maskormenace | text - absence makes the heart grow until it explodes

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text - absence makes the heart grow until it explodes

YO. I KNOW THERE'S ONE THING A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T REALLY WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE BECAUSE WE ALL GET IT: HOMESICKNESS. I KNOW EVERYONE IS MISSING THEIR HOME AND THEIR FRIENDS. I'D BE SURPRISED IF THERE'S PEOPLE HERE WHO AREN'T. NOT TO SAY IF YOU AREN'T THAT YOU'RE A WEIRDO, OF COURSE, I SUPPOSE YOU'RE JUST A BIT LUCKIER. NOW, I'M NOT GONNA ASK YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT THE PEOPLE YOU MISS OR THE PLACES YOU MISS. THAT WON'T HELP, IT'LL PROBABLY JUST MAKE YOU FEEL EVEN WORSE. I AIN'T EVEN GONNA GIVE A BIG SPEECH ABOUT HOW WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER AND WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER, BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THAT CRAP AIN'T GONNA HOLD UP. BACK HOME I HAD A LARGE TEAM OF PEOPLE WHO VARIED IN AGES. A LOT OF THEM GOT HOMESICK AND WHEN IT OVERWHELMED THEM THEY WENT ON A DOWNWARD SPIRAL. THING IS, IT'S REAL EASY TO LET IT OVERWHELM YOU. MAKE A LIST OF EVERYTHING YOU MISS. EVEN IF IT'S SOMETHING YOU THINK IS SILLY, LIKE THE TREE THAT WAS NEAR WHERE YOU LIVED, OR A CAFE THAT DID THE BEST VERSION OF A FLAT WHITE COFFEE YOU'VE EVER TASTED. ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF. EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT FROM EARTH. I GUARANTEE YOU THERE WILL BE SOMETHING HERE THAT IS SIMILAR ENOUGH IT'LL BE LIKE BEING AT HOME. EVEN IF IT'S JUST A GIANT ROCK THAT'S THE SAME SHAPE. NOT TO MENTION GETTING OUT AND GETTING FRESH AIR ALWAYS HELPS. DO STUFF YOU DID AT HOME. DON'T GET WRAPPED UP IN THE FACT THAT IT'S NOT THE SAME. YOU HAVE TO ADAPT TO HELP YOURSELF, THAT'S LIFE. BUT THAT THE SAME TIME... DON'T SINK INTO IT. DON'T THINK OF NOTHING BUT WHAT YOU MISS. IGNORING IT WON'T WORK, BUT NEITHER WILL DIVING INTO IT. FIND A BALANCE. DON'T LET IT OVERWHELM YOU.

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I'll be fine. Can't hurt any worse than I can deal with. [Even if something happens to Tara, it can't be as bad as Emily, because Brendan's not romantically involved with Tara. And given how his last relationship went he has zero desire to get involved with Tara romantically. That didn't end well. He's starting to learn you can protect someone or you can love them, but both never works out.

Brendan raises an eyebrow, not voicing the thought that around here, rocks were probably not enough to promise safety.] I can do stability. Clean, cook, all that jazz. I'm not totally useless.

Ya don't have to hurt, ya know.

[he snorts.]

Good enough, kid. I believe ya can take care of yourself well enough, you don't gotta prove anythin'. The other guy in the house is called Hunk, he's about your age and is real nice. Real smart, too. Engineer, I think.

[Brendan shrugs at that, like the idea of not hurting isn't worth discussing. Life always hurts. Even the good parts. The key thing is to be stronger than what it throws at you.]

'Hunk'? Someone actually named their kid that? 'm not scientifically talented, not really. AP Biology and college level Literature, average everything else. Below average math, actually.

Ey, don't be shitty. A name's a name and he's a nice guy.

[the letters AP mean nothing to archie, because kids go on adventures at ten where he comes from, but whatever.]

