Chapter Text
Your name is Flint Striker and you’re currently running a bath for yourself, a hot bath. Its odd, you watch the water roll and rise as it fills up the tub too small for you to fully submerge yourself in, you tuck your knees to your chest and tug up the little doo-hickey that controls which spout the water gushes from and shiver in the uninviting cold before that searing hot water sprays itself all over you from above. You stare at the unevenly shaved hair on your body hugging itself in such a nauseating display, you hate seeing your arms legs chest and nether bits so hairy but you feel helpless to actually do anything about it in spite of the razor well within reach, that clawing abyss telling you that you’re resigned to just this, a hairy man with a hairline that started receding at twenty, you know that doesn’t feel right and you want to stop that but how do you even start when you can see the gross thick brown hair sticking to your legs, you can feel the width of your shoulders, you can hear the depth in your voice no matter how hard you try to pitch it up… nothing really helps because it feels like you’re not good enough to pass for anything but a man. The water burns in a way that feels comforting, as if it’s a reminder that this feeling too is temporary and you’ll feel better soon even if just for a moment. You find yourself drifting into an unfeeling void of time for a moment, searching for an answer within that hollow abyss and letting the burns and rythm of the water take you somewhere deep and numb. You’re jolted out of that blissful numbness by a soft rapping at your door. You get out of the tub, turn off the water, pull out the stopper, and leave it to drain as you redress yourself and shuffle to the door.
Flint: Who is it?
Hal: It’s Hal, listen, I won’t take up too much of your time I just need to get some punchcodes from your wardrobe. Is that alright?
Flint: Oh, jus’ tha’? Yeah I’ll jus’ lock the bathroom up and you can have free rein, I was tryna take a bath before ya came a-knockin, door’s unlocked let yerself in.
You scurry back to your bathroom as Hal steps in and starts sifting through your closet copying down the punch codes to some of your clothes as you ever so thoroughly wash yourself up thinking about what Hal could possibly want those punch codes for. The water rolls and bubbles up lapping at your knees as they poke up from the warm water you watch the tiny waves crest and crash and crumble into ripples off your skin, the soap occasionally catching in the waves and giving the illusion of sea foam. You sink your head under the water hearing the muffled warbling of the water around you, holding your breath as long as you can as you feel the ripples roll around your forehead as you search your memory, you’re immediately hit with the memory of Noah cleaning you up after you killed Colter Cortez and made a… mess of yourself promptly afterwards. A memory that should feel sickening is now redefined for you as comforting, almost. The whispering memory of his callused hands drifting over your skin, the hesitant touches and the way he avoided anywhere that may be considered intimate, the gentle yet firm pressure from when he was suturing your other myriad wounds from your journey. What you miss most, however, is the warmth… the warmth of human skin on your tainted flesh, someone free of sin caring for the fallen so tenderly. It makes your heart swell and flutter, oh dear oh dear, you are absolutely in love and thats sickening. You rise from the water to breathe, your eyes wide and welling with tears. You pant and wheeze coughing up water before sinking just low enough to submerge your top lip and clenching your eyes shut, this time with a purpose. I wonder what the next universe will be like? You hold that thought at the front of your mind as you think, think, think… and when you open your eyes, something shows reflected in the water.
A towering mansion sat atop a hill? Small island? Mountainside perhaps? Whatever the case the driveway dips into the crashing water, a far more angry water than that pf your bath. In that mansion you see a girl, about sixteen or so years old you suspect, being tailored into a sleeveless floor-length dress by a troll missing some teeth and horn, he seems to… perspire a great deal. You look closer at the girl’s features, soft squishy jawline like Gramma’s and a pair of similarly Gramma-like dusty green eyes. You don’t dwell on this thought though, changing your focus to another reflection.
This one is also a home on the water, a lavish house-boat specifically, chrome plating along every bump and ridge and a concerning amount of snake patterns on the greenery. There’s a young boy inside, about the same age as the other girl you assume, tinkering with a ventriloquist doll and chatting to the wall… oh, so he’s insane. You quickly shift focus to the third reflection, a quaint duplex with a connected back yard, there’s two people chatting there on the swing. A young girl with plastic vampire fangs in her mouth and an exhausted-looking young man a little older than you trying to sway her to take them out. You notice the young man is holding 2 games; 2 copies of the sburb Alpha. You shake your head at this and the reflections disappear, the three you’ve seen into and also the two you had yet to pry into.
