Origin Stories [6/7] - Lost - Kate/Kevin/Sawyer
Title: Origin Stories [6/7]
Pairing: Kate/Kevin/Sawyer (and combinations thereof)
Word Count: 2447
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Superhero!AU.
Previously: Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three :: Part Four :: Part Five
Summary: By day, Kevin Callis is an unnoticeable police officer, up-holding the law and too committed to his job to hold down a relationship; by night, The Captain emerges to help where the law can't. When he becomes entangled in the plot of a pair of supervillains, the line between his two identities begins to blur.
After long enough had passed to allow him to feel more at ease - if they hadn't come this way yet then they never would - the back doors of the bank flung open like they'd been kicked that way. They swung on their hinges hard enough to slam into the brick wall and shake threateningly, while Sawyer and Monica spilled out of the bank in a rush.
Kevin pushed himself up from his sitting position, vicious butterflies squirming in his stomach. Oh god, just seeing them again screwed with his head. It screwed with his head so badly it left him wanting to scream, wanting to do anything just to get the hell out of this place. Monica's hair had been dyed a light blonde instead of the brown he'd been used to, but it was her. She could change her appearance all she wanted, he'd always recognise her - and Sawyer, there was no way of ever mistaking him for somebody else.
The pair looked up at him, their footsteps faltering for a split-second - 'oh shit' crossed their expressions, barely long enough to register, before they carried on walking.
"Get out of here, Kevin," Monica urged, jogging forward to one of the cars in the lot, a sleek black thing that looked out of place. Definitely didn't belong to one of the customers in here.
"C'mon, hero," Sawyer grumbled as he followed after her to the other side of the car. "We don't gotta do this."
"You know I can't let you go," Kevin stated. He walked forward, standing behind the car, and he was sure that he shouldn't have been talking to them at all. Talking wasn't what he'd come here to do - fists should have been flying. Blood should have been spilt.
"What, you're here to join the posse back there?" Sawyer grinned; a dark expression. No hint of light. "And I thought we were supposed to be the bad guys."
"We- I need to stop you. I'm going to stop you."
Monica unlocked her car door and glanced back at him. "Kevin," she urged, "please. They're going to kill us if they catch us. You know that."
"I..."
"We let you go," she insisted. "We didn't hurt you. So don't hurt us."
Kevin looked back to the door. He shouldn't have been listening to her, shouldn't have been paying attention, should have known better. Never listen to a word a villain says. What hero didn't know that?
But, hell, these days Kevin was starting to feel less and less like a hero. He didn't know what he was any more.
"Get out of the way, sweet cheeks," Sawyer said, hopping inside the car. "We'll owe you one."
"They're going to be coming this way any second," Monica said. "Kevin - please. We managed to slow them down but that won't last for long."
He shouldn't have been doing this, but his body moved without any conscious input from his mind. He shifted to the side, clearing out of the path that the car needed to drive out of. Didn't know how he'd explain this one to the other heroes when they came out here; he'd find a way, maybe. He'd make an excuse.
The car's wheels screeched as Monica wasted no more time, swinging the car out of the parking space and driving away with barely a glance spared in the rear-view mirror for Kevin. In just seconds, she and Sawyer were both gone, the car weaving its way through empty streets to find their escape route out of there. If Kevin had been committed to chasing them down, he could have soared into the air and tracked their progress that way. Once upon a time, he would have done exactly that with no hesitation.
He was looking at the empty road when he heard the clatter of footsteps spilling out of the bank. "Captain!" Rock God yelled. "Where'd they go? Where the bloody hell did they go?"
"I..." Kevin blinked, shook his head, and turned around to face the collection of frustrated heroes that had spilled out behind him. "I don't know. Snake Tongue - he said something to me before I could get to him. Ordered me not to try and stop them."
The lie came out easier than it should have. He wondered why Sawyer hadn't actually tried something like that, using his ability on him. Would have made things easier for him, wouldn't it?
"Fuck," Rock God muttered, kicking angrily at the ground. "We're wearing earplugs next time, okay? All of us."
"Next time..." Of course there'd be a 'next time'. Heroes didn't give up and they sure as hell didn't give in. Stubborn bastards, they were. All of them. "Yeah, next time."
Sunshine shook her head in disappointment, her bright yellow costume a neat contrast to her pitch-black hair. "I am sorry we didn't catch them, Captain," she said to him with a sympathetic smile.
