#i'm really not sure if i should tag this as chargestep given that its not really. romantic.

[silvery-bluish]

How about 8 and possibly 23 if you feel up to it? Any characters

Prompts from here!

Wordcount: 691 + 386

Contents: For 8- Sidestep Era, a bit of a riff off of the post-nanosurge segment of Four funerals and a wake. Post-nanosurge telepathy issues at a funeral, and dodging the press. This is only barely the prompt but I got distracted, whoops.

For 23- It's fluff. It's just flystep fluff. I'm placing my hand gently on canon continuity and saying 'i don't know where this fits don't worry about it' again.

8. shielding the other one with their body 

You don’t know why you decided to go to the funeral. In-costume, everybody’s in costume, you included, Ricardo included, still favoring his arm but he’s trying not to show it because the media is here. Half funeral half pony show. Look, Los Diablos, your heroes are still standing strong, even if some of them are dead gone eaten piranhas chewing at the edges of your mind--

Watched her die in front of me--/Never going to get to make tamales together again--/wasn't even anything left, just clothes in a pile--

A twitch, as you grasp the tattered edges of your shields and pull them tighter. It doesn’t help, and you certainly aren’t taking anything stronger than advil for your pulsing headache when you have to deal with this many people.

Fuck, why had you even agreed to come to this? 

Someone’s giving a speech, but you’re too busy trying to block the chorus of grief/worry/fear from your mind. You’ve never been to a funeral. You’re really regretting being at this one, but it’d felt like you were supposed to come. 

Anathema’s somewhere behind you-- they’re sitting with Sunstream, whose mind is-- screaming, practically, and you’re trying really hard not to listen to the grief/regret/despair. Trying to just fix yourself on the sensation of Anathema’s mind, their shields. Not giving anything away, but a touchstone of outward-calm in this-- storm.

How much longer is this thing? You can’t leave, leaving early leads to questions, so you’re just-- stuck. Sitting here. Head throbbing. Barely standing against the tide of grief all around you.

It feels-- distant. You didn’t know most of these people who died, not really, not more than in passing. But you’re awash in everybody else’s perceptions, and you’ve got a migraine the size of the damned moon.

I didn’t need to know what bone looked like--/Oh god what was the last thing I said to her, I don’t remember--/idiot still owes me twenty bucks--

Time passes at a crawl. Ricardo’s in Marshal Charge mode, all business, solemn-faced. Putting on a good show. Someone's talking-- a friend or family member of one of the people this funeral's actually for. Hard to pick up the words, with your brain so loud like this. You want to crawl out of your skin and be not-you not-here. Feels like you’re wearing a coat that doesn’t fit right, too tight in the shoulders or not long enough in the sleeves. It’s not your clothes, though. It’s just you.

When you can finally leave, finally, you have to leave with everyone else. Through the front door. Where there’s reporters with cameras and questions and busy-knock-knock-poking-prodding minds. Looking for the chink in your armor so they can worm in and pry you open. And you’re masked, of course, they can’t really see you hiding inside the Sidestep costume, but something of how uncomfortable you are must show in your stance, because Ricardo bumps his good arm into you when the two of you stand to leave to get your attention.

“Stick close to me,” Ricardo says, and those words, pointed at you, words actually meant for you, you can parse. “Almost done.”

He steers you to a-- side door, instead of the main one, half-blocked from the public by the building along one side of the pathway, and the other side roped off. Even then, there’s still more people than you thought there would be-- civilians, in with the reporters, shouting questions too. An overwhelming mass of emotions and thoughts and attention, but you’re sticking to Ricardo, whose mind you can’t read and that’s a balm right now, better even than Anathema’s, because there’s no words or emotions or sensations, an island of no-meaning in an ocean of all-meaning. 

If you focus on the static hard enough, you can almost hear yourself think again. 

Ricardo’s keeping himself between you and the crowd. Really playing up Marshal Charge right now, all self-confidence and things will get better, we’ll remember their sacrifice, larger-than-life so you can-- hide in his shadow. The questions don’t get aimed at you.

You’re absurdly grateful for it.

23. carrying the other one in their arms

“Alright, let’s go,” you say, and then you sweep Daniel up, mirror to your usual situation. You might not be able to fly, but you can get a bright laugh out of Danny, and that’s sort of the same thing. 

“Where are we going?” he asks, humor still in his tone. Surprised by the role reversal, but not opposed. He obligingly loops his arms around your shoulders, leaning into you. Lighter than he should be, in your grasp. 

You lower your arms, and Daniel sinks, too, delayed by milliseconds. Like he’s surrounded by water instead of air. “What, you don’t think I can actually carry you? You’re not that heavy.” Tone deadpan enough he’s left looking for other cues, the tilt to the corner of your mouth that means this is a joke. 

“I’m sure you can,” earnest, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice or his mind. “Just-- you don’t have to.”

“C’mon, Flyboy, I’m not gonna break. If I was worried about it, you’d be over my shoulders instead. Fireman’s carry has better leverage than this.”

Objectively. You do not need to be carrying him. He floats just fine, gravity can’t get a grip on him, but you— want to. 

“No princess sweeps for Ricardo?” he asks, teasing, but he eases off the flight powers. Heavier in your arms, more— real, maybe. Not that he’s less real when he’s flying, but the weight makes him feel more concrete. Reassuring pressure.

“No. Past experience says if I have to move him with no help, he’s getting dragged. Mods.” A spark of a thought, and you grin. “I think you should princess sweep him at some point though. That’d be fun.” 

A grin back, and he glances away, before doubling back. “Hey. Are you dodging the question?”

“No.”

“Then where are we going?”

“Kitchen. I want coffee.”

“And why am I coming along?”

You give him your flattest look, and then, “Somebody’s got to work your weird coffee machine.”

“Oh, that’s the story we’re going with?”

“Yep.” Pop the p. Blasé. Never mind that it’s just a little single-cup pod coffee thing. Also never mind that you’d fixed the machine for him last week.

“I see.” He does not believe you and he’s smiling at you anyway. Letting you get away with it. "Okay, sure."