PLEASE

*Regulus finds out Voldemort was Tom Riddle*

Regulus: you’re NOT a pureblood?

Voldemort: well, no, but i am slytherin’s descendant. my father was a muggle—

Regulus: YOUR FATHER WAS A MUGGLE??

Regulus: AND YOUR MOTHER COULDN’T DO MAGIC??

Regulus: YOU’RE A QUARTER BLOOD

Voldemort: That’s not a thing

Regulus: Your nose is not a thing

Voldemort: Avada Kedavra

ive been thinking about this a lot

muscle - @wolfstarmicrofic - word count: 335

“Shit,” Sirius mumbled, circling his arm as he walked into the dorm room, groaning a bit as pain shot across his shoulder blade and down his back. 

“Alright?” James asked from his desk, staring down at a letter with wide eyes. For a moment, Sirius got distracted, because he swore he recognized the handwriting from somewhere, but as he leaned forward to get a closer look, he was overwhelmed by a sharp jab again.

“I think I pulled a muscle or something,” he murmured, stretching this way and that to try to ease the pain. “Maybe at practice? Dunno, it hurts..”

Remus, who was reading a book on his bed, stood up. “Here, let me…”

Sirius couldn’t think of what to say. Before he could protest, the taller boy was behind him, hands curled lightly over his shoulders, pressing a thumb into just the right spot, making him melt as the pain slowly disappeared. But he couldn’t focus on the feeling, because he was too busy thinking about who was doing this. The fact that it was Remus’s hands kneading over his skin, causing warmth to burst from his muscles, lightly grazing his collarbone, eliciting sparks. 

He felt a blush creep up his face, and before he knew it, his eyes rolled shut, his body relaxing far too much into the other boy’s hold. But neither of them moved.

“Is-is this helping?” Remus murmured from behind him, voice husky and breath warm on his neck.

“Hmm,” Sirius hummed, not trusting himself to speak. He was too nervous to break the spell.

“Yeah. Seems very helpful.”

James’s comment caused both of them to jump apart, and Sirius turned to see Remus as red as he knew he was. 

“Me next, Moony?” James drawled, smirking as he kicked his legs up on his desk. “M’sure you give all your friends massages. Right?”

Both Sirius and Remus just looked away, scratching at their heads and mumbling excuses about needing to run errands on opposite sides of the castle.

any computer people wanna explain how the hell this works

it wont let me do shit bc i apparently have 81 gigs of apps clogging my c drive, but my largest app is 0.4gb?????? its not system applications either because system is its own segment of storage. wadda hell are you talking about

Dr Stone fic that is holding my brain hostage

I'm going to put this man into situations.

Time travel was essentially magic and therefore a completely unacceptable explanation. Unfortunately, it was the only explanation he had. Especially since Asagiri Gen seemed to have replaced his younger self. One moment he'd been laying on a concrete floor after being interrogated by a crazy American that ticked just about every box on the list of negative stereotypes, and the next he was fighting to escape fine Egyptian cotton sheets in the nine square meter high rise apartment where he lived alone.

It had been two weeks since he had been captured, and Stanley's reports weren't making Dr. X happy. The painted-on petrification scar had washed off when the unreasonable scientist became fed up with using the makeshift lie detector and let one of his buff lackeys convince him to switch to dunking Gen's head into a bucket to make him talk instead. They checked him all over after that, found only a body showing every sign of the years of labor and crafts he'd done, and freaked out. Gen named the village that was the capital of the Kingdom of Science accurately, honestly explaining to them that Ishigami village was named after one of the international space station astronauts who weren't petrified, but he wasn't believed. Dr. Xeno instead made a cascade of increasingly paranoid and incorrect assumptions about how Gen's kingdom was clearly founded by Ishigami Senku a generation ago and that Gen and the rest of the Perseus crew had been specifically selected and trained to use against Dr. X to take him down.

It occurred to him that he had probably been tortured to death, though that didn't explain why he was alive in the year 2020. Petrification and revival may have fixed him right up, but in that case he'd be waking up after Senku recovered and preserved his fresh-enough corpse, then later found a new medusa to petrify and revive him. He should be with the Perseus crew celebrating his undeath and not in his old apartment freaking out. It could also have just been a dream - a nightmare - but in that case he was staring down the barrel of a serious mental health condition. No sane person would dream up years of struggle to rebuild society, and all the people! All the details! Dreams just weren't like that, he knew far too much about psychology to think it was a particularly vivid dream.

