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septic-dr-schneep · 7 years ago

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Dude your coma story is so cool so far!! I got to ask though, where's Marvin in all of this?

Funny you should ask…

JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Need (Part 6: Disconnection)

Summary: Straining his magic to most of its known limits, Marvin subjects himself to an out-of-body experience to search the mindscape for Jack.

A/N: Warning for implied/referenced throat cutting.

I make my wayopen. I seek the truth. I make my way open.

As he exhaled, Marvin sensed that his breath wasn’t dissipating. Insteadit crystalized, each particle taking the delicate, complex shape of a tiny starand suspending somewhere between the beams of refracted light surrounding him. Hecould hear the change they created in the resonance hitting his ears; hecompensated for it, channeling the sounds to the hum he was forming in histhroat. The particles from his nextbreath would act as counterbalances for the last.

His breathing wasn’t where his focus lay, however; he kept his attentionon his hands. Summoned swirls of red and green smoke were tangling around hiswrists, tracing curiously over the old burns they found there. The misty swirlssensed more than saw the veins of vibrant green coursing through him and they settleddensely against his skin, pushing against it, trying to break through it to reach the power underneath.

As soon as the old scars began to sting from the pressure, the magicianflicked his wrists and cast the smoke away from him, sending it out to weaveinto the crystalline stars. He could feel the smoke create an undertone for thestars’ singing. As the hum deepened, increasing pressure around him, Marvinimpulsively began to shiver. His breaths quickened, the smoke quickening itsweave in sync, brushing away excess stars to drift into his hair and onto hischeeks like snowflakes. He didn’t notice.

Using his magic like this took its toll on him. He was hyperaware of howquickly his body temperature was dropping, as if he was surrounded by an icyriver, but he was only just beginning. He had only dipped a toe into the cold. Drawinghis hands in close against his chest and curling the crystal structure in closearound him, he inhaled deeply.

“The way…is open.”

The smoke burst from the seams it had so lovingly created, scattering crystalparticles in every direction as Marvin thrust out his hands and his mind inconcert.

He reached out for Jack.

The gust of wind that rushed to meet him was entirely in his mind, but hefelt it burn against his exposed skin, a fiery contrast to the ice he’d formed.Growling, he lashed out at it as darkness crashed down around him, swallowingthe starlight. The symbols on his mask lit his way, their red and silver lightprojecting where his eyes couldn’t.

He saw the recording room; he stood close to the wall, his back pressedagainst the PMA board. Jack sat with his back to him, gaming just as he alwayswould, and Marvin’s throat tightened as his creator’s laughter echoed aroundhim. He sounded so joyful, his joy only making his image clearer in front ofMarvin’s eyes. It was as if no evil in the world could touch him.

As the image sharpened, however, it sacrificed its color, the vibrancybleeding out and leaving nothing but dark, grim reds and greens. Withoutwarning a flash of dazzling white and blue pulsed its flame, fueled only byadrenaline and already growing weaker. It was collapsing in on itself—a dyingstar, alone in the dark.

“I need to save him! I need to save him; I need your help! Save him!”

Marvin flinched as he heard the long-ago words. He could feel the terrorand anguish of the doctor shaking the very air around them as Jack choked andthrashed on his operating table, losing his fight. When it finally became toomuch to bear, Marvin surged forward, swiping his hands up and in, waving thewhite-blue star away. He didn’t want to go backward;he wanted to see where Jack was now.

“The way is open!” he snarled.Again the recording room flashed before his eyes. Chase filled the seat thistime, a poor substitute; even though he couldn’t see his face, Marvin knew thatthe vlogger’s smile never reached his eyes. As intensely as he focused hismagic on that focal point by the board and his mask allowed him the view,however, it was whisked away within seconds.

Frustration building at a churning boil in his stomach, Marvin abandonedthe recording room and went for the door, hesitating only a moment beforeemerging into the shadowed hallway. As the door slid closed behind him, Jackand Chase’s mingled commentary drifted away.

As far as Marvin could tell, he was the only source of sound, light, and lifein this world.

Unease gradually stirred through the frustration as he slid his fingersalong the wall, tracing his course. Each step he took into the corridor seemedto take him nowhere, yet every time his step faltered, there was suddenly anopening that his fingers hadn’t come to, a side hall. As the side hall opened,the way before him became a wall.

The halls were guiding him. They were steering him in directions that hemay very well not want to take, but he had already come this far. Who knew howmuch time had passed since he’d entered this realm? He could have been walking herefor days while far, far away, his body hovered in midair in the middle of hisbedroom, waiting for his probing mind to return.

He had traveled to reaches of this space he never would have dared to goin his search for Jack. He wasn’t about to turn back because the hallways splitin odd directions.

Ever so innocently, his boot squeaked as he made a right turn. As soon asthe sound echoed down the next hallway, another blaze of light stunned him, dazzlinglyred and much stronger than Schneep had been. Marvin staggered back a few stepsat the intensity of it, holding up a hand to shield his eyes, but the lightdefied reality, shining through hishand as if his fingers were translucent! There was no cover of darknessanymore.

“I seek the truth,” he said aloud, just above a whisper, holding out hishands to show he was unarmed. The light fluctuated, seemingly in response, andhe slid the toe of one boot forward. When there weren’t any adverse effects, heedged a few inches closer and then struck up a cautious, measured pace.

Much like the ones of the past, the hallway seemed to only lengthen as hewalked farther, but the light was becoming more and more powerful, reassuringhim that he was slowly but steadily drawing closer to its source. He could feelthe electricity of it in the air, throbbing into his exposed skin like deep acupressure.It was…reassuring, relaxing in a way, as it absorbed into him. It made him feelgrounded, steady on his course.

After an undetermined amount of time, he found his sense of calm abruptlybroken as he stumbled over his own feet, narrowly catching himself on the walland blinking his vision back into focus as his head swam. He took three moresteps and then…something changed.

The pressure the light had blanketed over him became like a full ton oflead dropped from far, far above him; he nearly doubled over under the weightof it as sweat rose from every pore and his sinuses clogged. Somewhere in theback of his mind, there was panic, but it couldn’t translate to his systems. Hefelt detached from his body—not only the one back in his room but the one hewas projecting here; all strength left and his legs buckled underneath him. Hedropped to his knees, feeling no pain when he struck the concrete. He didn’tfeel anything.

“That’s͜ ̛it̨…” The approaching footsteps were drowned out by their owner’s mockinglygentle words. “G͢o ͢o̵n̢ d̷ow͞n. ͟Deép̵eŗ and ͝de̴e̶pęr dow̢n.”

Marvin couldn’t even lift his head to look at him as he slumped to allfours, heaving ragged breaths, every one amplified and distant, and when he tried to speak his tongue felt heavy inhis mouth.. He should be panicking; that voice should chill him to the bone,but all it did was offer a sense of tingly, prickling heat, as if his wholebody had fallen asleep and his clouded mind was just begging to join it.

