It was only just past dark, though it felt later. Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked down the streets, his thoughts noisy and more useless than ever. Clearing his head had sounded like a fantastic idea when he’d said it, but actually being out here, not as easily done. Walking forward didn’t seem to make his head any clearer, his thoughts any less loud. If there was any benefit so far, it was that it let him expel some of his pent-up energy, and right now, he just wanted to move forward, whatever that meant.
Eliza’s reaction at the table kept running through his head. Had he read it wrong? She’d spoken the truth, after all. They weren’t supposed to. She was Eliza. Even if she wasn’t the person that had once meant, she was still, well, royalty. She was grandeur. Opulence. She was Grand, and once she got back, she’d be a queen again. Daniel was… well, he wasn’t even the Hero anymore, was he? He was frail, now. Small. Even with the bit of scruff on his face, he felt thin and ineffectual. He had to crane his neck to even look at her, and she wasn’t that tall.
Eliza was grand and powerful and he couldn’t possibly measure up to that. What was it she’d said? ‘Someone like him’. He caught his reflection in a window and quickly looked away. Yeah, he wouldn’t feel exactly comforted around someone like him either. She’d needed help a few times and he’d done his best, but clearly, he wasn’t enough. He definitely wasn’t going to be enough for her here, and trying to imagine that he might be was only going to hurt him in the long run, wasn’t it?
He’d allowed himself to live in the cute domestic life for a while, but it wasn’t going to last forever. The last time he’d spoken to Sally, she’d mentioned off-handedly that they’d been trying to find a way to get both of them back to where they were supposed to be, and he had every faith that the world, his world couldn’t do without a hero for much longer. He’d be whisked back and saving the world in no time at all. Just like he was supposed to.
He’d miss it, sure, but it was a silly fantasy, constantly interrupted by the fact that he needed Eliza’s help to reach the top shelf, that she could probably pick him up effortlessly, that she needed to go back, and that he did, too. It was never going to have led anywhere, and he chided himself for thinking it might have.
Daniel took a deep breath. This wasn’t clearing his head at all. There were only more and more thoughts swarming around in his brain, and he was angry at all of them. He crossed the road to the little park that was adjacent to their block, a little, well-lit copse of trees, with a pond and some ducks. It was nice enough, and it smelled like pine almost all year round. He had hoped, as he had set out to come here, that it would calm him down some, that it would remind him of days he used to spend walking, going forward. Of having a purpose, a clear goal.
What was he even trying to do here, anymore? He tried to figure out what he’d been doing and the first, obvious conclusion was survival. He’d been trying to survive in this strange, alien world, while waiting for a way to get back. And Eliza had just been there? No, that didn’t even make sense to him. There was clearly more to it than that. Time hadn’t just been passing by while they waited. He’d been living, trying to build a life. And Eliza hadn’t just been around. She’d been an active participant in his life. He wouldn’t even have found a way to alleviate the feelings of wrongness without her. She’d been the most important person in his life since, well, his death. Pretending she wasn’t was unfair to both of them.
But apparently, ‘someone like him’ wasn’t the person she wanted in this life, was it? She’d said so earlier, and she’d made that crystal clear. They had talked about it, early on. That they would be allies by convenience and necessity. But they had grown into more, hadn’t they? Or was he just lying to himself? Had years of being The Hero gone to his head? He wasn’t worth all that much these days, was he? Barely a man anymore, no matter how hard he tried. The hormones and the exercises weren’t going to make him taller any time soon, and even with some angles on him, would he ever look… feel right?
The park would have been, once upon a time and place, dark, full of shadowy corners in which monsters could lurk and bandits might hide. But not here. Lanterns were placed strategically to cast a warm light over a large area, and little benches dotted the paths going through it. It was an aspect of this world that had taken some getting used to: it never really slept. Electricity ran through the streets and houses like a lifeblood, and even without people, there was a sense that this place was lived-in. That didn’t mean he was stupid. He was short in stature, and he knew there was a chance he might have to rely on his ability to either hit quickly or run quicker.
But for now, he felt mostly secure, taking in the smells of the trees and the grass with a deep breath, and trying to force himself to relax, to let his sense take a hit of nature and push his thoughts out. Nature was, historically, good at that, after all. He’d done his best lack-of-thinking sitting against a tree with the wind on his face and the rustling of leaves in his brain. He sat down on a bench and closed his eyes.
There’s an expression, which says that it never rains, but it pours. Technically, this is wrong. There are parts of the universe, and even on this world, where it never pours but rains almost constantly, where the drizzle is constant and people gurgle gently when they speak. Sometimes, there is only rain, and you learn to wear your jacket and an umbrella regardless of the time of year, even if it grinds you down like an ocean against stone.
But sometimes, it does pour. Sometimes, when you’ve had a bad day, and you’re walking home with the slightly-too-cold rain lightly pattering on the shirt you wore because you didn’t expect to need a jacket, and you think “I’ll just get changed when I get home, it’ll be fine.” You feel confident that the bag with papers you’ve got with you will not be rained through, and you know it’s just a bit of discomfort, it’ll get better when you get home.
