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ilovemygaydad · 5 years

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Friends in Dark Places [ch 7]

pairing: eventual moxiety, eventual logince, background eventual remile, background eventual remy/emile/deceit

WARNINGS: blood, self harm, panic attacks, crying, poor coping mechanisms, mentions of sensory overload, intrusive thoughts, self doubt, self hatred, possibly something else

tag list: @hufflepuffgirl01 @cocobearthe4th @cas-is-a-hunter@band-be-boss-blog @theunoriginaldaisy

a/n: so i have to repost all of these in a different format! yay fucking me!!!! please consider reblogging these if you’re a fan of this series because it’s all fucked up now

first - previous - next - companions

consider buying me a coffee (please)

Before he piled into the back of the car, Virgil took his headphones out of his bag and slid them over his ears. He didn’t need a sensory overload at 7:30 in the morning just because the Disney Prince didn’t have any volume control. Like, at all.

“Wow, Roman! I like the new look! The bomber jacket really makes the whole thing work,” Patton squealed. Roman turned in his seat to look back at Pat, and Virgil could see what he meant. Instead of his usual bare face, he’d put on gold shimmery eyeshadow and red lipstick. Virgil hated to admit it, but he looked really good.

A few minutes into the ride, Virgil felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned to Patton, who was obviously the giver of the “pat,” with raised eyebrows.

Are you okay? Patton mouthed, tapping his ears to simulate headphones.

Yeah. No need to be overstimulated so early. Virgil mouthed back with a gesture to Roman, who was still singing along to various Disney songs. Patton just nodded and went back to conversing--er, trying to converse with Logan.

The car arrived at Westview High at exactly 7:45, giving each of the students plenty of time to do what they needed before class started at eight. Patton and Virgil went to the office together to drop off their absence notes, then parted ways to go to their lockers.

Virgil walked the whole twenty feet trek to his locker to drop off his backpack and grab his Graphic Arts portfolio and pencil case. He shoved his phone into his hoodie pocket and turned up the volume on his playlist, blasting Green Day as he walked to the opposite end of the school for his first block class.

The dark-clad teenager had hoped he would fly under the radar, but the instant he walked into the graphic arts room, his teacher ambushed him.

“Virgil! I got your email, but what landed you in the hospital for three days?” Mrs. Miller asked. Virgil nearly dropped his binder due to the pure shock of being spoken to so suddenly. He ripped off his headphones and put a hand to his chest.

“First of all, don’t jump out like that,” he said as he made sure all of his bandages were hidden under his sleeves. “Second… I, uh… had a, uh, really bad… allergy… attack. Like, hives all over my body and face. I had to get allergy testing and stuff, and I was on constant antihistamines for, like, three days.” The story was definitely not very believable, and Virgil could see in Mrs. Miller’s eyes that she didn’t believe him at all.

“Sure. Anyway, we’re going to be working on banners or helping clean the lab. You can choose either since I know you’re probably almost done with your banner. Or you are done, which wouldn’t be surprising.” Virgil nodded and headed to the back, tying one of the ink-covered aprons around his waist and began to spray solvent onto one of the many barely-used rags from the discard. He muttered under his breath about how the other students needed to learn that rags were meant to be absolutely filthy when they were discarded, but he ultimately let it go.

Virgil slipped his headphones on and cleaned three screens and a few pallet knives in a blissful bubble of music. His cathartic cleaning session, however, came to a quick end when he had cleaned everything in the shop in just under an hour. With a whole twenty-five minutes left. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if he wasn’t mostly finished with his project.

Without any surprise, it took him only five minutes to put finishing touches on his banner. He sighed and sent it to the color printer. Might as well turn it in if he’s done, right? Virgil trudged to the printer and took out the streaky mess. The printer, just to his luck, had been having problems with colored bars randomly showing up on people’s prints, and his was not the exception. As well, it all happened right in the part with the smaller, thin lettering that named the bands.

“Hey, Mrs. Miller. Can I just send you a PDF of the banner? The printer chewed up my design and spat it back out.” Virgil asked as he walked to his teacher’s office door and leaned on the door frame. She took a look at the paper he was holding up and sighed.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I just called IT yesterday and had them fix the printer. That thing is a disaster.” Mrs. Miller shook her head and waved Virgil over. “Let me see your design.”

Virgil hesitated but stepped forward, dropping the paper on her desk. He tugged his hands into his sleeves as his teacher scrutinized the paper. With a heavy sigh, Mrs. Miller set it back on her desk.

“It’s pretty plain, Virgil. Like, it certainly meets all of the criteria for the project, and is definitely good enough to be a perfect grade, but... Virgil, what happened to your amazing designs? This is… bland. Pretty--don’t get me wrong--but bland.” The teen felt the blood rush from his body in one fell swoop. He hadn’t wanted to let her down! He had just thought that it fit the aesthetic of the festival better. But at the same time, he thought back to his past few designs, and the results were disappointing at best. She was right. They were bad.

“I… I’m sorry. You’re right; it sucks.. I’ll go redesign it. Just--yeah.” Virgil swung around and made a motion to leave when Mrs. Miller called after him. He stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around.

“Virgil. It’s fine. I don’t want you to get upset about it. I’m just saying that you haven’t been acting like yourself recently, and it shows in your work. Art is full of emotion, so when the artist feels down, the art reflects that.” Virgil could feel her eyes burning into the back of his head, feeding him with self-doubt and fear. He had wanted to hide his feelings better--it was his responsibility to hide everything away inside of himself. Feelings hurt others, and if he had to suffer to keep others safe, then that’s what he had to do. An icy chill shot through his veins at the same time as hot fire. He needed out.

