Haha, oh my gosh, this story...! This time I have enough lying around to confidently source the writing period. Not least of this evidence is a blog post I practically wrote as soon as I was done (barring minor touchups, otherwise all my fics would be 'finished' the day I upload them here). I was so proud. Then a year later I reread it and cried at how OOC it was, and anticlimatic, and how I had ever thought it was even bearable.
My opinion is thankfully more moderate, nowadays. I once lauded it as the best fic I'd ever written. It still ranks among my top works, but I also acknowledge my former hysterical shame at the ending. Truth be told I just don't think I could have wrapped it up in a way that does the whole thing justice.
Written to Far Away by kz: /watch?v=1Bli2WbkoTs on youtube. Warning, it's very weeaboo. It was a huge influence on the whole work though, so I'd implore you to listen if you don't mind it!
I don't generally go round using the word 'hardboiled'. That could only be a reference to Problem Sleuth.. because of course, a single word is such an edgy reference. This would've been well before Homestuck became properly famous.
There is also art to go with this, if you're interested! /art/aviate-136039478 on happypants3, dA.
Started approx. July 2009; finished April 2010. I would've been maybe three months away from turning 14 when I began.
/-/-
Free Country was not a particularly exciting terrain, by any means. Sure, you had the Spooky Woods, and maybe that one hill, but there wasn't anywhere really awesome, like lakes or deserts or cities.
Which was why Homestar was going to fly to Potamia.
"What the crap is that ball of junk supposed to be?" Strong Bad snorted, flicking his head towards what could be vaguely called a framework. "I can tell you right now if that's gonna be your new house, the roof goes above the walls."
"No way, Stwong Bad," the amateur engineer laughed in response. He'd donned a pair of goggles and a scarf for the mood, his cap flipped backwards on his head. "It's a plane! See," he started, waving a plank at the respective parts, "this is the cockpit, and these are the wings."
"Are you kidding? You ain't gonna be able to fly that thing, you don't even know how it's supposed to be wired. Eh, forget it, it's probably gonna form the centerpiece of your bathroom or something." The masked wrestler fell silent, watching as Homestar hammered together bits of wood. "And what's that bit over there?"
"The tail."
"If the tail's gonna have a propellor on it, it needs to be able to spin." Strong Bad lightly pushed Homestar out of the way, placing himself where Homestar had been before. "It won't do anything if you just glue it on. Pass me the chainsaw, I'll show you how to do it."
Homestar obliged, and for the rest of the morning, Strong Bad fixed various parts of the plane's anatomy while telling him off for ruining more.
/-
"Hey, it's Bubs," Homestar chirped as he lifted his head up. "Hey, Bubs! What've you got on you this time?"
"It's the bulk stock of forest-green paint you ordered," Bubs replied cheerfully, dropping his armful onto the grass next to the plane. The buckets hit the ground with a clang. "Great doing business with you! And Strong Bad, good to see you being helpful for a change."
"Yeah, okay. Pass the spanner," he mumbled in reply, waving his hand from underneath the framework.
"Isn't he just the best?" Homestar gushed to Bubs, who watched the masked wrestler with a wary eye. "With his help, I might be able to go by today!"
"I... I suppose," the storesman frowned. "I just want to know why he's so absorbed in something you of all people are doing."
"I dunno. Maybe he just likes planes."
"Homestar, I brought you lunch," Marzipan sung as she walked in with a tray of vegan rolls. "Wow, this plane's going really well. Would I be able to come along too?"
"Sowwy, Marzi." Homestar shook his head in a hardboiled manner, plucking a roll off the tray. "This plane ain't big enough for the two of us."
"Oh... that's a shame. Well, you gotta tell me about the view when you get back, okay?"
"Yeah, sure." He didn't plan on it. Ruining one of his life experiences by explaining it to Marzipan for ten minutes? No thanks. "Man, how does all the metal fit together? Bubs, my man, give us a hand."
"Sure thing, but it'll cost you extra."
"Finally, it's done! Geez, Homestar, your dodgy building made this take twice as long as it should've," Strong Bad drawled as he pulled out from under the plane; halfway through stretching, he noticed the small roll Homestar was biting into. "Hey, give the working man some food, I've been at this all day."
"Whatever, Strong Bad," Marzipan sighed, roughly setting the tray next to him.
"Marzipan? What are you doing here? Are these rolls vegan?" The wrestler proceeded to survey his surroundings, stopping as all of it appeared to sink in. "... I just helped Homestar with his stupid project, didn't I."
"Don't worry, it counts towards your hours of community service," Bubs said as some sort of reassurance. "You've been needing to fill the quota for over two years anyway."
"How much do you have left to do?" Marzipan asked, looking around at the piles of materials.
"Well, there's the engine, which just needs to be put in fwont of the cockpit here. And then we gotta attach the plates, and the pwopellers, and maybe paint it all..."
"And then you're done?"
"Nah, then we gotta fill it with petwol and apply for insurwance."