His memory for dates was excellent so long as those dates were important, but after waking up in May of 2020 he realized he'd forgotten most of the lead-up to the end of the world. It had all been so ordinary for him at the time. Routine. He hadn't known anything strange was going on at all until he was petrified mid-performance.

He was able to pick up his life without too much trouble, but little conveniences he used to take for granted kept startling him at every turn. His electric toothbrush felt weird after years of chewing a bit of bamboo into a brush to clean his teeth. His clothes felt strange, especially the polyester costumes. He was more likely to try to make or go walk to get something he wanted than to order it delivered, he simply didn't think of it as the first option anymore and on top of that being a famous magician walking to get some ramen was very different from being one of the five generals of the Kingdom of Science walking through the village. He'd just about forgotten how to use the kitchenette, or more accurately had never really learned to cook more than a boiled egg from scratch until he only had campfires and wood fired stoves to work with.

He knew he wasn't doing things exactly how he had in what he half-hoped was an extended period of altered consciousness brought on by some crazy fan attempting to drug him. His manager was worried about how easily spooked he'd been that first week, and made some changes to Gen's schedule to give Gen full day off thinking he was merely in need of some rest. Gen went to the spa his manager booked and let himself be pampered in the morning, then loaded up a bunch of podcasts and spent the day filling his brain with all sorts of things he'd wished he knew a little more about at some point in the stone world. It was beyond strange how soft his hands were.

He'd found himself going on jogs because he felt too sedentary with all the modern comforts. His manager calling a car to take him everywhere he needed to go no matter how short the distance made him uncomfortable because he wasn't used to city traffic anymore. Everything was loud and bright. He found himself visiting a temple just to sit quietly in the garden and think, and couldn't resist fancy coffee or chocolate treats after so long without what he now recognized as exotic imported luxuries. At least the food was incredible.

In the beginning, his manager thought he was working out to keep his figure in line and look more toned on stage, so he warned Gen not to lose too much weight since Gen was already slight and nagged him about proper diet more than usual. After it became too obvious that Gen was anxious about something, and Gen had gently persuaded those who were most worried to blame a creepy fan that got under Gen's skin, his manager set up a weekly self defense class and canceled some of the morning interviews and rehearsals so Gen could work his anxiety out by literally working out. Gen was able to keep his cool through the show where he met Tsukasa and performed flawlessly both on television and off stage, convincing everyone that he was doing better.

In truth, he was less stressed because the schedule changes opened up the opportunity to act without anyone he worked with noticing he was suddenly stalking a boy four years his junior. He'd used every trick in his arsenal to get the information he needed to find Ishigami Senku without alerting anyone to his sudden interest in a nerdy schoolboy. The pictures he found online were mostly of an adorable chibi version of Senku that Gen had never really thought about, but must have existed at some point in the past. Senku hadn't sprung into being fully grown with encyclopedic knowledge of science like a god born out of stone, even if that was the literal meaning of his family name. It was also good that he could visit a jeweler without someone hovering over his shoulder. He'd have a hard time explaining the purchase if nothing happened, but better to cross that bridge when he came to it.

Then the swallows fell out of the sky, and he wrote a letter.

Well, to be perfectly honest, which he tried to be to himself even if his livelihood was based on illusion and misdirection, his first reaction to the swallows being petrified was to vomit and have a complete meltdown where he lay shivering and sweating on the bathroom floor of his small, posh, high-security apartment for an hour. That was good in the sense that he was found by his evening meal delivery and everyone thought he was severely ill and feverish rather than having a panic attack. An illness creeping up on him fit into the odd cravings and behavior he'd had since waking up in a 19-year-old body that had never seen a full day of hard manual labor, especially since Gen had "clearly been threatened by someone badly enough to be overstressed by it. I wish you would have given me the letter or email or whatever it was so we could chase them down; even the most angry fans tend to calm down if the police pay them a visit. We can dye your hair back to plain black if you want to be less noticeable, but we've put a lot of marketing money planning to unveil the two-toned look since you decided to accept the poliosis. This building has good security, so just relax and get over whatever cold you've caught quickly."

He was as ready as he could be when the birds fell out of the sky. Once he'd cleaned up the mess he made of himself while freaking out and convinced a doctor he was only mildly ill, he wrote a very odd letter. Thanks to his sick day, he could hand-deliver it to the office of Senku's school the very moment there was enough information available online to make the lies in it remotely plausible. Knowing the future certainly helped with crafting an iron-clad story.

--

To Ishigami Senku;

This is about the swallows turning to stone. For the love of all you find sacred, destroy this letter once you read it!