He curtly nodded and walked out of the office. As he sat down in his chair, he took out his phone to text Patton, but realized he hadn’t asked for his number. That just added to his anxiety--how would he be able to meet up with Pat and the others after school to get a ride home? The panic began to rise up his chest until he couldn’t bear it anymore. With all of the false calm he could muster, Virgil asked Mrs. Miller if he could to go to the bathroom, to which she obviously said yes.

His footsteps pounded down the hallway as he ran, even though the nearest bathroom was just a few yards away. Virgil slammed the stall door shut, sliding to the floor with a sob. This wasn’t supposed to be difficult. He had a friend now, and he was so sweet and kind and caring. Not to mention he was living with said friend and his equally-as-nice family, who gave him a really wonderful room and fed him and took care of him. They even fucking committed insurance fraud for him even though they knew nothing about him.

Virgil rolled up his sleeve and began to harshly scratch his forearm where there were no bandages. He needed to relieve the icy hot pain he felt. He needed it out of his body. His mind was racing, going to conclusions that didn’t even make sense, until he lost track of time. The bell for the next period might have rang, but he had no idea. Looking down at his arm, Virgil realized that his long nails had dragged shallow, bloody cuts into his skin.

It made him feel like a failure. He’d made it, what, all of five days without self harm just to break it over a stupid banner design that he was going to get a good grade on anyway!

His shaky hands dug the phone out of his pocket and turned it on. Patton… What the hell is his name?! Patton… Patton Shea! That was his name. Virgil shakily typed out Pat’s name into the google search bar and scrolled through the results, trying to find any of Patton’s social media. He clicked on the fifth link and practically cried with relief at the discovery of Patton’s Instagram. It’d been updated… Yesterday. Good. He used it often, then. And, by the look of it, he replied almost immediately to comments, so he probably had notifications on. Virgil opened the account in the Instagram app, typing out a sloppy DM through his tears.

vintage-misery to patton-cake24 [Read at 9:15 am]

pat i ‘m in t he ba t hroom by teh grph cs romo i’m havnig a panic attackk hlep vriigl

patton-cake24 to vintage-misery [Delivered at 9:15 am]

It’s okay, Virge. I’ll be there in a few minutes, just hang tight, and I’m gonna help you. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.

Virgil let his phone slip out of his hand, attempting to marginally calm himself down before Patton arrived. It didn’t really work, and before long, a set of footsteps echoed off of the tile walls of the bathroom.

“Virge? You in here? It’s just me, kiddo. Everything’s okay.” Patton’s voice was hesitant, clearly unsure if he was in the right place. Virgil reached up and unlocked the stall door to let Pat in. “Oh thank goodness.”

Tears immediately began to roll down Virgil’s face again. “I-I’m sorry. IreallyfuckedupandIcouldn’tevenmakeitaweekwithouthurtingmyselfI’msuchafuckingfailurePattonwhatdoIdo?” Patton closed the stall door and kneeled in front of his panicking friend.

“Hey, it’s okay. Any recovery comes with relapse, okay? You’re not a failure; you’re just healing.” Pat’s voice was soft and soothing. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Virgil nodded, and Patton took his hands from his face, gently holding them in his own. “What is your name?”

“I--what?” the crying teenager asked.

“What’s your name?” Patton repeated.

“V-Virgil.”

“Good. Now, what color is your sweatshirt?”

“Grey.”

“Awesome. You’re doing great. Do I wear glasses?”

“Y-yeah. You do.”

“Good. Really good. Now follow my counting. Four beats in, seven beats holding your breath, eight beats out. One, two…”

It only took a few minutes to get Virgil back to a stable state through breathing exercises and rhythmic hand squeezes. Patton had a big smile on his face.

“That was so good, kiddo! I’m really proud of you,” Patton encouraged. The sound of the bell dully rang through the bathroom, and Virgil rushed to stand up. Pat forced him back down.

“I know I just said that was good, but you definitely aren’t in any sort of condition to be rushing around in crowded hallways yet. We’re going to stay right here and make sure you’re a-okay before we leave. I’m going to get you a pass to your next class, okay? I’ll be right back--don’t move.” Patton released his grip on Virgil’s hands and stood up, swiftly striding out of the bathroom. He returned only a minute later with two yellow slips, Virgil’s graphics supplies, and a few tissues. Pat gently wiped the tears away from his friend’s face, making sure not to smear any of the makeup under his eyes.

“Patton…” Virgil didn’t have the words to say what he was feeling. He was sorry for dragging Pat into this mess, but even more sorry for failing to not harm himself for even an entire week.

“Hey, it’s okay. Now, let me see where you’re hurt so it doesn’t get any worse,” Patton ordered, though it was more caring than harsh. Virgil held his left arm out and rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie. The skin just below his elbow had flakes of dry blood on it, following the scrapes that he’d formed. Patton took a roll of gauze he’d taken from the Child Guidance room and wrapped it around the wounds. The gauze wouldn’t exactly help heal anything, but it would prevent unnecessary pain from the sweatshirt rubbing over it.

Once he was done, Patton sat down beside Virgil. “Do you think you could tell me what made you feel so anxious? It’s okay if you can’t, but it’ll help if we know what to avoid in the future.”

