Tommy (fastmouth) wrote in somerealityrpg, @ 2020-03-17 13:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | inactive: billy kaplan, inactive: tommy shepherd |
WHO: Tommy Shepherd & Billy Kaplan
WHERE: Five Guys
WHEN: 9th March
WARNINGS: None really
RATINGS: Low
SPOILERS? Nope
“Okay,” Billy said, now that Tommy was halfway through the burgers he’d bought. “Spill.”
He was normally a little more tactful, if he was honest. Normally he tried subtler ways to find out what was going on and what was bugging his friends, but he was so tired and he was worried and everything was still a little bit too much and he felt like a raw nerve. He still hadn’t thanked Tommy for stepping in the other day with Laura as he’d already been fielding twenty questions and Cassie and god, Cassie was alive and in the apartment he shared with Teddy - and that spare room was just sitting there, waiting for Tommy to join them where he belonged instead of wherever he was staying with someone else, and a small part of Billy that he hated was hot and jealous and possessive over his twin and his friends - his family - just wanted to grab him and move his shit and just have him there so that he knew Tommy was okay and they were together, as a unit, like they were supposed to be.
And okay, so maybe he took their small group falling apart a little harder than he liked to pretend, and maybe he missed them with every fibre of his being and it was everything not to just call Tommy and warn him about the Vridai. To tell him that there were face-stealing elves that could target you once they knew you, like the Bye Bye Man. And he couldn’t put Teddy at risk like that because- because it was Teddy but if anyone had a chance of outrunning them, out annoying them it was Tommy. And they were twins. Two halves of the same soul - literally, since a demon soul was sharded off to create them in Wanda’s original world or something - they belonged together.
He dipped his fries in his milkshake. “Spill.”
Tommy pulled a face as Billy assaulted a perfectly good milkshake with a handful of fries and purposefully looked at Billy with a blank expression. “Huh?” He asked, shoving a couple fries into his mouth. “Whaddya mean?” He mumbled around the mouthful.
He definitely had an idea of what Billy was getting at but he wasn’t going to talk about it anytime soon because it didn’t need to be discussed or dealt with. It was small stuff in comparison to everything else going on and Cassie’s apparent resurrection. So what if he was spinning his wheels and feeling like he didn’t belong, no biggie.
Besides, it wasn’t the first time. Wouldn’t be the last time. That much he knew for a fact.
“Don’t,” Billy said, pointing another milkshake covered fry at Tommy purely to insult him at that point, “do that. Don’t play dumb. I can feel that something’s wrong.” They might not have a twin thing the same as, like, those twins from The Haunting of Hill House or another famous set of twins - or whatever, but he was good at reading body language and he was good at understanding when something was wrong with Tommy because he’d had to be: Tommy never used his words for anything unless it was quick-fire hurt to distract him from something he’d managed to get right for once.
He ate the offending fry and then added, “I can feel it in my jellies.” It was one of the last movies they’d watched at their movie nights before he’d been… well, the whole Blade thing had happened. He knew Tommy would get the reference. The three of them had howled at the stupidity of the sentence and had quoted it for the rest of the film.
Tommy just let his jaw go slack as his upper lip pulled upwards with a clear look of derision aimed in his twin’s direction. “Did you just quote Detective Pikachu at me?” When it came to things about him Tommy was the King of Diversion techniques and not answering questions.
“Christ,” he said with a shake of his head. “You’re such a dork.”
“King of the Dorks,” Billy corrected, and completely unaffected by the derision on Tommy’s face. After all, Tommy would be the first person to punch anyone who said anything like that to him. Of course, that would probably only be after Billy had made the situation a hundred times worse (because of his inability to keep his mouth shut).
He opened his burger and pulled out the pickle, tossing the offending vegetable over towards a napkin on Tommy’s side of the table. “Don’t think you can distract me with your convenient amnesia around my pop-culture god-ness.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tommy retorted before taking a large bite out of his burger and taking his time to chew so he didn’t need to say anything for a while. “Like I legit have zero clue what you think I have to spill.”
He slurped at his soda and then at his milkshake because of course he had two drinks, why would he not have two drinks? Money concerns were for the future!Tommy who most definitely needed to get a job.
Ugh. Adulting sucked.
“Sooo…. how’s Cassie getting on?”
