FIC: Five Times Kame Didn't Ask Questions (JE/Heroes, AU, Jin/Kame)
Happy (belated) birthday, tretton! This is kind of a shitty birthday present, I was going to try to write good fic for you but I've been working deranged hours and moving and not sleeping and basically I just suck to begin with at getting things done on time and then the night before your birthday I stared at what I had written and realized that it was really, really bad so I tossed it all out and wrote this from scratch at like 3 AM. This author note sounds so promising with all the run-on sentences and neurotic apologies. I haven't slept very much in the last couple of days so I'm really tired right now but I'm afraid if I edit this will not get posted for a while or I will end up deleting all of this in horror too. I apologize in advance for any egregious grammar errors and also for the bad story pacing and lack of thematic coherence and just like ... everything. ._.
Title: Five Times Kame Didn't Ask Questions (In That One Where They Were Heroes but not Superheroes)
Author: unrequitedangst
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment, AU
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Johnny's Entertainment or Heroes in any way and none of this is true.
Summary: The one where they were in Heroes. (Jin/Kame, 1,317 words)
Notes: All the good ideas in this are tretton's and so is the storyline, except where we both jacked it from Tim Kring. Happy birthday, Sophia. ♥
1. three years ago
That first time Ryo sat at Kame's table in the lunchroom after, it was a surprise. They weren't enemies or anything, but they'd never exactly been friends either; Ryo had always mostly tolerated Kame the same way Ryo just barely tolerated everyone except Uchi and Kame'd expected Ryo to either take Jin's side or to ignore him completely until graduation.
"Um," Kame said as Ryo slid into the seat across from him, tray clattering.
"What the fuck," Ryo said, and leaned over to stare at the notebook Ueda was filling with tiny, cramped cursive, "What the hell is that, Spanish?"
"It's poetry, Nishikido," Ueda retorted, "not that you'd understand it."
"Oh, well, if it's poetry." Ryo's quick glance around the table wasn't so much antagonistic as it was frankly assessing, and Kame was about to ask when he caught a glimpse of Jin staring from over Ryo's shoulder, the empty spot across from Jin where Ryo usually sat and another seat at that table empty as well. Something sharp twisted inside Kame's chest, stinging; he shut his mouth and looked away.
***
2. the kindness of strangers
"This is the future," Dr. Aiba said, pacing back and forth in Kame's kitchen as he excitedly waved a thick book by Ogura Tomoaki about, nearly missing Kame's head a few times. "And it's totally awesome! My father theorized that DNA is made up of little letters--okay, well, he didn't, but lots of really smart people did! Like alphabet soup, only with a phosphodiester backbone!"
"Okay," Kame said. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Soda would be awesome, thanks!" Dr. Aiba said, beaming. It was the first thing he'd said in the last hour that didn't have to do with the awesome power of genetics or fate since he'd knocked on Kame's door. Kame had no idea why the guy was talking to him about birds and turtles on some island in South America, much less why his name or Jin's might be on some list that Dr. Aiba's father had written up, but apparently it was the kind of thing that would have been very exciting if Kame had had any idea what Dr. Aiba was talking about.
Or maybe it was all just Dr. Aiba. He seemed like an excitable kind of guy.
"And you're sure you don't have any really cool powers? Or questions?" Dr. Aiba asked when Kame finally escorted him out the door, three hours after he'd first arrived, "About genetics, I mean? Or evolution?"
"Yes," Kame said, "I'm sure. But thank you very much for your time anyway."
He wasn't sure about the powers, but he did have questions and a lot of them. It just seemed a lot easier to pay the $24.95 for the book and puzzle things out on his own.
***
3. one giant leap
The note was so badly crumpled that it was almost illegible and Kame could barely decipher the words as he smoothed it out against the cool metal surface of his locker. Jin's handwriting had never been good, even when they'd been kids; it had apparently only gotten worse in the last three years without Kame around to complain about uncrossed Ts and undotted Is.
Jin's spelling had gotten worse too.
"MEAT ME 2ND PERIOD," the note said in blocky letters, "BEHIND CAFETERIA. IT'S REALY IMPORTANT OK SO CUT CLASS!!!! YOUR FRIEND JIN"
And that was it, no explanations offered. Three years, but apparently that didn't matter to Jin and Kame was still supposed to come running no matter what. But he was sixteen now, smarter than he'd been in junior high; he wasn't the same kid who had trailed in Jin's wake everywhere. He didn't need Jin anymore. Kame balled the note up again, stuffed it into his pocket and started to class, but he was only halfway there when the bell rang and he thought, well. Three years, well--but they'd been best friends once, even if it'd been a long time ago, Jin wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important. Not after three years.
