#also if anyone's wondering who the guys with cream puff masks

[books-are-my-life-stuff]

The musical stage play version of Mashle is starting the performance today! Here are some clips of it that I can find!

(Will be updated whenever I find more unless I hit the video post limit!)

[suituuup]

clouds

Prompt: After finding out she has Stage II breast cancer, Beca gets started with chemo. She never expected she’d make a friend there, much less a kid.

rating: M

word count: 5,4k

ao3 link

*

“All done,” the nurse chirps as she takes out the needle and presses a wad of cotton to the small puncture spot. “You’ll have to wait an hour or so for the lab results to come back before they set you up for chemo.” 

��Okay,” Beca mumbles, lowering her sweater sleeve and standing from the cot. She thanks the nurse and shuffles out of the room and towards the elevator that will take her up to the right floor. 

A month ago, Beca found out she had breast cancer. She had just got back from tour and was on her annual gynecology check-up where the doctor felt a lump in her left breast. She referred Beca to a specialist and, following a mammogram and a biopsy, Beca was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. 

Her whole universe as she knew it shifted on its axis. While her chances of survival were pretty high at that stage, she knew treatment would momentarily change her daily life, and that the few months ahead would be an emotional whirlwind.

Beca got set up just over an hour later on a reclining chair on the infusion floor. She had packed a bag with everything she would need: snacks, a blanket, water, and her computer and headphones so she could get some work done. 

The nurse soon came over to start an IV, Beca wincing as the needle pierced her skin. “Alright, you’re all set. Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks.”

She closes her eyes and puffs out a long breath, willing herself to relax. 

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay on your own?”

Beca opens her eyes to find a little girl, no older than ten or eleven, climbing in the chair next to hers. Her mom, Beca supposes from the matching hair color, crouches in front of her. 

“Yes, mom. I already told you I’ll be okay.” 

“Okay, okay. I’ll be back in half an hour.” The woman kisses the girl’s forehead, shrugging off the Wonder Woman backpack and setting it on her daughter’s lap. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” As soon as her mother turns away to leave the room, her curious blue eyes find Beca. “You’re new.”

Beca puffs out a surprised chuckle. “I am, yeah.”

A small hand is thrust towards her. “I’m Maddie.”

Beca shakes her hand lightly. “Hi Maddie, my name’s Beca.” 

“Nice meeting you.” She opens her backpack just as the nurse heads towards her. “Hi Jenny.”

“Hello Maddie. How are we doing today?”

“I’m okay, thanks. Mommy and I are going to eat ice cream afterwards.” She rolls up her sleeve and extends her arm, barely flinching as the nurse pushes the needle in. 

Beca realizes with a painful pang in her chest that it’s definitely not her first time getting chemo. 

“Lucky you,” the nurse gushes, taping the IV tube to her arm. “All done, sweetie. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Thanks, Jenny.”

Beca glances away, her eyes drifting to her own IV bag. It’s strange to think about how what’s supposed to kill the cancer is also killing every good cell in her body. Soon she’ll be losing her hair and—

“Who’s your favorite singer?”

Beca is pulled out of her thoughts by that same girl — Maddie. An amused smile curves her lips. “Um, I like a lot of singers, but I guess my top 3 is Fleetwood Mac, Harry Styles and Beyoncé.”

“My mom loves Fleetwood Mac,” she says. “Mine’s Shawn Mendes.”

Beca nods. “He’s a cool guy.”

Those striking blue eyes widen. “You’ve met him??”

Beca has worked with him on his last album and he’s become a good friend, but she wants to keep a low profile, so she shakes her head. “No, I mean— he seems like a cool guy.”

“Oh. Yeah. I was supposed to go see him live last year but I wasn’t healthy enough.”

Beca’s heart cracks a little bit at that. “That sucks, I’m sorry.”

Maddie shrugs. “It’s okay. Do you know how to play Backgammon?”

Beca lets out another chuckle. She hadn’t expected to meet anyone here, much less a kid (she’s not a kid person), but she has to admit it’s a nice distraction from her spiraling thoughts. “No, but maybe you could teach me?”

The next two hours go much faster than Beca initially expected, thanks to Maddie’s company. Her mom —Chloe, as she introduces herself— comes back half an hour in, but she seems content reading her book while Beca and Maddie play. 

“Yes!” Maddie exclaims when she —once again— wins that round. 

“Well done, dude. I’ll do better next time.” 

“You wanna come eat an ice cream with us?” She asks as the nurse takes Beca’s IV out. 

Beca already feels tired and nauseous, so she declines, shaking her head. “Thanks, but I’m gonna head home. It was cool hanging out with you, though.” 

“You, too. See you next time!” 

Beca nods, casting her mother a polite smile as she gathers her stuff and stands up. “Bye.” 

The first effects of chemo hit her for real a couple hours afterwards. Exhaustion like she’s never experienced creeps on her right before dinner (she’s not really hungry anyway), and she crashes for thirteen hours, waking up with the urge to throw up. Her day is spent wallowing on her couch when she’s not bent over the toilet, weaving in and out of sleep while the sitcom channel fills the silence of her empty apartment. 

It lasts two days, and Beca starts feeling better on the third, which happens to be her second chemo session. Maddie and her mom are already there when she gets to the room, and she casts them both a wave and a tired smile before sitting down in the same seat as last time. 

“Hi Beca!” Maddie exclaims, grinning brightly. 

“Hey dude. Ready to kick my butt at Backgammon again?” 

“Yep!” She turns to her mom a second later. “Mommy I have to pee.” 

“Oh go quick then, before the nurse starts you on your IV.” Maddie scampers off towards the bathroom, and Chloe’s eyes flicker to Beca, a sympathetic smile spreading on her features. “How are you holding up?” 

Beca grimaces. “The last two days have been pretty awful, I’m hoping it won’t get as bad after each session.” 

“Yeah… it’s rough.” 

“How long-- um, has she been in chemo long?” She asks hesitantly. 

“It’s our second round this time around,” Chloe says softly, the pain evident in her eyes. “She was diagnosed with leukemia three years ago, and it’s been an emotional roller coaster since then. Two remissions, yet here we are again.” 

Beca’s eyes widen. “Wow... I’m so sorry.” 

“She’s a fighter. Much braver than I could ever be. Always has a smile on her face.” 

Maddie comes back before Beca can say anything else, hopping back on her chair. Beca manages to win two rounds out of ten this time, and she crashes in her bed as soon as she gets home. 

The next few weeks are a blur, as Beca doesn’t do much except going to the hospital three times a week for chemo and sleeping it off. She misses work, and going out with her friends, but she doesn’t have the energy to leave the house. She’s thankful for Stacie and Emily, who regularly come to check on her and even go grocery shopping for her. 

Four weeks after beginning her treatment, Beca’s hair starts to fall off. She knew it would happen, but she didn’t think it would hit her so hard emotionally. She loses weight, too, and her complexion is much paler. 

Maddie’s high spirits are a nice distraction every time she’s at the hospital. They play games, listen to music, and even grab ice cream once or twice with her mom when Beca feels okay enough not to head straight home. 

On her last day of chemo, Beca is surprised to see Maddie isn’t there. “Is her treatment over?” She asks Jenny as the nurse sets her up for her infusion. 

Jenny shakes her head. “She was admitted last night.” 

Beca’s heart squeezes in her chest, and she swallows down the rising lump in her throat. “Do you know if she’s allowed visitors?” 

“I’m not sure. I’ll check for you.” 

After her session, Beca heads to the oncology floor and asks for Maddie’s room at the reception. She heads down the hall, turning the corner and lingering in the doorway. 

Maddie looks so small in her hospital bed, her complexion as pale as the white walls. An oxygen mask covers her mouth and nose, a wheezing sound filling the room every time she breathes. Chloe’s the first to notice Beca as she sits by her daughter’s side, stroking her hair. 

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure-- I can go,” Beca murmurs, feeling suddenly out of place. 

“It’s okay,” Chloe croaks out, waving her in. Her eyes are bloodshot and her features scream exhaustion and despair, and Beca’s heart clenches yet again. 

Maddie finally notices her, a tired smile spreading across her lips. “Hi.” 

“Hey dude,” Beca greets with a soft smile, lowering herself on the opposite chair because her legs feel weakened by the chemo. “Missed you today.” 

“Did you ring the bell?” 

Beca nods. “I did.” 

“Sorry I wasn’t there.” 

“It’s okay, Maddie. I’m sorry you’re not feeling good. I was thinking-- would you like to listen to some cool music? I used to mix songs together when I was in college and nobody really ever listened to them, so you’re privileged.” 

Maddie grins and nods, taking the earbud Beca offers her.

She sticks around for half-an-hour, giving Chloe time to use the restroom and grab a coffee while she keeps Maddie company. As she walks out of the hospital, Beca pulls out her phone and brings it to her ear after selecting the right contact. 

“Hey. I need a favor.” 

Two days later, Beca finds herself heading back to the oncology floor. She knocks on Maddie’s open door, relieved to see her sitting up and looking overall better than she did on Beca’s last visit. 

“Beca!” She exclaims, grinning widely. 

“Hey you.” Her gaze flickers to Chloe, who too looks better. “Hey Chloe.” 

“Hi Beca. Thanks for stopping by,” Chloe says with a soft smile. 

“I’m not alone, actually,” she lets them know, craning her neck towards the door to signal for her guest to come in. 

Maddie gasps loudly, her eyes widening to the side of saucers. “Oh my god!” 

“Hey Maddie,” Shawn greets, grinning as he steps further inside. He’s got his guitar slung across his back. “How are you doing?” 

Maddie stutters, pulling a chuckle out of the three adults in the room. “Hi,” she eventually croaks out. “You’re Shawn Mendes. And you’re here. In my room.” 

Shawn lets out a soft laugh. “Beca told me you were meant to come see one of my shows last year but couldn’t make it because of your health, so here I am.” 

Maddie gapes, her gaze flicking back and forth between Shawn and Beca. “Mom, I think I need to be pinched.” 

“It’s all real, baby,” Chloe confirma, brushing a kiss to Maddie’s forehead. As Shawn gets settled in the chair by Maddie’s bed and fiddles with his guitar, she meets Beca’s eyes and mouths a thank you. 

Maddie has the biggest smile on her face for the following hour. Shawn plays her favorite songs, signs an autograph and they snap a ton of pictures together. Beca goes home with the biggest smile on her face as well, thrilled to have been able to make Maddie forget about her disease even for a short while. 

Beca goes back to work the following Monday as the chemo after effects have considerably lessened over the weekend. She’s still more tired than usual, but she feels like she can get some work done. On her way back home, she swings by the hospital to visit Maddie. 

She hangs out with her every evening after work for an hour, right before Maddie’s dinner is served. They talk about music and Beca brings her guitar because Maddie says she’s been wanting to learn. 

“Good job,” Beca says as Maddie successfully strums through her first song. “You’re really talented.” 

Maddie grins. “Thanks for the class.” 

“You’re welcome. I’ll leave the guitar here if you wanna practice some more during the day, okay?” 

Maddie nods. “Are you coming back tomorrow?” 

“You bet.” 

She’s reached the elevators when she hears her name being called, and spins around on her heels to find Chloe heading towards her. 

“I just wanted to thank you, for everything. Bringing Shawn Mendes here, giving her guitar lessons... “ Chloe sighs. “She doesn’t have many friends because she hasn’t been to school much and it’s nice for her to see other people than her lame mom all the time.” 

Beca smiles, shaking her head. “You don’t have to thank me. She’s a great kid, and I genuinely enjoy spending time with her. She made chemo a lot more fun than I thought it would be.” 

“I’m glad,” Chloe murmurs. “Do you… wanna grab coffee, maybe? Maddie kicked me out, telling me I should take a hospital break.” 

“Yeah, sure.” 

“Okay, great. I’ll go grab my coat.” 

They head to the Starbucks around the block as the coffee from the cafeteria sucks, settling at a small table in the corner. Beca orders a decaf and Chloe a hot chocolate. 

“How are you now that you’re done with chemo?” Chloe asks before blowing on her drink and taking a sip. 

“I’m okay. No more side effects except tiredness, but I’m glad to finally be able to work.” 

“That’s good.” 

“Maddie seems to be doing better?” 

Chloe nods as she cradles her mug. “Her test results have improved. I’m hoping she can be home for Christmas. She’s spent the holidays at the hospital last year and as much as the nurses and doctors do their best to make it merry, it’s just not the same.” 

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Beca hesitates for a beat. “Is it… just the two of you?” 

“Yeah. Her dad never wanted to be in the picture.” 

Beca’s eyes soften. “That must be tough, doing everything on your own.” 

“Some days are hard. I’m just-- so fucking tired,” her voice cracks and tears rapidly fill her eyes. She ducks her head. “Shit, I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t apologize,” Beca rushes out, covering Chloe’s hand across the table before she can think twice about it. “It’s okay to cry. You’re stronger than you think, and you’re an incredible mom, Chloe.” 

“I’m terrified of losing her,” she whispers, those tears spilling down her cheeks. “She’s my whole life, and she doesn’t deserve any of this.” 

Beca doesn’t know what to say; no words seem powerful enough to alleviate Chloe’s pain. She squeezes Chloe’s hand, brushing her thumb over her knuckles back and forth. “No, she doesn’t.” 

