#and through all of this will is under the assumption el and mike's love saved the world and mike will never love him back | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hawkinsschoolcounselor · 5 years

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Will Byers: The Great Debate

I know I still have some requested analyses to do, but I’m in a rotten mood, and I need to vent.

This whole debate on Will and whether he is gay has me infuriated. Yeah, I know I’m heavily biased due to my identification with the character, but I’m still pissed. The assumption that Will isn’t gay until they explicit state it is solely based on heteronormativity. In pop culture, people are simply assumed straight until proven otherwise. It’s the reason why they were able to hoodwink everyone with Robin in the first place. With just a mention of her saying she was obsessed with Steve in high school, everyone assumed the two of them would be a thing by the end of the season. That was a totally acceptable assumption to make. Thinking Will is gay? No, they need to tell us that.

There are reasons to think Will is gay, and certainly more than the casual fan probably realizes. I will go over them here, not that I need to lecture anyone who actually reads this on the topic.

1) Will is stated as having sexual identity issues in the original character summary.

Let’s just get this one out of the way. Yeah, it’s not known to the average viewer, but it’s still valid. Sure, they could have since deviated from the original plan, and by itself it may mean nothing, but it’s supporting evidence.

2) Will is bullied for being gay.

This is another one that doesn’t mean anything by itself. Will is bullied for being gay by both his father and the local bully. They could have used any number of similar characteristics, but they went with gay. Will is small, sweet, and honest, so there’s possibilities like mama’s boy, sissy, etc that could have gotten a similar point across without bringing in sexuality. It’s not just a passing mention. It comes up when Joyce talks to Hopper, and he even asks if it’s true. Troy is an absolute monster as he twists the knife in Mike’s wound. Troy bullies the other three for cruel, but accurate, reasons. He mocks Lucas’ race, Dustin’s lack of teeth, and Mike’s face (Mike kinda got off easy if you ask me). Now Troy may or may not be correct, but he probably thinks he is. He digs into each character’s deepest insecurities. He exists to tell us this information. If Will’s sexuality is unimportant, then why have Troy bully him the same way Will’s own father did? Troy simply could have made fun of him for being poor.

3) Will is especially close to Mike

This is made clear in every season. Yeah, they’re best friends, but Will and Mike are depicted as special. From the very start, Will can’t bring himself to lie to Mike. Yeah, I know, you can excuse the whole “It was a 7.” thing as just him foreshadowing his ordeal, but why set it up with Lucas telling him it’s ok as long as Mike doesn’t know? Mike is similarly shown as close to Will, with him being the most concerned. Dustin and Lucas are clearly worried too, and upset when the body is found, but Mike is shown taking it the hardest. They’re telling us the two of them share something special. Season 2 doubles down on this hard. Mike is the only one Will trusts with what’s happening to him. Mike is the only one he is shown remembering other than is mother. Mike is ultimately the one who breaks through to him.

4) Will is extremely jealous when Mike and El get together.

I don’t know why this one is hard for people to see. Maybe they’re just not looking for it. Yeah, some of it is just some good, subtle acting. Will is upset every single time Mike is shown showing affection for El. It technically starts in the Season 2 script with Will’s eyes being on Mike as they were all dancing. I know I’ve seen a clip of Will glancing over and looking upset, but I don’t remember that from the actual release. Was that a deleted scene? If so, its removal is conspicuous, especially with that released script. The jealousy is still apparent throughout Season 3. The sad looks on Will’s face whenever Mike and El are together, when Mike says he loves her. The anger he shows towards Mike, and only Mike, despite Dustin and Lucas similarly being focused on girls. I know I’ve seen people say he smiles when El dumps Mike. I honestly can’t tell, but he does look away, suggesting he doesn’t want his reaction to be noticed.

