dissonant air

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/37417735.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Empires SMP, Video Blogging RPF
Relationships: Jimmy | Solidarity/Scott | Smajor1995 | Dangthatsalongname, Jimmy |
Solidarity & Scott | Smajor1995 | Dangthatsalongname
Characters: Jimmy | Solidarity, Scott | Smajor1995 | Dangthatsalongname,
MythicalSausage (Video Blogging RPF)
Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers,
Enemies to Lovers, Suicidal Thoughts, implied past suicide attempt,
Angst, Arguing, Fights, Jimmy | Solidarity Needs a Hug, Monsters, Anti-
Hero, Magical Accidents, Sort Of, Superpowers
Language: English
Series: Part 2 of empires superpowers au
Stats: Published: 2022-02-27 Words: 1,945 Chapters: 1/1
 dissonant air
by TheYesterdayShow

Summary

Major is staring at Jimmy, the only person not running and screaming. He needs to get past
the worm, after all. He plans on waiting until it passes him on its hunt for the crowd, then
he’s going to continue on his way home. But Major is staring at him, eyes hard and frowning,
and Jimmy’s confused until he self-consciously rolls up his sleeves.

He’s wearing Major’s jacket.

Uh-oh.
~
a small intermission piece for my empires superpowers au!

Notes

cw: arguing, talk of death, references to suicidal ideation

See the end of the work for more notes

There’s a fight going on, and Jimmy is far too close to it for comfort.

Major is fighting Mythics downtown and it’s getting heated—which means one of them must
have very badly annoyed the other, because the fight just started. There’s not time for Jimmy
to get away—he was here just to take a shower at the Planet Fitness since his is broken (not
by his own fault, for once). He’s maskless and in civilian clothes too, so he has to get away
quickly before his power kicks in and somebody notices him. He would have to flee the city
if that happened, and he can’t exactly work in a normal workspace—he would end up being
hounded from every place he tried like a stray wolf.

Maybe he should become a hermit in the woods.

He’s distracted from his thoughts when what appears to be a snowy white dragon flies
overhead. Nobody quite understands the powers of Mythics—something about pulling
elements from other dimensions? It’s never exactly made sense, but luckily the apparitions—
or whatever they are—disappear after a couple of hours.

Jimmy ducks down as the dragon wheels around, aiming toward Major, who sends up a wall
of ice at its approach. It crashes into it, vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Jimmy really desperately wants to go home, but the fight is in his way. There are people
screaming and running and panicking in every direction, other people standing around the
fight with their phones out, a couple of news broadcasters in all black carrying a camera
between them as a woman in a blue dress with a microphone chases after them, the group
pushing through the crowd to get a good view. And Jimmy needs to get through all of that,
past the fight, and back home without anything bad happening.

He’s doomed before he begins, and he knows so when a rock from the battle flies towards the
crowd and down the throat of the person right beside him, who immediately starts choking.
Jimmy mutters an apology that he knows no one will hear and keeps going, the sounds of the
heimlich maneuver going on behind him.

He finally breaks through the crowd. Major’s a good ten feet in the air, standing on a pillar of
ice. Mythics is just a bit higher, supported in the branches of a tree emerging from a red
portal. At the moment, it just seems that Mythics is sending force out through his portals and
Major is blasting them away with ice, neither exactly holding the upper hand. Mythics
cackles.

“C’mon, Major! This is boring, nobody watching on TV will pay attention and see my new
outfit!”

“Oh, it’s boring, is it?” Major shoots back venomously. “I would bet real money that if they
aren’t watching, it’s because they can’t stand to hear your annoying voice.”
They’re suitably distracted, then. Perfect for Jimmy sneaking by without being noticed and
getting home and taking a nap.

The ground rumbles, asphalt shaking apart. There’s a moment of stillness, a moment where
the crowd quiets, tries to figure out what it was. Another rumble. Jimmy takes a step back as
a crack appears at his feet—all he feels is dread as he tries to discern what disaster this will
be.

Jimmy would say that he’s more shocked than anyone when a giant, tooth-covered, roaring
worm bursts out of the ground. Mostly because he has context—he’s never caused anything
like this before. He’s never caused anything supernatural before. This must’ve been some
crazy chain of events—maybe a worm far below found something radioactive and ate it?
What else could have even happened to result in this? His powers don’t just create things,
they’re some terrible extension of Murphy’s Law. He’s not a god, he can’t just make things
appear out of thin air.

The worm, dripping something gooey and filling the air with an incredible stench, stretches
up and up until it reaches the tree that Mythics is perched in, latching onto it and dragging it
down into the portal it’s emerging from. Mythics leaps down with a shriek, rolling to break
his fall and just running off. The worm swallows the tree and the portal, swings around to
roar at the crowd and completely flops out of the hole in the ground, slithering along toward
them.

And Major is—

Major is staring at Jimmy, the only person not running and screaming. He needs to get past
the worm, after all. He plans on waiting until it passes him on its hunt for the crowd, then
he’s going to continue on his way home. But Major is staring at him, eyes hard and frowning,
and Jimmy’s confused until he self-consciously rolls up his sleeves.

He’s wearing Major’s jacket.

Uh-oh.

Now Jimmy’s running, too fast for the worm, still intent on the fleeing crowd, to notice him.
Major knows what he looks like now. Major certainly just recognized him, Major will be
seeking him out because he hates him, and it’s been a good month since their weird
interaction and Major had said that he would arrest Jimmy if he saw him again and he just
saw him—

He doesn’t know how long it is before he’s hit a dead end in an alley, but he barely stops to
breathe before he’s scaling the chain-link fence at the end.