“Gosh, I’m really sorry,” Chloe sniffles after a moment, puffing out a breath. “I guess I needed a good cry and you’re my victim.” 

“It really is okay, Chloe. Anytime you need to talk, I’m here, okay?” 

Chloe flips her hand up, wrapping her fingers around Beca’s. “Thank you. That means a lot.” 

As the next few weeks go by, Beca’s hair starts to grow back (she still wears a headscarf, and will do so until it thickens out), and her energy levels rise back to normal. Work gets busier but she tries to visit Maddie three times a week, usually going out for coffee with Chloe once out of those three times. They text a lot too throughout the week, sending each other memes or cute animal videos. 

Beca finds herself quickly developing a crush on Chloe over their sometimes hour-long conversations about their respective lives, charmed by her sunny personality, goofy sense of humor and both interior and exterior beauty. But she knows better than to do anything about her attraction, as Chloe is most likely not in any place to date right now, if she’s even into women at all. 

Maddie is allowed to spend Christmas at home, and Chloe asks Beca if she wants to spend it with them as she knows Beca doesn’t have anything specific planned. They spend the afternoon leading up to Christmas Eve building gingerbread houses and baking cookies while belting out Christmas tunes. 

(as if Beca needed anything else to fuel that crush of hers, it turns out Chloe sings beautifully.)

They eat a meal of Maddie’s choice --homemade burgers and fries-- and watch The Beauty and the Beast. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Chloe tells her as she makes it back down after tucking Maddie in for the night. Beca started cleaning up in the meantime, having just finished up. 

“I know. It’s no big deal.” 

“Want another glass of wine?” Chloe asks, lifting the open bottle off the kitchen island. 

Beca should head home, but Chloe’s place is much warmer and cozier than her own and she loves hanging out there. She also can’t resist the opportunity of spending more quality time with Chloe. “Sure, why not.” 

“Tonight was really fun,” Chloe muses aloud as they settle back down on the couch, facing one another. “I’m so happy Maddie got to have a real Christmas this year.” 

“Me, too,” Beca murmurs. “It was really nice. And that’s coming from someone who’s not that into the holidays, so kudos to you.” 

Chloe throws her arms up in the air. “Yay! I did it!” 

“You’re a dork,” Beca says, a smirk curving her lips as she shakes her head. “Ugh, I’ve got All I Want For Christmas Is You stuck in my head, thanks to somebody.”

“It’s a good song!” 

Beca rolls her eyes. “It’s cheesy as fuck, dude.” 

Chloe’s giggle makes her heart swell. “Okay, it’s a little bit cheesy. So is the movie.” 

“Never seen it.” 

A judgemental gasp fills the space between them before Chloe backs away. “You’ve never seen Love Actually?” 

Beca purses her lips. “Are you gonna kick me out if I say yes?” 

Chloe’s up from the couch before she can blink. “We’re watching it now.” 

Beca’s about to protest, but she realizes it’s only 9:30pm and she doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow. “Fine.”

Chloe sets it up on Netflix and grabs a blanket, throwing it over her laps as she settles back down. Beca nearly forgets how to breathe when Chloe curls up against her, draping an arm over her waist. She frees her arm from in between their bodies and wraps it around Chloe’s frame, pulling her closer as the opening credits roll. 

“Keira Knightley was my first girl crush,” Chloe states moments later as the actress makes her first appearance on the screen. “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

“Haven’t seen it either.”

“Oh my god,” Chloe laughs, lifting her head from Beca’s shoulder to look at her. “You’re missing out.”

“Mmm,” Beca hums, her eyes momentarily dropping to Chloe’s lips before she can really help herself. She forces them back up to find Chloe’s own gaze on her mouth and, following a beat of hesitation, reaches up to cup her cheek tenderly, leaning in to press a soft kiss to her lips. 

Chloe melts into it, her own hand coming up to rest on the side of Beca’s neck as she kisses back in kind. Time seems to suspend as they explore in soft brushes and nips, their bubble bursting when Chloe abruptly pulls away.

“I’m— I’m sorry,” she whispers, covering her mouth with her hand. “You don’t want that.”

Beca blinks, furrowing her brow. “What?”

“You deserve someone that can be all in, not…” she waves a hand towards herself. “Not this mess. My life is so complicated right now.”

“I know,” Beca says softly, covering Chloe’s hand with her own. “I know your sole focus is Madison, and I’d never hold your lack of time for me against you. I honestly— didn’t even think you’d feel the same way.”

Chloe’s eyes flutter shut for a few beats. “I like you a lot, Beca. I just… can’t promise you more than day to day right now.”

“We can do day to day,” Beca murmurs reassuringly. “There’s no pressure on my end, alright?”

Chloe contemplates it for a moment. “Okay.” She leans in to kiss Beca gently, resting her forehead against hers. “Okay.”

They fall asleep in front of the movie, eventually shuffling up to Chloe’s bedroom around midnight as Chloe states it’s too late for Beca to head home. 

Come morning, Beca takes care of breakfast while a nurse stops by to take Maddie’s vitals and do some injections. They open presents next as Maddie is too excited to wait until after breakfast. Beca got her a few books and a VIP ticket to Ariana Grande’s next show in a couple weeks. She got Chloe a full day spa package for whenever she’d like, insisting she could spend the day with Maddie. 

“For you,” Maddie says, extending a small package towards Beca. 

“You didn’t have to get me anything, dude.” She takes the gift nonetheless, opening it to find a rainbow themed friendship bracelet. Beca grins, taking it out. “I love it. Never taking it off.”

The New Year brings good news: Maddie’s health improves enough that she’s discharged from the hospital, and Beca is clear from any cancer, the chemotherapy having worked tremendously. They celebrate Maddie coming home and Beca being cancer free around a homemade dinner at Chloe’s house. 

“Are you guys together?” Maddie blurts out halfway through dinner, causing Beca to nearly choke on her piece of bread. 

She and Chloe haven’t engaged in any sort of PDA around Maddie as Chloe wants to take it slow, but something must have given them away. 

Maybe the heart eyes Beca gives Chloe on a daily basis. 

She briefly meets Chloe’s gaze before Chloe focuses on her daughter, a soft, albeit slight nervous smile curving her lips. “We are, yeah. Is that okay?” 

Maddie nods. “You look happy, Mommy.” 

Beca feels her heart swell, and as Maddie goes back to her food, she leans across the distance between herself and Chloe to kiss her cheek. 

Something tells her this is going to be a great year. 

Over the following months, she, Chloe and Maddie do plenty of activities together now that Maddie is healthy enough. They go ice skating, attend concerts, bake, have movie marathons. Beca falls so quickly in love with Chloe, it’s kind of scary. 

They’re even talking about moving in together when Maddie relapses. 

She’s admitted into the ICU after contracting pneumonia, and the tests show that her number of white blood cells is higher than it’s ever been. 

“Where’s Mommy?” Maddie asks tiredly, twisting her head to look at Beca. 

It’s been a week, and the light has already left Maddie’s eyes. 

Chloe hasn’t gotten much sleep over the last few days, afraid that Maddie might pass during the night, on her own. 

“She went to the bathroom, sweetie. Want me to go get her?” 

When Maddie nods, Beca shakily rises to her feet and swallows down the lump in her throat as she leans over to press a kiss to Maddie’s forehead. 

Beca doesn’t step back inside Maddie’s room once Chloe is in there, preferring to give them privacy. She calls for a nurse, then sits down on a chair in the hallway, tears silently sliding down her cheeks when Chloe starts to sing. 

Her heart crumbles when the song doesn’t make it to the end, sobs filling Maddie’s hospital room instead. She hears the doctor pronounce the time of death, and the machines stop. 

Night has fallen over the city by the time Beca finds the courage to step inside. Chloe is curled up on the bed next to Maddie’s lifeless body, and Beca freezes in the doorway, feeling absolutely powerless against Chloe’s immense grief. 

“Her skin is still warm,” Chloe croaks out after a minute, her gaze blank as she strokes Maddie’s short hair back and forth. 

Beca pads forward slowly, tears burning her eyes as she lowers herself on the chair Chloe previously occupied and covers her free hand with her own. 

“I can’t let them take her away. It’s too soon, I-I can’t.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Beca whispers, her voice nowhere within reach. “Take all the time you need, they won’t take her away until you’re ready.”

Chloe’s parents, whom Beca has met a couple times over the previous week arrive only a few minutes later, and Beca suddenly feels out of place. 

She quietly slips out of the room to let them say goodbye to Maddie in peace. 

Madison’s funeral takes place five days later. It’s a beautiful day, graced with unexpected warmth for the season. Beca stands a couple rows behind Chloe’s family. She helps Chloe’s parents out during the wake following the ceremony, setting out the food and washing the dishes. 

As people shuffle out at the end of the afternoon, Beca is unsure what to do. She’s wiping the last of the dishes when Aubrey, Chloe’s best friend, rounds the corner to the kitchen. 

“Thank you for your help today,” she says with a nod. “I’ll finish up here.” 

Beca gets the message that she’s not needed anymore and nods, setting the dish towel down. “Oh. Right, okay.” 

She gathers her coat and purse and sees that Chloe is speaking to her parents on her way out, and as she doesn’t want to intrude, steps out without a word. 

“Beca.” She turns around halfway down the driveway to find Chloe closing the front door of her house behind her. “You don’t have to leave.” 

“Well, um, you’re with your family and...” she falters, shrugging. “I just didn’t want to intrude.” 

She hates how it sounds like she’s making this about herself when it’s the last thing she wants to do. 

“Can you stay?” Chloe croaks out. “I’d really like it if you stayed.” 

“Of course,” she murmurs without an ounce of hesitation, taking a few steps forward and wrapping her arms around Chloe. Chloe melts into her body, releasing a shuddering breath. “I’ve got you, Chlo.” 

The next days, weeks, months are extremely hard for Chloe, and Beca helps in whatever way she can. While she can’t make Chloe’s grief less intense, as much as she wants to, she can take care of things that will make her daily life easier, like taking care of the administrative paperwork following Maddie’s funeral, sending out thank-you notes, making dinner, cleaning and just being there for her. 

She holds Chloe when she cries, even if it happens in the middle of the night, gives her space when she needs some, listens to her when she needs to talk about Maddie, even if it’s a story she’s already heard. 

“Chlo?” Beca asks upon coming home one evening, about four months after Maddie’s death. She’s been staying at Chloe’s house ever since, and while they haven’t really talked about it, Beca wants it to become a permanent installment, and she’s got the inkling Chloe feels the same way. 

“In the kitchen,” Chloe’s voice carries to the entryway and, after taking her shoes off and tucking them away, Beca heads over to the kitchen, slipping her arms around Chloe’s waist. 

“Hello,” she whispers with a content sigh, brushing a kiss to Chloe’s neck. “Missed you.” 

“Missed you, too. How was your day?” 

“Good.” She takes a step back and hops on the counter, watching Chloe cook for a moment. She hasn’t done that since before Maddie’s relapse and Beca takes it as one small step towards healing. “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

Chloe lowers the heat under her pot and steps in front of Beca. “What’s up?” 

“A few months ago, I pitched the idea to Shawn about organizing a concert in memory of Maddie, where all proceeds would go to funding leukemia research.” 

Chloe’s eyes get misty as she proceeds Beca’s words. “You did? What-what did he say?” 

“He agreed. Now we need to work on finding a venue with a limited budget, but I wanted to make sure you were okay with the idea in the first place.”

Chloe slides her hand into Beca’s, squeezing it. “Of course I am. You’re amazing, you know that? I can’t begin to explain how grateful I am for you these past few months.”

Beca leans in to kiss her softly. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” Chloe backs away a little. “I also need to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think I can live here anymore. Everything I see reminds me of Maddie one way or another and it feels like I’m in a continuous loop of grief all day long. I wanna go back to work and— and find a new place to live, in a different neighborhood. With you, preferably.”

Beca smiles and nods, linking their fingers. “Okay, we can do that. Wanna start looking now?”

They find themselves a place in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood and move in a month later. The concert for Maddie is sold out, and they raise close to $10,000 dollars for medical research. Almost a year after the funeral, Chloe asks Beca if she’d come with her to Oregon to spread Maddie’s ashes near her favorite beach. 

They fly there the following weekend, and Chloe bids her daughter a final goodbye.

“Mommy loves you, baby girl,” she croaks as they watch the ashes being swept away by the wind towards the ocean. 

Beca presses her lips to her hairline, holding her around the waist as tears burn behind her eyes. 

She proposes to Chloe six months later, and they get married in Chloe’s parents’ backyard on a lovely fall day, in an intimate ceremony surrounded by their family and close friends. Two years into their marriage, Chloe brings up a topic Beca has been putting off for a little while. 

That evening, Beca finds her wife on the couch with Maddie’s box opened in front of her. She’s flipping through Maddie’s baby book, a fond expression on her features. 

“That was her first time tasting lemon,” she says when Beca lowers herself next to her, wrapping an arm around her frame as Chloe cuddles into her side. 

“That’s adorable,” Beca comments with a soft smile, her eyes moving to the next picture as her fingers feather up and down Chloe’s upper arm. 

Chloe’s been going down memory lane the past few days, opening up the box that contains all the things she wanted to keep: Maddie’s plush dinosaur, a few Mother’s Day gifts she’d made Chloe, her favorite children’s book and of course plenty of photo albums. 