I am taking a huge risk sending this to a fifteen- year- old. I hope your reputation is accurate and you are intelligent enough to understand the stakes involved. I can't reach anyone else quickly. My specialty is the soft science of human behavior, psychology in all it's forms but also behavior analysis, and I freely admit I make most of my money off the shallowest of applications of that soft science. I finished school early because I had a chance to get a job that would eventually make me enough money that I would become free to do whatever I wanted with my talents. A lofty dream many who go into the entertainment industry share.

I'm certain someone like you has looked down to see who sent this letter already. You've either recognized me from my books and performances or not. If you have, you probably think what I do is stupid. However, my profession and greed are only important because of the position they put me in when I put on private performances for people with more power and money than good sense.

I apologize if this alarms you, but if you have any way of contacting your father you need to mention nital to him urgently and as swiftly as possible. Even if it is wildly out of context. Perhaps especially in that case, so it is more memorable.

Due to my profession and stage personality I am occasionally disregarded while people have important phone conversations they really ought not to allow to be overheard. The swallows? Military-minded people are considering it a terrorist attack, and there is a whole range of theories both online and among those people who really shouldn't be letting classified conversations get overheard. It covered the entire world. All of it! Every single patch of sky, tree branch, and even sheltered nests were unsafe. Every swallow in the world turned to stone, their interior structures preserved as can be seen with advanced imaging. People are talking about nitric acid and nital, but those experiments haven't begun yet. They want to set up some bunker somewhere, and there is the usual government bureaucracy requiring people to stack paperwork to the sky and stand on ceremony before anyone can start doing things. The people who have done the preliminary work are all individual curious people like yourself, and their work is being interrupted by being scooped up and shipped off to wherever their country's military thinks is safe. There may even be someone on the way to talk to you, which is why this letter cannot be found on your person!!

I may be panicking over nothing, I sincerely hope I am, but if everyone on Earth is in range of whatever it was that petrified all these swallows, and there is even a hint of a possibility that this could be tuned to affect humans, then there is only one group of people safe from a misfire and they need to know about possible reactions with nital and nirtic acid. The ones on the ISS orbiting high over our beloved blue marble. A message to them would be the ideal failsafe in case of the worst.

I feel the need to put great emphasis on this point: Everyone involved in national security and even international collaborations against terrorism thinks whatever did this was a test of something that could affect humans. No, I'm not writing down how exactly I know that, I don't need our military asking me rude questions. I'm just saying nobody is suggesting this was a mistake or natural phenomenon. While it might not be fired off with the intent of destroying humanity I have met some really, really intense eco-minded people who think all meat and fur is murder and that humanity is vastly overpopulated. I know exactly the kind of mindset that might drive someone to make something like this for destructive purposes, though of course it could also be a malfunction or mistake made while trying to do something altruistic. Humans are nothing if we aren't fallible, after all, and the same science that created the nuclear bomb can generate the power running an intensive care unit.

Even if you don't trust me on that: Given the probabilities, can anyone assume that whoever has this thing, whatever it is, is completely sane? That they have made no grand error or that nobody will spill cola on the controls?

In hopes this reaches you in enough time to matter,

Asagiri Gen

--

He didn't remember how long there was between the swallows being petrified and when humans were. He had been far too busy to even hear about them the first time around. Gen made it to the school and convinced the school secretary to deliver the letter to Senku before 10am and the green light came for them all the very same afternoon, which was disappointing. At most Senku would have had a few hours, and there was no guarantee the letter was passed on immediately. He was in his apartment when he was petrified this time, and he knew his face had frozen in a look of pure terror despite his best efforts. He hadn't noticed the light soon enough to suppress that instinctive reaction before he froze, and was stuck in an awkward pose as he re-dressed after doing some yoga.

After that, his life was a rerun for a long time. A long, boring time encased in stone. There was a lot to think about. A lot to plan and pick apart. It kept his mind active to re-run through all the details of his first life, looking at the cascade fo cause and effect and the webs of interpersonal connections he'd danced through. He also considered the difference between the showman's 'tada' stance he'd been frozen in before and the rather... suggestive pose he'd been in when he was petrified this time. When Tsukasa revived him, the first words out of Gen's mouth were a lie he'd crafted over centuries of planning.

"I said don't touch me!" Gen screamed as soon as he had the ability, and sucked in air like he'd been running for his life as he folded up to hide his most delicate areas. He'd never been terribly comfortable with nakedness, so it didn't even take much acting. Just a conscious decision to not hide that he was uncomfortable without clothes on. The petrification was explained, and Gen was sure to act suitably relieved and grateful.

"Was there an overweight older man near me?" Gen asked with nonchalance so false Tsukasa was sure to clock it.

