#(timeline depending it gives him something other than his own guilt and grief to focus on too! what a bonus!) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

septic-dr-schneep · 5 years

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So we've seen the timeline for bunker Super Drug, hows about yours? 👀👀👀

Oof, I should’ve expected someone to ask XD Okay, here goes!

Jackieboy was ecstatic to have Marvin as abrother, of course, because he wasn’t alone in the big, dusty Egos Inc.anymore. The two of them were close; Jackie did everything he could to protecthim and make him feel welcome and help him build his identity – but becausehe’d been alone for so long, there were still things he didn’t trust him withbecause he didn’t want to upset him (and they were things that weren’t inMarvin’s expertise anyway). Treating his injuries was one of them.

He kept his pain secret, he made stashes ofsupplies around the house, he waited through agonizingly long days to treat hisinjuries at night after Marvin had gone to bed, etc. He basically just hobbledthrough. One day after he’d had a few floors of a building fall on him (ouch)Anti decided to stop by and pick a fight. Jackie’s reflexes were slow, hedidn’t quit while he was ahead and he got gutted. Anti left him to bleed out onthe kitchen floor – and that’s how Henrik found him when he nervously came throughthe door as a newborn. He managed to fumble through saving Jackie’s life.

While he was recovering, Jackie had nothing todo but talk Schneep’s ear off, so Schneep got to know him really well! Hewasn’t that good at answering back, though; his English was really bad. After amishap at the hospital which had him taking everything out on Jackie at homeafterward, Jackie offered to teach him some English. He ended up learning moreGerman than teaching Schneep English but it was still a really good opportunityfor them to talk and bond and they got close fast.

That was around the time that Marvin gotjealous as the “forgotten middle child” and he and Schneep started gettinginto their fights. When Marvin finally lashed out physically and Schneep gothurt, Jackie sided with Schneep in the end. Marvin took that reallybadly and felt really betrayed, which crushed Jackie to see. He backed offHenrik for a while to try and repair things with Marv. That left Schneep tofend for himself, he got lonely and ended up going out more to meet otherpeople to cope. That’s how he met his wife Maire!

By the time Henrik and Maire got married, mostof the issues with Marv had been resolved, so Jackie middled between them. Hewas really happy for Henrik because everything seemed really nice for someyears, and then he noticed him starting to deteriorate – losing it at work,withdrawing into himself, getting really stressed and overwhelmed, etc. Turnsout he’d found out Maire cheated on him. Jackie quite literally dragged the twoof them into a room to settle their differences and they ended up making a sickdeal: Maire and their sons wouldn’t leave him if he kept up a certainincome.

When Schneep operated on their accountant,Peter, and he didn’t make it, his family did leave and Schneep completely broke– full emotional breakdown. He had to go on administrative leave, went intothe lab and basically never came out. Jackie, instead of being there to supporthim through his grief, stupidly decided it would be better to not to burden himwith a bunch of attention. He thought it would be better to “give him space”and let him process on his own (Schneep doesn’t do that well.)

So since Jackie withdrew from Schneep, thatleft him to his own devices again when it came to his injuries. He was in pain,he was high-strung and heartbroken and stressed on Henrik’s behalf, and hedidn’t want to have to bother him about proper dosages and such, so hedeveloped a dependency. Of course, seeing their brother, their protector likethat didn’t help Schneep or Marvin in the slightest but Jackie insisted that hewas fine, he could handle it.

Schneep blamed himself for Jackie’s addiction,telling himself that he’d failed him just as badly as he failed his family, hecouldn’t be there for him, he was selfish for only thinking about his ownfeelings, none of this would have happened if he had been enough and doneenough, etc. etc. That’s why he still struggles with taking all the blame onhimself when something goes wrong. Chase’s arrival managed to bring them botharound to some sense of normalcy and start trying to heal.

They only had a little while to recover fromthat before Anti attacked Jack on Halloween. While Schneep dealt with theaftermath of that, Jackie started getting weird symptoms – nausea, headaches,phantom pains, irrational paranoia about Henrik’s safety whenever he was inhigh-tension situations – and given his job, there’s a lot of those.