Her grief comes in waves. Beca knows the loss of her child is not something she’ll ever ‘move on’ from, or ‘get over’. The ache is still present, some days more suffocating than others, and Beca does her best to help her through those. 

“Do you ever think about having kids?” 

Chloe’s question makes Beca briefly pause in her motions. “I do, yeah. But it’s okay if that’s not something you’re ever ready for, I promise.” 

“Up until a few months ago, I thought that having another one would come across as though I’m trying to replace Maddie and I felt guilty. But my therapist helped me through it and... I do want to have a baby with you someday.” Chloe glances up from the album, looking at Beca. “I think-- I think I might be ready, soon?” 

“Okay.” Cupping Chloe’s cheek, Beca leans forward to brush a kiss to her lips. “I love you.”

Oliver Beale-Mitchell comes into the world a year and a half later, four days past his due date. 

“Hello,” Chloe whispers as she walks back to Beca, carrying their swaddled newborn. She lowers herself on the side of the bed. “He’s so beautiful, Becs.” 

A tired yet beaming smile spreads across Beca’s lips as she reaches out to run her thumb over his knuckles, leaning her head against Chloe’s shoulder. Her heart feels full. “Hi little man.” She glances up at Chloe. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Chloe croaks out, seemingly unable to tear her gaze away from their bundle of joy. She bends down to brush a kiss to his forehead. “Welcome to the world, Olliebear.” 

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia - Chapter 72: Summer Shorts Part 1

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Shota Shinso in Student-Teacher Conference

At the knocking at his apartment door, Shota Shinso paused the video he’d been watching, a special counting down the top ten most amazing Hero battles from the previous year.  The votes for the battles had come from an online poll, which he’d voted in, so they were probably a little on the biased side rather than being truly objective or anything like that.  But he had to admit that most of the ones which had made the cut were the same ones he would have chosen.  

Unsurprisingly, Uncle Izuku had made the list twice, for his fights against Doom-Fist and the Maximums. Shoto was on the list two times as well; Ingenium and Gale Force had both made it on there once, as had Kestrel and Rodeo.  Red Riot and Real Steel shared a spot on the list.  And then there had been Ground Zero’s battle against Megastorm…

He’d had to fast forward through that.  It had sent his mind flashing back to the day of the Nomu attack.  He’d heard the sounds of tearing flesh and the Nomu’s terrible scream. His hands had felt wet with Ground Zero’s blood as he’d desperately tried to provide what first aid he could.  His nostrils had filled with the coppery smell…

It had taken everything he had not to scream and destroy the apartment. At least with Mom and Dad both at work, there hadn’t been anyone else around to see.

He’d been doing so well.   He’d actually passed his exams at school and made good use of his Quirk during the Heroics final exam.  He was able to be around Kirishima-Bakugo without flinching or expecting her to be mad at him.  He only had nightmares about it every so often.  

He hadn’t counted on what actually seeing Ground Zero would do to him.  Shota had been doing a good job of keeping himself from thinking about him. He’d hidden away his Ground Zero posters, statues, toys, and other merchandise.  He’d set his phone and internet browser to screen any mention of him. If he kept himself from thinking about Ground Zero, then he could keep himself from thinking about what happened.

Shota knew what happened wasn’t his fault.  He’d been told that often enough now, had enough therapy that he could say it without feeling like it was a lie.  But it was still like standing on the edge of a cliff.  Somedays, it didn’t take much to send him over the edge.

Dumb, really.  He should have expected that Ground Zero would have been in such a video.  His fights had always been amazing to watch.  His Quirk, his strength, his skill, all of it was… had been simply amazing.

And maybe he wouldn’t be anymore.

Because of him.

Dang it, he was supposed to be moving past this!

He shut his eyes right for a moment, doing the calming exercises Hound Dog had taught him.  Deep breaths.  Focus his thoughts on where he was, what he could see.  Whoever was at the door knocked again, and his eyes snapped open as he got off the couch.  “Coming!” he called out.

He opened the door before they could knock again.

“Hey, kid.  Can we talk?”

…It was Ground Zero.

***

The park near his apartment was busy today, with lots of kids playing around, happy and carefree. He could see a group of elementary school-age kids using their Quirks to keep a Frisbee up in the air.  One had some kind of wind Quirk, another an arm-stretching Quirk, and the third and fourth, who looked like twins, seemed to have some kind of telekinetic push and pull Quirks.  He smiled, remembering doing the same kinds of games with Toshi, Shinji, Izumi, and the others as a kid.  Of course, there was the time he’d hit the Frisbee with a sonic blast and knocked it out of the park…

Maybe they ought to bring that back.  It’d be a fun game and good Quirk training!

He and Ground Zero sat on a bench, eating the ice cream they’d bought. Though lots of Pro Heroes, especially the Top Ten, went out in some measure of disguise when they were off the clock, Ground Zero didn’t bother.  He was very good at radiating “keep at least three meters away from me if you know what’s good for you vibes.” It was something his daughter was also extremely good at.

Ground Zero clearly wanted to talk, but Shota didn’t have any idea what it was about.  It was all he could do to keep from shaking and panicking. The ice cream gave him something to be present in the moment in, something else Hound Dog had taught him to do when he thought he was going to have a panic attack.  

“So,” he said quietly, “you wanted to talk?”

Ground Zero took a moment, as though sizing him up, then nodded.  “How you doing, kid?  Katsumi says you did pretty good during the exam.”  His voice lacked some of its usual hard edge.  The question sounded sincere.

Kirishima-Bakugo had talked about him?  And said he’d done good?  He wouldn’t have expected that.  Shota nodded. “It was really nuts!  Uncle Shota got actual bad guys to fight us!  Even Shadow-Thief!   Boy though, did Mom and Dad give him an earful about that!  Mom really doesn’t like her for some reason, maybe because Dad says she used to try and flirt with him whenever he’d try and catch her, but that’s silly, because they’ve been married forever now…  But yeah, I was one of the last ones left standing, and we zapped the big guy really good….”

It had made him feel like he could actually do something right.  It was a good feeling.  He’d actually helped his friends when it had really counted.  

“That’s good,” Ground Zero said, more indulgently than most adults did when he went on about something. “Sounds like you really kicked their asses.”

Shota actually laughed a little bit at that.  Ground Zero definitely had a way with words.  “Yeah, I guess we did.”   He frowned a little.  “What… what about you?  Are you doing okay?”

Ground Zero went quiet for a moment, before he went on.  “Getting better every day,” he said.  “Physical therapy three times a week.  Hasn’t been the challenge yet that can beat me.  Glasses and Tintin’s wives are working on a better prosthetic.  I’ll be kicking ass again before you can blink.”

It sounded reassuring. But it was still a challenge he wouldn’t have been facing if it hadn’t been for Shota.  If he hadn’t been trying to keep him safe… Ground Zero looked down for a moment, at his leg, then over at Shota, then sighed.  “You know this isn’t your fault, right, kid?”

Shota frowned.  He closed his eyes.  “Sometimes,” he said after a moment.  “Maybe not all the time.  But it’s hard not to think it was.”

“It wasn’t,” Ground Zero repeated, more forcefully this time.  He tossed the remains of his ice cream in the trash and put a hand on Shota’s shoulder. His grip was firm and strong. “Look at me, kid.”  He didn’t speak again until Shota was looking him in the eyes, something that took more willpower than he thought he had.  

“Listen,” Ground Zero said. “You, Shota Shinso, are not to blame for what happened to me.  Not one damn percent.  You got that?  Whatever sick f—er, bastard made that damn monster is to blame, not you.”

Shota nodded, mutely. He’d been told that so many times, from so many people.  Some days, he believed it.  Ground Zero though, was one of the most direct and honest people he knew.  If he blamed Shota, he’d have no problem letting him know.  If he didn’t blame him, maybe there was some truth to it.

“Good,” Ground Zero told him.  “And anytime that thought starts running through your head, I want you to punch it, hard, for me.  You picture it, shout kill and let it have it.  You got that?”

He nodded again, his head bobbing up and down quickly.  He could do that!

Ground Zero looked him over again.  He let out a puff of breath.  “Look… I ain’t good with words.  So maybe I’m not gonna tell this real well, but… Listen, I have been exactly where you are.”

“You?” Shota asked. “But you’re Ground Zero!  You’re not afraid of anything!  You’re the most confident Hero ever!”

Ground Zero shook his head. “You remember Kamino?  All Might’s last fight with that masked potato-faced freak?”

Who hadn’t heard of that? Uncle Izuku had told the story plenty of times of how he and his friends had gone to rescue Ground Zero from the League of Villains, while All Might had battled his long-time enemy.  It was the climax of all kinds of documentaries about All Might’s career. Everyone who was around and aware then had a story about where they were when they saw it happen.  They studied it in school!  He’d seen the video hundreds of times!  Shota nodded again.  

“I went through the same thing you’re going through,” Ground Zero said.  He gazed off into the distance.  “I blamed myself for causing All Might’s retirement.  I thought if I hadn’t been so weak, hadn’t screwed up and gotten captured, he wouldn’t have had to use up the last of his strength to save me.  I blamed myself, for weeks.  Without even realizing it, it affected everything I did.  I was even nastier and louder and angrier than usual.  I was such a shit, I’m amazed any of my friends stuck around.  But after I failed the Provisional License Exam, well… let’s just say it took Deku beating some sense into me for me to realize what I’d been carrying around.”

“Really?” Shota asked. He’d never heard this one before! “Uncle Izuku never said anything about that! And you always seem so confident! But you… you blamed yourself too?”

He knew Heroes got scared sometimes.  Uncle Izuku had talked about it, so had Uncle Denki, even Uncle Inasa had.  Uncle Shota even said that fear was a logical response sometimes.  And he knew they had doubts and worries.  But of all the Heroes in the world, he never would have expected Ground Zero would!

“Yeah, I did.  And there’s still times where I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been such an arrogant dumbass back then.”  He looked over and smiled a bittersweet smile, then gave Shota’s hair an affectionate tussle.  “So don’t go letting me hear you needed Toshi or Katsumi or somebody to beat you up, okay?  There’s nothing wrong with needing help.  Hell, you start feeling down, you call me, day or night, okay?”

Shota nodded rapidly again, the bad thoughts banished for the moment.  He knew they’d be back.  “Okay!”

Seemingly satisfied with that, Ground Zero nodded.  “Which is kind of why I wanted to talk to you in the first place, kid.  You know how All Might’s taking over from Nedzu as principal?”

“Oh yeah!” Shota said. “He’s gonna be really awesome at it, I just know it!  He said he might still teach a few classes, but that we’re gonna get a new Heroics’ teacher!  He said they were looking into some people, but he didn’t really know who it was going to be…”

Ground Zero cleared his throat and interrupted him.  “It’s going to be me.”

“Oh, wow!”  Shota said.  It was only then that he realized what Ground Zero had actually said.  “Wait, what?”

A smile passed over the Hero’s face.  “It’s gonna be me.  All Might offered me the job before you all went off to Ponytail’s island.”

“Oooh,” Shota said. “You’d be really good at that!  I learned a whole bunch when I was your Intern! And Kirishima-Bakugo’s really super talented, so you must have taught her a whole lot too, and you’re one of the most awesome Heroes around, with one of the best fight records and…”

Ground Zero held up his hands.  “Breathe, kid.  Breathe. I know I’m pretty awesome.  So you’re damn right I’ll be a damn good teacher. Even if I have to drag some of your classmates forward kicking and screaming.”

Shota didn’t know who that would be.  All his friends and classmates worked so hard and had such amazing Quirks!  “But… why would you want to talk to me about that?” he asked.  He wasn’t family or anything.

Ground Zero gave him a small, sympathetic smile.  “Because I knew you were probably still blaming yourself.  Even though I told you not to.  I didn’t know how you’d take it if you had to see me every day.”

“What?” Shota asked. The question didn’t make any sense.

“Kid,” Ground Zero said patiently, “you practically had a damn panic attack when I showed up at your door.  You’re going to be seeing me every Heroics Class if I take this job.”  He tapped his knuckles against his knee.  It made a small metallic clang. “And you’ll be thinking about this.”

“That’s not,” he started to say, but stopped himself.  He can’t help but stare now, his eyes wide and wet.  What if Ground Zero was right?  “Maybe.”

This got him a nod. “That’s what I thought.  But here’s the deal.  If I’m going to be a teacher, then I’ve gotta look out for my students first.  Which means I have to look out for you, before I even teach a single class.”

Shota felt his eyes growing wet.  “But… but…”

“Aw, for the love of…” Ground Zero started, waving his hands rapidly.  “Don’t cry, kid!  I cannot deal with crying!  You’re worse than Deku, I swear…!”

Shota sucked in a breath and fought back his tears.  He couldn’t just cry like that in front of one of his heroes!  He wasn’t a baby, even if he was a little younger than all his classmates.  He was training to be a Hero.  He had to be strong!  

Ground Zero was being a Hero.  He was thinking of someone else, Shota, putting his needs first, even if it meant he didn’t get to be a teacher.  Shota… Shota couldn’t take that away from him!  And he’d be a good teacher too, he knew it!

And if he knew what to expect… then maybe he could be ready for it!  He could psyche himself up!  Hound Dog said that getting in the right mind space was important!  He’d even know him all kinds of exercises for how to do it.

