don't twist the knife

2051. 2051. “Ja, you don’t see where drugged by a strangely domestic meta-fetishist trafficking group rates higher on my list of possibilities than time travel?” The thing was…he didn’t feel drugged. He had scars he couldn’t place, the tech, the dates…it was like waking up in some sort of fantasyland - or what would have been fantasyland if he couldn’t still feel the slight wheeze of his breathing, if his former best friend wasn’t sharing a bed with him didn’t raise more questions than it answered these days. Taking the offered clothing he shifted enough to start layering up, mind pulling at the contents of the clothes basket to draw more layers of warmth to him.

 A snorted laugh left him as he dressed, thin layers stacking over scars, “ Somehow I don’t see that being the next tourism tagline. We need a plan.” The patter of small feet in the hall tugged at his attention, nieces? Nephews? Mags give Bastian a sibling? Even as he fished a cigarette out to steady himself, looking through the drawers for a lighter, his mind dragged back to the lockscreen photo of his phone. Unlit cigarette dangling from his lips he looked up at the words….and felt his heart clench at the sight before forcing a grin back to the twin faces only a moment before finding himself ambushed in a tackle of wild red hair and giggles, “Papa, it’s pancake breakfast today -” “-Ja, you promised!” 

“Did I?” The words hitched in his throat as he sat up, taking in the familial resemblances of the tiny faces and the words. They might be a bit more out of their depth than he had realized. Wry grin tugged at his lips as he turned to his partner - friend - “Try not to faint, Lock, but…Congratulations, it’s twins?” 

He shook his own head slightly, clearing away the dazed revelation. So. Pancakes then. 

Scooping up the girls, who couldn’t be more than three, in his arms he stood with a groan, nodding to his counterpart as his grin broadened at the other’s look, “Look sharp, bru. Apparently, a promise was made.”  Pancakes was a plan.

Lachlan wasn’t terrible with children. Inexperienced perhaps, nervous most definitely, but it helped that he wasn’t alone with the whole ‘suddenly married with kids’ thing. Thankfully he was a competent actor and they were lovely little terrors, Freja and Ilse. Every time they called him ‘papa’ he started a little, but they were terribly forgiving about that, and as the hours rolled by where he was the main caretaker, he felt more comfortable with them. Kas had a job with CARMA, and Lachlan had apparently retired to become what he could only assume was a metahuman vigilante tailor. Not a stitch was sewn, not with how busy he was managing the girls, but it was a good sort of exhaustion by the time they were settled in their beds. His future self must be as paranoid as his current self, for they still had a baby monitor in their room, and he switched that on before he left to return to the shared bedroom. The one he was sharing with Kaspar, whose continued existence he was still getting used to, and who might not want his possibly ex best friend in his bed. Lachlan hesitated at the door, then slid inside as unobtrusively as possible, the better to not bother Kas.

“I could sleep on the floor if you’d um...” He began, watching Kas remove his shirt with the sort of awe one might reserve for seeing a famous work of art in person. Oh, he was scarred in ways that hurt Lachlan’s heart, but he was Kas, alive and in the flesh. There, living and breathing and so beautiful it was like a knife to the chest to watch him. “Given we’re still working things out with us. What we are, after what happened. I don’t mind, if it’d make you more comfortable.” Kas stared back at him in the half light of the room and it made Lachlan shiver involuntarily. Desperate for something, anything to force his eyes away, he looked at the basket of fresh laundry he had done today and fetched the warmest shirt he could find, then handed it to him. That made it worse, because their hands brushed against one another’s by accident and words tumbled through his lips before he could stop them. “You’re so beautiful, I just...I had plans to say so many fucking things to you when we got back to the hotel after that op and I didn’t...” He bit his lip hard, stepping back from Kas before he did something even more stupid like reach for him. God, he wanted to. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of Kas’ neck, to be held by him again, and all he could find right now were festering words from a wound never quite healed. “I loved you, that was what I was going to tell you. That I’d loved you for ages, that I...shit. I still love you. You don’t have to say anything to that, you don’t have to feel the same. I should sleep on the sofa or something though. To be fair to you.”

