Billy Kaplan (actualwizard_bk) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-07-09 10:52:00 |
|
|||
Having a friend who could fly was great and honestly, Billy was so grateful for Kara’s expertise and her patience. She’d been helping him with his powers for a few months now, and knowing she had super strength and was pretty much invulnerable meant that he felt a lot better about potentially testing his abilities out with her than someone who might get hurt. And though they weren’t developing rapidly, in the dreams he had a scary amount of abilities so far that made him feel anxious about them making their way into the real world. Let alone the realisation of his connection to Wanda.
He was sitting at one of the tables outside a small, independent milkshake shop with his own in front of him and the one he’d grabbed for Kara. He was in the shade, so the heat of the day wasn’t impacting him too much and the shakes were in large metal containers so they were keeping cool by virtue of being blast-frozen beforehand.
When he saw Kara, he looked away from his phone and smile brightly, lifting a hand to wave her over.
“Hey! I got your shake already.”
Kara loved having friends with powers and abilities because it meant that she didn’t have to keep things as much of a secret as she did in the dreams. Of course it helped that there was no evil organizations or anything trying to find out who Supergirl was, which gave her more freedom to do things as her alter ego.
She also enjoyed the times when she got the chance to go out and do superhero stuff with her super friends, as she called them in her head. When Billy had suggested they hang out over milkshakes, we’ll Kara hadn’t been able to say no to that.
Reaching the milkshake shop, Kara spotted Billy before he called her over and was already making her way towards the table when he spoke, “Hey!” She said, smiling as she sat down, “Thanks. How’s it going?”
“I’m really glad to be a dude again,” Billy admitted, grinning at Kara as she sat down. She looked lovely, as always, and it was always really nice to see her because she was consistently pleased to see her. “Been trying to keep on top of my apartment since Gr- since my housemate left which has been hard but Wanda’s been helping.”
He sipped his drink, “And, of course, Dreams.” He lifted a shoulder. Maybe later he could ask for Kara’s advice on how to approach something he recently found out in his dreams and how to process it. “You?”
Kara couldn’t help but laugh softly at Billy’s comment about being a dude again, “Oh, I’m sure you are. That must have been so strange.” Kara wasn’t sure what she would have done if she’d woken up as a guy on the first, but she was pretty sure she would have freaked out a little at first. She was sure that she eventually would have gotten used to it somewhat, but it would still be weird to suddenly be the opposite sex, “What’re you doing to your apartment?” She asked, taking a sip of her shake as she watched Billy, “I’m good too. Mainly working and doing a little superheroing here and there.”
“Strange doesn’t even cover it,” Billy admitted with a rueful grin. “I screamed at the mirror then wrapped myself in a blanket and texted Blossom for help. Who proceeded to drag me shopping. Pretty sure she just wanted an excuse to shop anyway but- you were so right. Men are gross.” He’d never had so much attention in his life, and none of it had been wanted. Blossom had called him out for flirting a little with one of the cashiers and Billy hadn’t even realised and then didn’t look anyone in the eye for the rest of the trip.
He shrugged. “Just- keeping on top of it. My old housemate,” it was easier to call him that than ‘my ex boyfriend’, “did a lot of the chores. I really struggle and the house slipped ‘cause I stopped taking my-”
Cutting himself off, he waved his hand. “Anyway, it’s sort of looking habitable again now. No longer looks like a goblin cave or whatever.” He smiled a little. “How do you know when there’s superheroing that needs to be done? Do you just hear it-” because her powers were a lot like Superman’s, not that Billy would ever dream of saying that out loud because his head might explode, “or are you illegally tapping into the police scanners?”
“You must have thought you were dreaming at first or something,” Kara wondered how Alex would have reacted if she had come out of her room on the morning of the first and had suddenly been a guy. She’d explained some parts of her dreams to her sister awhile back; never one to really have secrets from her sister and considering some of the things that happened in Orange County, it hadn’t been hard for Alex to believe, especially when Kara had shown her some of her abilities. “Did she pick out clothes that you liked or that she liked?” Kara remembered Billy saying how his friend had gotten to keep the clothes afterwards.
Kara laughed at Billy’s description of what his apartment no longer resembled, “I’m glad that Alex and I are both pretty organized. If either of us were to move out it wouldn’t be such a hard thing to get used to.” Billy was definitely right when he thought that she had the same powers as Superman since Superman was Kara’s cousin. Boy did she wish that Clark was in the OC. Both of them with super powers would be so fun, “Yeah, super hearing. So sometimes I hear things and other times I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.”
