silph_co | open up now (don't you think it's time?)

open up now (don't you think it's time?)

Who: Steven Durante + the other Rockets
Where: Goldenrod Rocket Base in the starter + Tyler's thread, Handsome Jack's place otherwise
When: Late February, immediately after the fossil heist + 10
Summary: Someone is having a quiet crisis following their very first heist! Also, fall-out from some personal revelations + meeting a new Rocket.
Rating: PG-13, with some threads going up to R in terms of language and conversational subjects. ~~Anything too wicked goes to an inbox.~~

Steven Durante's quieter than usual on their way back from Dirk's Fossil Heist. He keeps looking at his hands. And when it comes to turning in the bag of fossils and collecting their rewards, he doesn't even bother asking if he, Connie, and the other Steve will get promotions from this.

Sure, when the time has come for them to claim their weird abomination fossils, he immediately jumps to claiming one the Pokedex claims is called a 'Dracozolt'--but otherwise, he seems unusually subdued. Something is definitely on his mind and has been since... well, even before Steve P and Connie caught up with him and Dirk.

Dirk might be able to hazard a guess as to what's bothering him. Anyone else probably has to ask.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No, but it's a similar deal. Cuz here's the thing....I'd never killed anybody before. Which is weird, for where I come from. I know ten year olds who've killed tons of people, it's what everybody does. It's not against the law or anything, it's pretty much the accepted way anybody gets ahead. But I got it in my head I could do it different, so I just rose up in Hyperion by being better at what I did than anybody else. And...insider trading and a little blackmail, but no offing anybody."

And he made it into his forties that way.

"But then I killed this dude. And...it felt good. I had control, I did what I had to and saved myself and it was good. It was like so much suddenly made sense! And I'm guessing that's pretty much what you're feeling right now."

Not exactly the most moral strategies, sure, but when murder was legal... well, that stuff sounded almost restrained. It's a different culture. Steven isn't going to fault him on that. He doesn't know if he wouldn't have done the same thing in Jack's position.

He takes another bite of his stir fry.

"It-- kinda is, yeah," he admits after swallowing. "I mean, I know it's probably not how I should feel, but. That's the thing, Jack. I'm good at pretending I'm just-- well. More or less normal. But I'm not. I'm really not. And even though I know I'm not... I still didn't expect to feel like that. To have to confront that in such--- such a visceral way. You know?"

"I think people like us are a lot more normal than you realize. That's why things are the way they are in my time, we've realized that we're a bunch of violent, dangerous animals and trying to ignore that fact doesn't do any damn good."

People kill each other all the time over nothing. That's part of being a person, Jack figures. Otherwise the galaxy wouldn't be what it is.

"And anyway...I'm not surprised. Choking somebody out like that - which really shouldn't be called that, 'choking' is what happens when an internal obstruction blocks the airways - it's just...it's kind of intimate, there's no separation of a weapon or distance, it speaks to something primal in us. I mean think about it. You, with your own physical strength, are literally controlling someone else's breath. That's...that's powerful, it's thrilling, and in the right kind of circumstances that involve two consenting adults...really sexy."

Jack has no shame about his own particular fetish for asphyxiation in all of its forms.

Steven feels his cheeks heat up and quickly shoves more stir fry into his mouth. Thinks about doing what he did to Jack, only stopping before he passed out.

Oh god. He does have a fetish.

"People like us," he says, weakly, once he's had yet another mouthful of supper--and yet, saying it like that does feel right. It feels right that he and Jack are an 'us.' They really are too damn alike sometimes and he never expected that. Never expected anyone who'd understand him this way.

"It's perfectly natural. There's nothing wrong with you, babe. I know that you've probably been told by society for years that there is...but there's really not. It's just that people are so scared of their true nature they like to pretend that we didn't come out of the ocean and down from the trees and out of the primordial chaos naked and screaming and killing everything in our path just like everything else."

Jack is not a spiritual man. He believes in science, he believes in cause and effect, he believes in a design that worked itself out and wasn't orchestrated by anything greater. People - human beings - are so far removed from the rest of life out there...but also not at all.