“Yo͝u a͢c̵t͟uall̛y͝ ͞t̀h͟o͢ught i̴t w͡o̷uld ͟be that e̴a͜sy̨, didn’t you?”Anti tutted as he crouched in front of the stricken magician, grinning from earto ear. “I’ve ke͘p̕t ͡c̕o̴nt̡rol al̕l thi̕s͜ tím̢e, charmer, and̨ y͝ou ͟le͘t m͝e! How’s i̛t̀ ͠fee̡l t͡o ͠b̵e theòne who wal͘ked rig̡h͜t͝ i͝n̴to it?” After a moment, he pulled Marvin’s chinup, giggling. “I ̧k͟now ̕how t̴o͟ dơ it ͟ge̵nt͞l͠ytoo.”

“I’d…prefer…th’ pain…” Marvin slurred, each word a struggle. Anti onlylaughed harder at that, dropping from his crouch so he could fully sit cross-leggedbefore him. Even though they were mere inches apart, even though Anti wastouching him, Marvin could hardly see him. He was putting out so much of thered light that all he could see was his glitching, spasming outline—and evennow, a black mist of spots was blotting that out as he strained to keep hiseyes open.

“Wel̷l, as͜ ̛it t͘ur̵n͝s̴ ̕ơu̡t…”

Marvin couldn’t even find the strength to flinch as a blade was pressedflat against his pulse point. He stayed limp and still, barely aware of it.

“I͜ ͝was h̕oping ̶you͠’d śaythat̨.”

The edge of the blade slid cleanly along his skin. Wet heat trailed downhis neck, soaking into the hem of his shirt, dissolving into the rest of the warmthdraped over him. Anti talked to him as he worked, but Marvin had stoppedconcentrating on the actual meaning of his words after some time. He just letthe rhythm of his voice and the cuts mesmerize him. Whatever the Defect wassaying sank right past his filter and through his subconscious like a dream hewas meant to forget. So did the pain; it was absolute agony, but as soon as his nervous system registered it, it was gone—untilthe next stroke of the weapon.

Then an alarm went off.

Tearing his knife away from the helpless magician’s neck, Anti sworeprofusely, his entrancing light shrinking back at the faraway cries. Marvin hadno time to collect himself before he was being thrown in a dizzying spiral, warpingbackward past corners of the thousands of hallways he’d walked. All he couldhear around him were shrill shrieks and earsplitting wails as other alarmsexploded around him.

How long it assaulted his senses, he couldn’t know, but the last he heardof them was a hoarse, tormented and very humancry before grotesquely slamming back into his flesh and bone. The crystalline starsexploded around him, shattering over the carpet in his bedroom as he struck theback wall with a yelp. As soon as he slid to the floor, he pressed a hand to hisraw, aching throat. No warmth, no blood, no cuts—what the—?

“Marvin! Marvin!”

When the smoke of the excess magic cleared and Marvin’s wide, glassy eyeslifted, Chase was standing over him, ashen and trembling.

“You gotta come to the lab,” he pleaded breathlessly. “It’s Jack! Jack just—Youneed to come see him now. S-Somethinghappened to him, man, h-he was having a seizureor something!”

“I…” It felt as if he’d been out of this reality for years; everythingwas too bright, too stimulating, but after several seconds Chase’s wordsfinally registered through his pounding headache. Despite it, he nodded,blinking hard. “I’m…I’m coming,” he answered haltingly, holding out his freehand for Chase to help him up.

#youtube #jacksepticeye #fanfiction #youtube fanfiction #marvin the magnificent #antisepticeye #chase brody #marvin's magic #wake up #save jacksepticeye #hypnotism #hypnosis #answered ask #Anonymous

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joulethieves · 6 years ago

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we post the 1890′s au now bc i have 0 impulse control

in which vaan is a european immigrant in 1890′s new england working off his and his sick brother’s (who is still overseas) debts. he’s a farm-hand and stableboy at the bunansa estate. ffamran, the only heir, lives at home to tend to his ill mother while cid is engrossed in his experiments with electricity. this is about three months into vaan’s term at the bunansa household. i headcanon he was at first with the solidors before trying to steal, or backmouthing, or generally just being vaan. ffamran and vaan however, hit it off. of course, there’s something more there, too. ty besin for your help with dialogue and feeding me tension. feed me more

he’s brushing down elza at half-past ten when the stable door opens. vaan pauses, and peeks over the gate of the harness room.

‘ffamran,’ vaan says softly. elza whinnies in her own greeting as he saunters up, dressed sharp as always, but perhaps tonight especially so.

‘still puttering about the stables, are you?’ he asks. vaan shrugs.

‘i was restless. and elza here needed a good brushing.’ but he eyes ffamran as the brunette leans against the wood. his smile is easy this time of night. vaan wonders if he’s been drinking. his suspicions are confirmed true when ffamran opens his coat and plucks out a flask. but instead of taking a swig, he only digs further in the pocket, and approaches vaan.

‘give her one of these,’ he says, plopping a treat in vaan’s calloused hand. ‘you’ll be on elza’s good graces in no time.’

vaan blinks down at his palm. moreso than noticing ffamran carries around sugar cubes in his pockets, he notices in their proximity, the striking scent of sandalwood. his breath smells of whiskey. it’s all, at once, incredibly ffamran even amidst the scent of the stables, suddenly all vaan can breathe in is the other man.

palm flat, vaan offers the treat to the horse, who wastes no time in snarfing it down. vaan chuckles at her enthusiasm, and balthier in turn.

‘at the theatre tonight?’ vaan says, busying himself again with elza’s back. he doesn’t know why he finds it soothing, only that he does. the sound and scent of the stables, the rhythmic brushing along a horse’s back, it reminds him of home, so far away here.

ffamran looks taken aback for just a moment. ‘i was,’ he says, ‘how did you know?’

in the dim light of the stable, vaan’s cheeks pinken, and he is grateful for the shadows that mostly enshroud him from elza mass. ‘you always wear sandalwood when you go to the theatre,’ he says eventually. and rosewater for guests, teakwood for the day, amber for hunts, vaan adds inwardly; nevertheless it doesn’t help his embarrassment. he has come to learn over the months what days warrant what fragrance. ffamran’s friendly proximity has lain its impression on vaan, the many vibrancies of his aromas, whereas all he smells of is dust and day and sweat. on a good day, lavender, if only for a few hours before that clean shirt of his gets sullied with his overalls.

vaan chances a peek at ffamran, to find the man looking at him. the expression on his handsome, noble face is unreadable, but if vaan were to hazard a guess, it seemed--curious, bordering intrigue. but it could just be the shadows and the night’s hour.

‘you’re attentive,’ he says, unscrewing the cap to his flask, and taking a sip. his lips curl around the top, and when he speaks again, his voice is wetter. ‘those oils must have made quite the impression.’

he’s fishing. vaan brushes elza’s lower back harder, sending particles into the air. but it does little to veil him from ffamran’s honey gaze. vaan licks his lips, nervously. ‘hard not to notice when you have as many perfumes as a lady,’ he cracks. elza flicks her tail, and the tip of the hairs flick vaan in the face. he scrunches his nose, moves to wipe it off on his sleeve, and when he looks back up, ffamran is closer than before.