“Okay, well,” Virgil groaned, dropping his head in his hands. “God, this is so stupid. I shouldn’t have even panicked about it, but my graphics teacher is really nice and stuff, and she likes my work. So, naturally, she starts to notice that my designs are becoming less me and are more boring. Like, still good enough, but just without the usual feeling in them. And this has been going on for a while, pretty much ever since March when I started to get extremely depressed and anxious. And today I gave her my latest design for a project we were doing, and she told me that it was uninspired and boring, which it was but that’s not the point, and she wasn’t impressed with my work anymore, and it just started to get into my skin that she knew that I was super depressed, and that now it was a big deal. I felt like a giant failure for my designs being lame and I just--It’s stupid. Never mind.” The teen leaned forward to rest his head on his knees. He felt so tired.

Patton spoke up after a moment. “No feelings are stupid, kiddo. I’m sure it was really hard on you to hear what your teacher said, but she obviously just cares about you. Just like I care, hon. Next project, you’re just going to have to channel your emotions into whatever you’re making, and I’m sure it’ll turn out amazing. You’re not a failure in anyone’s eyes. Especially not mine.” Virgil felt his friend’s arms slither around his waist for an awkward hug. A little smile crept on his face from the very Patton gesture.

They sat in the bathroom stall for another couple of minutes before they decided they were good enough to get back to class.

“Give me your phone so you won’t have to find my Instagram again,” Pat said and held his hand out for the phone. Patton quickly typed his number in, sending a text to himself.

Virgil

Delivered at 8:35 am

hey

Patton

Read at 8:35 am

Hey Virge!

Virgil

Delivered at 8:35 am

patton was that really necessary to reply to your own text to yourself

Patton

Read at 8:36 am

It sure was!!!! Let’s get back to class!! :P

Virgil rolled his eyes and slipped his phone back into his pocket. The pair walked out of the bathroom and went their separate ways.

#sanders sides fic #moxiety #logince #m writes things #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders

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docsamurai · 6 years

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Today In Rejected By Publishers: Tempus Fugitives

As the title of this post may have insinuated, the following short story has been rejected by enough publishers that I’m confident it will not ever be professionally published in its current form. So f*ck it. I’m posting it here. Keep reading if you’d like to hear a tale of a con artist who goes on a time travel adventure with a mad scientist. They’re also interracial lesbians because why not?

Jodie Sawyer leapt off the fire escape and hit the ground at a roll, absorbing the two story drop and springing back to her feet. The alarms behind her had been deafening but were already quickly fading into the background with the sound of her boots hitting the pavement and her jacket flapping in the wind replacing the shrill noise. The satchel containing her hard won prize slapped against her side as she sprinted down back alleys heading to the rendezvous. As Jodie rounded the last corner she saw her getaway driver Mark already being pulled out of the car and cuffed. Shit! Plan C then. Backpedaling down the alley she took off towards her temporary safe house. As she ran Jodie grabbed her burner phone, snapped the SIM card in half and chucked the rest in a dumpster. Sirens were passing by, too close for comfort and on pure instinct Jodie threw herself against a wall and ducked into the alcove of a doorway. Her instincts paid off as mere seconds later a flashlight shone down the alley she had just been running down.

With her breath caught in her throat Jodie felt her heart pounding in her ears as she watched the beam of light scanning the alley. Move on already you bastard. Faintly she picked up something over the cop car’s radio and they finally pulled away. Waiting a few seconds for the road to clear Jodie glanced out of her hiding place and caught sight of the cops turning away. It’s probably not a coincidence that they’re heading right in the direction of the safe house. Plan D then. If they caught Mark and know where the safe house is then this identity is compromised. Gotta ditch anything that can identifying me and hit a dead drop. One of the ones no one else knows about. Risking a peek out of the alleyway Jodie figured out what streets she was near and mapped out a route to the nearby park.

A mile due east and Jodie hit the gate to the park. Using her jacket to protect her hands from the spikes at the top of the fence she vaulted over it feeling the burn in her shoulders. As she retrieved the jacket it snagged on the spikes and tore a large gash in it. Well I had to ditch it anyway. A patrol car passed by the park and Jodie put on an extra burst of speed as she closed the 500 feet to the relative safety of the treeline. As she threw herself into cover Jodie pressed her back against a tree and gasped for air as she looked for any lights scanning the area. Nothing yet, looks like I lost them.

Though the cloudy, moonless night made it easier to hide, it took a lot longer to find the tree she had marked a few days ago. Practically tripping over unseen roots she did finally find it and stashed the satchel, torn jacket and blonde wig. At least no one in this city knows I’m a brunette. A spotlight shining through the trees interrupted her train of thought. Damn. They are persistent tonight. Need to get indoors and figure out an escape plan. Jodie climbed a tree near the fence surrounding the park and as soon as she was sure there weren’t any more patrols in the area she leapt back to the street and took off again towards the waterfront where she finally found an abandoned warehouse to catch her breath in.

This was it, these were the moments Jodie lived for. Staying one step ahead of the law and getting away by the skin of her teeth. Plans getting thrown out the window and being replaced on the fly as chaos meets ingenuity. Jodie rested against the outside of the warehouse, feeling her heart pounding in her ears as she caught her breath. Things had gone to hell several times tonight already and though she had already abandoned weeks’ worth of careful planning it still felt amazing. In the distance she could hear sirens and she knew they were starting to close in. Going to prison again would suck, still though she couldn’t help a small smile creeping onto her face. It had been a years since she had been pushed to her limits like this and she couldn’t deny that the adrenaline and endorphins her head was swimming in was a rush she had sorely missed.