***
4. cautionary tales
Uchi wasn't the first to disappear, but he was the first one Kame noticed. One day he was in lit class, sitting in the back row snapping his bubble gum and flipping through issues of Teen Vogue and Cosmopolitan when he should have been reading Brave New World, the next day he simply--wasn't. Eventually Nakai announced in gym class that Uchi had moved to Canada and all the rumors finally began to die down, but there were a lot of things that still didn't explain, like why Uchi would even go to Canada in the first place or why Ryo had seemed to turn into a nervous wreck overnight.
Kame meant to talk to Ryo about it, that time they were both waiting at the bus stop together--he really did. But then Jin called out to him from across the parking lot and Kame knew it was all ridiculous, all the ideas Jin had about being able to stop time and space, but he couldn't help it anyway. He turned. Jin was dashing toward him and his shoelaces were untied and his glasses were askew and there was dirt on his shirt, but just for a second he was the only thing Kame could see and he looked so, so real.
***
5. fight or flight
Kame's seen Ohno's drawings--he knows what to expect. He's still not ready anyway. He's not sure he ever could. Sylar doesn't so much come through the door as he explodes through it, and Kame swings the gun up as fast as he can, because maybe--maybe--
He doesn't even have enough time to pull the trigger. The windows in the room blow out, one after the other, and glass showers onto the floor like rain. Sylar jerks his chin and the gun goes one direction; Kame goes the other, slams into the ceiling so hard that he can't even remember how to breathe.
"Where is he?" Sylar asks.
There's no question at all what it is he wants, but Kame lies anyway.
"I don't know."
If he closes his eyes, he'll see Jin mapped on the back of his eyelids, a tiny moving blip on the streets inside Kame's head. It's not flying or anything special, but it's the only thing he can do. Yamapi was right, this whole plan was pretty stupid. He can't bring himself to regret lying to Jin anyway, because at least now there's a chance that Jin will be safe.
Sylar moves toward Kame and each step crunches glass underfoot. There's a small and selfish part of Kame that really, really wants Jin to show up any moment now and save the day, but mostly he just tries to keep his eyes open, to see what Sylar's doing next.
It's okay, Kame thinks, it's all okay as long as Jin is safe. Jin is the one who wanted to save the world. Jin is the one who's the hero, so it's okay like this. It's okay. He just wishes they could've had a little more time.
Title: Five Times Kame Didn't Ask Questions (In That One Where They Were Heroes but not Superheroes)
Author: unrequitedangst
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment, AU
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Johnny's Entertainment or Heroes in any way and none of this is true.
Summary: The one where they were in Heroes. (Jin/Kame, 1,317 words)
Notes: All the good ideas in this are tretton's and so is the storyline, except where we both jacked it from Tim Kring. Happy birthday, Sophia. ♥
1. three years ago
That first time Ryo sat at Kame's table in the lunchroom after, it was a surprise. They weren't enemies or anything, but they'd never exactly been friends either; Ryo had always mostly tolerated Kame the same way Ryo just barely tolerated everyone except Uchi and Kame'd expected Ryo to either take Jin's side or to ignore him completely until graduation.
"Um," Kame said as Ryo slid into the seat across from him, tray clattering.
"What the fuck," Ryo said, and leaned over to stare at the notebook Ueda was filling with tiny, cramped cursive, "What the hell is that, Spanish?"
"It's poetry, Nishikido," Ueda retorted, "not that you'd understand it."
"Oh, well, if it's poetry." Ryo's quick glance around the table wasn't so much antagonistic as it was frankly assessing, and Kame was about to ask when he caught a glimpse of Jin staring from over Ryo's shoulder, the empty spot across from Jin where Ryo usually sat and another seat at that table empty as well. Something sharp twisted inside Kame's chest, stinging; he shut his mouth and looked away.
***
2. the kindness of strangers
"This is the future," Dr. Aiba said, pacing back and forth in Kame's kitchen as he excitedly waved a thick book by Ogura Tomoaki about, nearly missing Kame's head a few times. "And it's totally awesome! My father theorized that DNA is made up of little letters--okay, well, he didn't, but lots of really smart people did! Like alphabet soup, only with a phosphodiester backbone!"