"Sorry you came all this way for nothing," he said. Smiling at her was easy. Lying was a whole lot harder.
"I had to try and help," she answered. She seemed easily able to ignore the British superhero still fuming and ranting behind her. "Anyone would have done the same."
Well, that was more or less a lie: she was the only hero that had hopped on a plane to fly to a whole different continent to help someone she didn't even know. "You've got a big heart." Kevin smiled at her, the creases crinkling at his eyes. He wanted to go home now. Wanted to crawl into bed and hide from the world that seemed so much bigger and more threatening now than ever before.
Wanted to drink so much that he couldn't even remember the sight of Sawyer and Monica's car driving hastily away.
He rolled the stiff tension from his shoulders and told himself not to bother thinking about it any more. Wasn't worth it. He stayed apart from the rest of the group, looking in on them and feeling as if he was watching complete strangers: at the first opportunity he had, he murmured his goodbye and took off into the air.
*
He couldn't go home, not right away. Heading back to his apartment would allow him to put his head down and forget about this mess in a non-constructive way: he needed to think this over first.
Mask removed, cape stored away, Kevin had transformed himself back into an ordinary civilian by the time he wandered into the bar around the corner from his police station. Some of his colleagues drank here from time to time: it was no surprise at all to spot Ana-Lucia at the bar, turning her empty glass around and around in her hand as she watched the television screen above the bar. Her expression looked dour. Ordinarily that might have been an excuse to avoid her - but right now Kevin had the intense impression that she was exactly the kind of company he needed.
He walked over to the bar and took a seat beside her, ordering a drink after greeting the bar man. "You're looking angry, Ana," he observed.
"Don't I always?" she responded dryly, only glancing towards him with a dark flicker of her eyelashes. She placed her glass back down on the counter top.
"True. You're looking especially angry today."
"Jarrah had me pulling a double-shift." She didn't bother to stifle her yawn. "Should head home soon. Not gonna be doing that again in a hurry."
"Did I miss anything exciting?"
Nothing could've been worse than his evening, he thought, but she nodded towards the news coverage on the television screen. Kevin glanced up. He couldn't hear what was being said over the sound of the music being played in the bar, but the images said it all.
"Scalpel Man reappeared," Ana-Lucia explained, just in case he hadn't picked up on that yet. "Just swanned in to break up an armed robbery tonight - acting like he hasn't been missing all this time."
"Did you get to talk to him?" Kevin asked without looking down from the screen. Frozen. His drink was placed in front of him and he handed over the payment for it, barely noticing the taste as he downed it as quickly as he could get away with.
"Jarrah dragged him in," she answered. "Not that he told us anything - kept saying he'd been on holiday. Bullshit. These fucking Capes, Kev... Someone needs to get them off the streets. They're a menace."
Kevin mumbled something quiet and non-committal. There was a whole lot of anti-superhero feeling out there in the police force; he still never knew how to respond to it. The idea of how his colleagues might react if they ever found out who he was and what he did... He didn't want to think about that any more than he had to. He'd cross that bridge if he ever came to it.
"He didn't mention those villains?" He sounded as innocently curious as he could get away with, but he had the feeling that he didn't manage it too successfully.
Ana-Lucia's shoulder quirked. "Says he's never even heard of them."
"You think he's lying?"
"I know he is." She heaved a frustrated sigh that was a step away from being a growl. "But I can't prove it."
Kevin ran a hand uneasily over his face, trying to work out what on earth this meant - because none of this could be a coincidence, right? Something was going on, but he didn't know how to put the pieces together in order to make them make sense.
His glass was barely half-drank but already he got to his feet.
"You're not staying?"
"Not in the mood," he answered, before offering her a grin. "Nothing to do with the company, I swear."
She snorted in response. "Whatever, Callis. Get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Sure will," he promised. Another day like today; go into work. Carry on like normal. Like he was normal. Like the whole damn world was normal and he didn't have the ability to lift a car above his head without breaking a sweat.
He pulled his jacket on and walked out of the door, leaving that sweaty world of beer and music behind him. Entering the cold night air he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, where he could feel the silky material of his cape, folded up and stuffed inside. Flying would have been faster, but he ducked his head down and decided to walk. It wasn't too far, after all.
Maybe the fresh air'd do him good.