Jodie took a deep breath and wiped sweat from her forehead. OK, one thing at a time. Get inside. She kicked in the side door which was risky as hell and probably made enough noise to alert anyone nearby but she needed to get off the street so she took her chances. There didn’t seem to be any residential buildings around, still though, it was fairly quiet night and sound carried. All she needed was one nosy middle manager working too late for the cops to be back on her heels. The sirens didn’t seem to be getting closer but it would still be a good idea to keep moving.

Jodie started to reach for her phone, remembered that she had already ditched her burner and checked her watch instead. Alright, 1AM, I’m in a warehouse. Older area of town, I think the river was only a few blocks away. They’ll have set up a dragnet with checkpoints on every major road in or out of downtown but they’ll have to clear that up by rush hour so if I can just avoid the patrols for another 6 hours I should be able to find a ride out of town. Should try and get a few hours of sleep if this place is safe. Gotta scout the building before I can relax.

Taking one last look down the empty hallway Jodie turned back to the door she had broken through and reluctantly closed the door. There weren’t any windows in this hall so the moonlight filtering in through the open door was the only light in the room. A broken door was a dead giveaway to a patrolling cop though so Jodie took a slat of wood off a nearby shipping pallet and used it to jam the door shut, plunging the hallway into darkness. Jodie walked softly down the hallway, tracing the inner wall with her fingertips and looking for a doorway she had seen at the end of the hallway. As her eyes adjusted though, she realized that there was a soft golden light spilling from under the doorway. Shit. I’m not as alone as I thought.

Jodie pressed her ear to the door and heard the humming of some kind of generator on the other side but no voices. Could just be some homeless people, they wouldn’t want the cops around either. Jodie tried the door and found it unlocked. Easing the door open she peeked inside. Inside the room a short, Indian woman in a labcoat sat in a rolling office chair coasting back and forth between half a dozen workstations. Between them there at least a dozen different monitors that her eyes darted between keeping track of things Jodie couldn’t see from her angle. Confident that the other woman couldn’t see her, Jodie let her curiosity get the better of her and opened the door a little wider to get a better look at the room.

It wasn’t a single generator but four of them practically stacked on top of each other and hooked up to a bank of servers and some kind of machine she didn’t recognize attached to a large glass chamber that was propped several feet off the ground by steel girders. One side of the chamber was left open and the other side had a thick steel plate embedded in it. On closer inspection there was also a railing that extended to the edge of the chamber. Jodie suddenly noticed the absence of typing and turned back to the other woman to see her staring straight back at her through a gap in the monitors.

Both women stared at each other frozen in silence. A beeping from one of the workstations drew the Indian woman’s attention and out of reflex she turned to it and hit a few buttons. Clearing her throat the Indian woman finally broke the silence. “Can I help you?” she asked without looking away from her work. Time to get to work.

Jodie straightened up and dramatically burst through the door before turning around, slamming it shut and bracing it with her body. “You’ve got to help me!” The Indian woman took only a moment to shoot an impatient glare at Jodie through the gap in the monitors before going back to her work with a roll of her eyes and a non-committal grunt. Jodie ran over to the workstations and tried to find some detail she could latch onto.

A security badge from the local university gave the other woman’s name as Priya Swaminathan but there was nothing else personal in the area, just technical documents and complicated formulas scrawled on whiteboards. Priya still was only barely paying attention to her. Jodie took a breath and was about to start a story about being chased when Priya held up a hand to cut her off without turning around. “I already heard the sirens. I don’t care what you did, so long as you didn’t lead them here. I can’t be interrupted right now.” Jodie rocked back on her heels the momentum she was building stopped in its tracks. Ok, sounds like she’s not going to call the cops on me, still though, might be worth it to charm her a bit just to make sure.

Jodie found a chair nearby and took a seat, wheeling it closer to where Priya was working. “You’re right, I’m avoiding the cops, I just need a place to stay overnight and I’ll leave in the morning. I think I lost them, so if it’s ok with you I’ll just hang out here and stay out of your way.” Priya gave another grunt and nodded her head. Jodie was too amped up to try and sleep so she looked around the room and across the technical documents. She didn’t understand most of it, but it was all eating away at her curiosity. “I’m Jodie.” More silence. “If that’s your badge I’m guessing you’re Priya?” Priya’s eyes flicked briefly to the badge which she scooped up and shoved into her pocket. You’re losing her, can’t risk her kicking you out. Show some interest in her work. “So what are you working on Priya?”

Priya gave a large sigh but kept working. “Something that I can’t let anyone interrupt me on.”

Jodie smiled having finally gotten Priya to respond. “I’m not asking you to stop, just curious. It looks important.”

Priya hit a few keys at one station and a robotic arm activated overhead moving a track into place to join with the one that extended to the edge of the chamber. “I’m building a temporal tunneling engine.” The robotic arm continued to work building a large track around the makeshift lab with a long straightaway towards the chamber with a single bend like a giant J. Priya hit another key and the robotic arm set what looked like a roller coaster car with a laser on the front and a rocket engine on the back at the end of the track.

Jodie blinked several times. Temporal tunneling… “Wait are you building a time machine?!”

Priya gave a small nod “Essentially.”

Jodie leapt out of her chair. “HOLY SHIT THAT’S SO COOL!” Priya looked at strange woman who had barged into her lab who was now excitedly poring over the monitors and technical readouts trying to understand the technology in front of her.

