i've spent all of the love i've saved { open }

[rumorate]

WHO: Allison Hargreeves + YOU
WHEN: After the Beacon, through their stay at the inn
WHERE: Various.
WHAT: Allison comes back from a canon bump, and she's in not a great place.
WARNINGS: SPOILERS FOR THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, SEASON 3.


[Starters in the comments, ping me @ iluvroadrunner6#1178 or iluvroadrunner6 if you would like something custom made!]

Comments

a broken heart is all that's left | ota

[rumorate]

[Allison opens her eyes, and she immediately knows something is wrong.

She had expected things would be different. She pushed a button to reboot the world. Of course she was going to look up and possibly see a sky she didn’t immediately recognize. But the problem is, in fact, when she opens her eyes and sees the skies of Serithca above her, she recognizes it all too well. She knows exactly where she is, and it isn’t the world where she gets her daughter back.

It’s not the world where she gets Ray back.

And all at once, she’s spiraling again, losing her focus and letting her sense of time and place spin away from her all over again.]

No.

[She scrambles up to her feet, head whipping around as she tries to place exactly where she is. She’s not far from the beacon. Maybe she can get them to power it up again, send her back before it’s too late and she can get back to the life she was promised.

By the time she gets there, Karsa is gone (for the best), but Allison can be seen getting into a fight with some poor NPC, trying to explain to Allison that the magic is spent and that there’s no turning it back on. With each denial, Allison’s voice rises higher and higher, that bubble of anger bursting until her eyes glow gold as she shouts the command.]

Get out of my way!

[The poor NPC’s eyes go white as Allison’s power washes over them, and immediately they step to the side. Allison then returns to the beacon, trying to figure out of she can turn it on herself. She looks as though she’s gone completely feral, dried blood on the corner of her mouth, a more extensive wound on her left arm, tied off with what looks like a t-shirt. Eventually the desperation turns to frustration turns to defeat, and the anger is unable to sustain her further. She steps back, and just screams into the distance.

And when that’s done, she has nothing left to do but cry.]

[littlemimic]

[ One look, that's all it takes for Lila to know what is happening. Allison has spun out completely. She doesn't quite know where the other woman comes from, whether it's somewhere in that week of fuckery or on the other side of the reboot. Either way, there's still a lot that the ex-assassin hasn't told Five about their future. Even Lila could see that there was a shit ton of weight on his shoulders, and adding all of that would have just broken him.

Everything about that single weight was too heavy for the majority of the Umbrellas to carry alone. It's why Lila held her secrets as closely as she ever has. Here is the proof that she's not the only one to know now. Truthfully, Allison is the one person that Lila had been worried about the most, learning about the future. Knowing that she was already spinning out at the loss of her husband and child in that timeline.

So Lila doesn't approach right away, not wanting to be caught in the storm that is Allison's pain and grief upon waking up in yet another place without her two important people. Only approaching when the hurricane has become a smaller rainstorm. She situates herself a couple of steps away, putting herself out of physical attack range. ]

Looks like you're all caught up now. Or maybe I'm the one lagging behind.

[ With all of her closely guarded secrets, no one knows what exact point in time Lila came from. Even her outfit upon seeing Allison was one that had appeared upon entering the dollhouse, so no hints there. ]

[rumorate]

[She remembers what Lila told her about the future, how vague and almost hopeful it had been. If Lila had come sooner, she might have gotten an earful for giving her false hope, for letting her think that she could go home and things would be fine, but by the time the other woman gets there, she knows that she didn't ask the right questions.

And honestly, if she had just lived through her, and all her choices over the past week, she might have kept that to herself too.

One hand comes up to swipe at her cheeks, trying to figure out how to even explain it all.]

Dad is dead. Again. I hit the button but I woke up here.

[littlemimic]

[ Lila knows that the fucked up timeline is just that - it had been brutal to Allison, in particular. What comes next, what happens after the button is hit, she figured that it would be to Allison's benefit. But hey, if anything, Lila had been on the same voting side of helping Reginald even if it had been done because Diego was coddling her.

The reason she hadn't said anything here, that was because that would have just been extra time that Allison had to suffer with the knowledge of no husband and no daughter. It was reason for the spins and a lot of the pain of pretty much every second of that altered timeline.

She had barely told Five anything either, so both Hargreeves were spared at least a little while long. There is no trouble keeping up with this conversation. ]

Sounds pretty close to when I'm from. Look, it's absolutely shit that you ended up here instead of where you wanted to be, but chances are pretty damn good that she exists now, in whatever universe dear papa Hargreeves made. You just have to survive this shitehole to get back to her. Let that be your focus point.