Warmth was the first thing that registered, enveloping muscles that ached pleasantly against the sprawl of over washed linen beneath him - good fight? Good fuck? Bit of both maybe. That was definitely body heat, radiating unnaturally high next to his usually chilled skin, then the pulse beneath roughened hand on his shoulder.  Bruises he didn’t remember getting the night before at the Madhouse complained as he shifted, disruption tugging at his half asleep thoughts - He didn’t remember anyone coming home with him, couldn’t remember the last time he had shared a bed through the night with someone, how the warmth sunk into his bones in cheap motels or encampments…long before glass and scalpel had staked claim over ribs and joints in precise and jagged lines. This wasn’t right. His left hand flexed slightly against the pillow, restricted slightly by the weight of a band on his finger. Slate eyes cracked open as the covers next to him tugged with movement, pulse picking up hard at the worry tinging an all too familiar brogue, What. The. Fuck.  Pushing himself up from where he had sprawled on his belly, shirtless - make that pantsless too, fok - the redhead rubbed at his eyes groggily, voice rough,  “What the fok, Lock? Ja, it’s 2046 - did you sneak into my place starkers?” Except. It wasn’t his place he noticed as he looked about, there were elements that were his influence, but this was definitely not his flat and Lachlan…  When had he gotten those scars? The beard? How long had they been kept here? No, find more information. Tearing his gaze away he reached for the bedside table, his hand fumbling over a pack of cigarettes with no lighter to his(?) phone. A lock screen with two little girls that had his sister’s eyes hugging a dog with a prosthetic limb that looked like Stig…home screen of him tugging his former comrade closer with a cheeky grin and ki- No. “Shit. Do you feel drugged?” What kind of kidnappers left phones and family photos? And wedding rings? Or cigarettes for that matter…Christ he could fucking use one. 

The hell of it was, he felt good. Not his regular brand of good either, this was a whole new level of rested and cared for, like the world’s best fuck and sleep rolled into one night. No vague, scummy feel in his mind like he had after a night terror and his muscles hardly ached. “Kaspar, who’d waste their time drugging old farts like us? And if they did, would they tuck us into bed? Dunno who’s bed, mind, but I’m thinking not.” Lachlan replied, wriggling his way into a sitting position. There was a basket of clean, unsorted laundry nearby and he reached for it to find something to wear before he gave Kaspar a fit. Sure, they’d slept together that once and seen each other naked more than once, but it was the principle of the thing. Lachlan dressed in clothes he thought were his own, then stood by the window looking bewildered, as if trying to summon a solution out of thin air. “Clock’s wrong.” He noted, gesturing at the date on the alarm clock on the bedside table. The clock, his phone, and the ring on his finger for that part. Well, if they were going to puzzle this out, they’d need clothes to start with. So Lachlan sat the basket on his side of the bed and dug through the laundry. Needlework that he could swear was his own marked pieces that he presumed belonged to Kas, and he handed them over with an ease he couldn’t quite fake. “Suppose this is the wrong time to tell you that Pansaw’s got a penchant for fuckery of all kinds, bru. And that I would assume it is 2051, for some fecking reason.” There were footsteps in the hall, soft and quick in a way he didn’t recognize. Not an animal’s footsteps, at least he didn’t think so. Two sets though, tiptoeing and then stopping at irregular intervals. It was enough to set your nerves on edge, like something out of a shitty horror film, and yet the two little girls that peeked around the doorframe looked vaguely familiar. Very like the ones in the picture on his phone screen, but a bit like Mags too, Kas’ sister. “Kas, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