“A Hero’s got to be brave,” he said finally.  “I can be brave too!”  He was almost sure he meant it.  He could do it!  He could do it!  He was getting better every day!  He had his bad days, but maybe if he really worked on it…

Then Ground Zero held his gaze and if Shota hadn’t known his Quirk was Explosion, he would have been certain he was reading his mind.  “All right,” he said.  “I believe you.  But I’m going to be watching you.  And I’m going to hold you to telling me if you start having trouble, got it?  You’re going to be a damn good Hero someday, kid. Especially with me in your corner.”

***

Chihiro Kaminari in Kiss and Make Up

“Chihiro! Chihiro!  Watch!  Watch me!”

Chihiro looked over to where her eight year old sister, Hikari, was playing on the monkey bars.  The purple-haired girl was hanging on by one hand, her other limbs dangling in the air.   “Okay, okay,” she said, “I’m watching.”

“Okay…  Watch!”  Hikari released all her fingers and Chihiro’s heart lurched.  If her little sister got hurt on her watch, she was going to be in a load of trouble!  She started rushing forward only to realize that Hikari wasn’t falling.  Despite her fingers not touching anything, her palm was still flat against the bar and she wasn’t falling.

Chihiro’s Cords perked up as she got closer, tiny sparks dancing along their tips.  There was enough electricity flying about that she could feel it.  The fact that Hikari’s hair was standing straight up was another clue.  She crossed her arms.  “Let me guess, Spark Plug,” she said.  “You’re using your Quirk?”

“Yep!” Hikari said proudly. “Daddy and I worked real hard on this one!”

Hikari’s Quirk was called Static.  It let her absorb ambient static electricity and release it and apparently also stick to things with it like a balloon.  She had to laugh a little bit though.  She and Dad had certainly driven Mon to yelling at them more times than she could count for doing dumb things with their own Quirks.  Her younger brother Reylo got yelled at less often, but only because his Quirk was sound-based and Dad couldn’t teach him anything dangerous.

Chihiro gave her a thumb’s up.  “Cool trick,” she said.  But she noticed that Hikari’s hair was starting to settle back down.  Her Cords were starting to spark less too.  She took a few steps forward and held out her arms, letting Hikari fall into them.

“Off!” Hikari said, looking surprised and annoyed.  “How come I fell?”

“Ran out of juice,” Chihiro told her.  “You don’t make your own electricity, remember?”

“Oh.  Right!  I knew that.”

Chihiro just laughed again and set Hikari down on the ground, letting her run off to the next piece of playground equipment.  Well, at least her little brother Reylo had half a brain.  One Kaminari ought to have at least half a chance.

“Stay where I can see you!” she called out.  “And that goes for you two too!”

She looked over to where her other charges (Heh.  Charges. Why was she always this funny when no one else was around?), a small brown-haired girl and a blond boy:  Mako Midoriya and Tai Kirishima-Bakugo, both five years old.  When the kids’ regular sitter had bailed, she’d volunteered to watch them.  She was already watching Hikari anyway and didn’t have any plans.  Plus she was getting two thousand yen each for the two of them.  They gave her a friendly wave.

There were also, she would readily admit, advantages to living in a gated community, including a private playground.  Almost all the families that lived here were Pro-Heroes, though there were also a few Support Company officers, and a few other careers, such as Mom’s split career as Hero and musician.  The kids certainly seemed to enjoy it anyway.   She’d already been ten by the time they’d moved in and was starting to get too “cool” for that kind of thing.

Of course, to hear Mom tell it, the reason they bought the house was all Dad’s fault.   Dad had brought home a Great Dane puppy instead of groceries… somehow.  Since Sparky was going to quickly get too big for their apartment, so they’d gone house shopping.  Of course, to hear Dad tell it, Kirishima-Bakugo’s dad had nearly flipped a gasket when he’d found out they were going to be neighbors…

Chihiro let a smile spread across her face as she watched the kids play.  Hikari was making herself dizzy, spinning around on the merry-go-round, while Mako and Tai were playing on the teeter-totter.  It was nice.  Peaceful even.  She could quietly zone out just a little bit.

“Stuck on kid duty too, Kaminari?”

Taken by complete surprise, she let out a cry of alarm as she turned.  Her Cords shot out and unleashed a mild pulse of electricity the second they made contact with… something.

“AAAAGGGGGGGGGGG!””

Shiro Monoma hit the ground with a small thump.

***

“You killed him!” Hikari shouted.  “Mom and Dad are gonna be so mad!”

Chihiro shot her sister a fierce look.  “No, I didn’t!” she protested.  But as she quickly turned her attention back to Monoma, she wasn’t so sure.

“He’s still breathing,” Monoma’s younger sibling said, sounding disinterested.  Takeru, right.  That was their name.  And non-binary too.  Important to remember.  Chihiro thought they were the same age as Tai and Mako, but they sounded like they were going on forty.  They gave him a look which suggested they’d long grown bored with seeing accidental misfortunes befall their older brother.

“She really made him go zap!” Mako said.  “He lifted up and then… Bzzzzt!”  As she talked, her hands copied the motions Monoma had gone through.

“Yeah!” Tai agreed. “I saw sparks!  It was so cool!”

Chihiro gulped and looked down at Monoma.  He was still breathing.  That was good.  She probably hadn’t hit him with that many volts.  He’d just surprised her.

“It’s not my fault!” she said, throwing her hands up in the air as she paced back and forth.  “He snuck up on me!”

“Uhhh.”  A noise from Monoma caught her attention instantly. His eyes fluttered open.  How could someone be electrocuted, fall in the grass, and still be so damn pretty?  Especially while wearing a t-shirt and shorts?  “What hit me?”

“You snuck up on her and she electrocuted you,” Takeru told him flatly.

“I did no such thing!” Monoma protested.  He ignored her hand up in favor of bouncing to his feet under his own power, dusting himself off once he landed.  

“You were doing that thing where you don’t make any noise,” Takeru said.  “No wonder she didn’t hear you coming.”

“Yeah!” Chihiro said, pointing at him.  Maybe she could spin this as his fault after all!  “Why do you gotta ninja around all the time?!”

Monoma seemed offended at that, putting a hand to his chest.  “I did no such thing!  I do not “ninja around!’”  He wilted under her glare ever so slightly, however.  “Well… perhaps I do have a bit of a silent tread.  I can apologize for that, at least.  I’m sorry.”

Great, how was she supposed to be mad at him when he was apologizing?  Completely unfair!  She didn’t want to be thinking about him at all!  “Yeah, well…,” she said, “I probably shouldn’t have zapped you.  You okay?”

He produced a flick comb from his pocket and fixed his hair.  “No harm done, I suppose,” Monoma said.  

Chihiro realized the children were all watching them still.  “Okay kids,” she said, waving her hands vaguely in the direction of the playground.  “Show’s over. Go play!”

Hikari crossed her arms. “Aw, I wanted to see you zap him again!”

“Go!” Chihiro repeated, pointing more dramatically this time.  Her little sister turned tail at that.  Meanwhile, Takeru was being dragged off by Mako and Tai under half-hearted protests.

“So…,” she ventured, looking back at Monoma.  This was definitely awkward.  Why the hell didn’t she keep the kids around?  Now all she could think about was how he’d kissed her and how Mika had said she should date him!  Maybe she should shock him again, run away, move to a new city, start a new life on the run singing for coins on street corners…

Okay, maybe not that bad.

“Um, yes,” Monoma said, and she was somehow glad to see the awkwardness was mutual.  It was so rare to see him as anything less than composed that she considered it a victory even in embarrassment.

And then he said the most dangerous words of all.

“Can we talk?”

***

They were far enough away that they wouldn’t be overheard, but not so far away that they couldn’t keep an eye on the kids.  Hikari had met up with one of her friends and Chihiro gave a wave to the kid’s parents before giving Monoma as much of her attention as she could.

“So,” she said.  Her Cords make small circles through the air, as she crossed her arms.  “You wanted to talk.  Talk. I’m listening.”

“Ah, yes, well,” Monoma began.  Alarm bells were already ringing in her head.  Granted, her guard was always up around him.  Sure, she’d eat lunch with him with Mika, Koda, and Fukidashi or Tetsutetsu.  He was tolerable in small doses.  Especially if he kept his mouth shut.  But she’d never seen him as at a loss for words as this.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have just kissed you like that without asking.  It wasn’t very gentlemanly of me.  I was… overcome with emotion at resolving some of my own issues, and let my exuberance get the better of me.”

Chihiro blinked slowly. She definitely hadn’t been expecting an apology.  Even with the one he’d given a few minutes ago, she wasn’t even sure he really knew how to apologize.  But she looks over and he was so earnestly apologetic that even her background level of irritation at him started to fade.  “It’s, ah, it’s fine,” she said.  “You were excited.  Happens.”

He looked a bit surprised. “That’s happened before?”

She had to laugh at that. “No, that one was definitely a first.” Her left Cord shot out and gave him a soft poke in the chest.  “Definitely wasn’t expecting my first kiss to be you though.”

He looked offended at that. “That was not a first kiss.  All I did was kiss you on the cheek!”

“A kiss is a kiss!” she shouted at him, moving closer.  “Doesn’t matter where it was!”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“I thought you were apologizing!”

“I did!  You were the one who tried to turn it into a semantics argument!”

“It’s not semantics if I’m right!  That! Was!  A!  Kiss!”

Their faces were mere centimeters from each other now.  His eyes were big, blue, and ever so close.  He really was just too ridiculously pretty for his own good. Probably spent more time in front of the mirror than she did.  About the only person who might outdo him in the hair and skin care regime was Aoyama.

“That wasn’t a kiss!” Monoma snapped.  “If I’d really wanted to kiss you, I’d have done it like this!”

Before she could blink, he’d reached out and put his arms around her, spinning her around into a low dip, before planting his lips on hers.  Her eyes went wide as he held the kiss for a long moment, before spinning her back into a standing position.

“What the hell?!”  she snapped.  “What the hell was that?!”  Her Cords flew about her head like angry snakes, sparking with electricity.

“I… I don’t… it just happened!” Monoma said, backing away from her nervously.  He looked ready to run and hide.  Good!  Who did he think he was, kissing her like this was some made for tv romantic movie where they yelled and kissed?!

She pointed her Cords at him aggressively, taking aim, her face flush with anger.  “I oughta just take you out!”

His eyes widened in surprise, but then he smiled that same smug, irritating, and entirely too good looking smile.  “Well.. Why not?” he asked.  “I am finding your company surprisingly enjoyable, even without Mika as a barrier.   Pick me up at seven tomorrow evening then?”

Her mouth dropped open. She could feel her mental footing slipping away as she shifted lanes from furious to baffled in the space of an eye blink.  Mika’s advice to give him a chance came back to her.  And she definitely wasn’t about to admit that she’d really enjoyed that kiss. But the other hand, he was absolutely infuriating. And sure, he’d shown her a more vulnerable side back at school…

Her Cords sagged, the sparks fading.   “…What?”

“That, ah, that is… if you want to,” he said. Awkwardness replaced the smugness.  And now he had his hands up, protecting his face, as he backed up. “We could go on a date.  And I promise no more kissing.”

The words unless you want to hung silently in the air.

“Why me?” she asked, after letting him squirm uncomfortably for a moment.  “I know Mika’s your ex.  Going from her to me has to be a pretty steep downgrade.”

He looked puzzled for a moment, until his eyes widened in realization. He crossed his arms. “You do remember I used to date her before she, ah, blossomed. I’m not so shallow as to be purely attracted to… that.”

Okay, he did have a point there.   “Okay, but the first question still stands.  You’re all fancy pants and I’m… me.  In fact, up until you kissed me, I was pretty sure you didn’t even like me.”

A blush spread across Monoma’s face and he smiled sheepishly.  “Mika insists I have a thing for women who can beat me up.  You do fall into that category, of course, but the fact remains that you are a fascinating and attractive woman.  You’re talented, with varied interests, and you are entirely willing to call me out to my face when I’m being a pretentious asshole. After some rather blunt conversations and realizations… I’m… trying harder not to be that person anymore.”

Okay.  That was… actually pretty respectful sounding.  Which was definitely a first for him when it came to her.  Sounded like somebody had called him out.  Mika, maybe?  Or Tetsutetsu?  Koda was too nice to have done it…

“Okay, fine,” she said.  She tried to project with her tone that she was doing him a favor, not that she was actually possibly maybe kind of interested in him.  “We can go on a date.  On one, no, two conditions.”

He seemed surprised at that.  “All right, I completely understand if you don’t wish to….  Wait, what?”

“One, no more kissing me out of the blue.  You try it, and I’ll shock you so bad you’ll never get your hair to look right again.”

He chuckled. It was actually somewhat pleasant when it wasn’t paired with taunts.  “A tremendous threat.  Very well. And the other?”

“Don’t you dare tell Ojiro about this. Or put it on-line or anything where she can somehow find out about it. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Monoma nodded.  “I suppose that’s reasonable.  So long as you do the same with regards to Fukadashi.  I don’t need her comparing me to some anime or manga more than she already does.”

He had a point there.  Fukidashi was weird.  And given the company she kept, that was saying something. “Deal.  It’s a date.”

“YAY!”

Chihiro’s head snapped around and she saw that the kids were staring at them. Hikari was the one who’d shouted, but they all looked enthralled.  Well, everyone but Takeru did.

“How long have you been watching?!” she demanded.

