#redd verse

                            WHERE IS ALTON TAILY?

a body sails through the arctic air, away from ice and crystal and lands in a crater in the middle of kansas. he has no memories of who he is or how he got into the air and how he crashed into the ground.

he is found and taken care of by an alien sympathizer, arnold. though, to anyone who asks, redd jezero will talk till he’s blue in the face about how he’s not an alien. the very word brings up terror and drowning and pain. 

sure, he’s strong and he’s durable. but he’s not an alien. he’s not some freak. he’s human to the core. it’s been a good three years, building up his own life with friends who only know him as a human. a blue collar everyman.

most of his coworkers at arnold’s truck repair shop are aliens and he grits his teeth and tries to work along side them. he’s not about to join an alien hate group, but he’s not a huge fan of them scurrying around his planet either.

“Y’teach mythology?” A small grunt of approval. The hissing, warning static in his mind lessened as he stopped thinking about the gaps, the blank chasm that was his mind. Somewhere from the depths, he could feel a ghost of paper and ink under his fingers. 

He didn’t dare push deeper a the memory-- even if he wanted to. Even if he wanted to give up this normal life. He knew the consequences. The static filling his mind, making him black out. This is your punishment. It will stop when you return. Well, whatever bastard had put that in place obviously wasn’t anyone he wanted in his life.

So he didn’t push, he didn’t let it bother him. The parade of people asking him to come home and work on getting his memory back. What if one of them had been the one to do it to him? 

// the symbol is just a cowboy hat emoji lmao

[ @maraonlaidre ]

-- Redd looked down at the kid in his hands. His arms knew what to do even if he didn’t. Apparently he was good with kids. 

Had been good with kids once, the thought came to mind.

In his days spent in the Kent home, living with Kara and Clark and their family, he had learned to get past the static. It was still there and it still hurt, but he’d learned to adjust. 

It was so odd, so alien. Someone would make a joke or a reference that he wouldn’t understand and then there would be an awkward tension as Redd stared blankly back. And being in this house-- one that he knew but also didn’t-- was unsettling bordering on creepy. Being here in this farmhouse with laughter and Clark with Lois, Kara with Mon-El, he realized that that husband that Kara had been so fervent about was nowhere to be found.

He’d asked Kara about him and she said that he lived in the city, running his business. He didn’t have time to come over. But Redd knew Kara, even if he didn’t remember her. Saw the way that she held herself, fingers curling in her sweater. She was lying.

Couldn't blame him. It must hurt, knowing your husband is back but not himself. And Redd was trying, taking baby steps. 

Like holding Kara’s kid in his arms, talking to him. The kid would babble at him, half in English and half in this language that he didn’t know but he understood. The kid felt like home, looking up at him with wonder. Someone who didn’t know him, didn’t have any expectations of him. Didn’t search his eyes to see what he remembered from his old life. 

Redd spent most of his days with Mik-El. It was easier than the prying eyes of his family of strangers. And he knew he couldn’t be the uncle that Kara wanted him to be, but he was trying. 

“‘m fine, ‘m fine.” Redd lifts the car off of him, pretending to be exhausted by the act. Metal creaks and groans and bends under his fingers as he pries it apart to better wiggle out from beneath.

The lift had busted, which means his work is done for the day anyway. Arnold is gonna freak. At least it had been Redd under there instead of a normal human.

(you are a normal human,  that’s what you want to be and you have to hold onto that, Redd)

Alton-- the word is the rattle of a snake, a hiss before a strike. Go down this path and it will only get worse, something in his mind warned him. There was pain, pain that had been taken away. Joy and happy memories were gone too. But the pain was gone at least. He remembered that there was pain, but no specifics. A harsh static roaring in his mind anytime he tried to dig. So he gave up. Stopped digging. Better to embrace his new life as a nobody. 

(you were meant for greater, this is a punishment because you didn’t obey)

(you were a hero once, how did you just give that up and run away?)

(you were special, you were someone and now you embrace this anonymity and it’s wrong, wrong)

Too many competing ideas in his mind anytime he questioned the status quo.