‘is that so?’ he says, his voice low but familiar, conversational. ‘and what would you be doing now, if i were a lady, hm?’

this close, and vaan cannot keep from calling upon the moment shared between them earlier that month, fastening ffamran’s vest for him in the privacy of his quarters. the softness of the underside of his wrist, the intensity of his gaze, the promise in his eyes that has kept vaan awake at night, and sweating even under the shade in the day. whiskey and sandalwood, meshed with the dust of the air, and suddenly vaan is self conscious under ffamran’s eyes, a dirty farm boy, an estate-servant here to pay off a debt to a brother who is now dead.

vaan swallows. the brush in his hand nearly slips from his fingers, but vaan fumbles and rights himself. his ears feel hot, despite the cool night air. ffamran is less than an arm’s length from him now, and vaan thinks, not for the first time, that he wonders what it would be like to kiss a man.

particularly, this man.

but instead, he swallows. ‘i’d likely be doing what i’m doing now,’ he says, resuming the chore along elza’s mane, “giving you a good brushing.”

ffamran laughs. he isn’t that drunk, just enough to loosen his edges, and he tilts his head back as he does. the sound is rich and warm, easier than vaan’s ever heard it, a more convincing chime than what vaan remembers he pantomimed for guests during the summer soiree. it’s enough to get vaan to join him, and his low, boyish chuckle peppers off when ffamran sighs and takes another swig. his eyes don’t leave vaan’s, and vaan cannot find the strength to look away. ffamran is too close for comfort yet not close enough, and vaan sucks in a breath, taking in earth and hay when he wants to taste ffamran.

‘elza’s a lucky girl. i’m no less easy to ride,’ ffamran muses, ‘but i might let you have a go. pity, then, that i’m not a lady.’ he drinks again, perhaps longer than either time before, and extends it to vaan.

‘yeah,’ vaan says, taking the flask. their hands brush and finally he tastes what ffamran does, tries to place, beneath the whiskey, a sample of his tongue on the metal rim. ‘pity.’

when ffamran leaves, vaan watches him go from his vantage point behind the stable door, and elza’s tail flicks to knick him on the face, again, as if to chastise. that was your chance, vaan feels like she’s saying. he gives her rump a pat.

boys like him don’t get chances; he was lucky enough to be taken in by the bunansa’s after his misstep with the solidors. he will take what he is given.

but oh, vaan thinks, how he wants, more than the wind in his hair.

#how do i write1890's dialogue for vaan #this is an issue capital i #but i love this and hate my self #balvaan #1890s au #my writing

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onlymorelove · 7 years ago

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Fic: this is not a love story (1/1)

Title: this is not a love story (1/1) Fandom: Timeless Ships: Lucy Preston/Garcia Flynn AND Lucy Preston/Wyatt Logan but no Garcyatt Rating: PG-13 Summary: Written in response to the following prompt from @timeless-fanfic-prompts : “Not all love is gentle. Sometimes it’s gritty and dirty and possessive, sometimes it’s not supposed to be careful or soft at all. Sometimes it feels like teeth." — Azra T. [Lyatt. Garcy. Yes, both. No Garcyatt.]

Read under the cut, on AO3, or at FF.net.

Tagging @timeless-fanfic-prompts even though I couldn’t get this finished before the contest deadline. :) Thanks, mods, for posting prompts! Also tagging @garcynetwork .

If you read this, thanks. Feedback is treasured; constructive criticism is welcomed.

Once upon a night in 2016 a Homeland Security agent whisked Lucy Preston away from a bitter conversation with her sister about how the university had denied her tenure, to an industrial gray and black waiting room at Mason Industries. A man, a stranger, leaned back in a chair on the other side of the room, his eyes closed as if asleep. Short, dark hair stippled his jaw. His booted feet lounged on a glass-topped table as if he was just someone relaxing at home. She envied him his obvious ease. Why had Agent Kondo brought her there? Had she done something wrong? She fingered her locket and tried to ignore the way her nerves pinged, her stomach churned, and her knee wanted to jiggle up and down. OK, so maybe she had an unpaid campus parking ticket lying in the console of her car, but— “Are you asleep?”

In her head, she’d already dubbed the man in the jeans and boots Sleepy. “No, ma’am,” Sleepy said.

“Oh. Okay, good. This is Connor Mason’s company? Do you know why we’re here?��

“No idea, ma’am.”

“You know, we're pretty much the same age, so you can just stop calling me ma'am.”

Sleepy’s eyes opened, beaming all their blues at her.

Lucy blinked. Oh, she thought. Maybe she’d have to reconsider that nickname.

His mouth arced in a slow, lopsided smile. Lucy inhaled sharply. Oh, she thought again.

The first time she saw him it was on a computer screen. Coal-dark hair, green eyes, and a slender, unsmiling mouth. She shivered but could not look away.

“Garcia Flynn, ex-NSA asset in Eastern Europe,” Agent Christopher said.

“Ex since when?” Wyatt asked.

“Since he killed his wife and child and went off the grid. That was a year ago. We thought he was holed up in Chechnya, but apparently not.”

What kind of man murdered his wife and child?

It was with the flaming skeleton of the Hindenburg dying next to them, pandemonium and screams puncturing the night air, that she stood with Garcia Flynn for the first time. He loomed out of the darkness, a tall creature wreathed in shadow.

“It’s time we talked,” he said, and the charcoal-smudge impression in front of Lucy resolved into a man. A tower of a man holding a gun trained in her direction. She had to tilt her chin up to meet his blistering gaze, while he tipped his down. Firelight burnished his hair red. The two-dimensional image Agent Christopher had shown her had not prepared her for the weight and vibrancy of Flynn’s presence. “You need to understand who and what we’re dealing with,” he said. His eyes traced her face as if seeking an answer to a question she didn’t know how to ask yet.

His voice, she knew it—had heard it ring out across the barren landscape of her dreams, even if she had never met its owner before. The rough timbre of his speech and the way he elongated his A’s—all of that was familiar to her in a way that defied understanding. “I understand that you’re a psychopath trying to burn everything to the ground,” she said, ashamed at the tremor in her voice.

“Well, that depends on your point of view, Lucy.” Her name slipped from his lips like a caress—the murmur of a thumb stroked over the top of her hand.

Babylon burned all around them, and this man, this stranger with the voice and the eyes she knew somehow— This man was responsible. Terrorist, they called him. Danger, her mind whispered, here there be dragons. Ignoring the klaxon that blared in her head, shoving aside all common sense and logic, Lucy stepped closer to him. “How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you.”

He held open a book, a journal, and showed her pages filled with her own handwriting. Of course she recognized her own penmanship, but how could that be, when she possessed no memory of writing the words? Impossible, and yet… Hadn’t she journeyed on a ship back through time?

