revivalproject | [Open] These Broken Pieces Of Life

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[Open] These Broken Pieces Of Life

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, Open
WHERE: Young Avengers HQ, The Diner, The Greenhouse, The Beach Cave Hot Springs
WHAT: Returning to Temba, Broken Down Home, Farming, Failing To Hide Emotional Pain.
WHEN: August 1st through 15th
WARNINGS: N/A

I. Another Ruined Home | Young Avengers HQ

Freedom. Sunlight. A sandwich made of greens and beautiful vegetables from the greenhouse. A meal that was doing nothing to make what was before him any better. Home, for the last several years... Broken.

"Fucking hell," he grumbled around his mouthful of baconroom wrap. "Because when it fucking rains..."

It fucking poured. The roof was busted open, the door fallen off, and he could already see through the opening that their shared living room space was fucked. And now Tommy had no choice but to hope that things would be fixable. That he could bring out the things that mattered until such time he could have his home and his life back.

"Fat chance that, with my luck."

II. Moving In Day | The Diner

It's only temporary, Tommy tells himself as he pushes into the Diner and puts the heavy box in his arms on the table. He's so tired after all of the work of cleaning the HQ out. Fuck, he just hadn't wanted to deal with that today.

"Tea," he decides, moving to the counter to fish out the kettle so he could fill it with water. Once he's got the thing full and his hand near it to start heating it, he looks to the door in the corner that he never really used. One of the two sets of stairs that led up into the apartment that was once Eli's. A space that hadn't been used in years.

"Home sweet home I guess. But damn, how am I supposed to get a new bed up the stairs? They're narrow!"

III. Whistle While You Work | The Greenhouse

Stressed? Frustrated by the turn of events? Need to feel accomplished in life? Have you ever considered Farming(tm)?!

Tommy groans at the voice running stupid infomercials in his head as he enters the greenhouse, grabs a basket with pruning sheers and gloves from the door, and looks around. The green, the smell of plants, the familiarity of this place... It's strangely soothing to Tommy. Like coming home. Perhaps it was, given no one had put as many years of care and attention into this place as he had.

And this? This was the place he remembers. Tommy immediately moves to the first area where he should have been harvesting already and sets into it. And he pauses only when he hears motion.

"Someone there?" he calls out, looking around. Strange. Not many people came here like he did.

IV. The Calm Is A Lie | Beach Caves Hot Spring

He didn't come here often. There was always the risk he'd turn the wrong way and end up in the crystal rich parts of the minds. Super charging his powers right now was not something Tommy was particularly keen on. It would only make all of this decidedly worse.

Caution was the watch word as he moved through the caves, hand on a wall, until he could hear the water and feel the heat. The springs. A place to soak sore muscles, and he'd been sore as hell since they'd headed underground. No amount of sauna could have helped with it. Now Tommy didn't hesitate for even a second to strip out of his clothes and slip into the almost too hot water.

"Fuck," he mumbled once he was settled into it. It felt so good. So freeing. So nice.

"Fuck," he repeated as he felt a sting in his eyes. It's just from the heat of the water. It's from how hot it is, turning his skin a little pinker. That's it. He's not crying. He's not crying.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Felt like him and Harrington were trying to hide things from me like I was stupid. Temper finally...just boiled over about the whole thing. Eddie didn't break my shit though. The punch caught me off guard and I fell."

Blue eyes look over the sugar before adding a spoonful of it and stirring the ingredients together. When he takes the sip this time, it's not nearly as bad. Billy might even say he likes it.

A shrug. "Something to do. Unless you'd rather do it by yourself?" And he moves like he's going to get up and leave, to see if Tommy would fall for that bait.

Hide things from him? For what? Well, it's not his business. The appreciation of the tea, clearly improved, makes him chuckle. Once that's done he nods along with what he's been told. That makes sense.

HE finishes the soldering, and in a blink things are closed up again.

"Want I should replicate a tape to test this out with? I could do that. And I hate cleaning so damn much. Like, insanely. I won't turn it down."

Maybe one day he'll tell Tommy and get a good laugh out of it. But he's not in that kind of headspace right now, so no further information comes from it. All Billy does is sip tea and watch Tommy work.

