"A Three Hour Tour" [locked to Rich and Grif]

[iamresponding]

Who| Grif and Rich
What| "A Three Hour Tour" plot. After investigating a garbled Legion distress call, Grif and Rich crash several months in the past on an alien planet and have to survive together and wait several months until rescue
Where| Azhol IV.
When| Post- Blargh, pre-"Lights Out"
Warnings/Notes| Shippy self-indulgent nonsense

Rich is feeling better. He'll never feel the way he used to, before getting his memories of the Cancerverse back, but the medicine and therapy are helping - and even allowing him to unpack things he tried not to touch before, like the War, and the fall of the Corps, and being controlled by the Phalanx.

He can never be his old self again but he can still be something healthy, if he works hard enough at it and actually accepts help. In fact, all of it's helped enough that Kid Q even let him go on a minor mission with Grif, some diplomatic talks and security consultations with a new UP member world.

And it'd gone well. He feels almost human again. He feels like he actually has a future.

So even now, after receiving a Legion distress call, responding to it, getting caught in some weird time storm, and crashing on a planet, he feels okay. Even after they figured out it was their own past distress call they were responding to. Even after figuring out they're stuck several months in the past, according to some of their instruments that use certain physical forces to calculate the correct time. Even though something in the atmosphere is making their flight rings fail and making their long-distance comm functions go offline.

They're both mostly uninjured, they have their omnicoms - which are saying there's fresh water and edible plants nearby - they have some rations and supplies like water filters, emergency blankets, backup transuits.

And they have each other. Grif definitely isn't the worst person to wind up stuck with.

"Our flight path took us right past this planet. We just have to hold out until the rest of the universe catches up a few months and they actually notice we've gone missing. The search pattern spread will bring them here."

It could be way worse.

Comments

Later...

[iamresponding]

They're learning. Getting better at this. After getting chased away from the wreckage, and then treed for a while, they recovered their stuff. They've been traveling, trying to find a good place to settle. Fortunately they have a locator beacon that they can just bring with them so they don't need to stay where they crashed to get found.

Some of the water sources here are polluted with different naturally occurring chemicals and organisms the water filters have trouble with, wearing them out faster. Other's aren't. They've been following their omnicoms, which are leading them to a different area of the water table where almost all the water is fresh.

They've been following the food too, getting a sense of the animals they can hunt, and pack movements, figuring out the growth patterns of certain types of trees with edible fruit.

They're moving down into a river valley now that has a lot of promise.

At night, they sleep high up in the trees to avoid the little energy-eating dog-things. Rotterdins, their guide on the planet calls them. They figured out that they can be killed, but it's a total pain in the ass and it's better to just stay high up at night and avoid them entirely, especially since the trees are so huge you can travel in the treetops - on branches as big as whole walkaways 0 and climb from tree to tree easily.

The trees have lots of little bowers in them, too, soft moss-covered hollows big enough for both of them to lay in. They usually leave their gear hanging from branches outside them. Inside, lichen glows in gentle phosphorescent pinks and blues and greens and yellows. The light isn't too bright for them to sleep and it's comforting during the pitch black nights, which are only sometimes lit by the planet's two moons.

The only problem is the temperature fluctuations.

Their second fight with the rotterdins ruined their transuits, and their uniforms got torn in the crash and it's only been getting worse over time. They're not insulting much now. And the temperature has too much variation up here in the mountains and hills. During the day it ranges from temperate to a little uncomfortably hot, but at night it dips down to fifty or forty degress.

Using the survival tools that came with their kits, and the survival guides to figure out how to do it, they managed to skin and tan the rotterdins to use their fur, but they only got one decent blanket - or more like a wrap - out of it. The only way for them to both fit under it is for them to get pretty close and well...

That's apparently going to be like a whole thing.

In the light of the lichens, Rich looks over at where Grif is curled up, barely under the furs, just out of reach.

"Sure looks awful cold over there."

