#i always go on week long breaks and them pile up everything ive made (and wanna share on main) into slide posts

[eldesperadont]

thats still the case and ive uploaded some more since then ,,

btw i still make art, but as of right now i dont like sharing it on tumblr, i have a bunch of NJPW stuff up on my instagram if anyone’s interested: p3rcht ✨

[machine-gun-casie]

tavern music

synopsis: corpse hears tavern music coming from your room (gn!reader)

warnings: rpf, reader gets cheated on, kind of unrequited feelings, mostly hurt/comfort and physical affection tho (what im trying to say is that this is mostly self indulgent)

wc: 1.7k

a/n: havent written in a while but i found this in my arsenal, fixed it up a bit and viola. original plans for this was definitely something longer that would end with them being together but im not up for writing rn. been feeling really shitty lately and ive been needing something like this in my life. hope u guys like it ♡

He couldn’t hear it at first. His headset was on and everyone was being so loud on the discord call. When he started the stream, he really thought it was gonna be a long one. But he’s only two hours in and he’s ready to get the hell off because something was definitely wrong.

“Corpse?” His name being spoken finally broke him out of his trance, he only hummed in response. “You’ve been really quiet. Are you sure you’re up for another game?”

“Actually,” he starts as he closes a few tabs, “I think I’ve gotta go. Today was fun, though. Thanks for having me guys.”

After a chorus of ‘goodbye’s and ‘see you later’s, Corpse disconnected from the discord call. “Thank you guys for being here,” he addressed the chat, “sorry I’m ending so early today. I promise I’ll make it up to you next time. Take care of yourselves. Later.”

After hanging up his headset and getting out of the chair he’s been sitting in for far too long, Corpse made the short trek to your room. 

You had only been roommates for less than four months, but Corpse could confidently say that you have become one of his closest friends. Getting a roommate was the last resort that he never wanted to actually resort to. But alas, medical bills were piling up and youtube and music don’t make half as much money as people think they do. So cutting rent in half was the best plan he could come up with. He did have an extra guest room that no one ever stayed in. Of course having someone move into his personal space was terrifying to him. He didn’t just want to post an ad on craigslist or something. So he asked a couple trusted friends to ask a couple trusted friends… And that’s when you came in.

You were the trusted friend of a trusted friend of a trusted friend. When you met, you didn’t make a comment about his voice. Your face sure as hell showed your surprise but you didn’t say anything. To Corpse, this meant one of two things. You either knew who he was but didn’t want to freak him out, or you didn’t know about his online persona and were just genuinely shocked by his voice. It only took a few minutes of knowing you to know that it was the latter. Thank god. You were like anyone your age with social media. You had a few accounts, followed a few people, but mostly used it to stay in contact with friends. 

It only took you guys a week to realize you had way too much in common. After many a late night when he wasn’t streaming, and many an early morning when he was just done streaming, you two became inseparable. Nothing could keep you apart.

Except for one thing.

You had a boyfriend.

There was nothing wrong with your boyfriend, per se. Just the fact that he was your boyfriend and Corpse was not. 

Yeah, Corpse definitely had feelings for you. 

But right now, feelings didn’t matter when he could hear tavern music coming from your room.

He knocked lightly and pushed the door open slowly. “y/n? Can I come in?”

No response came, just sniffles and sobs. The lack of refusal on your part gave him the courage he needed to open the door wider and step into your room. He had only been in your room a couple of times since you had moved in. But he had never been in a room that gave off the feeling of a person so well.

You were curled up on your bed, facing your open laptop screen and the tavern music coming from its speakers. With every sob shaking your chest, Corpse felt his heart break. “y/n,” he murmured softly, “what’s wrong?”

“It’s not working.” Came your reply, heavy with tears. “You said it would make you feel like you're going on an adventure but I still feel like crap.”

“What happened?” Corpse asked as he sat down on your bed, facing you. You slowly sat up and crossed your legs at your ankles in front of you.

“He-” You sighed heavily. “He cheated on me.”

“What?”

“He cheated on me -has been cheating on me- with my best friend. My little brother found out.” You groaned and dramatically dropped your head onto Corpse’s thigh. His hand immediately came in contact with your cheek as he brushed a few stray tears away.

There was rarely any physical contact between you and Corpse. Sometimes you’d give him a high five, sometimes he’d give you fist bump. And there was that one time you came up behind him at the grocery store and hugged his arm to your chest. You immediately whispered something along the lines of ‘creep won’t leave me alone’ followed by a loud ‘hey babe!’

Corpse could barely admit to himself how much he liked that.

But this? This felt good. Corpse’s large warm hand on your face somehow made you want to cry more but in a good way. The tenderness with which he held your face made your heart squeeze as it remembered moments like this with your boyf- ex boyfriend. But then it remembered your brother’s words.

“Hey, what’s up?” You spoke as you answered his call. Your brother wasn’t much of a caller, so it made you worry. 

“Hey, where are you right now?”

“I’m home, why?”

“y/n… There’s something I gotta tell you.” He sighed and you could clearly hear the guilt.

“Did you break my DS!” It was your first thought as you had given it to him the last time you had seen him. “Dude! I’ve had that since I was seven!”

“No no, I called about something else.” He cut you off mid-whine. “But also I did lose the pen.” You huffed out a sigh of frustration but stayed silent so he could tell you what he wanted to tell you. “I saw your boyfriend at the park today.”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “And?” How did this warrant a phone call? 

“He was with Bob.” 

When you had met your best friend, your brother was only a toddler. He had decided that her name was Bob, so it stuck. You always called her Bob, she was saved as Bob in your phone, your whole family called her Bob. But you still didn't understand. Why was he calling you to tell you that your boyfriend and your best friend were at the park? 

“Why are you calling me about this? You know that they’re friends, right?” You let out a chuckle, albeit still pretty confused. “They’re allowed to hang out without me.” 

“They weren’t hanging out.” You could hear your brother push out a strained sigh. What wasn’t he telling you? “They were making out on the swing set. As in, both of them on one swing. And I double checked, it was definitely them. I-I told mom and she said not to tell you, but I couldn’t not tell you when I’m the one who saw it!”

You couldn’t bring yourself to say a word.

“I’m sorry, y/n.”

There was no lying to yourself, you had doubts about your best friend and your boyfriend. But you constantly brushed it off. He wouldn’t hurt you like that. Hell, she couldn’t hurt like that. Not after everything you had been through together. 

But you had seen his call log by accident one time, he called her more than he did you. She face-timed him one time to ask his opinion about a dress she was going to buy while you were in the changing room. She had done a handful of things since your relationship with your boyfriend started that made you uneasy. If this was their first kiss, which was something you doubted, then they’ve both been emotionally attached to the other for far too long.

All those tender intimate moments, all those dates, throughout everything, he wasn’t faithful. Not emotionally, at least. None of those moments that you cherished meant anything to you anymore. He had played you. With none other than your best friend since middle school. You didn’t know who to be more mad at.

The thoughts of betrayal from someone who you considered a sister and the hurt of being cheated on made you nauseated.

So when the large warm hand on your face stroked your cheek again, you didn’t mind it. This was Corpse. Not your cheating boyfriend. Not your lying best friend. Corpse. And you knew that he would never hurt you.

“He’s been cheating on me for a while I think.” You mumbled against his sweatpants. “Maybe a couple months. I don’t know.” 

Corpse furrowed his brows in thought. You had told him you were going to visit your boyfriend for your one year anniversary next week. “Weren’t you go-”

“Yeah.”

“And Bob’s been your friend since-”

“Yeah.” Your chin wobbled as you answered. You brought your arms up around Corpse’s thigh and hugged it. It was a strange position, but you didn’t care. He was so warm and nice and hugging him properly required more movement on your end than you were willing to do.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Corpse sighed and reached out to untangle your arms from his leg. He gently pulled you across the few inches of bed between you and sat you in his lap. You wrapped your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist, immediately sobbing into his shoulder. “Do you want me to turn off the music?” You shook your head no against him and he chuckled before he solemnly sighed. “When did you find out?” 

“When I came home.”

“But you came home hours ago. Have you been in here this whole time?” You nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were streaming, didn’t wanna interrupt.” You shrugged.

“y/n,” he sighed disappointedly, “you’re my best friend. I can end a stream if you need me.”

“Okay.” Your voice, broken and weak and tired, made him feel so guilty. You had been crying your heart out for over two hours just down the hall from where he was.

He gently grabbed you by your hips and tried to push you away, but you only held on tighter and whimpered. “I just wanna get you some water.”

“I don’t want water.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You.” You whispered. “Please stay.” 

Fuck. How could he say no to that?

So he stayed.

[andromedasstarship]

i could not choose between 77-80 so i overbearingly ask u to use each of them with spencer reid if u wish 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

80. “Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.” + 77- “If you want to leave, we can leave.”

send a prompt + character from this list! 

pairing - spencer reid x gn!reader

warnings - stress?? mostly fluff 

a/n - tysm kenna for requesting this i love you and i loved writing this. i also went overboard on this one bye! ive also never posted something this long in an ask reply before so if this looks weird BYE!

Your car had long gone cold, but you still couldn’t find the energy to pull yourself out yet. It was futile to try and wrestle your emotions into a tightly sealed box; as soon as you crossed the threshold of the town-home you shared with Spencer, you knew he’d be able to read you like a book. Damn genius profiler skills.

Taking a quick look at the time you knew you had to suck it up and go inside; you were pushing how ‘late’ you could be without him worrying something had happened on your commute home. With a deep sigh, you grabbed your bag from the passenger seat and exited the car; taking your sweet time with locking the car behind you and digging your house keys out of the bottom of your bag.

To put it simply, it had been a difficult year. It was the final year of your Phd. program and while- all things considered- you had had an amazing time, the past few months had been both physically and mentally draining. What was once your lifelong passion had suddenly started to feel like a chore; a chore you felt you weren’t even good at anymore. Almost every day was spent either in your own classes or teaching undergrads. Almost every night was spent on the final edits of your thesis or grading work from your students. The few moments of freedom you found were spent doing the boring parts of adult life: housekeeping, getting your car fixed, calling elderly family members, etc.

Neither of you had formerly addressed it, but you knew it was taking a toll on your relationship. Spencer being busy was a constant, but it was normally balanced out by your typical 9-5 schedule. But recently, even on the nights he was home you’d be too wrapped up in your own work to even sit down and eat dinner with him. By the time you crawled into bed he’d be long asleep and in the mornings you’d been leaving for work earlier and earlier in order to get research time in at the university library. It felt like the two of you hadn’t even been awake in the same room for weeks, let alone do anything relationship-y.

Tonight was supposed to change that. Kind of. His team was having a fancy dinner to celebrate some major milestone that you couldn’t remember. It’d been on the books for months, but kept getting pushed back by surprise cases. It felt like everyone held their breath this week, waiting for a case to pop up, but instead everyone was left pleasantly surprised when no such thing happened. It was going to be a great night: classic Rossi pasta dish, all partners and kids invited. Even though the two of you wouldn’t be alone, it’d still be a perfectly good excuse to get out, put on some nice outfits and have a fun evening with friends.