One moment the tape deck is apart, the next it's back together. He blinks in surprise, straightening up. It looks fixed. His hand goes to his pocket, about to take the tape out, when Tommy suggests replicating a tape to use as a test first. "Yeah. That'd be better, in case you— it's still fucked up."

Billy thinks that's a good recovery.

"Might be better cleaning if someone's with you." Tommy told him he couldn't be better all by himself. Even if he wasn't living here or anything, he could help. Maybe learning to help others would make it easier to help the other Hawkins' people.

They can both get a laugh out of it on that day. But that's just what it's going to be. And fuck if Tommy doesn't know he'd hate if someone pushed him too.

"Yeah, it was just some broken connections inside, but I'm not risking something precious. So I guess I have to figure out what is old enough to be on a cassette? Like, no offense to you and the others, that's literally before my time. Any suggestions?"

Because clearly Billy's being gifted the tape as well.

As for the other thing, he looks... almost mystified by the offer.

"You think? I admit I've never done that. My... folks made me do the cleaning on my own. And then my powers came in so it was just easier to do it alone and get it done 'quickly' for everyone else."

Billy didn't like it when people pushed his buttons, but he had deserved it. Egging Harrington on about an event before he chose to be better. But that's neither here nor there at the moment. Right now there's a tape deck and tea.

"Are you asking me for music recommendations? Scorpions, all the way. Maybe some Metallica or RATT if those are options. Rock music from the 80s."

He takes a long sip of the beverage, watching Tommy from over the rim like he hasn't given an offer of cleaning up living quarters like a friend. Because they're not friends. Totally not friends. Billy's not Tommy's friend sitting here drinking tea and offering to help clean his room.

"I had to keep my... neat. Not military spotless, but dad had to be able to get from the door to me with nothing in the way when he wanted. Yes I will fucking help you clean your room. Jesus, Shepherd, I'm not offering you a date or anything, stop looking at me like that."

"Got any album names?" he asks as he turns to his tea and downs his own cup. With a stupid amount of sugar in it. "Just so I can ask for it? I don't know if the system will just give me a list or anything."

Had to keep his neat. That sounds like it's got fucking weight to it, like it had for Tommy. He wondered if Hargrove had been allowed to have a bed on a frame, or if it had been a mattress on the floor like he'd had. Questions questions. Ones he will never ask.

And yet there are some details too. And they make him flinch because they feel familiar. Mirror, thy name is not Billy Kaplan or Billy Maximoff, but Billy Hargrove.

"Trust me, I know that you aren't offering that for a whole wealth of reasons, most of which have to do with my age and my biology."

Because he's probably creepy levels of older than Billy, and he's definitely male. Very male.

"It's more that usually people yell at me to do shit or complain about it. At least this shit. People don't ask to do it for me or even help me with it. It's refreshing."

"Hm. Maybe 'Kill 'Em All' from Metallica. 'Love at First Sting' for the Scorpions, definitely. As for Ratt... 'Out of the Cellar' is good." He recalls Eddie talking about getting a tape somewhere. "If it works, I'll try to remember other albums."

Billy notes the flinch. He doesn't remark on it, and probably never will.

There are just some questions you don't ask guys like Billy Hargrove and Tommy Shepherd.

Though the remark flung back to counter his date remark gets him looking away. The topic had been brushed against enough that Robin knew. And she wasn't going to tell anyone else it seemed and he was thankful. Billy still isn't looking at Tommy as the guy continues talking and that urge to flight almost kicks in. He's tense, because this shit is supposed to be taboo, he's not supposed to be like this, but being told that he's not because Tommy thinks that to be the truth doesn't feel good at all.

His hands go white-knuckled on the mug, almost like he's going to snap the handle off.

"Cleaning isn't hard. Just fucking tedious. And if someone hasn't been living up there for awhile and this bullshit with the volcano, it's going to need dusting."

"Yeah. It's, uh, been a few years? I don't know if Thrawn tidied any when he popped in last."

So that means he doesn't know what to expect at all.

"Alright. How about this, I'll go grab that tape so we can test this player. Meanwhile you have a bowl of soup to get some warmth and energy in you for cleaning. If the tape player works, we clean together. If it eats the tape, I keep working on it while you start?"