[whyarewehere]

Grif doesn't like laying awake at night. It wasn't so bad at first. They were busy, almost frantically busy establishing themselves. There had been too much to do for Grif to think much. After days like those, sleep didn't care how cold or lumpy the night was or how many unknown spooky things were making noises in it.

Now, they have a routine. They know how far they can go in a day, they know how much time to put into food and water, they know when it starts to get dark. It's not quite a comfortable existence, but it's a lot closer than those first hectic days. Routine means not always crashing at the edge of exhaustion, and that means laying awake and listening to the trees and the wind and the wildlife.

And Rich, always somewhere nearby breathing in the dark.

It's weird being alone with him out here. It's not that Grif minds exactly, Rich is good company. Spending a lot of time with him like this is just...

Okay. It's a little awkward, after Rich's recovery from the cancerverse. After helping Rich out of the medbay shower. After having Rich fall asleep against him and realizing that the emotions going on here are way more inconvenient than he'd realized was possible.

Grif would be okay with having less time to think about them.

At least when Rich talks to him, it distracts him from that mess.

"I mean, I'm not dead yet," he answers.

[iamresponding]

"Let's just toss this idea around as a thought exercise: maybe. Maybe you could possibly be not be cold at all. If you stopped acting like I was contagious."

He turns on his side to face him.

"I promise I don't have the Plague."

[whyarewehere]

Grif rolls over to face him, arched eyebrow just visible in the dim bioluminescence. Is this what it sounds like? Shit, one of his problems is worse now.

"...Go on?"

But on the other hand, he could maybe be less cold?

In theory?

He'll see how this goes.

[iamresponding]

"C'mon. I can practically hear you shivering." He lifts the furs up to let Grif in more and does a little 'come here' nod. "Plus, I'm a human heater. I can keep it feeling like a heated blanket under here with my powers."

All nice and cozy.

"We're both grown ass adults, not middle schoolers who are scared of cooties. I think our pride can survive survival cuddling at night."

[whyarewehere]

"I wasn't shivering that bad," protests the man who was indeed shivering that bad. Grif runs a little warmer than he used to just because of the speedster metabolism, but that just leaves him wondering if he's this cold because he's cold or if he's this cold because his stupid body thinks the temperature difference between him and the air should be smaller.

He scoots over to settle his stupid body next to Rich's stupid body and try not to think about how stupid it all is. Is one of his arms supposed to go around, or would that make it too uncomfortable? How do you do this? He ends up curled into Rich's right shoulder a bit, hating to admit that Rich is warm and it is pretty nice.

"It's not cuddling," he says definitively. "Unless you want to start living so many fanfics."

Making a joke about the reason something is awkward makes it A+ perfectly not awkward. Obviously.

[iamresponding]

That makes Rich chuckle because oh god, it really is. The fans would have a field day with this.

"Nah, it'd be the blanket and snowing outside to be one of the fanfics."

Come on, Grif, get with it.

When Grif moves in closer, it gets a lot warmer very quickly, as Rich activates his powers just enough for an aura of warmth to exude from his skin.

He takes care of the arm thing himself, taking Grif's hand in his own. Thanks to the Nova Force, his hand is very warm, and he starts rubbing heat back into Grif's cold fingers.

His metabolism is different. Grif runs warm, but Rich may as well have a nuclear furnace inside him.

"There. Better?"

[whyarewehere]

"...Yeah."

It is extremely nice. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, he melts into it. Only then does he realize how tensed up he actually was. He flexes his fingers as Rich warms them. Rich doesn't need him over here, Rich would be warm enough on his own. He's doing this for Grif. Of course he is. Because he's Rich.

There's a warmth in Grif's chest that has nothing to do with body heat, and he hates it.

"I'll write Nita a nice apology."

It's offhand and flippant, not a real concern, but it's something to say.

[iamresponding]

It's kind of nice how Grif doesn't seem to care about the fact the shoulder he's laying on doesn't have an arm attached to it. There are a lot of ways that Grif makes Rich feel like he's still whole, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

But when he mentions Nita, Rich draws in a deep breath and lets it out.

"Uh. It's not really -" He wonders if he should bring down the moment, but he also...