Spencer had been particularly excited. The past week, you felt as if it was the only thing he ever talked about. Not that the two of you were having extensive conversations. He kept talking about how great it would be to get out of the house and how much he was looking forward to having a totally work free evening. His excitement warmed your heart.

Which is why you were taking so long to find your keys. Today had been one of the hardest day you’d experienced in a long time. The thesis meeting you had with your advisor- that you’d been staying up late every night editing for- had gone horribly; it was as if everything you prepared was wrong. Almost every student in the class you taught scored poorly on the latest assessment- on a unit you considered yourself an expert on-, something you viewed as a failure of your ability to convey the info. And to top it all off, even though you felt as if you’d spent hours upon hours working yourself to the bone the past week- in order to clear space for tonight-, you still felt as if you had piles of work to catch up on.

You knew the stress and tension of the day would read clear on your body as soon as Spencer got a look at you. And with how excited he’d been, you absolutely didn’t want to ruin the dinner. You’d hate for him to feel as if you were being selfish or that you couldn’t even prioritize him in your schedule.

You took one last deep breath, before going to put the key into the doorknob. Just as you touched the handle, the door swung open from the other side.

“Jesus!” You exclaimed, one hand clutching your chest as you nearly jumped out of your skin. In front of you was Spencer, smiling down at you with that irresistible grin of his.

“Did I scare you? Sorry. I thought I heard you car pull up earlier and when you didn’t come in I thought maybe something was wrong so I wanted to come check-”

You quickly cut him off- even though you did find his worrying a bit endearing- by pressing a quick kiss to his lips. 

“A good song came on just as I pulled in, couldn’t just get out.” You lied, adding a small laugh for effect. It was an on brand situation for you, something certainly believable. If Spencer had any doubts, he didn’t question you, simply moved out of the doorframe so you could step in.

Inside the house, you set your bag down by the front door like you always did. While kicking your shoes off, you pulled your jacket off, smiling when Spencer had his hands already open to hang it on the rack. You knew he had that ridiculous memory- and you had a pretty set routine-, but it still made your heart swell every time he anticipated your next move and went the extra mile to be helpful.

“So, how was your day?" Spencer asked, as the two of you made your way to the kitchen area. “What’d Professor Addams have to say in your meeting?”

You clenched at the handle of the fridge, grinding your teeth before pulling the door open. When you turned to look at Spencer, you saw he made himself comfortable on one of the countertop stools.

“Went well. They gave me some uh, um, some comprehensive revisions.” You said flatly, turning back to face the fridge; missing the skeptical look Spencer was throwing you.

“That’s good?” He said slowly, before adding, “well how was class? You just wrapped up the last unit didn’t you?” You both knew he knew the answer, but was just attempting to further the conversation. Had it been any other day you would’ve found it endearing, but today just wasn’t that day.

You slammed the fridge door shut, just hard enough to be cause for concern. “I thought tonight was absolutely no shop talk. Huh? Why don’t we just start that rule now.” You said, a slight edge to your voice. It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault.

“Are you okay-”

“Yes! I just don’t-”

“If there’s something wrong, you know you can tell-”

“There’s nothing wrong-”

“Do you need to stay-”

“Stop!” You exclaimed, bringing an end to the constant cutting each other off. “Everything is fine. Okay?” You said, unable to maintain eye contact.

Spencer slowly nodded, though you could tell he didn’t believe an ounce of what you had just said. Luckily for you, he seemed to let it go, falling back in his seat.

“I’m gonna go shower and get ready and then we can leave, alright?” You asked rhetorically. When he just nodded again, you very quickly walked up to him and pressed another quick kiss to his lips. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

---

The ride to Rossi’s was silent, something that normally wouldn’t have bothered either of you had it not been for the borderline argument you had in the kitchen. As you pulled up a few cars down from the house, you caught Spencer staring at you from the passenger seat, a slightly concerned look on his face.

“Stop doing that.” You huffed out, but there was no real bite in your voice.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked gently, reaching out to push a piece of your hair away from your face. God that was sweet.

You quickly nodded and threw a very forced smile his way, not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m fine. I promise, come on.” You said, killing the engine and pushing open your car door.

Before you could fully open the door, Spencer’s arm shot out across your body and pulled the door back shut with a bang.

“Spencer!” You yelped, startled by his sudden movement. You turned and gave him a bewildered look.

“You always look over my head when you lie.” Spencer stated.

“Oh I do not-” You started, but letting the sentence fall flat as soon as you realized you currently were looking over his head.

“Your favorite song came on the radio, twice, on the drive here and you didn’t react at all either times.” He said. When you still didn’t say anything he continued. “What’s going on? You know you can tell me.”

The look he was giving you was making you feel all sorts of guilty. Of course he cared, that’s why you loved him so much. You just didn’t want to ruin something that’d been in the works for so long, all because you had a bad day.

“Spencer,” you started, giving him a very pointed look and making sure to hold eye contact, “I’m fine. Can we just go in?”

Spencer shook his head, externally searching your face for more clues while also internally thinking back to any clues from your kitchen fight. “We aren’t going anywhere, until you talk to me.” He urged.

It probably wasn’t the best move on his part, seeing as you both were incredibly stubborn. The two of you were unrelenting, both staring blankly at the other; hoping the other one would break first. After nearly 5 minutes of silence, it became very clear that neither of you were standing down anytime soon.

Spencer reached his hand out again, gently cupping your cheek; internally you cursed your body’s natural reaction to lean into his touch. “What’s going on?” He asked, voice much softer than earlier.

You were internally screaming over how caring he was. Damn him! You cursed yourself for not being able to just play the role of perfect partner for one night.

“I’m exhausted.” You said, voice quiet. “My meeting went horrible day. I absolutely failed at teaching my students the last unit. I’ve been bringing so much work back to the house I haven’t even been able to give you a second of attention. And now we have this dinner that you’ve been looking forward to for months and I don’t want to ruin-”

This time, it was Spencer that quickly cut off your rambles with a kiss.

“Do you want to leave?” He asked, as if it were the most simple thing ever

You gave him a shocked look. “Spencer, you’ve been talking about this dinner for weeks. I, I can’t ask you to put this off, you and the team rarely get time to-”

“If you want to leave, we can leave.” He said. His voice was so sincere it made the whole thing that much more difficult. He was too good.

“Spencer, no.” You said, putting special emphasis on the ‘no’. “We haven’t even walked in the door, there’s nothing to leave yet. I’m not going to ruin the dinner we’ve all been planning on for months. I’ll be fine for a couple hours.”

He didn’t answer, instead pulled his phone out and quickly started to type out a text.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Rossi, I’m gonna tell him you aren’t feeling well and we can’t come anymore.”

“We’re outside his house! It’s not a big deal-!

“Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner!” Spencer cut you off, giving you a very pointed look. You weren’t sure your heart could take the swelling much longer.

“Spencer, you’ve been planning-”

“I don’t want to hear it-”

“You’ve wanted to get out of the house for so long!” You stressed, giving him a ‘duh’ look.

“We can go do something else!” He replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Just us, no pressure to be ‘on’ in front of anyone else.” That did sound good- No!

“I’m not gonna be the one who keeps their boyfriend away from his friends-”

“I see them every day. Every day. One dinner means nothing.” Spencer said confidently, clasping your hand tightly between his.

You contemplated for what seemed like hours; though it couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of something in my life.” Spencer said, giving you a very mock serious look; you couldn’t help but laugh at that. “There you are.” He said, smiling to match yours.

You turned the car on, clicking your seatbelt back into place. “So, where to pretty boy?” You asked.

“Well, I heard of this new ice cream place that just opened up. Their ‘claim to fame’ is they make over 50 flavors in store every single day. Did you know on average it takes nearly three hours from start to finish to make a single batch of ice cream? Or that when ice cream-”

You shook your head in amusement, chancing a couple glances in his direction as you were driving. You loved his excited ramblings and animated hand motions as he further explained the history of ice cream; as well as all the random facts about the place he was directing you to. As you got closer to your new destination, all you could think about was how lucky you were to, to be loved by someone who always knew just what to say.

---

permanent tags - @sunflowersandotherthings

[theycallmebun]

breather

summary: the reader has been having a rough time because of school but hinata helps remind them to take a break. 

pairing:hinata x gender neutral! reader

genre: hurt to comfort. 

wc:1521

warnings: depictions of depression, overworking, exhaustion[lmk if i missed any!]

a/n: i was feeling a little down earlier bc ive been struggling with school so i wanted to write this. 

as school gets harder and the deadlines all mush together, you slowly start losing yourself again. that all familiar feeling of disconnected-ness and just feeling so so far from everyone. they’re so out-of-reach. you hate how you’ve grown so used to it from before, but it’s always unsettling when it washes over you again. 

you start responding less, whether it be over text or if someone’s actually trying to have a conversation with you, it gets so hard. having to come up with a response to everything. ‘how did i even do this before?’ you always questioned yourself. you found your temper getting shorter, too. ‘since when did people start talking to me so much?’, ‘why are people so nosy?’, ‘what’s it to them?’ 

you were grateful at how almost no one noticed, though. but if they did notice, they didn’t say anything. ‘yeah, they’re probably all used to it,’ but were you really fine with it? i mean, yeah, it was nice having time with yourself and being alone but are you sure you’re not just convincing yourself for the future? you know, preparing for being alone, the whole independence gig. hyper independence, in fact. 

over the week, you were glad to have homework to drown yourself in, an excuse to stay in and be alone. over the weekend, it was the same work you were drowning in over the week but you wouldn’t leave it alone, no. you had to do it all. keep yourself busy and hard-working. when the work was done, you slept- never enough, though- and ate, but that’s as far as it went. 

you weren’t there to see it, but everyone was actually quite worried for you. your siblings, your parents, your friends at the karasuno vbc were all so so worried for you. especially hinata. you’ve only known each other a short while but he was so scared for you. would you stay like this forever? he couldn’t help but think so. he didn’t want to lose you. you who made him smile everyday, you who helped tutor him, you who didn’t mind setting a ball to him, you were always so patient with him. but now it was you, who was too busy to talk, too busy to tutor, too busy doing this and that and this and that. 

he respected that you couldn’t hang out or tutor, but not even a mere conversation? he didn’t get it. he thought you hated him or something. so hinata wanted to settle this. 

one weekend that had felt like all the others, hinata came over around two o’clock. he came with a bag full of some snacks and drinks. your mom was the one who let him in, she was a little surprised anyone would come visit you in the state you’re in. 

“oh, shoyo, y/n is in their room. just be a little weary, ok?” she tells him. to which he nods in response. 

he walks up to your door and knocks. nothing. he knocks again. nothing. 

