[LN] Livin' on a Prayer [closed to Nico]

[matchmadeinhell]

"Tommy used to work on the docks
Union's been on strike
He's down on his luck...
It's touuuugh, so too-ouugh"

Kon was singing, his voice somewhat delirious and horribly off pitch because he generally couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

Because why not, right? It felt good to belt it out. It was just sort of tumbling out of him.

It was monstrous, what happened in the training gym. Catastrophic. That was what happened when someone like Kon didn't hold back. Even at a more limited capacity than usual, he'd still wrecked the place; clockwork robot parts were strewn everywhere, some of the obstacles had been broken, although the magical fields that supported them at the higher training levels kept him from totally trashing them all.

He'd gone for about four hours with the thing set at the highest level, level 20, working himself into exhaustion and the program had finally registered that he was getting too beat up and stopped automatically, magically sensing that the workout was moving away from rigorous and bruise-ey to genuinely harmful.

"Gina works the diner all daaay
Working for her man,
She brings home her pay
For loooove, for loooooove"

Where he lay in his little impact crater in the wrecked floor, clothes tattered, sweating buckets, bleeding slightly from his eyes (his heatvision had been left flaring about an hour too long), Kon was lost in a haze of self-hatred. The abject rage had died down, but what was left was a sheen of self-loathing that'd been left behind like greasy residue in its place.

"She says, 'We've gotta hold on to what we've got.
It doesn't make a difference if we make it or not.
We've got each other and that's a lot.
For loooove we'll give. It. A shot.'"

It was funny how each time something horribly traumatic happened in his life, he kept thinking nothing could ever feel worse. Accidentally get some poor dude killed showboating and playing up the fame thing? Couldn't get worse. Get betrayed by some sick, psycho older woman who was toying with him? Couldn't get worse. Watch his first love die? Couldn't get worse. Lose a mentor? Couldn't get worse. Get conscripted to be a medic holding people's guts together in a war, get tortured on Apokolips, watch a friend get traumatized as a part of him died, get brainwashed and attack his friends, actually freakin' die...

It always got worse. The never-ending trauma congo line went on.

"Whoooooa, we're half way there
Whooooa, livin' on a prayer
Take my hand and we'll make it - I swear
Whooooa, livin' on a prayer!"

The gym was mostly soundproofed but anyone near the lower levels might have heard the thunderous booms and zappy noises from his training/smashing session, what with some of them shaking the foundation of the place. They'd gone quiet now. He'd forgotten to lock the door, which meant if anyone walked in they'd be forced to listen to his terrible singing.

Comments

[matchmadeinhell]

For a moment, he could only stand there, staring at the tech in her hand, suddenly outside of him. All he could feel was blankness. His ability to react to things, to just...feel, had been damaged by what they'd done. He'd so often had to bury those feelings deep down to protect himself.

But his capacity for it hadn't broken and it was all there underneath. It just sometimes took some time for it bubble its way up to the surface, carving out the well-worn paths that came of being the kind of person that wore his heart on his sleeve, clearing away the muck and debris a little more each time.

When it finally registered that it was gone, that it was in her hand instead of inside himself, he let himself feel the relief of it. For so long he'd had to hide those parts of himself and while it was embarrassing to let it out, he didn't have to hide it now.

The tears started first, dripping down his face, and then he dropped down to his knees, holding a hand over his eyes, breath coming in rapid gasps. It was clearly something he just needed to do, letting the pain - and the joy - out.

And there was joy. In fact, he started laughing. It was slightly deranged, off-kilter, hysterical laughter, but also giddy, irreverent, joyous laughter. It was the kind of laughter that told you what kind of person someone was, if they were laughing that way during a moment like this.

He'd had enough goodness in him to be hurt this badly, but he had enough joy and resilience and defiance that it practically beamed out through the hurt.

"No!" he cried out to Nico in between laughter. "No, I'm not okay."

More laughter. "I can be not okay!"

He didn't have to just rise up each time after he got smacked down and pretend he was made of stone to avoid getting knocked down again.