As far as these hypothetical children of his knew, Lachlan was the same father that they had known all of their lives. So while he was still flabbergasted and more than a little afraid, he found it within him to play the part assigned. Somewhere. He wasn’t quite sure where he dredged up the knowledge, but thankfully there was still a Finn in this future and Finn was generally up for anything. The playground was far less exciting than the clubs they generally frequented, but needs must. “So, all things considered, this is the weirdest morning of me life thus far. Old, married, somehow got kids out of the deal.” Lachlan said conversationally, sipping the tea he had found in his cabinets earlier with the look of a man who had one foot in no man’s land and another in a strange paradise. “Course, I’d never told you much about my merc days. The fun bits, but not Kaspar. Poor bastard had a building fall on him, thought he was dead, and that was only a bloody week ago I found that wasn’t the case, so I needed a little normalcy. Bit of Finn to balance me out.” The older man nodded towards his quasi son, then cast a glance at the two red headed little girls that he was minding as best he could. “I got this, you’re apparently hotter gayer Batman. Bit rude, Finn my darling.”

It would not be the first time that he had woken up in a strange bed with little idea of where he was, but it would be the first time he did so with a familiar face and a ring around his left ring finger. It took effort not to jump out of the bed like a startled animal, though his heart was pounding as he tried to sort out what precisely had happened. There had been a time where he and Kas sharing a bed was nothing special, but they had lost that camaraderie four years past and their renewed bond was...fragile, at best. Like glass floating downriver, unaware of any rapids or waterfalls that might be in their way. Frowning, Lachlan grabbed for his phone on the table only to find more confusion the moment his finger unlocked the screen. A picture of a wedding as the lock screen, a picture of two red headed little girls on the home screen, and a date that couldn’t be possible. “Hey, Kaspar. Kas.” He said softly, shaking his shoulder as gently as possible to avoid being swung at or scaring him unduly. Two bleary grey eyes looked up at him and Lachlan turned the phone screen his way. “D’you know what’s going on here? Course you don’t, that was stupid. It was 2046 yesterday, wasn’t it? And you went home after we’d watched that movie. Yeah?”

I should have known better. The words slammed into him like a sucker punch as he opened the door fully, hand frozen on the handle as slate eyes widened in confusion. Thought you were dead. My fault. I tried. Are you real?  He knew the desperation in that voice, could practically hear the hammer of heart he had felt so often under his own hand through thirteen years of ops. Those eyes - a man pleading for absolution from the specter of his perceived sins. Kas had never wanted to be that. The closet. Should have bloody known better. Should have known what this was, but the scorch of insult now drowned had flared too hot beneath long since reconstructed ribs to see this wasn’t disgust - it was panic.

The heat and roughness of a familiar hand against his snapped him out of his inaction, tilting his hand to clasp the familiar-unfamiliar broadness of his estranged comrade’s, frowning at the new scars and babbled words, “Ja - selvfolgelig - of course I’m real.” 

He could just leave. No. He couldn’t. Never could. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Was it? Eyes flicking back to the hallway he prayed this was the right choice this time, kneeling down into the tight space, careful to keep his left side facing away from his once friend, he let his mind  tug gently on the door, closing it to prying eyes. “What are you talking about? It was an accident - I’m right here. Lachl -” Focus up, “Lachlan.” 

Long fingers sunk into the fabric over the other man’s ribs, tugging him closer to hold as so often before, like a twist of the knife in his gut, “C’mere….Breathe.” His own lungs expanded with a slight ache, but slowly - their old pattern - the staccato pulse he could feel pounding against his own prompting him to wrap an arm around the other redhead’s shoulder to hold the embrace, “Just…breathe, Lock.”

The first time that he had fallen prey to a panic attack in Kas’ presence had been a solid thirteen years ago, on edge after a successful op and surrounded by a bunch of Irish soldiers for hire. Between the accents, his fried nerves, and the slap on the back one had given him the trigger switch was practically slammed down in his mind. It had been Kas who had sought him out, Kas who had shrugged off his protests and held him until he steadied. There had never been anything so steadying in the world to him as the solid beat of Kas’ heart, the roughness of his hands, and so the breath he had been holding was let loose in a wheezy, relieved gust as he was held. He could die here, happy. Maybe he’d get a little miffed about not having answers as to how and why Kaspar was here instead of filling a burial urn once he hit the afterlife, but the rush of comfort was worth it. Lachlan was told to breathe, so that was what he did. Breathed, counted the beats of their hearts and felt the weight of Kas’ arm around his shoulder, soaking all of that in and blocking out the world around him by closing his eyes to it. Time was mutable, and so he hadn’t the slightest idea how much had passed by the time he felt able to handle opening his eyes again.