“y/n, it’s shoyo, i’m coming in,” he says before he opens the door. 

when he opens the door, he’s surprised by the sight of you sleeping peacefully on your bed. you’re even wearing the sweater he let you keep. he smiles seeing you so at peace for once. after he’s taken a minute to look at you, he moves to go put the bag of goods somewhere. when he gets the chance to look at your room, you’ve got multiple piles of books stacked mile high on your desk. then, there’s more stacks, but it’s paper, finished, unfinished, and graded assignments litter your desk. your trash can is overflowing, your laundry is long overdue, and he hears you phone and computer going off the charts with reminders and emails. 

hinata frowns at the state you’ve been living in. he can picture you moving around in this room, going half insane because of all these things you need to do. he returns to your side on the bed. at first he’d questioned why you were sleeping in the middle of the day but he can see the exhaustion on your face when he moves the stray strands of hair from your frame. you sunk into the feeling of his hand on your cheek and he smiled a little. 

from feeling the dip in your bed, to someone stroking your face, your stir a little before you slightly open your eyes. your vision isn’t even clear yet but you know it’s hinata. you can tell from the calluses on the hand touching your face and the blob of orange sitting in front of you. 

“sho? what’re you doing here?” you say groggily. 

“just checking up on you,” he answers. 

“but i saw you at school, like, yesterday,” you tell him.

“yeah, i saw you, but we haven’t spoken in nearly two weeks,” he tells you. 

‘ugh,’ is what you’re thinking. 

 you remove hinata’s hand from your face and get up and out of bed. 

“i don’t have time for this, shoyo,” you say as you plant yourself in your desk chair and start flipping through papers, completely ignoring the bag from the convenience store. 

hinata’s frown is back on his face as he stares at your back. it’s really hard for him to not think you hate him, right now. he sits quietly for a couple minutes, thinking about what he could do to get you out of this. 

he stays sitting on your bed and says, “y/n, won’t you come outside with me?”

“no,” you respond. 

but he already knew that, so he picked you up and threw you over his shoulders. 

“shoyo! what are you doing?! put me down!” you thrashed, kicking your legs and swinging your arms. 

“no, i’m helping you,” he says, grabbing the bag and then heading out the door. 

after a couple minutes, he sets you down on a blanket on some patch of grass in your backyard. as soon as he puts you down, you shoot up and try making a run for your room. 

“nope!” hinata says as he tackles you back down, “we’re going to hang out here for a little while. you’re not going to think about homework, or projects, or exams, you are going to take a breather.”

“shoyo! i really can’t. i have a really big-”

“nope, i said we’re not even going to think about that stuff,” he interrupts. 

you give up and just lay there with him on top of you. 

you pick up on the crisp air, the blue sky with only a few clouds, the leaves falling off trees as the transition into winter starts, the warmth of hinata. suddenly, he didn’t feel so far anymore. your heart beat slows down a little, your chest feels lighter, and it feels like you’re breathing, living. 

you move to sit up so hinata gets off of you. you look at him in the eyes and he gives you the sweetest smile you’ll swear you ever saw. 

now, you dont exactly know why but you just start crying. not a sob or a wail, but just a slow and steady stream of tears coming down your face. you remain quiet. hinata looks at you, knowingly, and you drop your head on his shoulder. you feel bad for wetting his sweater and try to move but he keeps you there. 

“it’s alright, y/n. just stay there,” he whispers in your ear. 

hinata is just so comforting and soft and so good to you. your eyes water more as you think about all the time you’ve spent ignoring everyone, ignoring him, and being mad and tired and bothered. all that time wasted. all that time hurting but just hurting others. you think about how you still have hinata despite all of that. 

you bring your arms up to wrap around hinata’s neck. and then the sobbing starts. you apologize for being so cold to him, you tell him what’s been on your mind, and you tell him you love him because he deserves it. he needs it. 

hinata just sits there, hugging you back because now you’re on top of him, listening, understanding. when he hears you say you love him, he melts into you, getting impossibly closer because you don’t hate him. he tells you he loves you back. he tells you to take a breather every now and then, he tells you not to overwork yourself or else he’ll break into your house and bring you outside like this again. 

when you move to look at him, he gives you that sweetest smile again. and it makes you smile. that thousand dollar smile hinata would do anything to see everyday. he moves his hands to cup your cheeks and wipe the remaining tears. 

“i love you, y/n. never forget that,” he declares. 

“never in a million years, sho. i love you, too.”

“and give yourself a break. come hang out with me again,” he says as he flicks your forehead. 

“alright,” you say as you rub the spot on your head. 

a/n: sorry for mistakes😣 didn’t have time to check

[watchmegetobsessed]

Serendipity - Part IV. (Harry Styles)

a/n: can’t believe only one part left of this story! i personally love their journey and a lot more is to come, we have an emotional last part ahead of us, so brace yourself! as always, feedback is very much appreciated!!

pairing: Harry x OC (Annalise Lloyd)

word count: 9.4k

SERIES MASTERPOST  ⚫️ my masterlist  ⚫️  come and talk to me about Serendipity!  

Serendipity (n.) Finding something good without looking for it.

Sometimes Harry finds himself way too caught up with everything around him. Work tends to pile up, meetings after meetings, urging deadlines and the demand to stay relevant in the industry. These past weeks he has tried his best to make London the epitome of his life and so far he has been successful in his attempt, dodging two trips away from his home, though he had to make a short visit to New York still.

Now, even though he is in London, he feels like he is far from home. He hasn’t been able to see Lis in three days, their schedules just didn’t line up well and he would never ask her to mess up her usual routine with Benji, but he has been missing her dearly. He has been missing them both. Harry found himself growing a liking to being around not just Lis, but her little boy as well. He loves playing around with him, joining the mother-son duo on their little outings on Sundays, or just simply stay in with them, watching whatever movie has caught Benji’s eyes recently. He has been spending all his free time with them, but this week has been too hectic and now Harry feels like it’s coming down crashing on him at once.

It’s past eight pm now and he just finished with a tiring meeting. He has had many creative differences with the team he is supposed to work together with for a photoshoot and it took all his energy and patience out of him to stay calm and respectful when they just wouldn’t let go of the things he clearly didn’t want to include. It didn’t matter what he or his manager was saying, the team seemed to be keen on putting their ideas through no matter what.

“We’ll come to terms, alright?” Jeff pats his shoulder as they walk out of the building. Harry nods, though he doesn’t feel comfortable in the project like he is supposed to.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Rest some. I pushed a little further your interview tomorrow. You have to be there at eleven.”

“Thanks,” he nods at the man and they say their goodbyes before parting ways and heading to their own cars.

Once he is seated behind the wheel, he takes a moment to himself, breathing deep to get his head sorted out, but he just knows this ache in his chest will grow if he doesn’t do something to ease it. Pulling his phone out of his pocket he closes his eyes as he starts a call to Lis.

“Hey! I was just thinking about you.” Her sweet voice immediately eases the tension in his muscles and he feels himself deflate at her words.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, Benji showed me his painting he made today and it has this nice guitar on it, I’m sure you’d like it,” she chuckles softly and he hears her shuffling around, she must be cleaning up the kitchen, at least that’s what she usually does around this time once they are finished with dinner.

“I bet it looks awesome,” he mumbles.

“Everything alright? You sound a little… distant,” she says, worry lacing through her words.

“I’m just… tired. Very tired. Just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” she coos. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“It’s just work stuff. It’s been a hard week,” he admits, but doesn’t go into detail, not wanting to load out on her. She has enough on her plate without having to listen to his ranting.

“Are you at home?”

“No, I just got done at a meeting. It was shitty, some people just suck,” he sighs in frustration.

“Want to come over?” she asks softly, the question surprises him. It’s a weekday and they didn’t agree on meeting beforehand. “Go home, get the stuff you need and spend the night here, if you want.”

“You sure about it? I don’t want to bother and what about Benji?” Lis chuckles on the other end of the call.

“Benji would jump up the wall if he hears you are coming over. He has been missing you too, Harry. In fact, I think if you come over you won’t be able to get rid of him for a while.”

Harry chuckles lowly, the thought of having to play with Benji whatever imaginary game he just made up warms his chest. He doesn’t mind it, not even a bit.

“I can be there in like forty.”

“That’s perfect. We are starting Finding Nemo just now. Hurry so you can see the end. Spoiler, they find Nemo,” she laughs making him smile as well.

“Alright, see you in a bit.”

 Annalise ends the call, smiling to herself. She still hasn’t gotten used to the feeling Harry brings to her. All the affection and appreciation he has been showing made her swoon and she has no doubt now that she made the right choice when she let him enter her life. She could tell he wasn’t in the best of moods and though he didn’t admit it, he couldn’t fool her entirely. She wanted to be there for him, comfort him just like he does every time she is feeling overwhelmed with life. Harry hasn’t failed to brighten her days whenever it was starting to feel a little too much all together and now she has the chance to do the same for him.

“Popcorn! Popcorn!” Benji chants as he runs into the kitchen, already in his pajamas, holding one of his dinosaurs in his hand.

“Alright, I’m making it now,” she chuckles grabbing a pack and tossing it into the microwave. “Harry will come over in a bit, is that alright?” she asks him and watches his eyes brighten up immediately.

“When is he arriving? Can I show him my painting?” he enthuses right away, making Lis chuckle.

“Of course, already told him about it. He’ll be over soon. Let’s start the movie, he’ll join when he arrives.”

The two of them settle on the couch once the popcorn is ready, she puts on the movie and tries her best to focus on the screen, but she keeps glancing out the window, checking if he has arrived. When she sees his headlights pull up in front of her house, she leaves the comfort of the couch and goes to meet him outside. Luckily, Benji is too invested in the movie to care about the absence of his mother just yet.

When she sees him emerge from the car, she can tell he isn’t his usual joyful self. His shoulders are hunched forward and she can tell he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in a while from the circles under his eyes. Looking up his gaze meets hers and he breaks a soft smile at the sight of her in her comfy home clothes.

“Hey,” she greets him warmly and walking up she kisses him sweetly, running her fingers through his hair. He hums against her lips, hands finding her waist lazily.

“Hi. You sure I’m not bothering?” he asks as he grabs his bag for the night from the back of the car.

“Absolutely,” she smiles and taking his hand she pulls him inside from the crispy evening air.

Benji’s head snaps up hearing the front door shut and he immediately leaps out of his seat, launching at the man that just arrived.

“Harry! Come see my painting!” he begs immediately, smacking against him, wrapping his short arms around his waist. Harry chuckles lightly, rubbing his back gently.

“Alright, bud. Show me!”

The three of them move over to the kitchen so Harry can check out the painting on the fridge. Harry listens to everything he has to say, giving him his full attention and Annalise can’t ignore how her heart flutters in her chest at the sight of them. Harry squats down so he is on the level of the little boy who is standing between his legs, talking enthusiastically about the kind of paint his teacher let him use at school. He doesn’t seem to be just acting to be interested, it’s all genuine and that alone almost makes her cry.