[homeostatic]

( Disorientation is the name of the game, the clean, bright halls of Starfleet Medical traded out for... wherever here is, unknown sky, surroundings, everything. He'd think he was accidentally beamed across Yorktown, but there are no Escher-like habitation rings banding the skies, no crafts in the air except for ancient zeppelins, and the surrounding city is... is... familiar, as if from a long forgotten dream.

McCoy turns an unsteady circle, in disbelief. )

My God...

( shock and rumination's gotta wait though, cut through by a piercing scream of abject misery that tears his gaze from the skyline. )

Hey- ( God, okay, he's a bit shaky legged, but he can stagger his way toward the sobbing woman, pushing past the NPC to reach her, with only the thought to help on his mind. )

[rumorate]

I was so close.

[Something in her sags and her legs go with it, the adrenaline of the last few hours giving out on her now that it was no longer needed. She lets herself sit on the ground, and wallow in her misery because she has nothing else, ignoring the red seeping through from the wound on her arm, tied off haphazardly with a t-shirt. Her knuckles are torn and bruised, and there are other assorted wounds from her battle with the guardians, but she doesn't seem aware of them, or of McCoy, really just staring past him into the middle distance.]

I was so close and now I'm fucking back here.

[homeostatic]

( He goes with her to his knees, hands out in case she should pitch onto her head, taking in her various injuries with a quick survey, injecting calm professionalism into his voice as best he can. )

Yeah? And where is "here"? ( it's meant to be a question for cognition, but there's a definite need to know for himself. Bones casts a look around them again, and breathes a sigh of relief when his eye catches the battered medkit roughly where he woke up. A sharp whistle at the NPC draws their attention – "bring that here!" – and he turns back to... Allison, his memory supplies, impossibly. )

I'm a doctor, alright? You're safe for right now. Can you tell me your name and the date?

[westviews]

[The commotion had drawn Wanda's attention. Self-preservation isn't entirely high on her list, and the curiosity she feels is a nice change of pace. So, she makes her way to this burst of noise and power (of some sort), and frowns when she finds what she assumes is the cause. A weeping woman.

Wanda can't say she hasn't been there.]

What happened to you?

[That's one place to start. Asking if she's okay would be absurd.]

[rumorate]

[It's a startling question, especially from someone she doesn't know. She doesn't know, yet, how alike her and Wanda's stories actually are.

She's not quite as alone as Wanda is. Most of her siblings are still alive. But in Allison's mind, the world begins and ends with her daughter, and she doesn't know how to get past that.]

I was inches away from getting my daughter back, and before I could do it, I woke up here.

[There's less confusion with that, as this is a situation she's found herself in before.]

And of course the fucking beacon that sent me home in the first place has decided to no longer work.

[westviews]

[The blunt question was asked without too much investment, but the moment she mentions a daughter, Wanda feels the tug at her heart.

No wonder she's so distraught. She's a mother.]

I'm sorry.

[The words are softer, and Wanda glances around them before her shoulders relax a touch.]

You know the group, then?

[Because Wanda sure as hell doesn't, not in any regard as friends yet, but hopefully she knows someone better equipped to handle all this... grief.]

[somebadnews]

[ Five had been looking for her. Like always, he's just a little too late. He told himself there was no way she'd use the beacon, or disappear on him like the rest, but he knows how tempting it is to jump at the chance to get out of this hellhole. To say nothing of the way he's felt his siblings losing what little faith they had in him, more or less since he inserted himself back into their lives. Why not roll the dice with some faulty mystical relic instead? Allison would just be the latest to give up and go her own way.

Her shouting grabs his attention, but by the time he circles back she isn't alone. The haircut throws him, and another time he'd let himself believe that was all she'd gone off to do. Leave it to Allison to think about appearances in a time like this. If it wasn't for the injuries he can spot even at a distance and the devastation that rolls off of her.

Comforting his siblings has never been a strong suit of his. Something terrible might have happened to her here, but he has reason to think it's worse than that. He watches and waits until she's alone again to get her attention, and even then, he's slow to approach. ]

Allison. [ A terrible sense of dread sticks in his throat and he swallows it down. ] Where were you?

[rumorate]

Where do you think?