“Long enough,” Takeru said.  They looked over at Chihiro.  “You should have shocked him again.  Otherwise he won’t learn anything.”

She had to laugh at that.  “Okay,” she said.  “You, I like.”

“Yay!  A date!” Mako said.  “My big sister went on a date too!  With Haruto Sero!”  She danced about as she talked, kicking up a little bit dust.  “Ah… ah… choooo!”

Chihiro’s eyes went wide as Mako’s Fire-Breath Quirk went active with her sneeze.  Instantly, she tackled Monoma to the ground, as a blast of flame went through where his head had just been.  Her face went flush as she realized how close they were again.  Hastily, she shoved herself up and off him.

She offered Monoma a hand up and this time he took it.  His hands weren’t anywhere near as soft as his pretty boy imagine would have suggested, she realized.  “Sorry about that.  She doesn’t have full control of her Quirk yet.”

“Quite, quite all right,” Monoma said, sounding a bit shook from his near-fire experience.  He was blushing too, she noticed.  He dusted himself off.  “But seven, tomorrow then, if that’s agreeable to you?”

“Yeah, all right,” she said.  

Great.  That gave her more than a day to figure out how to explain to her dad she was dating a Monoma.

One date.  Not dating.

She definitely wasn’t thinking about kissing him.  …Dating him!  And she wasn’t thinking about that either!

…Crap.

[gwiiyeoweo]

Prompto Besithia takes after his father.

Noctis Caelum takes what he can.

Pairing: Prompto/Noctis Rating: M for theme Warning: TWs for abuse, manipulation, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy co-dependency

“Gonna run some more tests tonight.”

“Be prudent and don’t waste your only sample.”

Prompto Besithia grins around his spoon, a beguiling smile that hides sharp teeth and a wicked tongue. His eyes though, crinkle in genuine amusement, despite the artificial flavor that clings to the lab-grown meat and grains. They haven’t quite perfected it, certain chemicals and aftertastes still lingering despite their progress, but no one has complained. Not when the Besithias had single-handedly averted a famine and nationwide crisis, had even been awarded such sigh honors by the Emperor himself. Iedolas is something of a cuckoo — hell, even more bonkers than Prompto’s dad — but everyone seems to play into the whole “all hail the great emperor” and “long live Niflheim” and whatever patriotic mess Caligo spouts out every other sentence. Everyone but the two mad scientists keeping them alive, naturally.

“C’mon, have a little more faith,” Prompto nearly whines, mouth full of half-eaten mush. It’s not that bad, honestly; it nearly tastes like the real thing, but he can still get the hints of trace metals and ammonia. Some illogical part of him said it’s the whole psychological thing messing with his taste buds, because he knows he’s artificial himself so it almost feels like cannibalism, considering he's the result of a scientific marriage between splicing genes and bacterial cultures, the DNA coming from none other than Verstael Besithia himself. A clone — one of many — rather than a son, sprouted in a test tube and harvested from a glass chamber as a toddler. “I’ve done well so far, haven’t I?”

But through some mutation, through evolution, he came out on top, proved he wasn’t destined to be a brainless MT ready to have an aimbot program downloaded into his brain. He was sentient and, to Verstael’s utter delight, had a savage thirst for knowledge and discovery just like his father. So now, rather than some expendable hunk of twisted metal ready to be turned into frazzled wires and aluminum scraps, he sits at the dinner table and talks lab tests and future projects, a leading figure in Niflheim’s rapidly advancing technology, along with father Verstael. And if they actually share some genuine father-son sentiments here and there, that’s a plus.

“A reminder to keep it like that, then.” Verstael sits across from him, cutting into an unassuming steak drenched in a thin brown sauce. He looks up, hands stilling for a moment, to level a look of disapproval at Prompto. Not for any particular failures or mishaps in the lab but for his son’s lack of table manners.

Prompto acknowledges it by shutting his mouth and gulping his food down, staring right back and licking the grin on his lips. It’s jarring, really, how similar they look. Verstael is graying a bit, with lines set around his mouth and crow’s feet spreading from his eyes, but they’re nearly identical. It’s a given, considering he’s a literal clone, but he wonders just how much of his DNA mutated; there are small differences, little bits he’s still trying to search and find, like how his freckles are just a bit darker and spread out or how his eyes have just a touch more purple in them. (Or how Prompto’s voice is more of a tenor than his father’s baritone, he once lamented.) The common folk just think how wonderful it is for the son to be the spitting image of his father, and Prompto really can’t help but laugh whenever he hears them say it.

They couldn’t be more further from nor closer to the truth.

As they peruse over data and statistics, Prompto chiming in to ask how Verstael’s latest batch of upgraded magitek soldiers were doing, he foregoes the rest of his dinner and pushes it away, picking up a new clean plate to gather the various desserts onto. If his father rolls his eyes at that, he doesn’t acknowledge it in favor of piling his plate high with a few mini pies and cream puffs, the sugar overload enough to mask whatever artificial flavoring they have yet managed to fix.

“Y’know, I could say the same thing to you too, daddy-o.” Prompto waves a half-bitten cupcake in the air, ignoring the white mustache frosting he’s acquired. “You and that Adagium guy.”

He says it amicably enough, keeps his tone light and cheery, but there’s a definite challenge hidden in his words. A dare, or a threat. As if to say, ‘Look who’s talking. Stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.’

Verstael narrows his eyes, the only visible sign of offense he’s taken — or maybe that’s pride at such audacity, since Prompto, as much of a genius he is, still has trouble figuring his father out sometimes. Both, maybe. "Yes, well," he says, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a napkin, "I've no need to fear my specimen of dying, unlike yours who — might I remind you — is very mortal.”

"Touché,” Prompto concedes, licking off the cupcake frosting from his fingers. He lifts his dessert plate into the air, giving it a lazy slow wave at his father, and pushes his chair back to stand. "But like you said, he's mortal. So time to go feed him before he starves to death."

"You spoil him."

"But it's working, isn't it?" His eyes glint with something cunning and dangerous. "Treat 'im nice enough and he'll never want to leave."

"Conditioned him like a goldfish, then? Have him swimming to you at just the sight of food?"

"Nah, pops.” Prompto laughs, filled with mirth, as he exits the dining room. “At the sight of me. "

He walks on glass, reinforced and strengthened to hold up against all the weight of machinery, equipment, and a small horde of visiting scientists coupled with bodyguard MTs. The old lab has long been repurposed to serve as an aquarium and observation room, the entire floor pulled apart and dug into the level below, to make a livable space for his most prized experiment. He stops at an edge, where the glass tapers off to saltwater, and he leans over to skim a finger across the surface.

Below, he sees movement behind the few tank decorations he's allowed in — a few shells and plants, a low archway salvaged from some bleached dead coral, and an extra-large air stone in the corner. For such a large aquarium, that spans the entire length of the laboratory, it’s barren; no tankmates to keep company except for the single crab skittering about the sand, which goes darting off once a large dark fin nearly topples it over.

Prompto sees the tail first, a midnight blue so deep it’s almost black, with lighter scar tissue ribbed across the scales, marring the once sleek skin with raised bumps and cuts. Wounds too precise and surgical to be accidental injuries. Then, the same dark hair that frames a pale face, some locks keeping close, while others free flow like a bastardized crown around him. Eyes peer up at him, blinking owlishly, followed by a quiet smile. When the creature swims up to meet him at the surface, hands gently holding onto the edge of the glass for purchase, Prompto smiles back. The sight warms his cold, half-mechanical heart.

"I brought you snacks, Noct.” He sits on his haunches and hands over a mini fruit tart.

Noctis takes it gratefully with both hands and takes a tentative sample, unsure of the flavors hidden within all the sugary glaze and cream. But the first bite proves passable at least, and he eats the rest without reserve, even licking the crumbs off his too sharp nails.

Prompto catches the whites of his fangs, of all his fangs — two rows of pearly teeth chiseled into razors, that could cut flesh off bones like a molten knife through butter. Noctis would probably like meat sometime soon. Proper meat, not the lab-grown things. He wonders if anyone’s been on the Emperor’s shitlist lately, and if His Excellency would like them to quietly disappear in an unfortunate lab accident. If not, he’s sure there’s some old Galahdian rebels rotting away in their cells.

He handfeeds the last dessert to Noctis, the dear thing making sure none of his teeth even scrape the skin of Prompto’s hand. He brushes the backs of his fingers against Noctis’ cheek, and if the boy could purr, he certainly would, especially with how he chases for Prompto’s touch. The water’s kept at a consistent five degrees Celsius, too cold for any man but just right for the mer, who insisted it was always too hot until Prompto figured out the sweet spot; yet still, Noctis chases after that physical warmth. A little touch-starved, according to Prompto’s theory, considering there’s not much to be offered to one confined in a lonesome underground aquarium. Also, a theory he believes to be fact, and one he’s been taking full advantage of.

When Prompto stands and heads toward the cabinets and drawers adorning the sterile white walls, Noctis heaves himself up from the water in one effortless motion and sits at the edge, leaving most of his tail to wade in the tank. Prompto glances back to see him wait patiently, though he notices his claws clicking rhythmically against the glass — a nervous tick. Noctis looks below, eyes probably following the single crab walking across the sand or perhaps watching the plants waving to and fro, but Prompto doesn’t need to see his face to know.

Noctis never likes this part, but he gives himself up willingly. Whatever Prompto asks of him, be it a drop of blood or a pound of flesh, his darling thing offers it. He remembers when he first introduced the idea, painting his plan with a white coat of innocence, and asked the young boy if he’d be willing to let Prompto “help” him. But Noctis is no fool; he knows the ulterior motives the young scientist had at the time, and still has, though neither has ever spoken anything directly of it. It’s a part of the game they play, these rounds of make-believe they both fool themselves into: Prompto an adoring childhood friend, Noctis a scarred castaway looking for comfort. He gives, Prompto takes. An unfair trade, perhaps, but at least he’s not entirely heartless and offers rewards where they’re due.

Prompto does, after all — despite his skewed moral compass and enthusiasm to experiment on his own friend — hold a certain genuine affection for Noctis, as twisted as it may be.

"This'll be quick today, promise," Prompto half lies. He doesn't know how long it'll actually take; maybe he'll see something interesting and take more samples, maybe he'll be satisfied with the findings and need no more for the night. What he does know, however, is that Noctis will suffer through each ticking second of it all, with no more than a mild squirm or a quiet wince. He places all his things on a spotless surgical tray — new scalpels, some vials and syringes, tissue forceps, eye needles for the sutures — and brings it with him to Noctis.

This time, Prompto comes up next to him, ignoring the wet spots that drip from Noctis and onto the glass, and sits to his side. He doesn't care for how the water soaks through the back of his pants; it comes with the territory anyhow, and he settles the steel tray in between them to take off his shoes and socks before dipping his feet into the cold water beneath. Goosebumps crawl up his skin, not only from the near-freezing temperature but also from the slick tail that brushes against his ankle. Noctis holds power underneath those muscles and a definite swiftness in his limbs. He could wrap his tail around that ankle and drag him to drown in the very tank he had built, but Prompto holds every confidence that he won’t.

He tears open an iodine packet, and Noctis tenses in a conditioned response, knowing and expecting what’s to come. He doesn’t run, doesn’t move until Prompto tells him what he wants though.

“Hmmm.” Prompto clicks the plastic and cracks the iodine scrub, releasing the antiseptic throughout the swab, and hovers it over Noctis’ forearm where the pectoral fins meet human skin. “What are we gonna check out first?”

He’s quick to change his mind, though, and moves to the hip, where tender flesh blends seamlessly into dull scales. Prompto’s been wanting to do a cross-section of the cells there, to see just where the human half ends and the Hydraean DNA splices itself in, and add it to his little box of prepared specimens.

“Be good, like always?” Prompto offers a cold smile, and scrubs the area in a circular motion. The orange-brown antiseptic bleeds in between the cracks of the scales, and he suspects the red will follow their paths soon enough.

Noctis nods, once and slowly, and he stares at Prompto, keeping his eyes away from the scalpels and tweezers on the tray. “I will.”

There’s that odd look again, that indiscernible secret hidden in that stormy gaze of his. Prompto hasn’t figured it out yet, what it means, and Noctis has yet to make any motion to speak of it. It’s certainly not fear or anger, nor is it loathing or hatred. He once wondered if it was love, but Noctis has never held his affection in secret; he gives it like he’s running a charity, yet desires it like a beggar across the street. There's something… Calculating and determined from what Prompto can figure out, but the rest is shut tight behind those cold blue eyes of his.

'Maybe,' he thinks, as he stares right back at Noctis, 'if I can dissect those pretty little eyes, I can figure it out.'

It would be easy. He knows Noctis would give up his sight just to keep Prompto by his side. And the idea of that, all so suddenly, strikes him as funny. Because really, Prompto is the one keeping him, not the other way around. Noctis is the one tethered here, trapped inside a freezing tank with no one but Prompto to call his only company and the only reason he's still alive and not beheaded because Iedolas had deemed the crippled Prince as useless.

Thirty seconds are up, and he flicks the iodine scrub across the room, where it lands cleanly inside a biohazard bin.

"Lie down." He gently pushes one hand on Noctis' shoulder, and the boy obeys readily, pressing his back against the cold glass beneath them. He even slides himself out of the water a bit more, to offer Prompto more of his own body to poke and prod and cut, despite knowing and hating the pain of knives and needles.