"No, most of the people here are younger and in good shape. Was he important to you?" Tsukasa asked, the danger in his tone perfectly obvious to Gen.

"No, no, my manager had scheduled a... a private performance, is all, and... it doesn't really matter now, does it? One very long nightmare I'm glad to have awoken from," the implications clearly came through without him needing to say anything in particular more than that, and Gen's characteristic shallow showmanship as he helped Yuzuriha make his new clothes ensured that he wasn't interrogated about it afterward. The lie also biased everyone who heard it to believe that Gen would approve of Tsukasa's plan to smash all the older people.

It hurt his pride a little to imply he'd been petrified while he was being taken advantage of in such a way, but... well, it wasn't like it hadn't been tried, even if it had always been caught and stopped. He'd started performing quite young, and there were plenty enough creeps in the world. His manager had been better than that, but only just. He only kept Gen safe because Gen was a commodity that made him money and damaged goods didn't sell well. Still, Gen felt a bit bad when Tsukasa rewarded the way Gen had effortlessly started settling disputes and cutting down the amount of infighting among the first wave of revived athletes by bringing him to where the smashed statues were dumped to witness a very special smashing. Gen watched as his manager, who Tsukasa had somehow found, was broken into bits. He was glad it was easy to hide one strong emotional reaction with another more acceptable one.

"Thank you so much, Tsukasa," Gen said with relief and gratitude dripping from every syllable, because that was what he was expected to say. Ukou seemed to know what they had gone to do when Gen came back, and said a bunch of quiet things trying to comfort them both without letting on that he was a pacifist. His words amounted to how they would make their world a safer and better place where such things were unnecessary. Gen ended the conversation by physically turning Ukou and pointing out a particularly muscle-covered brute pressuring one of the revived ladies. Thankfully, she was strong enough to push him away, but the pea-brain didn't take the extremely unsubtle hint. Senku may believe every death was a tragedy, even enemy soldiers during a war, and Ukou was the same, but Gen felt no grief when that particular problem died in the war between the Kingdoms of Might and Science.

"Ukyou, you are a good man with strong morals, and I'm a petty creature just trying to survive, so neither of us believe a word of what you just said, do we?" It was a risk, but well calculated. Ukou didn't have anything he could say to that, and then Gen went to buzz like an annoying fly and distract the oaf so the woman could finish with the laundry she was doing and be free to leave.

Only a few hours later, ostensibly to give him time to process his own emotions after the death of his 'tormentor,' Gen was sent to see if Senku was really dead just as in the first go-around. He worked very hard to seem normal about it. Not too eager, not too resistant. He chose to do things much the same way as before. Both because it had worked and since he couldn't think of anything better. The ramen was worth the cost he knew he'd have to pay, anyway, since helping to make the iron would give him an in for more interaction and therefore more trust with both the village people and Senku. He mentioned wanting a cola to go with it, and was immediately held at spear-point. Nothing seemed out of place, Kinro even had his golden spear.

"Do you know this man?" Kohaku asked Senku.

"We never met for even a nanosecond, but I recognize him all the same. This is Asagiri Gen, a magician who wrote trashy psychology books," Senku identified him.

"Oh, you've read my writing? I'm so happy, though calling it trashy hurts. Surely you understand that not all of what I wrote is worth talking about with everyone. Some of it was only meant for a very particular audience, after all. Unlike this ramen, not all the things I made were intended to please the masses," he answered, and the brief moment of shock on Senku's face melting into understanding was so worth it.

"Not one millimeter of what this magician wrote was worth talking about, that's for certain," Senku said dismissively, but there was something playful in his tone already. Oh, Gen missed their banter so much!

"Oh, so harsh! Call me a mentalist, please. I'll gladly apologize for taking the ramen, so would you lower your weapons? I'm so scared I'm trembling," he said, babbling about the delicious scent and how he couldn't resist and how difficult and lonely life had been since he woke up. Kohaku, just as before, knew he was full of shit. That was fine, the only way to gain real trust was over time. Depending on how Senku saw things, Gen had started building trust with him three- thousand- seven- hundred years ago. Talk about playing the long game!

"Sure, whatever, I'll take your word for it," Senku's dismissive words cut off Gen's rambling, "but there is no such thing as a free lunch."

With that he was back. Back where things felt normal again, despite the world having ended. This was the sort of thought that should send any sane person directly to therapy, but sadly there weren't any qualified people available to help with Gen's obvious brush with insanity. It was nice seeing everyone again, even though they didn't know him. Thankfully he was skilled at keeping track of what information he'd given out and who he'd gotten it from. 