He had his doubts about that, but it didn't matter too much as he walked along the sidewalk he knew so well by this point. Every crack in the pavement was familiar. This whole town... He was starting to feel like he needed something new. A change of scenery, a change of direction, a breath of fresh air. Anything to get him on a new path other than the one he was chasing now. He didn't know where this was going to lead him - and, really, that scared him more than anything else he could have dreamt up, this aimless wandering towards nothing in particular.
It took him longer than it should have to reach his apartment. His steps were too slow, his path too wandering. He felt tired, so tired, the weight of the world dragging on his shoulders as he found his keys in his pockets and brought his hand up to the lock on the front door. It stuck a little, just like it always did, and he always had to resist the temptation to give the door a little nudge and knock it off its hinges. It'd let him get in a whole lot faster - but he wasn't quite sure how he'd go about explaining something like that to his neighbours or landlord.
There was no elevator in this apartment block - but the rent was cheap and the landlord was friendly and if he was honest then he couldn't really ask for anything more - so he took the stairs, climbing them two at a time with long strides. Already fantasies played out in his mind of falling into bed and being able to forget about the world for a few pleasant hours.
He reached his flat, several floors up, and located the right key on his keyring: he didn't have a clue what half of the keys there even did. Most of them probably weren't important at all, but he hung onto them just in case. Just in case... Goddamn.
His apartment was cold when he entered it - soothing and cool compared to the summer heat of the rest of the day - and it felt like it had been years since he'd last been home even though he'd only left it this morning. Felt like the whole world had changed in those hours.
What he noticed first of all, however, as he let the door close behind him, was that there was a light on his living room, and that could only spell trouble. His heart rate picked up. No point in sneaking around - if there was anyone here they would have heard the door closing, would know that he was here.
Maybe I left it on myself, he wondered. Maybe I was in such a rush this morning that I forgot.
But he knew that wasn't true. He didn't 'forget' anything.
Walking through to the living room, he wasn't sure what he was expecting to find but it sure as hell wasn't what was awaiting him: Sawyer and Monica sitting calmly on his couch, waiting for him. They didn't look rushed at all, didn't look on edge. They looked safe - and, god, Kevin hated how relieved that made him feel.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" he asked when he could summon words to his mouth again.
He wasn't sure if he was ready for the answer.
Part Seven
Pairing: Kate/Kevin/Sawyer (and combinations thereof)
Word Count: 2447
Rating: PG-13
A/N: Superhero!AU.
Previously: Part One :: Part Two :: Part Three :: Part Four :: Part Five
Summary: By day, Kevin Callis is an unnoticeable police officer, up-holding the law and too committed to his job to hold down a relationship; by night, The Captain emerges to help where the law can't. When he becomes entangled in the plot of a pair of supervillains, the line between his two identities begins to blur.
After long enough had passed to allow him to feel more at ease - if they hadn't come this way yet then they never would - the back doors of the bank flung open like they'd been kicked that way. They swung on their hinges hard enough to slam into the brick wall and shake threateningly, while Sawyer and Monica spilled out of the bank in a rush.
Kevin pushed himself up from his sitting position, vicious butterflies squirming in his stomach. Oh god, just seeing them again screwed with his head. It screwed with his head so badly it left him wanting to scream, wanting to do anything just to get the hell out of this place. Monica's hair had been dyed a light blonde instead of the brown he'd been used to, but it was her. She could change her appearance all she wanted, he'd always recognise her - and Sawyer, there was no way of ever mistaking him for somebody else.
The pair looked up at him, their footsteps faltering for a split-second - 'oh shit' crossed their expressions, barely long enough to register, before they carried on walking.
"Get out of here, Kevin," Monica urged, jogging forward to one of the cars in the lot, a sleek black thing that looked out of place. Definitely didn't belong to one of the customers in here.
"C'mon, hero," Sawyer grumbled as he followed after her to the other side of the car. "We don't gotta do this."
"You know I can't let you go," Kevin stated. He walked forward, standing behind the car, and he was sure that he shouldn't have been talking to them at all. Talking wasn't what he'd come here to do - fists should have been flying. Blood should have been spilt.
"What, you're here to join the posse back there?" Sawyer grinned; a dark expression. No hint of light. "And I thought we were supposed to be the bad guys."
"We- I need to stop you. I'm going to stop you."
Monica unlocked her car door and glanced back at him. "Kevin," she urged, "please. They're going to kill us if they catch us. You know that."
"I..."