Jodie’s enthusiasm was infectious and Priya let a small smile creep onto her face. “Do you… Do you want to know how it works?” Jodie nodded happily and sat at attention. Got her on the hook. It helps that this is actually pretty awesome.

Priya wheeled her chair over to one of the whiteboards and erased some of the notes scrawled on the board. “Ok, so time is weird. We perceive it as working in a straight line. You go from point A to point B and you don’t go in reverse.” Priya drew 2 points with a line between them. “Now pop culture would tell you that we live in 3 dimensions and time is the 4th. That it’s like taking a 3 dimensional object and extending it out through a 4th dimension.” Priya drew a cube on the board and then drew a further series of lines extending the cube into a new shape. “Pop culture would also say that there are infinite dimensions out there with every possible decision that could be made creating a new dimension in something called the multiverse.” To this she drew a series of circles. “Now pop culture usually gets its science from something that might be real but is simplified enough for the average person to understand.” Priya rolled her eyes and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Point is, there are some real ideas out there, but they’re incomplete. So what if that multiverse is actually just the different points in our own time and the 4th dimension is just the path we take through it? What if we’re always travelling from dimension to dimension and it’s only our actions that determine the path we take?” Priya drew a line connecting each of the circles.

Jodie leaned forward and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Ok, I think I’m following you so far. If we can find some kind of path that we took then we can find the universe that we came from. Then what?”

Priya grinned “Are you a fan of Star Trek?”

Jodie laughed out loud. Never thought I’d be having this conversation again. “What kind of girl do you take me for? Of course I like Star Trek!”

Priya laughed along with her. “Janeway or Archer?”

Jodie shook her head “Trick question, no one likes Archer. And I pick Sisko.”

Priya gave an exaggerated sigh “Space dad? No accounting for taste I guess. Still though at least you’re cute.” The pair of women laughed together and when the laughter faded off Jodie found herself biting her bottom lip. She called me cute. I can use that. A moment of silence was interrupted by a beeping coming from a console.

Priya wheeled her chair back over to the workstation, hit a few keys and gestured for Jodie to follow her as she walked over to one of the machines hooked up to the glass box. “Ok so the reason I brought up Star Trek is that they make a lot of references to tachyons.”

Jodie nodded. “That’s the beam that travels backwards through time right?”

Priya snapped her fingers and pointed at Jodie. “Beam, wave, pulse, particle, yeah. In the show it was just kind of a catch-all for time travel energy but the particle is a real thing, at least in theoretical physics. This device is supposed to be able to detect them and once it does it’ll use the formula I developed to tell me what path to take to get to the target destination. The tachyon generator…” Priya gestured towards an odd device hanging from the ceiling. “…will create a burst of the particles later and when it does I should get evidence of them a few minutes in the past. I’ve got it scheduled to go off in about an hour.”

Jodie nodded again. “Alright, makes sense so far, but that’s just finding the path. How are you supposed to get to that other dimension?”

Priya clapped her hands and ran excitedly over to the rocket sled. Jodie laughed to herself and ran to catch up. Priya pulled a cover off the laser on the front of the rocket sled. “Ok. So this isotope, don’t worry it doesn’t create that much radiation, it uses a wave modulator set to a frequency determined by the formula from earlier to decouple the quantum entangled-“

Jodie placed a hand on Priya’s shoulder to stop her. “I’m not following any of that. Think pop science.”

Priya let her hair out of its bun and ran her fingers through her hair while she thought. Oh crap I think she’s cute too…Don’t get distracted. “Alright, simple explanation. That laser creates a time portal with the destination set from the machine. Make sense?”

Jodie grinned ear to ear. “Yeah, I think I got it…” her smile started to fade. “Why are you in a lab in a warehouse though? Is this too dangerous for the university?”

Priya’s smile faded too. “They don’t know I’m here. I couldn’t get the funding. They said that I really should ‘stick to research I’m better suited to’. So I’ve been finding ways to steal equipment and set it up here. The warehouse was abandoned and secluded enough that I could set things up without them noticing. Had to make some modifications to keep them from detecting the isotopes though…” Priya trailed off as her attention drifted back to her work.

Jodie watched Priya pace back and forth for a few moments muttering things under her breath that Jodie couldn’t hear. She leaned against a nearby wall, a small smile creeping onto her face. Get ahold of yourself. So what if she’s cute, smart and reminds you of Hanna? I’m not sticking around after tonight, shouldn’t get attached. Still, maybe we’ve got time to have some fun. Jodie let her mind wander to some of the fun things she’d like to do as Priya went about her work, making small adjustments to the machines.

An alarm on the tachyon detector went off, disrupting the relative silence of the warehouse. Priya jumped up from her work, startled before running back over to the detector murmuring “no” repeatedly.

Jodie pushed off the wall and ran over as well “What’s wrong? I thought you were expecting that to go off.”

Priya shook her head. “I was, but not this early. The generator isn’t set to go off for another hour and even though they travel backwards through time, I shouldn’t have seen them for at least another 40 minutes.”

Jodie tried to stay calm, subconsciously attempting to balance out Priya’s anxiety. “Could it be some other source then? Maybe someone else built a generator?”

Priya’s frown deepened as she looked over the readout. “No… The direction and signature match the generator I built… Wait!” Priya’s suddenly bolted back over to her workstation and switched the screens over to a security camera that was set up across the street from the warehouse. “SHIT! How did they figure out about my lab?!”