“Cassie’s fine,” Billy said quickly, not really wanting to talk about Cassie because of all the ugly swirling feelings he got in his gut. The way it put him off his food. He put his milkshake down. “Sixteen, I think. I know I need to let her meet the Scott that’s here, I’m pretty sure there’s one from the same reality as the Tony Stark, but I don’t want her to be let down when she’s not the same one from his world. Or he’s not who she’s expecting, y’know?”
He waved a hand. “And I know that there’s something bothering you because I can see it. On your face.” A wiggle of his fingers in Tommy’s direction. “If I knew what it was, I’d just help you with it or tell you I knew. But I don’t. So I gotta go the old-fashioned route and just ask.”
Tommy had at this point merely latched his lips around the straw stuck in his milkshake and was happily sipping away as he nodded his head. “No, that totally makes sense. I mean she’s already gonna have a huge adjustment to go through without finding out that the dude here isn’t actually her dad.”
He pulled a face at the remark from Billy about his actual face. “Hey, I can’t help it, this is how I look and I look damn good if I do say so myself.”
“Thanks,” Billy retorted with a grin, after pulling the same kind of face as Tommy with unerring accuracy. Because, really, a compliment about Tommy’s face was a compliment about his. In some sense of the word anyway.
He wet his lower lip. “What were you doing? Before the, uh- y’know, the Entity plucked you outta your life and forced you back into close quarters with me?”
Tommy playfully flipped Billy off before he lifted his shoulders into what would have ordinarily passed for a casual shrug. “Not a lot, working mostly.” Slowly dying inside… He stuffed another fry into his mouth. “Just trying to keep busy.”
He sat back into the booth and tipped his head to take a look around, shooting the cute waitress a smile. A long attention span was not something Tommy was blessed with.
“You?”
“And how’s that working for you?” Billy asked, “keeping busy, I mean.” Because it hadn’t been working for him at all. Or Teddy. And though Teddy was here with him in Goodland (thank every deity that existed), he’d been spiralling a little bit knowing that even when he got to come home from his top secret mission Teddy wouldn’t be there. Without his top secret mission he was a little worried he’d be right back to staring out of a window again just waiting for something to blow up and put him out of his misery. “Not doing hero stuff sucks.”
He shrugged. “Not hero stuff, that’s for sure. I’ve been… drafted.”
“Drafted?” Tommy asked, eyebrow lifting. “What, like into a war?” That was literally his only reference for the word ‘draft’ and he felt something akin to concern prickling at the back of his mind.
“Yeah, kinda,” Billy said uncomfortably. He remembered seeing someone say they didn’t remember anything about this place when they went back home, but remembered it all when they came back. Maybe that meant it was safe to talk about the Vridai? “It sucks and I can’t just quit. Not until it’s all sorted.”
Tommy’s eyes narrowed as Billy looked and sounded uncomfortable. “Well, that’s fucked up. You should be able to quit especially if you didn’t start or pick the war.” He gobbled up a couple more fries until his plate was cleared in lightning fast speed before moving on to doing the same with his burgers.
“Tell them to get lost.”
“Can’t. Believe me, I tried. But if- did you see the news report about the ‘supers’ that were found breaking into the CDC? That went into the custody of the Avengers?” Billy lifted his milkshake and rolled the metal between his palms.
Tommy briefly squinted as he sought his memory banks for something like that because honestly he worked through things so fast that a lot of stuff got shoved back into the “metaphorical” wardrobe (or closet, ha!) which meant he needed to go rummaging.
Oh, wait.
He clicked his fingers and nodded. “Waaaaaait, that was you?”
“Sorta,” Billy admitted with a wince. “I mean, we didn’t break in. Or do the stealing. But we were then kidnapped and woke up there and some people had shifted into us. I don’t even remember how- I have no idea how we got there. But that was when it started.”
He chewed on his lower lip, glancing at Tommy, the table, and then at Tommy again. “I haven’t even told Teddy this.”
Tommy blinked and let out a low whistle. “Well, shit.” Because not telling Teddy something was a pretty big deal for Billy. Huge even. “Why?” Because he had to ask. How could he not?
He finished up his milkshake and demolished what remained on his plate.
“Why what?” Billy asked, “Why haven’t I told Teddy?” He lifted his shoulders, “If you know about them, they know about you. I didn’t want him to worry while he’s off with his people, y’know? And if I told him anything more than ‘top secret’ he’d wanna help, and get tied up in it all.” He didn’t think Tommy wouldn’t want to, “If you- if I tell you all of this and it gets you wrapped up in it when we go home, I- I’m sorry. But it’d be good to have you in it with me.” It was lonely doing it alone. He didn’t know the others.