"We let you go," she insisted. "We didn't hurt you. So don't hurt us."
Kevin looked back to the door. He shouldn't have been listening to her, shouldn't have been paying attention, should have known better. Never listen to a word a villain says. What hero didn't know that?
But, hell, these days Kevin was starting to feel less and less like a hero. He didn't know what he was any more.
"Get out of the way, sweet cheeks," Sawyer said, hopping inside the car. "We'll owe you one."
"They're going to be coming this way any second," Monica said. "Kevin - please. We managed to slow them down but that won't last for long."
He shouldn't have been doing this, but his body moved without any conscious input from his mind. He shifted to the side, clearing out of the path that the car needed to drive out of. Didn't know how he'd explain this one to the other heroes when they came out here; he'd find a way, maybe. He'd make an excuse.
The car's wheels screeched as Monica wasted no more time, swinging the car out of the parking space and driving away with barely a glance spared in the rear-view mirror for Kevin. In just seconds, she and Sawyer were both gone, the car weaving its way through empty streets to find their escape route out of there. If Kevin had been committed to chasing them down, he could have soared into the air and tracked their progress that way. Once upon a time, he would have done exactly that with no hesitation.
He was looking at the empty road when he heard the clatter of footsteps spilling out of the bank. "Captain!" Rock God yelled. "Where'd they go? Where the bloody hell did they go?"
"I..." Kevin blinked, shook his head, and turned around to face the collection of frustrated heroes that had spilled out behind him. "I don't know. Snake Tongue - he said something to me before I could get to him. Ordered me not to try and stop them."
The lie came out easier than it should have. He wondered why Sawyer hadn't actually tried something like that, using his ability on him. Would have made things easier for him, wouldn't it?
"Fuck," Rock God muttered, kicking angrily at the ground. "We're wearing earplugs next time, okay? All of us."
"Next time..." Of course there'd be a 'next time'. Heroes didn't give up and they sure as hell didn't give in. Stubborn bastards, they were. All of them. "Yeah, next time."
Sunshine shook her head in disappointment, her bright yellow costume a neat contrast to her pitch-black hair. "I am sorry we didn't catch them, Captain," she said to him with a sympathetic smile.
"Sorry you came all this way for nothing," he said. Smiling at her was easy. Lying was a whole lot harder.
"I had to try and help," she answered. She seemed easily able to ignore the British superhero still fuming and ranting behind her. "Anyone would have done the same."
Well, that was more or less a lie: she was the only hero that had hopped on a plane to fly to a whole different continent to help someone she didn't even know. "You've got a big heart." Kevin smiled at her, the creases crinkling at his eyes. He wanted to go home now. Wanted to crawl into bed and hide from the world that seemed so much bigger and more threatening now than ever before.
Wanted to drink so much that he couldn't even remember the sight of Sawyer and Monica's car driving hastily away.
He rolled the stiff tension from his shoulders and told himself not to bother thinking about it any more. Wasn't worth it. He stayed apart from the rest of the group, looking in on them and feeling as if he was watching complete strangers: at the first opportunity he had, he murmured his goodbye and took off into the air.
*
He couldn't go home, not right away. Heading back to his apartment would allow him to put his head down and forget about this mess in a non-constructive way: he needed to think this over first.
Mask removed, cape stored away, Kevin had transformed himself back into an ordinary civilian by the time he wandered into the bar around the corner from his police station. Some of his colleagues drank here from time to time: it was no surprise at all to spot Ana-Lucia at the bar, turning her empty glass around and around in her hand as she watched the television screen above the bar. Her expression looked dour. Ordinarily that might have been an excuse to avoid her - but right now Kevin had the intense impression that she was exactly the kind of company he needed.
He walked over to the bar and took a seat beside her, ordering a drink after greeting the bar man. "You're looking angry, Ana," he observed.
"Don't I always?" she responded dryly, only glancing towards him with a dark flicker of her eyelashes. She placed her glass back down on the counter top.
"True. You're looking especially angry today."
"Jarrah had me pulling a double-shift." She didn't bother to stifle her yawn. "Should head home soon. Not gonna be doing that again in a hurry."
"Did I miss anything exciting?"
Nothing could've been worse than his evening, he thought, but she nodded towards the news coverage on the television screen. Kevin glanced up. He couldn't hear what was being said over the sound of the music being played in the bar, but the images said it all.