Noctis is a darling thing, and Prompto loves him all the more for it. He picks up a scalpel, light glinting off the cold steel, and he leans over to comfort Noctis' trembling with a kiss to his collarbone, where the pale skin stretches itself thin and taut. He holds the blade just above the hip, the edge barely touching skin and scales.

"Love you, Noct."

He cuts away with surgical precision, all while Noctis bites into the back of his fist and silences his cries.

   He's seven and cold and scared and a pile of broken bones drowning in his own blood, when steel-faced soldiers gather him from under a corpse and haul him away to Niflheim.

It's an uphill battle, and his consciousness stumbles and slips, and all he wants is for them to let him sleep. Even if his father isn't here, Noctis can at least find comfort in his dreams and in the safety net of Carbuncle's domain. But they don't let him. They hook him up to wires and noisy machines that beep at him incessantly. At some points, all he knows is a dark warm void, when the beeping stops and goes into a straight high-pitched drone, but he's always stolen from his comforting cocoon by a bolt of electricity that fires up his nerves and has his muscles spasming.

If there's pain, he's not really aware of it.

Until he finally wakes up from his coma, and he's a screaming mess until someone dressed in white sticks a needle into him, missing his thin veins twice before finally hitting it home.

The next time he wakes, he's awfully numb, and turning his neck feels like turning the rusted cogs of a broken machine. He sees a boy, who looks the exact opposite of him, with his blonde hair and little freckles and violet-blue eyes. They stare at each other in silence, the blonde boy never even blinking, and the expressionless face makes him think the he must be a realistic doll rather than a human being.

But then he talks. And if Noctis wasn't paralyzed — it's weird and uncomfortable, he thinks, that he can't feel anything in his legs, but the haze of his mind keeps him from going any further than that — he’d probably jump out of his own skin at the sound.

“Good morning. I’m Prompto Besithia.”

Those few short words sound like the beginnings of a voicemail. It’s too telegraphed, sounds too rehearsed, but Noctis latches onto them like the desperate child that he is. Mechanical doll or not, he's the only one to actually talk to him or offer anything close to human contact, and Noctis is alone and scared of his own shadow.

So Prompto becomes the only constant in his life, well, aside from the suffering under Niflheim’s emperor.

Noctis wasn’t rescued because Aldercapt had a kind heart and was seeking to make amends with Lucis, unlike the fairytale endings his father used to read to him. (He cries over the bittersweet memories until he runs out of grief to feel.) He learns too quickly the ulterior motives the mad king has, that it was all his doing Noctis had almost died that day and why his governess and a crew of Crownsguard were all murdered by a daemon’s hand.

Because if Aldercapt couldn’t get his hands on the Crystal or the King guarding it, the Prince was his next best bet.

Noctis can do nothing but play the exalted guinea pig for them. He’s small, defenseless, and crippled, and a seven-year-old boy can only do so much thrashing before those hands and vice grips hold him and strap him down onto the steel table, or sedate him with a merciless syringe and plop him into some machine and dig wires into his flesh.

He can’t understand the jargon the scientists speak, but he understands the gist of things. If Regis holds a direct tether to the Crystal, then his son should hold some sort of power over it as well, and that tie may be just what Aldercapt needs to get his hands on the Lucian treasure.

Thus.

He’s seven when his world is ripped away from him, his father a distant memory of a life now gone, when he sees his little crown bathe in the blood of his friends and guards and melt in the flames of the Marilith. When his hand-tailored clothes are replaced with rough open-backed gowns on the best of days, and when he’s left to shiver in the cold in nothing but his own skin on the worst of days.

He’s ten when he gives up hope that his father will come and rescue him, shining in a halo of power and surrounded by dozens of ancient weapons.

He’s eleven when he gives up entirely, and he cries only so he can feel something other than the needles and shocks of their electric prongs.

He’s fifteen when they give up. And Noctis foolishly thinks this is it, that he’s going to die now because they’ve found no use of him, and he thinks it's a blessing to finally be free of them. He doesn’t have the tie to the Crystal their emperor went mad for, and Aldercapt's patience has only grown thin with each passing year his researchers have no results to show for, lopping off one head for every month there's nothing. Noctis lost count after the twentieth-something rolled across the tile floor in a trail of blood, lips slightly parted and still glistening eyes staring right at him.

Through the near eight years spent in this freezing hellhole, Noctis has the small comfort that was Prompto Besithia, an outlier in the older Besithia's cloning labs, Noctis had learned. Prompto had no issues detailing his life's story, proudly explaining his origins as a single cell living with a Scourge sample in his neighborhood petri plate to moving into a giant test tube and busting out of it as a toddler. Half-human, half-machine, he once said of himself, pointing at his head and mentioning a computer processor in there.

But out of every damn sadist who Noctis had the displeasure of meeting, Prompto was the most human out of all of them. He snuck into his isolation room, held Noctis' hand through the worst of the fevers and delirium, brought him pictures and small gifts and stories of the world outside the lab. Sometimes, Verstael — Prompto's "father" — hitched along, and Noctis could easily see the family resemblance despite the years separating the pair. Verstael headed a different department, his studies and research devoted to machines and weaponry, but he somehow had special clearance granting him an all access pass, even to the project concerning the torture of a small prince.

Verstael never showed remorse or pity, Noctis never expected him to.

But when the man shows up today, along with the damned Emperor himself, while the scientists do their regular poking and prodding with his skin and bones — while he's fully conscious for fuck’s sake — Noctis gets the first surprise in a long while.

Because he expects to die, to be tossed down the chute with the scattered remains of failed MTs, since he's been deemed useless and a waste of precious lab resources. The Emperor is here today because he's finally had it, and his workers are pathetic wormbrains who can't tell the difference between a scalpel and a bulldozer, so he's going to save everyone the trouble by finally putting the poor boy out of his misery.

And the kicker? Noctis only lives because Verstael vouches for him — rather, he asks for a hand-me-down toy to gift his son.

Prompto even pops his head out from behind Verstael's fluttering lab coat. “If you don’t want him anymore," he says, trying to nail the final head on the coffin, "just give ‘im to me. I’m sure I can get at least something.”

Noctis wants to cry, to laugh. He wants to die and live all at once, and he can't even make the decision for himself now that his fate is once again in the hands of another. Instead of blood, he tastes betrayal and relief on his tongue.

He never really had any doubts.

He may not have known when his next meals would be, if they'd just feed him intravenously with cocktails of nutrients and supplements, or if they were just going to run some biopsies or take so many blood samples to nearly run him dry. He may not have known what day would be his last, or if his hours were numbered or set on an infinite timeline.

But what he does know, is that Prompto Besithia cannot be given a modicum of trust. And in that knowledge, with the facts he lumped together with the most basic rules of reality, he finds comfort and stability and control.

Prompto never lies, because he has no reason to. He has power and rank and prestige, and those three are enough to get him almost anything he wants in all of Niflheim. He does what he enjoys, goes where the cold winds of Shiva’s corpse sway him to, follows his own whimsies of the day and pursues it relentlessly. But while he does not lie, he dresses his harsh truths in such frills and delicate colors, and offers his poisons surrounded by sweets and silver.

When they first met, Noctis a scared and hurt child and Prompto a curious half-boy, Noctis took whatever form of security and comfort that he could. He didn’t care that this Prompto was Niflheim-born, didn’t question why a young little thing could roam in and out and about the classified lab base as he pleased. He didn’t care what form or origin it came in, so long as he could find something, anything to help keep himself from shattering under the suffocating weight of fear and despair.

He devoured whatever companionship Prompto offered, listened to whatever spiel he chattered on about, counted the minutes and seconds that passed until the boy would wander in again with a trinket or fragment of his science project for that day. He ignored the dim light of red in his pupils, whenever his eyes seemed to catch the overhead fluorescent lights at just the right angle, and pretended Prompto was just a fellow child looking for companionship and offering his mercies.

Noctis always knew — felt it like a tiny thorn stuck under his fingernail — that it was all wrong. He suspected that the Niffs, Aldercapt or the scientists or whoever, were simply using Prompto as a way to worm their way into his good graces, a Trojan horse who was offered as a friend but housed a parasite to break down his defenses from the inside. Throw him into despair, dangle that spider’s thread of hope, and let Noctis wish and believe just to weaponize it and bend him even more to their will.

And if that was truly their intention, they won. He knew. He knew they couldn’t be trusted, knew Prompto and his too clear eyes and plastic smile held secrets and self-driven motivations, but Noctis was so driven into desperation that he forced himself to play along. He needed to survive, to live and see his father and friends and Insomnia again, and he could only last so long without losing his sanity. He needed to bend lest he break , and if that meant bending his own mind and dancing along to their piper’s song, then he’d delude himself into believing.

So he pretended. He pretended Prompto was a curious boy and not in service to the Emperor, pretended their friendship was genuine and not a game of house, pretended that there was still hope to be had when there was nothing but darkness ahead.

But no matter how much he tried to convince himself, he could only run on the fumes of hope for so long. He gave up the idea of a future, of reuniting with his friends and kingdom, so he gave himself over to their cruel hands and let them play with him as they wished, waiting for the day Aldercapt would tire of him.

And of course, when that chance finally came, Prompto — in both mercy and cruelty — snatched up the rights to Noctis' life before they could be tossed into the garbage.

So Noctis sits here, in a room far too reminiscent of his childhood, with its fine draperies and soft carpet and trims of gold among the reds and whites of Niflheim’s colors. He sits on the bed, his back against the headboard and his unfeeling legs spread over the smooth sheets, while Prompto digs through his closet and starts picking out shirts and pants to fit Noctis in. He sits and watches, wonders what game they're to play, if Prompto will continue to be that endearing and cheerful companion while Noctis the pitiful and meek charity case, and decides there's no point in thinking about it when he convinces himself this make-believe is reality. It's the only way he can go on, to put on his rose-colored glasses and act as if he's relieved to escape death. To be thankful that Prompto took away his well-deserved rest.

“Y’know how a long time ago, dad found Ifrit hibernating in some volcano? We found Leviathan in Ulei Trench, just a little ways west of Altissia.”

When Prompto returns to him one day, bearing a plate of dubious-looking fruit and word of a grand discovery, Noctis receives the news he's been waiting for. Prompto doesn't betray his expectations either, and he delivers his grand tidings with such finesse and hope that Noctis almost believes the honesty in them.

“I sort of got dibs on her, since dad and Adagium’s been playing around with Ifrit. And I want to try something new.” He hands Noctis an apple, the skin such an artificial and unsettling red, but when Noctis curls his fingers around it, Prompto wraps both his hands around Noctis’. His hands aren’t cold, not like they once were, now that Prompto’s learned how to regulate his body temperature to a perfect thirty-seven Celsius; but just like everything surrounding Prompto, it’s too perfect and calculated that he may as well have his plastic cold touch again because it’s far less unsettling.

Prompto applies just the right amount of pressure, cupping Noctis’ hand in near reverence and with such gentleness to make him believe, and he stares into his own reflection. That gaze is too tender, too practiced, like Prompto knows just how much conviction and warmth he needs to earn Noctis’ trust.

Which is laughable, really, because Prompto will never get it. Instead, he’ll get something better: obedience.

It’s here, where Noctis looks at the lines he’s drawn: the delicate boundaries of what is his, what is not, what will be, and what will be lost. He finds himself at these crossroads, more times than he cares to, and wonders just how far he’s willing to go. Here, now, he has Prompto. Here, Noctis is his object of attention, his diamond in the rough to polish or crack, a blank canvas to paint or rip apart; and for now, it’s all Noctis needs to keep Prompto tied to him. And he has no intention of letting Prompto throw him away. Not yet, not when Prompto has no right to.

For when Prompto decided he was going to keep Noctis, Noctis decided he was going to keep Prompto — by whatever means necessary. This is his revenge, because if Prompto wanted to play this game and coat everything in sickly fine sugar, then Noctis was going to take every damn thing he had to offer and weave their lives in barbed wire if he had to.

“Do whatever you want. I’m yours.” Noctis says it simply enough, but he has Prompto eating out of his palms.

It’s cute, how Prompto words it as if he’s giving Noctis a choice, but he knows there’s never really an option. There’s nothing stopping him from playing with Noctis as he sees fit, to cut and slice like the other previous researchers did, but he keeps up with the appearances of a “childhood friend” like he’s made for it. He even offers his reasoning as a plan specifically made for Noctis’ benefit.

“It’ll be a long process. We gotta fix up your spine first, see what needs replacing or not, then we can get to the fun part,” Prompto explains. Noctis doesn’t feel the way his fingers run up and down his legs, paralyzed and unfeeling as they are, but he sees the way his hands like to still at his thighs and knees. He recognizes that look, the way his gaze doesn’t speak of affection or love but rather of numbers and charts and formulas.

“They might not be legs, in the end, but you’ll be able to move. Doesn’t that sound like a fun idea?”

There he goes again, phrasing his words like Noctis even gets a choice. But he plays along anyway, nods his head, and that’s all the consent either of them need.

It starts gently, simple blood tests to check compatibility, a few minor skin samples here and there. Noctis doesn't bother to hold his breath though, and he waits with silent conviction for the day Prompto walks in with a whole cart of vials, forceps, and whatever mad scientists like to use. He's had worse — perhaps not physically (yet), but mentally. All during that time he had let those researchers tear him apart, he held hope and a miserable wish, and each passing day made his heart rend itself. Now there's no expectation to shatter, no tears to shed over broken promises and lofty dreams.