Jodie looked at the security feed and saw a SWAT team organizing to break in. She chuckled nervously. “Well, they’re probably not after you…”

Priya looked back at Jodie in confusion before she remembered something. “Oh, right, the sirens. Why are they after you anyway?”

Jodie shrugged nonchalantly. “I stole about 20 million in bearer bonds along with some industrial secrets and blackmail material.”

“Nice.”

The security feed went dead as the SWAT team found the camera. Jodie clapped her hands together and locked eyes with Priya. “OK, I’m wanted for grand theft and you’ve got a lab full of stolen equipment here. I’m willing to bet they’re not going to listen any excuses. How do we get out of here?”

Priya chewed her lip for a second before she broke into another grin. “We have a time machine.” Priya took off at a sprint and clambered up to the rocket sled. “All I have to do is use the measurements from the detector to finish the equation on the temporal tunneling engine and we can use it to go to another dimension at a different time.” Priya typed several commands into the controls of the laser and the machine started to hum. Priya took a deep breath and held it for a moment before finally looking back to Jodie and giving a big goofy thumbs up.

Jodie climbed up to the time machine as Priya got in and buckled her seat belt. “Now’s the time. Get in and come with me or stay here and deal with them.” Jodie cast another look back towards the door that the SWAT team was going to burst through at any moment.

“Fuck it, I’ve done dumber things.” Jodie buckled herself in and Priya pulled a large lever between their seats.

The rockets in the back kicked in filling the warehouse with a deafening roar. “HOLD ON! WE HAVE TO BE GOING AT LEAST 90 MILES PER HOUR TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE PORTAL!” The cart lurched around the corner, gathering speed. The door to the warehouse burst open, SWAT officers spilling into the room.

The temporal tunneling engine engaged and a laser shot towards the steel plate at the end of the glass chamber causing a distortion in the air in front of the plate. The second stage of the rockets kicked in and the women were thrown back in their seats as the acceleration picked up sending them flying towards the steel plate. OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCKOHFU- The SWAT team paused for only a moment taking in the spectacle of their target attempting escape via rocket sled before they opened fire. The women were moving too fast though and the bullets instead tore holes out of the far wall. The rippling distortion widened into a portal that looked more like a hole tore out of reality itself revealing an inky blackness beneath. The cart disappeared into the portal with Jodie and Priya’s screaming barely heard over the sound of the rockets.

Two years earlier the cart crashed through a portal on the other end, coming to a sudden stop as it embedded itself into a stage. Even though the trip through the portal had slowed them dramatically the landing impact was still intense. Jodie was the first to stir as she tried to shake off the effects of the time travel. When she looked around Jodie quickly realized where, and when they were. The Presidential debates!? Jodie looked down at Priya who was still shaking from the impact and instantly knew what Priya’s plan had been. Priya gave Jodie a shaking nod. Looking to her left Jodie nodded at the woman standing on the stage to her left and sprang from the cart ready to take center stage.

“People of America! I am LITERALLY a time traveler from the future. I came back to tell you that voting for this man-“ Quickly looking around she saw the misshapen piece of shit in a suit on the ground, groaning, but alive. “-THAT man, is a GRAVE mistake. In the time I’m from he won the election and it became so much worse than any of us could have even possibly expected. He is an agent of an enemy foreign power using their government’s influence to subvert our elections. Even if he weren’t, in only a few short years he managed to ruin our economy, leave several American cities to fend for themselves after natural disasters and has implemented policies so evil that children of people who immigrated here legally are being separated from their parents and kept in cages by the thousands. There are literally Klansmen and actual Nazis marching through the streets. Whatever your feelings may be about his opponent I implore you to not let those feelings cloud your judgement. This is your moment to stand against tyranny. This is your chance to put a stop to this before it’s too late!”

Jodie’s ears were still ringing from the noise of the rockets so she couldn’t hear anything from the audience, but at the periphery of her vision she saw Secret Service agents closing in on her. Time to go then. Jodie turned back to Priya who was pulling laser off the front of the cart. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” The two time travelers ran for the exit as agents stormed the stage. There was no time to stop and think, just to run. Dodging left and right Jodie’s senses were on fire as she caught glimpses of agents closing in from all sides. Together they burst through a fire exit and took off at a run.

With alarms blaring behind them Jodie and Priya sprinted across the courtyard and ducked into the relative cover of a nearby alley. Priya braced herself against the wall and struggled to catch her breath. Jodie was much more used to fleeing authorities and already thinking her way through an escape plan. “Ok, be straight with me here, what plan did you have to get back to our time and is it still possible?”

Priya shook her head, still breathing heavily. “I, uh, hadn’t thought that far ahead. This was just supposed to be a test run. But…” Priya trailed off chewing her lip. “…but the temporal- the time machine should still have the corrected formula and I built a function into it which would reverse the function and open a portal along the same trajectory.”

Jodie scanned courtyard for any approaching agents. “So if I understood that, we just need to turn it on and it’ll take us back to our time?”

Priya shook her head and started pacing back and forth. “Not quite. We need to be going fast in order to make it through the portal. Just trying to turn it on and walk through won’t work.”

Jodie listened to the sirens of an ambulance flanked by police closing in on the debate hall and shook her head. “Ok, stealing a car isn’t going to be an option, they’ll be on us too fast. We have to get moving… Do we have to be going horizontally when we go through the portal?” Priya stopped in her tracks and shot Jodie a questioning glance. Jodie pointed over Priya’s shoulder, guiding her gaze to the massive hotels just a few miles away on the Las Vegas strip.