5) Mike is able to evoke emotion in Will

For the most part, Will is a quiet kid. He’s soft-spoken and has an innocence about him. He has a little frustration in Season 2, due to people treating him differently (though he leaves Mike out of his accusations), but he’s generally a go with the flow guy. Mike has the power to calm Will, to cheer him up, and make him cry both good and bad tears. Even in Season 3, his D&D annoyance is a slow build. It’s ultimately Mike’s rejection that sets him off. It’s specifically the fact that he feels he’s losing Mike. They were building that frustration alongside the D&D the entire season to that point. Is it really that much of a stretch for D&D to be a metaphor here? He jabs Mike over El when Mike tries to apologize, accusing him of throwing everything away over a “stupid girl.” Now, this “stupid girl” is supposed to be a friend of his, one who has helped save him twice. Will looks around Castle Byers at a D&D book and a drawing of Will the Wise. Both are accompanied by flashbacks beginning with Mike’s voice. He tears up the photo from Halloween, the night of the Crazy Together moment, right down the middle where Mike and Will are depicted. Will ends up destroying Castle Byers, berating himself the entire time, before collapsing in anguish. Yeah, it can be open to interpretation, but it’s not hard to see that Will could be calling himself stupid for thinking he and Mike shared something special now that El is in the picture. I’d like the people who think Will just isn’t ready to grow up to explain to me why that scene felt more like a breakup than a friend fight.

6) Will seems relatively trauma-free

Now, this is actually an issue I have with the show, as Will, along with pretty much the entire cast, should be amazingly traumatized. I bring it up only to counter the idea that Will has lost a portion of his childhood to the Upside Down, and so he’s not ready to grow up. Will has lost about two weeks of his childhood. He showed some issues in Season 2 before getting possessed, but he’s also shown enjoying his childhood as well. Just because we rejoin his life when bad stuff returns to Hawkins it doesn’t mean he had no life in the interim. He didn’t spend every day since getting rescued from the Upside Down in a hospital or deprived of his friends. There’s honestly no reason why Eleven would be more ready for adolescence than Will. If anything, Will should be associating his trauma with D&D and avoiding it like the plague. It should be causing him post-traumatic stress. He should want to get as far away from reminders of what happened as possible. A game with mindflayers and demogorgons isn’t something he should want. He has a reason for wanting D&D, and it’s not that he’s still a kid inside, because he still had other interests before Season 3, like comics, drawing, and the arcade.

7) Will not liking girls doesn’t just mean he doesn’t like them yet

This is the other counter argument I’ve noticed: that Will just hasn’t matured to liking girls yet. While it’s not unbelievable for a boy his age to not start sexually maturing, there’s really no indication of this. He isn’t just uncomfortable dancing with the girl in Season 2, he flat out doesn’t want to do it. He also has no problem with Max joining them for Halloween, stating that Dustin and Lucas were excited about it so he ok’d it. He understands boys liking girls. He shows no real hostility towards Dustin or Lucas for it. When he tells Joyce he’s never going to fall in love, it doesn’t sound like a kid who finds the idea of dating gross. He sounds sad as he says it. When Mike says it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls, Will is stunned into silence. Now Mike doesn’t know if Will is gay, and Will may not really know either, but it cuts deep.

In conclusion

By no means is my interpretation definitely correct. I could be absolutely wrong. But why is my interpretation seen as ridiculous? My theory isn’t perfect, but I have evidence. I have rebuttals to alternate interpretations. If we’re not meant to think Will is gay, why does it seem like they keep giving us reasons to? If it’s not important, people from the show could easily just say so. Noah and Finn end up having to awkwardly respond to questions they may not even have the answers to.

It’d be very strange if the Duffers and their team somehow painted themselves into a corner by accident. It’s possible, sure, but I don’t see how it could keep happening. Finn had said they had other takes of “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” including one that added “yet”, but stated that they ultimately went with the one in question. Well, I mean, they chose to go with that one. I don’t know why, but neither do the people saying Will is just immature. We speculate, and if I speculate that they went with that one because that’s the storyline they’re going for and are trying to keep it under wraps, then I should be allowed to do so without being scoffed at. I may be biased because of my bisexuality, but they’re also biased because of their heteronormativity.

#stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #byeler #stranger things 3 #spoilers

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gldngrl7 · 7 years

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Karamel Fic: Ruination (6/6)

Title: Ruination

Author: gldngrl7

Started: January 5, 2017

Rating: Explicit

Chapters: 6

Author’s Notes:

Stay tuned for story 3 in this saga that’s going I don’t know where.

Thanks to the following for your comments and flailing. You guys are awesome: @pwettypwita, @lostin-the-desert, @anaveragegirl15

To all others: thanks for reading/liking

Constructive criticisms and feedback/comments/flailing are mightily appreciated. Flames are destroyed by my freeze breath.

Chapter: 6/6

Don't get me wrong I'd never say never

' Cause though love can change the weather

No act of God can pull me away from you

I'm just a realistic man, a bottle filled with shells and sand

Afraid to love beyond what I can lose when it comes to you

--Five for Fighting – “Chances”

Kara catches Alex just before she rounds the corner near the gym and directs her down another corridor. Alex takes one look at her sister and extrapolates an accurate measure of the situation.