But when Prompto takes an agonizingly long time to take that plunge, Noctis makes the decision for him and takes them both over the edge, grabbing him at his collar and dragging him down to eye level.

“Stop beating around the bush. I know what you want, and you know what I want. I’m done playing this round of the game. ”

Noctis trades flesh and blood for false comforts and plastic warmth; Prompto trades sweet smiles and gentle touches for each pound and pint. It’s easier to play when both of them find their roles, and they become grand actors in their own rights. Sometimes, Noctis even fools himself.

His skin itches, layers peeling and sloughing off like an infection eating away at him. There’s dried blood underneath his fingernails, where he scratches and tears despite the heat of pain that follows, and Prompto has to physically restrain him to keep himself from further damage. His neck, ribs, and arms are the worst, where his darkened skin seem to be inflamed but take on a dark blue hue with raised bumps. Raised scales. Prompto makes sure to take daily skin biopsies and blood samples.

His neck aches, and breathing becomes a conscious effort. Where his carotid arteries are, his skin breaks in two large gashes, and Prompto dutifully cleans the wounds and packs them with sterile dressings. It feels like a breath of fresh air when it’s time to re-do his packing, whenever the gauze is plucked out from them like a rubber stopper. Noctis can’t help but feel how stiff it feels to turn his neck, and even the strongest analgesics only take the edge off the burning pain. Still, Prompto rewards his suffering and patience with whole-hearted attention and beguiling coos; Noctis receives it all like a child coddling his lollipop after a doctor’s visit. So long as each keep up their part of the bargain, there’s no complaint to be had.

When Prompto decides it’s time to strap him to the operating table and peel through his back for his spine, Noctis is just grateful for the medically-induced coma.

When he awakes, he’s surrounded by water and glass and for the first time that year, he takes in a deep breath that finally fills him with satisfaction.

   “Prompto.”

Prompto eats the last of the desserts left over, when Noctis insisted he had no more room left. He licks the brittle crumbs off his thumb and wipes at the bit of cream from the puff pastry, then licks that too. If his father saw him like this, his head cradled in the cold lap of his dear mer, he’s sure Verstael would be shaking his head in exasperation. Not because of the familiarity he treats Noctis with, but because of his terrible eating manners — munching away messily on a midnight snack while lying down.

He can already hear his father clicking his tongue at him, saying “Don’t haunt my laboratory should you choke and suffocate, foolish boy.”

So before the Verstael in his head can lecture him any further, he ignores his father’s voice and replies with a hum. He also ignores the way Noctis’ hand snakes its way up to his throat. He feels four claws gently press into his flesh, a reminder that they’re there and could claw through his throat to rip his vocal cords out. He only misses the fifth claw because he decided to “trim” it all the way to the cuticle for and save it for analysis later.

“Stay.”

Prompto lifts his eyes to gaze into sweet, tragically beautiful blues, and he sees a ring of magenta surrounding them. It used to be so pale, a dim purple. Ah, how he desperately wants to see the architect behind those eyes. If he plucked one out, would it still hold his reflection? Would Noctis still look upon him with a love so vindictive yet so voracious?

But of course. All Prompto has to do is offer himself.

He brushes his fingers over Noctis’ hand, where his nails threaten to shred through his jugular, and takes it to press a kiss on his scarred knuckles.

“As long as you want.” Prompto smiles. Cold, like the aquarium that has them both trapped.

[ellohcee]

Curiosity, As They Say (Part 2)

Part 1 / Part 2 

Here’s the continuation. I decided not to go with one of the prompts on this one, as none of them really fit what I had in mind too much.

- - - -

She did one final check of her room, eyes roving for anything out of place before deeming it acceptable. Most likely they would be on the roof the whole time, and she wasn’t sure that she was even going to tell Chat Noir who she was crushing on, but if either of those happened she didn’t want him seeing the posters. It seemed to be a fairly warm night though, so she didn’t anticipate letting him into her room. It never hurt to be safe, especially now with the knowledge that he was someone she knew.

That had been driving her crazy for the last three days. She knew him under the mask, if his words were to be taken to heart, and had no reason to doubt him. She was trying not to think on it, their identities were to be kept secret for good reason. “Ugh, I wish he hadn’t told me that,” she mumbled in annoyance. “Tikki, this was a bad idea.”

The Kwami hovering near her shoulder let out a laugh, before flying closer and patting her on the cheek. “You’ll be fine Marinette. Just don’t worry about it too much.”

“But none of this should be happening,” she worried, clutching her hands together. “Him telling me that I know him, me inviting him into my personal life, it could be dangerous for both of us.”

“True,” Tikki confirmed softly, not reprimanding. “But nothing’s revealed, nothing major. So as long as he doesn’t spill anything else, which it seems like he won’t, you two will be fine. Besides, I’m sure you’ll have fun talking. You’ll get to know each other a little better from a different perspective.”

“I guess, as long as you think it’s alright,” Marinette replied, trusting the wisdom of her Kwami. “I’d better go up and wait for him,” she mused, throwing on a light sweater before grabbing her sketchbook and the plastic container of pastries. Once she was up on the roof, she set the airtight container on the little table and got comfortable in the lounge chair, opening the book to start a design while she waited.

Marinette got a rough sketch done while she waited, and she was getting to some refinements when the hero showed up a few minutes before eight. “Good even Princess,” he greeted, hopping from the railing to the roof and approaching. Marinette tried to take his usual comment in stride, but couldn’t help the thought that someone she knew under that mask was calling her Princess.

She cleared her throat, closing the sketchbook to take a moment to compose herself. “Hello Chat Noir, I hope you saved room after dinner,” she said, walking over to the table. Marinette took the lid off the container and displayed to him the treats inside.

Chat’s eyes went wide with joy, an excited little squeak of delight escaping his lips. “Wow, those look amazing! Your bakery has the best pastries,” he said in glee, deciding furtively which one he wanted first. His hand hovered, darting for one, then a different, before settling on an eclair. There goes my carefully crafted diet for the week, he thought rebelliously, absolutely no shame.

Marinette smiled at the excited look on his face, taking out a cream puff for herself before closing the container and setting it aside. When she looked up, Chat’s face was a mix of delight and agony, and she could almost swear there were tears gathering in his eyes. “Marinette,” he whispered once he’d swallowed the bite. “This is soooo good,” he lamented, taking another bite and wiggling just a little.

Marinette couldn’t help but laugh, as much as he tried to play the cool, flirty joker, sometimes he was just downright adorable. “I’m glad you like it,” she chuckled, taking a bite of her pastry as well. “You can have as much as you’d like.”

“Please don’t tell me that,” Chat replied after he finished chewing. “I’m not supposed to eat this stuff, so when it’s in front of me I have little-to-no self control,” he lamented.

“Do you want me to put a limit on you?” Marinette asked, amusement on her face.

“Yes, please cap me at three, otherwise I’ll eat myself sick. If you see me go for more than that, hit me with a stick or something,” he snickered, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Not necessary, I can just take them away you know,” she tutted, taking another bite of her pastry. “So Love Professor, shall we begin the lesson?”

Chat popped the last bite of eclair into his mouth, chewing in absolute bliss as he wiped any stray crumbs from his hands. Once he was done, he let out a content sigh. “Tuition fee payed, yes I believe we can start,” he said, leaning against the railing as his pupil lat in the lounge chair. “Okay, so is this guy? I need to get a handle on how to coach you.”

Marinette flushed cutely, tucking some hair behind her ear only for it to slide out moments later. “I’m… not sure I want to say yet. I can tell you about him.”

Chat frowned, watching as her normal demeanor changed again. “No need to be embarrassed.”

“I can’t help it, I always get so… flustered!” she exclaimed, pressing hands to her face as if she could physically fight down the blush. She heard a chuckle, whipping around to look at him with a piercing glare. “What’s so funny, cat?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry!” he immediately replied, holding hands out in front of him to try to placate her. “I’m sorry, it’s just, you were so cool and collected a few minutes ago, now you’re...” he gestured vaguely to her with one clawed hand, making her blush deepen. “It’s cute,” he snickered.

“What??” she squeaked, hiding more of her face as it went hotter. “No it’s not! I look like an idiot around him!”

“I’m sure you don’t,” he chuckled, feeling that same burst of affection for her that he often got at school when she was tongue tied. She was such a whirlwind, it never ceased to amaze him how lively and passionate she was. One moment she could be quiet and pensive, and the next she was full of fire. She was so dynamic, it made him wish more than ever he could express himself freely like that as Adrien.

“I do, it’s the most embarrassing thing ever, he probably thinks I’m ridiculous,” she mumbled sadly, looking downcast through her fingers.

Chat blinked in surprise at the next shift in her mood, suddenly feeling his heart wrench at seeing her sad expression. “Hey,” he said, walking over and crouching in front of where she sat. Marinette dropped her hands in surprise, and he took the chance to take one of them and clasp it between in his own. “Don’t think that, Princess,” he said softly, placing a kiss on her knuckles. “Anyone around you knows you’re smart, talented, and amazing. He may be blind to your feelings, but he can’t be blind to that.”

Marinette stared at him in shock for a long moment, the heat in her face slowly increasing until she had to look away to preserve her sanity. “Chat,” she chastised weakly, placing her free hand to one cheek in an attempt to cool down. “Stop, you’re going to give me an ego.”

“I will not stop!” he said matter-of-factly, placing clawed fingers to his chest as if pledging his allegiance to royalty. “In fact, the Marinette Protection Coalition is going to make sure this idiot notices you!”

Thankful for the shift in seriousness, Marinette tried to hide her burst of laughter behind her hand, but it escaped regardless. “What? Who’s this coalition?” she asked around her laughter, tears peppering her eyes from mirth.

“ME!” Chat said with a grin, standing up and gesturing widely. “And all your friends! Alya, Nino, and Adrien of course!” he added matter-of-factly, missing the strangled sound she made behind her fingers. When he looked down at her again, Marinette was still blushing, but with the biggest, silliest smile on her face, still giggling. “What is it?” he asked curiously.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed, trying to get her laughter under control while wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s just, you put on such a show while fighting Akumas, all your theatrics and puns, sometimes I forget how much of a sweetheart you are,” she added softly, giving the hand that still held hers a little squeeze of thanks.

His eyes were wide and stunned from her statement, and suddenly Chat was the one blushing. He scratched at his cheek with one careful claw, avoiding her radiant smile in an attempt to compose himself. “Well ah, ‘kill them with kindness’ doesn’t seem to go over too well with Akumas, so that part doesn’t get seen by the public too much.”

Marinette chuckled softly, she knew better than anyone how kind and sweet he could be when they were talking, but that was usually with Ladybug, so he didn’t know to the extent. “But thank you, really. You made me feel much better just now,” she told him, bringing a big smile to his face.

“I’m glad I could help, I don’t like seeing you sad,” he replied happily.

“And Chat, you can let go of my hand now,” she added, a little tease in her voice.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry,” he said hastily, releasing her fingers after a totally not really-long-time of holding her hand. “Well,” he coughed. “What do you say we get to your coaching, huh? Tell me about this guy, besides the fact he’s oblivious.”

In Marinette’s bedroom, Tikki shook her head with a sigh, smiling wryly. “You’re both idiots,” she said fondly, nibbling on a cookie.

“Well,” the girl began, pink lingering in her cheeks as she thought of Adrien. “He’s sweet, like, the nicest boy I’ve ever met. I didn’t think so at first because of a misunderstanding, but I was way wrong. He’s also smart, and talented, and he’s always kind to everyone...” she sighed, looking dreamily off into the distance. “Of course, there is still a lot I don’t know about him...” she trailed off, thoughtful. “It’s hard, when I can’t get full sentences out around him, you know? But I want to know him better, I know it can’t all be what I see on the surface...”

Chat watched her glumly, wondering at a way to help. “Okay, so you’re nervous, that’s normal. How about when friends are around?”

“I’ve tried!” she whined. “Sometimes it helps, but the times when I really feel like it’s going to go right, something happens.”

“Like what?” the hero asked curiously, tilting his head.

“Usually Akuma attacks,” she bit out in annoyance. “Like one time, all four of us were supposed to go to the zoo, right? Akuma! His birthday? Akuma! Playing video games together? Akuma!!” she huffed angrily, and something in Chat’s chest twinged harshly, as… a lot of this sounded familiar… “But the biggest thing, the reason I was so down that night...” she groaned, running a hand over her face. “It’s stupid. We were supposed to meet and go track down Andre the ice cream vendor, us and four other friends. And I was stupid and got my hopes up, and it’s not his fault but he couldn’t make it...”

His throat clenched, heart beating wildly in his chest as something started clawing his mind for attention, dawning realization. “What happened?” he asked, doing an admirable job of keeping his voice steady.

“Something to do with his father,” she murmured sadly. “He doesn’t get a lot of freedom, so I know it’s not his fault, I just… I was so bummed. When Andre asked me, I said no thanks, it’s supposed to be ice cream for couples, you know? And I just wasn’t feeling that. He insisted, and I politely declined, really, I wasn’t trying to hurt his feelings, but he was upset and… um, Akuma,” she said sheepishly, shrugging one shoulder.