“You helped him get away?” an angry voice calls down the alley. Jimmy flinches, keeps
climbing. He has to get away, he can’t go to jail then his identity will be revealed—

“Sorry, don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shouts over his shoulder. “You’ve got the
wrong guy, not me—”
“Solidarity.”

His hand slips; he falls from the fence, landing with a grunt on his back. Major is standing
over him, arms crossed, a glare written all over his masked face. Jimmy tries for a strained
grin. Major does not seem impressed.

“Shouldn’t—shouldn’t you be fighting that worm or something?” Jimmy gasps, completely

out of breath. “‘Cuz that—that seemed like a big problem.”

“The Mad King is handling it,” Major answers, his voice tense, hands clenched in fists. “And
Mythics got away. Neither of these things would be problems if you hadn’t intervened.”

“I was just trying to get home,” Jimmy protests. “I’ve been avoiding fights for weeks!”

“Right, because you don’t want to get arrested. Real noble.”

Jimmy pulls himself up by the fence, meets Major’s angry blue eyes. “So what? Maybe I just
want to live a normal life!”

“Well then maybe you should stop hurting innocent people!”

Jimmy’s getting angry now, because yes, he does hurt innocent people, but he’s never meant
to, never wanted to hurt anyone. Major is giving a voice to the thoughts that keep him up at
night, and it hurts. And suddenly he just wants to hurt Major, wants to see him recoil, wants
to see his eyes flash with something weak and broken and hurt.

“Oh, is this still about Aeor?” he laughs bitterly, throwing his hands up. Might as well go all
the way, hit Major in his most sensitive spot. “That was two years ago—”

“Yes, it’s still about Aeor, you killed him, you’ve lost me so many fights, you killed my
mentor just to make your little villain friends proud—you ruin everything!” Major stamps his
foot childishly, spittle flying from his mouth as he backs Jimmy up against the fence. “I
should’ve left you to die on my doorstep that night, I should’ve turned you in, but no, I
thought that maybe you were turning over a new leaf, maybe you wouldn’t—”

“Yeah, maybe you should’ve let me die!” Jimmy yells back. “Then I wouldn’t have to live in
fear, then I wouldn’t have to—have to rob banks for a living, then I wouldn’t have to make
your life so much worse just by existing!”

There’s a crunching sound; Major’s hands have become coated in ice. He raises one, holding
it just centimeters away from Jimmy’s throat. “Do you want me to do it?” he breathes. “I’ll
kill you right now. I’ll feel good about it. Is that what you want, Solidarity?”

Jimmy’s not afraid. He hasn’t been afraid of much but himself in years. He laughs again.
“Good luck trying. Seriously. You think I haven’t tried?” And suddenly his darkest secrets are
spilling, poison from his lips, born of exhaustion and years of living in shadows and all those
dark nights and all he’s done and his shower not working—“You think I’ve never been so
tired of hurting people that I just wanted everything to end? You think that after that—that
meteor hit Aeor, I didn’t try to off myself right then and there? After everyone? Because I
did, Major!” He’s shaking, crying even, he can’t stop talking, and Major’s stepping back,
hand lowering. “It never works! This—this curse always stops me! And you’re right! All I do
is hurt innocent people and ruin everything, and I’m so sorry about everything, I’m so sorry
about Aeor, and the only thing to do is not exist, so do it! I dare you!”

He takes in a breath, then another (too fast he’s breathing too fast he needs to calm down), his
eyes on the ground. When he looks up again, Major’s a good five feet away, ice melted. His
eyes are wide, mouth slightly open. Good.

“Solidarity,” he says after a moment. “I—that was a lot. Erm. Are you saying that—are you
trying to say it’s all accidents?”

“I—yeah,” Jimmy manages, still gasping for breath around the thick feeling in his throat. “I
can’t control it, Major, bad things just . . . happen. I haven’t turned on my apartment light in
years because the bulb will explode or it’ll electrocute me or something. I—you think your
day is ruined by me? I haven’t been able to live a not-ruined day in years.”

They look at each other for a long moment, Jimmy’s chest heaving, Major standing frozen.
Neither speaks, and Jimmy knows he’s overstepped, but he can’t help but feel almost
viciously pleased (as well as horrified at the words that just exited his mouth, words that have
never seen the light of day but are now out there and even worse the only person to hear them
was Major). Eventually, Jimmy breaks the moment, shouldering past Major as he leaves the
alley. He runs a sleeve over his eyes, dashing away the tears there. He’s fine. He’s going to be
fine. He just needs to get back home and take a nap, and then everything will be okay.
Everything’s always better after a nap.

He takes a couple of steps out onto the road, then steps back. Just in time, as a speeding car
rounds the corner and zooms past, narrowly missing him. He sighs, then continues on his
way.

He gets home without any further mishaps, as far as he knows. He knocks on his door,
shoulders it open, and checks for broken glass before slipping his shoes off and shutting the
door behind him.

He makes a peanut butter sandwich, checking to make sure the bread hasn’t gone moldy (he
tries to eat cereal first, only for the milk to curdle as he pours it). He plugs his cracked phone
into the charger, not thinking about it because if he thinks about it he’s sure there’s a much
higher chance the socket will blow.

He eats about half the sandwich before going to bed, despite the early afternoon hour. He
deserves sleep. It’s been a long day.
End Notes

me? hinting at jimmy's backstory? never

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