.

So naturally, I moved to alleviate some of that pain. “We could be dead weight together?” I offered jokingly. Zeke took the bait and barked out a laugh, cigarette falling from behind his ear.

“Ah, come on, don’t be like that,” he said when the laughter subsided, bending over to pick up his dropped cig. “You’re not dead weight, Jean. You’re sick.”

“I’m—“ I drew off. I was what? “I’m broken. Can’t do anything anymore, either.”

“I know,” He said simply. A hand came up and rested on my back in that same spot my poisoned, dying organ laid. It was oddly comforting, coming from Zeke. There was no pity, no sadness. No sort of expression that made you feel like you were a commercial about dying puppies. He took it as fact, something plain to look at subjectively. “You…I told y’all I had the Plague, right?” I nodded. Zeke didn’t put the cigarette back behind his ear, instead electing to play with it, rolling the butt between his fingers until tobacco began spilling out of the other side. “After Cole’s goodbye message, I’ve just been thinking about how…he did it for me. Thousands of people, gone like that—“ he said with a snap, hand hovering for a moment before falling in defeat. “…And I was his deciding factor in using that RFI. If I died before he did, would he have done it?”

Zeke glanced over at me, and I could barely see his eyes scream for answers through his glasses, trying to demand something from the universe that no one, to this day, understood. After a few moments, though, his pained expression softened. “Thing is, Jean—your father is having to make those same decisions, with you. Everything he’s done, he’s doing for you. And I don’t wanna get in the way of that just because I….” He drew off, eyes falling to the ground.

And I think I knew why. “Because you want to make it up to Cole.”

Zeke huffed, a sad sort of smirk on his face. “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?” He asked, before sighing hard. “But I’m gonna go. I can help in other ways. Ones where I ain’t standing between a family…and what they need.”

I inhaled deeply, moving to look out at the sunset and the tall buildings it refracted off of, bathing the horizon in a warm glow. That gentle frost that came with sunset was beginning to settle on the city too, making the entire picture something I could only wish to capture in art.

God, art. It felt like years since I thought about going to art school and now…it felt unobtainable. Why care? Was I going to survive the next four years?

I shoved all those thoughts in the back of my mind, instead regarding Zeke again to ask, “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow,” He said near immediately, mind already made up. “I plan on sticking around at breakfast, seeing if your pops and aunt figured out any new leads, and then head out before lunch rush traffic.”

I nodded, about to ask him a separate question about travelling when his words actually registered in my mind and I paused. “Leads?” I repeated curiously.

Zeke looked at me, eyebrow raising over his glasses, and the left corner of his mouth ticked up into a smirk. “Kid, after everything that happened, you think they’re just gonna accept it? You’ve got good people in your corner.” He then bumped his shoulder into mine gently. “Remember that.”

Aunt Sia came out and ushered me back inside quickly a bit after that, turning on a movie and somehow timing dinner near perfectly, the snobby little asshole critic on screen being served ratatouille the same time Aunt Sia set a steaming tray on a TV Dinner table. This was her favorite cartoon movie, we used to watch it all the time when she was babysitting us. She even let us feed some to the rats, who happily took it—Jerry managing to nip my finger in the process. Guess it’s good the rats loved the dish if they had a whole movie dedicated to it.

And when the credits rolled and Brent and I rock-paper-scissored to choose the next movie, I sat through the opening segment of another PIXAR movie and mulled over Zeke’s words. Over Dad following through on a promise I forgot about, on Brent trying to be supportive in his own awkward way.

Things sucked right now. There was no getting around that. And I knew by the time my eyelids started getting heavy as I laid on the couch, that I’d start spiraling again. But maybe things weren’t all that bad if I had everyone here with me. Like Dad promised: we’d figure it out.

Together.

It was funny how annoyingly normal the next day started.

