see you, space-time cowboy

daddy’s home

Tagged by: @perfectedingbadideas loser Tagging: @birdonawiresara @followthedrums13 @xnonxnocerex @titanofthemoon @thecharmingknightemma @asterobellis @youhavethetools @cosmosfated @teamxplayers

𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 / 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓   ♡   𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  ( accepting )

For a moment, Rip believed it was the inebriation. But then he remembered that he was the only one between them who’d drunk enough to feel lightheaded-- or, at least, that was what he thought (surely he couldn’t outdrink an Amazonian?). His eyes blinked blearily. The bottle in his hand made the softest sound as he lowered it gracefully to the floor by the chair he’d put himself in.

“What...” He swallowed, furrowing his brows slightly, and caught Donna’s gaze properly. “What do you... mean by that?”

He remembered that she was open about her affections. He remembered that Donna could very well say I love you even to people she only considered friends.

Still, the back of his neck began to heat. More than that, his throat was feeling tighter, like he was going to suffocate.

𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 / 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓   ♡   𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  ( accepting )

“I brought a demon into your home.”

And Rip wasn’t, in any way, shape, or form, proud of himself for it. Not that he would be in any circumstance, but God-- to have brought Mallus into the safehouse, and then to have forced John to go into some nightmareish hellscape to save his nearly diminished soul...

He didn’t deserve it. Rip coughed, still weak from that near-perfect possession, and he knew he had to rest and save his energy, but waking up and seeing John at his bedside had triggered the apologies almost instantly.

“I didn’t... I should’ve fought harder to keep him out of my body. But I...” Rip was still bruised and hurt all over, still covered in the marks that signified Mallus’ abuse of his physical form, but he laughed all the same, humourless and miserable (and cringed a bit because of the way the laughter moved his body). “I’m sorry, John. I really am. If I’d just been stronger, then...”

𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 / 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓   ♡   𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  ( accepting )

“It isn’t--” He sniffed lightly, bringing the side of his fist up to wipe at his eye. “I’m not hiding them.”

He had been, a little bit. But how else was he supposed to react to the end of the apparently highly rated How to Train Your Dragon? Rip furrowed his brows, more annoyed with himself than anything, but that ending frame of a boy and his dragon walking side by side into the light outside, each of them broken and stronger together...

𝐇𝐔𝐑𝐓 / 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓   ♡   𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  ( accepting )

He hadn’t expected the camaraderie.

This was less a testament to the sort of person Ray Palmer was (because he was incredible, really-- brilliant and bright in all the right ways) and more because Rip was so terrible at working with other people. He could barely handle Booster Gold, for example, and the man was his bloody father.

Though Rip wasn’t hostile or cold, he wasn’t exactly the most open as far as sharing stories went. His work with Ray went smoothly, of course, and Rip would say he quite liked him as a human being for the natural goodness of his heart, but to be close enough they’d talk about things like this...?

“They were my family,” he finally said, his tone as steady as he could manage it and his lips pressing together as he nodded. “The, erm... the killing we had to witness. The woman and child you saw that younger version of me hold in his arms.”

Because of course a small wormhole had appeared in that point in time. It had, after all, been the beginning of the only time loop Rip had ever subjected himself to willingly-- he’d gone back in time hundreds, thousands of rounds; it only made sense that the constitution of space-time had cracked as a direct result of it.

The immediate threat was gone, of course. Working together, he and Ray had stabilised the link between dimensions in a snap.

But, much as he’d moved on from the death of his family, it was still something to see them die again. To see himself, crying and screaming into apocalyptic air, broken because his family had been taken from him. Rip frowned, knocking his knuckles lightly into the console he was leaning against.

Donna set her new room in order and changed outfits for a night out on the town. Well, HER kind of night. While briefly exciting to head to a bar and pretend to be an entirely different, exciting new anonymous persona for a night- that was more interesting in theory. She would look up the local landmarks, take some night shots, and gaze at local architecture for a while. Especially if she could look at it all from the sky… Too risky? Perhaps. But she had been cooped up all day.

She passed by the man on the desk on her way out and flashed him a brilliant smile that made him visibly weak in the knees. Looking up directions on her phone as she strode out, she could see that Rip had his own plans, too. Good for him! What was worrisome was the shifty looking dark shape following the Time Master by several paces… Oh…. That’s never good. She hung back tailing the one tailing Rip.

It wasn’t like the store was especially far away. Rip didn’t have much of a distance to walk, which was the whole bleeding point of it.

He did, however, have enough insight to forgo the store entirely, moving forward along the pavement until he was able to turn a corner.

After that was simply the process of waiting for whoever was following him to come along, and after that came the split-second deliberation as to whether they were a threat or not before reacting accordingly. If they looked surprised that he’d stopped, meaning they’d intended to follow him further, then he would grab them with their arms secured behind their back and stifled by the wrap of his hand.

If not, well. Then he’d let them go their merry way.

“Blimey, Carter, ‘n yeh call yehself ‘n Englishman?!”

John’s mirth came with a laugh and a slap to the other’s back.

“Or is th’ bloody future so bleak tha’ nobody’s ‘avin’ any fun nah more?”

He raised his glass pointedly to Rip, grinning broadly.

“I ne’er met a bloke hoo’s dis clueless before,” And John drank.

That little shadowy tendril recoiled at the smack, seemingly mildly offended before it slid away, as if it were finally giving up on its intent, whatever it was.

…or not, for its next chosen target was Rip’s trouser pockets. A brother tendril joined in on its cause. What else of interest could be found here? Sneaky sneaky!

“No,” Rip said without delay, even though the smack had him letting out a tired sort of sigh, “I don’t call myself an Englishman.”