When Schneep started getting the same symptomswhen Jackie was injured on the job, they started doing research and learnedabout the concept of soul bonds. That was when they really gotattached at the hip cos they had to spend a lot of healthy, positive timetogether in order to balance out the negative effects of the bond. That wastheir peak; they were closer than they’d ever been. Then Anti tore Henrik awayin the middle of a surgery that would save Jack’s life, and Jackie tried torecover from the blow to their bond fast enough to get there and save him, buthe couldn’t.

During the nine months that Anti was torturingHenrik, Jackie’s mental/emotional/physical health plummeted fast. He barely ateor slept, he started getting massive nightmares and panic attacks,second-guessing himself, hesitating on the job. By the time innocents started gettingkilled because of it, Jackie had essentially resigned his duty as a hero andlost a ton of the citizens’ trust.

He spent most of his time frenziedly scouringthe city looking for Anti and every brief time he managed to find him, Antipommeled him easily. In his prison, Schneep felt those defeats. Both of themwere scarily close to giving up. Not long afterward, the mysterious arrival ofa “Dr. Jacksepticeye” gave Jackie somewhere tangible to direct his rage; he’snever hated any normal human as much as Anti before, but “Dr. Jacksepticeye”was pushing it. Marvin and Chase convinced Jackie not to quite literally hurlhim to the other side of the city only because Jack needed a professional medicalcaretaker.

Then out of the blue, there was Jameson.Jackie didn’t want anything to do with him at first either, since he saw him asanother intrusion/possible puppet, but his presence was something Jackie couldfocus on other than Schneep’s absence. Eventually he came to trust him and thento love him. He was a calming factor because he was fresh and innocent toeverything that Anti had done so far. Helping him adjust was what gave Jackie strengthto hold on and feeling that helped Henrik vicariously.

When Schneep made it back, Jackie thought thenightmare was over. His health started bouncing back and he began regaining thetrust of the city, but Schneep was massively traumatized. Hewoke up screaming every night, started disassociating and hallucinating andregressing, broke down whenever he was touched, and his guilt for Jack’s comawas destroying him. Then he started asking Jackie to torture him. In a sicksort of way, he wanted to know that people other than Anti could still make himfeel something. Jackie was horrified and he refused to – at least until he gotput under the control of one of his villains and attacked Henrik while he wastreating his injuries.

Schneep almost saw it as a blessing indisguise, since he had wanted Jackie to hurt him in the first place, butJackie was terrified to be anywhere near him afterward, for fear of hurting himagain or worse. It devastated him to know that he was so easily corrupted andturned to hurt his little brother, who had already gone through so much.Speaking of corruption – enter Shawn Flynn. He learned that Jackie was alreadyvulnerable to control and took advantage of it, capturing him, poisoning himwith his ink and debasing him to an ink creature/guard dog. Jackie didn’teven have any concept of who he was.

When the others found him, it took him threedays to detox from going rabid. Schneep locked himself in the room for theentirety of the three days and let Jackie beat him as he pleased until hesnapped out of it. Jackie could barely stand to look at him because of theguilt, but Schneep didn’t leave his side. They rebonded over the course of theweek of “ink withdrawal” that came for Jackie afterward.

They got a few months of relative peace.Schneep recovered enough to get his job back at the hospital, despite hislingering PTSD, and Jackie began charting out his search for Anti again.

And then…

#youtube #jacksepticeye #jackieboy man #dr schneeplestein #timeline #backstory #jackistein #superdrug #answered ask #Anonymous

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backtothestart02 · 7 years

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Flashpoint: Chapter 4 - Worth It

My completed preview chap for day 3 (fav WIP) of @wipweek. (Look at me popping out another one “so fast” lol)

Synopsis: My take on what Flashpoint could’ve been. Essentially. XD

*Many thanks to @valeriemperez for being an epic beta.

Enjoy!

Chapter 4 - Worth It

“Take as long as you need,” his mother had said.

