“Dreamin’ of the Past”- I.XXV
Word Count: 1,272 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.
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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 given him some kind of indication of what he was signing on for when they’d whispered twisted warnings 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?
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 knows, he’s only been gone the few weeks he’s spent trying to make contact with a world he didn’t know was so far dead he’d skipped right over the end of.
Everyone he knows and loves is gone, dead for hundreds of years, and no one can tell him how long ago it had happened. And despite a centuries-long fall through time that he’d barely remembered, neither can he.
Agent Louis Yero is completely out of his depth, on his own, and without anyone or anything he can rely on to help him rein in the panic brewing in his chest. How—HOW—is anyone supposed to adjust to this!? How do Guardians just wake up, pick up a gun, and roll with the punches?
He drops his hands heavily on the pop-up table and stabilizes it as it shakes under the weight, then returns 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 curls and twists, stress tickles the sinew between his ribs and radiates into his shoulders, neck, and back until it ripples under the skin like a bone-deep chill.
He’s been trying to find his bearings by the stars (as he used to, flying by night), hoping it will bring some semblance of grounding so he won’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 can keep him connected to who he is and where he came from, Polaris would have his back.
But it’s 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. Knowing that is bittersweet, but still palatable, because humanity had known the risks and still persisted in the name of curiosity.
Learning that the Nine had saved him from the Collapse and given him new purpose felt far 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.
But he’s not.
He takes in one more shaky breath, closes his eyes for a beat, then exhales heavily and hangs his head. There are bigger things at stake here on Keplar than his grief, and he’d have time to process it once they’d stabilized the Singularity. For the sake of his new present, he needs to find a way to push past the existential dread plaguing his every waking thought, or he’ll be of no use to his new friends or the Aionians.
Maybe sleep will help him get his head sorted, if his dreams don’t traumatize him first. At the very least, lying horizontal on the ground will bring him closer to actual grounding than grasping at straws trying to find a way back home.
He removes the armor plating from his upper body and habitually strips down to his skivvies, even though he probably shouldn’t. If danger finds him before he can get his clothes back on, he’ll be streaking through the Aionian campus like a pledge in hazing, but he’d rather be comfortable while he’s in crisis, if he can control anything.
He sets his glasses down at arm’s length from his sleeping bag, on top of his clothes so as to not risk scratching them, then drags one hand down his face with a tired groan.
Two is scratching at the back of his mind like an animal at a closed door, as they always do now, except they could open said door anytime they want. That, in addition to the omnipresent sensation of plucked nerves, is enough to keep him chronically tense and overwhelmed.
He lets out another groan like white noise to drown out the sensation, rolls over and closes his eyes, and tries to remember the tune of Moon River as vividly as he can.
But as he’s about to nod off, something faint grabs his attention: like water-warbled sobbing, reverberating through every cell in his body.
Lodi’s eyes tear open, his breath tense and shallow. It isn’t the future, it’s the past, he can feel it: less neon, more sanguine. Is it possible?
If he focuses hard enough he can see down the valley of time, a figure draped in luminescence, hunched over and hugging itself. His heart flutters, his voice chokes and cracks even in his mind.
¿Amá..? ¿Esá eres tú?
The figure stops crying, rubs at its eyes, and sits upright. They can hear him…? Does this mean-
Lodi swallows the lump in his throat and smiles through the pain with tears rolling down his cheeks. The words start tumbling out from behind strangled, joyous laughs before he can even think to stop himself.
¡Amá, 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 flickers to its feet and flashes across his visage, apparitious movements screeching across time like mercury in his ears, running down his jaw and neck. Unfamiliar and uncomfortable. No, not his mother… then who? And why?
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