“And what” -- this time, with irritation clear on his features, he stood from his seat and reached with his hands to wrap his fingers around whatever absurd, smooth things were trying to mess with what was in his trousers -- “in the hell are these things?”

Even if the shadows slipped from his tight grip, which he supposed they would, it didn’t matter-- what mattered was the way John continued on his merry little way as if nothing was happening on the sde, and how easily it was to think that that meant these creatures, whatever they were, weren’t targetting him.

“You can’t tell me you can’t see them.”

“I suppose you could do anything drunk and half-blind,” Rip concedes; he doesn’t quite understand the concept of respecting gods, not when he isn’t in favour of any of them, but doesn’t care enough to argue it.

John heard the sound of the door open and turned to look at who was coming in just in time to feel a hard kick to the side of his head. After that, everything went black.

He came to afer who knew how long later to the sound of what sounded like another voice. One aside from Ray. Though Ray’s was a little louder than the other was. Enough to make the pounding in his head worse. He rolled his wrists to see if he would be able to do anything with them. Of course not. They wouldn’t leave them out of a cell without some kind of bindings.

Groaning with a mix of annoyance and pain from his head he shifted his eyes towards the other man. “I’m awake. Enough yellin.” Feels like he’d been hit with a bat. Probably the aftermath of getting kicked in the damn head and the gas. Blinking a few times to get himself to focus he started to scan the area. 

“Th’ hell are we?” Cause this was not that building they had been in before. He wasn’t sure what the point of them even being here was. Wasn’t like either of them had any kind of information that whoever was responsible for this was going to get out of them. Ray didn’t know anything. Only that something wasn’t right and that he was helping out someone who felt the same way. Way to go John got someone else dragged into the bullshit. He didn’t know what they wanted but he wasn’t looking forward to sticking around for it.

Lets see if he could work a bit of an escape act into this little episode. Get out of this situation. “You’re makin th’ headache worse.” He felt tired still but he had a bit more of an ability to concentrate. Could get them out of this maybe if they would walk out. “Gonna see if I can’t get th’ hell out th’ situation.” He grumbled as he started working against his own bindings. He wasn’t sure if getting out of this part would be much of anything. However he didn’t feel like sticking around long enough to find out what was wanted of him.

“Though I heard someone else talkin. Where’d it come from?” He only saw Ray. But there had been another voice. One that was a bit more polite than he thought he would hear since showing up here.

Seeing John awake and well had Ray letting out a relieved little sigh. He’d been feeling guilty about screwing everything up, and though he had, in fact, screwed everything up, it was good to know that John at least wasn’t hurt too bad.

Save for a splitting head, it seemed. Ray tried to keep his voice a bit softer when he spoke again. “I don’t know where it came from. It sounded like it came from the ceiling...”

“That’s because my speakers are in the ceiling, Dr. Palmer.” There was that cheerful voice again! Ray jumped slightly, looking up, and had his head turning sharply from side to side as if trying to find some sort of huge stereo system somewhere.

“And no, I’m afraid it’s not something so easily seen. Captain Hunter had made certain of that.”

“...’captain’?” Ray echoed. “Wait a sec, you mean Mr. Hunter?”

“Yes. He quite preferred being called ‘captain’ before he joined Mr. Thawne and his group.”

“Why do you know him?”

“He was my captain.” The voice sounded especially about that. “And yours as well, though judging from your confusion I suspect you must not remember who I am.”

“I...” Ray furrowed his brows. “I don’t. Sorry, lady.”

“Oh, there’s no need for apologies! My name is Gideon. And if there’s anything in particular you need, I can tell you where to find it, even if you’ll have to get it on your own.”

Pffft. Rip almost laughs at that-- at the way Fleur speaks, at the way his body moves, at the exaggerated little gestures. “‘Pissed’ means ‘drunk’, mate.

John was having a bit of fun with the whole cute thing. It was clearly a slip of the tongue. But he couldn’t let him let it down on his own. The other man’s reaction to the hair dye was a good start of the trip. John knew what they had coming up. Knew that they were getting ready for something that was a little different than his usual gigs. But somehow he was keeping himself in rather high spirits. He had dealt with demons of all kinds for so long that maybe he wasn’t thinking this was going to be so bad once they found him. This one was big though. John wasn’t going to hide that fact. 

“Well seein as I’ve heard you sing before and I’m sure we’re gonna need some kind of entertainment.” It would take them a few minutes to find the bastard. 

“Haven’t checked to see if we had any kind of instruments.” He was joking; he didn’t think that Jaspar had been much for the whole musical scene. John wasn’t sure if there was anything they would actually find.

“You’ve been living there how long?” At this point, Rip assumed that John would’ve known every inch of the house... but honestly, the question had been rhetorical, anyway. Rip wasn’t actually going to comb Jasper’s house for a guitar so he could write a song about how cute John was.

Not when he could just fabricate one.

“Entertainment... and if I wrote a ballad about your hypothetical cuteness” -- hypothetical, he said, lying through his teeth like a lying liar -- “surely you’ll have something to offer in turn.

“I’ve never fought a god in my life, Fleur. I’m afraid you’ve got me beaten in terms of life experiences... or expectations.”

But working with one is another story. Still, it’s not information he gives easily.

“The study of history’s given me a wide breadth of knowledge, though, which is to say you’re not the first person I’ve heard of wanting to smite a god with such veracity... even if you are just on the edge of making me believe you might actually get to do it.

“I’m afraid I’ve never spoken to Loki, no.” But here Rip stands anyway, gently bringing the hand that’s pointing back down. “Though I’d assume as a god, he ought to have some ability or other to hear you even from over here.