“Dreamin’ of the Past”- I.
Characters: Lodi x GN Reader
Overall Fic Themes: processing of grief, maladaptive daydreaming as a therapy tool, comfort, mutual long-distance pining
Synopsis: Lodi struggles with his new reality of being a man out of time brought forward to be the Nine’s emissary, and accidentally makes contact with the past.
Why did he ever pick up that damn phone?
Lodi’s asked himself this at least thrice a day since piecing together the reality of his arrival on Keplar.
Six-hundred years out of time, six-hundred years. He’d just spoken to his brother days before the incident with the anomaly and now he’d missed his nephew’s birthday, and every birthday thereafter, forever. Didn’t even have time to try to talk his mom into moving closer to the rest of the family one last time. Just- ripped out of his life, no warning. The Nine could have at least given him some kind of indication of what he was signing on for when they’d been whispering twisted sensations into his consciousness, given him time to say his goodbyes, but no! Just a hop-skip and a six-hundred year jump over a complete collapse of civilization as he knew it (and so many other near misses since).
What had happened to the life he’d left behind?
Did his family think he’d abandoned them?
Did they think he’d died in the field?
Did Director Moffat make an appearance to his Mother’s house, apologizing on behalf of the DEO, for the loss of her son?
Did she slap him across the face when he couldn’t tell her what happened to him?
Did he catch her when she fell to her knees and comfort her when she cried?
Did they resent him for leaving them behind? Or did they mourn his absence?
Did his brother’s children get to grow up and grow old? Or were they caught by the Collapse before they were old enough to self-actualize?
Everyone he knew and loved was gone, dead for hundreds of years, and no one could give him an idea of how long ago it had all happened. Despite having processed a centuries-long fall through time that he’d barely remembered outside of the fever dream visuals, he couldn’t even help himself. He’d glimpsed the Collapse—the evacuation of the colony ships leaving Earth at the very last second—as the exhaust plume of the Exodus Black singed his suit as he fell through that particular point in time.
The DEO had prepared him for many things, but there was no protocol for being body-snatched by paracausal, extra-dimensional beings capable of time-disruption (much less, meeting a complete stranger with the face of his office crush and no memory of the person he knew). As far as he’d known, he’d only been gone the few weeks he’d spent trying to make contact with a world he couldn’t remember was so far dead he’d skipped right over the end of. Agent Louis Yero was completely out of his depth, on his own, and without anyone or anything he could rely on to help him rein in the panic brewing in his chest. How—HOW—was anyone supposed to adjust to this!? How did Guardians just wake up, pick up a gun, and roll with the punches?
He dropped his hands heavily on the pop-up table and stabilized it as it shook, then went back to staring into the star-studded sky obscured by the swirling green gases emanating from beneath the planetoid’s surface. The knot in his chest curled and twisted, stress tickled the sinew between his ribs and radiated into his shoulders, neck, and back until it rippled under the skin like a bone-deep chill. He’d been trying to find his bearings by the stars (as he used to, flying by night), hoping it would bring some semblance of grounding so he wouldn’t float away and let the dread consume him. The stars had always been there, were there still: a constant, short-lived eternity, guiding him home. If anything in this new nightmare would keep him connected to who he was and where he came from, Polaris would have his back.
But it was different now, looking up at those same stars. The awe he’d felt as a young man gazing into the deep expanse was… not gone, just lessened, knowing the marvel of deep space discovery that had once brought humanity together, had ultimately brought about its destruction. It was bittersweet, but still palatable; though learning that the Nine had actually saved him from dying, and given him new purpose, still felt worse. It sat like sulfur in his gut, acrid in his throat. He should be home with his family, seeing the Elephants at the Lincoln Park Zoo, hand-in-hand with su linda sobrina.
He took in one more shaky breath, closed his eyes for a beat, then exhaled heavily and hung his head. There were bigger things at stake here on Keplar than his grief, and he’d have time to process it out once they’d stabilized the Singularity. For the sake of his new present, he needed to find a way to push past the existential dread plaguing his every waking thought, or he’d be of no use to his new friends or the Aionians. Maybe sleep would help him get his head sorted, if his dreams didn’t traumatize him first. At the very least, lying horizontal on the ground would bring him closer to actual grounding than grasping at straws trying to find a way back home.
He removed the armor plating from his upper body and habitually stripped down to his skivvies, even though he probably shouldn’t have. If danger found him before he could get his clothes back on, he’d be streaking through the Aionian campus like a pledge in hazing, but he’d rather be comfortable while he was in crisis, if he could control anything. His glasses he set down at arm’s length from his sleeping bag, on top of his clothes-pile so as to not risk scratching them, then dragged one hand down his face with a tired groan. Two was scratching at the back of his mind like an animal at a closed bedroom door, as they always did now, except they could open said door anytime they wanted. That, in addition to the omnipresent sensation of plucked nerves, was enough to keep him chronically tense and overwhelmed.
He let out another groan like white noise to drown out the sensation, rolled over and closed his eyes, and tried to remember the tune of Moon River as vividly as he could.
But, just as he was about to nod off, something faint grabbed his attention—like water-warbled sobbing, distorted by time-woven threads. Lodi’s eyes tore open, his breath tense and shallow. It wasn’t the future he was seeing, it was the past, he could feel it: less neon, more sanguine. Was it possible?
If he focused hard enough and peered through the valley of time, he could almost see a figure, draped in luminescence. Hunched over and hugging itself, he couldn’t tell where, but it was old. Vintage even. His heart fluttered, voice choked and cracked even in his mind.
The figure stopped crying, rubbed at its eyes, and sat upright, frozen in place. They could hear him! She could hear him…? Did that mean-
Lodi swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled through the pain with tears in his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. The words started tumbling out from behind strangled, joyous laughs before he could even think to stop himself. ¡MADRE, es un milagro! ¡Te veo! Tengo tanto que contarte… lo siento mucho, por todo-
“Who-… who’s there? What do you want from me?”
The figure flickered to its feet and flashed across his visage, apparitious movements screeching across time like mercury in his ears, running down the side of his face and neck. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable. No, not his mother… then who? And why?
