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Tweak says, "I'm bringing pastry back"

John Connor (johnbaum) wrote in omega_reality,
@ 2011-04-21 08:32:00

Entry tags:

*complete, 2011 04, character: brian kinney, character: john connor

RP: John and Brian
Who: John Connor and Brian Kinney
Where: Director's house
When: Thursday, April 21, 2011
Summary: Judgement Day arrives

It was the morning sports report that did it. The news anchor starting discussing the Mets and the terrible start to the season they were having and there was a clip, a short, innocent clip, of teams on the field, playing ball in the sunshine. John didn't even know which teams and didn't care. As soon as it hit the screen, John was gone. It was his sixteenth birthday all over again and all John could see was the Reese boys playing ball, his dad, still five years old, chasing the ball as it got away from him. And, in his memory, he heard Derek's voice and he just knew he couldn't do it.

Not today.

He couldn't go to class and go to training and go to work and pretend everything was okay, pretend he wasn't John Fucking Connor anymore, that John Baum wasn't every bit a lie as Henry Gage and Frank Gale. Derek had been right to ask if he was talking to John Baum or John Connor. Only John hadn't realized it until it was too late.

Vance was given the truth. John didn't trust himself to be able to keep things secret. Not today. When John sent an email to Peter, Callen, and Hanna he just said he thought he'd eaten the wrong leftovers or something in the fridge and might have food poisoning. He didn't think it wise to be sick all over the training mats and there was little about a basic review of physics and chemistry he didn't already know. After that, he spent the rest of the morning in his room, no television, no radio, no computer. He didn't answer the phone, wouldn't answer the door.

He just...paced.

And thought.

Remembered.

Wondered.

Paced some more, while running his hands through his hair.

About noon, he opened the window, in complete disregard for safety, and leaned out just to stare up at the sky. The patchwork of clouds and blue made him think of the skies from 2027, always a shifting pattern of brown and grey and white with bare glimpses of blue. At that was when everything finally broke, everything he'd pushed aside the other night when he'd escaped his own head by going out with Brian, everything he'd tried to ignore for two months about how hopeless the situation was, everything about everyone he'd ever lost or would lose that day.

Judgement Day.

Somewhere in space, his father and uncle, still boys younger than John was now, were watching the first missles launch. Derek would grab Kyle and run, hide in the tunnels under Downtown L.A. until the bombs stopped falling, people stopped dying, and the machines came. John had seen the future, knew what the world would look like not long after this day. Watching the people moving around the base, his mind turned them into corpses walking over hills of concrete and steel, twisted trees, the rubble that would be all that remained of this entire base in another world. Fire and bleached skulls and machines that came in the night, the last remnants of humanity slowly picked off one by one.

Nothing left but graves. The entire world turned to one mass grave. Morris and the Youngs and the Dysons and Kacy and Cheri and Ellison and the priest and the girl from Carlos' gang. All lost and buried beneath the shattered remains of their world. Somewhere it was all happening and John could see them all, see them dying, see the dead come to life as machines to hunt and kill while they pointed accusing fingers at him and told him he could have stopped it.

If he'd only been there to do what he was supposed to do.

But, he wasn't and they were dead and dying.

Folding in upon himself, John slid down the wall by the window. The chill air and bird calls were lost to him in the face of overwhelming grief he hadn't allowed himself to feel for months. Talking with Brian that first night, after kicking the club, had helped put the walls back up. But, he hadn't truly grieved. Not then. Not before or after. There had never been time; there was always something to be done.

But, he grieved now. His body curled tightly into a ball as he lay on the floor, John finally broke as the first sob escaped him and he cried as he hadn't been able to do since Riley's death. He cried for his friends and his family. He cried for his world. Most of all, he cried for himself and his failure and the giant holes each loss had already left inside him. So many holes, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to survive the new ones being created that day.

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b_kinney
2011-04-21 09:26 pm UTC (link)

Brian fucking hated teenagers. They were the bane of his fucking existence. Really, they had started with Mike over two decades ago and each decade there seemed to be a different one. This decade, it seemed to be John's turn.

He spent classes looking at the door, not that he would have otherwise paid attention, but usually he would have slept. Then there was work. He would have gone over to check on him, but how do you explain that you're checking on a teenager worried about the end of the world in another dimension and that he'd seen it because he was a time travel. Yes, no real way to explain that one to Callen or Hetty.