“Are you serious?!” she hisses. “In the DEO?”

“How did you know?” Kara asks, biting on her kiss-swollen bottom lip, her shoulders deflating. Attempting to lie would be a disaster.

“Because I have eyeballs in my head and they’re not just for show! And because nothing good happens when people disappear in camera blind spots,” she chastises.

“Oh, something very good happ—“ Kara grins.

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence, Kara Danvers! Oh my God,” Alex rubs her forehead with one hand. “You’re still sweating—you can sweat?—and your neck is the color of your cape. How close did I come to catching you two?”

“Pretty close.” At first Kara has the decency to look chastened but then after a beat, “For round two.”

Alex hangs her head, suddenly interested in her boots, her face suddenly deadly serious. “I don’t even know what could have happened if you’d been caught.”

Kara’s eyes narrow, a sliver of fear slicing through her chest. “They can’t…they can’t keep us apart, Alex. Can they? I mean…would they? Why would they?”

“I don’t know what the policies are about two aliens under the protection of DEO…fraternizing. So, for now, you two should keep this on the down-low.” Alex grimaces uncomfortably. “If that’s even remotely possible.”

“Why would they try to keep us apart, Alex?”

Alex sighs, placing her hand on her hips. Seeing another agent approaching down the corridor, she takes Kara’s arm and pulls aside toward to wall, allowing the man to pass and to provide them more privacy. She keeps her voice in a lower register, more difficult for the directional mikes to pick up.

“It’s only rumors I’ve heard. Congress may have passed the Alien Amnesty Act, but it opened a lot of doors to ask other questions about extraterrestrials. Shouldn’t we be provided with knowledge about their cultures? Outstanding animosities between species, in case we need to keep them separated? Should we require them to register their planet of origin as well as any extra abilities they may have? ”

“Alien registration,” Kara nods, disturbed. “I’m familiar with that talk.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Alex shook her head. “There are some senators that are saying aliens should be forbidden from breeding. There are fears that the more powerful aliens will band together and create a community that could become overlords.”

“Aliens like me and my cousin,” she extrapolates. “But we would never do that. And if we had any children we would never teach our children that.”

“I know,” Alex reminds her. She reaches out and runs her hand along Kara’s arm, soothing her hurt feelings. How much does Kara have to give in protection of this planet, until the power seekers will stop wanting to take things away from her? “But you know as well as I do, that sometimes there are other forces behind the scenes pulling the strings.”

“Lillian and Lex Luthor,” Kara nods.

“My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I’m sure it’s not even something you need to worry about right now. I mean, you two are using protection, right?” It’s not a question from Alex, so much as it is an assumption.

In a flash Kara is assaulted with the memory of being with Mon-El just minutes before leaving the gym to stall Alex. A vivid memory of how it felt when Mon-El spent himself inside of her – the forceful heat of him rushing into her womb. “Yeah,” she lies, putting on her best fake smile and waving her hand in a gesture designed to put her sister at ease. “Of course we are. Did you come looking for me for a reason?”

“The Mayor wants to give you an award for what you did at the hospital today.”

Kara cringes, acid rising to the back of her throat. “Oh, no,” she says, “I don’t need an award. Tell her I was just doing my job. No award.”

“Kara,” Alex sighs. “You helped save a lot of lives.”

“Not enough,” she shakes her head. “Now, if I’d been there to stop the crash from happening in the first place, that might have deserved an award.”

“It was a horrible, devastating accident, Kara. And you are not God. You can’t be everywhere at once and you can’t see the future.”

“Sure would be nice if I could though.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I know it hurts…those kids today…and you’ve always been the one with faith, Kara. But I believe that everything happens for reason. Sometimes we get the privilege of learning what those reasons are, but most of the time we don’t. That’s where the faith comes in.” When the sadness eased a little from Kara’s face, Alex continued, “If you feel that strongly about it, I’ll tell the Mayor that you’re not up for it. She sounded like she really wanted to thank you in person though.”

“No awards,” Kara stands firm. “If she wants to thank me in person we can meet in her office in the evening tomorrow. No cameras. No photo ops. How would that look to the parents and families of the children that died? This isn’t a victory lap.”

“Understood,” Alex agrees, lips curving into a humorous smirk. “Anything else I can do to make my sister happy?”