Senku asked how Taiju and Yuzuriha were doing while Gen was pumping the furnace, and Gen thought he'd lasted a bit longer than he had the first time before his exhaustion became obvious. Not that a month of slightly increased exercise did much, but more that he was better at pacing himself and paying attention to his breath and body after so many grueling days of hard work. As before, Gen pointed out the attempted manipulation before reassuring Senku that his friends were fine.

"The tides have certainly turned now that I've seen this," Gen said later, after Senku poured out the iron bar. Then, he made the first major change. "I'm a shallow man, and I like to be on the winning side of any game. You have the sweet reward of ramen and science, but the work is grueling. Under Tsukasa the food is simple and work is easy, but I can relax with a harem after reviving some adoring fans. Additionally, you don't trust me, but Tsukasa is completely certain of my loyalty because he killed my manager for me."

"He murdered someone at your request?" Chrome asked, slack jawed. Kohaku raised her spear.

"No. He just... assumedyay that I would want that manager punished," Gen said delicately.

"What's a manager?" Suika asked, curious as always. "Was it a bad person?" Gen gave her a genuine, warm smile. Teaching Suika and the other children basic things like Morse Code while they were working as part of the craft team had been a genuine pleasure, even if he often complained that he wasn't a babysitter when they left him alone with the kids.

"A manager is someone who tells people what to do to complete a job. They tend to have multiple people they manage. You could say Senku was managing us during this project by telling each of us what sort of things we need to work on, but of course he is also educating you by explaining the why and how of it all so he is giving you something in exchange for your work. A manager usually just tells you to get it done, and they keep telling you what needs done for months or years to optimize how much you can do. Where you should go today, what is the highest priority, what I am allowed to eat, how to maintain my adorable body, who to talk to or not to talk to..." Gen trailed off, changing the pronouns as he listed things off and noting the reaction was exactly what he needed. Suika's curious smile had flipped to a frown despite her innocence, and even Kohaku looked a little sympathetic.

"Did you want it done?" Senku asked bluntly, cutting straight through Gen's misdirection.

"Not exactly," Gen said shortly.

"That's not an answer," Kohaku pressed, predictably.

"There are some oh so cute ittlelay earsyay here," Gen said, bringing his sleeves up to cover his mouth and turning away from the little girl toward Kohaku to emphasize that he wouldn't speak in front of Suika. "I met Tsukasa on a television special - that is, while I was doing my day job - back before it all. He knew the man's face and mine very well from that encounter, and my manager was an older man. That seems enough for Tsukasa, really, he doesn't want to revive any elders. He truly believes he is making the world better by killing the older, corrupt, generation that he blames for all the old world's problems." Gen was so focused on Kohaku, Ginro, and Kinro he missed Senku moving closer. He nearly jumped when he turned to see the boy was so much closer. He was so... small. It was weird to think that Senku had grown significantly during their acquaintance, but then he'd met Senku at age sixteen and it had been over three years, hadn't it? He'd gotten a fair portion of muscles from all the work, and a noticeable amount of centimeters in height, and filled out all around into a handsome man by the time they started sailing to America. The four-year age gap they started with was down to three thanks to Senku's earlier revival and even just the year he'd spent in the stone world had aged him quite a bit from the baby-faced photos of the obviously rich, spoiled science club president Gen had found online all that long time ago.

At the moment he looked mostly like an underfed boy, because that was exactly what he was, and Gen needed to remember that.

"Suika, can you bring some more water to drink? Can't have everyone sweating away to dehydration or they won't be able to work," the scientist said.

"Sure I can!" the excitable child said before rushing off. Senku stepped up close to Gen, deep into his personal space in a way that was incredibly uncharacteristic. Senku wasn't exactly touch-adverse, but he wasn't a tactile person and usually kept himself outside of arm's reach. What was this? Why the change? Gen found himself leaning away to give Senku space.

"What wouldn't you say in front of her?" Senku demanded, fire in his eyes. Senku was the pragmatist he claimed to be, but no matter what front he put on he was also deeply kind and had a moral compass as reliable as his sense of time. The reaction to Gen's suggestion was therefore also reliable enough to set his watch by it - if he still had a watch, that is.

"Private performances aren't always safe to describe around children," Gen said plainly, a tremble in his voice he couldn't quite iron out. It really was a distressing topic of conversation. He covered it the only way he could, by pouting and exaggerating his tone as he continued his explanation and obscuring his meaning with a lot of unnecessary things. "Clients don't always treat the merchandise gently. It's so rude! I'm delicate, you know, and the things I used to perform my illusions have to be perfectly maintained. Any little scratch or crack could ruin the entire performance. Glass and mirrors and precision designed mechanisms that ensure the audience never catches on to how I do any of my tricks. Why, I don't even know how long I'll take to recover from all the work you've made me do pumping that furnace! Such a slave driver, I'll develop calluses."