“Do you believe in fate?” Robert Todd Lincoln asked her at a train station in 1865. Did she?

Flynn found her there, fresh from her encounter with Lincoln. Lincoln, upright and handsome in his dress blues. Lincoln, with the soft gleam in his eyes.

In daylight Flynn was all formidable lines and stern angles, his hands folded stiffly behind his back. His nose was a touch too long; his mouth sat tense and unforgiving. Only a few feet separated them as she cursed him for being the reason for her sister’s disappearance.

He didn’t hold her there with a gun this time. No, this time he pinned her with only the electric flare of his eyes. He arrested her. The elegant score of his eyebrows beneath his creased forehead captivated her in a way it should not as he threw around words like Rittenhouse, war, and future.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

But her ears heard it every time he uttered her name.

“Lucy, one day you are going to help me,” he said and wrapped the sound of her name in that silken familiarity. A wave of warmth, wholly unwanted, cascaded over her as if Flynn had touched her.

She wanted him to touch her.

Beyond all logic and reason, in defiance of all the sense her mother had tried to instill in her, Lucy wanted to touch Flynn, this strange man with phantoms and future trajectories and vengeance in his eyes. She could cut herself on the dagger point of his lips and not care that she bled. The skin on her palms craved the harsh geometry of his face, so she argued twice as hard, her tone strident and brutal, teeth snapping, antagonizing Flynn even as she questioned the wisdom of doing so.

His large hand closed hard around the fine bones of her wrist, light catching on the gold ring that encircled his fourth finger. Thus manacled, Lucy fought back the tears of humiliation that suddenly clouded her vision.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

In 1865 Lucy flirted her way into an invitation to Ford’s Theater with Robert Todd Lincoln. She donned a white gown sprinkled with silvery blue flowers, and when she came out from behind the changing screen she watched Wyatt’s lips echo that same half-smile from the night they met. Strands of his hair slashed down across his forehead, and her fingers twitched with the traitorous impulse to push them back.

Flynn shot Abraham Lincoln in front of her that night; his blood christened her dress in a macabre series of Rorschach blots.

Blood brutalized her dress.

Blood marked her skin.

Blood thrummed thick and fast in her ears.

“I decided I was gonna let it happen. But then I called out to warn him. It was too late. It's one thing to talk about history like this abstract thing. But when the man gets shot right in front of you… I tried,” she said in an effort to convince herself she had done her utmost to save Abraham Lincoln’s life. The words offered her no solace as she recounted her tale to Rufus and Wyatt in the half-dark interior of the Lifeboat. Lucy’s throat closed up and she found she couldn’t continue. Wordless and heavy, she floundered in a vast sea of guilt and grief.

Until Wyatt’s hand curled over hers, knuckles resting on her blood-stiffened clothing.

In the welcome pressure of his hand, the steady warmth of his gaze, and the steadfast bow of his mouth, she found an anchor.

In 1962 she listened to Wyatt dictate a telegram to send his dead wife in 2012. (Time travel—its risks, its paradoxes, all of it—raked her thoughts into hopeless knots. But the human heart and its capacity to expand, to contract, to shatter, and continue beating, well, these were timeless things.) Over the irregular click clack of the typewriter keys, Wyatt’s voice trudged on, its cadence shaky and tinged navy with sadness.

This moment, she hadn’t meant to witness it, and the guilt of intruding on her teammate’s privacy licked hot at her skin. Then he turned around and caught her watching him; he donned his armor, made a joke and strode away from her. But his eyes shone too bright; his head hung too low, and he had no other easy quip or crooked smile to offer her. All his other masks fell away while anguish sheathed his features like a second skin, and she could not let him leave.

“Wyatt.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t. Look. I understand. I would do anything to get my sister back.”

“Look, I’m sorry about before. I get it’s your job, keeping history the way it’s meant to be. I don’t believe in ‘meant to be,’ though, or fate, or anything like that, and if you knew how Jess died...You would know there’s no such thing. It’s all just dumb luck and random chance. It’s just a roll of the dice.”

Wyatt’s voice reverberated with old pain; she recognized it. With her sister’s loss still a fresh injury, she felt a certain kinship with him.

That was when Lucy began to believe in ghosts.

1836 found Lucy and her team chasing Flynn to the Alamo Mission in what was then still Mexico. Hundreds would die there. Hundreds of souls burned white-hot and true, souls just like hers or Rufus’ or Wyatt’s, then flickered, before they were finally snuffed out. It didn’t get easier, riding a metal bucket of bolts and vibrations through history to witness life’s end over and over again and knowing she shouldn’t do much, if anything at all, to alter history’s tragic outcomes. Contemplating these ethical dilemmas for too long would lead, she knew with a bone-deep certainty, to insanity.

There in 1836, while the dry wind flicked sandy soil into her skirts, Lucy peeled back more of the mysteries that lay behind Wyatt’s blue eyes. Six men—his men—all soldiers like him, had died so he could complete his mission and carry out crucial intelligence. She overheard him confess this to Colonel Bowie. Yet another private moment she shouldn’t have witnessed, though honesty made her admit, if only to herself, that she didn’t regret it. Couldn’t regret it. Because she wanted to know Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan, and every piece of his history she learned was a dot in the Pointillist painting that would eventually reveal his complete image.

Fine grains of soil clung to Lucy’s skin as musket and rifle fire thundered around her. Until recently, war had seemed an abstract entity, a mirage shimmering hot in the distance: something fought in distant lands or at least distant times. Now, though, war was this, a man who could not forget:

“I'm not going,” Wyatt said.

“What? No. What do you mean?” “You don't need me. They're getting rid of me anyway, right?”

Lucy looked at him in horror. “You can't stay here. Everybody dies.”

“No, I know. I can't leave good men like this, not again.”

Wyatt Logan was a good man, too; he acted as her sword and her shield and Lucy would not leave him behind to perish with everyone else left at the Alamo Mission. “No. No, Wyatt.”

“What difference does it make? Jessica, everyone I care about is gone. Let me do one good thing. Let me buy you the time to get out.”

Jessica. He was so mired in his own grief and memories that he had called her by another woman’s name.

“What about us? We're counting on you,” Lucy said, desperate to convince him.

“The next guy's gonna handle it.”

“I don't want anybody else. Look, I trust you. You are the one that I trust. Rufus needs you. I need you. Okay?” Her lips formed the words she thought would be the right ones to persuade him. Underscoring her words, she fit her hands to his face and let their warmth and pressure guide Wyatt out of the past and forward into the present. I need you.