Six am wakeup. Stumbling downstairs from Aunt Sia’s bedroom with no recollection of how I got in there—last I remember, I was watching that little blob on Soul antagonize the man who was transplanted into a cat, and yet magically awoke in the bed. Cereal. Coffee. Debating dropping out.

The usual.

The kitchen table was cleaned up by the time breakfast was over, Brent and I placed in front of laptops on opposite sides of the hickory tabletop—after a firm lecture from Aunt Sia on how I needed to be careful with Dr. Sims computer.

And then I was forced to push aside everything that’s happened in the last month and pretend like I cared about economics.

Maybe this was a good thing, though. I mean it was hard to concentrate on my conducrinopathy when I instead was hating my life while trying to remember what an integer was. And with being three days behind, I had plenty of busy work to distract me. Two hundred words of an about me posted to a forum where other students were forced to engage for a grade, with three comments being thinly-veiled typographic sneers at how familiar my name sounded. An art assignment that, for the first time in my life, I had no ideas for.

On second thought, maybe this wasn’t going as well as I initially hoped.

The rest of the house slowly woke up; Dad came downstairs, grabbed some coffee, and disappeared upstairs just as quickly, saying something about working. Dr. Sims passed through (spending a good three minutes watching how I was using his laptop while sipping some sort of smoothie Aunt Sia made him, which was absolutely awkward), and even Zeke passed back and forth a few times, going to the back porch to dabble more in the smoking habit he seemed to have picked up in the last few days.

It was, in all consideration, a peaceful morning.

It should have been a sign it wouldn’t last.

It started soon after Dad came down to eat some leftovers, one hand holding a fork and shoveling food into his mouth while the other scrolled and clicked and expanded on some sort of map/spreadsheet app on his phone. Brent sat across from me, head propped up by a hand as he did something under the table he was trying to hide from Dad—and was successfully doing so, until his phone rang.

Brent jolted, taken back by surprise at the fact that his ringer was on, ears turning red when Dad’s eyes left his phone to glare at him. He quickly swiped the call away, chuckling nervously when he met Dad’s eyes. “Those…dang spam callers, huh?” he lied terribly, that red creeping out to ignite his freckles when Dad deadpanned.

Deciding he didn’t want to know a thing about why, Dad simply moved to solve the issue by saying, “Turn the ringer off,” before going back to his work on the phone.

Brent did as he was told, pocketing the phone with a glance my way that suggested he was just thankful it wasn’t taken till our ‘classes’ were over. Dad didn’t really joke about us throwing away the chance to learn when it was a choice, and not because we were struggling to understand something.

But barely a minute passed before I heard the phone begin buzzing in Brent’s pocket again, his cheeks going scarlet once more. Dad didn’t seem to hear it, but Brent caught how I cocked an eyebrow at him by the time the ringing stopped and then started again, mouthing a single word: Mei.

What the hell was Mei calling him for at this time? Wasn’t it almost nine over in Portland? She should have been in class at Linus Pauling, and she definitely wasn’t the type to be needy.

Dad got a call next, humming curiously when he read the number and looking up at where Aunt Sia sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter. “It’s Arthur,” he told her, making her cock her head to the side so curiously Jerry almost fell off of the top of it.

Reaching up to stabilize the rat using her head as a perch, Aunt Sia asked, “What would he be calling about?” and only receiving Dad’s shrug in response. Arthur Harrow was the senator and COLE Seattle chapter leader, I think. Pretty sure it was Seattle’s chapter, but he was definitely a COLE chairman. What did he want with Dad?

Dad stood, moving to the back porch where Zeke was just beginning to ash his cigarette, turning and sort of freezing in place as he saw who it was closing the porch door. Zeke was set to leave within the next few minutes, waiting for something from Dr. Sims before heading out and back to New Marais.

It was almost strange to admit it, but I was going to miss him.

