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meimichiTitle: prepare your heart not to stop too soon
Series/Characters: Animorphs, Marco/Rachel
Rating: PG
Notes: A piece of this was in the giant post-war AU Marco/Rachel story I am writing, and then I realized it didn't belong in that story at all, but was actually more of a prologue. So then I thought it would be a drabble for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
animorphs100 futurefic challenge. But then it got, you know, just a smidge past the 100 word limit.
Summary: a·ni·morphs. n. Idiot teenagers with a death wish.
Rachel apparently thinks that if someday Jake ever snaps his fingers, Marco will go and fight for (world peace/freedom of humanity/fill in other cause of choice in the blank here). She tells him so while they're out for dinner, or, more specifically, after-dinner drinks, which they meet for every few weeks. Marco thinks that Animorphs should stick together, even with an absence of wars to get almost-killed in. This is a nice idea that is unfortunately hampered by everyone, save him and Rachel, being scattered across the universe at distances that make monthly meetups at the trendiest SoCal restaurants nigh impossible.
Ax is doing princely things that don't always bring him near Earth (and when they do, pretty rarely to California), and Tobias has been off with Loren on the Andalite home world for ages now, getting in touch with his family roots. Marco can't remember the last time Rachel said anything that implied she thought he was coming home, which didn't bode well for him ever doing so. Cassie is in D.C. being overwhelmingly important and underpaid, and Jake is off saving the world from terrorists with his new band of military-trained morph-capables who probably moonlight as ninjas in their off-hours; so Jake doesn't need any of them now, anyhow.
But even if Jake did, Rachel's not right about it at all, and he tells her so.
"He would have to have a very compelling pro-con list to convince me to go risk my life again," Marco says. "And world peace or freedom of humanity isn't anywhere near good enough. It's a big universe, and now that we don't have to be covert, he can find other people in it who might actually enjoy the world-saving occupation."
She just scowls at him and downs the rest of her drink, crunching an ice cube in disapproval; either because she doesn't believe him, or has nothing but disdain for his general lack of ambition, or both. It's fine. He thinks that being selfish and alive beats noble and dead any day of the week.
(The truth is, she didn't ask the question right. If Jake ever called him up and invited him to join some nameless good cause for the sake of the world, he'd shrug it off. But if Jake called and said, "Do it for me," then he would be gone yesterday. The point's moot, though, because Jake would never ask that. Jake is too unselfish for his own good. But he doesn't tell her any of that.)
Over an hour later, Rachel is far more drunk than she usually gets on these nights. "I thought we'd all die young, you know," she says.
"Yeah, well, we didn't fail for lack of trying." He digs his cell phone out of his pocket and squints at the glowing clock display. They're going to have to head home, soon; he's meeting his mom for lunch tomorrow and he doesn't want to be hungover and sleep-deprived for that. (It's been three years since the war ended and he still hasn't reached the point where he takes his mom being there for granted.)
"No, we didn't," she agrees, and Marco has the fleeting thought that when you're young, you're supposed to think you're immortal. Or so people say. He is nineteen years old and he cannot remember a time when he lived like he was never going to die.
He snaps out of it and pays the bill, because he doesn't want to find out where this conversation is going. The only place it seems to be headed is both of them saying too much and regretting it in the morning. So he nudges her lightly with his shoulder, signalling that it's time to head home.
She slides out of her chair and moves towards the door, only weaving a little in her ridiculous heels that probably have some expensive Italian name. He doesn't reach out to steady her. She is not his responsibility, because he avoids responsibility like the plague whenever possible, and it is not his fault that everyone, anyone else has left to go be grown-ups, or run away, or a little bit of both.
He doesn't want to be a grown-up yet. He doesn't really remember ever getting to be a kid, not really.
But he calls a taxi for Rachel and stands on the curb, watching the headlights fade away into the sea of streetlights that make up downtown. And in the morning, he calls Harvard admissions and asks for them to start sending pamphlets crammed with photos of smiling law students to Rachel's address.
She texts him a week later to say she'd stick out like a sore thumb on the east coast even if she wasn't already famous for saving the world from parasitic aliens, and so she's thinking UCLA or Stanford might be more her style.
He hits reply, dashing off a quick response before he gets the knock on his trailer door summoning him out to film: "I can't see you living in NorCal, either."
Very soon they are not going to be teenagers anymore, and while the Animorphs label is going to follow them into adulthood, he thinks it's time for all of them to leave the death wish clause behind.
Series/Characters: Animorphs, Marco/Rachel
Rating: PG
Notes: A piece of this was in the giant post-war AU Marco/Rachel story I am writing, and then I realized it didn't belong in that story at all, but was actually more of a prologue. So then I thought it would be a drabble for the
animorphs100 futurefic challenge. But then it got, you know, just a smidge past the 100 word limit.Summary: a·ni·morphs. n. Idiot teenagers with a death wish.
Rachel apparently thinks that if someday Jake ever snaps his fingers, Marco will go and fight for (world peace/freedom of humanity/fill in other cause of choice in the blank here). She tells him so while they're out for dinner, or, more specifically, after-dinner drinks, which they meet for every few weeks. Marco thinks that Animorphs should stick together, even with an absence of wars to get almost-killed in. This is a nice idea that is unfortunately hampered by everyone, save him and Rachel, being scattered across the universe at distances that make monthly meetups at the trendiest SoCal restaurants nigh impossible.