1934 took them to Arkansas—and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their love affair was doomed, Lucy knew, and seeing them together was... difficult. Their desire for each other was so stark, so vivid, that Lucy had to ignore the hot blood she felt flood her cheeks and force herself: to look at them when they spoke and to go through all the right motions to maintain her and Wyatt’s cover. Bonnie and Clyde wanted each other, and that want was almost a tangible, visible thing, a circuit of raw hunger cycling back and forth between them. Watching them was torture. Wyatt spoke up in a low, gruff rumble. He spun a tale about himself kneeling on a hill in West Texas in front of the woman he loved, with a ring box in his hand and the sunset as a witness. There was a kiss, he told them, a kiss he’d never forget. Lucy knew he told the truth; this story was his story—his and Jessica’s. It was— It was something about the way his eyes turned remote, suspended in memory, and his body grew still. Finally, when Lucy was sure she could not bear it any longer, Wyatt turned to her and said, “You remember that, honey?”

It was all she could do to stutter out a “Yeah” and hope her nervous laugh didn’t give them away to Bonnie and Clyde.

Then he kissed her, stealing her surprised breath into his lungs. His palm found a home on the curve of her cheek as if they had done this a thousand times before. Through the whirling chaos in her mind and her body Lucy reminded herself that this, this was pretend. She fought to remain academic. She fought to divorce herself from the intimacy of pressing her mouth to Wyatt��s, especially since she couldn’t even count how many months it had been since she had last shared space and breath with someone like that.

It didn’t matter that Wyatt tasted faintly of hooch and of light—of sunlight filtered through a damp forest canopy of green leaves awakening in springtime. The grains of light hair on his jaw tickled her fingertips. Lucy wanted to slide her hand into his hair and curve it around his skull. I need you so much closer.

It didn’t matter. Her fingers quivered on the hard line of his jaw. This was acting. Nothing more.

In 1780 Lucy, Rufus, and Wyatt teamed up, unbelievably, with Flynn. Crisp early-autumn air slid its cool fingers under Lucy’s wine-dark cloak while she listened to Flynn murmur to their horses as he helped them slake their thirst. “Hey, buddy.” She blinked at the gentle, slip-slide lilt in his voice. Perhaps she’d imagined it. But, no, there it was once again as he tended the animals. Those tones, overflowing with affection and warm splashes of color, were ones she had never heard from him before.

If there was any softness in this man, her eyes could not find it.

But her ears, oh her ears, they found it.

She swallowed hard and tried to shake off her desire to curl up against that kind voice like a cat dozing in a puddle of afternoon sunlight.

“I wanted to be a cowboy growing up,” he said. Growing up. They’d all had to do it. She’d never considered, though, that Garcia Flynn had once been a child, too. Did he have nightmares when he was little? Who had stroked the dark hair from his forehead and soothed him back to sleep? His mother? His father? And what had he looked like as a little boy? Had those solemn green eyes always held so much torment? His face must have been fuller and held more softness back then….

Flynn continued speaking, tugging her from her musings as he told her about some comics he’d read as a child. Terms like “good guys” and “bad guys” fell from his lips, and Lucy silently asked, Which do you think you are—a good guy or a bad guy?

Lucy discovered she hungered for more knowledge of him. It wasn’t fair that he knew so much about her from a journal that she, or rather some version of her, had written. It added a strange, one-sided layer of intimacy to their interactions. The imbalance troubled her. This was the most open he had ever been with her. Who knew when he would slam the door shut and bolt it from the other side? She decided to take advantage of the moment. “If we take out Rittenhouse, then what will you do?”

“Go home to my family. They'll be alive again. Let my little girl jump into my arms. Hug my wife. And then say goodbye and walk away forever.”

That he had responded at all rather than shaking off her question altogether sent a surge of shock through her. “What? You would just... you would just leave them after all that we've been through?”

“Chasing Rittenhouse, I've done horrible things... become something else. How can I bring that into my home? What kind of husband or... or a father can I be after what I've done?”

Without meaning to, Flynn had even answered the question she had not dared to ask aloud: Which do you think you are—a good guy or a bad guy?

Flynn had immolated history and stood ready to throw himself on the pyre as well simply to put his family back in the world. He didn’t intend to share a life with them; he only wanted to know they were alive. Without him.

A pang of melancholy sounded somewhere in the deep recesses of the small muscle that pumped blood through Lucy’s body. Had anyone ever loved her as much as Flynn loved his wife and daughter? Would anyone? Would she ever love someone that much?

Flynn pointed his gun at John Rittenhouse, a boy, a person whose only crime was being born to the wrong man.

There was no other choice: Lucy put herself between Flynn and the boy. Though she had no sword, she could be a shield; she would be a shield. “I’m not letting you kill a child,” she said, and that was it: She understood now that the war she and Rufus and Wyatt fought was against Rittenhouse, not Flynn, but she could not remain a bystander in that moment. She wasn’t fool enough to think she was Flynn’s conscience, but she believed— She had to believe that he still had his own conscience, buried beneath layers of silt and rock and the misery of someone who had lost everything and found that yes, he could go still go on living.

She searched his face—absorbed the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes, and the unsteadiness of his shooting arm. “You have a choice right now. We all have choices… You can go back, but not if you do this.”

It was finished, or nearly so: Ethan Cahill, her grandfather, had come through for her. For all of them. Because of his meticulous notes and records, the authorities had arrested 150 Rittenhouse members. She’d make one last trip on the Lifeboat and get her sister back. Soon she and Amy and their mother would be reunited. Life would go back to normal, and they’d be a real family, a whole family, once again. The thought should have filled Lucy with exhilaration and joy, and it did. But those emotions sat side by side with a sensation of dread as she remembered her final exchange with Flynn when he’d been arrested and dragged away to a military prison:

“No! No! I trusted you, Lucy. I trusted you with my family. I trusted you with my child!”

“I’m sorry!” she’d said, aware of how hollow the words rang even as she spoke them. She hadn’t known that Agent Christopher had followed her to her rendezvous with Flynn, but she should have. Her naivete had cost him his chance to get his family back.

“Oh, you're sorry? You're sorry? You have no idea what you've done!”

The situation had twisted so quickly, and Lucy had no power to fix it. Only minutes before, he’d handed her the journal, her journal. His lips had curved in a smile then, a real smile that wiped the harshness and rigidity from his face and replaced it with something soft and almost...vulnerable. It was so unlike the dangerous copy of a smile he usually wielded like both a weapon and a wound that Lucy had smiled back, helpless to do anything else.

No matter what paths her future might take, that smile would haunt her.

“How do you think I met your father?” Lucy’s mother said. “We both come from good, strong Rittenhouse families. And that almost makes you royalty. Sweetheart, you've made me so proud. You've made everybody so proud. You have such... such an incredible future.”

Her mother was Rittenhouse. Her father was Rittenhouse. Ergo she was Rittenhouse as well. Her mother said there was a Rittenhouse agent on the Mothership. Nothing was over. Nothing was finished.

Lucy’s stomach roiled, the sour taste of bile surging inside her mouth. Her hand clapped over her mouth as she wrenched herself away from her mother and the obscene sheen of pride singing in her opaque blue gaze. She raced upstairs to her bathroom, silently cursing her clumsiness when she stumbled on a step and went down hard, her knees and shin taking the brunt of the damage.