The phone in Brent’s pocket vibrated again and he gave me an exasperated look, like he somehow expected me to know why Mei would want to talk to him right now. I shrugged, useless to his curiosities—but knowing with Dad gone, he had the best chance to use the convenient excuse of ‘going to the bathroom’ to answer the phone until he came in asking where Brent was once more. I motioned off to the door that separated the dining room from the living room with a nod of my head, Brent seeming to immediately understand what I meant.

“I’m gonna, uh…” he drew off, avoiding Aunt Sia’s eyes when he stood. “I’ll be right back.”

God, he was a terrible liar.

Aunt Sia’s eyes watched Brent’s back suspiciously before returning to her phone, and I tried not to let my eyes glaze over again as I listened to the recording of my new Economics teacher give a speech on…something. Shoot, I’d already forgotten what it was. I moved the cursor back and restarted the video, immediately dissociating as my eyes traveled to the closest form of movement in the hopes of staying open—outside, where Dad was on the phone and Zeke looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

Zeke’s hand was on the knob of the door, and it just barely began to turn when Dad straightened stiff as a board and asked, “What?” so loudly I heard him through the glass, the sound startling Aunt Sia. She barely turned before her own phone dinged and she looked down at it, growing more concerned.

The stairs creaked, heavy footfalls rattling the wood as someone practically plundered down them. “Squeaks!” Dr. Sims’ voice called out, panicked. He skipped the last two steps and rounded the banister with an agility I did not expect from the man.

“I know,” she said, moving to hop off of the counter. Outside, Dad and Zeke seemed to find a truce, Dad looking at something Zeke had pulled up on his phone.

There’s a strange trepidation to knowing something is wrong, but not what—I think it’s the closest one can get to their basic animal instincts. The hair on my arm rose through the grating of my cast, my heart rate immediately picked up, and everything in me was screaming to run because something was wrong. But I didn’t know what.

At least, not until Brent slammed open the bathroom door in the hall, rounding the corner with his phone to his ear, panicked and not willing to hide the fact that he was calling his girlfriend at all to shout to whoever would hear, “They took them!”

Dad heard Brent outside, saying something to someone on the line and opening the door. “Yeah. Later,” he muttered to the person on the phone before hanging it up, holding up a hand as Brent approached, panicked. “Who are you—”

“Archangel attacked Linus Pauling,” he told Dad, not waiting for his spiel. The phone came down, and Mei’s picture was in full view, Brent pressing the speakerphone option. “Mei, tell him.”

“They want you,” she said simply, breathless and shrill and scared. Mei was the most level headed of us all, she never got scared. “There were—there were a bunch of people and this woman’s voice on their radios and she was looking for people Brent and Jean know. I hid, but—they took them.”

Aunt Sia held up her phone, showing a helicopter live feed of Linus Pauling; it was chaos, ambulances and police and SWAT and more, kids being led out of the school by armed escorts, hands on their heads per active shooter regulation. Though I really doubted this counted as that, especially with the evidence of powers being used—something sparked from a light pole that was split in half, there were vines that snaked the wall of the school and ice bridges that made the hair on the back of my neck flare up.

The camera zoomed out, moving and refocusing on the courtyard, words burnt into the concrete of the center patio: DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS, ROWE?

“Tommy and Reese,” Mei said, making my heart drop out of my chest.

“They took them.”

#infamous erosion #infamous #why wont it add a tag for infamous #i'm being suppressed!#anyways #Cole MacGrath #Zeke Dunbar #Delsin Rowe #Eugene Sims #AUNT SIA POSTING #-spongebob fingers- the gang's all here #minus their dead mom #RIP Fetch Walker you would have loved killing these people for your children #hate how this ended but I wrote it on the way back from the Dallas Anti-ICE protest and I'm too burnt to edit it so fuck ya life. Bing Bong #jean posting #brent posting #for once we get a little break. for a bit.#hamilton: iN THeye of hte HURRIcane there is ~quiet~. for jsuyt a moment #time to start adding the new OCs

0 notes