Billy snorted. “Yeah, they were clothes that looked okay on me but definitely suited her a bit more. I’ve kept the sweatpants though. They’re the most comfortable sweats I’ve ever owned.” No word of a lie, he had about four pairs of them now. Women’s sweatpants had such a comfortable cut. “Since it was only for a few days it wasn’t so bad, but I definitely don’t wanna be a girl - no offence.”
He chuckled, “Yeah I’m- not.” He sipped at his drink. “I struggle a lot with those kinda things and having external accountability’s really helpful. My therapist left a little while back and I still haven’t found a new one and meds alone aren’t quite enough to help manage my asshole brain stuff.” Superpowers helped a bit.
He suppressed his glee at the knowledge Kara had super hearing and resisted the urge to ask her what her range was so he knew if he yelled for her if she could hear him or not.
“You- you have a sister, right? Is she your sister in the dreams, too?”
As Billy spoke, Kara couldn’t help but reach across the table and cover one of his hands with her own and gave it a reassuring squeeze before withdrawing after another moment or two, “I don’t think you have an asshole brain. At least, you haven’t demonstrated that to me at all.” She smirked a little then nodded in response to Billy’s question, “Yeah. Well, in my dreams we’re not biological sisters. I was adopted by her family. Here though, we’re hundred percent sisters. It’s weird sometimes, knowing how different my family dynamic is in the dreams as opposed to the real world. Alex is part of my earth family and Clark is part of my Kryptonion family, but here Alex and Clark are part of the same family.” Not to mention the fact that technically, in the dreams, she was older than Clark, but because her pod had been knocked off course Clarke grew up while she was stuck in stasis.
Clark? As in Clark Kent? For a moment, Billy’s worries about Wanda literally evaporated knowing that somewhere there was a Clark Kent - literal superman - just wandering about. He hadn’t seen him on the network, but maybe he was around just waiting to save the day when he was needed. He cleared his throat, suppressing his excitement and nodding.
“So your dream family is kind of similar? Huh. Okay. ‘Cause I-”
He frowned a little and then fiddled with the straw on his shake. “In the dreams, my family history is like, super complicated. But Wanda’s my-”
Shifting again, Billy took a deep breath. “Wanda’s kind of my mom. In my dreams. Wanda Maximoff. The-uh- a similar version to the one that’s h-here but older.”
Kara hoped that some day both Alex and Clark might start dreaming, because at least then she wouldn’t have to pick and choose what to tell Alex and just the thought of fighting crime with Clark made her giddy, but for the time being she just had to wait.
When Billy mentioned Wanda, Kara’s brows rose, “Really? That’s so cool. Does she know?” Considering a lot of the things she had heard about other people’s dreams and the things that had happened in the OC since she had begun dreaming, alternate family relations didn’t surprise her in the least.
Billy glanced up at Kara wide eyed and surprised at the question. “I- no, I- I haven’t said anything to her. It’s weird enough that we’re dreaming about these other places without trying to tell one of my best friends,” because Billy was blessed with three incredible women he considered to be his best friends, “that an alternate dream universe version of her is not only my favourite Avenger but, like, my mom.” Sort of. It was complicated.
He cleared his throat. “Do you think I should? Tell her, I mean.”
Kara shrugged, “Honestly, I don’t know. She’ll find out eventually, right?” She assumed it was something that Wanda would dream about eventually if Billy already knew about it then Wanda was bound to find out too, “Do you think she’d be upset that you kept it from her? It’s kind of the same thing with my sister. There are so many things I want to tell her about the Alex in my dreams, in case she ever starts dreaming, but at the same time, how do I even start?” Alex knew the basics of Kara’s dreams, but she didn’t know anything about her dream counterpart or their family, in the dreams.
“That’s the thing, I don’t know if she would,” Billy said honestly. “She’s… she has the same name and she kind of looks the same but she’s much younger and some of the things she talks about has happened to her-” he didn’t elaborate, “-in her dreams don’t match up with what I know of the Wanda in mine. But the similarity’s too uncanny- do you think even in the dreams we could have a… like a shared reality that’s somehow splintered into different versions? Like Star Wars canon vs Legends?”
He cleared his throat and sipped his milkshake again, “It must be weird for you, though, knowing this dream version of your sister and the real one. Which do you think you know better?”
Kara nodded, listening as Billy talked about Wanda. She could understand why he might be reluctant to tell Wanda that she was his mother in the dreams, “You mean like a multi-verse? Yeah, I believe in that. In my dreams I met this guy named Barry who was from another Earth.” Kara hoped that she would somehow meet Barry again in a future dream as well as wished that he would wind up being a real person who would someday come to the OC.
“It’s weird. I more or less have all of dream Kara’s early memories so there’s a lot about dream Alex that I know and of course I know all about real Alex.” She thought about it for a moment before shrugging, “I don’t really know if I can actually say which one I know better.”