Once the show and tell is done, Benji drags him into the living room so they can continue the movie.

“Slow down, Benji. Let me bring my stuff up to the bedroom,” Harry chuckles, but the boy has a strong grip on his hand.

“I’ll do it, just go watch the movie,” Lis offers smiling. Harry presses a kiss to her temple, mumbling a thank you as she takes the bag from him before he is taken by her son.

Bringing it into her bedroom she sets it beside the bed and gets him a clean towel, placing it to the edge of the bed in case he needs it. Once the lights are all turned off she heads back down to the living room, only to find a scene that immediately makes her swoon.

The movie is playing again and has both guys’ eyes fixed on the screen. Harry is sitting comfortable on the couch, slid down a little, Benji cuddled to his side, his little fingers playing with the buttons of his shirt. His head is laid on Harry’s chest while his long, tattooed arm is wrapped around the little boy’s frame. Just as she walked down the stairs Benji mumbled a question about sharks and Harry softly answered, earning a nod from the boy in his arm.

Lis finds herself grabbing her phone from the kitchen island, quietly sneaking up on them, taking a picture of the two from the side. She is more than sure it’s going to end up as her lockscreen sooner or later.

Harry lifts his head and turns towards her when she walks in, making her presence known this time. A soft smile tugs on his pink lips and Annalise can’t push down her wide smile even if she tried. Sitting beside the boys, she leans closer and presses a kiss to Harry’s lips before placing one on top of Benji’s head. This is her silent thank you to Harry for being such an amazing man and he can feel the seriousness behind this small gesture as well.

When Lis is all settled, Benji moves around until his head is still on Harry’s chest but his legs are across his mother’s lap. Harry and Lis exchange one last loving look over the head of the little boy before they both turn their attention back at the movie playing on the screen.

Benji is half asleep by the end of the movie. Harry offers to carry him up to bed, which Lis appreciates a lot. She hasn’t been able to carry him around that much since he has been growing like crazy. Once the boy is all settled in his bed the two of them head into her bedroom. First he takes a quick shower and then it’s her turn. When she returns to the room Harry is lying in bed already, reading something on his phone but he quickly puts it aside when she appears. She quickly gets under the covers and moves close to Harry, resting her head on his shoulder as he circles his arm around her frame.

“I’m sorry you had a shitty day,” she mumbles after a while, his fingers gently caressing her upper arm.

“It definitely got better at the end.” After a short silence, she is the one to speak up again.

“I like having you around like this.”

“Like what?”

Lifting her head she rests her chin on his chest so she can look him in the eyes.

“Domestically,” she answers and his heart starts thudding against his chest so wildly even she notices it.

“I love it too,” he tells her truthfully.

As he stares down at her in the dim lighting of the bedside lamp on her nightstand, he can feel three short words weighing down on him, burning to be said out loud, but he is not sure if it’s the right moment to let them slip. However, as the moments pass by and she is still looking up at him, he simply can’t make himself remain silent.

“And… I love you.”

She seems stunned upon hearing his words, lips parted as her eyes keep fixated on his green ones. Pushing herself up into a sitting position she lets the faintest smile tug on her lips, tasting the words that just rolled down his tongue. Cupping his face she leans down and kisses him blissfully, her cheeks blushing from the joy that spread in her body at his confession.

“I love you too,” she whispers against his lips and he breathes out shakily, a hand flying to the back of her head to pull her into another kiss.

“See? It wasn’t tha’ hard, right?” Harry smiles down at Benji who nods his head, admiring his math homework Harry just helped him finish.

“Thanks. I think I like math now,” the boy nods to himself, making both Harry and Lis chuckle.

“Your opinion about math seems to be changing quite often, Benji,” Lis teases him, but he just shrugs his shoulders. “Go pack your bag for tomorrow.”

Benji climbs off the stool, grabs his notebook and pencils before jolting upstairs. Annalise walks around the kitchen island until Harry can reach out and pull her closer to him, placing a chaste kiss to her lips.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she shyly blinks up at him.

“Go ahead,” he nods. Her hands wander to his stomach, curling the fabric of his shirt around her fingers before letting it go. Harry has been spending at least two nights at Annalise’s, he has his own drawer in her dresser, a toothbrush in the bathroom and even a mug only he uses when he drinks his morning coffee. Following the night he spent here after his shitty day, it slowly became a usual, they both found themselves craving to be with each other and Benji didn’t seem to mind having him over either. Now it’s stretching towards the end of May and they have fallen into a routine of some sort, that seems to be working well for all three of them.

“When school is going to be over I’ll be taking Benji to my parents’ and he’ll stay there for the first two weeks of summer vacation. I’m staying for a weekend as well before I leave him there and I was wondering if… you’d like to come, maybe.”

“You want me to meet your parents?” Harry asks, stunned at the sudden invitation, but it surely warms his heart, knowing that she is ready to take this next step.

“I mean, if you don’t think it’s too soon or something. We’ve been dating for only what, like two months?”

“Something like that,” he nods licking his lips.

“Don’t feel pressured, it’s just that I told my mum about you and she really wants to meet you. But I understand if you want to push it back a little.”

“You told your mum about me?”

“Of course,” she smiles shyly. “She is dying to meet this new, charming boyfriend of mine.” Her smile turns into a smirk that’s surely contagious. Harry mirrors her expression before pecking her lips softly.

“I would love to meet your parents, Lis.”

Her eyes light up and he knows he would do anything to see her happy. Meeting her parents feels a tad bit scary but he is also excited, knowing that she trusts him and counts on him on such level is comforting.

“Great. Then get ready to be questioned by my mum, she can be a pester sometimes, but I have no doubt you’ll pass,” she chuckles before kissing him fully.

“So Benji will be away for two weeks?” he asks, seemingly deep in his thoughts.

“Yeah.” Harry licks his lips, eyebrows furrowed and Lis can tell the gears are turning wildly in his head. “What’s on your mind?”

“It’s just an idea. You can say no if you don’t feel like you’re comfortable with it, but… I was thinking that you could stay at mine for those two weeks. Would be nice to come home to each other, start our days together and all. But it’s just an idea, you can absolutely tell me if yo—“

“I would love that,” she cuts him off smiling, her hands coming up to cup his cheeks. “I think it would be great.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” she nods smirking, her thoughts already wandering off to how convenient it’s going to be to be around each other all the time when they are not working. No interruptions, no third parties, just the two of them in the comfort of Harry’s home. She would be crazy to say no to that.

“Great,” he smiles, eyes shining bright. “I’ll make you a copy of my keys then.”

Suzan and George Lloyd live in the outer skirt of Manchester, a place that almost feels like home for Harry as well. The cozy looking town house appears to be old, but it’s clear that it is well kept, thanks to all the hours the couple puts into it.

“Grams! Gramps!” Benji cheers in excitement once Harry parks down on the driveway. The red front door opens and a short, curvy woman appears, her chestnut hair in a short ponytail, a green apron covering her front.

“She is big on kisses,” Lis warns Harry before they all get out of the car.

Benji runs up to his grandmother happily, giving her a tight hug as the woman coos at him lovingly. Lis grabs Benji’s bag while Harry carries hers and his, walking up to the front door where Suzan is already waiting for them with open arms.

“Lisie! Come here!” she cheers, her laugh chiming sweetly as she wraps her arms around her daughter, kissing her cheek several times.

“Hi mum. How are you?”

“Fantastic now that I have my favorite grandson with me!” she cheekily answers winking at Benji, though they all know he is the only grandson she has.

“Mum, this is Harry, my boyfriend. Harry, this is my mother,” Lis introduces them to each other. Harry drops the bags to the ground with a wide grin on his face that brings out his dimples well. Suzan immediately falls in love with them.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lloyd,” he politely greets her, though she waves in dismissal.

“Oh, call me Suzan. Come here, Dear!”

They share a warm hug and just as Lis warned him, he feels Suzan kissing both his cheeks welcomingly.

“You surely are more handsome than in the photos!” she exclaims, making Harry chuckle.

“Apologies, she is a big Google user,” Lis huffs, but Suzan ignores the comment, tugging her family inside.

George appears from the kitchen, chewing on something as Benji jumps into his arms.

“Gramps, we will go fishing, right?” he asks in excitement.

“Of course, Benji. Next weekend?”

“Yay!”

“Lisie!” George cheers and envelopes his daughter in a hug after he has put Benji down. “You look stunning.”

“Thank you, Dad,” she smiled. “This is Harry. Harry, this is my dad.”

“Nice to meet your, Sir,” Harry smiles at him as they shake hands and luckily, George returns his smile with a gentle pat on his shoulder.

“Call me George. Nice to meet you too.”

Soon enough Lis goes upstairs to help Benji get settled in the room that used to be hers but now mostly used by the boy when he is staying over, leaving Harry alone with Suzan and George. Suzan has brought some tea and biscuits into the living room and she joins the two men as George is already asking him about what he really does for a living.

“Lisie said you are some kind of celebrity?” George explains, looking a little puzzled at the information though.

“Kind of,” Harry nods. “I’m a singer and song writer.”

“George, I showed you his song the other day!” Suzan chimes in, sitting in the armchair.

“Which one? You show me so many things a day, I can’t remember all of them!”

“The one with the video about the fish!”

“Fish?” George grimaces, trying to find his memory of what his wife showed him, but then it pops in and his expression smoothes out. “Oh! That one! That’s a nice song!”

“Of course it is!” Suzan exclaims. Harry finds the conversation rather endearing. It’s always so relieving to meet people who are not so caught up in the world of fame, having trouble to even remember his full name. Though Suzan has done her homework digging online, it’s still clear that she hasn’t heard much about him beforehand and Harry prefers it this way, not having to worry about and secondhand judgment from the media.

Suzan turns to Harry and her eyes give it away that she is about to have a few serious words with him.

“Harry, I’m so glad you could make it this weekend. Lis talked so fondly about you on the phone.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

“It seems like Benji likes you a lot too.”

“He is an amazing little boy.” Suzan lets out a long breath and he knows this is where the real talk begins.

“I can tell your intentions are the best with her, but please be extra careful with them. She has had enough trouble with Austin, she doesn’t need another heartbreak, yeah?”

“I completely understand your concerns and I can assure you, I’m always doing everything in their favor.”

“That I know, Harry,” she smiles. “But sometimes things just get harder and people tend to forget you have to fight for what you thought was already fully yours.”

Harry holds his gaze on hers as he savors the meaning behind her rather wise words. He knows it was no thread, but a reminder that they won’t be always this happy.

“Will try my best,” he nods, meaning every single word.

It’s a silent agreement between the two of them that Harry will hope to keep forever. Benji comes running down the stairs, Lis following behind him as they join the three of them in the living room. Benji sits on Suzan’s lap, rambling about his last fieldtrip he had with his class as Lis sits beside Harry on the sofa. She places a hand to his knee, squeezing it softly and his palm covers her hand instantly.

“You alright?” she quietly asks him.