“Can we find a way to get my boyfriend off of lockdown so we don’t have to sneak around?”

Alex’s eyes widen to a near impossible size. “Boyfriend? Is that how it is?”

Kara nods sharply. “That’s how it is.”

“I see. Well, the best thing he can do is come off the government stipend,” she suggests. “And if he could avoid getting kidnapped by CADMUS that would be good too. I know you like him…but the boy’s a magnet for trouble.”

“He’s a man, by the way,” Kara says. Then she says, perhaps just to annoy her sister, “Definitely…definitely…a man.”

“Eww, okay,” Alex retorts. “Maybe you should find a mirror and fix yourself up before someone takes a little too much notice, like some of the guys around here do. Trust me…you don’t want that drama.”

Kara pats at her hair, which is now frizzier and wilder than usual, and possibly still has bits of concrete clinging to it. “That’s probably a good idea. I think I’ll just go home since I’m not needed at the moment. Glass of wine…long hot bath…maybe catch up on some emails. Snapper sometimes likes to send out first-come-first-serve assignments via email to see who’s paying attention.”

“I’ll let J’onn know you’re off the clock.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you later, Alex.”

A half hour later, Kara is not taking a long hot bath in her apartment, but sitting in the kitchen of her childhood home in Midvale trying to figure out how to broach a sensitive subject with her mother. Eliza Danvers, dressed in her pajamas, her long blond locks in a sloppy topknot on the top of her head, hands her adopted daughter a cup of coffee.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Eliza asks, opening the conversation. Something is bothering her youngest daughter, but Eliza knows that it’s best to let Kara open up in her own time. She always does eventually, one just has to be patient.

“I can’t just come see you?” With a raised eyebrow from her mother, Kara looks away, knowing that she’s been caught out. “How’s the work going on a cure for Mon-El’s lead allergy?” she wonders. Taking some positive information back to Mon-El would be worth seeing the expression on his face.

“We’re never going to find a cure, Kara,” Eliza warns. “At least not with our current level of technology. But I’m close to finding an antidote.”

“An antidote? Really?” Kara’s face lights up, like Eliza hasn’t seen in a long time, a blush rising to her cheeks and a new sparkle in her eyes. She’s suspected for a while that Kara was approaching some new emotional changes in her life, and her daughter’s first line of questioning only confirms her theory.

“It would have to be taken immediately after exposure, similar to the use of an EpiPen to stop anaphylactic shock. I’m not sure how we’ll be able to administer it intravenously with his impervious skin…but that’s tomorrow’s problem. I have to complete the antidote first, and then test it. Also…a problem for another day.”

“That’s all incredible news,” Kara gushes. “I can’t wait to tell him.”

Eliza puckers her lips and blows a waft of steam from her coffee, cooling the liquid down before taking a slow sip, making sure to slurp it just a little to heighten the silence that hangs in the air between them. She allows her taste buds to leisurely take stock of the flavors before lifting the mug for a second, slurping sip, cranking the tension in her daughter’s shoulders another notch. The grandmother clock in the hall entryway ticks away the seconds with a near deafening ‘click-clank’ as if judging Kara’s cowardice.

Eliza sighs. Any minute….

“I had sex with Mon-El,” Kara blurts, the long silence from her mother too much to bear.

…now.

Eliza doesn’t know whether to smile at Kara’s predictability or to commence an in depth interrogation about the bomb she just dropped. Being the mother that she is, she opts for the latter. “First of all…are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Kara rushes to reassure her. “I’m great! It was great. He was…really great.”

Sex had never been a verboten conversation in their household, once the girls had been old enough to discuss such things. Eliza wanted them to know that they could always come to her with questions or concerns. She didn’t want to be one of those mothers who stuck their heads in the sand. Of course, things might have been different, more difficult to discuss, had Jeremiah been around, but Eliza would have mandated that the lines of communication remain open she is sure, even if they needed to bypass Jeremiah’s ears entirely.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,” Eliza sighs, relieved that her daughter’s first sexual experience had not been traumatic. Eliza throws a wink Kara’s way. “I told you he liked you. So…tell me how it happened.” She lifts her mug to take another sip of coffee.

“I asked him to have sex with me and he said yes.”

Never in her life had Eliza ever performed a spit take, but it appears that there truly is a first time for everything. “You did what?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she chuckles, grabbing a napkin to wipe up the spray of coffee. “You asked him to have sex with you?”

