Every time I tell myself I will do an update more than once every few months, it somehow invokes some variation of Murphy’s Law. Oof.
So there’s been more health nonsense that’s transpired, and it kicked me harder than I anticipated it would. It isn’t COVID-19 related, I’m safe from that for the time being and am actually going to set an appointment to be tested for antibodies here in the next week or so after a prolonged illness in December into mid-January that mimicked the symptoms almost exactly. I have a follow up appointment in June to make sure things are doing what they’re supposed to and there’s no extra risk. Worst case scenario, some fairly major surgery to get the problem organ)s yanked out and dealt with.
As a result, writing has been… next to non-existent and I hate that. Writing is my ‘safe space’ and comfort. It’s where I go to get away from things going on as well as how I process and download. I have fanfiction chapters to write and by God I want to finish a fic for once. Like any unused muscle, I just need to get back into the swing of things.
My D&D campaign has been going rather well, thankfully, and we’re closing in on our one year anniversary. Some people who may read this are in my campaign. If so? You’re in for a surprise. 🙂
But, thanks to quarantine, I’ve had some time to rest and get some of the health nonsense back under control. I’m feeling more like myself instead of some existential dread and tea filled mess. I rediscovered an old thing I’d written and, instead of hating and deleting it, I gave it a bit of polish so I could post it here + my writing tumblr.
This short story is called “Store Bought Heroes”. Please enjoy!
Stay well and here’s hoping I don’t take another few months between updates again!
– K.A. Crittenden
Store Bought Heroes
If natural heroes didn’t work, store bought was fine too.
At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. It becomes a mantra as you peruse the discount racks at your favorite clothing store that definitely does not start with ‘K’. Setting aside the whole ‘escaped from the lab you were created in’ thing, you haven’t noticed any serious differences between natural heroes and the lab created ones (‘store bought’, as they say) except for the whole income disparity thing.
Oh, and the sponsors.
Everyone knows natural heroes shopped at Gucci and their sidekicks at Macy’s, bare minimum, they simply must be outfitted with the best at all times if they are to be known in the world. You can hear the professor from the labs’ rant clear as day even fifteen years later. While you definitely like a select group of brand name items? You have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and a gigantic fucking load of student loans on your back.
No rich parents, tragic enough backstory, or sponsors for you: a ‘store bought’.
With a sigh, you eye a sequined leotard and run your hand up and down the rough fabric. There is something satisfying about the way the colors shift from a too shiny silver to a lurid cherry red. You like shiny. You like shiny an awful lot, as a matter of fact, and that’s how you got yourself into this entire mess in the first place.
“How was I supposed to know the stupid anklet was his downfall?” You grumble as you tear yourself away from the sequined nightmare. Restraint isn’t something that comes easily but you’ve had years to practice. A half-hearted paw through the racks of clothing marked at sixty-percent off or more reveals a pair of dark red pleather pants that might just make a good costume base.
“It’s not like I walk around with my weakness in plain sight.”
It wasn’t even a decent anklet either; not even sterling silver or real diamonds or brand name. It was a cheap nickel plated piece of flash and the rash it gave you still itched even a week later. Some sort of curse for the unwary, or so the hero had claimed when you’d given it back to him a day later.
You neglected to inform him of your nickel allergy during the confrontation.
Well, maybe not wisely. You might have been able to get some sort of financial compensation outta him for the damage done to your skin. The rash and blisters did look really awful when he’d caught up with you and he looked horrified when he saw the results.
Heroes had that whole ‘do innocents no harm’ thing, after all.
You’d rather die than admit to anything so common as a nickel allergy, so you accused him of having a curse put on it. He ate up the accusation and used it to his advantage, as they all do. In exchange for falling for the good old fashioned sob story that was your life– lightly embellished, of course–you had to become his sidekick as penance for your (petty) crimes. Also to completely remove the effects of this nonexistent curse.
After all, you were in ‘dire need’ of a good role model, yadda yadda yadda. You’d stopped listening to his moral prattling about the same time he tried to invoke the ‘daddy issues’ card. The last time someone had pulled that shit on you, they woke up woozy, confused, and completely unaware of the clown makeup as they walked out (pantsless) into the busiest part of the city. Waterproof makeup at that.
Just as a little extra “fuck you” to prove a point; you don’t like doing more than petty retaliation if you can help it.
You can be quite nasty, after all.
In the end, Hero McDadguy puffed up in his usual self-importance and gave you an entire fifty bucks towards a ‘basic’ costume and sent you on your way with a time limit. He was currently busy getting some frothy concoction at that one coffee shop just around the block. Far enough away that it’s a test of trust and boundaries but close enough he can close the gap and probably haul your ass in if he needs to.
The added caveat that you weren’t to embarrass him with your costume choice makes you want to do it even more. The only thing holding you back is the fact that you do have to wear the costume. In public.
Petty and spite take a backseat to pride and self-preservation.
Not like he was one to talk. He had that whole ‘90s cyberpunk meets Dad-on-Tropical-Vacation’ theme going on. Fanny pack, socks with sandals… the works. You’d rather go to jail than try to figure out how to replicate, keep in theme with, or otherwise find something to compliment that mess.
You mutter that very thing under your breath while you snag a few promising pieces– and the leotard because fuck self-control you deserve something nice– off the rack and head for the dressing room to start trying things on. Twenty minutes of posing in the mirror in varying outfit combinations later and you ignore the request for ‘photo evidence’ of you behaving and call your oldest child instead.
“Hey, what’s the name of that one bird that steals shit?” You ask as you shimmy into a pair of leather shorts with sequins on the ass. You’re definitely about ten pounds shy of ‘Juicy’, as the flashy hot pink word on your butt says, but this could very well be the start of something amazing.
“Maybe you wanna be more specific unless you want me to read descriptions for the next ten years?”
