Work Text:
“You know,” he says, “The whole reluctant hero thing was old when I started doing it.”
She turns to look at him, measures his worth in his studied slouch and steady monotone and god tier sweats. He uses too much gel in his hair, a coat of shellack around each blond strand. He mumbles, his voice just a bit too quiet to be completely heard. His sunglasses look absolutely ridiculous. He’s kind of cute, actually.
“Who are you?”
“I’m serious. It’s like a crowd of geriatric fucking dinosaurs up in here, hobbling away from responsibility.”
She flicks him a disdainful look. The effect is somewhat diminished by her marked lack of pupils, but she makes up for it with the barest flash of irritated phosphorence, a sudden glow that says more than any eyeroll could.
“Dave Strider,” he says, “Knight of Time. I figured I could do some ghost army recruitment for fish chick’s shindig. She’s moving pretty fast. Faster than that fucking meteor, at least. Chances are, she’ll have the whole thing done before we even show up. Like, we’ll get there, and Lord English will be—”
He mimes a tightening noose. Dead.
“Anyway. Ghost army. Kill villain. Swag.”
“Porrim Maryam, and I’m not interested,” she says, and after a significant pause, mouth quirking in a smirk of black lipstick, “In the army.”
“See,” he says, “Reluctant hero. So 2008. It’s the Obama Campaign of tropes.”
“You know. Because it’s already over,” he explains, in an even quieter undertone. Then:
“Wait. Wait. You’re not interested in the army, but are you interested in anything els—“
There’s a slight movement at the corner of his eye. He turns, but all he sees is blue bark and purple leaves. She’s gone.
Different bubble: tall grass, green as Gatorade, the faint breeze too weak to even flutter his cape, and her.
“So, is there a reason?”
“For what?”
“Not joining the dead douchebag brigade.”
“One, I’m not a douchebag. Two, I wouldn’t be very useful. It’s been an eternity since I played the Game.
An eternity without practice.”
“I thought it was like, muscle memory. You never really lose it. The abs remember what the mind forgets.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“You sure?”
The question is casual, too casual, and she’s already turning towards him when he lets his sowrd fall into his hand and lunges. He’s going wide, arm almost perpendicular, and it’d only take a slight distortion of space to—
She takes a step.
He completes his strike, sword scything through empty air, starts to straighten. Stops. There is a chainsaw leveled at his head, the wind from its whir displacing the hairs at the back of his neck.
“Told you so.”
“I don’t think it’s very advisable to threaten the woman with a bladed weapon inches from your jugular.”
“Point taken.”
“And it’s not like I need a man to teach me about my own abilities.”
“Dude. That’s not the point. I’m being the wise trickster mentor type, and you’re the big shot hero. That’s subversive as a anarchist fucking collective.”
“I thought you were the reluctant hero.”
He shrugs, a bare imperceptible movement of his shoulders.
“Trying on a different trope.”
She lowers her saw, and pulls him upright.
“Not a good look,” she says, “Trust me.”
He rubs the back of his neck. She recaps her lipstick. He pushes his shades up. Finally, she speaks:
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
“Okay.”
“Want to watch a movie sometime?”
“Sure.”
Her room consists mostly of arabesque lacquered metal, strange, organic, pulsing things jammed between the walls and windows and discarded clothes shoved hastily into her closet. There is a single projected computer screen, and one low couch (upon which both of them sit) before it.
“It’d be like, a feminist thing. Killing the ultimate pimp patriarch. Like Gloria Steinem in tats and a chainsaw, the feminine mystique of death. A woman needs a man like Lord English doesn’t need to be dead.”
“There’s nothing feminist about doing a man’s dirty work.”
“What.”
“You’re the one with the prophecy. You’re just messing around trying to get me to join so you have an excuse not to. It’s kind of pathetic.”
“That’s not—okay, maybe it is. It’s like. Reluctant hero. I’m it. Won’t step up to responsibility. Fantasy novel protagonist whining until chapter twenty-three. Bilbo Baggins just wants to go the fuck home.”
He slumps back against her recuperacoon, head thunking against the rim. She sits next to him, far more gracefully, tucking her legs beneath her.
“I’m not a psychologist.”
“I don’t need a psychologist.”
“You kind of do.”
He bites the inside of his cheek, scuffs his shoe against the hardwood floor.
“You know, it’s not just like, some Freudian Oedipal projecting thing. I actually think you’re cool.”
“I know.”
She straightens her spine a little, scratching an itch at the back of her head. Her memory’s a bit wrong—her room smells more like air freshener than dust and teenaged sweat, some sort of burnt oinkbeast taste that wafts agreeably through the air.
She once alchemized her saw with lighter fluid, and mowed down her enemies with a burning blade. She wonders if she could make a difference. She’s strong, and fast, her reflexes not dulled overmuch by years of disuse, and, besides, she’s had kismesisstudes to tide her over. Her space powers are useful in a fight, and, even though she’s not god tier, she’s already died twice. She could slice through Lord English like a vengeful moirail, rending his body in two with a single graceful curve. The thought is not unattractive.
Alright. Time to call his bluff. She stands, inadvertently kicking the recuperacoon back and knocking him over.
“I’ll join,” she says, “But only if you do, too.”
He looks at her from his ungainly sprawl on the floor, glasses knocked askew and a bruise slowly forming on his right cheek. He moves his mouth, face contorting in various exaggerated expressions, before he finally manages to speak:
“What.”
Final battle. The air smells like pork again, burnt meat cut with the sharp scent of a blown fuse. They run through a patchwork of dream bubbles, world fading into world fading into world. The air in front of him crackles with electricity, and seven people (a dead John, a dead him, five trolls that he doesn’t know) convulse and dissolve into thin air, die to the sound of Lord English’s laughter. He dives, takes cover under—is that a brain? Whatever.
“How the fuck,” he says, “Did we ever talk each other into this?”
“I don’t know,” she says, breathing in, breathing out, almost choking on the exhale, “But we’re still doing it.”
“Right,” he says, "Okay. Reluctant heroes get dangerous. Shinji, get in the fucking robot.”
“You ready?”
“No.”
They leap.