And then someone up high accidentally bumps into the giant faucet of reality and the tap is turned all the way open, and all of a sudden you’re drenched in seconds and you realize that this day isn’t going to be better when you get home because when you get home you’ll have more work to do, drying papers, and you’ll have to do laundry, and that’s assuming you don’t slip and fall on your way home, because that might as well happen too.
Sometimes, it pours.
“Sally?” a voice behind Daniel asked. Motherly, concerned, almost scared. Daniel froze. He hoped that the voice was talking to someone else, that this was going to go away in just a second, because he wasn’t in the mood for this. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, nor did he think he was ever going to be in the mood for this, but he would’ve liked for it to show up at an opportune time, at the very least. But it hadn’t. It was happening now, because sometimes it pours. Two figures walked around the bench and looked at him. He regretted having changed out of the clothes Hayden had given him, because they would’ve made this a lot easier to shake off, but the undergarment had been restricting and the clothes had made him feel, well, fake, and so he’d thrown on one of Sally’s old hoodies and he was deeply regretting it now.
“Is that you?” the other figure asked. It had a distinctly fatherly quality, with a twang of an accent Daniel had no way of placing. It was a gruff voice, the kind of voice that had worked in places with bad worker’s comp for decades and looked down on anyone who hadn’t. It was a voice with a moustache and a favourite pair of workman’s boots. Daniel looked at the two of them. They looked like he’d expected them to, although the mother was a little shorter than he’d anticipated.
Daniel inhaled and tried to remember every single thing he’d learned on those videos on the computer, pushing his larynx down, trying to feel the resonance in his chest, and cleared his throat. “Can I help you?” he asked. He knew who they were, but he couldn’t let them see that. Not now. He wasn’t ready.
“It’s not her, Will,” the woman said, and then her face twisted into something he hadn’t expected. The way Daniel had envisioned it, he’d expected one of two things. The first was that he’d expected her to be angry, or upset, that she hadn’t found her child. That would have been hard, of course, and awkward, but expected. The second was recognition. That one would have definitely been a lot more unpleasant for him. But the look on her face was one of contempt, and a bit of pity.
“I see that,” the man said, and both of them just… stood there, looking at him. The man had shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at him like something unexpected pulled out of the river. The woman looked at Daniel like the thing had been wriggling, almost with morbid fascination.
Daniel had, on more than one occasion, been forced to stand on a stage to receive an award, or to give a rousing speech, in front of dozens, hundreds of people. But somehow, he had never felt more looked at than he had in that moment, like a curious specimen.
“It’s sad,” the woman said, “the way the city forces girls to do this to themselves.”
“Hrm,” the man said, and Daniel felt like this was his usual response to things.
“Excuse me?” Daniel asked. The woman just continued as if he wasn’t even there.
“Look at her,” the mother said. “A beautiful young girl in the prime of her life and she has facial hair. I mean, I have no problem with gay people, but people need to stop trying to convince children to do this to themselves.”
“It’s not natural,” the moustache said, and added a “hrm” for emphasis.
“I know,” the woman said, and started to pull him away by the arm. “It’s all of these new cults, they just want to push their ideas on innocent young women…” Her voice trailed off as they walked away, until they were out of sight and sound.
Daniel sat on the bench, cooking alive in his own skin. His hair felt like it was on fire, and if he could have crawled out of his body like an insect crawling out of its cocoon, he would have. He wanted to get out. He was fairly certain these had been Sally’s parents, and he understood now why she hadn’t seemed all that eager to get home. But other than what they’d said, which had been borderline nonsensical, and the way they’d talked about him like he wasn’t there, which had been rude beyond comprehension, like he wasn’t even human… it was the small things that seared through his brain, like someone running a hot poker over a carpet, scorching lines and making small fires.
Did he really just look like a woman with facial hair? He knew who he was, but to them he had just looked like some… thing. An abomination. An abnormality. And he was, wasn’t he? He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He was supposed to be back home, to be the hero, to be big, to be strong, to be good enough to be himself.
He got up and started walking. He felt like he might explode if he stayed seated. His legs pumped underneath him, and it was only when he skidded to a halt that he realized he’d been running. He was barely out of breath. The months of exercise had paid off, at the very least. He practically flew up the stairs, grinding his teeth every few steps to keep from screaming in the stairwell, until he got to the door of their apartment and he took a few deep breaths before sliding his key in the lock, quietly. Despite his frustrations, he didn’t want to wake Eliza up.
It turned out not to be necessary. She was sitting at the little table by the back of the sofa, with a few papers and booklets in front of her, frowning. When he came in, her face seemed to light up for a moment, and then it fell when she saw his expression.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. It was too hard, too much, to be here and not be good enough, not for himself and not for…
Eliza looked at him with concern. “Can’t do what?”
“Stay here. Be this.” He shuddered. He was practically shaking. “I have to get out.” His voice was breaking and her expression was tearing him apart. He did not want more pity. Not now. Especially not from her.
“Well,” Eliza said, and she seemed to be close to tears for reasons Daniel didn’t quite understand. “Good news, Daniel.” She smiled in pain. “There’s a way home.”
Uuuugh. Those people x_x
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Poor Daniel f*ck