I hate math too. My best friend got a PHd in math stuff so she does it all for me. Ain't here, before ya ask, so you gotta do all your homework yaself.

I'm not gonna say anything to him about it. Just wondering why everybody I meet, here and home, can't have normal names. [Except Tara, although Brendan was from a Latino-heavy enough area he associates it with girls who don't look like her.]

They're gonna make me redo my sophmore year anyway here. Not sure homework makes a difference one way or another thanks to that. It was January back home, it's May here. I can't learn the months of classes I missed so I gotta redo the whole damn year.

Ain't no such thing as a normal name, really. Different cultures, worlds... nothin' is static, here.

[fuckin KIDS]

'Least you'll get an opportunity to make friends your own age. I work at the school and there's a buncha clubs an' shit.

...

Wait, it's not gonna be weird, right? I'm the swim teacher.

I'm not great at making friends. Or clubs, unless it's Drama.

Don't worry, I'm aquaphobic and if somebody signed me up for swimming I'd skip regardless of who's teaching. It won't be weird, because it won't be a thing. [Brendan Frye: model citizen.]

[he laughs briefly again.]

Well, I haven't seen the new class rotas yet, so if you're on wi' me I'll just tell 'em you show up. Take it as a free period, yeah?

You're a true friend, [he says, and it's half deadpan, half total sincerity.] One day I'm gonna have to face up to that whole water thing, but this isn't a great time to do it. [With the whole moving to another world, superpowers and dead girlfriend thing on his plate already, he's got a full load.]

Yeah, maybe get settled in, first. We're here, by the way.

[he gestures to a... pretty nice looking house, actually.]

Just, uh. Ignore the stains on the walls by the kitchen. That was Muk. An incident happened.

Huh. House like this'd be way above my parents' pay grade back home. [It's hardly the Ritz, but it looks better than he was expecting.]

'Incident'? [Have a look, Archie.]

It's way above my pay grade but... whatever, right?

[he shrugs awkwardly, digging in his pocket for the keys.]

One of my friends broke in by accident, Muk wanted to protect me so released itself and got... gunk everywhere.

If it has air conditioning and a decent bed, that's all I need.

How does someone break in on accident?

Yeah, I'm still tryin' to figure that out.

[he opens the door, gestures inside.]

Mine room is the one with the scratched door, Hunk's is down to the left. Pick one of the last three.

Which has a window that won't let in a ton of sunlight? I can't sleep for shit these days, but that'll make it worse.

[Though he does pause before he checks the room to walk to Archie's door and observe the impressive scratches. An unspoken question of 'how' is there, but he decides not to ask it, instead shucking off his jacket to tuck under one arm. There are nasty bruises above his elbows, dark rings of purple where he'd been lifted off his feet and pinned to the wall and - well, that's all back in San Clemente. Healing factors being what they are, he's sure they'll fade sooner rather than later. He just didn't want half the eyes of Heropa on him so he's been sticking to his jacket despite the May heat.]

Hn. Think the one next to you gets the best light, and by best, I mean next to none. Don't worry, I don't snore. Got it from several reliable sources I sleep like the dead, when I manage it, anyway.

That makes two of us, kid.

[archie just watches this entire selection process, not saying anything about the bruises.]

Ya could always get blackout blinds, you know.

Having a superpower that's bolstered by sleep is like a cruel joke.

[Never one to filter his paranoia, he shakes his head as he goes into what is, now, his room, insofar as anything here can really be called his. Without even thinking about it, he responds,] I get in deep with the wrong people, blackout blinds are distinctive enough to make which room is mine clear, which puts you and everyone in the house at risk should breaking in and hauling my ass out go awry. No definite markers of which room is mine means the only way to know is to try and wait until I'm alone, which I don't intend to let happen often enough to be a problem.

Should prob'ly try varying routes to and from places and back to the house, make sure I don't have a traceable routine or preferred path. There any water in this joint? I'm thirsty and kinda beat, t' tell you the truth.