[Sorry, Five, she doesn't have the patience for questions you already know the answer to. Because she thinks it should be obvious enough. Nothing in Serithca could have made her this angry, except maybe finding confirmation of all of Five's paranoia and finding Diego's body dead in a ditch somewhere. But given she is sans a corpse and trying to destroy the beacon with her mind, because it's clearly as useful as a pile of rubble, that is not the case.

But before he can yell at her for jumping the gun and using the beacon as a shortcut:]

I really don't want to hear it.

[somebadnews]

[ He flexes his jaw, but manages to disguise how deeply that stings. She went back. If he hadn't been so gun shy about getting answers from Lila, he might already know what she's angry about. Maybe then he would have been able to warn Allison of what they'd be facing back home to dissuade her from making any rash decisions.

There was just too much going on and he couldn't afford to be distracted. It was stupid. He should have asked the first time he saw Lila. Now he's the one in the dark, trying to catch up. ]

Okay. [ He gestures to her arm. ] You want to tell me what did this?

[cosplayqueen]

[Allison isn't the only one crying about the state of the beacon. Kamala is devastated this didn't work out for her. She'd been so sure she'd be going home after doing the right thing with the others. It's more complicated than that; it always is. Doing good doesn't mean you automatically get what you want most.

She isn't the exception to that. It's the scream that brings Kamala running. Is any kid prepared to see the adult they idolize fall apart so completely? She's tempted to walk away at first or call Five.

Unsurprisingly, she stays. She will always choose to do good when it counts. Good is staying. She approaches cautiously.] Allison.... [She wants to say it's okay, but it's not. Her face is swollen and puffy. Allison is crying. They're very not okay.]

I miss them too. [She settles on. Kamala keeps approaching until she stops short of her. She won't hug her yet, but the temptation is so real.]

[rumorate]

[Allison looks up, and when she sees it's Kamala she swipes at her cheeks. She had hoped to pull herself together before she ran into Kamala, or at least hoped that she had made it through the beacon too and didn't have the misfortune of coming back.

She tries to smile before nodding.]

Yeah. Did you make it through?

[cosplayqueen]

N-no. [It comes out soft and watery. She decides to just sink to the ground. Kamala is really tired from the tears. She brings her knees to her chest and vents.] I was so sure this was going to work out. We saved the day, right? This is the part where we all go home. We miss each other, but our adventure was supposed to be over. So why are we still here? What did we do wrong?

my mind feels like a foreign land | for wrath

[rumorate]

[When the feelings fade, and she’s swung around from denial to acceptance that she’s not going to get home anytime soon, she knows that Wrath needs to be her next stop. She doesn’t want him to find out about the change in her powers from someone else, and think that she was intending to keep it a secret. The reason their relationship works is because they trust each other, and after spending most of her time at home burning all of her bridges, she’s realizing she can’t do that here.

Especially not with someone as powerful as Wrath.

She stops by his apartment when they’re all in the process of packing, when she knows that her brother is off elsewhere dealing with something else. She knocks lightly against the doorframe, hoping she looks a bit more put together than she had when she arrived, and that her initial rage has subsided some.

She can’t hide the outward appearance, however. The bruises and bloody lip, the injured arm, the torn knuckles. He has every right to be worried about her, but she’s determined to also not make her home problems his problem.]

Do you have a minute?

/the latest

[inferus]

( Emilia went through the beacon when Wrath did not, but his wife returned knowing far more than she did before she went through the beacon. It changes a great deal, but as is ever true, there is little time to appreciate the differences or to know what it means for their future here. They are to leave.

Wrath has little he wishes to bring with him though he is certain to carefully pack his gift for assisting with the city, to place fine clothing he appreciates into a bag, to have his dagger at his side. He can only hope the next accommodations they have will allow for the same level of privacy and ownership in the space, but given where they were previously, he does not have high hopes. It's another reason to pack lightly, but in the process of packing and unpacking, he must undo the wards he created, including the one that protects the tongue from being accessed at all.

This is the task he is in the middle of completing when Allison appears, shadow and gold surround him like whisps of snakes while he whispers the words to break the wards.

He does not turn though he hears her before she has knocked, can feel the shift in anger inside of her even though it is quieter at the moment. The devil knows anger in an intrinsic way (better than most mortals know an old friend, a family member). It calls to him, and he calls to it.

And then Wrath turns to face her, cataloguing her injuries next as if she has gone to battle but none have been waged since last they saw one another. He remembers their conversation before about anger, about what she faced in her own world. )

You went through the beacon.