“Got carried out of the ER, y’see. Forced. Told you weren’t going to make it.” He said, slowly and carefully as he traced the edge of Kas’ collar with his own fingers. “Your safety harness, the one with your armor. The latch wasn’t done right, and you’d had me check it. So it’s my fault.” It made sense in Lachlan’s mind, but clearly not in Kaspar’s if the look on his face was anything to go by. Such a beautiful face, all harsh angles and bright grey eyes, but leaner than Lachlan remembered. Kas was here, yes. But what had he lost to make it here? What else had Lachlan’s carelessness with the latch cost him? His hand ghosted over Kas’ chest, his neck, his jaw, as if trying to memorize him in case they never saw each other again. A breath in, a breath out. and Lachlan saw Kas jump slightly as his hand migrated towards the left side of his chest. A frown curved the older man’s lips and yet words didn’t come to fill in the question asked with his eyes. “I’m sorry. For a lot of things. You didn’t have to um...come back here, do this. Lord knows I don’t deserve it.” Gently, he released himself from Kas’ grip and immediately felt far more fragile than he had within his old friend’s arms. Too fragile for the meeting he had been heading to, but he could apologize for ditching that later. He needed to go home, he needed to leave Kas be so he could do whatever it was he came here for in the first place. So he found his footing, albeit shakily. Something fell from his jeans pocket, but he didn’t pay it any mind. “Tha mi gad ghràdh, Kaspar.” He said, a shaky hand on the door. Another breath, a long look, and he slipped outside.

Lachlan Ildstrom née Murray || Future Event Bio

Age: 54

Status: Alive (Metahuman)

Affiliation: Hero Squad & CARMA (loosely)

Retired from the Hero Squad after a particularly nasty accident in 2047, Lachlan has branched more into tailoring and armoring the heroes who roam the streets of Pansaw as his primary form of employment.

After reconciling with Kaspar Ildstrom (and a lot of work with a therapist) they married in 2048. They have twin daughters, aged three, whose meta status both delights and worries their fathers.

He keeps in contact with his former coworkers on the Hero Squad, outfitting them for free or heavily discounted prices as best he can. If he can’t protect them with his combat skills, he’s determined to do what he can for them with his other skills.

Losing friends was an occupational hazard. In a world where money bought blood and conquest, the lure of the highest bidder or fastest bullet spared few. When you put your life in the hands next to you, you learned quickly who to trust - for life - and who would end up putting a knife in your spine for a few extra pennies on the dollar. Metahumans in this world of survival of the fittest? Thrived. Soldiers of fortune were valued for their skills, and having an enhancement? You could add a few more zeros to the fee for services rendered. Rare mutations - Psionics, elemental manipulation…you’d be flying high enough that you were never more than a breath away from touching the sun or catching a bullet  from a competitor. When that Ichareon luck finally caught up with the wild and reckless? Everyone knew. You were out. Some friendships though, the ones that ran blood deep after years in every charred forgotten corner of the earth, those still left the shock of the wound and surrounding scar tissue when they evaporated.

Seeing the fleeing form of that fokkin’ Scot again? No. It was one thing to run out when someone was on their then deathbed, leaving them to the realization of waking up alone, discarded like a spent weapon. But this? This?  Kaspar left his half empty glass on the bar where he had been sniffing about for a job or two, fury rising like bile, charged and metallic on his tongue, painting his skin flush as he stalked across the room, down the hall where he had his choice of doors. Toilets? A shifting noise alerted him to the presence in the closer maintenance closet, of course. His mind reached for it before his hand could, jerking the door open - words collided first: His own, “ The fok you think you are- ?” muddled with the more plaintive, “Please. Fuck off or leave me be or…just go. Please.” lilt he had once known better than anything. Temper spiking at the dismissal, voice lowering with true anger, “Think you’ve got that sentiment the wrong way round, Lock.” 

