trans_9 | There's got to be a morning after [VERY OPEN]

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There's got to be a morning after [VERY OPEN]

It took a few moments for any thoughts to register for Steve when he opened his eyes. He recognized the inside of a quarantine bubble, that was for sure, but it took him longer to recognize the medical equipment hooked up to him, an IV in his arm and bandages wrapped around his bare shoulder and in a few other spots.

It didn't take long to recognize the feeling of having been run over by a truck, either. Every bone in his body ached, and even the slightest movement made him want to groan. It felt like he'd been asleep for a month-- a dreamless sleep, preceded by blurry, disconnected memories of what felt like a dream.

Memories of something he desperately, desperately hoped was just a dream. He had a sinking feeling it wasn't and part of him knew it to be the truth. But desperately hoping was the only way he could keep himself from screaming, which would hurt, so he'd keep on with that desperate hope anyway.

Steve lay awake and stared at the ceiling. Maybe if he stayed quiet they'd think he was still asleep, and he could put the truth and all the fear and sorrow that came with it off a while longer.

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Paco sat down with his back against the outside of Steve's bubble, taking a few moments to make himself comfortable. He was armed with his omnicomm to keep himself entertained while he waited, if Steve was still unconscious. He hadn't actually checked, since that...would be kind of rude, really.

"So," he said, staring off into middle distance. "If you're awake and want to talk, I'm here to listen and talk back. If you're awake and don't want to talk, I'm here for moral support. If you're not awake, then, uh, I guess I'll repeat this until you do wake up. Whichever you want, I'm cool. I've got reading material."

"I'm awake," a tired voice answered back from inside the bubble. "But I don't know what there is to talk about. It's kind of a drawn conclusion."

Steve at least waited until he had Paco's attention before he made the bubble fade away. Somebody must have programmed it where he could control it... because it certainly hadn't had that feature the other thousand times he was thrown in here.

"You can come in if you want," he muttered.

"Well, it doesn't have to be about what happened," Paco said with a philosophical shrug. "We can talk about other stuff stuff too. Distract you a bit."

When he entered the bubble and got a good look at Steve, he almost said something about how Steve looked like he'd been hit by a truck. But he didn't, he wasn't that thoughtless.

"How you holding up, dude?"

"Like I've been hit by a truck."

He shrugged his shoulders again, and gave a barely noticeable wince of pain. "I don't know. About as well as you can when you turn into a monster and try to kill everybody you know," he replied. "I didn't attack you too, did I?"

"You look like it, but I wasn't gonna say anything."

Paco sat down next to Steve and playfully nudged him with his elbow. "I'm going to assume that you asked that out of nerves or something and not because I look like I tried to take you on. Nahh, I saw the warning on the comms and changed my plans from "bother Steve" to "keep other people from bothering Steve". You'd be surprised how many people on board take warnings as invitations."

"Yeah, well... it's not my fault some people are morons," Steve muttered. Really, the more cynical side of him had suggested, why should it be his fault that a bunch of idiots decided to pick a fight with him anyway? And now he had to sit around and wallow in the guilt over it? Total bullshit. "I guess if you'd tried to fight me too you'd be in traction somewhere."

He winced in pain and tried to sit up a little further, to pretend like he wasn't wincing in pain. "You know what it feels like when you're in a growth spurt and your knees hurt really bad? Imagine that, except everywhere and like a hundred times worse."

"Nope," Paco said. "It's also not your fault that a bunch of people here are metas and capes who are used to fighting big scary things. As a sidekick, it's my job to help move the people that don't want to be near the big scary things away so that they don't get hurt."

He winced sympathetically. "Ahh, growing pains, how I don't miss you. For me, it was always the shins. Knees didn't give me trouble."

Superheroes. Ugh. "Man, it hurts in places I didn't even know I had," he replied. "Not to mention I apparently got shot something like sixty times, plus who knows what else from all the gung ho people trying to save the day. Stupid goddamn virus."

A heavy sigh. "Guess I'm outed as a weirdo."

"Look at it this way, you look awesome for someone who got shot sixty times and took on a ship full of people who took on the Nightmare King," Paco said. "And don't worry about being outed. No one blames you for it, and on the very very off-chance that it happens again, we know how to take the monster down and get you back in one piece."

"How do you figure nobody blames me for it? It's only a matter of time until somebody charges in here to take another shot at me. Why do you think they're keeping me in quarantine this time at all?"

He sighed again and glanced at Paco out of the corner of his eye. "I was perfectly happy being totally invisible around here."