“Yeah,” he smiles and leaning closer he pecks her lips shortly before they both turn towards Benji and Suzan.

Monday morning, when Annalise’s alarm goes off on her phone, she can’t tell where she really is for a moment, it is until she hears Harry groan behind her, an arm lazily thrown over her stomach. They arrived back from Manchester the previous night and after a quick trip to Annalise’s house, they both moved over to Harry’s place where they are set to spend the next two weeks, something they both have been looking forward to.

Harry places a soft kiss to her shoulder before rolling to his back, blinking the sleep away from his tired eyes. Though they both knew they would have to wake up early in the morning, it didn’t keep them away from using their alone time for their satisfaction.

“Mm, I know you love your job, but right now I wish you would just quit it,” Harry mumbles, eyes still closed as he is trying to gain strength to get up. Lis chuckles softly, cuddling to his side.

“You know… I forgot I don’t need to get Benji ready now so we are about half an hour early,” she inquires, hoping Harry would get the real meaning behind her words, however he is too tired to do much thinking about what she truly meant.

“Great, 30 more minutes of sleep,” he exhales.

“Or…” Lis pushes herself up and swings a leg over Harry, getting on top of him and the position surely makes his eyes pop open. “We could use our time wisely,” she suggests with a coy smile.

“Rise and shine, baby,” he sings, his hands grabbing onto her hips as he turns them over, getting on top of her while she laughs at how quickly she could get the sleep out of his eyes.

After they have successfully used their extra time wisely, Harry convinces her to let him drive her to work.

“Then you’ll have to pick me up too.”

“Well of course. We could go grocery shopping together on our way home. Want to cook you something nice,” he smirks at her, finishing up his morning coffee.

“Sounds good,” she nods, accepting his offer at last.

The two of them get ready to leave and though it’s still a bit strange to spend their morning together at such a peaceful and private manner, they can’t deny how much they love being alone. Harry loved having her around, see her brushing her hair while he was getting dressed, move around each other in the kitchen while making breakfast. His home has never felt better than at that very morning with Annalise there with him.

“I’ll be here at four,” he smiles at her once they arrive to Golden Sunshine. Leaning over the shifting gear she pulls him in for a quick goodbye kiss.

“Don’t be late,” she smirks playfully before getting out of the car and heading inside. She turns back before entering the building, seeing that Harry is still watching her. She smiles and waves at him before walking inside.

Eloise and Bart are right there as always, the old lady’s eyes immediately lighting up when she sees Lis arrive.

“Darling! You look stunning!” she gasps looking at her.

“Thank you. You look nice as well. Is that a new cardigan?”

“Well, yes! My granddaughter bought it for me!”

“Looks amazing.”

“Thank you. Now tell me, what is it that got you all bright this morning? I don’t tend to see people this happy on Monday mornings.”

Lis stops in her way, her eyes wandering over to the front door. Harry is gone, but the thought of him still lingers in her mind, making her smile with every bit of it.

“It’s love, Eloise,” she answers shortly before making her way into the changing room.

Before starting her shift she drops by her boss’ office to sign her attendance sheet for last month. As she puts her hair in a low ponytail she walks into the room that’s used as a waiting area in front of Mark, her boss’ office. Immediately, she is greeted by Grace, the assistant there.

“Good morning, Annalise!” she nods in her way smiling. “Good thing you dropped by, Mark wants to talk to you.”

“Am I in trouble?” she asks right away, but Grace shakes her head.

“Don’t think so.”

Just as it’s said, Mark rushes through the door with a pile of papers in his hands, his colorful tie a little crooked, but he looks just as nice as every day.

“Oh! Lis, so happy you are here so I don’t have to hunt you down,” he jokes. “Come into my office, will you?”

Lis follows the man inside and sits in one of the plush armchairs in front of his desk. He stacks the papers on the side of the desk before taking his seat behind it.

“Benji gone already?” he asks nicely. Mark knows Benji very well, the boy loves him and Lis is thankful Mark is so understanding about her role as a mother first and foremost.

“Yes, dropped him off this weekend.”

“Great,” he nods, a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Mark, what is it you wanted to talk about? You are starting to worry me.”

“I wouldn’t want that, but I need to tell you about something. You know the new assistant I hired for the weekends, right?”

“Yes, I met Violet the other week,” she nods, cautiously waiting for him to finally make sense.

“She is still learning her ways around and I swear she didn’t mean to bring trouble upon you,” he explains, clearly worried about the situation on hand that Lis is dying to finally unfold.

“Mark, just tell me what it is about!” she begs.

“We got a call this weekend from a man. He was asking around about you. Wanted to know if you are working here. Violet didn’t think anything of it and told him that you in fact work here. She said he started asking when your shifts are and how often you are in, that’s when she found it suspicious and told him she can’t provide any more information. She didn’t find out his intentions, but she indeed got his name.”

Though it hasn’t been said out, Lis has a strong guess who it must have been and the eerie gut feeling inside her stomach is more painful than ever.

“Who was it?” she asks, voice barely more than just a whisper.

“He said his name was Austin.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Styles,” the woman behind the cash register smiles as she hands Harry his receipt along with the two hard paper bags, the well-known name GUCCI printed over them neatly.

“Thank you,” he smiles in his way, sliding his wallet into his back pocket before grabbing the bags and heading out of the store he just spent an hour trying on outfits. He is always highly welcomed in any of their stores and judging from the amount of money he usually leaves after a spree, it won’t be any different anytime soon.

“Gucci should change its name to Styles, man,” Mitch jokes as the two men approach the exit.

“That would be cool, right?” Harry smirks.

There are three photographers already waiting for them near his car and the moment they set their feet outside the questions start, flashes are ticking every second, all of them trying to get a good shot of him. He doesn’t blame them, he hasn’t served anything mentionable lately, he was barely even seen out in public since he has started going out with Lis and he was kind of getting used to the quiet and peace, however he hasn’t forgotten what his life is really like.

Ignoring all questions thrown in his way, the two men simply get into the car and drive away, luckily, they don’t get followed. It only happened a handful of times to Harry, but he definitely didn’t like it.

“Can you drop me off at Sarah’s?” Mitch asks after checking his phone.

“Sure. Everything alright?”

“Yeah, she just asked if I could help her put together her new coffee table.”

“Didn’t she buy one just last month?”

“She did, but… it wasn’t too durable,” Mitch mumbles under his breath, making Harry gasp at his comment.

“Oh shit!” he laughs. “I’m not sure if I wanted to know this detail, but anyway, congrats man,” he teases him, Mitch only smirking shyly.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t ruined anything ever while having sex.”

“Never said that,” he smirks smugly.

“I’m not gonna ask what you and Lis broke, I have too much respect for her,” Mitch laughs and Harry pays him a playful smirk. To be honest, they haven’t broken anything, but his headboard was creaking quite vigorously this morning for sure. He knows it’s just a matter of time and chances that they destroy something at either his or her place.

“How is living together working out so far?” Mitch asks, changing the topic.

“It’s been not even a whole day,” Harry chuckles. “But I love it so far. For the first time in so long, I finally feel like everything is just heading right.”

“That’s amazing. I’m happy for you,” Mitch smiles genuinely at him. “You really should bring her around sometime, we are all dying to meet her. Sarah wouldn’t shut up about it,” he adds chuckling.

“I know, she’s been hinting it to me as well,” Harry smirks. “Will try to make it happen. Maybe this weekend? It’s a little easier without having to worry about Benji. Not that he is a burden, of course.”

After dropping Mitch off Harry heads to Golden Sunshine, since it’s nearing five. This week, Lis agreed to work a usual shift so she’ll have the whole weekend off. He arrives a little earlier so he starts to write a quick list what they would need to pick up at Tesco on their way home. Just a few minutes after five, the door opens and Lis walks out, a wary look on her beautiful face as she roams around stepping outside, her eyes landing on the car and the man inside waiting for her.

“Hey,” Harry beams, kissing her quickly when she gets in the car.

“Hi,” she greets him, a little out of breath, looking a tad bit on the edge.

“Everything alright?” he asks, starting the car and leaving.

“Yeah, I just… had a tiring day,” she breathes out, flashing a weak smile at him.

Walking around Tesco they quite forget about themselves, holding hands and simply acting like any other couples as they fill up the cart with everything they need at home. They both notice that people recognize him and she can’t ignore the stares they are getting, but it’s not like they can do anything about it. Earlier, they’ve had a talk about this side of Harry’s career, if they would want to keep out of public or simply not care about it at all. They uniformly agreed to choose the latter. Harry wouldn’t talk about her and they would just simply pretend not to care about the curious eyes and talks. Sooner or later, it will all die down and it’s not like they could hide forever.

But after all, this is the first time they are caught, undeniably together with their hands intertwined and though they try to stay low, people notice them. Pictures of the two of them slowly but surely make their way around the internet and the first headlines appear about Harry’s new romance.

Saturday has finally brought the first time Lis is meeting Harry’s band. The lot is heading out for a simple dinner, but his friends can’t wait to finally meet the woman who has Harry on his knees since day one.

It’s been a tiring, but wholesome week for the pair, spending so much time together, they’ve been quite enjoying the comfort of being alone.

However, the wariness Harry has noticed on Lis earlier the week didn’t seem to fade. He asked her several times if everything was fine, but she assured it was all good and he told himself she must just be feeling a little lost without Benji around. He knows, because he has found himself feeling the same. He has gotten so used to him being around it was starting to feel weird not hearing his curious questions every time they were watching a movie.

Following a lazy day at home they get ready for dinner and head out to meet the band. Lis has been paying extra attention to her looks since their pictures got out from their grocery shopping trip. When Harry told her she didn’t have to worry about looking so spotless all the time she simply answered: “Can’t have them talk about you dating an uggo, right?��

To which Harry replied: “That can never be the case when it comes to you.”

It surely warmed her heart to know he finds her pretty regardless of what she is wearing, but she still feels the need to look presentable, especially when Harry is always dressed so nicely.

Tonight, she is wearing wide-legged checkered pants and a sleeveless turtleneck tucked in it, paired with silver hoop earrings. Emerging from the bedroom Harry takes her in smiling.

“You look so serious yet fun at the same time,” he hums, eyes still roaming her body.

“Is that good?” she chuckles lightly.

“Definitely,” he nods. “Ready to leave?”

“Yeah.”

On the way to the restaurant, Harry notices how she’s been checking her phone more frequently than usually and it’s been like this for a few days now. When he asked she said she was just texting with her mum, getting updates about Benji and he didn’t have any reason not to believe her.

“There she is!” Sarah cheers as soon as the pair walks into the place. Jumping from her seat she rushes over and pulls Lis into a tight hug, making her chuckle. “I’m so happy we can finally meet you! I’m Sarah,” she grins widely, giving her two kisses on the cheeks.

“Hi, Nice to meet you. I’m Annalise, but I guess you already know that,” she jokes with an airy laugh.