Logical thought was a distant dream at this point, and some part of him knew it. You had to grab the reins of his panic before it dragged you that far to have a snowball’s chance in hell of tempering the reaction and Lachlan had gotten decent at it, but that required focus, which he also didn’t have when he was well past the pale. The door was thrown open of its own accord and his first thought was not ‘perhaps it really is Kas’ but ‘he’s come for me’ as if Kaspar was some vengeful spirit instead of the closest friend he had ever had in all his life. Eyes full of tears, hands shaking, he looked up at Kaspar as if he was puzzling out his very existence. Maybe he was, but a lot of it was the alphabet soup that his brain had turned into trying to find a response to what Kaspar had said, and trying to not flinch at the nickname that only Kas had ever used tumbling into the airspace between them. “It was my fault! I killed you, I tried, I pulled at the rubble till my hands bled, I...” Lachlan said, voice hoarse with tears. He tilted his head slightly, studying the man in front of him in horrorstruck wonder. So much he hadn’t said before that op went wrong, and now the words fled his mind like so many rats from a sinking ship. His hands were at Lachlan’s eye level and he studied them a moment, the familiar callouses and scars he had never seen before only somewhat steadying his erratic breathing. “You died. They told me you died, they wouldn’t let me in your room. I wanted to die with you. Maybe some of me did.” Out of pure instinct, he reached for Kas’ hand, feeling the warm skin under his own and wondering at it after so long a time. “Are you real? I don’t...I can’t tell, I don’t know. You were gone, m'eudail.”

He was seeing a ghost, apparently. One four years gone that its ephemeral fingers into his heart like so many knives every time they crossed paths. The first time he saw Kaspar had been a few weeks prior, the second a week ago, and now he was sitting at the bar in Knight Life looking far more alive than he should under the circumstances. Just the sight of him knocked the wind from Lachlan’s lungs, dragged him back to the waiting room of an ER where he was flatly told to leave, that there was no hope for the friend he had tried to pull out of the rubble with his bare hands. ‘Didn’t want to give the family much hope.’ he could hear echo in his mind, the voice of a nurse whose name he had long since forgotten, and that along with Kas’ eyes turning his way was the tipping point. They had the same intensity as the Kas he had known, and it made his breath come in sharp spurts. He needed to be anywhere but here, regardless of a meeting he would be late to in the HQ below the bar if he dillydallied. Anywhere but here, anywhere at all, and that was how he found his way to a supply closet near the restrooms, fumbling with the doorknob as if he was underwater. Once inside he found a corner and planted himself in it, eyes closed to limit just how much he had to process right now. Time was immaterial, time wasn’t real, and so he had no idea how long had passed by the time the door creaked open. “Please. Fuck off or leave me be or...just go. Please.”

Occasionally Lachlan found himself in the halls of CARMA HQ, which both gave him the heebie jeebies by reputation alone and made him think of the Catholic secondary school he had left behind in Scotland so many years before. Well, those two facts might be related. Regardless, he had no fucking idea where the conference room he was supposed to be going to was and after turning about five different identical looking corners, was half certain that the building had been designed by the Spanish Inquisition. After the sixth, he collided with a man several inches shorter whose eyes went wide and locked on Lachlan’s chest. That was puzzling, but then he looked down to remember just what shirt he had put under his jacket earlier. Ah. The vintage Ion one from when he’d had pizzazz and nicer hair. Sure, it was gauche to wear your own merch, but it amused Lachlan to no end. “You alright there, mate? Did I knock you senseless or anything? Not quite sure, given you’re gaping at me like a fish.”

Jackson was tired. Having spent the last few years of his young life running, learning how to survive on his own in a way that he never had before was taxing growing taxing on him. At the core of it, that was why he’d settled in Pansaw. Sure, being a place full of meta’s made it easier to blend in, but the real reason was that he was tired. Tired of running. Tired of sleeping on the street. Tired of everything. This exhaustion, one that ran deep into his bones, had made him sloppy, and the buried trauma that he wouldn’t acknowledge wasn’t helping. 