“Grab what’s most important to you. We can get the rest later.”

But Barry stood in the center of the living room in his apartment and wondered what exactly could be considered important.

He assumed clothes weren’t included in the necessities, since they didn’t hold sentimental value. They were likely in large supply at home too. He couldn’t have brought them all to school. And he had to have come home during summer and winter vacation, even if he had been in school for six years straight.

I mean – right?

He couldn’t be so paranoid about running into Iris that he just never went home.

Barry grabbed his toiletries because he figured those were less likely to be fresh and ready for him at home – probably. It all depended on how prepared his parents were for the rare occurrence of their son returning home for a visit after he’d left for college.

If it was rare, of course. Which is seemed to be, he thought. Maybe. He didn’t know.

Miraculously, he found a clean zip lock bag, tossed the toiletries inside, and set it by the door. He continued to peruse the room for anything of value, but at least on a surface level, he came up empty. He opened and closed cupboard and drawers, but everything was plain, ordinary. Nothing stood out. Another trip to the bathroom and then the bedroom didn’t change that. There were a few cool science-y things on a table near the window in his bedroom, but he felt no overwhelming desire to take them with him, so he left them behind as well.

He checked the fridge and freezer on his way, only mildly surprised to find them both completely empty.

Phone in his pocket, key with his mother, and bag of toiletries in his hand, Barry gave the tiny pigsty of a place one more look-over, turned off the lights, locked the door, and headed back down the many stories at normal speed, resigned to his fate.

It had been his idea, after all, to return home for the weekend. According to his mother, he had completed all his required classes the week before. Which was honestly a relief, since he didn’t know if he could draw on knowledge he’d never used before – or hadn’t in a while – unless it consisted of common sense facts, forensic science, or Flash business.

That was another subject he wanted to know more about. Was he still The Flash? Was he such a slob in Brooklyn, New York, because he was running back and forth between Central City and the Big Apple every time there was a crime? Or was he the Flash for this city? That would be a change.

Something inside him suspected not, though. How could the Flash be such a slob when he could literally clean any room in less than two seconds – one, if he was enthusiastic enough.

A thought gnawed at him that he couldn’t get rid of.

Was it possible that in this life he had never gotten hit by lightning, never gotten super speed, never become the Flash? And if that possibility was true, was it inevitable he’d lose his powers entirely?

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. It wasn’t something he had been thinking about. He’d used his powers exactly one time, so he knew he still had them. He could feel the lightning running through his veins. It was rush unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It made him feel alive. It reminded him he had a purpose. Saving people. Being a hero. It gave him hope in all things.

When he’d first realized the significance of having super speed – and what it looked like… the streak of color tailing the brush of wind that followed him when he ran – It had sparked real hope in him for the first time in years that he could exonerate his father from prison. Because maybe someone who was just like him, who had the powers that he had, was the person really to blame for his mother’s death. After he realized that, anything was possible.

It had been two hours max since he’d woken up to a changed world, a timeline rewritten when he couldn’t take the grief of losing both parents despite winning everything else. Zoom was defeated. Iris was ready to be with him. She had actually told him she loved him. But it hadn’t been enough. Undoing his mother’s murder felt like the only way to fix everything and set him back on track. He could be a hero or he could just be a normal guy. It wouldn’t matter. His family would be a whole again. And some way, somehow, he and Iris would find their way back to each other again.

A year ago, he’d spent time thinking through the consequences of changing the timeline; of undoing an event that caused such a huge ripple effect. He thought about what he’d lose and what he might gain. Inevitably the cons outweighed the pros and he’d decided against wiping away half his life for a different reality. He loved his life, even with all the tragedy in it. For every bad memory, there was a good one to replace it. Even if Iris married Eddie, even if he had no mentor guiding him in his secret life as Central City’s hero, even with any difficulty that would arise in any aspect of his life, he still had a good life. It was worth living.

