[Fic] Fated to Pretend (Animorphs)
Title: Fated To Pretend
Fandom: Animorphs, gen (Marco-centric)
Summary: A few post-war Marco drabbles. They've been sitting on my hard drive for awhile, and I'm not sure why I've never posted them!
Spoilers: Up to and including #54, The Beginning
The phone rang, cutting through my nightmare. I looked at the clock, 3:39 am, and was instantly awake. Cold sweat beaded down my back as I reached for the phone by my bed. What fresh Hell had cropped up overnight that Jake was calling me to deal with?
But there was no phone on my desk. In fact, my desk wasn’t there, either. Where was I?! As I was groping for the phone, it stopped ringing, and I could hear the muffled sound of my dad’s voice. Shit, if Jake gave something away, not realizing it wasn’t me…
“Nothing to worry about!” my dad yelled, way too cheerfully for pre-dawn. “A reporter found our hotel room number. Told him he needed to let our hero sleep!”
Oh.
OH. We’d won. Jake was never going to call me in the middle of the night about the Yeerk threat again. Less than a day after becoming a “Former Animorph,” and I’d already forgotten. As the adrenaline ebbed away, weariness washed over me. Everything felt hazy, disconnected.
I hadn’t had any alcohol to drink at the post-alien invasion binge the human race had hastily cobbled together. But the last forty-eight hours had been such a whirlwind of abject terror and giddy relief, so much emotion that I felt for all the world hungover, like that night when Cassie had been missing for a week and Tobias liberated some beers from somewhere and he and I got Rachel roaring drunk.
Rachel. Oh, God. I’d watched her die yesterday. That seemed less real, almost, than the war ending. I guess I’d always expected the fighting to end someday, but never that Rachel would actually give in to death. We had all died so many times, after all.
“If you’re going to wow us with one of your loopholes,” I muttered under my breath, “Now would be a really great time, Ellimist.” I waited. I watched the digital clock switch from 3:47 to 3:48, and nothing happened. I started crying, but when I thought about it, it almost made sense. The war was over. What was left for our War Goddess to do? She hadn’t died, she’s simply moved on, gone on to some other fight.
If there was one thing Rachel wouldn’t want, it was for my sense of victory in this moment to be ruined by crying over her. “Buck up, you big baby,” she’d say. “Don’t let me keep you from using your hero status to bang some supermodels. What the shit would I do in peacetime, anyway?”
The more I cried, the guiltier I felt. When I finally fell back asleep, my dreams were a strange mess.
It’d take three months for me to stop expecting a war every time I woke up.
***
“I thought Tobias was going to punch Jake, right there on the bridge,” I told Cassie. “We’re boys. That’s the best way they could have settled it. I mean, Tobias would have lost, but…”
“No, he wouldn’t have,” Cassie replied.
I laughed and pointed to her drink. “You’ve had too much. You’re cut off.” She was only drinking Diet Coke, but that made it funnier. “Even if he wasn’t completely nearsighted, Tobias’ human morph was three years younger, half a foot shorter, and at least fifty pounds lighter than Jake.”
“Jake wouldn’t have hit back,” she said.
And when I thought about it, I realized she was right.
***
And then the service started in earnest. The music was depressing, but the ocean breeze at her memorial site was pleasant and the speeches were a nice thought. The front row of folding chairs was reserved for Animorphs and family. Rachel’s family-including Jake and his parents-and Cassie were on one side of the aisle. On the other side, Ax and me, with Mom, Dad, Loren, Cassie’s parents, and Toby. I knew Erek and some of the other Chee were in the back, ostensibly as former classmates. The president of the United States and Doubleday were there, as were a bunch of Andalites who looked about as expressive as Buckingham Palace guards, and an honor guard of our Hork-Bajir allies.
I imagined Rachel sitting on top of the little box, one leg crossed over the other as she dangled a high heel and listened to all of us praise her. I had to stop imagining that when I started my speech, though, because I said things I would have never, ever said to her face. Flattering things. I’d pretty much lost all sense of composure by the time I finished. Though I’d later swear to various model/actress girlfriends that I’d been trying to convey just the right amount of emotion for the cameras, in reality I had forgotten we were being filmed.
We were almost at the end, during some prayer that I’m sure mostly-nonreligious Rachel wouldn’t have been into but her mom and dad seemed to appreciate, when the final Animorph decided to grace us with his presence.
How many times had that plummeting silhouette come out of the clouds to save my life? Of course I recognized Tobias when he was still way up in the sky. With all the precision of someone who’d logged more flight time than any pilot on Earth, Tobias landed precisely on the top of the box and closed his talons around it. He looked at Rachel's mom. She was crying more than Cassie, but she nodded her head. Tobias looked at Cassie. “Yes, Tobias. She would want it.”
No look in our direction. I wasn’t expecting any acknowledgment of me, of course. We’d been teammates, friends, even, but I didn’t expect him to owe me anything in his grief.