Seems like a fair distribution, right?

Billy looks to Tommy, those bright eyes studying him and mulling over the options. They were good, definitely in his favor with some favor for Tommy. Cleaning would help keep his mind off of the month they spent in the bunker, too.

His boots hit the floor and he stretches carefully before putting hands to hips. "Just don’t fuck it up more. And sounds like a good deal." Sighing through the last of the stretch, Billy heads around the counter to get some of the soup to take back to the counter. "I heard you’re in here a lot. So it makes sense to me to stay in here while your other place with your brother gets fixed up."

He starts eating, gaze shifting periodically between the tape deck and Tommy.

“There’s value in feeding people. I leave a lot of it to Radley these days. Going ot have to do that even more soon because of all the work that is going to go into getting things ready for the winter. We took so much of the reserves. Going to be a lot of late nights curing and pickling and canning and all that.”

He will figure it out. So long as he is here he never intends to let someone shudder hunger. Not when he can avoid it. And with his peace said he’s gone in a blink.

It takes three minutes for him to return, and when he does he plops a cassette of Love at First Sting on the counter.

“Try it.”

"You're making it sound a bit like a soup kitchen." But he eats despite the commentary. The soup is good, but pretty much anything is going to taste good after a month of bare rations. He's sure that Tommy probably feels better with the access to food again.

"Least all of that might give you something to do instead of walking on the beach late at night."

Because Billy lied. He's staying there. He's still gotta go get his other blanket that Tommy got for him, but he's going to live out there. Just him and the ocean and all of the thoughts of what happened during his possession and all the shit after it.

With the tape given, Billy sits up and sets the bowl aside. Actually, he pushes it towards Tommy in case he needs to eat some more. The cassette slides in and the deck snaps shut like it's supposed to. When he hits play, it starts up, rolling as it should until something seems to go wrong and it starts to eat the tape. "Shit."

"That is a bit like how it started, Billy. Of course it's a bit like that."

And honestly, he's gotten good at soups. And okay at porridge now that he's got the grain for it. Though he laughs. Billy's got no clue. Tommy will always wander at night.

"You would think that, but when you sleep four hours on a world with thirty hour days, you spend a lot of time wandering."

What he doesn't do is take the soup. What he does do is flash out with lightning fast speed and stop the player before the tape is too damaged.

"And that needs fully opened and everything reviewed. Okay. Finish eating, we'll head upstairs, and this thing is going to obey my will."

Soups are good. They're filling and have potential to hit all the food groups that are needed. Especially for people built like Billy.

The player is frowned at, and it clicks open for him to take the tape out. It comes out with some of the trying to stay in the deck, but with some finagling, Billy gets it all out. It feels like it's mocking him, for his ill deed against Harrington. This was just all the more reason to try and be better. So he stopped having stupid shit like this happen to him as a sort of punishment from the universe.

But he can't linger on it. They may be gone from the Calibrations bunker, but Tommy had left an impact on his mind there. There were so many other things he could do instead of just lingering on the bad shit right in front of him. "I'm done with the soup," which was true because he had lost his appetite. "But I'll leave it there in case I get hungry again. Show me the upstairs."

"I'll get my brother to fix that," Tommy promises. Apparently he's going to need to use a second replicator ration to take care of the guy's thing. But he supposes it's his own fault for fucking it up.

"Alright, man," he says, folding up his tools and tilting his head for the stairs. "Let me go up first. I can react faster if the floor caves or something."

ANd that might be a concern. He doesn't even know.

"Uh no, I can wind it back up with my finger." And he could use one of his rations, Tommy. All you have to do is ask. He rubs his hand on his cheek, trying to keep the edge of his frustration dull. The warm in his belly at least keeps him soothed, and he knows cleaning will give his frustration an out.

"Fuck that. Lead the way. I'm following you." He doesn't even care if Tommy goes zooming up the stairs because either way, Billy is going to follow him up there. "Falling through a floor wouldn't even be the worst shit I've endured at this point."

Oh Billy, you clearly haven't known Tommy enough if there might even be the potential thought that Tommy might ask for something he needs rather than going without.

"Yeah, sure. Okay," Tommy says with a sigh. And for the first time he opens the door and starts cautiously up the steps. Without his box. The stairs creak a little but they don't give and that's definitely a relief.