Priya’s jaw slowly dropped as she mentally did the calculus on the acceleration of gravity. “…that could work.”

Together the time travelers made their way towards the strip, darting from building to building in an attempt to stay out of sight of the police who were already locking down the city. After nearly an hour they stood in front of the Bellagio fountain, looking up at the 36 story building. Jodie turned hopefully to Priya who was sweating heavily between the heat of the desert and the exertion of having run several miles. “Tall enough?” Priya nodded and Jodie heard a police siren pass by behind them before making a u-turn. “Good, because I think we just ran out of time.” Together they hurried off into the casino.

As soon as they were in the lobby Jodie scanned the area and found an elevator about to leave. “Hold the door!” Practically dragging Priya into the elevator alongside her they leapt into the elevator nearly bowling over the couple that was in there. Softening her voice Jodie put a smile on her face. “Oh I’m so sorry about that. We completely forgot our room key so we’ve been trying to fix that all day. NOT the way I wanted to spend my honeymoon.”

The young woman in the elevator giggled “I know what you mean. We took this trip just to go to the debate but couldn’t get in so we just spent the day getting drunk and losing money.” Jodie jabbed the highest floor number she could, though the top several floors were all blocked off so they would have to figure that out later.

Priya had finally caught her breath and picked up on the conversation going on. “You were trying to go to the debate?”

No, no we don’t want to be recognized, bad topic. “Oh come on honey, I’m so tired of hearing about politics.” Jodie turned her body towards Priya’s and pressed her gently against the wall of the elevator. “Besides, I’ve got other ideas for this weekend.” With that she leaned down and nibbled on Priya’s ear managing a barely audible whisper. “Play along.” Priya didn’t give any indication she heard Jodie but moaned and pulled her closer. The other couple seemed to take the hint and also started getting closer. A few seconds later the young couple reached their floor and stepped off as Priya kissed and licked on Jodie’s neck. Jodie groaned at the feeling of Priya’s lips but as soon as the door closed she managed to push Priya gently away. Priya looked disappointed for a moment before she realized they were alone in the elevator.

Priya was blushing furiously and kept opening and closing her mouth trying to find the words she wanted to say. Jodie cleared her throat and smiled. “Not that I didn’t enjoy that, just that we shouldn’t let ourselves get too distracted.”

Priya looked down, smiling “Sorry, I’ve been told I’m a little intense sometimes.”

Jodie brushed the hair out of Priya’s eyes. “I didn’t mind.” Both women looked away trying not to lose track of where they were. The rest of the elevator ride passed in silence and at when they reached the highest floor they could they stepped off and found a roof access stairwell. Priya was about to push her way in the door when Jodie stopped her. “This door is probably alarmed. As soon as we go in here, the cops will come and they’ll probably have figured that we’re the ones who ‘crashed’ the debate. We’ll only have a few minutes, are you sure you’re ready?”

Priya nodded and held up the time machine. “All we have to do is get to the roof, jump, turn this on and point it straight down. As long as we go in at the same time we’ll be fine.”

Jodie started to turn towards the stairwell and paused. “Just so we’re clear, this is the craziest thing you’ve ever done, right?” Priya and Jodie broke down laughing until their stomachs hurt before turning back to each other, tears in their eyes. Jodie grabbed her partner’s hand. “Let’s do this.” Jodie kicked the door to the stairwell open and sure enough a shrill fire alarm started to go off throughout the hallway.

Together they scrambled up half a dozen flights of stairs before they reached the roof. Bursting through the roof access door they were almost instantly blinded by the spotlight of a helicopter that was already on the scene and bathing them in the harsh light. An officer blared some kind of warning over the loudspeaker on the helicopter that neither of them could make out. FUCK IT! Jodie grabbed Priya’s hand again and dragged her to the edge of the building. Standing on the ledge and looking over the 500 foot drop made Jodie’s breath catch in her throat. Priya grabbed Jodie’s arms and managed to scream “WAIT” over the noise of the helicopter. Priya pulled Jodie closer and kissed her on the lips. Priya held her tight and smiled. “For luck.” Jodie smiled back and wrapped her arms around Priya as well.

They jumped together and the world seemed to slow down as their hearts pounded hard enough that they could feel it in each other’s chests. Priya pointed the time machine down and triggered it sending a beam straight down to the concrete below them. As gravity pulled them faster and faster towards the hard ground below the time machine made a rippling portal wink open which the two women shot through at nearly terminal velocity.

Two years later Priya and Jodie shot out of the portal, thankfully having been slowed as they passed through the dimensional barriers. The portal had sent them through parallel to the ground and they emerged feet first 6 feet in the air in an empty, abandoned warehouse. Together they flew across the room and into some empty shipping pallets, the wooden cracking as they crash landed. Groaning in pain and laughing with relief the women hugged each other before rolling off the pallets. Jodie got unsteadily to her feet. “Anything broken?” Priya remained curled up in a ball on the ground laughing weakly. “Everything? I don’t know. It all hurts, but I don’t think anything is actually broken.”

Jodie looked around the warehouse as the dizzying effects of the time travel wore off. “Your stuff is all gone. Did we get back to the right time?”

Priya pulled herself up to her knees and looked around as well. “Kinda. We took the same trajectory through dimensions, but we had a different starting point. If I’m right we went back to the same time and place but in a dimension where we had gone back to change things.”

