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theminecraftbee · 2 years ago

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The room is a dim basement room. It has no windows. There’s a liquor cabinet, though, and a bookshelf full of notebooks, and a table and chairs, and a candle lighting the place. The candle doesn’t let off much smoke, but it’s steadily alight, indicating that the room’s oxygen content is still acceptable. A small, blinking device next to it confirms that any other electronic device in the area is well and truly dead. There’s tape sealing the door, so that no one can see the flicker of the candle inside.

There’s a bottle of brandy on the table. The glasses suggest neither party is bothering to savor it. It’s not a brand worth savoring, anyway; for all Scott could easily afford the expensive stuff, that’s not what he feels like he should drink while he’s down here.

He’s slumped forward on the table, hair askew. The hoodie he’s wearing doesn’t fit, because it isn’t his; neither are the sweatpants. He knows for a fact his contact is laughing at him for that. Whatever. She’s one of the only people who gets to know he has enough of a personal life to steal sweats from someone else anyway. May as well take advantage of that while he can. It’s not all impeccably-designed bulletproof suits out here.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” Pearl says from across the table.

“Fuck off,” Scott says.

“...are you already drunk?”

Scott huffs. “So what if I am, huh? It’s not like I need to be alert while you’re out here in full costume.”

Pearl peels herself off the wall. She’s a relatively muscular woman wearing red and black. Her face is masked with a simple red circle. A lunar eclipse. Scott still has no idea how she sees through that thing. He’d made fun of her, back when she chose the getup for her criminal activities. Told her she looked like an evil dinnerplate or something. She’d told him in turn that he looked like a pretentious dork in his chosen costume. Judging by the whispers through the Hero Association about the two of them, though—

God. Through his Hero Association, or just about his.

“Promoted to Vice Commander, huh?”

“I’ve sold my soul,” Scott says, and he takes another deep swig of his brandy.

“You already did,” Pearl says.

“God, I hate you,” Scott says.

“It’s a good thing the feeling’s mutual,” Pearl says.

“I wish we’d never fucking met,” Scott says.

“I killed someone yesterday,” Pearl says.

Scott’s quiet.

“You can’t go telling me that,” Scott says. “That’s another thing to hide. You can’t just—Pearl.”

“I know,” Pearl says. “I know. But for all everyone’s scared of me, I normally manage to avoid—”

“Hah. We were both there when—”

“I know,” Pearl says.

Scott sighs. He pours Pearl a glass and pushes it across the table. Pearl takes off her mask. Her eyes are rimmed red, and her face is covered in splotches. She’s always been terrible at hiding she’s been crying. She’s been terrible at it since they were ten, and had both quite suddenly realized that if it had been hard to have their powers alone, it was even harder once there was evidence they weren’t both just going crazy.

He’s hated her since he was eleven, really. Took the year to realize he probably would have always seen what his powers gave him as useless nightmares, otherwise, but after that, well. The feeling’s mutual, at least. He wouldn’t have been able to stand it, if the feeling hadn’t been mutual.

(A girl who can see deaths, and a boy who can see alternate universes. They make quite the pair.)

“I probably kill more people,” mutters Scott, halfway between a consolation and a competition.

“Not with your own hands.”

“Yeah, does that make it better? I’ve sold my—you know this. You know this.”

“Yeah,” Pearl says. “Yeah, I know. Thought I should congratulate you on succeeding.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

They’re both quiet for a while. Pearl takes a drink from her own glass and grimaces. “You can afford better brandy than this,” she says.

“Fuck off,” Scott says. “I can buy the cheap stuff for this.”

“Your taste is stupid,” Pearl says primly. “Next time we come down here to plan, I bring the drinks.”

“Right. Planning. Because we’re doing so much of that today.”

Pearl sighs. “Does Jimmy know you’re here?”

“Jimmy doesn’t exist, as far as you’re concerned,” Scott snaps. “I buried the man’s documents myself.”

“Eclipse will make anyone exist for the right price,” Pearl tells Scott.

“Jimmy doesn’t, or you don’t,” Scott snaps, voice low.

“Oh, now you’re sounding like a Vice Commander.” Scott gives her a two-fingered salute. Pearl shrugs. “Just saying.”

Scott considers arguing harder. Instead, something in his stomach shifts, and he pours a full glass of brandy. It’s not how you’re supposed to drink the stuff. He might have a good tolerance by now, but he fully expects to wake up with the worst hangover he’s had in years tomorrow. He deserves it.

“You uh… got enough alcohol there?” Pearl says.

“Got unclassified access to the Black Ops files when I was sworn in,” Scott says.

“Jesus,” Pearl says.

