(no subject)
Title: This Brilliant Dance
Chapter One -- The Dancers
Author: Alex (soscaredtolove)
Feedback: is more golden than Ponyboy. ^.^
Pairing: Alison Grey/April Cornwell; more to come I'm sure
Word Count: 1420 (I know it's long, forgive me)
Rating: PG13 -- so far, some language, and Gordon's a little sex-crazed.
Genre: Scifi/Drama
Summary: Maybe superpowers aren't as random as you might think. Maybe they aren't as wonderful, either.
Chapter Summary: Paul isn't normal. Neither are Steve, Gordon and Ali.
Notes: ........Rather strange, but I really like this.
Spoilers: ...ROGER AND APRIL AND PAUL AND GORDON AND STEVE HAVE AIDS, ZOMG.
Warnings: ...AIDS? And Gordon's a little sex-focused.
Disclaimer: RENT isn't mine, neither is Books of Fell, where I got the idea for "The Record Keeper". However, the power-premise is mine; also, these versions of Ali, Gordon, Paul and Steve are mine.
Paul hated the Life Support group.
Oh, he wasn't one of the reluctant, scowling ones in the back (every group had one), dragged there by family, friends, or a significant other. For god's sake, he ran the group. That wasn't his problem with it.
It was the sadness, that made him sit on his chair and sob for hours after the last person left. It was the anger, directed at everyone and no one and inside, that made him double over halfway down the hallway. It was the mental attack on him, for being the authority figure, he had to try to ignore while he was conducting the group. It was the wondering if he was even sick that he longed to bark out at. It was the strangeness he couldn't quite grasp in a couple of the members. It was everything.
If he had been a normal man, he'd be fine. He'd find Life Support as emotionally nourishing and open as everyone else in the group. But Paul wasn't normal. Shortly after he'd gotten sick, shortly before he'd found out, he'd lept over that high wall from normal to extraordinary.
Because when he spoke about the sadness, or the anger present at Life Support, he wasn't just talking about a vauge sense coming from people. He was talking from knowledge, not suspicion. Because he could feel it in their emotions, and he could hear it in their thoughts.
And even if it helped him to help, it also hurt, to feel other people's emotions as your own, to hear the things they obviously never wanted you to know. It made every day much more difficult to get through without screaming.
***
"But where were they going without ever knowing the way?"
Singing at the top of your lungs, completely smashed, and on your own. Steve couldn't think of a better way to spend a Monday night.
Well, okay, he could think of a lot of better ways. And, okay, maybe getting smashed because your doctor just told you you've progressed and you're trying to get the courage to tell your sister isn't the most fun way to spend a night, but he was trying to forget that.
"They'll never get hungry, they'll never get old and grey..."
He'd always loved this song, but now it kind of hurt to hear. Because...
Not getting old and grey wasn't always a reason to celebrate.
He would never get old and grey. He was 25. He'd be dead before he hit 30, probably.
And this wasn't not thinking about it.
"Dammit," he growled, focusing on the stero volume until it went up one, two, three, four notches. He turned around and caught the beer can before it went flying into the wall and doubled his determination to be okay when he called Ali.
***
Becoming invisible, if you really focused on it, could become as lush an experience as sex.
No, really. Or at least, Gordon assumed it was. He'd never actually gotten to that before the whole HIV-thing hit. Maybe that was why he was so bitter.
Not that his family believed that. But just because he was gay and HIV+ didn't mean he'd been having sex. Not that drugs was much better, but he'd've liked to try them both before things got to this point. Life didn't always work how you wanted it too, though.
But anyway. Back to invisiblity. Maybe he'd never tried sex, but Gordon knew invisibility inside and out. It hit him a little while after the AIDS did, after all, and three years with a superpower that let you play tricks on people as your only distraction from living on the street and getting gradually sicker each day means you use it a lot. The sensation of molocules lengthing, turning him into something shapeless, weightless, unlike any other person in this world, was the closest he'd ever gotten to an orgasm.
And invisibility meant he didn't pay for AZT, or food, or an occasional stolen night in an empty bed. Invisiblity meant he lived much better than most homeless people he met on the street, and that was more than worth any amount of caution he had to use.
Besides, he was used to being ignored. He'd grown up that way.
***
April stood on a street corner, screaming at the top of her lungs.
The people watching her alternately stared, looked away in shock, hurried past, and didn't seem to notice her existance; she didn't care. She just kept screaming, screaming, screaming.. If she kept screaming, she didn't come back to the real world. If she didn't come back to the real world, the paper in her hand didn't exist. If the paper in her hand didn't exist, she wasn't sick.
It was simple math, really.
Eventually, her throat raw, her stomach aching for breath, and her ears ringing, her scream trailed off into silence, leaving her huddled over, leaning against a building, and gasping for breath.