Senku's expression was wide-eyed, and the silent moment crystallized as fragile as a glass figurine. Gen couldn't help it, he trusted the man this boy would become with his life too many times to hold in the rest. He needed to smash this fragile vulnerability into a billion pieces, to master this moment and ensure they all understood he had no loyalty to Tsukasa's cause even if he shouldn't admit that directly just yet.

"I was - still am I suppose - nineteen. I'd been performing at least part time since I was fourteen. It's a cutthroat business, and what can you expect when something ettypray is put on display, but that people will want it. To own, to touch, to use... I'm told my statue was posed like this when Tsukasa found me, with a most unbecoming and terrible expression I certainly won't try to recreate." Gen mimicked the pose he'd been frozen in, pulling his leathery almost-kimono shut tighter and dropping down to sit properly with his legs under him, looking up with a mild and expectant expression as he gripped and shifted within his clothing to suggest he was fighting to keep it on. Gen didn't dare look away at Kinro, Ginro, Chrome, and Kohaku. Whatever their reaction, it wouldn't matter as much as Senku's, and if he looked away it would seem less honest.

"So he smashed the statue of your manager, because he was disgusting," Senku said, looking a bit pale.

"I don't understand," Chrome said.

"The village has some pretty strict rules," Senku continued, giving a slantwise answer when Gen didn't move a muscle. "That sort of thing has always been a crime."

"I think he was hurt by someone," Kinro whispered delicately. "Something well outside the old world's rules."

"Crimes happen all the time, it's naive to think making a rule forbidding something prevents it from happening entirely. You'll have to forgive me for not being reassured," Gen said seriously, but then softened his voice to something far more playful and silly as he stood. "At least being treated like an object for sale is something I'm well acquainted with, and I am currently up for sale. My job is to investigate and find out if you are dead or alive. You do want me to go tell Tsukasa that you are dead when I go back, don't you?" Senku would never get quite as tall as Gen, but at the moment the height difference was much more obvious and a tool he could use to his advantage since Senku kept getting so close to him. "All I have to do is say I didn't find anything threatening, just a primitive village, no worries, no rush, just enjoy ourselves as we stock up enough for winter that we can keep reviving statues! If I say something like that you'll have all the time you need to prepare. Or I could tell him the truth and the entire village will burn or bend knee to his army. Of course, if I don't return the second option happens in a week or so anyway."

"What's your price?" Senku asked.

"Something to spill on the controls," Gen gambled, then quieter. "Proof my trust wasn't misplaced."

"There wasn't time. I'd only just started experimenting on the swallows I found," Senku bit out through gritted teeth. It was quiet enough Gen wouldn't have heard him if he wasn't leaning close, quiet enough that even Ukyo would have to be listening carefully to overhear from any distance. "The letter was given to me at the end of the school day, and I went directly to the science lab to test it. I'd set up to make some gasoline from plastic earlier, so I didn't have what I needed ready in time."

"Did it make any difference at all?" Gen whispered, hating how vulnerable the question felt coming out of him even if he was able to keep his expression and posture casual for the audience.

"It was a good clue. Sped me up a bit, maybe, made me just that single millimeter more certain of my deductions when it counted." Gen could read between the lines. When Senku had been frustrated and alone, when his experiments failed, when he needed to dig deep and find the will to go on, Gen's hints had helped keep him motivated. Senku would have kept at it anyway, he was that kind of tenacious and he'd done it in the first timeline, but even the most dedicated people needed a bit of moral support now and then to keep them at their peak.

"For what it's worth, you make an excellent birthday present," Gen said cheekily, and louder. The others, especially Kinro and Ginro, very clearly did not like that they were speaking so privately. They liked the possessiveness of Gen's loud declaration even less.

"What?" Senku exclaimed, also disturbed by the phrasing as he took a defensive step back from their familiar proximity.

"April first, 5738! My three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-seventh birthday," Gen chirped, waving his arms dramatically as if throwing confetti he didn't have. "I saw the carving you made, and the house you built. Tsukasa wanted me to profile you based on what you left behind and talking to your friends, since there is no logical reason for me to know about you before. It was all very impressive for being on your own for most of it, and Taiju described what parts he helped you with after he woke up. A quaint tree house built sized for three people from the beginning, that's very telling Senku," Gen said playfully, moving with the aim to distract and dazzle as he often did on stage, glossing quickly over the hint of deeper meaning without dwelling on it. Thank goodness Senku was smart enough to realize Gen wanted exactly nobody to know about the letter he sent. The boy laughed at Gen's antics, the mood shifting away from such serious topics.