(Everything she and her teammates had done, every life they’d either taken or been unable to save, every single principle Flynn had violated—all of it had been for naught.)

When Lucy made it to the bathroom the porcelain of the toilet was a cool benediction under her clammy fingertips, and she clung to it as she lost the fight with her stomach and everything she’d eaten that day poured out into the toilet bowl. She retched until she was sure nothing lingered in her stomach--nothing but a tangled skein of betrayal. Still, her body heaved, the floor unforgiving against her kneecaps. On shaky feet, she stood, the ground beneath her rolling like a boat on choppy waters.

Run, said a voice in her head. Just run. But where—and to whom? Flynn would understand her confusion and her anger; he would feed the latter until it sent fingers of flame reaching to the sky. Moreover, he would know what to do next. He would know best how to attack Rittenhouse.

But Flynn was no longer an option; he sat in prison, and it was her fault, at least in part. She couldn’t blame him for thinking of that, even though she hadn’t knowingly betrayed him. Oh god, Lucy thought. What if her parents were directly responsible for the murders of Flynn’s wife and daughter? Nausea crashed over her again, so she shoved those thoughts aside and stuffed them into a box to examine later. Or maybe never.

Lucy trudged to her bedroom and yanked at various drawers until she found her journals, both the one Flynn had given her (returned to her?) and the one her mother had gifted her. She threw them in a bag and left the house, not pausing again until she sat behind the wheel of her car. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, and her blazer felt like it was strangling her. She tore it off as quickly as she could and tossed it on the passenger seat. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until the leather creaked and her knuckles whitened with strain.

Lies. Lies. So many lies. Her grandfather had lived a life of lies, danger, and subterfuge, all because she had asked him to. He had sacrificed his happiness. And for what?

She breathed through her nose, scrambling for calm; she didn't find it. With a sigh that ruffled the locks of hair that had fallen into her sweat-damp face, Lucy released the steering wheel and fumbled for her phone.

She sent Wyatt a text. Pls meet me at your place.

It felt like years passed while she waited for his response. What’s up? You OK?

Eyes closed, she pictured Wyatt sitting in the upstairs conference room or maybe the locker room at Mason Industries, eyeing his phone with a frown creasing his forehead. Was she OK?

She typed a response before she could think better of it. No. I need you.

Her phone chimed with his reply mere seconds later. On my way.

Why bother with preamble? Lucy thought, pushing past Wyatt into the hallway of his apartment as soon as he opened the door to her rapid series of knocks. “My mother is Rittenhouse.”

Wyatt blinked rapidly. “What?”

“My mother”—she shoved her hands into her hair and tugged until her scalp smarted and tears sprang to her eyes—“is Rittenhouse, Wyatt. I'm an idiot. The world’s biggest moron. God, how could I not see it? She’s been lying this whole time. She’s been lying my whole life. ” Lucy tossed the last words over her shoulder like a grenade as she stalked to his living room. She knew she was talking too fast, everything rushing out in a confusing torrent, but she couldn't stop.“My mom’s Rittenhouse. My fa—” Eyes screwed tight, she paused in her tirade and shook her head before continuing.

“Whoa. Take a breath. Slow down, Lucy—”

“My biological father is Rittenhouse.” Her voice shook and she hated it—hated herself—for the weakness. She folded her arms in front of her chest and paced in front of Wyatt’s brown leather couch. Head down she stared at the worn hardwood floor and stalked five steps one way before she spun on her heel and stalked five steps the other way. Click click click click click went the heels of her sensible, low-heeled black shoes. The floor started to blur into a golden brown streak. She inhaled an unsteady breath. “It’s in my blood…And my sister is gone and my mother doesn't care. She's known all this time and it doesn't matter to her. How can her daughter not matter to her?”

A floorboard creaked. There was a shift, of energy, of presence, then Wyatt stepped up behind her. Gentle fingers curled around her biceps; warm breath stirred her hair. Wyatt turned her until she faced him. Still, her gaze remained downcast, focused on the contrast between the curved toes of her shoes and Wyatt’s naked feet. They looked...oddly vulnerable, in a way that made her throat tighten. “Is my whole life just a series of false choices my parents designed for me?” Lucy asked, her voice quiet. “Have they… Has Rittenhouse been the puppeteer all this time, and I've just been the fucking puppet?” Her voice rose; Wyatt’s hands tightened on her arms. “I don't know what's real and what's a lie. I don't… I don’t know who I am,” she said, an unwelcome catch in her voice. Her gaze finally lifted to meet Wyatt’s.

His eyes were somber and calm as they watched her steadily, and she was glad she had gone there—gone to him. “We’ll figure things out,” he said, and she nodded, because she had faith in him, even if she couldn't quite believe his words just yet. “It’s OK, Lucy. Luce,” Wyatt said, moving a hand from her arm to the back of her neck, “hey, I know who you are.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I know who you are,” he said again, his breath puffing against her skin as he tilted her chin, leaned in, and kissed her.

She made a small sound in her throat, then stumbled backward in an effort to put some distance between them. Her hand rose to her throat. “No,” she said into the horrible silence, pained by the stark lines of shock and embarrassment she caught on Wyatt’s face. Right before her eyes, his expression shuttered, the openness that had been there scant moments before hidden by one of his masks. She was responsible for that, and she hated herself despite the necessity. Something aching and hollow opened in her stomach. “I'm...I’m so sorry, Wyatt. I just—” It had been their first kiss or at least the first one that wasn’t done for show, and she had ruined it because she had to. “It’s not you. We just can't do this right now.”

A few hours ago Wyatt had talked about focusing on the present and being open to possibilities. Of course she'd known what he was hinting at, and a part of her had been happy, even as Flynn’s face had flashed into her mind, filling her with sadness, guilt—and something else she might never be ready to face. That was before, when they had thought their work as a team was complete. That was before she had talked to her mother. Squaring her shoulders, she looked him directly in the eyes; they owed each other that much. “My mom said she and Rittenhouse are proud of me. I don't trust myself or my actions right now. How do I know I'm not doing exactly what they want me to do?”

“Lucy why would Rittenhouse care if we...if we kiss?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed at her forehead, at the tightness there. “I don’t know, Wyatt. Maybe they wouldn’t. But I can’t… No, we can’t focus on”—Lucy waved a hand between them—“this right now.” She gasped and raised a hand, intending to touch his arm, but he retreated a step. Her hand dropped back to her side, heavy as a boulder. “We need to call Agent Christopher. Wyatt, my mother said someone from Rittenhouse is on the Mothership. ” It should have been the first thing she’d said when Wyatt let her into his apartment, but she’d been upset and… No, there was no good excuse. She’d simply messed up.