"It's not 'evolved' to ignore or shit on violence and physical power, it's evolved to understand these are necessary tools that we developed! Holy dickbags, scientists used to lose their shit over monkeys throwing rocks at each other. 'Look how they've learned, they're utilizing tools!'. Yeah, and so are we."

It's everything that Steven wants to hear. He wants to believe he's not as fucked up as he thinks he is. That it's not wrong to get such a visceral thrill when it comes to other people's violence. To learn about your ancestors' religion and instead of being grossed out, wish you could have seen it.

"Yeah, but..." Steven frowns a little. Plays with the food on his plate. "What about the people we hurt?"

"Well, you can beat yourself up and stew in guilt, or you can look at it this way: people get hurt all the friggin time. Shit happens. Whether it's you or something else..." Jack shrugs.

"Besides, any other rando out there? Put them and you in the jungle, they'll off you to survive in a nano-second. There's nothing wrong with being the guy who gets the upper hand, with being the one who comes out on top. They got just as much chance as being that person, and you being the one knocked out on the floor. You just were better, and that's nothing to feel shitty about."

It's just simple logic!

He takes a bit of stir fry. Chews. Swallows.

"There's laws against this shit--" he starts...

... before realizing how absolutely ridiculous that sounds for someone who's a member of the goddamn pokemafia. And that, more than anything else, is what startles a laugh out of him.

"Well, I mean," he says. "There are. Back home there were. God, Jack, do you know how long I've been following the rules? Doing what I'm supposed to, because it's the only goddamn way to stay safe? And it never-- it didn't keep me safe. Not in the long run. I bend the rules once, used my press pass to get me backstage when I wasn't even on the job, and some asshole in a gold mask fucking kidnaps me, stuffs me in his basement for five years, tells me I have to babysit and watch him train all his other kidnapping victims and when we finally bust out, when they escape and take me with them, I come home and some jumped up construct of wire and boom mikes is living my life for me and the Winter Court, the people who took care of us when we got out, they say I have to let him, no matter what a fucking mess he's made of my life. No matter how he's proved fucking Liam right about me. And Charley, my baby sister, the only person who ever came close to really knowing me, she's missing, presumed dead. And I just have to. Fuck. Start over. I can't even keep my last name. I have to let that goddamn construct keep everything. But I follow the rules. I always follow the rules. I let him live my goddamn life even though I just want to break his fucking neck."

He laughs again. There's absolutely no mirth in it.

"And then I end up here. Press-ganged into the goddamn mafia. But with my face back, with my name back. And I meet you. And you're-- god, Jack, I don't know how describe you. I wish I'd known you years ago. Before everything went to hell."

Wow, that is a lot. Just a whole big mess of stuff. That's probably needed to come out for a while? It sounds like it, anyway.

Jack's not here for the particulars of Steven's life. Oh, it's good to know, absolutely, but he's very focused right now on this one topic.

"Hey."

He sets down his utensils and reaches across the table, laying a hand on Steven's wrist.

"Look at it like this...maybe you met me at the exact right time to. You worry about rules and laws? Look at this world! The maximum jail sentence is two weeks! That's the worst punishment you can possibly suffer here! You're in a place and at a point in your life where you can just...let yourself be the real you. And I can help! I've been there! I've learned the same things - playing by the rules and trying to live life according to a bunch of ideals made up by old dudes thousands of years ago...that's not getting anybody anywhere."

Steven takes a deep, shaky breath.

"No," he admits. "It's not, isn't it? Not really. No matter... no matter how much I thought it would. It won't. And I can admit that now."

He looks up at Jack. At his face. His dear, handsome face. As much as Mask as Steven's, just more literal. One he could take off. And suddenly Steven wishes he could show Jack his true face, the one he'd earned during those five years in the dark, the one that brought everything that was inside of him out.

Maybe Jack would like that face, the true face, just as much as he likes the Mask made real again.

"You know," he says softly. "If people don't die here. Then I can't really kill them."

Jack could correct this point, he's pretty sure natives die all the time, but he's not about to bring that up right now. Whatever, it's not important.

"It's the law of the jungle, the strong survive and get ahead. Don't ever be ashamed of being strong, Steven. Don't ever be ashamed of being you. Cuz you're pretty great."