But this time he hadn’t thought. He had just acted. All he could feel was the weight of his grief and despair. How could he still be a hero? How could he still be the Flash? He was in no condition to and he couldn’t take a break from protecting his city. Nothing was enough to heal him. Nothing but this one thing. And so, he hadn’t thought. He’d only acted. He was so sure that even if the pros did outweigh the cons, the cons were so much more enormous. They could not be blotted out by a multitude of happy memories and experiences.

At least that’s what he had thought.

You’re not giving this a chance, the voice that had convinced him so assuredly that saving his mother was the right course of action urged. You may be a slob and you may still be in school, but your mother is alive! And so is your father! You don’t know the whole story. Go find out!

And if I lose my speed? If I lose my memories? If I lose all of it? The guilt and fear weighed down on him.

Go find out! was all that urgent voice said in response. And so, what could he do but succumb to it?

Barry switched gears and sped down the several remaining stories, just to remind himself that he could. The electricity humming inside him created a dizzying effect. It was one he would cling to as long as he could.

You don’t even know if you’ll lose your powers, the voice in his head scolded.

Barry ignored it and approached the front desk.

“Hi…”

“Becky,” she chirped, bright smile on his face. He wished he knew if they had some history in this timeline.

“Right. Is Mr. …uh, is the manager around? I think I need to pay my—”

“Your rent? Your mother already paid it, Mr. Allen.”

Barry’s brows furrowed. It wasn’t that he had that much cash on him, but his boss (or…ex-boss) at his latest place of employment had given him his paycheck he’d been planning on sending out that day. By some miracle, Barry had found an ID in the deep pockets of his jeans – he detested the lazy-eyed picture – and cashed the check at the bank (which took some asking around to find, but he did inevitably find it).

He wanted to do something responsible before he left, but it seemed he wasn’t allowed to even do that. How low were everyone’s expectations of him if he couldn’t even pay his own rent without his mother intervening.

“Oh,” he heard himself say, then forced a smile. “Thanks, Becky.”

She blinked, clearly surprised by his gratitude, which made him feel even worse.

“O-Of course, Mr. Allen.” She paused, looking at him differently, with curiosity it seemed. Barry was unsure how to take that. “Will you be returning for your graduation next week?”

“I…” His mind blanked for a moment, curious as to how she knew. It didn’t seem like he told anyone anything or had any friends. He certainly had no self-respect. That much was clear. “Yes,” he made himself say. “I assume so,” he added, which he thought was odd. He shook his head and turned towards the exit. “Have a good weekend, Becky.”

“You too, Mr. Allen.”

He hurried out the door, pushing the continued disgust at himself as far away as he could. Becky was surprised by his kindness, his sincerity, and his gratitude – things that he thought had always come naturally to him he.

The voice that always assured him turning back time was the right idea was annoyingly silent. Barry suspected it was because there was no reassurance to be offered and there would be even less in the future.

His mother was alive. His dad was alive. But everything else was so murky he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

…

“Barry, honey?”

Barry blinked at the warm, soothing sound of his mother’s voice gently urging him awake. He turned to face her, a feat since his face had become plastered to the train window, and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to focus on her face. She was smiling and it made everything inside him burst with happiness.

He never thought he’d see her again. Now here she was alive and in front of him. Soon he would see his dad again too. Everything that was wrong could be fixed. He had a whole lifetime to fix it. And in the meantime, the hole filled with anger and hurt and loneliness inside him that had dug deeper and deeper every night since the moment his mother was murdered had started to fill up again.

Undoing the past had been the right thing to do. It had to be.

That’s the spirit! The voice inside of him cheered, but it didn’t feel very reassuring.

“W-what?” he slurred, groggy from the on-and-off nap he’d been attempting during the long train ride from New York to Central City, Missouri.

“We’re—”

The intercom turned on. “Next stop: Central City, Missouri! If this is your destination, please gather your things and prepare to depart in the next ten minutes.”

“We’re almost there,” his mother said softly.

Barry nodded, sat up slowly and stretched. It wasn’t easy. The seats were cheap and there was more of him than there was space between the two of them and probably the next row over. Good thing I didn’t bring too much, he thought as his eyes wandered to the people gathering in the aisle to retrieve their belongings.