[staff_and_wielder]

...Yeah, she really should have expected that. How could he not feel hysterical relief at having something used to control him so utterly excised?

"You're right," she said awkwardly. "Stupid question."

She set the foot of the Staff back down on the floor instead of holding it aloft one-handed. The metallic snck was probably lost under his laughter though. She tightened her grip on the implants, unsure of what to do next.

"Is there...someone you want me to call?"

[matchmadeinhell]

"Not yet. I need - my girlfriend. But - I also need - to not freak her - the hell out again."

He just needed a minute. Just a minute.

"Is it okay if I hug you?"

He...he needed to hug her. Just once.

"Just once."

[staff_and_wielder]

Was he kidding? He looked like he out-weighed any two members of Nico's social group combined in muscle mass alone. Plus, he'd apparently beat the crap out of Karolina, and could take a hit from Xavin defending her girlfriend, and he'd utterly destroyed the gym; he could probably literally snap her in half with his pinkie toe.

...Yeah, no, there was no way he was kidding. And really, there was no way that she could really turn him down without being a total jerk. It wasn't like she didn't do hugs or anything. Nico sighed.

"Only if you don't crush my ribs and internal organs. And--" she added quickly, "only if your girlfriend isn't the jealous type, because I am so not dealing with that right now."

[matchmadeinhell]

"To be honest, she might try to hug you, too, so you don't have to worry about that."

He flew over and hugged her, squeezing her in a giant bear hug that lifted her right off the ground, but to his credit, nothing snapped. Nothing even hurt. It most likely felt like just a rowdy hug from an older cousin.

He'd spent a whole life learning to be strong and learning to be gentle and that much was clear as he hugged her.

He put her down and looked her in the eye, hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

He held out his hands for the nanochain and surveillance devices.

"Can I have those? I - I need to figure out if I should torch them or throw them out of the atmosphere so they burn on re-entry. Or launch them into the sun. So many choices."

[staff_and_wielder]

"Oh great -- yeep!"

Yep, that was her feet leaving the floor. But none of her bones creaked and he didn't jam the Staff into her ribs or compress them all that badly or anything. And, well, it was kind of nice. Apparently, he'd put some study into the art of the hug.

"No problem," she said, ducking her head at his thanks. "I'm-- yeah, I'm just glad I got to do it before you snapped back or something."

She glanced down at her hand with the nanochain and implants in them and held them out for him to take back. "I'd personally suggest you take it back to the people who put it in you and make them choke on it, but I'm not a very nice person."

[matchmadeinhell]

"Nah, the guy who was behind it all is such a bad person that he deserves worse. Even the best people I know would wanna do worse than you're thinking," Kon said, finally calming down a bit as she handed it to him. "He wanted me to hurt your friend. Make her disappear. Make them all disappear. Anyone that spoke up a little too loud, anyone he could use."

He looked at the nanochain and thought, just for a moment, what it might be like to stuff the thing inside him with his teke, to find some way to make it trigger, to -

No. No, he didn't have to go to that place anymore.

He turned away from Nico, tossed the devices into the air and blasted them to nothing with his heatvision. Not even dust was left.

Then he stood there, hands clenched at his sides.

"No, I'm gonna - I'm gonna get him in front of a court. And I'm gonna tell them what he ordered done to me. And I'm gonna make it so the whole world sees him get strapped to that electric chair or strapped in to get that lethal injection, and then he gets to be small. He gets to be the one trapped. And that way everyone can see that - that there's supposed to be rules. The good kind. The kind that you don't follow just because, the kind that you follow because people are better off for it."

[staff_and_wielder]

"I can't say I object to getting people like that where it really hurts," Nico agreed. She'd have thought that someone who'd been so failed by the system wouldn't be so quick to trust it again; but hey, if that was what he wanted... "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you."

[matchmadeinhell]

"Thanks." He went on, "You know. For everything."

The gratitude was palpable. It was a force of nature more than a feeling.

"I already got your back just like I do for everyone else here but if you ever need an extra favor..."