Way better than Jack had thought he'd be. He'd just thought that Steven had enough of a brain to be worth actually talking to, and that he'd be a nice little uptick in Jack's miserable lack of a social life. But it turns out he's pretty great. Really smart, funny, decent taste in music...and a glorious blossoming dark side that Jack gets to nurture and coax into fruition.

And also he's pretty sure they're kind of dating at this point, which he really hadn't intended. But...what's he gonna do? Ignore the hot morally ambiguous nerd who makes him laugh and is fun to hang out with and gets him off like a pro? A guy on his wavelength that gets him about as much as anyone can? He's not an idiot.

Steven smiles at him, soft and just a little bit shy. "Well. You're pretty great too."

He puts his own hand on top of Jack's.

"Thank you," he says softly. "For-- well. Everything. I'm glad I can be myself with you."

"Don't worry about it."

Playing it off like it's nothing. But god damn does it feel good being acknowledged again. There isn't too much of that these days, not many people thanking him or lauding how much he does.

But it does bring them neatly to the other thing that's been on his mind. And this? Yeah, this seems about the right time.

"But uh...look, I'm way past mind games and coy bullshit and all that drama. And I get it if you don't want to like...put it out there in the world what this is, I do, you're still getting used to being able to be out of the closet and all that. But I think at least between you and me we outta admit what this is. Cuz, uh..." Jack chuckles a little.

"This is something."

"It is," Steven admits. After everything he's said tonight, this can't be anything but an actual relationship. He's never said things like that to his hook-ups. He's never even said things like that to his friends. The closest he's ever come to just-- talking everything out like this, even if he'd still held back from so much of it back then, had been with his ex-. His ex- and his little sister.

"I mean. I've never really... it's not like the other Rockets don't know we're fucking." Jack pretty much admitted it to Dirk, after all. "If they can know we're fucking, they might as well know we're dating. And everyone else..."

Steven takes another deep breath. Lets it out slowly. "I'm not used to it. Having people know. I'm used to-- to keeping all the parts of my life separate. But I can't do that here, can I? You've found your way into all those parts. I should hate that. But I don't. I really don't. So if you want to-- to talk about this outside of Team Rocket. You can. We'll have to explain how we know each other, but I mean. We say met in a bar in Goldenrod. Easy enough. We're both adults."

He lets out a shaky laugh. "Just. You know. Don't be surprised if I go 'Jack--' again when you inevitably say too much."

Jack laughs too.

"Nobody's gonna wonder how we know each other - we're both transplants and over thirty, of course we know each other."

It's just how it works in these kind of situations. And Jack lurks so much on the network, Steven's been on the network, Jack's been on the network...no one's going to be weaving any weird conspiracies.

"I really meant it, when I said I wasn't looking for anything, by the way. I wasn't. And I didn't expect we'd just...connect like this? That's not something that happens too much for me. But it's like I said...I don't ignore it when all those rare factors somehow fall into place. I dunno, you're great and I kinda can't get you out of my mind, and we're already spending all this time together...fuck it, why not?"

"Yeah," Steven says. "I meant it too. I still think relationships are, by and large, not for me. But... for whatever reason, this works. This really, really works. And I don't want to give it up." He smiles, meeting Jack's eyes. "So. Here's to actually dating?"

A moment later he adds, cheeks distinctly darker than usual, "Um. You were right. About the sexy thing."

"Here's to dating, I guess!"

But on to much more interesting topics...

"Yeah I was! I know I was. Don't get all shy about it, it's hot. Erotic asphyxiation is a thing for a reason. But...we're gonna start playing around with that, you're gonna need some lessons in the right way to do it. There's some tricks to getting your partner nice and breathless without doing any actual damage or leaving a big telling mark."

Tricks Jack has perfected over the years, from both sides of the act.

"Also some tricks to knocking someone out real quick and easy that way, I'll teach you that, too."

Steven smiles, just a little shyly. "I'd like to learn," he says. "Both of those, actually."

"And learn you will, you sexy bastard you. I've been doing this for...years and years and years. I'll show you some stuff later."

Oh yeah. Another point.