Wyatt’s phone rang. Lucy’s followed a few seconds later. “Logan,” Wyatt answered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Uh huh. Got it. Lucy’s… here. On our way.” After he hung up, he said, “That was Agent Christopher. Your mom was telling the truth; someone does have the Mothership. Emma. Let’s go.” He turned and started to walk away, shoulders hunched, and every step he took seemed to take him miles from her. “Wyatt,” she said softly, and he paused, “I really am sorry. I’m not trying to hurt you. It’s not the right time, and—”

“Forget it, ma’am,” he said, interrupting her and waving away her apology. He smiled, but it was brittle and didn’t reach those beautiful blue eyes she— “We’ve got a briefing to get to.” With that, he disappeared into his bedroom.

Like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, Lucy collapsed onto the couch and closed her eyes, her body and spirit leaden, and waited for Wyatt to return so they could head back to Mason Industries.

#nbc timeless #lucy preston #garcia flynn #wyatt logan #lyatt #garcy #Timeless fanfiction #onlymorelove writes fic

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aquilegiaformosa · 8 years ago

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the air inside of the Lost Light

• Rodimus smells of ozone and hot metal – an electrical storm without the petrichor. It’s a little nerve-wracking to be so near to a mech that smells of burning and electricity, but those that know him best no longer feel the uneasiness that such a scent often brings. When explaining it to others, Drift says that Rodimus smells like lightning.

• Ambus smells like an old bookshelf, like dust and oxidation and tradition and late nights reading. It’s a rigid sort of smell, one that makes mechs solemn and polite if they are unused to it. It stopped working on Rodimus and Drift long ago. • Get too close, though, and a mech can catch the barest whiff of the scent of old, purpled energon that clings to the Magnus Armour. Not all joints and seams can be cleaned, try as Ambus might.

• Drift smells like the soil of distant planets, comet ice, and moondust – the scent of leaving and getting lost. Rodimus buries his face in Drift’s shoulder, smells the cold darkness between the stars and the radiating warmth of distant suns, and knows the scent of the void.

• Ratchet smells of a particular type of soldering wire; it’s a bitter and caustic scent. Sometimes, on the rare occasions when he is ‘off-duty’, the bitterness is mixed with the sweetness of high-grade. At those times, Drift sits next to him and wisely says nothing. • Ambulon smells of old paint. It’s a dusty, homey smell, the scent of gently creaking joints and a soft voice. First Aid will never admit that it’s a slightly comforting smell to taste in the clinical air of the Infirmary. • First Aid smells of cleaning solvent. It’s bright and fresh and sterile and masks most other smells most of the time – even the smell of uncertainty. • The medical team in general all smell of energon and coolant and antiseptic and regret.

• Red Alert smells overly warm, as if he is always running too hot – because he is. Manage to get close enough, and a mech can feel the heat radiating off of him. It overwhelms any other scents that might cling to his frame and burns off any lingering particles of matter. Red Alert smells of overheated circuitry and quiet distress at all times, though he may come out of Rung’s office a few degrees cooler than when he went in.

• Cyclonus is layers and layers of ancient and varied scents. He smells of fierce battles and late nights in shady clubs and early mornings in sacred temples and nights spent in the ditches of distant planets. The trace of an EM field belonging to an unnamed Cybertronian is burned into his plating. All he lacks is the bitter scent of regret. • Tailgate smells ancient and brand-new all at once. He smells like a time at the edge of other mechs’ memories: a smell generally buried under centuries of living, but on Tailgate still immaculate except for the scent of the Mitteous Plateau that has seeped into the very metal of his frame. • Someone sitting between Cyclonus’s messy vibrancy and Tailgate’s pristine disuse is in for a confusing experience.

• Whirl smells of death – hot, angry death that’s still fresh on his servos and lingering in the back of his processor. It’s a reliable sort of scent, familiar and friendly as four million years of War, and one that meshes with his words and movements. It is a promise of violence for the sake of violence and of the willingness to throw himself into any fight, often in service to the crew – if it suits his mood, which it generally does – and is no surprise to anyone; nevertheless, it still makes it difficult for most to be near him for very long. Rung and Cyclonus are among the few who seem not to mind it at all.

• Fortress Maximus smells of metal shavings and friction and warm paint. It is the smell of joints that no longer align with each other, of metal that catches and refuses to glide smoothly in its tracks, of plating that broke and was soldered together just a few millimetres off. Fort Max smells of sharp corners and broken things and pain, and mechs look away when he passes them in the halls.

• Rung smells like rust sticks and a certain silicone compound that is no longer in production but was very common before the War. It lingers in the back of other mechs’ processors, old and familiar and often associated with comforting memories of household items. Skids feels the gentle prickle of remembering when he’s around Rung; it can even assuage Red Alert’s fear and calm Whirl’s impulsive nature, if only sometimes, and only for a little while.

• Skids smells like the dust in the vents of the Lost Light; like prayer books and hymnals; like old explosions and burning wires. He smells like forgotten things, and he smells like forgetting. Rung catches the tang of melted alloys on Skids’s hands and chest plating and wonders; Chromedome notices it too, and says nothing.

• Swerve smells of high-grade and desperation. Sometimes, though, the scent of the dust in the vents lingers on him; those days, he smells less like desperation and his smile is a little more genuine.

• Trailbreaker smells of ionized atmosphere – and the atmosphere of Swerve’s bar. The biting scent of burnt-out sparks and Red Alert’s overheated distress and excessive amounts of high-grade all combine into a hazy reek of inadequacy.

• Blaster bears the undetectable scent of radiowaves and the particular soft smell of memory tape, the same as Soundwave. He smells of the wear to plating brought about by constant exposure to steady bass beats, the same as Jazz. He smells like Soundwave and Jazz – no, he smells of Soundwave and Jazz, of their EM fields and of their company – and it ought to be a terrifying thing, but instead it’s a warm and friendly smell of music and caretaking and responsibility.

• Pipes smells almost exclusively of Cybertron and Cybertronians, of coolant and plating and lubricant and vented air and the closeness of living on transport shuttles and space stations. He smells of everyone and nothing, inconspicuous and forgettable and easily overlooked. Only recently has he picked up the sharp scent of rust and the cold; it’s foreign even to him and something he is both proud and afraid of. He tries to bury it in the company of the other minibots and steers clear of Drift’s white, space-burned armour.

• Chromedome smells of the sharp bite of processor fluid and the grime of back alleys and the grim starkness of a morgue. He smells of the stale air inside an Enforcer’s office and the cold streets of dead cities. • Rewind smells like the peculiar plastic warmth of an old camcorder and the ink of film reels and the dust of time. He smells of the aftermath of battles and of red Autobot paint. • The two of them both smell of regret and of each other.

• Perceptor smells of acid and copper oxide and gun oil. The scent of cooled supercomputers lingers on his armour and the places that he frequents; it’s not unlike the burningly cold scent of space, and it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. • Brainstorm smells like the recycled air of the laboratory and soot and clean instruments, but recently he carries on him the tang of ionisation and bad decisions and dogged determination. Rodimus accidentally stands too closely to Brainstorm and Chromedome; he looks between them, optics confused, and wrinkles his nasal ridge when he suddenly and inexplicably can’t tell one from the other. • Both members of the science team smell of sulphur and carbon and the heated air that comes from cranial vents.