She glanced again at the paper, but it still said the same thing. April Cornwell. Positive.
Somewhere nearby, thunder rumbled in the sunny summer sky. People around her looked up at the rapidly darkening clouds.
God, not that too. Not now. Not here.
She took off running. Just running, anywhere, anywhere safe, anywhere away from the storm rumbling as loudly as the thoughts racing in her mind, the crack of lightening as bright as the rage that flashed in her chest, the rain pounding as loudly as her feet on the pavement, all in the same rhythm as the relentless monster she was running from: Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. And she sped up, the rain fell harder, the rhythm faster: SickSickSickSickSickSick.
She had to keep running. She could outrun it, nevermind that the storm would follow her wherever she went, that the monster was already part of her, in her brain, in her blood, inescapable.
She came to a stop in front of Ali's apartment and didn't hesitate before she went in, soaking wet and shivering, using the rain on her face to hide the tears. Whatever she was going to do, she needed to see Ali first, and then she'd go home and... She wasn't sure what. Tell Roger. Cry. Kill herself.
The last option was the most enticing right about now.
***
The Record Keeper:
When the dusts of planet Earth settled and the land was bare, the Gods took their own hair and their own breath and created creatures of it to roam the Earth. And the resulting creatures were dumb, lacking any portion of the wisdom or the power of the Gods, and unfit to rule the Earth and keep themselves alive.
And so the Gods mated, and they brought their children to Earth when they were old enough to live on their own, and gave them rule of the world and the animals. But these children were raised among the Gods, and each believed themselves the rightful owner of the world. So they staged battles, using their power against each other, and before the Gods could interfer, there were barely a hundred left.
And the Gods were angry, and stripped the powers of all their children still alive, leaving them to heal from the wars alone. When they returned after a time they felt a rightful punishment, only twenty were still alive -- twenty who had not taken part in the original fighting, and who'd attempted to heal those left afterwards.
So the Gods returned their powers to them, but because they feared the return of the wars, they populated the rest of the Earth with children whos powers were stripped at birth. And the twenty remaning true Children of the Gods were told to blend among the humans, because if they knew the truth, jealousy would lead them to kill their sisters and brothers.
It was assumed that the true Children died out after the War. But they were so part of the Earth they could never completely leave, and after the death of the first Children, their powers transferred restlessly to a new home. And so it continues today.
Chapter One -- The Dancers
Author: Alex (soscaredtolove)
Feedback: is more golden than Ponyboy. ^.^
Pairing: Alison Grey/April Cornwell; more to come I'm sure
Word Count: 1420 (I know it's long, forgive me)
Rating: PG13 -- so far, some language, and Gordon's a little sex-crazed.
Genre: Scifi/Drama
Summary: Maybe superpowers aren't as random as you might think. Maybe they aren't as wonderful, either.
Chapter Summary: Paul isn't normal. Neither are Steve, Gordon and Ali.
Notes: ........Rather strange, but I really like this.
Spoilers: ...ROGER AND APRIL AND PAUL AND GORDON AND STEVE HAVE AIDS, ZOMG.
Warnings: ...AIDS? And Gordon's a little sex-focused.
Disclaimer: RENT isn't mine, neither is Books of Fell, where I got the idea for "The Record Keeper". However, the power-premise is mine; also, these versions of Ali, Gordon, Paul and Steve are mine.
Paul hated the Life Support group.
Oh, he wasn't one of the reluctant, scowling ones in the back (every group had one), dragged there by family, friends, or a significant other. For god's sake, he ran the group. That wasn't his problem with it.
It was the sadness, that made him sit on his chair and sob for hours after the last person left. It was the anger, directed at everyone and no one and inside, that made him double over halfway down the hallway. It was the mental attack on him, for being the authority figure, he had to try to ignore while he was conducting the group. It was the wondering if he was even sick that he longed to bark out at. It was the strangeness he couldn't quite grasp in a couple of the members. It was everything.
If he had been a normal man, he'd be fine. He'd find Life Support as emotionally nourishing and open as everyone else in the group. But Paul wasn't normal. Shortly after he'd gotten sick, shortly before he'd found out, he'd lept over that high wall from normal to extraordinary.
Because when he spoke about the sadness, or the anger present at Life Support, he wasn't just talking about a vauge sense coming from people. He was talking from knowledge, not suspicion. Because he could feel it in their emotions, and he could hear it in their thoughts.
And even if it helped him to help, it also hurt, to feel other people's emotions as your own, to hear the things they obviously never wanted you to know. It made every day much more difficult to get through without screaming.
***
"But where were they going without ever knowing the way?"
Singing at the top of your lungs, completely smashed, and on your own. Steve couldn't think of a better way to spend a Monday night.