"I can say this for certain: you are an expert in your field. It is honestly terrifying, since our lives are now in your hands," Senku said. Gen very, very deliberately made sure not to look around, but he noted the reactions he could see in his peripheral vision.

"Tell me, what do you plan to do with those iron bars now that you have them? Swords? Shields?" Gen changed the subject. "Is it something the shallowest man alive can take comfort in?"

Senku had only just started explaining what they needed to make the generator when the thunderstorm started. Thankfully Suika had come back with water so Gen could again ask her for some flowers. He dazzled Magma when he came running as he had before to defend them from the superstitious idiots who thought the storm could be stopped if they kill the 'sorcerer' that started it. Gen did slip up a little in the rush to get things set up to make the magnets. Badly enough that Chrome noticed that Gen understood what Senku wanted done before Senku had completely finished explaining, but then they were all so excited by catching a lightning bolt and Chrome was suitably distracted.

Later that night, when Gen was trying to remember where the most comfortable places to sleep rough were, Senku caught his attention. This was new, he remembered having to eavesdrop on them as Senku explained who Tsukasa was and what his goals were in greater detail to Kohaku, Chrome, and Suika.

"You aren't on Tsukasa's side, not by one millimeter," Senku accused, not even bothering with a greeting.

"How do you come to that conclusion?" Gen said, considering how wet the moss was under the next tree.

"You are afraid of being overpowered, and want a life of luxury. You're in good shape, but among Tsukasa's people you're probably on the wimpy side of things. He'd be reviving people he remembered from professional fighting and sports first, am I right? So a bunch of modern-day gorillas who had the privilege of modern society so they could spend all day training. No breaks to work or do any of the thousand little chores the villagers have to do since they don't have meal delivery apps or running water," Senku explained. "All the luxuries of modern life you crave are in the Kingdom of Science." Gen didn't turn around, continuing to look for a decent place to sleep. With everything soaked from the rain, there weren't many good options.

"Trust is a delicate thing. It can be easily broken, but to grow it takes time. I've told you what I want from you, Senku-chan," Gen said, bending his tone to emphasize the childishness of the honorific this time. "Tsukasa thought he could capture my trust quickly by using a shortcut, but he did something repulsive in the process. Don't skip steps in the process, that is as true as when making some crazy machine that reinvents seven different scientific principles as when building relationships between people."

"That doesn't mean you are on Tsukasa's side," Senku pointed out.

"Not wanting him to be the dictator in charge of the rest of my life doesn't make me your most loyal follower. I've made it clear: I'm the most superficial man on earth, I only care about what benefits me. Do you want to know what I saw when I looked you up before the world ended? What I thought of the person I sent that letter to?"

"What?" Senku asked, put off balance by the sudden shift in topic. Shit, Kohaku was right there. Gen could only just make her out against the starlight. Senku didn't seem to have noticed her, but she'd certainly heard everything. Well, too late, he'd have to deal with her knowing that Gen had been in contact with Senku in the old world, but he would also have to give the answer that sounded as if she wasn't here that also accounted for her listening in.

"Spoiled rich child, given anything he asked for without hesitation and left alone to play with expensive toys, and later ridiculously valuable equipment going by your father's social media feed," Gen said harshly. "Tenacious, and sure of his own intelligence, and because of that likely egotistical to some degree, but with an unknown potential and unknown flaws. The trip to help fight diseases in Africa was sudden and confusing enough to those around you that I have to question the altruism a little, even if it was an inherently good and noble thing for a young man of means to do. That you faked your death to protect your friends says a lot about what you value, and my opinion of you has improved as I have learned more about you, but that first impression wasn't exactly stellar. I was a nervous wreck asking you for help, and if I'm not wrong about how you answered earlier you didn't even try to do the one thing I told you was of critical importance. The one thing that would have given us insurance."

"It's not like I could just call my dad up on a whim," Senku argued. "He was in space!"

"If you sent an email, or made a social media post, he would have gotten it eventually. Even if you were already petrified, he could have gotten it. How long do you think it took for all the power plants to explode or burn out? How long before the internet shattered? How long would their electronics have worked even after that? How many times would he read and re-read your last message or listen to your last voice mail?" Gen attacked Senku with everything he had. He needed to make this point now, to lay out Senku's actual flaws, few though they were, and then help him tomorrow anyway. "How long until they risked using the shuttle without ground control to guide them home?"

