Broken Mirror - Tumblr Posts

Whumptober alt.Prompt #6- Lost

Little backstory- while I just wrote this, the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while.  Whumptober finally just got me to write it.  SO! This will make a bit more sense if you’ve seen the episode of the original Twilight Zone called “Number Twelve Looks Like You”- it’s a story of conformity and societal standards and it’s really good but that’s not the point.  The point is this idea stems from that episode.  And it’s original fiction, not fanfiction.

...

Tristan desperately reached out and grabbed at the ship, catching a low pipe.  He got his second hand onto the pipe and pulled.  His arms broke through the seal. His head followed quickly.  He gasped at the atmosphere, his mouth unused to the lungs he was given.  He hauled himself up, trying to ignore the seal screaming at him, the doctors and nurses racing after him, begging him to stay, begging him to come back, shouting at him to understand.  His hips broke free.  He was almost there.  He was almost free.  The voices were coming closer.  He looked down.  Doctor Rex was close.  He threw his right leg out, slipping off the edge of the pipe.  He tried again.  Something grabbed his left foot.

“Tristan!”  Rex.  “You have to come back.  The transformation is a wonderful thing, you just don’t understand it yet.  Please, don’t go!”

Tristan kicked out, catching Rex in the face.  It was enough to get his left leg back onto the ship.  He was now holding onto the ship by a single pipe which didn’t like holding his weight.  The seal, sensing that the obstacle had left, closed itself once again.  Tristan breathed a sigh of relief.  Once the seal closed, it wouldn’t open again.

The pipe creaked ominously.

“Who the hell is stowing away on my goddamn ship?!?”  Came his Captain’s voice.  Tristan had never been so relieved to hear the British asshole he called Captain.

“Sir, please, it’s Tristan!”  He dared to wave one arm, the other holding tightly.  The pipe creaked again, and Tristan thought he felt a small crack appear.

“Tristan?”  The Captain called out.  “I hear your voice, where are you?  What’s the passcode?”

“I’m below, sir.  On what Jessie called the exhaust!”  Tristan called out.

He saw his Captain’s face and couldn’t contain the smile.  But the Captain’s face held only rage and soon he saw the Captain’s blaster.

“Who are you?”  The Captain asked, disgusted.  “You’re not my Tristan.”

“Please, sir, yes I am.” Tristan begged, another piece of what was left of him falling into nothingness.  “I’m Tristan Serling, one of your agents sent by Time herself to fix the cracks since the Breach opened portals in time and to other dimensions.  Honestly, you and I don’t really get along, we fight a lot, you knew my father, only reason I stay on this crew, and because my friends won’t leave you.  For some reason, they see a softie underneath your hard exterior, I don’t really care to look.”

A bigger crack appeared.

“Sir, please pull me up.” Tristan shot his hand out, knowing holding on as tightly as possible wouldn’t help if the Captain let him fall.  “Please!”

The Captain frowned, knowing only Tristan would know that but still not recognizing him.

“I’m in love with my best friend!”  He screamed, knowing he had once confessed this to the Captain while suffering from an intense fever in the field.  He hadn’t told anyone else on their little ship.  “Leah is sweet, and kind, and beautiful, and funny, and she’s just so goddamn good.  She’s everything I want but don’t deserve.  Look, I fucked up most of my early life, but please sir, don’t let me die like this!”

A hand quickly shot down and grabbed his.  Together, they were able to get Tristan onto the landing platform, the pipe falling down into the void of space.

“I’ll replace that, sir.”  He said automatically.

“Doesn’t matter.”  The Captain said.  “Kid, you- you look- what happened to you?”

Tristan swallowed hard.  “Sir, I- I mean, I- They…”

He couldn’t finish.  He couldn’t verbalize what he’d just gone through.  What he’d just lost.

The Captain seemed to understand.  “Let’s get you to medical. Maybe our resident doctor can do something.”

“No, sir, please, don’t take me there.”  Tristan said, stepping away, half his right foot hanging off the edge of the landing platform.

“Let’s get you inside the ship, then we can talk.”  The Captain said, being as gentle with Tristan as he’d ever been.

The Captain led him into the ship, bringing in the landing platform. Now they were safe, sealed inside the ship.  He walked on shaky legs, his muscles unused to the legs he’d been given.

“Here, just sit against the cargo.” The Captain suggested.