Well, okay, he could think of a lot of better ways. And, okay, maybe getting smashed because your doctor just told you you've progressed and you're trying to get the courage to tell your sister isn't the most fun way to spend a night, but he was trying to forget that.
"They'll never get hungry, they'll never get old and grey..."
He'd always loved this song, but now it kind of hurt to hear. Because...
Not getting old and grey wasn't always a reason to celebrate.
He would never get old and grey. He was 25. He'd be dead before he hit 30, probably.
And this wasn't not thinking about it.
"Dammit," he growled, focusing on the stero volume until it went up one, two, three, four notches. He turned around and caught the beer can before it went flying into the wall and doubled his determination to be okay when he called Ali.
***
Becoming invisible, if you really focused on it, could become as lush an experience as sex.
No, really. Or at least, Gordon assumed it was. He'd never actually gotten to that before the whole HIV-thing hit. Maybe that was why he was so bitter.
Not that his family believed that. But just because he was gay and HIV+ didn't mean he'd been having sex. Not that drugs was much better, but he'd've liked to try them both before things got to this point. Life didn't always work how you wanted it too, though.
But anyway. Back to invisiblity. Maybe he'd never tried sex, but Gordon knew invisibility inside and out. It hit him a little while after the AIDS did, after all, and three years with a superpower that let you play tricks on people as your only distraction from living on the street and getting gradually sicker each day means you use it a lot. The sensation of molocules lengthing, turning him into something shapeless, weightless, unlike any other person in this world, was the closest he'd ever gotten to an orgasm.
And invisibility meant he didn't pay for AZT, or food, or an occasional stolen night in an empty bed. Invisiblity meant he lived much better than most homeless people he met on the street, and that was more than worth any amount of caution he had to use.
Besides, he was used to being ignored. He'd grown up that way.
***
April stood on a street corner, screaming at the top of her lungs.
The people watching her alternately stared, looked away in shock, hurried past, and didn't seem to notice her existance; she didn't care. She just kept screaming, screaming, screaming.. If she kept screaming, she didn't come back to the real world. If she didn't come back to the real world, the paper in her hand didn't exist. If the paper in her hand didn't exist, she wasn't sick.
It was simple math, really.
Eventually, her throat raw, her stomach aching for breath, and her ears ringing, her scream trailed off into silence, leaving her huddled over, leaning against a building, and gasping for breath.
She glanced again at the paper, but it still said the same thing. April Cornwell. Positive.
Somewhere nearby, thunder rumbled in the sunny summer sky. People around her looked up at the rapidly darkening clouds.
God, not that too. Not now. Not here.
She took off running. Just running, anywhere, anywhere safe, anywhere away from the storm rumbling as loudly as the thoughts racing in her mind, the crack of lightening as bright as the rage that flashed in her chest, the rain pounding as loudly as her feet on the pavement, all in the same rhythm as the relentless monster she was running from: Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. And she sped up, the rain fell harder, the rhythm faster: SickSickSickSickSickSick.
She had to keep running. She could outrun it, nevermind that the storm would follow her wherever she went, that the monster was already part of her, in her brain, in her blood, inescapable.
She came to a stop in front of Ali's apartment and didn't hesitate before she went in, soaking wet and shivering, using the rain on her face to hide the tears. Whatever she was going to do, she needed to see Ali first, and then she'd go home and... She wasn't sure what. Tell Roger. Cry. Kill herself.
The last option was the most enticing right about now.
***
The Record Keeper:
When the dusts of planet Earth settled and the land was bare, the Gods took their own hair and their own breath and created creatures of it to roam the Earth. And the resulting creatures were dumb, lacking any portion of the wisdom or the power of the Gods, and unfit to rule the Earth and keep themselves alive.
And so the Gods mated, and they brought their children to Earth when they were old enough to live on their own, and gave them rule of the world and the animals. But these children were raised among the Gods, and each believed themselves the rightful owner of the world. So they staged battles, using their power against each other, and before the Gods could interfer, there were barely a hundred left.
And the Gods were angry, and stripped the powers of all their children still alive, leaving them to heal from the wars alone. When they returned after a time they felt a rightful punishment, only twenty were still alive -- twenty who had not taken part in the original fighting, and who'd attempted to heal those left afterwards.
So the Gods returned their powers to them, but because they feared the return of the wars, they populated the rest of the Earth with children whos powers were stripped at birth. And the twenty remaning true Children of the Gods were told to blend among the humans, because if they knew the truth, jealousy would lead them to kill their sisters and brothers.
It was assumed that the true Children died out after the War. But they were so part of the Earth they could never completely leave, and after the death of the first Children, their powers transferred restlessly to a new home. And so it continues today.