"Okay," Kame said. "Would you like something to drink?"
"Soda would be awesome, thanks!" Dr. Aiba said, beaming. It was the first thing he'd said in the last hour that didn't have to do with the awesome power of genetics or fate since he'd knocked on Kame's door. Kame had no idea why the guy was talking to him about birds and turtles on some island in South America, much less why his name or Jin's might be on some list that Dr. Aiba's father had written up, but apparently it was the kind of thing that would have been very exciting if Kame had had any idea what Dr. Aiba was talking about.
Or maybe it was all just Dr. Aiba. He seemed like an excitable kind of guy.
"And you're sure you don't have any really cool powers? Or questions?" Dr. Aiba asked when Kame finally escorted him out the door, three hours after he'd first arrived, "About genetics, I mean? Or evolution?"
"Yes," Kame said, "I'm sure. But thank you very much for your time anyway."
He wasn't sure about the powers, but he did have questions and a lot of them. It just seemed a lot easier to pay the $24.95 for the book and puzzle things out on his own.
***
3. one giant leap
The note was so badly crumpled that it was almost illegible and Kame could barely decipher the words as he smoothed it out against the cool metal surface of his locker. Jin's handwriting had never been good, even when they'd been kids; it had apparently only gotten worse in the last three years without Kame around to complain about uncrossed Ts and undotted Is.
Jin's spelling had gotten worse too.
"MEAT ME 2ND PERIOD," the note said in blocky letters, "BEHIND CAFETERIA. IT'S REALY IMPORTANT OK SO CUT CLASS!!!! YOUR FRIEND JIN"
And that was it, no explanations offered. Three years, but apparently that didn't matter to Jin and Kame was still supposed to come running no matter what. But he was sixteen now, smarter than he'd been in junior high; he wasn't the same kid who had trailed in Jin's wake everywhere. He didn't need Jin anymore. Kame balled the note up again, stuffed it into his pocket and started to class, but he was only halfway there when the bell rang and he thought, well. Three years, well--but they'd been best friends once, even if it'd been a long time ago, Jin wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important. Not after three years.
***
4. cautionary tales
Uchi wasn't the first to disappear, but he was the first one Kame noticed. One day he was in lit class, sitting in the back row snapping his bubble gum and flipping through issues of Teen Vogue and Cosmopolitan when he should have been reading Brave New World, the next day he simply--wasn't. Eventually Nakai announced in gym class that Uchi had moved to Canada and all the rumors finally began to die down, but there were a lot of things that still didn't explain, like why Uchi would even go to Canada in the first place or why Ryo had seemed to turn into a nervous wreck overnight.
Kame meant to talk to Ryo about it, that time they were both waiting at the bus stop together--he really did. But then Jin called out to him from across the parking lot and Kame knew it was all ridiculous, all the ideas Jin had about being able to stop time and space, but he couldn't help it anyway. He turned. Jin was dashing toward him and his shoelaces were untied and his glasses were askew and there was dirt on his shirt, but just for a second he was the only thing Kame could see and he looked so, so real.
***
5. fight or flight
Kame's seen Ohno's drawings--he knows what to expect. He's still not ready anyway. He's not sure he ever could. Sylar doesn't so much come through the door as he explodes through it, and Kame swings the gun up as fast as he can, because maybe--maybe--
He doesn't even have enough time to pull the trigger. The windows in the room blow out, one after the other, and glass showers onto the floor like rain. Sylar jerks his chin and the gun goes one direction; Kame goes the other, slams into the ceiling so hard that he can't even remember how to breathe.
"Where is he?" Sylar asks.
There's no question at all what it is he wants, but Kame lies anyway.
"I don't know."
If he closes his eyes, he'll see Jin mapped on the back of his eyelids, a tiny moving blip on the streets inside Kame's head. It's not flying or anything special, but it's the only thing he can do. Yamapi was right, this whole plan was pretty stupid. He can't bring himself to regret lying to Jin anyway, because at least now there's a chance that Jin will be safe.
Sylar moves toward Kame and each step crunches glass underfoot. There's a small and selfish part of Kame that really, really wants Jin to show up any moment now and save the day, but mostly he just tries to keep his eyes open, to see what Sylar's doing next.
It's okay, Kame thinks, it's all okay as long as Jin is safe. Jin is the one who wanted to save the world. Jin is the one who's the hero, so it's okay like this. It's okay. He just wishes they could've had a little more time.