"Scalpel Man reappeared," Ana-Lucia explained, just in case he hadn't picked up on that yet. "Just swanned in to break up an armed robbery tonight - acting like he hasn't been missing all this time."
"Did you get to talk to him?" Kevin asked without looking down from the screen. Frozen. His drink was placed in front of him and he handed over the payment for it, barely noticing the taste as he downed it as quickly as he could get away with.
"Jarrah dragged him in," she answered. "Not that he told us anything - kept saying he'd been on holiday. Bullshit. These fucking Capes, Kev... Someone needs to get them off the streets. They're a menace."
Kevin mumbled something quiet and non-committal. There was a whole lot of anti-superhero feeling out there in the police force; he still never knew how to respond to it. The idea of how his colleagues might react if they ever found out who he was and what he did... He didn't want to think about that any more than he had to. He'd cross that bridge if he ever came to it.
"He didn't mention those villains?" He sounded as innocently curious as he could get away with, but he had the feeling that he didn't manage it too successfully.
Ana-Lucia's shoulder quirked. "Says he's never even heard of them."
"You think he's lying?"
"I know he is." She heaved a frustrated sigh that was a step away from being a growl. "But I can't prove it."
Kevin ran a hand uneasily over his face, trying to work out what on earth this meant - because none of this could be a coincidence, right? Something was going on, but he didn't know how to put the pieces together in order to make them make sense.
His glass was barely half-drank but already he got to his feet.
"You're not staying?"
"Not in the mood," he answered, before offering her a grin. "Nothing to do with the company, I swear."
She snorted in response. "Whatever, Callis. Get out of here. I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Sure will," he promised. Another day like today; go into work. Carry on like normal. Like he was normal. Like the whole damn world was normal and he didn't have the ability to lift a car above his head without breaking a sweat.
He pulled his jacket on and walked out of the door, leaving that sweaty world of beer and music behind him. Entering the cold night air he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, where he could feel the silky material of his cape, folded up and stuffed inside. Flying would have been faster, but he ducked his head down and decided to walk. It wasn't too far, after all.
Maybe the fresh air'd do him good.
He had his doubts about that, but it didn't matter too much as he walked along the sidewalk he knew so well by this point. Every crack in the pavement was familiar. This whole town... He was starting to feel like he needed something new. A change of scenery, a change of direction, a breath of fresh air. Anything to get him on a new path other than the one he was chasing now. He didn't know where this was going to lead him - and, really, that scared him more than anything else he could have dreamt up, this aimless wandering towards nothing in particular.
It took him longer than it should have to reach his apartment. His steps were too slow, his path too wandering. He felt tired, so tired, the weight of the world dragging on his shoulders as he found his keys in his pockets and brought his hand up to the lock on the front door. It stuck a little, just like it always did, and he always had to resist the temptation to give the door a little nudge and knock it off its hinges. It'd let him get in a whole lot faster - but he wasn't quite sure how he'd go about explaining something like that to his neighbours or landlord.
There was no elevator in this apartment block - but the rent was cheap and the landlord was friendly and if he was honest then he couldn't really ask for anything more - so he took the stairs, climbing them two at a time with long strides. Already fantasies played out in his mind of falling into bed and being able to forget about the world for a few pleasant hours.
He reached his flat, several floors up, and located the right key on his keyring: he didn't have a clue what half of the keys there even did. Most of them probably weren't important at all, but he hung onto them just in case. Just in case... Goddamn.
His apartment was cold when he entered it - soothing and cool compared to the summer heat of the rest of the day - and it felt like it had been years since he'd last been home even though he'd only left it this morning. Felt like the whole world had changed in those hours.
What he noticed first of all, however, as he let the door close behind him, was that there was a light on his living room, and that could only spell trouble. His heart rate picked up. No point in sneaking around - if there was anyone here they would have heard the door closing, would know that he was here.
Maybe I left it on myself, he wondered. Maybe I was in such a rush this morning that I forgot.
But he knew that wasn't true. He didn't 'forget' anything.
Walking through to the living room, he wasn't sure what he was expecting to find but it sure as hell wasn't what was awaiting him: Sawyer and Monica sitting calmly on his couch, waiting for him. They didn't look rushed at all, didn't look on edge. They looked safe - and, god, Kevin hated how relieved that made him feel.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" he asked when he could summon words to his mouth again.
He wasn't sure if he was ready for the answer.
Part Seven