"It would be pretty bad in my books because I don't want someone I'm helping out getting hurt because of me. That's the opposite of helping."

Billy takes a longing look at the tape player, then follows Tommy up. The stairs also creak under Billy’s weight, though more since he has more weight than the other. But the stairs still don’t give.

Not that Billy was worried.

"If I’m not allowed to get better alone, then you’re not allowed to go testing floorboards alone, Shepherd." There’s teasing in his tone punctuated with his boots on the steps.

Tommy was worried, he was prone to that when he could be leading people into danger, and he saw this as effectively danger. And then he’s at the top of the stairs in the studio loft and sneezing a bit.

“Excuse you, who is the one with catlike reflexes here, Curls?” He asks as he steps into the area fully and looks around. Looks like the bed is still around. And amazingly intact. Some furniture too. Table, two chairs, a lamp. Huh, hadn’t thought that would happen.

"So does that make you a pussy?" comes the teasing taunt. He climbs the last of the stairs and covers his mouth to keep from breathing in the dust. No one’s lived here for awhile for certain, like the beach cabin.

The dust floating up keeps him in the doorway. His mind remembers the strange world he saw before being flayed. When he speaks, there’s a noticeable strain on his voice. "You got any face cloths?"

"I'm a tomcat if I'm anything."

But damn it's bad up here. Tommy sighs.

"Yeah. We can repurpose some dish towels. Hold on."

And he's off back down the stairs.

When Tommy goes downstairs, Billy is as hot on his heels as he can manage. Maybe he should’ve opened some windows first, at least start airing it out, but the dust feels suffocating. "Give me one and you go open the windows up there. Then I’ll start… I’ll start cleaning."

Billy couldn’t back out now. Not when Tommy was doing what he could with Max‘s Walkman. "Gimmie a second." Because he still sees that strange world with ash snowing around them, the red clouds, and his doppelgänger.

He slams out of the diner and presses his forehead against the wall of it. Breathe in, breathe out. Think of meditation like Gladio was talking about.

Breathe in, breathe out. Again.

The ash clears away from his mind and he starts to calm. The other world wasn’t here.

"You still don't' have to, you know. Clean."

But down in the kitchen he grabs one of the clean towels and passes it over. Because he knows Billy's the sort that won't back down.

And then Billy's bowling on out. Tommy shrugs. Worst comes to worst, he loses his towel. He won't judge. For now he leaves the tape player on the counter, along with his tools, and heads back on up to get windows open and start dusting.

"Yeah well," he starts when he comes back in and raises his voice to let Tommy know it’s him. Boots thump against the steps as he heads back up after snagging the towel around his face. "Some tomcat told me in my head that he does shit like cleaning and gardening to show he can be better."

He goes over to Tommy, pushing him away from his spot and snagging the cloth out of his hands. "I think his name is Tommy or something boring like that." And he twists the cloth before snapping the end of it at Tommy’s ass.

Wow man. So rude. Using his own words about how he fills the gap in time and proves his value to the world against him. But there's Hargrove, all in his space and pushing him aside and everything else. Of course he dodged (at his centimeter away motion he is prone to) the snap of the cloth before laughing.

"Oh shit man. Is this that over the top testosterone fueled jock fumbling for some higher rung on an unimportant social ladder BS I've heard of? Thought that was only in movies or something."

Lies. He was in high school. This shit still happened. He was a bonafied formally shoved into a locker a few times small poor kid once. This was hilarious to see happening in real life though.

As for him he stands back, hands up as if to say 'not gonna touch it'.

"Electronics and tons of dust don't mix. I'm gonna give that thing a proper clean and once over, but I have to do it downstairs. Back in a minute?"

Was it using Tommy‘s words against him? Or in Billy’s favor for being a better person? Doing things like this meant he could check on his sponsor after the month vacation in a bunker, and get his tape player fixed. Usually a situation similar to this at home would have him bristle and snarl, push back against his dads orders a bit but not here.

Billy was choosing to help.

He sticks his tongue out before throwing the cloth at the speedster. "No, it’s just fun. Go fix my tape player, I promise not to burn your precious diner down while I’m up here."

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