“Well at first I just wanted to get the first time out of the way, and then after that….” Her voice trails off, hoping that Eliza will read her as she’s always so good at doing.

“You hoped it would help open up your options. I know that you had hopes that someday—“

“I know that you warned it might not be impossible,” Kara cuts her off. “Well…you were right.”

“It’s not often I wish I was wrong, honey.”

“I know.”

Eliza reaches across the table and takes Kara’s hand in hers, which is accepted warmly.

“Did you know?” Kara asks, tilting her head and eyeing her mother with some suspicion. “Did you know that Mon-El would be able to have sex with me?”

Eliza nods slowly. “After everything I learned about his physiology when he was sick with the Medusa virus, it became clear that he has the necessary invulnerability, pain tolerance, and as an added bonus…elevated epinephrine and dopamine levels to override any possible pain response, as well as to enhance his pleasure.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Kara asks, her voice rising in frustration.

Eliza raises an eyebrow that says more than mere words. “Be honest, Kara. Would you have had sex with Mon-El because I told you to?”

After a moment of consideration, Kara slumps back in her chair and crosses her arms, pouting. “No.”

“You had to come to it all on your own. You’ve always been like that.” She smiles warmly, with motherly affection. “So…earlier you said, ‘at first’.”

“What?”

“You said, ‘at first you just wanted to get the first time out of the way’,” Eliza quoted. “Did something change?”

“I guess it…opened up some feelings I might have been in denial about. A little bit…maybe.”

“A lot…definitely,” Eliza counters, teasing her daughter. She places her elbow on the table and leans her chin into her cupped hand, listening attentively. “You should see yourself when you’re around him. I can’t remember how many crushes you had in high school, but you were never like that before. Heightened adrenal response, blushing, eyes dilating, hands trembling – your reaction to him at Thanksgiving was very noticeable. So you had sex…and?”

“I wanted to have more sex.”

Eliza bursts into laughter.

“But then he confirmed your theories that I didn’t want to listen to – that having sex with a human would likely kill said human.”

“That was brave of him.”

“I was angry, at first. Then sad. And then I remembered that the Book of Rao talks about the Blessed Path.”

“What’s that, honey?” Though a person of science, and not of faith, Eliza always indulged her daughter’s beliefs, because it helped her stay connected to her home – to her culture.

“That when Rao chooses a Path for you, He will leave no other avenue open to distract you from His will.”

“And you think Mon-El is part of Rao’s will,” Eliza extrapolates, as though mulling over Kara’s theory.

Kara enumerates all the reasons that lead her to that conclusion, stating her argument, including reminding her about the scenario which forced her to reveal her powers to the world. Still, to this day, Eliza can feel that sliver of fear race down her spine when she thinks of almost losing Alex in a plane crash – like the rush of adrenaline that floods the system after a narrowly missed close call.

“Even you don’t believe in that many coincidences,” Kara points out.

“The chances of coincidences occurring if the probability distribution is random are finite,” she indulges Kara, but doesn’t wish to debate her or challenge her beliefs.

“Finite chances,” Kara nods, as though hearing the answer she had been hoping to hear. “So…we’re together now,” she announces. But then her face crumbles in on itself, much as Eliza was accustomed to seeing in the early teen years. “I think. I mean…I’m pretty sure.”

“You’re pretty sure?” Eliza echoes.

“Well…I told him about the Blessed Path and what I thought it meant and then we said things about belonging with each other and then we had sex, which was amazing, except….” Kara took a deep breath, as if her long sentence had actually winded her.

“Except?”

Kara drops her head in her hands, either to hide from her mother or to avoid the look of judgement that is sure to come…or possibly both. No. Definitely both. “We forgot to use protection! I know! I’m a horrible person!” she cries, choosing to get a jump on judging herself rather than letting her mom do all the heavy lifting. “What were we thinking? Well, we weren’t thinking were we? We were just feeling. So caught up in the moment and the emotion, it was like our brains just…left the building. I can’t really blame him though because the whole concept of condoms is completely foreign to him. I had to explain it to him the first time. One shouldn’t expect him to take the blame for this quite yet. That wouldn’t be fair. Nope,” she shakes her head vehemently. “This is all on me.” She slinks back into her face-in-hands position.

“Are you done?” Eliza asks. “Because you were kind of on a roll there.”

“What do I do?” Kara whines, sounding for all the world like her twelve year old self who doesn’t want to back to the new school that scares here.