“Is the Alex in your dreams different from your Alex?” he asked, feeling really relieved that the multiverse wasn’t just something he seemed to have in his dreams. The idea that Kara, too, had met someone from another version of her reality in her dreams made him feel more comfortable about approaching Wanda about the whole thing. “And man, the multiverse thing is a trip, I think there’s loads of universes where I come from, as well as an entire civilisation - or like, loads of them - in space. My dream boyfriend is an alien pr- Well, the aliens that have come to try and take him away say that he’s the son of their queen so.”
He dragged his finger along the condensation of his cup. “It makes me feel better knowing that, like, other people have dreams with other realities in them too. Is that wrong of me?”
“She’s more or less similar. In real life Alex is a cop; in the dreams she works for a secret organization called the DEO who monitor alien stuff.” Kara said, taking a sip of her milkshake while she listened to Billy, “I don’t think you’ve mentioned that your dream boyfriend is an alien too.” Knowing that there were apparently humanoid aliens in Billy’s dreams too made Kara wonder what else was similar between their dream works besides the fact that there were superheroes and multiverses in both worlds. “I don’t think that’s wrong at all. I think it’s cool.”
“I didn’t know until we got attacked recently,” Billy admitted. “And I guess since he doesn’t exist here in OC I don’t have to worry too much about potentially outing him or something, right? And even if someone like him did exist then there’s no guarantee he’d be a dreamer.”
He shifted. “Teddy - that’s his name - is part Skrull, part Kree. Both of them are aliens, and Skrull, I think, can shapeshift? So he’s actually kinda green but has unconsciously been using his powers to look human all the time. It’s pretty cool.” Not to mention in the dreams, Billy found him attractive no matter what he looked like which said good things about his dream self, for sure. “It’s weird, right, that we both have alien stuff in our dreams?” Kara, after all, had mentioned Clark who was her cousin and Clark was Superman who was- Well. Billy had to stop his thoughts from spiralling as he didn’t know for sure that was what Kara’s dreams were about.
“One of my friends, in the dreams is a shapeshifter. He’s actually from Mars.” Kara never thought that she would get so excited talking about aliens, but ever since she had started dreaming, it was something that had begun to fascinate her, “He’s green too actually, but he usually looks human except when we do superhero stuff together.” She grinned and took another sip of her shake, “It is a little weird, but I guess aliens and superheroes just go hand in hand somehow.” She shrugged, still grinning.
Billy, who had always been fascinated with superheroes and aliens and all things nerdy nearly choked on his milkshake. He was pretty sure he knew who that green guy was. It was on the tip of his tongue to blurt out the name but he managed, instead, to just ask “Oh? Mars? Wow. I don’t know if any of the aliens in my dream are from within our solar system but there was once a garden on the moon. Maybe. What’s his name?” He paused, “Oh, and yeah, I mean Teddy does too. Looks human but goes green and stuff when we’re doing hero things.”
“A garden on the moon? That’s so cool. What was grown there?” If Kara knew that Billy already knew about some of the people from her dreams, including herself, she’d likely have so many questions about how he knew, but at the same time would think that it was kind of cool, “His name is J’onn J’onzz, but his superhero name is Martian Manhunter. It’s so cool that both of our dream worlds are somewhat similar.” She couldn’t help but wonder what other similarities their worlds shared.
It was a miracle Billy didn’t choke on his drink as Kara confirmed his suspicion. So Kara knew the Justice League? That was possibly one of the greatest things he’d ever found out. “I have no idea what was grown on the moon,” he admitted, “I’ve never been there, obviously.” He wondered, tangentially, if there were any links between the aliens in his dreams and the Green or White Martians in Kara’s. He made a mental note to check his comic collection later.
“It’s really cool that our dream worlds have heroes. We have a group of heroes called The Avengers. Wanda -the grown up Wanda in my dreams not the one we know here- is part of them. She used to be evil but she’s good now.”
This was all extremely fascinating and Kara couldn’t wait to have even more talks with Billy comparing their dream worlds as they both had even more dreams. “It’s easy for people with abilities to get swayed to the evil side, but honestly, it’s just better to use our abilities for good. Don’t you think?” Not that she judged anyone who did use their powers for evil even if she did work to stop them.
Billy nodded, “Yeah, I can understand - where I come from at least - why sometimes people use their powers for their own gain or for their own protection: people don’t react well to those who are different, there’s a lot of hate. But I’m definitely- I mean I definitely wanna be a good guy in my dreams even if we’re struggling to get it right.”
Honestly, it was so nice to be able to talk to Kara about this, and it was exciting to know that there were people in his life who were heroes, the same kind of heroes he aspired to be.