Accounted For
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Runaways
Characters: Yorkeses
Prompt: Present
Notes: For Table 4 of the 12 Stories challenge.
Disclaimer: This is me owning nothing. Except Cassandra, but I'm not picky.
Summary: Stacey misses the past.
11: Present
School was:
"Zimmer!"
"Here!"
And later:
"Zimmer!"
Press the button and let them know.
Academy was:
Zimmer. Check.
San Diego was:
"Zimmer! Stacey!"
And long, slow kisses, and she wasn’t sure why.
She’d lay down for him. Take anything he threw at her. Learn a few tricks and use them, just to see him surprised.
Life was check marks and lists. Numbers and letters. Beginnings and ends, but mostly ends, or what comes after. Anonymity and the loneliness that goes along with it.
She never figured out why Dale picked her. When she’d met him, she barely remembered her own first name. She’d sought perfection in machines and come out with a man. And he was closer to perfect than anything she could have created.
He’d been nothing but sloppy, mildly disgusting kisses, a tongue in her mouth and an unfamiliar sensation at first. Then he was slightly more refined. Long and hard in her body. Easy and gentle beside her.
Running away was easier when she knew Dale would be there to hold her hand. She’d never dealt well with conflict. Never dealt well with fear and accusations.
Stacey had never been a malicious person. She had always stayed in her own world, kept to herself. Half the reason she had someone to talk to was due entirely to the fact that she had a roommate and that she’d worked on a project with Dale Yorkes for Robotics.
She had never meant to destroy so many lives.
It was a cure. She’d been sure of it then. She was sure of it now. It was a cure. And somewhere, the cure had taken a wrong turn, and become a destructive, mind-altering thing that caused hallucinations and dementia, and culminated with pain, suicide, murder… In one case, a man had blown up a building. And the cure had only been available for a year.
She was there for the first. Dale was with her. He held her hand and they watched through the glass as one of the first to receive the cure-Stacey’s own half-sister-lost her mind. She beat a doctor’s head into the wall and attacked the glass where Stacey stood. She was feral. They’d shot her.
Trial and error, they’d said.
It’ll all be okay, Dale told her.
Nothing had gotten better. No amount of trying yielded a viable result. She gave up and ran with her husband at her side and the police at her heels.
Her precious daughter lay in her bed, fevered and delirious. Stacey watched and tried to pray, but only succeeded in trying.
All around her, time marched on, and she was stuck, stuck in one moment, one second, one blip. Stuck in her mistakes and stuck with her sick daughter.
Dale squeezed her shoulder. She didn’t move.
It’ll be all right, he wanted to say. It’ll all be over soon. She’ll wake up and we can go on with our lives.
Stacey had heard the words. Heard them too many times to believe them. Nothing ever got better. No one ever went on with their lives. The death of Cassandra had taught her that.
The clock ticked and Dale held her and she longed for the times when life was as simple as just being present.
Fandom: Runaways
Characters: Yorkeses
Prompt: Present
Notes: For Table 4 of the 12 Stories challenge.
Disclaimer: This is me owning nothing. Except Cassandra, but I'm not picky.
Summary: Stacey misses the past.
11: Present
School was:
"Zimmer!"
"Here!"
And later:
"Zimmer!"
Press the button and let them know.
Academy was:
Zimmer. Check.
San Diego was:
"Zimmer! Stacey!"
And long, slow kisses, and she wasn’t sure why.
She’d lay down for him. Take anything he threw at her. Learn a few tricks and use them, just to see him surprised.
Life was check marks and lists. Numbers and letters. Beginnings and ends, but mostly ends, or what comes after. Anonymity and the loneliness that goes along with it.
She never figured out why Dale picked her. When she’d met him, she barely remembered her own first name. She’d sought perfection in machines and come out with a man. And he was closer to perfect than anything she could have created.
He’d been nothing but sloppy, mildly disgusting kisses, a tongue in her mouth and an unfamiliar sensation at first. Then he was slightly more refined. Long and hard in her body. Easy and gentle beside her.
Running away was easier when she knew Dale would be there to hold her hand. She’d never dealt well with conflict. Never dealt well with fear and accusations.
Stacey had never been a malicious person. She had always stayed in her own world, kept to herself. Half the reason she had someone to talk to was due entirely to the fact that she had a roommate and that she’d worked on a project with Dale Yorkes for Robotics.
She had never meant to destroy so many lives.
It was a cure. She’d been sure of it then. She was sure of it now. It was a cure. And somewhere, the cure had taken a wrong turn, and become a destructive, mind-altering thing that caused hallucinations and dementia, and culminated with pain, suicide, murder… In one case, a man had blown up a building. And the cure had only been available for a year.
She was there for the first. Dale was with her. He held her hand and they watched through the glass as one of the first to receive the cure-Stacey’s own half-sister-lost her mind. She beat a doctor’s head into the wall and attacked the glass where Stacey stood. She was feral. They’d shot her.
Trial and error, they’d said.
It’ll all be okay, Dale told her.
Nothing had gotten better. No amount of trying yielded a viable result. She gave up and ran with her husband at her side and the police at her heels.
Her precious daughter lay in her bed, fevered and delirious. Stacey watched and tried to pray, but only succeeded in trying.
All around her, time marched on, and she was stuck, stuck in one moment, one second, one blip. Stuck in her mistakes and stuck with her sick daughter.
Dale squeezed her shoulder. She didn’t move.
It’ll be all right, he wanted to say. It’ll all be over soon. She’ll wake up and we can go on with our lives.
Stacey had heard the words. Heard them too many times to believe them. Nothing ever got better. No one ever went on with their lives. The death of Cassandra had taught her that.
The clock ticked and Dale held her and she longed for the times when life was as simple as just being present.