Tristan flopped down, landing hard on his ass, his back hitting a box hard enough to make a thump.  His whole body was shaking now, unable to contain his emotions.

“Maybe she can help.”  The Captain crouched down next to him.

“No.”  Tristan shook his head.  “I don’t want her seeing me like this.  It’s bad enough she sees the person I want to be instead of the person I was, but I can’t.  I can’t do this.”

“Because trying to solve it makes it real?”

Nausea hit Tristan like a freight train.

“Here.”  The Captain dumped out a box of ammunition and shoved it into Tristan’s hands.

Tristan spent the next few minutes throwing up what little he had in his stomach.  The transformation had required fasting so they had simply starved him.

He felt a strong hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles.

Tristan raised an eyebrow once he got control of his stomach.

“My wife may be the stay-at-home mom but I’ve helped my daughter through plenty of illnesses.”  The Captain explained.

“Forgot you have a kid.”  Tristan admitted.

“I don’t talk about her much.”  The Captain admitted.  “I try to keep my personal and professional lives separate.”

Tristan nodded, his stomach lurching again.

“Take it easy, kid, just let it out.”  The Captain rubbed his back, speaking softly.

Tristan threw up until he had literally nothing left to throw up, but nausea still rolled in his stomach.

“You want some ginger ale?  Water, maybe?”  The Captain asked.

Tristan shook his head.  “I don’t want them to know I’m here.  Just tell them I quit or that I died or something.”

The Captain shook his head.  “I’m not gonna do that.  You and I may not get along but if your father wasn’t here, I know for a fact that the Hawks’ would adopt you.”

Tristan laughed breathlessly.

“Wait, my father’s here?”

“Yes.”  The Captain nodded.  “I picked him up a little after you went missing.  Your father isn’t exactly known for sitting around doing nothing while his son is in danger.”

“Don’t let him see me.”  Tristan grabbed the Captain’s arm.  “Please.  I can’t- he can’t- I can’t face him.  Not now.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”  The Captain asked.  “Where did you go?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know where it is, or when it is, or if it’s even in our same dimension.  I just know the Breach opened the portal, and when I landed, I was taken to this… bureau they called it.  I wasn’t really paying attention at first, I was mostly looking for a way to close the portal and get home, like we always do.  They asked me my age, and I told them I was twenty-one, hoping I could get a drink when this was all done.  Dad’s like super strict about me drinking now, and honestly, I know I was supposed to be quitting that shit but I wanted a drink and I wanted a smoke so I lied and said I was older.  I figured twenty-one would be a good enough age to get a cigarette.”  Tristan laughed listlessly.  “Big mistake.  They said I was overdue for the transformation.  I tried telling them I was only here to fix the portals and shit but they didn’t care.  They threw me in some kind of hospital, called it the Transformation Center.  Said I needed to have it.  I… protested.  They just held me down and sedated me.  I kept trying to explain who I was and what I was doing here, but they just said all would become clear after the transformation.  I ended up meeting this chick, Marylin.  She told me what it was.  I begged them not to go through with it, just as she did.  Two days later, I saw her transformed.  They said she changed her mind, when she told me she never would.  I mean, it must’ve been similar to our planet because we talked about Yeats and Dostoevsky and Shakespeare for literal hours.  We talked about individuality, about the dignity of the human spirit, about beauty, about real beauty.  She understood.  It was the first intelligent conversation about Shakespeare I’ve had in years.  She wouldn’t… she wouldn’t have changed her mind like that.  So I knew I had to try and escape.  I don’t know how but I must’ve gotten lost or something or they changed the signs because somehow I ended up in the transformation room, I don’t know how I got there.  I tried so hard, I swear, I tried so goddamn hard… I begged them not to do it.  I swear, I tried…”

The Captain pulled Tristan into his shoulder, wrapping his arms around Tristan.  The Captain’s jacket got wetter and wetter, and Tristan wasn’t sure how.  He fought to get control over his breathing.  The Captain started brushing a hand through Tristan’s hair.

“Shh, it’s okay, let it out.”  The Captain murmured, gently rocking back and forth.

“I tried so hard.”  Tristan said, the stain on the Captain’s jacket growing.  “I tried so hard, I wanted them to stop.  They just kept getting more and more nurses to hold me down.  I kept begging them to stop.  Why wouldn’t they stop?”

“I don’t know.”  The Captain whispered.  “You did your best, Tristan.  Remember that.”