Chat’s head spun a little as things clicked into place, but he kept his composure, managing to speak. “Hey, that’s not your fault,” he said softly. “Someone doesn’t want ice cream, you take that and move on, right?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she sighed, looking forlorn.

Oh mon dieu.

“Well Princess,” he said grandly, standing up straight from his position against the railing. “With this information, I’m going to devise a strategy for you. So we’ll call it for tonight and I’ll give you my thoughts in a few days.”

Marinette blinked, smiling up at him. “You didn’t even hit your limit yet, will you take a snack for the road?” she offered kindly, standing up to approach the container she’d left on the table. She grabbed it and turned to him, holding it open.

“Ah, guess I can take another and still call it a win for my self control,” he said with a grin, trying so, so hard to act normal as he reached in to take a jam square. When he took the treat and looked up to meet her eyes, a force of emotions slammed him hard in the chest, vying for attention in a way he couldn’t process. “Well then,” he said, keeping his voice from cracking. “I’m not sure when my next free night is, but I’ll try to catch you after a patrol maybe?”

“Sounds good, thank you for listening Chat, it really helped,” she said with a smile, and he could feel the flush creeping up so he made his exit.

“Anytime, Princess, see you next time!” he said cheerfully, grabbing his baton and extending it to vault away into the night.

- - - -

As soon as he got home, Chat dropped transformation and flung himself on the bed. Plagg hovered near him lazily, watching his kid run hands through his hair and mumble something into the pillow that sounded suspiciously like ‘so stupid.’

“So, how’d it go?” the Kwami drawled.

Adrien’s face emerged from where he’d been trying to smother himself, looking ruffled and shell-shocked. “Plagg, I’m the oblivious idiot!” he exclaimed desperately.

“You don’t say,” Plagg replied, not even pretending to be surprised, merely rolling his eyes as Adrien had his freak out.

[puppetwritings]

ad·o·ra·tion || Wonwoo || Pt. 1

Pt. 1 // Pt. 2 // Pt. 3 // Pt. 4 // Pt. 5 // Pt. 6 // Pt. 7 //

Word Count: 2160

Genre: angst, grim reaper!au

Summary: There is no such thing as “luck” but only fate. It is written down, it is distributed to the right places, and it is carried out. “Luck” plays no role in a human’s life. So, why is it that Jeon Wonwoo, a Reaper with a spotless record, can’t take your soul?

Wonwoo sat on the recliner, staring up at the ceiling. His hands were folded on his stomach and his glasses rested against his face, pushing up against his brow bone. He inhaled deeply before exhaling through his lips; every thought, but also none, ran through his head. He closed his eyes and continued his breathing pattern—in and out. In and out…in and…

There was a beep, the sound of someone entering the passcode to the apartment. The door opened and there was scuffling—someone was taking off their shoes and placing it on the rack before slipping into slippers. Wonwoo listened as the person shuffled over but he kept his eyes closed. It was only when the footsteps stopped that Wonwoo became more alert.

“What are you doing?”

“Meditating.”

“Stop shitting me, why would you need to meditate?”

“I need inner peace.”

“We’re Grim Reapers. If we get more inner peace then we’ll have reached Nirvana,” Vernon said, sitting down on the leather couch. He stared at Wonwoo until the older man opened his eyes. “Did you get your assignment? G.R.R. has been having some technical difficulties lately. They’re dealing with some reaper that violated the law or something and they forgot to distribute assignments.”

“Hey, Vernon?”

“What?”

“To forget all that you loved and could have loved…” Wonwoo stared ahead, out the balcony and at the sky. “Don’t you think that’s depressing?”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Vernon mumbled, though his chest seemingly ached at his words. Odd, how you could still feel pain in that way when your heart no longer beat.

“What do you think you were like when you were alive?”

“Does it matter? I think it’s better to not remember that,” Vernon said. “We’re here because we sinned somehow in our past lives. This is our eternal punishment until the Big Guy lets us go.”

“You’re saying you don’t think about it?”

“I’m saying we shouldn’t think about it. A Grim Reaper that becomes curious about his past is as dangerous as one who’s fallen in love with a human or starts meddling with life,” Vernon replied sternly, his voice an echo of their superior, Seungcheol. And then he sighed. “But I dunno, man. If you’re living eternity thinking about that, no wonder you’re so mopey all the time.”

“I’m not spending eternity thinking about it,” Wonwoo sighed. “It’s just…been on my mind recently.”

“Well, get it out. Before anyone else hears about it. We’ve been having too many accidents lately and they’re starting to tighten down on what Reapers can and can’t do,” Vernon frowned, looking wistful. “I miss Clara’s Bakery’s cookies…”

“I’ll get you some of Clara’s cookies if you stop bothering me at my own house.”

Vernon glared at him. “If you answered our calls then I wouldn’t have to come here to bother you, Oh Great One.”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and sat up, pushing in the foot rest. “No one called me.”

“Yeah, we did.”

Wonwoo frowned and stood, walking towards his charging station. He turned his phone on and his eyes widened slightly as his phone nearly burst with the number of messages and calls that popped up at once. He cleared his throat sheepishly and glanced at Vernon who sat on his couch, looking at Wonwoo unamused.

“My phone was charging.”

“Don’t blame me for your phone being off,” Vernon grumbled, standing. “So, you got everything right?”

“Yep. It’s in the mailbox,” Wonwoo jabbed a thumb to a closed door.

“Alright, good. I’ll see you later then,” Vernon said, shuffling back towards the door.

“Can you not shuffle when you walk?” Wonwoo asked. “It scuffs the ground and it wears out the soles—”

“I’m leaving, Wonwoo. See you later.”

“Hey, kid, I’m trying to tell you—” Vernon slipped into his shoes and left Wonwoo’s apartment without looking back. Wonwoo sighed and fell back onto the recliner and leaned back again.

He took off his glasses and he closed his eyes again. He inhaled and then exhaled…and then inhaled and then exhaled…

When he opened his eyes again, it was 7:02. He had eight minutes. That was plenty of time. He stood, slowly, and walked to his room. He opened his closet and pulled out his black coat. It was winter time still and just yesterday it had snowed. Even if he was considered dead, he could still feel the cold. Once Wonwoo had slipped into his coat over his vest and button-up, he stepped in front of the mirror, fixing his hair. He had bedhead from his nap but the appearance of his hair didn’t matter much. He picked up his glasses and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. He sighed at his appearance as he readjusted his sleeves and concluded that it was good enough, before he left his house.

He appeared at a cross-section seconds later, his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat and his eyes staring ahead. He watched as cars zipped past and his eyes focused on the lights that changed from red to green to yellow and back again. He listened to the chatter that surrounded him and caught snippets of conversations. Humanity was tired and boggled down and few enjoyed life.

Wonwoo sighed, his breath curling out in front of him in a white puff, his glasses nearly fogging for a moment. How depressing.

He pulled out his hand from his pocket and looked at the time. 7:08. Two minutes and then one minute. The seconds began to tick by. 50 seconds…54…57…58…59—

The sound of the car screeching to a halt mixed in with the screams of terror. The thud of the body was masked by the sounds but the aftermath was clear. The girl lay there, bloody with her limbs twisted in odd places. There might have been shards of glass embedded into her skin or there may not have been. The car that had hit her had a dent and the driver had not gotten out.

Drunk driving, Wonwoo recalled from his notice that he now pulled out. He peeled back the red seal and slipped the white cardstock out of its envelope. He read the red calligraphy, classily printed against the page out loud.

“Y/N, age 20. Date of death, January 18th, 2018. Time of death, 7:12 PM, two minutes after the accident. Reason of death, crossing the street before without noticing a drunk driver, running a red light. Cause of death, bleeding out…” Wonwoo clicked his tongue and shook his head in dismay as people around him rushed to call the ambulance. “A shame. So young too…”

He stepped forward, off the sidewalk, and towards the blood that began to pool around her. No one stopped him. No one noticed him. Wonwoo halted right before her and looked at his watch. 7:11. One minute.

The time changed to 7:12. Wonwoo looked up expectantly but he was met with nothing.

…Nothing?

Wonwoo frowned and looked around. The crowd was still frantic and the sirens were coming closer. He looked down at her, confused, before he knelt down. He checked her pulse. It was still there but very weak. Why did she still have a pulse?

7:16.

She had gotten loaded onto the ambulance and Wonwoo followed, unbeknownst to the paramedics. He stood over her, brows furrowed…She was breathing. How was she breathing? An accident like that should have killed her—it was on his notice! That was her, the person laying on the gurney. Then why wasn’t anything happening? Where was her spirit? Her soul?

The ambulance arrived at the hospital and she was pulled off, taken into the emergency room immediately. Wonwoo stepped in, absolutely shocked, and followed her into the surgery room.

“Wonwoo! Nice seeing you here,” called out Soonyoung in a chipper voice. “You on duty?”

“Yeah,” Wonwoo said, still staring ahead.

“Ah, tunnel vision. Alright, I’ll see you later! Call me up if you want coffee.”

“Yeah.”

The doors closed, leaving the other Grim Reaper to wonder what had gotten into his coworker.

Wonwoo still stared at her, however, even as she was being operated on. He kept glancing at the heart monitor. It was still moving. Still beating. Her heart was still beating. Why was it still beating?!

It was nearly 9:00 when she was moved into a hospital room and Wonwoo followed her still. A coma, they said. Maybe, they said. She is lucky, they said.

But it isn’t luck. Wonwoo knows this. Only the Big Boss determines luck and if it was “luck” then this girl—Y/N—wouldn’t have had a card and that card wouldn’t have been sent to Wonwoo. So, it wasn’t luck. It couldn’t have been. The red calligraphy still sat against the white cardstock, hauntingly staring up at Wonwoo as if taunting him for not being able to do his job.

There was only one explanation then. One that would make sense. She was—

“Exempted,” Soonyoung said, his voice surprising Wonwoo. Wonwoo glared at him as he munched on an ice-cream sandwich. “Man, you got stuck with an Exempted?”

“No,” Wonwoo snapped childishly.

“Then…why are you sitting next to her bedside?”

“Because…”

“Because you can’t get to her soul? Her soul isn’t floating up?”

“But that doesn’t mean she’s an Exempted.”

“Oh, please, Wonwoo. Just admit it. She is. It’s not a bad thing! We all get to run into one of them in our life time since it is an eternity. You’re actually lucky you haven’t in the past thousand years you’ve been around.”

“No! This—she ruined everything!” Wonwoo said, fiercely, jabbing an accusing finger at her. “I had a clean streak!”

“It’s not like you let her go.”

“I didn’t, but I have to! Because some other idiot let her go!” Wonwoo snapped angrily. He glared at her unmoving body.

“Oh, relax, you’ll just have to wait—”

“What? How long? Nine? Ten? Twenty?” Wonwoo’s eyes remained unmoving from her, filled with contempt.

“Ah…well, I suppose we could just go to Resources and ask?”

“No.”

“What?”

“If we go to Resources, then they’ll know for sure that I couldn’t get her soul and then that would leave a mark on my record for the next century.”

Soonyoung chewed at his ice-cream sandwich, unamused. “Man, Wonwoo, I never knew you were this obsessed with the whole perfect record thing. You always seemed so chill. I bet you were that kid when you were alive—you know, the one that went to school even if they had the flu—Sorry.”

Wonwoo turned his glare back to her. “It’s a coma. She’s probably hanging on tight but if I got her card that means it’s her time. She’s no longer an Exempt.”

“But…if she doesn’t come out, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“So, what are you planning to do?”

“I’ll get her out.”

“Wonwoo, souls don’t just come out for snacks. You’d be violating some major rules by forcefully—”

“It won’t be forceful. I can feel her life-force weakening…”

“Man, you sound like that demon on at the Corner Street Bar. You know, the one that you hate? Do you want to turn out like that?”

“No, but this is important.”

“Wonwoo, you really gotta chill.”

“It’ll happen! And then everything will return to normal,” Wonwoo said with a sure nod. He looked at Soonyoung, “You can feel it too, can’t you?”

Soonyoung sighed, taking the last bite of his ice-cream sandwich before he balled up the wrapper and nodded. “Yeah, poor thing. I always hate it when they struggle. It makes me feel awful…”

Wonwoo rolled his eyes, though he felt that way too. Although it was a hassle when human souls refused to leave, Wonwoo still a spark of sympathy for them. They try so hard to survive only to…

“Well, good luck, buddy!” Soonyoung said encouragingly, patting Wonwoo on the back. “I’ll stop by to visit you.”

“Right.”

“See you!”

“Later, Soonyoung.”

Wonwoo let out a reluctant sigh and stared at her. She was beautiful. Young too. It was unfortunate…very unfortunate. At least the perpetrator would be caught and be served justice. Still…Wonwoo wondered why she was exempted. Who had she run into? What had happened? For a Reaper to allow a human to live, something big must have occurred.

Wonwoo shook himself. He wouldn’t ever be able to get these answers anyway. Once she was ready, he would only be her guide and he’d be unable to speak to her. And such was the lonely life of a Grim Reaper.

He rubbed his eyes and stood. Despite being a servant to God, he still experiences hunger and tiredness and pain. He sighed, frowning at the girl with a determined set of eyes.

“I’ll be back. And until then you stay right here,” he said, his tone stern. Wonwoo pushed his glasses back up his nose and stepped out, closing the door behind him.