That’s how he ended up here, in a strange man’s home, piss drunk and passed out, unable to help himself even if he wanted to. The few hours of unconsciousness were more than needed as Jackson’s body rested, recouping from the abuse he constantly put it through. But the blissful sleep couldn’t last forever, and, wrapped in the comfort and warmth of a place he didn’t know, Jackson’s eyes fluttered open and he sat up with a start. Panic seized at his chest the way it did sometimes, and his head spun, leaving him well disoriented for a few moments as he blinked. 

Jackson’s head whipped around, eyes landing on a robed man. Jackson swallows, his throat dry and his tongue thick and he fought off a wave of nausea that threatened. Jackson doesn’t reply at first, staring as his mind tries to remember what he remembers. Did he sleep with this man? How did he get here? He remembers flashes of the night before: the fight, someone stepping in, then nothing. 

“The fuck am I doing here?” He says, though the usual bite wasn’t there, scrubbing his face for a second–everything hurt. “My clothes–” The younger man repeats, glancing down blinking as his mind catches up. “You didn’t–did we… who the fuck are you?” 

Whatever this young man had gotten drunk on must have been strong enough to power a car, in Lachlan’s less than humble opinion. He was such a skinny thing that Lachlan assumed it must be true, either that or he had a prodigious tolerance for alcohol. Or both, though that was a terrible combination. Lachlan made a disgusted noise at the very idea he would have taken advantage of someone that drunk, then stood to pull the neatly folded clothes out of a hamper beside his chair. “Mate, I don’t fuck anyone who isn’t sober and enthusiastic about joining me in bed. So no. But you smelled like dumpster, so I stripped you down to your pants once you’d passed out in the middle of the alleyway.” He said, throwing the clothing gently at the younger man. It wouldn’t help things for him to hover, so he found his armchair again and kept his distance for now. If he had to knock him out again, so be it, but he’d rather not. Probably would make a terrible mess on the sofa.

Generally, Lachlan didn’t parade who he was. It was bad policy, but this idiot had seen him in full Hero Squad getup and likely would piece things together after the fact anyway. Well, presumably. If he drank the shit he’d been drinking the night before on the regular, god only knew what his remaining brain cells could figure out. “And as for me, depends on who you’re asking. If I’m pulling idiots out of drunken fights, the press very helpfully calls me Ion of the Hero Squad fame. Shite name, but it’s what it is.” Lachlan said, picking up his embroidery again for lack of anything else to keep his hands busy. A few stitches worth of time later and he looked up at the young man again. “If you’ll stop fussing over the fact I didn’t let you get run over or killed in the street, you can call me Lachlan. Only thing you aren’t allowed to call me is English, but you Americans hardly know the difference between a Scot and an Australian, I’ve found. So, you going to tell me your name?”

Beth nods, giving Lachlan a polite smile as he spoke, her grin spreading at the compliment to her product. “Well thank you, I try to make sure whatever I sell is of a good quality, and I test everything out myself.” Beth hadn’t originally planned on getting into selling cannabis, and really, she was surprised her mother hadn’t thought of it first. But after her mother’s passing, Beth had been looking for something to help with her power, and the emotional pain, and when weed had helped, the idea just clicked into place. It was what Beth attributed to the shops overwhelming turn around, from barely making any money, to supporting Beth and giving her a chance to actually get ahead. 

“Well, if you ever care to find out, the first reading is on the house, since you’ve been such a supportive customer, that is. You might be surprised, maybe you’ll find out you aren’t a wanker after all.” Beth teases with a flash of another little smile, following by a chuckle as the crystal almost hits the floor. “Well, I have a new hybrid blend, pretty high THC content–” she turns, fingers dancing over the canisters in front of her before landing on one and taking it out, opening it as she turns, handing it to Lachlan to smell. “Mystic Haze–thought it had a nice ring to it–what do you think?” 