Jodie stretched out the ache in her back from where she landed. “So because we interrupted the debate, you didn’t build your time machine in this warehouse, which is why it’s empty?”

Priya nodded and got to her feet. “So what now?”

Jodie brushed some of the dust off her clothes. “I don’t know about you but I could use a change of clothes and a good hot shower.”

Priya laughed and winced in pain. “That sounds great, but neither of us exist in this dimension, at least not this version of us.” Jodie shrugged.

Not the first time I’ve had to make a new identity. “Don’t worry about that just now. You rest up here, I’m going to go work my magic and get us a place to stay for the night.” Priya smiled and kissed Jodie on the cheek.

The streets were mostly empty in the early morning as Jodie walked away from the warehouse. Ok, time to get some ground under my feet. Need cash, a phone and a motel room. As she found her way to a major road she quickly found a strip mall which had an ATM outside of a bank branch. Without a computer to help her hack the machine she had to rely on security override codes she had memorized years ago. Even if these do still work, there’s a good chance it’ll trigger security, need to keep moving. A few minutes later Jodie left the ATM with a pocket full of cash.

With money in hand Jodie paused for a moment to take stock. I’m not being chased. At least not right now. I could just make a clean break here. I’m sure Priya can take care of herself. Jodie kept walking on autopilot as she mulled things over. A faint smile crept onto her face. Yeah, Priya might be able to take care of herself, but when was the last time I had this much fun? A few more miles down the road she found a corner store selling burner phones. An hour later she left the store a few hundred dollars lighter with a pair of new phones. Now with access to the internet Jodie was finally able to check for news of the last two years that she needed to catch up on. Oh no…

Jodie returned to the warehouse a couple hours later to see that Priya had found some paper in the warehouse and was hard at work on some calculations. Priya’s face lit up when she saw Jodie. “Ok, so good news, the onboard computer has retained the corrected algorithms and the isotope is recharging the device on its own. It needs some refinement and it’ll take a while to do the calculations by hand if I don’t have a computer to help, but I should be able to point it in any trajectory we need!” Priya’s excitement faded when she saw the look on Jodie’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Jodie sat down on a nearby palette and gestured that Priya should do the same. “So, you know how when we showed up at the debate we crashed into the stage in a rocket sled?” Priya nodded. “Well it turns out that the Secret Service treats that as an assassination attempt. They cut the news feed and since it was on a delay no one who saw the broadcast even saw the portal. In short only the people in that room actually saw what happened.”

Priya took a deep breath. “Ok, but there were a lot of reporters there. They still told everyone what happened right? I’m sure at least one of them recorded it on their phone or something.”

Jodie shrugged. “They did yeah, but his supporters all called it fake news and said that they were just involved in some kind of deep state assassination conspiracy.”

Priya shuddered as Jodie continued. “After that they got even more rabbid in their support. There were a lot of people saying that because he survived an assassination attempt it was proof that he was ordained by god to lead them. Not only did he win the election but nearly every member of the opposing party was voted out of office as well.”

Priya’s fists were clenched hard enough to make her knuckles turn white. With tears in her eyes she met Jodie’s gaze. “How bad is it?”

Jodie shook her head. “After the election they started to crack down on news organizations pretty rapidly. It’s hard to know what’s true. What I do know is that I haven’t seen anyone other than a white male so far.” Priya took a deep shuddering breath and began to sob. Jodie sat next to Priya and put her arm around Priya’s shoulders.

For a long moment the two women sat in stunned silence trying to absorb the news. Jodie was the first to break the silence. “Come on, I got us a room at a motel a couple miles down the road. We’ll feel a little better after some food, sleep and a shower.” On the way to the motel Jodie noticed that even though it was well after noon, the roads were still practically deserted aside from the occasional black van. When they finally got into the motel Priya collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. Jodie locked the door and curled up in the bed next to Priya.

Priya started to speak and coughed, her throat raw from crying. Finally she managed a barely whispered. “We did this.”

Jodie propped herself up on her elbow and turned Priya gently to face her. “No. THEY did this. We were the ones trying to stop this. They allowed themselves to be taken in by a conman with a bad hairpiece. They let their own hatred blind them to the truth that was literally screaming in their faces. We did everything we could to stop this.” Priya stared blankly at Jodie, too tired to feel anything. “OK, I want you to do something for me. We need to take care of ourselves right now. Go take a shower, I’m going to order us some food, then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do next.” Priya blinked and nodded, getting up from the bed slowly and making her way to the shower.

An hour later the two women were lying in bed, freshly showered and wrapped in towels, eating pizza and cuddling in a comfortable silence. Jodie rubbed her fingers gently across Priya’s scalp which seemed to calm her down. “Hey, you said the time machine still works right?”

Priya snapped out of the headspace she was in and looked up at Jodie. “…yeah. Yeah it does! All we have to do is figure out a destination and then run some numbers to get the trajectory right.”

Jodie smiled at Priya, happy that her mood was picking up again. “Well if you need a destination, how about that meeting ‘Dear Leader’ took at his tower back when he met with the Russians.” Priya sat straight up in the bed, the towel loosening and falling. She seemed not to notice.

“Perfect! I’ll get to work on the-“

Jodie placed a finger on Priya’s lips. “Give that a rest for just a little bit. For now I’ve got some other ideas.” Jodie reached out and ran a hand up Priya’s now exposed thigh.

Priya moaned and pulled Jodie closer. “You’re right. We’ve got plenty of time to fix things later. That’s what the machine is for.”

#rejected by publishers #time travel #short story

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