“Your father will be so excited to see you,” Nora said, but her voice sounded strained.

“Will he?” Barry asked quietly, not intending to ask her directly but she heard him anyway, as she tended to. He remembered that from his childhood.

“Of course,” she assured him, her hand on his. The gesture made his heart swell again. “It’s been so long since the two of you…” She stopped, apparently rethinking her words. “You just haven’t been home in a while.”

“I haven’t?” slipped out and he cursed himself for not keeping the thought in his head.

Nora looked concerned now – and with good reason, he thought. Her son couldn’t remember anything that was probably common knowledge.

“I haven’t,” he corrected, making it a statement, shaking his head as if his restless nap was the reason for any confusion on his part. He turned to face her more directly and looked very intently into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He saw tears well in her eyes and wondered what the hell kind of son he was if this was making her emotional.

“You’ve been busy with school…and your job…”

He thought back on the speculative, disappointed looks on both his apartment manager’s face and his boss at the pizza place. He didn’t know if he knew the woman at the school personally or not, but she wasn’t much impressed with his demeanor either. He doubted he took any of these things seriously in this life.

“At the pizza place?” he asked dubiously.

“A job is a job, Bar—”

He shook his head and held her hands tightly. “No.” He took a breath and then looked into her eyes again. “I’m going to do better, Mom. I swear it.”

He thought he heard a quiet gasp escape her, but he couldn’t be certain. All he knew was he was more determined than ever to keep this promise to her.

“I’m glad you decided to come home this weekend, Barry.” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “My beautiful boy,” she whispered and then sank back into her seat.

…

“Where’s Dad?” he asked, feeling the question was safe. He didn’t hear a sound when he walked into the house after his mother.

“At work,” she said, wandering into the kitchen.

“As in…an office building?” He paused, reconsidering his question. “Or, at the clinic?”

His father was a family doctor first and foremost. He didn’t know if that was different in this life, but it had to have been at some point. It was that way when he was a child.

Nora peeked around the corner and smiled. He couldn’t tell if it was forced or not from this distance. How genuine her reactions appeared to him usually keyed him in to what he was expected to know and what he could reasonably not know.

He wished he’d followed her into the kitchen now.

“I just…forget,” he said helplessly, trying a sappy smile to explain himself away.

She came out to the living room and he saw the smile for it was – another fake one. Something he should have remembered, or known. He didn’t remember anything.

“It’s okay, Barry. It’s been a while since…” She stopped, shook her head and appeared to be rethinking what she was going to say again. When she looked up at him, she was calm and collected, but that forced smile was still there. “I don’t think we even told you.”

He swallowed and nodded as she turned away and made her way back into the kitchen.

“Is there something I can make you?” she asked absentmindedly. “I made some lasagna last night and my mother’s sweet apple raspberry tea.” She smiled genuinely now, but Barry was distracted.

His eyes scanned the room and then he looked towards the stairs, a memory of his eleven-year old self racing down the stairs woken from the sound of his mother screaming in the living room.

“Mom!”

“Run, Barry, run!”

“Barry?”

He swallowed and faced her. By the look on her face he knew he’d been silent for too long.

“When can I see Dad?”

She stiffened. “He should be home in an hour or so.” She sighed and turned to retrieve the items she’d listed previously from the fridge. “Though maybe later.” She paused. “He likes to stay later on Fridays.”

Why is that? He wondered, but he suspected his questions were doing more harm than good, so he made a point not to ask it aloud.

“Grandma Rose’s tea, huh?” he said, indulging her as he stepped inside the kitchen.

Nora was all smiles when she turned around, the tray of lasagna in one hand and the pitcher of tea in the other.

“Mhmm. Want some?”

He grinned. “Absolutely. You know it’s my favorite.” He took both items from her and tried not to think about how touched she was that he heated up a plate for both of them and poured a drink for her, too.

“You haven’t forgot your way around the kitchen at all,” she said, clearly impressed when he finally sat down across from her.