"You're sick, it's hardly your fault that you turn into a giant monster instead of sneezing or getting covered with an itchy rash," Paco said, frowning. "I haven't seen anyone calling for your head on the comms or anything. I figured they were just keeping you in here because you got shot sixty times and they want to make sure you're all healed up. It's not like they have you under guard or anything."

Paco shrugged and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. "Well, that does suck. It's going to take awhile for your invisibility to grow back, but I'm sure you'll fade into the background again soon enough. I had an evil slug in my head that tried to blow up a part of Stacy's brain, and no one's looking at me funny now."

Steve seemed in an especially sullen mood at the moment. He couldn't tell if it was the general malaise of the situation getting to him, or the fact he didn't like getting advice from people his own age.

"I hate this stupid ship," he muttered. Off-topic, but true. "I want to go home. But there's no home for me to go to even if we somehow manage to save the world.

"What do you mean?" Paco asked, frowning worriedly as he looked Steve over. "Are you one of the people that woke up here after dying?" He knew that some people had, but besides that Cybil lady, he'd never gotten around to putting names to faces.

He was quiet for a moment, but then Steve nodded. "This has happened to me once before. But that time I died," he confirmed.

He crossed his arms and let out a moody little sigh. "So there really are other people like me around here?"

Well, damn. What do you say to that?

"I'm glad you didn't this time," Paco said. Then, changed the subject back to Steve's question, which unfortunately wasn't going to be much of a change. "I heard some people had. Like, uh, I don't know if you were around for her, but Cybil Bennett, the cop lady who was captain before Picard, way back at the very beginning? I know she woke up here after she died."

"I only know one other person. He died for sure and then he woke up here." He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "So does Stacy have the power to bring people back from the dead? Or does she just like... snatch you at the last second? Because talking to the one guy it sounded like he was really dead, even though I guess I was kind of a special case..."

Steve's face went a little pale for a second and he shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway. I've had a whole year to deal with how fucked up it all is. I'm fine with it now. But I sure don't want to get sent back where I came from."

"I don't even know," Paco said, shaking his head. "I...kind of hope that she can't. Because if she could, and she hasn't been, after what happened to the one Brainy and Cassie Lang, and all those people in the pods who got zombiefied..." He really wanted to think that Stacy wasn't that cruel.

"Well," he said more brightly, "maybe Stacy will let you go home with someone else if we win. My mom loves taking people in, and people in my universe might be able to help you with the whole monster disease. We've got labs devoted to that kind of thing."

Steve made a face at Paco's theory. He kind of hoped that was the case too. Even if it made his own personal experience as creepy as it possibly be.

He glanced away from Paco at the offer. "That... that really means a lot to me," he muttered under his breath, almost as though he didn't want him to hear.

Paco raised a hand to clap Steve on the back, then remembered the whole "you look like you've been hit by a truck" part of the conversation and settled for a brief squeeze of the shoulder. "Just something to keep in mind, dude," he replied, keeping his gaze locked straight ahead so Steve could have his mental space. Feelings could be a little uncomfortable sometimes. If the silence stretched too long, he'd be ready to provide a change of subject, too.

Steve was quiet for an uncomfortably long moment, trying to figure out something to say to save face and to keep him from bursting into tears.

"If I was gonna have something like this it could at least be useful, you know?"

Steve was doing an admirable job of not crying, but Paco could recognize not-crying from across the room, much less when it was happening right next to him.

"C'mere, dude."

Have a hug, Steve. A manly side-hug for now, but still a hug.

Steve kind of flopped one arm around to reciprocate. Or maybe he got tired of holding it up. He was certainly going to pretend like that was the case, anyway.

"I hate this. All of it. I seriously do. I miss Earth, and I miss my parents, and I miss high school. Even pre-calculus. I'd give anything to just go back to normal."

"I miss Earth and my family too," Paco said. Not so much pre-calc, since he'd never been in it in the first place, but he understands what Steve's saying. "You've just got to keep your fingers crossed that your parents are in the pods, and you might be stuck with the abnormal, but at least you've got some awesome people to be abnormal with."

"My parents were dead to begin with," he muttered. "But then again, so was I, so who the fuck even knows."

He sighed again and leaned back on the bed, slowly hoisting his arm back on the bed. "Just forget about it. But... for what it's worth. Thanks."

Ouch. Way to stuff your foot in your mouth, Guzmán. Paco smiled weakly and added "Steve's parents being in the pods" to the list of things he was hoping for. It was getting to be a pretty long list.

"Anytime, dude," he said, rolling his head from side to side. "Anytime."

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There's got to be a morning after [VERY OPEN]

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