“There was no other way with this dude always talking about you,” Sarah chuckles giving a look to Harry, who just shrugs his shoulders, not even trying to mask his affection towards Lis. “Come on, only Charlotte is missing, but she is always running late.”

Arriving to their table Lis is greeted by the rest of the band and everyone warmly introduces themselves to her, Charlotte arriving just when Harry and Lis take their seats at the table. Though Harry had no doubts Lis would get along well with his friends, it’s still relieving to see her get settled so easily with the band. He can sense her restraint at the beginning, but soon enough she is talking and telling stories as if she knew them all for years.

“How do you make summer vacation work with Benji? Harry said he is spending time with his grandparents now,” Sarah questions over the main course and Lis seems a little taken aback, which Sarah immediately recognizes. “Oh, I’m sorry, should I not ask about him?”

“No, it’s alright. I just… I guess I didn’t think Harry shared much about him.” Her eyes wander over to the man in question who is deep in conversation with Mitch, didn’t even hear what Sarah asked.

“Oh please, he wouldn’t stop telling us about him every time we are at the studio,” she chuckles.

“Really?”

“Yeah. He really likes the boy.” Lis just packs it all up in her head, labeling  it as another reason why she loves Harry so much.

“Well, he is going to go out to camp for a week, but other than that, he usually comes to work with me.”

“That’s so amazing!”

The evening carries on and Harry can’t not notice how Lis keeps glancing down at her phone every five minutes. One time, when she reaches for the phone his hand grabs hers, stopping her from grabbing the device.

“You sure everything is alright? You keep looking at your phone.” He tries to find a hint, anything in her eyes that gives away why she is acting different, but she cautiously keeping her gaze diverted from his.

“I’m good, don’t worry,” she answers, but when her phone lights up, an incoming call from her mom, she immediately snatches it from the table and excusing herself she walks out to the street to answer the call.

Harry clenches his jaw, looking after her, knowing well something is not right, but he doesn’t know why she wouldn’t tell him what it is about. He tries to stay still, to let her get it sorted out as she wishes, but he just can’t.

“I’ll be right back,” he mumbles to the group before going after Lis.

Walking out he stops at the entrance, looking both ways before she spots her at the corner of the building, her back facing him as she holds the phone to her ear, leaning against the brick wall. He has a fleeting thought about not eavesdropping on a conversation that wasn’t meant for his ears, but his curiosity and worry brings him forward.

“But you didn’t tell him right?” her voice is heard when he is a few steps away from her. “Maybe I should bring him home earlier… But mum, what if he just turns up there? He knows you live there, I can’t have him just waltz in… No, I get it, but there’s little you can do when he is there… I really don’t know… He hasn’t, but it’s a matter of time, I think. He already knows I work there and God knows why he was asking around about me.”

Harry soon realizes what the conversation must be about and he is definitely not impressed by several reasons. Standing there with his jaw clenched, he waits for her to end the call and realize his presence. When she finally says her goodbye, pushing herself away from the brick wall, Harry watches her turn around and jump at the sight of him.

“Harry, you—“

“What’s going on?” he cuts her off right away, eyes burning down on her.

“I, uhh—Can we… Can we have this conversation at home?” she pleads quietly.

“Just tell me what it’s about, because I thought I was seeing things when I noticed that you’ve been acting weird, but I was clearly right. There is something and I want to know what it is.” “Harry, I really don’t want to ruin the evening with it now.”

“Nonsense, because there’s no way I can just act like everything is fine until we get home.”

Exhaling shakily, Lis realizes she can’t push it back any further, she has to come clear.

“Last weekend, when we were away, Austin called Golden Sunshine, he was asking about me and the girl who works on the weekend accidentally told him that it’s in fact my workplace. He wanted to know stuff about me, but didn’t get much. Then today my mum noticed a car waiting across the street for about an hour. Someone was sitting in it or that’s how she saw. Mum thinks it was him.”

Harry feels his rage build up with each passing moment for two reasons: one being that Annalise wanted to keep it away from him that her ex is suddenly looking for her. Second is that Austin has the nerve to pop up out of nowhere after abandoning his family and creep the Hell out of Lis and basically everyone in her family probably.

“And why didn’t you tell me this? You think I wouldn’t want to know if your ex is suddenly looking for you? That’s pretty major, Lis,” he snaps, having a hard time to contain himself as much as he would like to.

“I didn’t want to worry you, hoped the call was nothing, but the whole car thing is now stressing me out. I would have told you, I just…” exhaling sharply she runs her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know, I guess it feels weird to talk about him with you.”

“It’s not like you are sharing with me your sex life with him, this is stuff that I want to know about, this concerns your and Benji’s safety as well and I feel like I have a saying in those things.” “I know, I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to not tell. Please don’t be mad at me,” she begs, desperate to somehow make it right though she knows she messed up.

She can tell Harry is fuming, his piercing green eyes are filled with the mixture of worry, rage and anger for many reasons, all of them valid in her opinion. She wishes she could go back in time and tell him about it in a different way, but there’s nothing to do now.

“Harry, please say something,” she breathes out, wanting nothing else than to finally hear what he is thinking about. However, he is not letting her in that easily now.

“Let’s get back inside. We’ll talk when we are alone.”

Though Lis wants to protest, she knows it’s what should happen. Nodding shortly the two of them head back inside and push everything down until the end of dinner. It’s hard to focus on their group once they return, they both feel far away from the dinner table.

The evening drags longer than they would have liked, or that’s just how they feel. They try their best to mask their feelings, not wanting to bring their friends into this upsetting situation. However, when they are sitting in the car on their way home, they both notice that they could cut the tension for sure. Lis is chewing on her bottom lip nervously, afraid of what’s been going on in Harry’s head and cursing herself out at the same time for not telling him the first moment.

“I can stay at home tonight if you don’t want me over,” she finds herself saying, voice quiet and reserved. Harry glances in her direction for a split second.

“Is that what you want? You want to go home?”

“No. I just figured you might want some… space.”

“Well, I don’t. So unless you want to go home yourself, I want you at mine.”

It’s relieving, though still not enough to ease her anxiety that’s been clawing on her chest all evening. But at least he still wants her around.

The silence is painful for the both of them and it’s something that hasn’t happened between them since they’ve met. Lis keeps glancing in his way, trying to figure out what he must be thinking about, but it seems like Harry keeps his emotions so much at bay, nothing gives away where his thoughts are lying. She is forced to wait until they can finally talk.

Walking inside Lis feels out of place, for the first time ever since she has started seeing Harry. She watches him drop off his belongings in the bedroom before returning to the living room, a hard look on his handsome face. It seems like he is trying hard to find the right words to start this conversation. Hands on his hips he stands in front of her, eyes fixed on the floor before they finally meet her desperate ones.

“Okay, first of all, is Benji alright? Do you want us to go and bring him home?” he asks with a tired sigh.

“I-I think he is fine for now. Mum says she is keeping a close eye on him.”

“Alright. Just let me know if you change your mind and want him here.”

“Thank you,” she nods shortly and through the bitterness of the situation, she is thankful he still takes the time to think about her boy.

“Okay and now let’s talk about why you kept it from me that Austin has been looking for you. Any specific reason, something I did? Did I make you feel like you couldn’t talk to me about it?”

“No! Not at all!” she shakes her head right away. Taking his hand softly she pulls him down to the couch so they sit turned towards each other, her knee brushing against his thigh. Though his hand is a deadweight in her hold, as if he doesn’t want her to hold it, she still doesn’t let go of it. “Harry, I know I can tell you anything and I always do that. I just felt like you’ve had enough to worry about and didn’t want to add to it. I always…” Her voice dies down as she is now fighting with her tears. She’s been putting away these thoughts ever since their first lunch date, when she realized she can’t let go of him and he won’t either.

Harry notices her struggle and pulls his hand out of her hold, bringing it up to her face to cup her cheek. His thumb runs across her soft skin, his eyes falling down at her trembling lips.

“I always feel like a burden to you. I’m not easy to be with because I’m not living the usual life people my age have. It would be hard for a normal guy, but you are not one! I just don’t want to hold you back in any way, but there are things that I can’t change. When I found out that Austin was asking about me I thought this is something I can handle on my own and don’t have to worry you with it.”

“Lis…” he breathes out, starting to finally put together her train of thoughts and though he is still mad, now he is more heartbroken that she is still feeling like she has to be so considerate about him in some cases. “You are not a burden, never was and I can assure you that you’ll never be. I chose to be with you, and not just part of you, all of it. The good, the bad, all of it. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t count on me always, because you can. I want to be there for you no matter what it’s about.”

“I know!” she breathes out shakily, the tears already building up in her eyes. “But I can’t help thinking that one day… you won’t feel the same. Like you’ll be fed up with all the baggage that I come with!”

“What baggage, baby? Your fucker ex? That’s not your fault.”

“Him and… Benji?” she adds.

“Benji is not a baggage, Lis. I love him, would easily do anything for him, he is not a burden in any way. I’m so happy I got to meet him because of you and I’m happy that you are letting me have a part in his life. I already told you, but I’ll never stop telling you that I look up at you so much for everything you do for yourself and for Benji.”

Now she is crying. Hard. The way his eyes filled with nothing but love when he is talking about Benji, it’s all she ever wished for in a man and he is so much more than that. To think that she didn’t even want to let him into her life is a sickening thought, how she didn’t trust him enough to see what an amazing man he is.

Moving forward she climbs to his lap and he circles his welcoming arms around her, holding her close to his chest as she starts sobbing, completely touched by his words.

“I’m sorry I’m so emotional,” she mumbles between sobs. “I just… It’s still so hard for me to understand why…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but he knows exactly what she was thinking about: It’s still so hard for her to understand why he is with her. And it’s heartbreaking to know it’s how she feels, but it also makes him determined to change her way of seeing him for once and for all.

“It’s alright. I just want you to talk to me, okay? I want to know everything that’s important to you, good or bad, doesn’t matter.”

She just nods, holding onto him for dear life. They stay like that for what feels like hours, her crying slowly dies down and he patiently waits for her to breathe normally again, continuously pressing soft kisses to her forehead and the top of her head. When she finally lifts her head up, a small smile plays on her lips and though her eyes are red and puffy from the crying, he still thinks she is the most beautiful man he has ever seen.

“Feeling better?” he murmurs softly and she nods again. “Okay. So what do you want to do about Austin?”

“I haven’t figured it out,” she huffs tiredly. “I don’t even know for sure if it was really him in the car my mum saw and other than the call to my work place, nothing else happened.”

“Is there any reason why you should be afraid of him? Like, has he ever…” Harry doesn’t even get himself to say the word, just thinking about it rages him.

“No,” she shakes her head. “But I haven’t seen him in ages, God knows what he is like now.”

“If you want to move here with Benji, if that would make you feel safer, I’m perfectly okay with that. I have plenty of space for the both of you.”

“You’d let us come here just like that?” she asks, stunned at how easily he is talking about such a major step.