But Loren…?
“You stupid fucking bird,” I murmured, low enough for only Tobias and maybe Mom to hear. I held it together all through the rest of the memorial service and through most of the reception afterwards, through the interviews. But then the outsiders slowly began to drift away, the news networks and the politicians and the gate crashers. And for a few moments, it was just us. Animorphs and co., standing on the top of a hillside overlooking the sea.
Without really thinking about whether or not it was a good idea, I cornered Cassie. “No, Cassie!” I yelled. For some reason, I was angrier about this than I would be about anything else about how our post-war lives were shaping up. Angrier, even, than Jake’s emerging depression or what would happen later to Arbon. I was practically shaking. “Rachel would not have fucking wanted it!”
For a long second, nobody moved, not even Cassie. Jake looked like he didn’t have the energy to stop this, and Dad looked away, maybe remembering what he had been like in his grief. Finally, movement. Mom reached out to intercept me, grabbed my elbow.
“Marco-” Mom began. I spun to face her.
“I love you, Mom,” I said, “but you’re the one who taught me to look for that small little spark in a bad situation, the one thing to laugh about. Now Tobias has a mother, too,” I said, jabbing a finger at Loren.
She started to tear up, and Naomi, of all people, pulled her into a hug. I maybe felt a little bit bad about making Loren cry, but I wanted the others to see that she was collateral of this malaise we’d fallen into. “His whole life, he thought she was dead or gone, but then he got the chance to get her back, and that’s amazing. But instead, he’s going off to his sad bird meadow alone with Rachel’s ashes for the rest of his life. What a waste. What a Goddamn waste.”
“Marco, I really wish you wouldn’t curse,” my dad said, like that was the big tragedy here.
“I fucking saved the fucking world, Dad!” I replied. “We all did, all six of us! But everyone else seems to have completely forgotten that.”
“We lost too many along the way,” Jake replied. “That’s what you seem to have forgotten.”
“I know you think I’m insensitive,” I said, “but I’m grieving for Rachel just as much as all of you. I’m just not letting that blind me to the fact that the last thing she would have wanted is for us to silently give our permission for Tobias to go off and die.”
“Rachel’s dead,” Jake said.
“But Tobias isn’t, not yet.”
Jake turned his back on me. He didn’t return my calls for two weeks. I looked for Tobias, but I didn’t find him. Maybe the others knew where he was. Maybe they told him to avoid me, that I’d just scream at him. That’s probably true.
I sent Loren a Christmas present every year.
Fandom: Animorphs, gen (Marco-centric)
Summary: A few post-war Marco drabbles. They've been sitting on my hard drive for awhile, and I'm not sure why I've never posted them!
Spoilers: Up to and including #54, The Beginning
The phone rang, cutting through my nightmare. I looked at the clock, 3:39 am, and was instantly awake. Cold sweat beaded down my back as I reached for the phone by my bed. What fresh Hell had cropped up overnight that Jake was calling me to deal with?
But there was no phone on my desk. In fact, my desk wasn’t there, either. Where was I?! As I was groping for the phone, it stopped ringing, and I could hear the muffled sound of my dad’s voice. Shit, if Jake gave something away, not realizing it wasn’t me…
“Nothing to worry about!” my dad yelled, way too cheerfully for pre-dawn. “A reporter found our hotel room number. Told him he needed to let our hero sleep!”
Oh.
OH. We’d won. Jake was never going to call me in the middle of the night about the Yeerk threat again. Less than a day after becoming a “Former Animorph,” and I’d already forgotten. As the adrenaline ebbed away, weariness washed over me. Everything felt hazy, disconnected.
I hadn’t had any alcohol to drink at the post-alien invasion binge the human race had hastily cobbled together. But the last forty-eight hours had been such a whirlwind of abject terror and giddy relief, so much emotion that I felt for all the world hungover, like that night when Cassie had been missing for a week and Tobias liberated some beers from somewhere and he and I got Rachel roaring drunk.
Rachel. Oh, God. I’d watched her die yesterday. That seemed less real, almost, than the war ending. I guess I’d always expected the fighting to end someday, but never that Rachel would actually give in to death. We had all died so many times, after all.
“If you’re going to wow us with one of your loopholes,” I muttered under my breath, “Now would be a really great time, Ellimist.” I waited. I watched the digital clock switch from 3:47 to 3:48, and nothing happened. I started crying, but when I thought about it, it almost made sense. The war was over. What was left for our War Goddess to do? She hadn’t died, she’s simply moved on, gone on to some other fight.
If there was one thing Rachel wouldn’t want, it was for my sense of victory in this moment to be ruined by crying over her. “Buck up, you big baby,” she’d say. “Don’t let me keep you from using your hero status to bang some supermodels. What the shit would I do in peacetime, anyway?”
The more I cried, the guiltier I felt. When I finally fell back asleep, my dreams were a strange mess.
