Author's Notes:
This part is entirely from Kendra's POV. We will continue to rotate between Tom and Kendra as makes sense. Currently, there is no plan to have anything from Genie or Felix's POV, but I'm as bad at sticking to my word as I am at writing. So all bets are off.
Hope you enjoy my exploration of genies and real-life and whatever the hell this story actually is.
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Tom got to start this whole thing with an intro, so I figure it's my turn, right? Yeah, you remember his intro. It was all "la tee dah I'm a hardass and this is a dark gritty noir, let's fight in the mud, que masculine grunts". Ha! Love that man.
Genie parroted Tom's words to him, about welcome to his life. Life before wasn't...bad. Not in the way others have it. We didn't live on the streets or watch everything we love ripped away. We just couldn't catch a break. Couldn't get our feet under us. Couldn't even think about pursuing our goals and dreams. It was just existing. Now? Well, now I want those dreams in the sun. I want Tom to have every single one of his dreams, and if I get a few of mine too, all the better.
For all Tom's words, he's as much a throw-down fighter as I am a Disney princess. So now I'm looking at Jared, who just busted everything in my house, raising a crowbar at Tom. Nope. New life. Old life. I don't care. Time to fuck shit up.
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Jared was screaming. The words didn't matter; my brain dismissed them, just focusing on the absolute unhinged rage in his voice. The spit flying from his mouth was not so easily dismissed, it was fucking gross. It wasn't just flying, it was hanging in long, lumpy strands from his mouth. Odd what your brain latches on to, but I was almost as ready to beat him for drooling all over my stuff as I was him raising a crowbar at Tom. Almost. By which I mean that I definitely wanted to kill him slowly and watch him suffer in gruesome agony for threatening Tom, I only wanted to kick his ass for drooling. So maybe not almost.
I've heard people talk about things happening in slow motion. How time stops at key moments. Mothers trying to save their children, seeing everything displayed one slow frame at a time. That had never been me. I was the person who time sped up for when things got dicey, and when I came out the other side, everyone was wondering why in the hell I made such stupid decisions. Yeah, because my instincts suck and my timestop gene got swapped for light speed events and I didn't even know what I was trying to react to at the moment.
I locked eyes with Tom, he had finally noticed me, and I saw panic in his eyes. Just a moment ago, he was stepping back, trying to placate Jared. I saw Tom's face harden and his body stiffen with resolve. Damn idiot shifted from moving backwards to stepping towards Jared, he was going to try and fight. I knew it was seeing me that changed that. Not to try and impress me, heavens no. I didn't get turned on watching "my man" fight or defend my honor, and Tom knew that. He was going to fight to make sure that I didn't get hurt.
I started to scream, and then something happened. My gene was fixed. Time stopped. Except did it?
I was waiting for
Sweet Dreams
to start playing and give me my X-Men moment. Instead, I watched. It wasn't out of body because I was still in my body, I just watched from a third-person perspective as Jared, Tom, and a me that wasn't me moved.
I saw Tom stepping forward, fists coming up slowly, but still far enough that he couldn't reach Jared. Jared raising the crowbar. I heard myself scream. Saw myself lunge forward, grabbing at Jared's arm and the crowbar, trying to wrench it away. It was real. Everything was solid. Yet I knew it wasn't. Because real life doesn't move at half-speed and have dramatic slowdowns.
Yeah, dramatic slowdowns. Like now, as Jared reacted to my attack. As I tried to pull the crowbar away, he used my force against me and slammed it into my stomach. That was super slow-motion move one. I saw myself let go and start to clutch at my stomach. Jared drew back the crowbar, fully focused on me now. He swung it in a vicious arc with all his might and connected squarely with my temple. I saw the blood spurt. Saw my body go limp at the same time it went flying from the force of the blow. And there's super slow-motion moment two.
Oh fuck.
Oh fucking fuckidy fuck shit balls fuck.
I felt a giant red X flash behind my eyes.
With the flash, I felt movement. Everything was back.
I saw Tom stepping forward, fists coming up slowly, but still far enough that he couldn't reach Jared. Jared raising the crowbar. I heard myself scream. I ran and jumped on Jared's...wait. I stopped. What was going on? Did I just watch myself die? What the...
Red flash.
Holy fucking.
I looked at my hands. Jared was raising the crowbar.
OH MY GOD!
I have no idea what is happening. But...I shrugged, ok, use what you get Kendra.
So I watched. I watched myself scream at Jared to stop. At Tom to back off. I watched as I tried to prevent Jared from hurting Tom. I wasn't successful. Well, I wasn't successful in trying to stop Tom getting hurt, I was successful in watching a parade of violent scene after violent scene. I saw myself and or Tom injured multiple times. Which, fuck I'm going to need therapy after this, but it wasn't surprising. Not like I knew anything about fighting, same with Tom.
If my life depended on it, I couldn't have told you exactly how many times I watched different variations of the same event. I mean, I still had no idea what was going on; counting was not something that was really high on my list of things to do. In fact, it was right there next to wondering if my nails were clean, and is morality culturally defined or mandated by a higher power. Yeah, right fucking no where on the list because in that moment or moments or whatever was happening all that mattered was Tom.
So let's just say it was twenty different variations. Sure, I watched Jared win 19 different ways until I finally watched myself do something that didn't end up with Tom's body or my blood decorating the ground. Great, so now how do I stop whatever is going on?
Time snapped back.
I saw Tom stepping forward, but this time I didn't see myself; I just saw Jared in front of me. Dumbass with his crowbar raising in normal speed. Fuck. I really hope this works.
I screamed. Then I launched myself forward, big hero moment incoming.