“I’m afraid even you can’t undo what’s already been done. If you were Alex I would say the morning-after pill is an option, but with you I can’t be sure what kind of dosage you would need, and by the time I calculated it, any embryo conceived would already have implanted in the uterine wall.”

Hearing it out loud, the words ‘conceived’ and ‘embryo’, sends a strange thrill through her, causing her breasts to feel heavy; but there’s fear there as well. There are more implications to motherhood than she ever could have imagined when she was a child dreaming of carrying a baby that might save the people of Krypton from total universal extinction. Such as how many people would want to get their hands on her child to do who-knows-what horrible things to it.

“Now it is possible that I can calculate the correct dosage for a standard hormone based birth control regimen, which you should be able to take by mouth. Alex should be able to provide a prescription for you. Though it may raise a few eyebrows at the pharmacy.”

“Really?”

“Of course, we’d have to wait until we know if sure if there’s a bun in your oven before you can go on The Pill. In the meantime, you need to be vigilant about condoms.”

A plan, Kara sighs, her spirits lifting somewhat. She always feels better when her mother makes a plan. It’s Eliza’s way of saying everything’s going to be okay.

“We will,” she promises and then after a moment. “What are the odds, really? That I can get pregnant from just one time?” Kara asks.

“You don’t want to know,” Eliza replies. “Fertility can be a funny thing, Kara. Overly generous to some, cruelly fickle with others, and with you…there’s no road map. But let’s not worry about it until we know for sure. It’s a waste of energy.”

“Easy for you to say,” mumbles Kara.

“I know it’s hard, but try not to worry, honey. If it happens we’ll deal with it together…as a family.”

“What aren’t you angrier about this?” Kara wonders. She came to Midvale expecting a lecture on the virtues and necessities of the proper use of contraception.

“Would it help the situation if I was? Besides, you’ve always loved children; gravitated towards them. With all the love you have, you couldn’t help but make an excellent mother. And if you were pregnant, wouldn’t that be something special? Krypton Lives.” Eliza smiles softly at Kara and a sudden stillness washes over her.

She’s going to be okay. No matter what happens. She’ll be okay, because her mother is in her corner.

“Thanks, Mom,” Kara whispers, taking Eliza’s hand in hers again. She rarely uses the moniker, always feeling like it’s a betrayal to Alura, the mother who raised her for the first twelve years of her life. But in this moment, Kara can’t help but feel that Alura would be okay with it.

“Always,” Eliza replied, her eyes tearing up a little.

Kara stays for another hour or so, raiding her mother’s refrigerator and switching from coffee to a glass of Chianti. She tells her mother about her surreal trip to Earth-1 where she met some pretty amazing people (and one who drank too much and couldn’t figure out how to work a shower) with amazing abilities, and how they stopped the world from being taken over by the Dominators.

They talk about Alex and how her relationship with Maggie was progressing. Slowly but surely. But Kara talks about how she can’t believe how much happier Alex seems now.

Eliza confesses that she was offered a permanent position as a consultant with the DEO and that she’s still considering it. Kara claps excitedly at the prospect and tells her she would feel more comfortable having her nearby, and handling any medical crisis that might arise in the alien population.

They talk a little more about Mon-El and when Kara thought her feelings for him might be changing. Eliza asks some pointed question about some of Mon-El’s patterns of behavior, his sense of humor, and if she is yet aware of his sleeping habits.

Eliza walks her daughter out to the front porch, the two watching the stars above, so clear when not hidden by the city lights, before Kara prepares to leave. She wraps Kara in a warm hug, holding her tight, her hands running down the length of her hair, just as when she was a child.

“Kara…before you go, there’s one more thing I want to say.”

“What’s that?” she wonders, suddenly worried by the serious expression on her mother’s face.

“I’m no psychologist, but I raised a child who lost her whole world in one day and then crash landed on this planet with nothing. You need to be aware that it’s highly likely Mon-El is in a state of deep denial about what happened on Daxam. He’s not grieving, or acknowledging the loss and that will eventually become problematic. You need to keep a close eye on him.”

“What should I be looking for?”

“Well, with you it was sleeplessness, outbursts of anger, and sullenness. But everyone’s different; post-traumatic stress manifests in various ways. Mon-El’s sense of humor is intact so he’s masking. He may be experiencing frequent nightmares or selective memory loss about the events on Daxam.