“Of course,” he nods confidently. A soft smile tugs on her lips as she kisses him gently, as a way of saying thank you.

“I think we are fine for now,” she then replies. “But thank you.”

A short silence sets in, both of them are deep in their thoughts, processing everything that happened tonight and there’s one more question stuck on Harry’s mind that he needs to ask.

“So… what happens if he reaches out? If he wants to meet you and Benji?”

Lis sighs heavily, the thought has been haunting her as well all week and she hasn’t come up with a solid answer to this just yet.

“It depends on what he really wants. It’s not like I want him back in my life, but if he wants to see Benji… I don’t think I can tell him no. Legally, he is allowed to see him. It’s a whole different story that I don’t want him to though.”

Her answer was valid and reasonable, though it still brought some uneasiness to Harry. Just thinking about Austin meeting Benji makes him want to scream. The man left his family so easily, like they meant absolutely nothing to him and he is the reason why Lis had to build up her whole life alone. Not that Harry would have liked it better if he was still in the picture, but in his beliefs, a man who abandons his family is simply not a man. Even if he didn’t want to be with Lis anymore, he should have made sure to support her in raising Benji and not just disappear into thin air.

However Harry knows he doesn’t have a say in it and that what Lis said is relevant. The man might have walked out of their lives, but legally he still has the right to see Benji, nothing is stopping him.

Harry keeps his doubts and fears to himself, he needs to be the person Lis can rely on now, whatever is about to happen. It’s all secondary what he thinks or feels right now.

 The two of them stay on the couch for another hour, just talking and sharing and they both feel like it was what they needed. Their relationship was going smooth, but they had to realize they still have a lot to work on and tonight was a step forward. They then have a hot shower together and this time they don’t get carried away, it’s all about the gentle touches, the hot water washing away their worries for a short time, keeping it just an intimate but not sexual moment.

Lying in bed Harry pulls her close, her head lies on his chest as she is drawing little patterns on his chest, her fingers delicately following the lines of his tattoos. Her thoughts are wandering, jumping from one thought to the other until something makes her come to a halt, a soft, ironic chuckle escaping her lips.

“Wha’s so funny?” Harry asks quietly.

Lifting her head, she rests her chin on his chest, her arms spread out over his ribs. It’s not even that funny, more ironic seeing the timeline of their relationship.

“I just think it’s pretty hilarious how I was the one to warn you several times not to make me regret my decisions about you and then I end up being the one thinking that you regretted getting together with me.”

She laughs some more, a smile tugging on Harry’s lips as well, seeing that it’s indeed a little funny, if he thinks about it.

“Oh how the tables have turned,” he grins, kissing her forehead.

“But on a serious note,” she starts, clearing her throat. “Do you have any regrets?”

“None,” he answers right away without hesitation.

“Not even one tiny bit?”

“Absolutely none,” he confirms and pulls his arms tighter around her. She smiles widely, pushing herself up a bit so her lips can meet his.

“Hope it stays this way.”

-

NEXT PART

-

TAGLIST

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[words-for-holland]

Your Shoulder to Cry On

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Summary: Y/N has been feeling down all day and Tom wants her to know that he’ll always be here for her.

Maybe it was just one of those Mondays, but today just seemed like the worst ones Y/N has ever experienced. Truthfully she didnt know how it happened. She was having a great morning, waking up in Tom’s arms, giving him his daily dose of kisses before he left to film, and actually getting her work done with time to spare.

But there was definitely a change in the wind that day and it all started with a...

Ding

With all the free time Y/N had she couldnt help but check her phone, guessing it was either Tom or her parents checking up on her, or maybe her hometown friends who are updating her on what’s going on with their new found adult life.

It was her friends all right...but the conversation was far from friendly. Arguments ensued from her three friends coming after each others neck and of course pulling..no...dragging Y/N unwilling into it. While she said no words, as she tried to find the best way to relieve the tension it was too late. Her good day had become the shittiest day of the week...and its only just begun.

Now abandoning her work, Y/N waits for her boyfriend to come home as she mindlessly scrolls through Instagram, only to see a notification pop up on her phone. Assuming it was another nasty text from her friends, she was much surprised to be welcomed a picture of her and Tom on her feed with a caption saying...

“Cant wait to see my girl after work. It’s been a long day 😫.”

If anything made Y/N smile at all today it was Tom. In some weird way its like he knew how she felt without even telling or seeing him. He was her rock after all and if there was anyone she could count on to make her smile in the least it was Tom. Just on cue, he called her right after.

“Hello darling.” He greets sleepily.

“Hey babe.” Y/N responded quietly.

“Are you okay?”

“Hmm. Oh..yeah just fine.” She lies, hoping not to worry him too much.

“Darling, I can tell you’re not. You dont sound like yourself. Ill be home soon okay? Tell me all about it?”

Y/N nodded as she whispered, “Yeah.”

“Okay..I love you so much. Ill be home soon.”

“I love you too.” She croaks.

Just like that Tom was home in record time, but not without capturing a few things to cheer his girl up. He welcomed her with freshly baked cookies from her favorite cookie shop, and nothing was better than food from her favorite Italian spot. Tom placed the food on the counter as he searched for his girl.

“Love, Im home.” He called out. “Are you okay, darling?”

Y/N popped in the hallway as she ran straight into his arms, not saying a word but holding onto him as if she would lose him.

“Hey..hey. Whats wrong?” He asked in his soothing voice.

“Lots of drama.” She mumbled. “I love you but you didnt have to go through buying all this. I could have cooked for us.”

Tom pulled away from her, giving the look confusion and disapproval. “Cooked for us while you’re clearly upset? Thats absolute bullocks. We’re gonna eat all this food because we can and then youre gonna vent everything out and then.. Im gonna hold you in my arms and coax you to sleep so you can relax and have a shoulder to cry on.”

Y/N smiled at the gesture already wraaping her arms around him, shedding a slight tear at how he would always be here for her. “I love you so much Tom.”

“I do too. Now tell me what’s wrong, darling.”

So Y/N did tell him everything from what happened with her friends and how the unecessary pile of work came up on her, and all the insecurities that have just risen out throughout the whole day. She was on his lap as they cuddled into the sofa. Showing her phone, he reads the last remaining texts from the conversation.

“I’m unfollowing y’all on everything and i am not answering another text just thought i would throw how crazy that is, out there. So at this point i’m done. forget it y’all can chill i’m out:) ”

“Wow.” He said, taking a moment to process what happened. “She really meant it, didnt she?”

Y/N nodded as she put her phone away. “Yeah and now Im just in the middle because I dont know what to do or who to support. Our whole friendship is breaking apart and I just dont want to lose any of them.” She cries silently, occaionally bring up the sleeves of Tom’s hoodie to wipe her nose and eyes.

“Hey, look its not your fault you were just trying to help. I know you guys have been friends for so long and Im sure that this is just a small bump and all four of you will get together and this will all be put past behind you.” Tom encourages as he tucks a small piece of her hair behind her ear, leans in for a comforting kiss on her forehead. “Darling, I know how much you wanted to fix things between your friends but it’s not your fault. This isnt yours to fix you just need to give it some time yeah? Even if your friends dont stick around thats on them, but just know I will always be here for you. Ill be your shoulder to cry on, and I sure as hell wont leave or unfollow you.” He chuckles at the situation, wiping away her tear stained cheeks.

“Haha how funny.” She sniffles and smiles at Tom’s corny attempt to make a joke of the situation like he always does.

“See theres that smile, Ive been waiting all day to see. I just can’t get enough of it.” Tom compliments. “That smile should stay there for good. Fuck anyone or anything that tries to take it away for you.”

“Thank you Tommy.” Y/N says sweetly, leaning in and pressing her lips against Tom’s.

Tom smiles back into the kiss gently cradling the back of her head. “Anytime darling. Now let’s see if there are other ways to make you feel better.” He winked as he carried her up to their room.

[hale-13]

Zero Days Without Incident

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 20 Prompt - Defiance

The ‘Days Without Incident’ sign in Tony Stark’s private workshop has nothing to do with engineering or science mishaps and all to do with a bet between him and a certain Spiderling.

Words: 1783, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Happy Hogan

TW: Stabbing

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“Peter you have thirty minutes until your curfew,” Karen warned him, already plotting a course home and throwing it up on his HUD.

It was a balmy spring evening and Peter had spent most of his patrol leisurely swinging through Queens or relaxing on a hammock made from his webs. There had been a few petty crimes he had dealt with, some grand theft bicycle, a cat stuck in a tree but, all in all, he couldn’t really complain. He loved being Spider-Man and helping his neighborhood but it was nice to have a slow day sometimes.

A scream sounded in the distance.

“Spoke too soon,” he mumbled, altering his course and picking up speed. “Can you get me directions K?”

“Of course Peter,” Karen answered, as chirpy and happy as normal, re-routing him away from his apartment and toward the sounds of discourse in the distance. When he dropped in on the scene it seemed to be a mugging in progress and Peter rolled his eyes – didn’t people have anything better to do on a random Tuesday in April? God just seriously rethink your life choices.

“I would say its knife to meet you but I’ve definitely used that pun in the last couple weeks and I don’t want to be accused of not being original,” Peter called down, making both the assailant and victim flinch and look up to where he was perched on the wall above them. “Where did even get that thing? The renaissance fair? Who robs people with a full on dagger anyway? Run out of kitchen knives?” Peter quipped, flipping down and pushing the mugger away with a well placed kick to the arm that made the man stumble back.

“This has nothing to do with you bug,” the man snarled, brandishing the weapon at Peter now and making him roll his eyes. “Don’t get in my way and I won’t have to use this on ya.”

“Spiders are arachnids actually, not bugs” Peter pointed out, shooing the stunned woman out of the alley and on her way out of any potential danger. “And how about you not stab anybody today huh? If you promise to behave I won’t web you to the wall and call the police. Sounds like a fair trade right?”

The man snarled at him with irritation. “You talk too much.”

“So I’ve been told,” Peter agreed easily with a nod. “But what do you say? Ready to give up your life of crime for the straight and narrow?”

“No,” the man grumbled and, with literally no warning, lunged forward and stabbed his knife directly into Peter’s gut.

They both stared at each other in stunned silence before Peter processed the pain with a loud ‘fuck!’.

“You motherfucker,” Peter grunted, backing away to lean against the wall, holding the knife still with one hand so as to not dislodge it. “I can’t believe you stabbed me!”

“I thought you would dodge! You always dodge!” The man said, reaching up both hands to dig into his hair. “I stabbed Spider-Man what the fuck!”

“God this is just-,” Peter grumbled using his free arm to fire webbing at the guy and secure him to the nearby dumpster. “I’ve gone three weeks without having to go to the MedBay! Three weeks! All I had to do was last one more and then I got to pick the movie at movie night for the next month! God I can’t believe it! Mr. Stark is going to be so insufferable now!”