He had to keep himself occupied at work, because Hetty would have picked up that something was wrong. He hadn't bothered so much with Callen, because he never paid attention. However as soon as he could find a good way to stop working, he left and went straight for Vance's place. Of course there was no answer no matter how much he bang on the door. He should have known. Fucking teenagers! He went around and looked around, shaking his head at what he was contemplating, he used a tree to go up and went in through the open window. "You could have opened the fucking door. I'm old and if I fell and broke my neck, I would have been really pissed." He closed the window before he got closer and hugged John. "Come on, you must be freezing."

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johnbaum
2011-04-22 02:42 am UTC (link)

The pounding on the door had registered. But, John just wanted whoever it was to go away and pushed the sound as far from his consciousness as he could. He didn't even think about the window. Who would climb up through his window like some character in a cheesy teen drama, after all?

Brian Kinney, apparently.

And John just didn't have the energy to yell at him for taking chances, teasing about not being able to do much with a broken neck, or anything else. The tears had finally subsided a little while ago, but he was still just staring into space. He was afraid to move, to think too hard, for fear of falling apart again. He was so close to that edge, still. Grief and heartbreak were still more powerful than he was in that moment.

When Brian hugged him, it was almost enough to bring teas to his eyes again and he had to take a deep breath before he could speak. "Not that cold," he murmured meaninglessly. At least, he wasn't on the outside. "I couldn't do it. Couldn't pretend. Couldn't save them."

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b_kinney
2011-04-22 02:53 am UTC (link)

"It's cold out, and it's cold here." At least outside the sun had warmed you up. Here it was just cold.

"You don't have to pretend, gorgeous," Brian said, kissing his temple. "It wasn't your job. No matter who thought it was: you, your mother, a legion of people. It's never one person's job to save an entire planet. Your job, if you're inclined to do that sort of thing, is to do your best, which you're doing here. No more and no less."

Brian sighed. "Even your clothes are cold. Let's get you to bed, you can take those clothes off, and I'll see if I can find where Vance keeps the booze. If not, I'll just go find some at my place. You know how I said sex is better than booze? Well not today. You can get drunk and will add lots of aspirin and water and tomorrow you won't even have an hangover." He smiled a little. "Of course, sex is also an option if you changed your mind."

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johnbaum
2011-04-22 05:00 am UTC (link)

"I have to pretend every day," John huffed irritably. And yet, he still held on to Brian tightly because for some reason Brian gave a damn and was there and John couldn't handle this alone. Not just then. Not today. "Pretend I'm not who I am, pretend I don't know what I know, pretend I haven't lost everyone that ever meant anything to me before I even got here, that I'll have a world to return to if we ever go home."

Nodding, he finally dragged himself off the floor, keeping his eyes averted from the window. He didn't want to see this world with it's still living trees and growing grass. Not when he knew the hell his was going to become from this day forward until the machines could be stopped, the war ended. He didn't feel the cold, but he'd take Brian's word for it. It didn't matter, anyway. He could break into pieces in bed as easily as on the floor.

"No, I don't want to get drunk. I don't want to forget. Not today." He wouldn't do that to their memories. Those memories may be all he had left of them and he wouldn't dishonor everything his mother had done, everything Derek and Charlie and Riley had done, Kyle and Alyson, even Cameron, by forgetting what they had fought for, given their lives for -- John Connor and the human race that was dying today...somewhere. "Forgetting's just like pretending. I have to go back to pretending tomorrow. I don't want to do that today."

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b_kinney
2011-04-22 05:13 am UTC (link)

Brian shook his head. "You're not pretending, John. You might not be telling people the truth, but you aren't pretending, and you don't have to." He held onto John even tighter. "No one says that you have to hide so much. Don't tell people about the time travel or the end of the world, but you can be who you are. Why do you know so much? Because there's a war in my dimension. Why do you think of death? Because most of my family was killed in the war. So skip the part where the war is with the machines, and if people ask for details, say that you don't want to talk about it. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's not pretending either. It's a way for you to be who you are and not feel trapped by the lies, because in the end, lies always suffocate us.

He helped John up, and then went and closed the curtains. "You're still getting out of these clothes, before you get in bed. I can't possibly try anything if you're freezing to death, right?" he said, ad he knew that his attempts at hitting on John were too lame to even get a reaction, but he didn't do pity. Instead he helped John get his clothes off, before he took his head jacket and shoes off as well.

"I still think we need some alcohol," he said. "My family is Irish, so when someone dies, we drink, although it's really bullshit. We drink all the fucking time. I told you, my father was an alcoholic, but the point stands. We can have some liquor, not enough to get drunk, but enough to numb a little of the pain, and then you can tell me all about them. You won't have to pretend or forget. You can remember with me."

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