Yeah, they've been getting close and their hookups were a very regular thing...but Jack's still been keeping his mask on.

"And I guess since we've gone and made this official...I'm gonna take the mask off tonight. I been wearing it way too much anyway, I gotta let my face breathe a while, I gotta clean it and stuff...and since you practically live with me already. Just...don't make a big thing about it."

"I won't," Steven promises. "Hell, the only reason I'm not taking off mine in return is that I can't right now. But, uh, if one of those weird weekends happens and I get my real body back... I'll show you. We can do the Oath of Rose and Thorn and everything. Though... I guess I could still tell you now. About everything that's different."

It's funny but... he kind of wants to. Trust begets trust.

Edited 2020-02-24 07:27 (UTC)

"You could, if ya wanted." Jack shrugs. "Sounds...a little less intense than anything that starts with 'the Oath'." He laughs at that, because yeah, that sounds just like something out of the comics he read growing up. He'd always been pretty into the whole sword and sorcery thing.

"But I mean...you've talked around the whole thing a lot, it comes up and everything but I just gotta flat out ask or confirm or whatever...you're a magic dude, right?"

That covers pretty much everything, because Jack's pulled bits and pieces and sort of gets the whole picture but not entirely.

"Well, not here," Steven says. "But yeah. Yeah, I am. I'm... we call ourselves Changelings. So. Uh. Here's the thing. At least back home, fairies are real. Fairies are real and they're assholes. They live in this place called Arcadia... I guess you could call it a sort of sub-dimension? It's separated from the rest of reality by the Hedge, which is... it's sort of magic thorny brambles? A world between worlds, only without all the pools and needing magic rings and stuff.

"So fairies. The True Fae. When they get it into their heads that they want some humans for whatever, they go across the Hedge, kidnap a person, and drag them back to Fairyland. Sometimes they'll make a construct, a fetch, and wrap them in illusion magic and have them live the human's life for them in their absence. Sometimes they just don't bother.

"I was at a wrestling match. The EWW--Extreme Wrestling Warfare? They're... well. They're more violent than the WWE or the WWF. I guess that's why I liked them best. And they travel around sometimes, you know, and they came to San Diego and, like, El Diablo Verde was wrestling? El Diablo is... god, he's amazing. I've never seen his face--he's a real old-school lucha, you know, he never takes his mask off--but I've been a fan of his for... god, decades. He's been wrestling since I was a kid and he never seems to get any older. I had such a stupid crush on him back in middle school.

"And I thought... hey, I have this press pass, right? Maybe I can use it to meet El Diablo for real. Tell him everything he's meant to me. And okay, sure, there's this whole rumor in the fan community that he sometimes takes fans aside and makes out with them. That's... not an entirely insignificant part of my thought-processes. So I go and I wash my face paint off and I use the press pass to get backstage, but on the way to El Diablo's dressing room, I get stopped by this other guy in a mask. Kinda looks like El Santo, only gold. He says his name is El Pecador and he's been looking for someone like me.

"At that point. I black out. When I come to, I'm in this underground facility. Pretty much pitch dark, too. El Pecador tells me that this is his wrestling stable. But he doesn't want to make me a wrestler like everyone else he's kidnapped. No, he wants me to take care of them instead. Make sure they're eating and exercising. Supervise their training matches against each other.

"And we're down there for the next five years. I think that's how long it was. I tried to keep track. And that's what I do for the next five years. Take care of his wrestlers. In the dark. Except when he pulls us out for a match and everything is floodlights and the roaring of the crowds. And sometimes... sometimes he'll use me to fix a match.

"Because here's the thing, Jack. Being in Arcadia... it changes people. Like literally, it changes their bodies. It changes their souls. Going through the Hedge literally does that. The thorns leave all these gouges on your soul. And whatever the True Fae have you doing in Arcadia... it shapes you. El Pecador's wrestlers, they started to resemble their lucha masks. Wild beasts and scary-ass monsters, mainly, but there were others... guys that became made of rock or metal or fire or water. We have all sorts of names for the things we become.

"The kind I am... we're called Darklings." Steven drums his fingers on the table. "Because we come about from being kept in dark places for so long? I wasn't a luchador, so I didn't have anything for the changes to base themselves on like the others, so I became sort of this... more generic kind of ghoulish guy?