[rumorate]

I did.

[She has regrets. Part of her wishes that she never went, so she could stay in that blissful space where she still has hope that she'll see her daughter again, but it's too late to take it back now.

But those feelings are not what she's here for, so she tries to swallow them down.]

Which is why I'm here. My powers got an ... upgrade, I guess. I didn't want you to find out from someone else, and I thought you might want to test it again.

[inferus]

( Wrath grows quiet as she explains. He is not quite accustomed to such forthrightness. Hell is a place where information is power, and it is wiser to keep one's exact power and secrets closer to the vest. It means a great deal she would come to him with this when she did not have to. )

I do. ( It's confirmation, quiet, contemplative. He remembers feeling her ability before when they tested it, and he was impressed by it at the time. It works differently than what Princes of Hell can do, pushing at one's mind instead of utilizing a sin to control them. )

...in what way has it changed?

i'm still fixing all the cracks | ota

[rumorate]

[In a lot of ways, the fact that they have to earn their keep is good for Allison. Having a job to do every day keeps her mind on the present, rather than what she feels she has to get back to, and as much as once upon a time she would have considered the manual labor beneath her, it gives her a chance to exhaust herself to the point that she rarely dreams as the night passes.

She could be seen cleaning, scrubbing floors and washing windows. She offers self-defense training to the residence, putting some of her fight skills to use.

She even charms her way into the good graces of the bridal party, offering manicures and hair stylist services if they’re interested. After all, who doesn’t want to get pampered right before their wedding?]

[downswing]

( ...a man, distinctly ill at ease with notions of:

1. domestic service

2. the chuckling and laughing trill of women orbiting him like misplaced satellites, moths to the flame of his inadequacy

3. cosmetics, start to bitter, green-brewed end.

And yet, here Lan Wangji is, adrift in his borrowed robes, coarse and ill-fitting linens meant to endure the toil of harvesting peace and prosperity at the inn. He woke to carry water, advanced his morning with paltry tasks of transporting kitchen wares, improved it with calligraphy and now, head bowed where Allison and he loom over a parade of merrymaking women, he —

...is pouring washing water to bathe their hair. The room's drenched with excess heat from braziers, fragrances spilling in wild, cloying wafts. Thrice already, Wei Ying has warned Wangji possesses perhaps too... strong a hand for this service. The woman who's just interrupted the rolling susurrus of her gossip to cast him a frightened, owlish glance, seems to agree that the roots of her hair might not be made for raking. He pulls at the locks in hand all the same, neglecting shallow hisses and waving Allison forward to pour down her cleansing salts, while his victim suffers the agony of attention from a handsome man.

It startles him, when the sea of murmurs resumes, when the women rally in taunts and teasing of the would-be bride, when they neglect their attendants as if Allison and he were invisible, inconsequential — )

...you have shorn your hair.

( This to Allison, tongue slack, clumsy. And they say he has no social graces. )

[rumorate]

I needed a change.

[Which is really the lightest way of explaining her Traumatic Haircut. Not that it's wrong, exactly. She did need a change. But it's one thing to head to a salon and get things done by a professional.

It's another to hack your hair off after trying and failing to rumor yourself while dealing with the loss of your daughter, quickly becoming more and more permanent by the moment. She's stuck in that shock-filled space between rage and despair, trying to keep herself teetering between the two with an emotion that feels a bit more like an even keel.

She tips the party guest's head back gently, starting to work the shampoo into her hair with smooth, comforting circles.]

I think I like it. For now, anyway.

[traaaaaash]

[ Eda herself is quite loath to do menial tasks, both for herself and others. Magic used to make housework easy enough, though it couldn't do everything -- she still had to clean Hooty with her own two hands, for example -- and also, well, it's just boring. So really, she picks the more exciting tasks for herself, like foraging or battling the creatures. Also, she's trying to make Grudgby a thing, with very little success.

Unfortunately, she tore one of her long, talon-like nails on one of her outings, and she happens to have observed Allison at her services. Which means the next time she spots the woman, she waltzes up to her with the upmost nonchalance. ]

Hey! What's a girl gotta do to get a manicure around here?

[ Rude words, but she is smiling good-naturedly and putting her hands together in a beseeching gesture. ]

[rumorate]

[Allison does have a snarky remark for those rude words, but when she sees the state of her nails, she relents.]

I don't have very many colors, but I can do a little shaping, maybe?

[She could also see what Magnus has, his stash is usually larger than hers.]