Ax is doing princely things that don't always bring him near Earth (and when they do, pretty rarely to California), and Tobias has been off with Loren on the Andalite home world for ages now, getting in touch with his family roots. Marco can't remember the last time Rachel said anything that implied she thought he was coming home, which didn't bode well for him ever doing so. Cassie is in D.C. being overwhelmingly important and underpaid, and Jake is off saving the world from terrorists with his new band of military-trained morph-capables who probably moonlight as ninjas in their off-hours; so Jake doesn't need any of them now, anyhow.
But even if Jake did, Rachel's not right about it at all, and he tells her so.
"He would have to have a very compelling pro-con list to convince me to go risk my life again," Marco says. "And world peace or freedom of humanity isn't anywhere near good enough. It's a big universe, and now that we don't have to be covert, he can find other people in it who might actually enjoy the world-saving occupation."
She just scowls at him and downs the rest of her drink, crunching an ice cube in disapproval; either because she doesn't believe him, or has nothing but disdain for his general lack of ambition, or both. It's fine. He thinks that being selfish and alive beats noble and dead any day of the week.
(The truth is, she didn't ask the question right. If Jake ever called him up and invited him to join some nameless good cause for the sake of the world, he'd shrug it off. But if Jake called and said, "Do it for me," then he would be gone yesterday. The point's moot, though, because Jake would never ask that. Jake is too unselfish for his own good. But he doesn't tell her any of that.)
Over an hour later, Rachel is far more drunk than she usually gets on these nights. "I thought we'd all die young, you know," she says.
"Yeah, well, we didn't fail for lack of trying." He digs his cell phone out of his pocket and squints at the glowing clock display. They're going to have to head home, soon; he's meeting his mom for lunch tomorrow and he doesn't want to be hungover and sleep-deprived for that. (It's been three years since the war ended and he still hasn't reached the point where he takes his mom being there for granted.)
"No, we didn't," she agrees, and Marco has the fleeting thought that when you're young, you're supposed to think you're immortal. Or so people say. He is nineteen years old and he cannot remember a time when he lived like he was never going to die.
He snaps out of it and pays the bill, because he doesn't want to find out where this conversation is going. The only place it seems to be headed is both of them saying too much and regretting it in the morning. So he nudges her lightly with his shoulder, signalling that it's time to head home.
She slides out of her chair and moves towards the door, only weaving a little in her ridiculous heels that probably have some expensive Italian name. He doesn't reach out to steady her. She is not his responsibility, because he avoids responsibility like the plague whenever possible, and it is not his fault that everyone, anyone else has left to go be grown-ups, or run away, or a little bit of both.
He doesn't want to be a grown-up yet. He doesn't really remember ever getting to be a kid, not really.
But he calls a taxi for Rachel and stands on the curb, watching the headlights fade away into the sea of streetlights that make up downtown. And in the morning, he calls Harvard admissions and asks for them to start sending pamphlets crammed with photos of smiling law students to Rachel's address.
She texts him a week later to say she'd stick out like a sore thumb on the east coast even if she wasn't already famous for saving the world from parasitic aliens, and so she's thinking UCLA or Stanford might be more her style.
He hits reply, dashing off a quick response before he gets the knock on his trailer door summoning him out to film: "I can't see you living in NorCal, either."
Very soon they are not going to be teenagers anymore, and while the Animorphs label is going to follow them into adulthood, he thinks it's time for all of them to leave the death wish clause behind.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 07:34 am (UTC)Loved that exchange.
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Date: 2007-07-11 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 09:50 am (UTC)"I thought we'd all die young, you know," she says.
"Yeah, well, we didn't fail for lack of trying."
Oh, OW.
I've been thinking about Rachel a lot, as I've been reading the Robin comics and loving on Stephanie Brown; thinking about the archetype and surviving past one's expiration date, and then there you go breaking my heart... I love this AU of yours, have I mentioned that?
I love that you brought in that definition from book freakin' one -- that line has always stuck with me, is the name of my Animorphs playlist, actually -- and I love He is nineteen years old and he cannot remember a time when he lived like he was never going to die. And the way the last line ties that thought to the way he defined his made-up word when he was thirteen, the way his last year as a teenager contrasts with (even as it continues to be informed by) the first.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 04:48 pm (UTC)Yes! I think it just always makes sense to make moments echo each other in Marco's case, because his life really is just made up of ironies stacked on top of each other. He'll almost never say exactly what he means, but then the flip definition he gives in book one ends up actually defining them anyway. He doesn't want to be a responsibile adult, but no matter how much he puts on his show of immaturity, he ends up having to step up to the plate anyway whenever the people he cares for are lacking. Oh, Marco. You are the best fictional boyfriend ever.
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Date: 2007-07-11 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-18 07:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-30 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 05:36 am (UTC)(I ship Rachel/Tobias, but Marco/Rachel works too!)
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Date: 2007-08-05 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-15 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-17 05:22 am (UTC)And so: this was extraordinarily written.
All done! ^^
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Date: 2008-01-31 08:03 am (UTC)A+ work!
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Date: 2008-05-10 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-10 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 12:59 pm (UTC)Yes! The next story is set in the same AU, some years down the road, with Rachel running for governor of California with Marco running her campaign. It's a much longer story, though (around 18,000 words now and nowhere near finished), and longer stories are really not my forte since I have trouble finishing them. But it was my New Year's resolution to finish it before the year is up, and I've been making progress recently, so hopefully it'll get posted soon...ish... *g*
no subject
Date: 2008-05-16 06:37 am (UTC)If you ever want a beta I'd be happy to help out.