Well of course that was what he was asking. Duh. Thankfully Billy caught on. He waved off Billy’s concerns with a dismissive move of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. You know I got your back.” Yes he was a dick and took pleasure in teasing Billy but he was his brother and would always look out for the other. He figured that was what family did even if he didn’t really have a reference point.
“So, yeah, whatever happens in it together.”
Billy’s shoulders loosened a bit at the reassurance that Tommy was okay with maybe getting dragged into his shit. “It’s why I haven’t texted or called or- they sent someone who looked just like me to go live with Teddy,” he said, waving his hand, “like that would have stopped him looking for me when they kidnapped me to be their sorcerer or whatever.”
Well, that helped. A little. Small bit. Tommy had definitely been thinking that out of sight was out of mind. “They clearly don’t know Teddy very well.” Hulkling would have a hundred percent have seen through it because he definitely knew Billy in a lot of ways that not many people did.
“But for now? We are here, Goodland or what the fuck ever it’s called.”
“Like I said, once you know about them, they know about you and they can just… replace you. Like, almost perfectly. T didn’t- I don’t think he really realised until Blade came crashing into our place and nearly trashed it.” Billy shook his head. “Anyway, they’re from a place called Svartalfheim. It’s-” he paused, but from the blank look on Tommy’s face he was good to continue, “-a place from Norse Mythology, or, I guess, from Thor’s world? One of the branches of Yggdrasil and all that. Anyway, it- it’s the home of these like, elves with purple skin? And there’s a bunch of them who kidnapped a prince and want to take over the planet and-” he waved his hand again. “Blade told us we had to keep it a secret from everyone. To protect them.
“Which is shit, if you ask me, because it meant I couldn’t talk to Teddy, or you and I couldn’t reach out for help and had to pretend to be like, a magical despot and give a Doom-bot fake sentience - a Doombot, Tommy - because they thought it was really Doom.”
“Bleurgh,” Tommy drawled with a vivid expression. “That sucks, man. Seriously sucks.” Of course it sounded more exciting than what he’d been doing with his free time since the Young Avengers went their separate ways but it still sounded like it was made of some serious suck.
He rolled his shoulders a moment later.
“Still, definitely a worry for future!Billy given where we are.”
Billy snorted. “That’s true. But when we go home, if I remember even a little bit about what’s going on I’m gonna teleport your ass to Svartalfheim. It’d be good to have my brother along for the ride.”
He took a sip of his milkshake. “Teddy tell you he’s king of space?”
“Nope,” Tommy said with a distinct pop on the ‘p’ in the world. “Figure that would be something he’d want to shout from the rooftops.” Or not, Teddy wasn’t exactly the kind to blow his own trumpet.
He eyed a couple fries on Billy’s pate and gestured. “You gonna eat those?”
“I think he’s a little embarrassed by it,” Billy admitted, pushing his plate over the table for Tommy to help himself to not only the fries but the half burger. “Go for it,” he said, waving his hand.
They made one hell of a power couple: the King Arthur of Space and the Demiurge. They should have their own sitcom.
“Just- you know you can talk to me, right? If you ever caught a feeling or whatever.”
“Best brother ever,” Tommy remarked with a grin as he tugged the plate closer to him and helped himself to a handful of fries. He’d always had an appetite and powers had just made it that much worse but thankfully he didn’t need to worry about his waistline.
He snorted at the mention of “a feeling” and waved his hand in the air dismissively.
“Please, who do you think you’re talking to?”
“Yeah, you owe me a trophy,” Billy deadpanned, pulling his milkshake closer to himself instead, lifting it to take a slurp.
Rolling his eyes, he just made eye contact with Tommy. “I know, I know. But if. Just if. I’m here, yeah? You’re not alone, so you don’t gotta try and work through shit alone.”
Tommy lifted his gaze albeit briefly as maintaining eye contact with such a heartfelt emotional feeling emanating from his twin was truth be told a little much. Mostly due to his crappy start in life where managing emotion and everything good and healthy in the world hadn’t been exactly something he’d learned.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”
Playfully he tossed a fry in Billy’s direction. “Mushy sonofabitch.”
Billy laughed and threw it right back, combining it with a gentle knock of his foot against Tommy’s under the table. “You know it.”
It wasn’t the answers he’d been hoping for, but it was something. And that was better than being on the outside while his twin struggled.
Small starts were still starts.