The comment caught him by surprise, because truly he hadn’t been in this kitchen in years, not since he was a boy. He refused to believe it had been that long in this life, but the fact remained. And the reason behind her indirect query was as plain as day, as he knew it would always be.

He looked her in the eye and pulled the dazzling truth from deep within him.

“This is home.”

…

It was late, almost midnight when Barry heard the door unlocking and he knew his father was home. He and his mom had fallen asleep on the couch watching old home movies – his idea. She was still sleeping with her head rested on his shoulder, the blanket he’d laid across her worn body starting to slip. He didn’t want to wake her, so he rose off the couch as slowly as possible and lay her head gently on one pillow. He adjusted the blanket so it covered her completely again and then quietly made his way to the foyer just inside the door. He hesitated a moment before stepping out of the shadows.

“Dad,” he said, his voice half-strangled.

“Your mother and I love-”

“Noooo!”

“Barry,” Henry Allen’s voice brought him out of the nightmare he’d fallen into. “Your mother told me you were coming home, but I… I didn’t believe it.”

Barry swallowed hard, wondering if the whirlwind of emotions arcing through him showed on his face. He tried to focus instead on his father’s voice and face and demeanor. He hadn’t known how to take his mother’s insistence on the excitement his dad would apparently have at him coming home. He’d half-wondered if he and his dad were estranged too.

There didn’t seem to be tension in him, and it did look like there was a smile starting to break onto his face. The opening was enough for him.

Barry crossed the short distance between them and wrapped his arms fiercely around his father. He tried to hold back, but tears trickled out and stained the skin on his cheek. He didn’t know if they traveled farther.

“I love you so much,” he said, his voice muffled and wrought with emotion.

He’d explain this away later somehow, but right now he needed this and he didn’t care how it looked. Not forty-eight hours prior, Zoom had stuck a vibrating hand through his father’s heart in the same place his mother had been murdered, forcing Barry to witness it and sending rage rushing through him in his overwhelming grief.

Henry patted his back gently, clearly taken aback but not making any move to pull away. Then his arms wrapped snug around his son’s nearly shaking body and he held him close. Barry sank into him.

“I love you, too, son,” he said, then smiled against his skin. “Slugger.”

Barry sighed aloud in relief. Did he ever think he’d hear that word tumble past his dad’s lips again?

No. Never. He didn’t expect any of this ever again. Because his dad had been killed. There was no way he could hear any of it, let alone feel the strength of his arms wrapped around him while he sobbed.

“I’m going to do better, Dad,” he said fiercely, remembering the promise he’d made to his mom. He pulled back, tears streaming down his face. “I promise I’m going to do better.”

He didn’t know if it was an empty promise, one he’d made a hundred times before and never followed through on, but he knew he’d be keeping it this time.

Henry placed a firm grip on his son’s face, still not questioning the emotion flooding out of him.

“You being here, son? That’s doing better.”

Barry nodded, about to succumb to the tears again, so Henry pulled him close and let him sob. He didn’t know why he let him, but he was glad he didn’t ask. Right now, he couldn’t explain. He could just feel.

And what he felt wiped away all the doubt he’d had since he woke up in that pig sty of an apartment earlier that morning.

This was worth it. What he had done was worth it. This feeling of home and safety and strength and warmth would heal him. It was everything he’d known he needed to get past what had happened and truly live again.

“You and your mother didn’t finish all of that lasagna, did you?”

Barry laughed, in disbelief this was real. His dad was holding him, reassuring him, and now joking with him. It was so surreal, but he no longer questioned his good fortune.

Instead, he pulled back and grinned.

“We saved one tiny slice for you.”

“Oh,” he said, amused, and wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulder as he guided them another route to the kitchen. “Just a tiny slice?”

“We were hungry,” Barry defended to which Henry shook his head. “Lots of Grandma Rose’s tea left though.”

“Well then, I guess it’s all worth it,” Henry said, sending a warm feeling to the pit of Barry’s belly.

Yeah, he thought to himself, it is.

*Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

#WIP week #backtothestart02 fanfiction #the flash #westallen #flashpoint #chapter 4 #fanfiction

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