...and:

• Megatron smells of spoiled energon, dirt, and ore. The scent of fear and death and despair encompasses his entire being, taints his words and his movements – it was weeks before the crewmembers stopped flinching every time he shifted slightly. Now Ambus can stand beside him without stiffening, and Megatron can clap Rodimus on the shoulder without the younger mech rearing back in sudden response to prolonged panic; still, the Lost Light comes upon sites of ancient Cybertronian battles, where the very air is filled with the scent of Megatron, and mechs look at each other and remember.

#maccadam #MTMTE #Lost Light #Transformers headcanons #TFHC #oh my gosh #everybody's getting tagged later #sweet mercy this took me three hours what the heck #this started as a Rodimus drabbley thingy aarrrggghasdfghjfghjkhjkl #um okay tw #death m---#blood---#general unpleasantness---#how do you tag triggers help me #robogore---#[throws hands up] i guess #r.i.p.#long post #EagleFic

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tasaina-archivedbaby · 7 years ago

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TAG DUMP / CH : TERUSHIMA YUUJI

( ✦ // : driven by instincts - powered by impulse / ic.

( ✦ // : wildfire spreads - uncontained & controlled / musings.

( ✦ // : unpredictable - chaos reincarnated / headcanons.

( ✦ // : electric vibrancy - there is beauty in the unexpected / visage.

( ✦ // : he is freedom - he is energy - he is teenage rebellion / aes.

( ✦ // : welcome to the jungle - they are a team of wild ones / johzenji.

( ✦ // : time out / ooc.

#( ✦ // : driven by instincts - powered by impulse / ic.#( ✦ // : wildfire spreads - uncontained & controlled / musings.#( ✦ // : unpredictable - chaos reincarnated / headcanons.#( ✦ // : electric vibrancy - there is beauty in the unexpected / visage.#( ✦ // : he is freedom - he is energy - he is teenage rebellion / aes.#( ✦ // : welcome to the jungle - they are a team of wild ones / johzenji.#( ✦ // : time out / ooc.#tag dump.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years ago

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Hyperallergic: When Comics Abandon Narrative and Venture into Abstraction

Edie Fake, “Gaylord Phoenix #7” (all images courtesy of Printed Matter)

Our expectation when looking at a book is for it to make sense, for it to tell a story. Whether from the learned experience of reading or some psychological trick of sequential images, we approach printed books in a story-seeking mode. This tendency is even more pronounced in American comics, which have struggled to make a clean break from the superhero genre. Something Unusual Is Happening, on view at Printed Matter in New York, features 15 artists who redirect comics’ impulse to narrative, asking readers to weave together the multivalent images and text in their work, turning the form into a conceptual binding for serial illustrations that may otherwise appear disjointed.

Something Unusual Is Happening, installation view

The exhibit has two dimensions: one closed off, one open to the audience. In the first, glass cases and wall mountings feature original drawings and archived books by the artists, and in the second, above them, is a shelf of current works for sale.

Son Ni, “Travel”

What is the reader to take from a narrative that borders on abstraction, a story so pared down that it could be anything — or nothing? Taiwanese artist and publisher Son Ni’s comic Travel features a bouncing bowling ball (highlighted in gold) that pops in and out of a variety of scenes, each fastidiously rendered with pencil and straightedge. French artist Alexis Beauclair contributes a few works that take this abstraction even further: one comic depicts nothing but a circle moving down a slope, like slow-motion stills from a rudimentary physics experiment.

Where Beauclair’s physics-inspired drawings are open-ended due to their simplicity, New Jersey cartoonist Michael Olivo’s figurative, vaguely science-fiction comics are nearly as opaque. Swarming, creeping, transforming figures fill the grid-paper-aligned panels of his pages. At times the work looks like a pulp superhero comic, but it is difficult to pin down individual characters or settings.

French artist Sammy Stein’s The Turtle Museum, a guided tour through a fictional museum, uses text to effectively supplement and enrich the illustrations. Blocks of introductory text, presented together in English, French, Spanish, and Japanese, are set against crisp diagrammatic illustrations of the Turtle Museum’s grounds, inviting readers to sift through hints about what exactly the museum archives.

Lale Westvind, “Double-Head Tour; Tornar & Riparna”

Other comics play more directly with the history of comics’ genre conventions. Brooklyn-based Lale Westvind’s works recreate the primary color vibrancy of midcentury superhero comics with lush, risographed pages largely composed of panels captioned by text. Westvind told me that either text or image may come first — some works are based on plotted stories and others begin as stream-of-consciousness sketches. The illustrations crackle with energy, while the captions give a look inside the supernatural phenomena at play: “She observed her electric will woven into the all thing… and decided to leave her body…”

Leslie Lasiter, who curated the exhibition with Cory Siegler, explained that part of the show’s rationale is that, though scattered throughout the world, this is a networked community of artists who are fluent in one another’s work and share similar interests (science fiction, geometry, etc.). Half of the exhibited cartoonists also participated in the recent art-comics prestige project Gouffre, a 300-page tome featuring gorgeous comics and illustrations from 35 artists. Gouffre is a high note in independently published comics, and it begs the question: What can a gallery exhibition of comics offer that a lovingly printed book cannot?

Lala Albert, “R.A.T.”

Original works by cartoonists offer a rare chance both to look into the process of their work and to take in all the details that are lost in printed reproductions. The full-color illustrations by Lala Albert are striking, making their printed replicas in the Kus! mini-comic R.A.T. look diminished by comparison. Similarly, seeing Olivo’s grid-paper layouts and Westvind’s original illustrations is thrilling.

While it’s difficult for any reproduction to rival the intricate detail of original art, a few works on view take advantage of the print medium to give readers an unconventional experience. Brooklyn cartoonist CF’s comics magazine Call 3 was thermal-printed on a receipt roll that puddled on the table as I unrolled it. I only moved through a few feet of it — the entire work is more than 40 feet long.

Unfortunately, some of the most interesting books in the exhibition are inaccessible. Within the glass cases are half a dozen of Son Ni’s out-of-print comics as well as original issues of Edie Fake’s mystical journey/metaphorical exploration of gender transitioning, Gaylord Phoenix. These books are nearly impossible to find, so it was a shame that audiences were limited to perusing only the artists’ most recently published works. Naturally, allowing visitors to touch the rarer books would have destroyed them, but it would have been nice to at least have text descriptions or other stand-ins for some of the archived works.

In general, there’s a maturity to the experiments on view, which are confident in their complete rejection of, or knowing nods to, the genre-strewn history of the comics medium. If the world makes any sense, these artists will now be publishing their work in editions large enough that audiences won’t have to go to an archival exhibition to find them.

Something Unusual Is Happening, installation view

Something Unusual Is Happening continues at Printed Matter (231 Eleventh Avenue, Chelsea, Manhattan) until July 31.

The post When Comics Abandon Narrative and Venture into Abstraction appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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