By the time you finish cleaning yourself up, redressing, and drying your hair thoroughly Hal is gone. You feel weird, like an odd churning in your gut not all too dissimilar from nausea but without the feeling of something coming up. You wish Noah was next to you… no, no. You can’t just hinge yourself onto Noah. You need to be your own person and not depend on that beautiful beautiful man!
=> Flint: Look through Grandpa’s keepsakes
You eject Grandpa’s hope chest from your Sylladex and set it carefully at the foot of your bed, you’ll be on this cruise for years anyhow might as well furnish the place with your sentimental inventory cloggers. You pop the lid open and lean in, digging out some old photos, including one of when you were first brought home as a baby, Gramma and Grampa had bought a new home all the way out in Utah to be near you when you were little, they only sold it and moved away when Grampa got sick and had to quit his job, sure Gramma was still signing gigs left and right but hollywood is a cruel beast and Gramma just wasn’t making enough on her own to afford 4 houses, so they sold the homes you didn’t inherit and moved back to Brooklyn. You pull the photo albums out and breach the next layer of sentimental items, like Great Grampa’s war medals and Grampa’s wallet.
=> Flint: Open Wallet
You open Grampa’s wallet and sift through it: you find some expired credit cards, some loose cash, a few gift cards and loyalty cards, and then his ID. Rich Striker, oh yeah Grampa’s name was Rich wasn’t it? That explains why you were born with the name Gold, your Dad was Aaron Striker but due to Grampa’s speech impediment it always sounded like Iron, everyone to take the last name Striker after Gramma had a weird double meaning name… in that sense it’s one fond memory for that dying name. You still absolutely hate being called by it regardless and are one hundred and ten percent still pissed off at Lara for using it behind your back. You shake your head and get bqck to sifting through the wallet, eventually pulling out a note folded around a photo and an extra captchalogue card!
=> Flint: Read Note
You unfold the note and read it carefully and intently, this is from Grampa, you can’t just not pay attention to Grampa. Even if it may hurt to read given how much you cling to the past.
To My Dear Grandbaby, Flint.
I’m writing this to you as I’m laid up in a hospital bed before I get too weak to use my hands. If you’re reading this I’m dead and gone, don’t mourn me excessively I lived a good long life. I married a famous woman and wound up having a wonderful little grandchild. My deadbeat son didn’t know what to do with you so I already got my fill of wrangling you around when you were little and I like to tell myself I did a bang up job of raising you to be a fine dependable young go-getter.
I bet you’re probably still wearing those Aviators and that old leather jacket I gave ya, do me a favor and clean them once in a while at least. If you’re still in touch with your old pals from Utah then go ahead and dig to the bottom of that trunk I’m leaving you, I stashed presents for the five of them down there. If you got into a fight with any of them, accept the blame due to you, arguments are never just one brat’s fault.
If you’re still reading by now I’m betting you’re about to start crying like a little baby again, suck it up and be patient, this is the last bit of the note. I don’t have much time left and neither does your Grandmother, but I can speak for us both when I say we’re fairly confident you are the happiest thing to ever happen to us, you win that damn suburbs game for me.
Always loving you, for better or worse,
Grampa.
You sniffle as you wipe the tears from your face and do as Grampa told you. You dig to the bottom of the trunk to find boxes for yourself, Lily, Lara, Bria, Noel, and Noah. But under those instead of the wooden bottom you find six assorted boxes addressed to people you don’t know with the exception of a box for “Emie” which was his nickname for Gramma. Who are Paul, Gabe, Kory, Clara, and Cole though? Paul, Gabe, and Kory’s last names tip you off at least; Rhodes, Cassidy, and Freizer. Clara and Cole are completely unknown to you though their last names are smeared over some old yellowed glue stains so you can only make out a few letters Wa and Cro respectively. You quickly lift those gifts to find a note that seems to be untouchable, perhaps you aren’t at the right point in time to access all the secrets of Grampa’s trunk.
You set the packages for those not aboard the ship back into the trunk and pack it all neatly before closing the lid and turning out of your room and heading down the hall, you set the gifts in the main room as you slink off to the Alchemeter to make some things for everyone else so nobody feels left out, the scrapbook modus is good for one thing in particular and thats being able to store pretty much as many things as you want at any given time provided you don’t leave them in your sylladex for too long!
This will take quite a while, you are no longer Flint Striker.