Self-destructive behavior and a sense of self-loathing; and I hate to even mention this one, honey, but seeking pleasure activities like drinking to excess and—“

“—having sex,” Kara finishes, seeing right away where her mother was leading.

Eliza nods sadly. “That’s all I can tell you, Kara. Except that eventually his mind will catch up with reality and when it does….”

“When it does…what?”

Eliza takes a deep breath. “If my suspicions are correct…we should all be calculating minimum safe distance.”

“What can I do?”

“He’s going to need someone to catch him when he falls. He’ll need you to be his soft place to land.”

“How?”

“I can’t be sure,” Eliza answers with a shrug. “For you…I had to let you be mad for a while. But adults don’t handle re-entry as well as children do. All we can hope is you’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

After one last hug and a thank you, Kara takes to the air. The flight back to National City is long enough to set her mind whirling. Two hours ago her biggest worry had been about whether or not she might be pregnant; which now seems like the least of her problems.

Is Mon-El having sex with her to keep his grief at bay? Is that all she is to him…a convenient distraction from the enormity of his loss? She realizes, of course, that he’s not consciously using her to distract himself from his grief, but she also understands that if his denial goes deep enough, he may not even be aware of what he’s doing.

On some level it eases her concerns for her own part, but because she cares about him it still stings that there may be this truth to him that’s been simmering under the surface all along, and she missed it.

****

There’s no desk to visit nor door to knock upon; there’s just him, trying to find a guy dressed in black that’s a moving target in a building full of guys dressed in black. Which is why it takes nearly half an hour, and asking fourteen different people his location, to track him the man down.

“Mon-El…what can I do for you?” J’onn asks before he can even get the man’s attention. Mon-El isn’t entirely sure, but there’s a small chance Green Martians have eyes in the backs of their heads.

“I was hoping to have a word with you.” Mon-El rubs his hands together nervously. Over the months he’s been on this planet, Mon-El has reached a sort of détente, practically a friendship, with the alien accustomed to posing as human. J’onn isn’t the type to be demonstrably affectionate, but he feels fairly confident that they’ve reached a harmony between them. As long as Mon-El stays within the lines.

“Well talk fast,” J’onn advises.

“First of all,” he begins. “I wanted to thank you for helping me get the job with M’gann. It’s been a lifesaver.”

“She called earlier today and said you did a good job,” J’onn nods. “She also asked if I would vouch for you if she hired you on as a bartender.”

“She did?’ he asks, trying not to let the concern seep into his voice. He hasn’t made the best impression on the people of Earth, and though his relationship with the leader of the DEO feels like it’s on solid ground at the moment, it’s not like he’s J’onn’s best friend.

“I’ve already submitted the paperwork,” J’onn informs him, racing down the hallway to who-knows-where. “You’ll be given a bench pass to allow you to come and go at will, for as long as you’re gainfully employed. You will check in with me, at the DEO, no less than twice a week at regularly scheduled times. If you break the law, your bench pass will be revoked. If you’re arrested, your bench pass will be revoked. If you become involved in criminal conspiracies of any kind…”

“Revoked?” Mon-El guesses.

“Good to see you’re getting the gist. You’ll be expected to agree to a few other terms and conditions, but if you can get the main ones down you should be fine.” J’onn turns to Mon-El and steps into his personal space, pointing a finger menacingly at his face, causing Mon-El to lean the top half of his body back in a comical manner. “M’gann is willing to train you in a trade, Mon-El. I suggest you follow her every instruction to the letter.”

“That’s the plan,” Mon-El replies. He would do this. He had to do this. For himself and for Kara, he needs to find his own place on this planet. Even if it means forgetting about the past and the life he once led. “Thanks, J’onn,” he said gratefully. “You won’t regret helping me.”

“I’d better not,” the man gruffly replies, though the softness in his eyes belies the rough quality of his voice.

“There’s just one other thing,” Mon-El says. “Could you not tell Kara about this yet?”

J’onn stops looking at the tablet he’s just been handed and stares back at Mon-El, piercing him with his eyes. “And why is that?” When Mon-El explains, J’onn thinks about it for a moment before agreeing at last. ”Only because she doesn’t need any more disappointment.”

“Thanks, J’onn,” Mon-El says before J’onn shoos him away.

Something new is going to start tomorrow; a new direction where Kara looks at him as a man of worth; someone that can be depended on. The hour grows late and he’s due to assist M’gann at the bar again in the morning, so not wanting to be late, he decides to get some shut-eye.

