Fic: 'Fairytale' (Power Rangers SPD, gen, G, 1/1) Title: Fairytale Fandom: Power Rangers SPD Characters: Jack Word Count: 792 Rating: G Spoilers: Minor references to "Perspective". Challenge: For the spd_rangers "I Never Thought My Life Would Turn Out Like This" challenge. Summary: Jack's mother used to like to tell him fairytales.
Fairytale
All of the stories Jack had ever heard began with "once upon a time". When he was younger, his mom loved to tell him stories about kings and queens and talking animals and fairy magic. As such, he began to narrate his life as a story that began with "once upon a time".
Once upon a time, he was a cute kid with a mother who loved him more than anything. One who tucked him in at night, and told him stories, and promised him he could have a puppy for his next birthday.
Then, as it did in all fairy tales, tragedy struck, and the young hero was forced to find his way in the world, with no mother, and no money, and no future, and no hope. But he was smart, and he had pluck, and so he just started a different story.
Once upon a time, he was a cute teenager who lived on the streets, using his charm to get him things, and what he couldn't weasel from someone, he could steal. It wasn't truly stealing if it was survival, he tried to tell himself, and he adapted his rules so that he wasn't just helping himself, but helping anyone else he could. Jack had always liked his mother's stories about Robin Hood. But his heroine was no Maid Marian; it was Z. When she entered the story, she'd taken him by surprise. She'd been crying, but five minutes after he'd sat next to her, the tears had dried up, and he'd never seen them again in the years of their companionship. She was no damsel in distress, he'd learned that quickly. Z was brash and unrelenting, but with a heart underneath. She was in actuality, he'd discovered, his fairy godmother. She had of course been in disguise, just like in the stories. Hiding her true identity until she was sure he was a worthy candidate for her magic. And she saved him, with a wave of her wand, giving him at last someone to tell his own stories to.
Together, they'd run from the SPD. The law was the villain of the piece. Jack and Z were both different, and they both knew that if captured for their thievery, they'd be persecuted for their powers. So they hid, and they lived on the streets among the aliens, where they were alike in their abnormalities. In Jack's stories, there had always been definite heroes and definite villains. Good and bad. Jack had never believed he was a bad guy. Every day, he saw the SPD cart off aliens and humans alike, for living on the streets. Throwing people in prison should not be the method for getting people off the streets, and for that, Jack knew that the SPD was the bad guy. It was as it should be: there was always a clear villain.
For every mountain, there is a corresponding valley. And for as good as his story with Z was, there was danger lurking in the wings. Things quickly went south, and they were captured. Still, Jack didn't regret helping. He wouldn't have let anyone fight those things unaided, and he knew it was the right thing to do, the heroic thing to do. More than anything, Jack had desired to be a hero, to be someone that his mother would have told stories about. But there was something else to it. He knew, deep down, that one of the reasons he'd gone back was because he wanted to see them again—the anomalies. They were SPD, but they were freaks like him. He didn't know what they were, how they fit into the narrative. He was eager to hear the end of the tale.
Once upon a time, Jack's mother told him great fairytales. Now he found himself in a building so big it was like a palace. There was a princess, a giant talking dog, and a mysterious ball of white fairy light saving them. He was even closer than ever at becoming a hero worthy of stories.
Syd was painting a picture again. There were swirls of bright neon green that he could see from across the room. On the opposite end of the couch as Jack, Sky was reading something that looks suspiciously like the master copy of the SPD handbook. Bridge and Z keep ducking in and out of his line of sight, learning how to tango. Bridge was surprisingly adept on his feet.
Jack leaned forward in his seat, surveying them. The painting princess, the silent knight, the court jester, the fairy godmother. "Hey, guys," he said thoughtfully, and there was a moment before they all were looking at him. He smiled at his new family. "You wanna hear a story?"