[Dreams of the Waking Man: End of Dreaming I] (We Can't Afford to Be) Innocent
it's that time again! that's right, it's the time where i get tired of waiting for my brain to finish all the stuff that happens in-between and i just skip right to the important plot points. i may come back and fill in the blanks, or i may just hand out little outlines and farm them to you guys to write...
so i'll start you with this little snippet, and probably post something unrelated later today, because i've got a minor backlog from waiting futilely for my brain to be productive.
warnings: Earth-339. sci-fi. post-apocalyptic (not to be confused with post-Apocalypse, because he doesn't show up for another few hundred years). OCs: Juliet and James are the twin children of Laura Kinney and Julian Keller. reference to multiple (and impending) character deaths. language: g.
pairing: none/gen (background Laura/Julian and Nate/Wade).
timeline: 2023, maybe a few months after the events in What I Haven't Got.
disclaimer: i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.
notes: 1) the title is a reference to the Pat Benatar song "Invincible." all the titles from the End of Dreaming sequence will be. 2) as we saw in Aftermath, Juliet inherited Dollpool from Hope. 3) remember how Nate left Laura in charge of his helicarrier? she renamed it Dayspring.
(We Can’t Afford to Be) Innocent
Juliet has never been in Uncle Wade’s room before. It’s a little scary, to be honest, so she steps closer to James and hides her face against the back of Dollpool’s head.
There’s writing on one wall-not in paint or crayon or marker, but scratched into the metal. Adults seem to think it’s weird, but the twins have known how to read for a while now; she can see that the writing is a bunch of names. She doesn’t know most of the names, but she sees Tommy’s name, and Billy’s, and Teddy’s, and Uncle Nathan’s.
Juliet doesn’t understand why Uncle Wade has a list of dead people on his wall.
He just watches them for a long time. He smells sad.
“Bet you’re wondering why you’re here,” he says after a while.
“Duh,” says James. “And why’d you send Mommy away?”
“Because I’m gonna tell you secrets, and she doesn’t get to know them,” Uncle Wade says. He moves his hand, and Juliet sees a sparkle-Eight-ball.
“Hello, Eight-ball,” she says politely, because the flickering lights mean he’s awake.
~Hello, Juliet,~ he replies. She likes Eight-ball’s voice; he sounds a little like Uncle Wade, and he always sounds so calm and reassuring.
James snorts.
Her brother doesn’t approve of talking to Eight-ball. He says Eight-ball’s just a computer, not a person. Shows what James knows, because Eight-ball has people he likes and people he doesn’t like, and he has a favorite song and a favorite color, and only people have favorites of things. Also, Juliet’s never seen a computer that cusses, and Eight-ball does. Eight-ball cusses as much as Mommy does, which seems to be a lot (compared to most people).
“What kind of secrets?” James asks.
Uncle Wade pats his bunk, so they go and sit on either side of him. Juliet automatically takes the side where Eight-ball is, watches him twinkle in Uncle Wade’s palm. “Things about the future,” he says.
“Ooh, do you know if I’m gonna marry a handsome man?” Juliet wants to know.
~Very handsome,~ Eight-ball tells her. ~His name is Michael, and he won’t be born for another twelve years.~
“That’s a long time,” says James.
~It really isn’t,~ says Eight-ball.
“Yay!” Juliet cheers.
“That’s not important,” James asserts. “That’s dumb.”
“Someday, you kids are gonna be in charge of your very own helicarrier,” Uncle Wade says. “So I want you to start learning how a carrier works, okay? We’ll start with the guns.”
“Cool!” says James.
“Which carrier will we get?” Juliet asks.
“I don’t know that it really matters which-” Uncle Wade starts to say, sounding doubtful.
~The Dayspring,~ Eight-ball says.
Mommy’s ship. She purses her lips. “Not because something bad happens to Mommy?”
~Because you do a good job in a battle and your mother wants to reward you.~
“And after the weapons, we’ll move on to power source and matter synths,” Uncle Wade goes on. He seems to want to change the subject.
“Why couldn’t Mommy be here for that?” Juliet asks. “Is there something else you’re going to tell us?”
Uncle Wade sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Okay. Okay, let’s get this over with. Let’s… Franklin Richards. Valeria Richards. Danielle Cage. Katie Ashton. James Keller. Juliet Keller. Gabriel Frost. Susan Bradley. Delilah Lang. Michael Richards. Ten people instrumental in the survival of the fleet thirty years from now.”
“How many of those aren’t born yet?”
“The last four.”
“I still don’t get why Mommy had to be out of the room,” James complains. “What’s the big deal about a bunch of names? Mommy’s good at keeping secrets.”
“The most important thing you’ll do in your life is die, Jim,” Uncle Wade says angrily. “You think your mommy needs to hear that?”
Her brother isn’t afraid-she can smell it. “But it’s a good thing, right? It helps save the fleet?”
~Yes,~ says Eight-ball.
James nods. “So that’s okay.”
“But I think Mommy would be sad to know it in advance,” Juliet remarks.
“So we won’t tell her.”
Uncle Wade sighs. “And here I thought I’d have a hard time explaining this to you kids.”
“We’re five, not retarded,” James says primly.
.End.
merianmoriarty has my formal permission to pimp my fics on various comms (if/when i ever abandon deviantART, i'll go ahead and join the comms myself and take care of getting things posted in the right places). no one has permission to re-post this ANYWHERE, but feel free to share or link.
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