Nat is much like you; level-headed, brilliant in school but woefully under challenged, and has the same smart-mouth that had gotten you slapped through a wall once or fifteen times in your early life. You would never lay a hand on your kids regardless of how mouthy they get with you and so have to find other methods of curbing their attitudes when they get too out of line.
There’s a lot of yelling and someone sounds like they’re on the verge of tears in the background. A muffled Nat’s voice tells them to ‘calm the hell down, it’s fine’ before they come back on the line.
“What’s all that about?” You ask as you sift through the tops for something that would go with it. This opportunity might be a wash with how little luck you’re having. Might be time for Plan B- especially if there’s a problem with the kids. Your hand lands on a peacock blue-and-green number that doesn’t look bad but isn’t quite what you’re looking for. Ugh.
It’d clash with that highlighter orange from Mr. I Sweat Burberry Cologne.
Your middle child’s voice is loud and clear on the line now. “If you buy those shorts I am putting myself into the Child Relocation Program and you’ll never see me again.”
You consider it for a moment. Mortal embarrassment of your thirteen year old or being a slightly less fashion disaster than you feel. Tough decision, really. You feel yourself smile after letting Morgan sweat it out just long enough.
“Clean the kitchen and I’ll consider it.”
The quintessential teenage shriek of fury and angst comes loud and clear through the phone. “I knew you were going to say that! You’re the worst!”
Some parents prayed against having a child born with precognitive powers. While annoying to deal with, it’s also a lot of fun to use against them. It makes parenting interesting and more of a game to see just which future the kiddo wants to avoid- or get away with. “
You feel your smile widen at the range of futures said kiddo has likely foreseen. You’ll have so much fun with this particular set of visions and using it like baby photos against them. “So did you clean the kitchen?”
“Duh!” A most indignant tone.
You laugh. You can’t help it. “Put Nat back on the phone.”
“Promise me you’re not buying those first.” Stubborn and firm. A bit of desperation there too. Not quite ready to beg but not all that far off either.
The way they say ‘those’ makes you laugh all over again. “I’m not buyin’ ‘em, don’t worry.”
“And that weird guy isn’t buying them either?”
Damn it. “Nope. He won’t buy them either.” So much for that idea. Maybe you could-
“No stealing them either!”
Double damn it. “Fine, fine; the shorts stay in the store.”
“Thank you.”
The phone goes back to your oldest. “So, about that bird?”
“Jackdaw, Magpie, Corvids.” You hear scratching of pencil on paper. Homework? At, you check your phone, two-seventeen in the afternoon on a Saturday? Your eyes narrow suspiciously.
Who is it you’re talking to and what have they done with your child?
“Corvids? Like crows and shit?”
“Yup. And no, I’m not a body snatcher.”
A grin. “Sounds like something a body snatcher would say.”
Jackdaw didn’t have that something you were looking for. Didn’t roll off the tongue the way it needed to in your head when you imagined some Big Bad Villain spotting you mid-villainous speech. Corvid didn’t either. Crow wasn’t hitting any notes either.
Raven was absolutely taken by no less than eighty-three variations in your city alone.
Rook had some fun possibilities if you had actually bothered playing and learning chess. (You can’t; you can’t sit still or pay enough attention for that shit and you own that.)
Your eyes fall on the silver-and-red sequined leotard again.
You hear your prophecy cursed child screech in despair in the background and the younger two who have gathered to watch the show tell them to shut up.
Nat, ever patient and ever your child, smiles on the other end of the phone. “I think that’s the one, Magpie.”
Magpie… yeah, you like the sound of that one. Magpie it is. “It’ll make a good base; is Morgan–”
“McFreakin’ Losing It? Yep.” You can hear the sounds of pencil scratching against paper again. Curiosity overrules any possible ‘do not need to know’ that you and Nat sometimes stumble into.
“Okay, I’ll bite; what are you doing?”
“Fulfilling the prophecy as foretold by the ancients long ago.” if Nat’s voice were any drier, they’d be dust in a forgotten tomb. “I’m designing the rest of your costume so you’re not a total train wreck and Morgan can die quietly.”
“You’re my favorite.” You say as you gleefully stuff the leotard– you’ve tried it on twice and know it fits like a dream– back on its hanger and wiggle out of the shorts. A wiggle that almost ends badly for you, at that, and you can hear the brats laughing at you in the background as Morgan probably mimics how you just about bit it in the dressing room.
“Remember that when I inevitably try your patience in all of forty-five seconds.” Nat hangs up on you and you feel nothing but pride in the way these sassy children have grown up under your less than skilled thumb. You’ve not been the best parent or even the best role model. It’s funny what unresolved childhood issues and bad habits will do, but damn it you have given it everything you have up to and including your favorite line of ‘do as I say not as I do’.
That is your right as a parent, goddamn it, to use that line and they can pry that right from your cold dead fingers.
They’re all good kids. They’re going to end up heroes in their own right with or without superpowers. That, above all else, is all you want for them so that they’re twice as capable as you’ve ever been in your life. Lab created and thus ‘store bought’ or natural born; it doesn’t matter and it never mattered to begin with.
Heroes are heroes in the end and the world could always use another helping hand as it spins through another chaotic cycle.
Your phone beeps and you glance at the text message.
Black thigh high socks. Get two pair. Amazon sucks for deals rn.\
U r not my fave 😡
You scowl and wish the walls would burn as you unfold the crumpled bills at the register. You don’t need Morgan’s gift of prophecy to know what that text message says and yet, like a fool, you look down at it anyway.
There’s a photo of all five of your grinning children holding up score cards. All of them holding 10s.
All of them dressed in Hawaiian shirts.
You have never felt so betrayed in your whole life.
K.A. Crittenden | Fiction Author 