"I... I wanted to have something more than a guess. Dad probably... I should have sent the message. One of them might have figured out how to make it with a hint that clear. My dad wasn't who you think he was, he was just average, but that many scientists working together would have figured it out," Senku said, and Gen's soul was surely damned for making someone as stoic and cool as Senku choke up.

"I tried to gain your trust all at once and without a lot of time or effort, and see? It didn't work. Even with my best effort and all my magical tricks working in full force," Gen said, turning to face Senku. With only starlight peeking through trees he almost couldn't see each other, but the gods hated Gen enough to let him see the glint of a tear he'd pulled out of the young scientist. Time to say something entirely for the eavesdropper. "Ishigami Senku - named a god of stone under a thousand skies, you know so much but intelligence and wisdom are considered separate stats for good reason. You are not infallible. I am not infallible. We are human and all of us are similarly imperfect, just with different flaws. You will fail, as we all do, the question is only how often, and how quickly you can course correct after a major misstep."

"I get it, alright. I fucked up big time," Senku's voice in the dark was sharp with anger covering his hurt.

"No." Gen ensured his tone was firm with no room for argument. "You did what was logical, according to the facts you had. Would it have been better if you contacted your father as I asked you to? Possibly. We have no way to know what happened. Speculating would just waste time and energy. Passing on that information was a gamble I made. Doing it the way I did was my error. The information was helpful to you, which means the information the Americans had was accurate, but they clearly didn't have time to do anything with that information either or we'd have woken up under vastly different circumstances."

"The Americans?" Senku asked.

"That phone call, overheard while I cleaned up after one of my private performances. Some NASA doctor was being collected to head a team looking into the petrified swallows, worried that humans would be next. If you didn't do better than Dr. Xeno or whatever his name was and his team, that's certainly no great failure. With the time zones, they had a head start for certain and they didn't think to tell the astronauts about nital either, did they?" Gen said, trying to be as comforting as he could be now that what he'd needed to say was done with.

"You did." No. No, no, no. Impossible. Unthinkable! Senku couldn't possibly think of Gen so highly, it would be a disaster.

"Don't pretend to be a child throwing a tantrum about this when I know for a fact you are mature enough to understand this concept forward, backward, and inside out," Gen snapped, venom seeping back into his voice. "I'm me, and you are you. The venn diagram of all people to ever have my kind of specialty and people with hard science specialties like yours is practically two circles," Gen said with a chuckle. "You say science pushes humanity forward, and I agree, but it wasn't all lone geniuses pushing things forward. It was also people coming together in a push for shared goals. People with different talents and skills working together to solve problems and compensate for each other's flaws. You, your oaf of a best friend, and the crafty girl he really ought to propose to if only to keep the brutes Tsukasa keeps reviving off her. That's the sorcery I'm most familiar with, the weave of human relationships."

"Heh, I guess I am being unreasonable," Senku said. "No cheat codes, no shortcuts. Just hard work and perseverance."

"And no gods coming down from on high to give us advice. We poor mortals have to figure it out on our own, as usual," Gen agreed.

"Where are you sleeping?" Senku asked.

"Probably in this tree," Gen supposed, gesturing vaguely to a random one. "A bit of rope makes it safe, and the ground is too wet."

"Now you're the one being childish. Come on, Chrome's collection shed has room enough for one more exotic lump," Senku said, picking at his ear. "You're delicate ass will catch a cold out here and then who will get Tsukasa off mine?" Gen laughed at the crass language.

"Lead the way, though I reserve the right to change my mind if it's too cramped."

STANXENO MARRIAGE!!!

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When I was a kid, I once got attacked by another kid and in the squirmish I made his nose bleed, he was shocked by that which allowed me to take control of it and knock him the fuck off me. After talking to the principal and shit I got suspended for two weeks and that kid literally got ice cream and taken back to class, when my mom had issue with it she got told he was a "good kid" who went to the same church as the principal so he couldn't possibly have done that. that day onward he kinda saw harassing me as a free pass cuz he knew he'd get away with it, which in turn other kids would start to try it to, and id end up in fights i never instigated, and i'd get slapped with the label "problem child" and had an inescapable negative rep that almost landed me in juvey once even though there was literal video tape evidence showing i defended myself.

this isn't really going to some profound point or anything it's just like, religious people start harassing people they seem unworthy even young and shit ruins lives. it's bizarre to me atheism is viewed as this inherently reactionary concept when Christians are harassing literal single digit age children for going to a different church than them.