“I sold my soul,” Scott says. “I’m in charge of that now.”

“Jesus,” Pearl says again.

“And I kept thinking about the plans we had to—I can’t just dismantle that, Pearl. I can’t just—what are we doing?” Scott realizes his shoulders are shaking. “What are we doing, Pearl? The best of all possible endings? Don’t make me laugh—I can’t see this universe once we’re in it. Who are we to decide, huh? Who are we to, to try to…”

Pearl watches him for a while.

“I could have told you it would be bad,” she said.

“Do you think I didn’t know that?” Scott snaps.

“I killed someone yesterday. It’s not uncommon,” Pearl says.

“Great, so we both deserve to be executed!” Scott says, throwing his hands up. “Some of them started in the scholarship program, Pearl, they were scouted at sixteen!”

“And we were eleven,” snaps Pearl, and Scott shuts his mouth and looks away.

“Yeah, well. That’s not the Association’s fault, is it.”

The air hangs heavy. It smells like booze and candlelight and misery. Distantly, Scott wonders if Pearl was maybe right, asking if Jimmy knew where he was. The only other person on the list of people allowed to know Scott has a personal life, and he’s going to be disappointed in Scott again. Great. Scott’s lucky that, legally, the man doesn’t exist; if someone who legally existed was mad at Scott, he might just finally have to do something about it.

“You’re right,” says Pearl, finally. ”What are we doing?”

She slumps forward in her chair. She knocks back her own drink, but doesn’t pour herself another. Scott isn’t surprised. It’s not safe for both of them to be drunk. If the newly-promoted Vice Commander of the Hero Association is caught drinking with an infamous information broker, it’ll be the end of their house of cards. Scott’s powers helpfully decide to show him what happens at this juncture in that universe. Scandal, collapse, corruption—the worst part is, he thinks, is that it can’t even be all that different from this universe, only that the guy on the inside trying to change anything won’t be in power to do so. Maybe it would even be better.

Pearl ‘slits her throat’ in the night, his powers inform him. It’s not a suicide.

Scott can be selfish about that much. So can Pearl. They can’t be caught.

“I already knew most of it,” Scott says, finally. “But I’m in charge now. I sign the orders, right next to the Commander. I sign the ones his name can’t be caught on, too. I’m in.”

“Who better to lead than a man who can see the future?” Pearl says.

“You know that’s not how it works,” Scott says.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taunted you,” Pearl says.

“Jesus. Don’t apologize. You’ll make me think you’re an imposter,” Scott says.

“Yeah, well, the plan goes forward,” Pearl responds.

“Sure. Yeah. The plan goes forward,” Scott agrees. “The plan goes forward.”

Pearl reaches her hands across the table. Scott looks at them and, after a moment, reaches his own across to grab them. They sit there, holding each other’s hands, for a while, and it’s almost like they’re ten, and every horrible future the two of them can see flash by as possibilities is the end of the world, instead of another messy quagmire of maybe-just-as-bad-as-this-one. It had seemed much clearer then, really. It had seemed much easier. Scott doesn’t know. Maybe they were just stupider as kids.

Then again, he’d hated Pearl by eleven. He couldn’t have been that stupid.

He squeezes her hand tighter.

“Do good by them?” Pearl says, and it’s quiet and pained.

“Yeah,” Scott says.

“Okay,” Pearl says. “Okay.”

Slowly, Scott lets go of Pearl’s hands. He grabs the brandy again. He pours another glass. “I’m gonna get blackout drunk now,” Scott says.

“Sure. Just for tonight. I reserve the right to be sad and drunk next time,” Pearl says.

“Great planning,” Scott says.

“Yeah, well, we’ve still got a few hours,” Pearl says.

“I hate you,” Scott says.

Pearl smiles, for some ungodly reason.

“Yeah, me too.”

They stay there until Scott’s too drunk to stand up straight, and then Pearl lifts him around her shoulders and gets him outside to a cab. In the clothes he stole from Jimmy, no one can recognize him anyway. He’d think the hair would be distinctive enough, but apparently not. He won’t be caught today.

He muddles forward into the one future he can’t quite see.

#a bee fic #scott smajor #pearlescentmoon #no smp tag on this one because it's entirely au and like technically a hc au but scott is here #alcohol #implied/referenced violence #...this is completely without context atm this is me. warming up on a particular au. this has NOTHING TO DO with the plot of that au #you can in fact probably ignore this ficlet for that au. which is. the only reason i'm posting it #anyway. i think we should do more in aus with the insane dynamic that was double life scott and pearl #and this isn't exactly like that but these charaters are a LITTLE inspired by that #see you in like. several months!#me writing whatever this is: aren't superhero aus fun guys

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