It’d take three months for me to stop expecting a war every time I woke up.
***
“I thought Tobias was going to punch Jake, right there on the bridge,” I told Cassie. “We’re boys. That’s the best way they could have settled it. I mean, Tobias would have lost, but…”
“No, he wouldn’t have,” Cassie replied.
I laughed and pointed to her drink. “You’ve had too much. You’re cut off.” She was only drinking Diet Coke, but that made it funnier. “Even if he wasn’t completely nearsighted, Tobias’ human morph was three years younger, half a foot shorter, and at least fifty pounds lighter than Jake.”
“Jake wouldn’t have hit back,” she said.
And when I thought about it, I realized she was right.
***
And then the service started in earnest. The music was depressing, but the ocean breeze at her memorial site was pleasant and the speeches were a nice thought. The front row of folding chairs was reserved for Animorphs and family. Rachel’s family-including Jake and his parents-and Cassie were on one side of the aisle. On the other side, Ax and me, with Mom, Dad, Loren, Cassie’s parents, and Toby. I knew Erek and some of the other Chee were in the back, ostensibly as former classmates. The president of the United States and Doubleday were there, as were a bunch of Andalites who looked about as expressive as Buckingham Palace guards, and an honor guard of our Hork-Bajir allies.
I imagined Rachel sitting on top of the little box, one leg crossed over the other as she dangled a high heel and listened to all of us praise her. I had to stop imagining that when I started my speech, though, because I said things I would have never, ever said to her face. Flattering things. I’d pretty much lost all sense of composure by the time I finished. Though I’d later swear to various model/actress girlfriends that I’d been trying to convey just the right amount of emotion for the cameras, in reality I had forgotten we were being filmed.
We were almost at the end, during some prayer that I’m sure mostly-nonreligious Rachel wouldn’t have been into but her mom and dad seemed to appreciate, when the final Animorph decided to grace us with his presence.
How many times had that plummeting silhouette come out of the clouds to save my life? Of course I recognized Tobias when he was still way up in the sky. With all the precision of someone who’d logged more flight time than any pilot on Earth, Tobias landed precisely on the top of the box and closed his talons around it. He looked at Rachel's mom. She was crying more than Cassie, but she nodded her head. Tobias looked at Cassie. “Yes, Tobias. She would want it.”
No look in our direction. I wasn’t expecting any acknowledgment of me, of course. We’d been teammates, friends, even, but I didn’t expect him to owe me anything in his grief.
But Loren…?
“You stupid fucking bird,” I murmured, low enough for only Tobias and maybe Mom to hear. I held it together all through the rest of the memorial service and through most of the reception afterwards, through the interviews. But then the outsiders slowly began to drift away, the news networks and the politicians and the gate crashers. And for a few moments, it was just us. Animorphs and co., standing on the top of a hillside overlooking the sea.
Without really thinking about whether or not it was a good idea, I cornered Cassie. “No, Cassie!” I yelled. For some reason, I was angrier about this than I would be about anything else about how our post-war lives were shaping up. Angrier, even, than Jake’s emerging depression or what would happen later to Arbon. I was practically shaking. “Rachel would not have fucking wanted it!”
For a long second, nobody moved, not even Cassie. Jake looked like he didn’t have the energy to stop this, and Dad looked away, maybe remembering what he had been like in his grief. Finally, movement. Mom reached out to intercept me, grabbed my elbow.
“Marco-” Mom began. I spun to face her.
“I love you, Mom,” I said, “but you’re the one who taught me to look for that small little spark in a bad situation, the one thing to laugh about. Now Tobias has a mother, too,” I said, jabbing a finger at Loren.
She started to tear up, and Naomi, of all people, pulled her into a hug. I maybe felt a little bit bad about making Loren cry, but I wanted the others to see that she was collateral of this malaise we’d fallen into. “His whole life, he thought she was dead or gone, but then he got the chance to get her back, and that’s amazing. But instead, he’s going off to his sad bird meadow alone with Rachel’s ashes for the rest of his life. What a waste. What a Goddamn waste.”
“Marco, I really wish you wouldn’t curse,” my dad said, like that was the big tragedy here.
“I fucking saved the fucking world, Dad!” I replied. “We all did, all six of us! But everyone else seems to have completely forgotten that.”
“We lost too many along the way,” Jake replied. “That’s what you seem to have forgotten.”
“I know you think I’m insensitive,” I said, “but I’m grieving for Rachel just as much as all of you. I’m just not letting that blind me to the fact that the last thing she would have wanted is for us to silently give our permission for Tobias to go off and die.”
“Rachel’s dead,” Jake said.
“But Tobias isn’t, not yet.”
Jake turned his back on me. He didn’t return my calls for two weeks. I looked for Tobias, but I didn’t find him. Maybe the others knew where he was. Maybe they told him to avoid me, that I’d just scream at him. That’s probably true.
I sent Loren a Christmas present every year.