“Small chance of that, love. But it would scandalize the nuns who raised me, buying the devil’s lettuce then letting you read me cards.” Lachlan mused, taking a sniff of the sample she was holding out for him. He let out an appreciative whistle, then nodded. “Some of that, add it to me tab and we’ll tally before I leave. Some of the regular too, I think. Much as you’ve got on stock because Finn has been pilfering from my stash.” On the house, eh? Free anything always rang true to Lachlan, prodded at the part of him that was still a dirty faced child on the streets scrounging for anything he could find to stay afloat. And hell, he was bored. Lonely too, but he wasn’t going to admit that to anyone upon pain of death. He gestured vaguely at the room where she did her readings, trying his best to look skeptical. “Can’t say I understand ‘em, but I suppose that’s your job, eh? No free readings here, might as well go whole hog. Add one on to my bill, and I’ll...well, I guess I’ll let you read me.”

Lachlan put what was certainly more than his purchases would cost on the counter, then sat the crystal he had knocked over earlier on top before Beth could argue with him too much. “No change, love. Keep the rest.” He said softly, more earnestly than his normal tone of voice. Lachlan felt flustered, which he disliked, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Was it the genuine affection, wholly platonic, that he felt for the young woman? Or did he think she might actually figure something out about him with her cards that he tried to keep buried? He wasn’t sure, but he let himself be directed back to a chair in her reading room all the same. “What d’you need? Birthdays? My full name? It’s April Fools, me birthday. God thought that was a fine joke, I’m sure.”

Finn didn’t really know what Lachlan was prattling on about, more interested in reading the television’s specs. It was that one part that caught the teleporter’s attention and his fellow vigilante’s whole speech properly processed in his mind. His eyes went wide and he looked up directly at the television screen. Did he just say… in love with his father? And his dad…what? He turned to face Lachlan with the shocked expression still painted on his features, mouth opening and closing a few times before he finally found the words. “I’m sorry…you sure you have the right Dylan Winchester?” No, he described his tallish, blond, Irish, and sanctimonious father to a T. Suddenly he wasn’t so interested in the new TV any more. “You’re jokin’ right? You realize my dad’s the straightest man on the planet, right?” 

He had thought of this conversation earlier as like pulling off a plaster, one solid rip and the pain would ease off, but right about now it felt more like cauterization. To some body part that would be suitably painful, like the dick that had gotten him into this mess all those years ago. “Aye, straightest man on the planet who made out with me behind a pub in that shitty little town your parents come from. We were drunk, sure, but...” Lachlan sighed, flicking the paper price tag on the television display for something, anything to fidget with. It took a long moment for him to look up at Finn again, one in which he wasn’t a hundred percent sure that tears hadn’t tried to appear at the corners of his eyes, unbidden. “I said was, Finn. Not am. And before you get any notions, I left the day after. I don’t love you dearly for any weird reason related to your father either. Couldn’t have, not with me being daft as a pole, not knowing all this time.”

Noah made a slightly offended noise at the suggestion that he was interested in more than just bedding the current subject of his bitching. The hand he was holding his own glass with lifted to point a finger at Lachlan, a bit of the glass’s contents splashing onto his hand with the force of the gesture. “Watch it,” he scolded, but he was quickly distracted when Lachlan spoke again. “Hot cop, hates cops,” he said, nodding along with Lachlan’s assessment–and he might have jumped at that bet, except that Lachlan finished it with the word ‘date’, which–

“Lachlan,” Noah said, tossing back the last of his glass and leaning forward to squint at his friend, a little bit drunk and as blind as ever without the glasses he refused to wear outside of his apartment. “Do I look like a man who’s ever been on a fuckin’ date to you?” His nose wrinkled up in distaste at the thought and he flapped a hand to dismiss it, shook his head. “You’re readin’ into things, is what you’re doin’, and it ain’t polite. I’m not studying the man for anything except to get in his pants and stay on his good side so he don’t report me to CARMA. You change the terms though and I’ll take that bet. You gotta buy me another drink though, for havin the–the fuckin audacity to suggest I’d go on a date. Christ. What would that even look like?”