He also wants Grif to know this, because...

"It's not really something you'd have to worry about. I wrote her a letter. For when I see her again." A pause. "Breaking up."

Which...still feels like the right thing to do.

"I was already different. I pulled her from out of time and I was different from the way she remembered, because of the war. A lot more serious. And that was something we were working around, all that lost time, and the changes, but now..."

Now he's not just a little dinged up from the war. Now he's broken. Now he's a different man, carrying around a whole lot of damage and existential despair that he has to keep at bay.

"I'm not the person I was. Even if...even if I can act like it sometimes, what's going on in my head, that's not -- I'm not him. And I still have some parts of him in me, but it's different enough..."

He works his jaw.

"I just need to start over. Maybe that means once I see her again, we can take it from the top, but whoever I end up with has to meet me where I am first, and get used to...to all the baggage. To who I am now. And see if it can work from there."

[whyarewehere]

Rich has talked a little bit about this before, so it doesn't come as a shock, but...

"...Oh."

Grif instantly regrets bringing it up. It wasn't worth the joke.

"Sorry."

He goes quiet after that, not sure how to rebound off of this. Making stupid comments to lighten serious shit? He's good at that, but it's different with someone he'd feel bad about hurting. Grif isn't as reckless with Rich as he is with other people, he's earned that much.

It makes things more awkward, though.

[iamresponding]

"It's okay," Rich says, still holding Grif's hand, still brushing his fingers against Grif's. They're still a little cold, that's all. "It's not... an end to everything. And I think she'll understand."

He's accepted that his new state of being isn't going away, but also that it can be coped with. There just needs to be...an adjustment.

"This is just where I am right now. I've been trying to look at it all as just being...different. And needing to adjust to that. Not that it's like I'm too broken for anything to come next at all."

[whyarewehere]

"You'll be fine," says Grif. "We're superheroes. It's one of the perks. If things calm down and you want to go for it, you got options."

It's not like Grif is a biased source or anything. A biased source who's trying not to think about how weird but nice it is that Rich is idly brushing his fingers.

[iamresponding]

I don't want options.

He doesn't want to think about being with anyone else, he suddenly realizes.

That's not to say that he doesn't still have feelings for Nita. That's the part that's confusing. Especially since he can't say that he has more feelings for Grif than Nita or vice versa. That's just the way he is. There's room in his heart for more than one person. That's what'd made it so hard to decide back when he'd had feelings for both Laura and Nita at the same time.

Except, in the end, Laura really hadn't been the best for him. Too much acting like she was dating him to make her father mad, like she was slumming it or something. Nita was different. Nita saw him as something worthwhile. She'd loved him for being Nova and for being plain ol' Rich Rider.

This is different than Laura and Nita, because Grif is nothing like Laura - he's like Nita. They both inspire the same feelings. That's what he wants, either one. Nita or Grif, and he doesn't want one more than the other.

So it's more about...what fits. What works right now, with him the way he is. And about what happens first, especially with Nita gone.

And of course, about whether either them decide they want him back. He wouldn't blame either of them for seeing him as too downer, as having too much baggage for a healthy relationship, and the problem is he isn't sure that'll ever change.

He doesn't know for sure, how it should go down, and that's why if either of them was to say they wanted to try to work things out, it really would come down to who says it first. That's not opportunism or not wanting to be alone, that's...that's it being them. There's in love there for both of them.

"Yeah. Options." If his heart doesn't sound like it's in it, the idea of being with other people, in general, it just isn't. "I guess it'll all work out somehow."

But he hopes it's only with one of them.

He doesn't let go of Grif's hand. Even as he starts to fall asleep, he holds on.

[whyarewehere]

It's an awkward note to end on, but they do. Things settle into the dark stillness. Grif could move his hand, but he doesn't. He's found he likes it there. It's comfortable.

Grif is drowsing when he feels Rich's breathing settle out into true sleep.

'Hey.' An idea crosses his mind. 'At least he's single.'

Grif's last conscious thought for the night is an exasperated groan.