open post: averageness

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's first clue that it hadn't been a dream was that she'd woken up alone in her room.

Nowadays, she and Gideon have been sharing a room, so that Tally can protect her from ever finding a body alone again--and maybe conspicuously leave out some clothes that fit Gideon but aren't, like, ratty black pants. That day, though, she'd woken in an empty room, gasping from something that felt like a nightmare, but somehow more vivid than real life.

Without even getting dressed, she'd run for the woods to confirm what had happened. Horror had flooded her when she found the knife-mark, exactly where she remembered throwing it yesterday. It was true. She'd been Special. She'd been awful. She'd seen and felt the world with more harsh clarity than she'd ever thought possible. She'd hit Gideon.

Tally had collapsed onto the stump, gripping her own arms to make sure her familiar, average body was still there.

Over the next few days, Tally doesn't sleep well, and people getting swapped out for a second time doesn't help. People might find her wandering the mansion like a zombie, or in one of the kitchens, contemplating getting drunk. She's not as put together as usual, either, but of course on her even bedhead and sweats look beautiful.

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[tallyyoungblood]

Tally thinks. She remembers staring at herself in the mirror, counting her flaws--the squinty eyes, the frizzy hair, the squashed-down nose. "Like, 167 centimeters?" She'd still been growing a little up until the day she'd turned herself in to become pretty.

[summerdude]

It takes Magnus a good minute or two to convert that to reasonable measurements. "How did they stretch you out that much?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Uh. It's basically all-new skeleton." Tally holds out her arms, as if Magnus can see her bones. "It's like, what's even actually me anymore?" she jokes, but it hits home a little harder than usual.

[summerdude]

"Oh, I feel that," Magnus says, looking down at himself. "I got the post-death einherjar glow-up when I got to Valhalla. None of this is the original goods."

[tallyyoungblood]

"What did you look like before?" Tally keeps her thoughts on the einherjar glow-up not actually making him any prettier to herself.

[summerdude]

"Like, really scrawny. No muscles. I was this asthmatic street kid?" He gestures, vaguely, to indicate the total concaveness of his chest. "So, like, my only exercise was running and hiding from cops and I didn't have regularly reliable access to food. Do you know Captain America?"

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally's eyes get big. "You lived on the street?" She can picture poor little ugly-aged Magnus, and it makes her equal parts sympathetic and angry at the Rusties. "Captain America? No. I lived in North America, though."

[summerdude]

"He's this comics superhero. You should look 'em up, there's a ton in the library. He gets this, like, serum, and it makes him super swole. I had that but, like, smaller."

[tallyyoungblood]

"I'm not sure I need to read a comic when I basically lived that," Tally points out.

[summerdude]

"Okay," says Magnus. "So we're both Captain America."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Did they ever give the serum to a girl?"

[summerdude]

"Depends on the run, yeah. Russia used something like it for the Black Widow program."

[tallyyoungblood]

Tally gets a little more interested. "I thought Rusties only liked men to be in power."

[summerdude]

"Like, yeah, sexism is a real problem, but there are tons of women in power too. Fictionally and, like, in real life."

[tallyyoungblood]

"That's good. Maybe I will read a comic, then. Um, not that I want to discriminate against men, or anything. It just seems utterly boring to have a story be about just one gender."

[summerdude]

"Yeah, I totally agree," says Magnus. He squints at Tally for a moment. "You might dig America Chavez."

[tallyyoungblood]

"Are they all named America?" Tally giggles.

[summerdude]

"Nah, just a couple. There's like a million different superheroes."

[tallyyoungblood]

"We have superheroes, too, but they're kind of bogus. They're supposed to teach you to recycle and stuff."

[summerdude]

"Hey, recycling is important," Magnus says, half-teasing, half-earnest.

[tallyyoungblood]

"Definitely. Just not immediately life-threatening."

[summerdude]

"Depends on the world, I guess," Magnus says. "There's like a thousand different universes in comics."

[tallyyoungblood]

"I guess that part turned out to be, like, totally true to life. Not only are we from different universes, but there's different versions of each of us." She finger-combs her hair nervously. "Do you think that our future versions are, like, inevitable? Or do you think there's universes where we end up different? Besides this one, I mean."

[summerdude]

"I don't think they're inevitable," Magnus says immediately. "Like, those us-es never even came here, right?"

[tallyyoungblood]

"Right. I just mean that maybe only coming here can stop us becoming that? Or I guess that's what I'm afraid of."