Razzing Noah was one of the only sports that Lachlan had ever truly enjoyed, though bounty hunting took first place. “You look like a man who needs a fuckin’ date to me. That’s what I’m saying to you. And this guy isn’t gonna just fuck you and run, I promise you that. I’ve heard shit through the grapevine at CARMA.” He said, grinning widely at the way that Noah’s expression shifted at just one measly word. The grapevine was one gossipy secretary, but who she was far more useful than expected. Entertaining too, even though she kept trying to draw him into taking her out to dinner. Another drink? He could do another drink, if only to placate his now ruffled friend and plant a few more truths in the conversation like so many seeds. 

A gesture at the bartender sent another drink Noah’s way and he waited for Noah to get his fidgety hands on it before continuing. “He’s what, my age? My age, a tight ass, and has that perpetual resting bitch face from what I’ve seen. You aren’t going to get into his pants like you’ve done mine and many others. But fine, arsehole.” Lachlan said, flicking a paper umbrella at the younger man. “Five hundred if you do get him to take you to bed. A thousand if you manage a date, and don’t try to bullshit me either.” He paused, thoughtful, then nodded at Noah again. “You ever give thought to that shit we were talking about last night? The adoption shit? I mean, you won’t let me blow up your arsehole father with my powers, but I wouldn’t...I mean I wouldn’t mind getting his name off your birth certificate, swapping mine if it makes you feel better.”

Jackson knew when he was getting his ass handed to him, he knew when he was outmatched in a fight. He might not have been the smartest person, but that was one thing he’d learned from his father. 

Always know when you’re outmatched, and don’t be afraid to run. 

Of course these were words spoken to a child with a black eye from getting in a fight on the school yard from a worried father who knew his hot-headed son often wanted to bite off more than he could chew. But now, as those words rang through his head and Jackson was knocked back once again, Jackson knew he wouldn’t listen to his fathers advise. He’d learned to run well enough, he’d been doing that for most of his adult life, but when it came to a fight like this, there was no chance. Maybe he just wanted to make his father proud, or maybe he was just a dumbass who was trying to punish himself, but whatever the case was, if the other man hadn’t stepped in, Jackson may not have made it off of the pavement. 

“I was fine. I don’t need any fucking help.” Jackson glowers, pushing himself away from the wall, only to stumble back, tripping over a garbage bag and tumbling back to the ground. It wouldn’t have taken much to knock him out at that point, so when his head hit the ground, he was out like a light, proving he really did need some fucking help. 

Lachlan had met many walking disasters in his day. Hell, by all rights he was one. Pretty, full of themselves, barely being held upright by their own legs, and so this one checked off all three boxes. You could almost be amused at the fact he had just spat out that he didn’t need help before collapsing. Lachlan considered it for a solid thirty seconds, but ah! Then the guilt set in. So he picked him up off the ground once he had ordered one of the handful of drivers working in Pansaw that didn’t freak when a costumed vigilante needed a ride, carried him all the way home, and took a hefty dose of painkillers once the younger man was settled on the sofa bed. Armor put away, he checked the skinny bastard over for wounds and ran a medical scanner over him to check he hadn’t hit his head as hard as it sounded like earlier. A fucking mess, that’s what this one was.

Maybe if he hadn’t twinged a little something in Lachlan’s heart he would have called 911 and left him there, but there was a hollowness to the younger man’s reckless actions. You didn’t get piss drunk and try to fight a Meta for shits and giggles, not without some other motivation. And given Larry hadn’t recognized him, it wasn’t specifically directed towards him. So he had questions, he was a soft piece of shit at heart, and that was precisely why the young man would wake up better than he had been upon passing out. Lachlan was working on a bit of sewing for Finn when the younger man’s eyes fluttered open hours later, sitting in the armchair nearest in a t-shirt, boxer briefs, and a silk robe that Finn had proclaimed gaudier than papal vestments. “Ah, I see we’ve made our way back to the world of the living. Bout time, your clothes are long since washed and dried.” Lachlan said, conversationally. “Feeling better, sùilean dubh? Bit less like the walking dead?”