“But they won.”  Tristan said, his voice cracking.

“You survived.”  The Captain pulled Tristan’s hair ever so gently to get Tristan’s eyes up to his own.  “You made it back here.  That’s what matters.”

“No, it’s not.”  Tristan’s voice cracked again and he felt wetness running down his face.  Oh, he was crying.  That’s why the Captain’s jacket was wet.  “They won.  Look at me!”

The Captain sighed.  “Maybe Leah can find a way around it.  If it was done to you, it should be able to be undone.”

Tristan pulled away from the Captain’s safe embrace.  “It can’t.”

“You don’t know that.”  The Captain said.

“I know that!”  Tristan screamed.  “You think I didn’t try?  I went back again and again, sneaking in, trying to find a way to undo it!  They destroy any technology that could undo the transformation, it changes everything!  It makes you like the transformation, it makes you want it.  I don’t know how I survived with my mental faculties intact.  I think it’s because I’m an off-worlder at best, a jumper at worst.  I don’t know.  It... it changed Marylin.  She went from screaming and fighting to loving it.  To wanting to give it to her own kids when she had them.  There’s a mental component too.  I really hope I’m not delayed onset with this shit so I’m not taking the chance.  I’m quitting, resigning, whatever floats your boat.”

“I cannot accept resignations under extreme emotional duress.”  The Captain said.  “Look, if I get you to medical, without Miss Leah finding out, and it truly cannot be undone, I’ll entertain the idea.  But not until then, okay?”

Tristan nodded.

“Alright, let’s clean you up.  I know you said you didn’t want your father to see you, but I’m not leaving him to think you don’t want to see him again.  I’ll tell him that you’re here, and you need some time alone, okay?”

“I don’t think he’ll accept that.”  Tristan said.  “Last time I wanted time alone, I O.D.ed.”

The Captain frowned.  “As a father, I can’t leave him to suffer like that.  He’s losing his mind looking for you.  You and he are so close, if you ask it, I’m sure he’ll respect it.  I won’t let him see you, if you don’t want, you are one of my crew, but I cannot let him suffer.”

Tristan sighed.  “Fine.”

The Captain offered a hand and Tristan took it.  The Captain helped him stand, half-walked half-carried him to the nearest bathroom.  The bathroom near the cargo hold was almost never used, honestly most of the crew forgot it was there.  So it was the only place he would’ve felt comfortable going.  It was a single use so he could lock it and keep everyone else out, including his father.

The Captain let go of Tristan, letting him rest on the sink.

“Wash your mouth out, clean your face, and take a few deep breaths.”  The Captain said, gently brushing away a couple stray tears.  “I’ll keep your father outside.”

Tristan nodded, leaning heavily on the sink.  He looked up and found someone else in the mirror.

“Oh I’m sorry, I thought I was alone.”  He turned around, ready with a friendly smile.

There was no one there.

He was alone.

Oh fuck.

That was his reflection.

He turned back to the monster in the mirror.  Short and straight brown hair, slicked back with a phantom gel he didn’t quite understand, very different from his original curls, blue eyes as opposed to his warm brown, a flatter, wider nose as opposed to his own, lips that were pinker, no widow’s-peak, his piercings had healed, and a softer jawline that his original so sharp he could cut glass.

Cut… glass…

He couldn’t bear it.  He couldn’t bear to look at what he’d been turned into.  He had to stop.  He had to get rid of it.  He couldn’t do it.  He just couldn’t.

Cut… Glass…

He had always wanted to stand out from the crowd.  It was one of the reasons  he loved his face, he wasn’t one to fit into normal societal boundaries of attractiveness, he looked the way he wanted to look.  He had always wanted to stand out.  He needed to stand out and be noticed for being unique.  He was his own person and no abusive grandfather was going to tell him he had to be just like his father, like his mother.  He was his own person, he answered to his own name, he made the choices over what went into his body be they good or bad, it was all him.  He was a person.  No one could tell him any different.  He wasn’t like the other kids.  He’d never been like other people, conformists were complicit in their own oppression.  Individuality was all that mattered to him.