"Okay, HomeStore of Fail, I'm only gonna keep going with this coz I already wasted half of today on it," Strong Bad suddenly declared, prodding Homestar in the chest repeatedly. "I got TV to watch, man! So you better appreciate my generous assistance, okay?" He prodded a few more times after he'd spoken. Homestar nodded. "Bubs, help me lift this engine. Marzipan, you can mop the floor or something."
"What do I do then?"
"You... paint the metal, I don't know."
"Hooway!"
/-
"... We're done?"
"We're done," Bubs grinned. It was nearing dusk, at the moment just between blue sky and red; while they'd spent the entire day on the plane, one person at least thought it was totally worth it.
Homestar leapt into the cockpit with a grin, immediately interacting with every control system. "I don't believe it, I'm gonna be able to fly this thing! It's gonna be so awesome! Farewell, my comwades," he called to the group standing around him, as his spluttering contraption rose into the air. "Thank you for your help! I'll be thinking of you!"
"HOW IS THAT PLANE FLYING," said Strong Bad. "THE ENGINE ISN'T EVEN ATTACHED TO ANYTHING."
"Cartoon science...!" came the reply, as Homestar shot off into the clouds.
/-
Food? Check. Water? Check. And adrenaline to fuel the ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME... check.
Homestar's altitude quavered dangerously as he clunked across the troposphere, passing clusters of fine mist, the firey sky infinitely unfolding around him. He was glad he'd brought the scarf: it was surprisingly cold up where he was now. He covered his exposed cheeks with the thick cloth, then considered the question of where he was going.
Po... Poland, right? Yeah. Poland was east somewhere. Did he have a compass?
"As a matter of fact, I do!" he proclaimed victoriously, holding up a compass from one of the compartments. Man, good thing he'd had the sense to bring it!
After a few seconds spent waving the sharp end at the nearest visible forest, he considered maybe there was some sort of trick to using it he hadn't learnt yet.
Homestar frowned to himself, chucking the utensil behind him with a clank: he'd been relying on it to get him to Pennsylvania, but clearly that wasn't going to be the case. He didn't even know what the place looked like. Maybe he could fly along until he saw something that looked right.
Then the plane started to buckle, and he knew he'd busted something with that compass.
Where to go, where to go? Homestar felt himself think frantically, the rest of him looking for where to land the increasingly hard-to-control fighter jet. Not that he'd installed any guns, of course, so technically it was just a jet - oh sweet lady it was spiralling down he needed a clearing.
The only space he could possibly maneuveur into was right at a cliffside, and not a large one at that. It would have to do, he supposed: concentrating all his will into one large egg of hard-boiledness (as well as putting on the goggles for dramatic effect), he proceeded to spin the airplane into position with squinted eyes.
In true cartoon fashion, the plane smashed headfirst into the ground, loud noises and dust clouds obscuring winceable details of the scene.
The smoke cleared. Homestar felt his head spin; swatting away the yellow stars with his dirtied scarf, he glanced down at the wreckage trapping him, trying to figure out the extent of the damage.
... Yeah, he wasn't gonna be able to salvage anything. He sighed, pushing himself up with invisible means. As Homestar stepped out of the pile of wood, a flicker of blinding light flashed past his eye: he blinked once, twice, and turned towards the sunset.
The majesty of what he saw narrowed his eyes into slits, or was that just the UV radiation? Something clicked in the back of Homestar's mind, and he pulled the goggles off his eyes, flipping his cap back the right way. Oh yeah, that was good. Now he could see it properly: the sky, the clouds, an ocean below.
He didn't know how long he stood at the edge of that cliff, watching the sea stretch into the distance.
The loud screeching of some unknown bird snapped Homestar out of his reverie, and he swung around to see a tangled rainforest behind him: it occured to him that he had no idea where he was, which way to go, nor any means of transport to get there. He could wander through that jungle for weeks, in an attempt to reach civilisation, but that plane had covered distances he could not... he was trapped in this, place. He'd never see home.
An overwhelming sense of disillusion washed over Homestar, in a way Free Country had never pushed him to feel before. He fell backwards, hitting the soft grass below. Leaves framed the edges of the sky, orange and foreign.
He didn't know what to think, so he stopped. He stared at the clouds as they floated past. And then through the conchord of creatures, he heard a helicopter...
Homestar pushed himself up quickly as a white and orange chopper moved through the sky above him: its blades drowned out all of those foreign sounds, and gusted him with growing waves of realisation. The helicopter lowered itself next to the wreckage, and visible through the window was a familiar face.
"Bubs?"
"You don't think I'd let you go across the continent by yourself, do you?" Bubs grinned, Marzipan and Strong Bad pushing themselves into view as well. "We all knew something'd go wrong, so I picked up the ol' chopper and followed you here! Now what are you waiting for? Hop on board, already!"
Fighting back all sorts of overpowering emotions, Homestar leapt into the helicopter as Strong Bad slid the door open. "Don't get me wrong, I'm just here 'cause helicopters are freakin' awesome," he smirked. Marzipan pulled her boyfriend into a tight hug, and in a rare moment, he didn't object.
The door slid shut as Bubs started up the engine. And the helicopter rose up once again, the noise of its choppers fading as they headed towards home.