[His tone of voice implies these are everyday, boring, practical concerns and in no way anything remotely strange priorities for a just-barely-sixteen year old boy.]

You get in with the wrong people, you can move the fuck out. I ain't havin' you bringing danger to this place, it ain't right on Hunk or Tara.

[he crosses his arms and puts on his best Dangerous Pirate pose and tone.]

There's no goddamn reason for ya to fall in with a bad crowd here, and if you do its through your own wrong choices. Water's in the tap. In the kitchen.

M' a private investigator. People don't like it when I fuck up their perfect little drug rings or turn over their guns complete with fingerprints to the cops. If those are wrong choices then don't worry, every town's got an abandoned somewhere-or-other to hole up in.

[Fine. Throw him out, then. Brendan's used to self-reliance. He's not stupid enough to believe that just because Archie let him vent and play with Mightyena that Archie won't throw him right under the bus. That's how people are. The key will be to have some stuff stashed somewhere he can get to it without doubling back to the house when trouble breaks out.

He walks past Archie towards the kitchen.] Hm. Might be easier not t' take the housing at all. Keep off the radar, problem's solved... [Could he fake the paperwork to say he was here? Probably, for a while. Okay, so if he did that and he kept his job for a bit, assuming they'd fire him when they found out he wasn't living where he said he was, money was going to be tight, but if that healing factor kicked in when he slept, he might not need as much food, so long as he could be assured he had a semi-safe place to crash. Best to go nocturnal, then-

He doesn't even bother with a glass, just turns the water on and dips his head down to drink from it like a water fountain, for a long stretch of time, until the burning heat of the outside has left a little. Then he shuts it off and rubs at his eyes. He needs a map of Heropa, a notebook and some time. He has maybe that last one. Shit.]

[archie exhales a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding and pinches the bridge of his nose.]

No that's-- fine. What the fuck, they made you a PI?

[he doesn't say sorry, because he meant what he said.]

Look, I'll tell Muk and Crobat to watch out for you too, alright? I'm pretty sure whatever dumb fucks come around here won't expect a giant bat and poison monster.

Nothing official, nothing that can be traced; keeps their hands clean if I die or go missing. You know how it is. But unofficially, yeah. Since I was thirteen. Brought down part of a heroin ring, got locked in. No way out short of world hopping, but that assumes I'm willing to sit down and look the other way while this world goes down the same path that fucked San Clemente up.

[And he's an asshole but he's not that kind of asshole. He's depressed but the kind of depressed that means putting himself in the line of fire so he'll at least die for something. He can't go back to the silence of his days before Emily's death. Those held the promise of maybe one day reuniting with her. With that gone, the only way he can keep going is to keep moving, and that means work. Work means bringing people in. That means people trying to kill him. Again. He's not averse to the idea the way he probably should be.]

I'm assuming that protection comes with some sort of 'but' attached to it that'll be the opening shot of negotiations about my living here.

There ain't no but about it. You tell Mightyena to use Embargo first, that's the chain thing. Means they won't be able to use their weapons. Then tell Muk to use Sludge Wave.

...

Actually, there is a but. If that goes down, you can pay for the new carpets. Muk ain't so... good at keepin' them clean.

...that it? [There's always more to it. Deals always had strings attached. Nobody just protected somebody because they could.]

That's it. You got put here by the government, not me. Last group'a people lived with me were there by choice, though they were workin' for me. I could at least guarantee them a warm meal and a bed.

[he shrugs.]

Guess I'm just used to providin' some form of protection.

[He stares at Archie for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not he believes him. Idly, he rubs at the bruises on his left arm. It's a sharp reminder of how much he needs somebody in his corner, even someone he's not entirely sure of. There is literally nobody else in this world who's been on his side this intently so far.

So he exhales, and nods.] Fair enough, I guess... and thanks, too.

text - absence makes the heart grow until it explodes

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