He debated taking a shower and then concluded that a shower in the morning after a good night’s sleep would suffice just fine. Traversing the labyrinthine corridors of the DEO, Mon-El found his room, spare quarters for unexpected visitors like himself.

Sparse but for anything except the barest necessities, there is a cot with a few blankets, a footlocker for items he’s collected over his time here, as well as a table and lamp for reading. There is nothing warm or inviting about the space he currently calls home but it does however, offer privacy, a commodity which cannot be overstated. So at least there’s that much.

“So we’re one step closer to getting out of this dismal dungeon,” Ral rejoices. “Tell me, brother…who is this person you’re becoming?”

Mon-El chuckles, which turns into a laugh. He toes his shoes off and puts them under the bed out of the way before laying down on the cot. “That is…an interesting question. Someone better, I hope.”

“I only ask because I don’t recognize this man before me,” Ral leans against the wall, his hands behind his back, as though he had not a care in the world. “You never used to be so…focused.”

“Maybe all I needed was a reason to be,” Mon-El suggests.

“So a woman is to receive all of the credit?” Ral scoffs. “I don’t think so, brother. This person you are now…is the person your father always knew you could be.”

The pleasant sensation humming throughout Mon-El’s body dissipates, leaving behind a sinking feeling. “I don’t want to talk about him,” Mon-El croaked.

“You’re going to have to sometime.”

“No, I think we can avoid that completely,” Mon-El says, shaking his head in denial.

“You didn’t think I was here for just me, did you?” Ral’s countenance shifts from triumph to sadness. “I’m here for all of them.”

“I have no interest in playing this game. You always do this.” He wants to stick his fingers in his ears like a recalcitrant child, blocking Ral out of his mind, but he knew it would have no effect. He wants to run from the room, but Ral isn’t a person that will simply go away, so he paces his quarters like a caged animal instead.

“What is it I always do?” Ral wonders.

“When are you going to learn?” Mon-El asks, struggling to maintain his slipping composure. “My father and I will never make peace!”

Extemporaneous words slipping out often have unintended consequences, and the subsequent silence born of Mon-El’s outburst hangs in the air like a foul odor, leaving him afraid to breathe. Ral laughs brokenly, a sound of profound desolation. “I think that’s precisely my point,” he says.

There’s a sudden spasm in Mon-El’s chest and a feeling of oppressive gloom, like being covered with too many blankets. “I don’t—“ Mon-El gasps for air, unable to draw more than a cursory, unrewarding breath. “I can’t—“ he tries again, before giving up and collapsing onto his cot, like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Ral approaches Mon-El and drops to his haunches on the floor before him, “It’s okay, brother,” he says, placing a hand of comfort on Mon-El’s knee. “You can and you will. I promise that you will. You must.”

Not for the first time, Mon-El wishes a hole would swallow him alive and take him to some underworld of hellish punishment like the one that he deserves. There are whispers of such a place in the mythology of this world and a part of him was relieved to hear of it.

Mon-El fights against the swell of emotion building within him, determined to overcome it, willing himself to brutally beat it into a submission he can control. Ral sees his efforts and sighs in disappointment. “This would be so much easier if you would just—“

“No,” he cuts him off. “I won’t.”

“But you will,” Ral insists. “You will.” After a moment of deliberation, Ral admits, “The storm comes for all of us eventually and the only thing that varies is the size of the fallout when it finally does.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Mon-El decides, hauling himself from the cot. Reaching back to the neck of his shirt, he pulls the garment over his head and tosses it in a bin along with dirty clothes. Opening his footlocker he rummages for the clothes he’ll need for tomorrow, his fury only deepening when there are no more shirts to be found.

“Damn it!” he curses, realizing that it’s too late to do laundry, and all of his shirts are in the dirty bin. Except for the ones he purchased today.

Mon-El retrieves the plastic bag, heavy with clothes and other items, and searches for an appropriate shirt to wear to work the next day, pointedly ignoring Ral’s looming presence as he does so. Tossing the new shirts, jeans, and a bag of clean white socks into the footlocker, Mon-El reaches the bottom of the bag and stops, his fingers wrapping around the final item, purchased at a drug store at the very end of the afternoon. Withdrawing it from the sack, an ember of panic in his belly flames to life at the sight of it.

An unopened box of condoms.

“I told you there’s a storm coming, brother.”

The End and To Be Continued

#karamel #karamel fic

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