CUT… GLASS…

His hand hurt.  He looked up and saw his fist in the mirror, cracked and bleeding, with glass shards embedded in his fingers.  Not his fingers.  Someone else’s fingers.  They weren’t his, they didn’t belong to him, there were no small scars where he had once accidentally gotten it stuck in a gate, no mole on his thumb.  The blood running down the fingers wasn’t his.  The pain felt distant, like he was sharing a mind with someone else’s body.  He had to hurt them.  He had to get his fingers back.  He picked up a fallen shard of glass and brought it to the edge of his right eye, right below the eyelid where it met the nose.  In one fell swoop, he tore up the face that haunted him, but he couldn’t keep the scream of pain inside him.  Whoever this face belonged to didn’t want him cutting it up.  Well, they’d just have to suck it up or give him his face back.  He brought the glass now to the other edge of the eye, he made another cut, parallel to the first, going from eye to chin.  Another scream.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Tristan, that you?”

His father.

No.  He couldn’t see his father until he got his own face back.  His father wouldn’t recognize him.  He never wanted to make his father doubt.

“Jewel?  Answer me!”

Hard knocking, trying to break down the door.

Maybe not his father.  Maybe the owner of the face.  Well, they weren’t stopping him.  If he had to live with this face, he was living with it on his terms.  He was going to make it his.

He brought the glass to the edge of the nose, and sliced open the cheek to the chin, three lines now parallel.

A third scream.

“Baby, baby, please!”

That sounded like his father.  His mind must be playing tricks.  His father wasn’t assigned to this crew, he’d taken the posting because of that.  He loved his father, would do anything for his father, including getting clean for him, but his father, so nervous, so anxious, so afraid all the time.  After his grandfather had fucked him up, his father was so afraid of losing him.  He didn’t understand.  His father had saved him, saved him and taught him how to be his own person instead of a personal attache to his grandfather, to be more than his father’s copycat.  He knew his father had sent him there to try to raise him better than a constant running around from base to base, chasing after those who suffered from the Breach.

“Baby, please, open the door.  Don’t make me break it down.”

He clutched the glass harder, cutting open the fingers.  Pain didn’t register.  Not his fingers.  Not his pain.

The door rushed in, knocking him down.  The Captain was there, his father too.  They looked horrified, so horrified that the Captain dropped the battering ram he’d used, some type of round metal.

“Baby…”  His father’s voice was weak.

“It’s okay, Dad.”  He smiled, ignoring the protesting cheek.  “It’s not my face.”

In the reflection of the mirror

what are u thinking elle. if your thoughts were broadcast in this moment would this show still be TV-14?

so. garcia is not in broken mirror. sad. reid takes what would usually be her place w the trap and trace which is. interesting given his establishment as a luddite*. and funny because of his terrible typing skills.

anyway. obviously doylist (real world) answer is probably that kirsten vangsness either just wasn't available, or they didn't have her in this episode because she wasn't yet a main role (kirsten vangsness is credited as "also starring" during season one).

but watsonian (in universe) answers are way more fun, so. sound off: why wasn't garcia in s01e05?

*this is a tangent and a half, but I think this lends credence to the idea i sometimes see that reid isn't so much bad with technology (horrendous typing skills aside) as he does just not like it and avoid it for that reason. this + his engineering degree, which—correct me if i'm wrong—would be rather difficult without some tech knowledge...just makes me hmm. from what i've seen, i think that early characterization is forgotten a bit in the later seasons (not surprising. with all the love in my heart, the cm writers really could have benefitted from, like, a collaborative google doc titled "continuity") but it's interesting to think about

Heart number 2. I think it’s going to be a series... maybe I’ll make one for each time my heart was broken? And for each time it breaks in the future...

Look at me and see your actions

Long Teeth

Voider

One dragon oc i have for some time, he is sad goober and wants to hurt you because he is sad obviously

There's also one dragon reflecting in mirror, Beast, more about him later, but he is important either

Have more drawings about him (newest to oldest)

That's all for now, he changed alot, I don't know if I will change this new design, hard to draw, but I like it

Long Teeth (dragon with broken mirror head looking at Beast)

Beast (dragon reflecting in mirror)

I have had this concept buzzing in the back of my head for a while, but never got around to doing it cuz there were logistics I hadn’t quite figured out yet. Finally ended up doing it tho and I think I’m happy with it. Might still tweek it some, idk. We’ll see.

Just some vague representation of Faas’s forms cuz why not

Heaven is a [broken] place on Earth / on Instagram http://ift.tt/1NJdM1T

“Sí o no, frío o calor, espejos rotos en el salón” / on Instagram http://ift.tt/1pR2jXy

Day 6 broken mirror