"But my eyes," he says, tapping a finger to the side of those wide hazel eyes, hidden as always behind his glasses. "They got slit pupils. Like a cat or a snake. Same color, still. And my ears, they got all long and pointed." And here he uses his thumb and forefinger to demonstrate the shape. "My teeth," he says, flashing Jack a dangerous grin. "Long and sharp and so many of them. Like a goddamn shark. And then, there were my fingers."

He holds his hands up. "I mean, they're still long, but that's nothing compared to how they used to be, Jack. I had an entire extra sent of finger joints. And it wasn't just how they looked. I could-- I could steal bits of people's energy, people's life force by touching them if I wanted. Or if El Pecador made me. Leechfingers, they call us. I'm not the only one that happened to."

He shakes his head. "Anyway. Eventually, some of the wrestlers staged a break-out and took me with them. And we lost about half of us on the way back, but somehow I was one of the ones that made it out. And the thing is... the way Arcadia changes you, it doesn't go away. Normal people can't see it, there's this illusion hiding it that we call the Mask, but other Changelings? Fae creatures in general? Yeah. They can see it. There's even ways to show it to other who wouldn't be able to see it otherwise. The Oath. Spending all your Glamour--uh, magic reserves--at once.

"So. Yeah. I'm a magic dude. Or I would be. I've got-- all these Contracts with various concepts that let me do magic things. Dreamwalking things mostly. That's how I would usually get Glamour, I'd go into people's dreams and gather it that way. And I've got some stuff that has to do with darkness too. Stuff that lets me protect the place I live and sneak around in the dark. Except it doesn't work here."

Steven shrugs. "But on the other hand, I can be myself here. Not just in the way we've been talking about, but. I can legally exist as Steven Durante again. Because there's no fake me taking my place."

"Wow, babe. Wow. That...that sure was a lot!"

Way more than Jack had been expecting, but he really should have realized. This is a dude who likely doesn't get to talk about this shit, open up, bleed the wound. It's understandable. How many times had Jack unloaded on Tim, just pacing in the living room of the old house and bleeding his emotional wounds all over him. He gets it.

He wasn't prepared and could have done without plenty of that creative flavor, but at least it was a cool story.

"So...you basically look like a dangerous elf? Hot." Jack can dig that. Elves are hot, danger is hot, what's not to like? Plus magic. Magic is always awesome and he will absolutely demand to see some if he gets the chance.

"I mean sorry about the crazy luchador locking you in a dark basement like a mushroom or something, but...that shit happens." At least in Jack's world. Take out the magic and fairy aspects and he's pretty sure that's probably happened back home. And Steven got out, and is obviously basically fine now. He's not gonna spend too much time offering sympathy.

"And you know what they say...if it doesn't kill us, it just makes us stronger. You survived shit, be proud. See...this is what I mean! Look at you! You're a badass, powerful, tough dude who survived some shit plenty of people wouldn't. And that experience is a part of you, it's only made you stronger."

There is so much potential here!

"More ghoul than elf... but yeah. Sort of. You'll see eventually."

It's weird, but... Jack treating Steven's Durance as something perfectly normal if definitely awful is... well. Weirdly reassuring? Because it was awful, fucking awful, and it fucked Steven up-- but he'd have hated it if knowing had materially changed the way Jack saw him. Made him think he was more delicate than he really was. Someone to be coddled.

But of course it wouldn't. Jack understands this kind of shit. Jack always understands.

Steven smiles.

"But-- you're right. I did survive. I got through and I got out. And now I'm here. With you."

"So a vampire elf then, whatever." Pointy ears, slit pupils...that screams 'elf' to Jack. And they're a kind of fairy? Kind of.

"And now you are, and I'd say this is a damn good place for you to be. Look, I knock this world a lot, it's got a lot of things to knock and make fun of and be pissed off about. But...eh, I've met some people I'm glad I met and couldn't have otherwise, so it's got that."

And it gave him more time with Nisha, more time with Angel....oh. Yeah. He should probably mention his adult daughter at some point.

open up now (don't you think it's time?)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)