“You could just… not tell him?” The man asked hopefully, not even bothering to struggle against the webs and Peter blew out a breath as he sank down to sit on the gritty ground – he was starting to feel a little cold and dizzy from either the blood loss or shock, he couldn’t tell which. Not that it mattered, his fierce anger overshadowed everything.

“Not an option,” Peter grunted, leaning his head back and closing his eyes against the helpful countdown timer Karen had started displaying the second Tony had entered the Iron Man armor and started jetting to him. “He already knows.” Curse the Baby-monitor Protocol! He and Ned would need to remove it again…

“He track you or something?” The man asked questioningly, head quirked to the side in obvious curiosity.

“Or something,” Peter agreed.

“That’s wack man,” he said. “An invasion of privacy. A, uh… violation of your constitutional rights as a free American!”

“Do you honestly think Tony Stark cares about an something as simple as an invasion of privacy? I’m lucky he hasn’t microchipped me yet,” Peter pointed out. Or, at least, he didn’t think Tony had microchipped him. He’d have to check that and remove it post haste if he found something.

“Dude,” knife guy said commiserating and Peter had to fight the eye roll. Of course the person who stabbed him felt remorseful now.

“I know,” Peter agreed, peering down at his side to look at where the knife was embedded into him. He was pretty good around blood as long as it wasn’t his own and, looking at the way his suit was slick and blood was beginning to pool under his thighs in a puddle made Peter lightheaded so he closed his eyes again. “He’s probably going to be pretty pissed at you by the way,” Peter warned. “He has pretty good lawyers so I wouldn’t have high hopes of getting out of this without jail time.”

The man groaned and Peter just shrugged. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time and all that – also don’t stab people and leave them to the ministrations of their helicopter mentors. Same thing really. The sound of repulsers neared and Peter braced himself – he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with this.

“I guess that we can change the ‘Days Without Incident’ sign back to zero eh Spiderling?” Tony teased as he landed in the mouth of the alley, disengaging his suit and walking over to kneel next to Peter. “You were doing so good too – your longest streak ever in fact.”

“Don’t remind me,” Peter hissed as Tony prodded around the wound carefully with a pre-gloved hand. “Can you not touch that?”

“No can do buddy,” Tony said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “Gotta anchor it in so it doesn’t fall out on the ride back. Happy’s on his way to pick us up.”

“Oh great,” Peter groused, letting Tony lean him forward a little so he could start wrapping roll gauze around the knife. “He loves to complain when I get blood on the seats.”

“Only when you get impaled,” Tony said brightly, pulling the gauze tight almost vindictively and making Peter wince. “Wouldn’t want to deprive him now would we?”

“You could just let me bleed out and die here,” Peter suggested seriously. “Since my life is basically over now anyway.

“You’re such a dramatic little shit,” Tony groused, tying off the gauze and levering Peter up off the ground to slump into his side for the extra support. “Now say ‘goodbye’ to your friend, he won’t be seeing the real world for a long, long time,” Tony’s voice had an edge of steel as he said this, dragging Peter to the end of the alley and ignoring the muggers ‘Aw man, c���mon!” as they passed. Peter just shrugged a ‘what can you do?” and wiggled his fingers in a facsimile of a wave as he was pulled away.

Happy, to his credit, was efficient and must have already been in the area because he was quick to pull up with a surly look already cemented onto his face as he surveyed where Peter was leaning into Tony and dribbling blood onto the sidewalk in large, heavy droplets. “I already called the cleaning crew,” he told them through the open window. “They’ll be here before the police to scrub up any possible radioactive DNA.”

“Best forehead of security ever,” Tony crooned lovingly as he carefully situated Peter onto the pile of towels Happy had put into the backseat to soak up the blood and keep it off his leather seats. Happy glared at the both of them in the rearview mirror before rolling up the partition. Tony snorted in undisguised mirth.

“How you feeling kiddie?” He asked as he peeled Peter’s mask from his sweaty face. “Not going to pass out on me again right?”

“Uh…” Peter groaned, squeezing his eyes shut tight to stop the spinning and grey dots that were clouding his vision. “No promises. Sorry.” Tony just let out a put upon sigh like he expected as much and pushed Peter to lay down across the seats, grabbing one of the extra towels to press tightly around the knife and making Peter let out a whining moan at the pressure. “Yeah I might pass out,” he said faintly as his vision started to tunnel.

“Go on then,” Tony said, running a hand through Peter’s damp curls and smoothing them away from his face. “At least you don’t sass me when you’re unconscious.” Peter felt the man lift his legs to slid a few wadded up towels underneath… like that would actually help keep him awake.

“Rude,” Peter grumbled before losing his grip on reality – he trusted Tony to take care of things for now.

——————————————

“I hate this movie,” Peter grumbled groggily, as he pulled himself awake some time later. He was lying in one of the beds in the MedBay, attached to a blood transfusion and with a thick padding of gauze on his abdomen. Tony, seated next to him and munching on popcorn, just sent him a shit eating grin and held up the whiteboard that had been hanging in his workshop displaying ‘Days Without Incident’ with a large 0 written under it in obnoxious red ink.

“This is such bullshit,” Peter said petulantly, picking at the tape holding the IV in place. “I can’t escape! Go watch your garbage movie somewhere else.”

“Excuse me you brat,” Tony said imperiously. “The Breakfast Club is a cult classic thank you very much and besides,” he continued, offering Peter the bowl of popcorn, “someone clearly has to educate you on good movies.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” Peter said, flicking a kernel of popcorn playfully at his mentor (and missing damn – he must be on drugs) and letting his tired eyes slip closed again.

“Sore loser,” he heard Tony tease as he fell asleep and that did it. When he won their next bet they were marathoning the whole Star Wars series from beginning to end, including all of the Clone Wars and the Mandalorian, and he didn’t care what Mr. Stark said.

[bex-la-get]

This Unpredictable World (Adam x f!Detective)

Book: The Wayhaven Chronicles

Pairing: Adam du Mortain x Alma Cunningham

Word count: 2808

Summary: “We’ve spent so long trying to protect her from our world, that we never once thought about protecting her from her own.” Adam grapples with the dangers of the human world when Alma is in an accident.

Author’s Note: So, I threw my back out last week (always warm up before working out kids; it’s not worth the injury) and I thought “Ooh, how would UB react if the detective was injured?” And this was supposed to be fluffy, I swear... but then it wasn’t and here we are. Sorry? 😅

TW: Car accident, drunk driving, mentions of blood and injury.

Laughter. That was the sound he missed most. 

Alma’s laugh had always been infectious. From the moment he met her, her laughter had drawn him in like a moth to a flame. He had resisted it, at first; fighting the urge to say things that might have elicited that laughter from her. But as time went on, he began to give in. He began to relish the sound of her laugh. The one that made her throw her head back and close her eyes as she reveled in the thing bringing her joy. The one that made his heart skip a beat every time he heard it. 

Now, he’d give anything to hear it again. To see that bright smile of hers and watch as her face lit up; to hear her laugh that always reminded him of windchimes echoing throughout the sky. All he wanted was to hear that laugh, to see her smile. If he could just have that, then he knew everything would be okay...

Instead, Adam was stuck staring at the walls of the facility common room, desperately waiting to hear something, anything. The lack of answers was slowly killing him. He needed to know she’d make it out of this. That she was going to live. 

Alma had been in a car accident; a bad one. She had been hit by a drunk driver causing her to skid off the road and crash into some nearby trees. She’d sustained some serious head trauma, several broken ribs, and internal bleeding in her lower abdomen. She had lost consciousness almost immediately but not before quickly calling her mother stating she was in trouble.

The Agency had moved fast; faster than normal emergency services would have been able to. One word from Agent Cunningham and several medical units were on their way to the crash site, Rebecca hot on their tail. Unit Bravo, having walked into the chaos that was surrounding the facility, barely had any idea of what was going on until Nate heard someone mention Alma’s name in the same sentence as “car crash.” 

Adam’s world had come to a standstill at the news, his heart pounding so hard, he thought it might burst. When he met Nate’s eyes, his old friend nodded once and the four vampires piled into the car, following the medical units to where Alma was. “We don’t know how bad it is, Adam,” Nate had said, attempting to soothe Adam’s nerves. “She could be completely fine for all we know.”

Adam had nodded, but he wasn’t convinced.

When they had arrived at the crash site, his stomach dropped. Alma’s car was crushed in on several sides, smoke emitting from the hood. He couldn’t see her but he could hear the medics attempting to talk to her as they wriggled the door open. He didn’t hear her respond to them.

With a grunt, the medics opened the battered car door and Adam had watched in horror as Alma’s body slumped, nearly falling out of the vehicle. The medics converged over her blocking his view and he moved to get closer. He had to see her up close, he had to know she was okay.

A hand on his shoulder had stopped him and he turned to find Mason looking at him, a look of distress on his face. “Adam, don’t; her blood’s too strong. I can smell it all the way over here.”

Adam looked back at Alma, now being moved onto a gurney, and realized how bloodied she was. He could smell her now too; the smell of her mutated blood reaching him even as he stood yards away. He turned around and took a few steps farther away in an attempt to get away from the overwhelming scent of her. He needed to keep a clear head and, as much as it pained him, the farther away he was from her at the moment, the easier that would be.

The sound of footsteps gained their attention and they turned to find Agent Cunningham walking towards them, her face sullen and pale. “Agent Cunningham,” Nate had said, “we came as soon as we heard. Is Alma going to be alright?”

Rebecca gave them a sad smile. “Thank you for coming; to answer your question, I don’t know. They’re going to rush her back to the facility and assess her injuries there. She might need surgery. I don’t know much beyond that right now.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Felix asked, his usual cheery demeanor replaced with worry.

Rebecca shook her head. “Thank you, but no. Unfortunately, all we can do right now is wait.”

And wait they would. After Alma had been rushed to the facility and the intoxicated driver taken into custody-- their injuries far less severe and life-threatening-- Unit Bravo returned to the facility, the air around them heavy as they waited for an update on their detective. Some time after their return, Agent Cunningham entered the room notifying the vampires that, as of right now, Alma would not need surgery, much to everyone’s relief. But she wasn’t out of the woods yet. “The doctors are keeping her under close monitoring for the next twenty-four hours; they think the internal bleeding will stop on its own but if it doesn’t, they’re going to take her into emergency surgery. Same with her head injury.”

“When is she expected to wake up?” Adam asked.

Rebecca shrugged, the gesture taking more effort than normal. “I don’t know; she’s currently under a lot of medication. She could be out for a few hours or a day.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a ragged breath. “I’m sorry, I wish I had more information.” It was unclear if she was speaking to Unit Bravo or herself.

Nate stepped forward and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “You have nothing to apologize for; we understand how difficult this must be for you.”

She looked at Nate sadly and nodded. “Thank you.” Her phone chirruped and she moved to exit, muttering a small “Excuse me,” as she left. Unit Bravo looked at each other, the same looks on all of their faces. Worry. Distress. Anxious.

Adam was the first to break away from the group, moving to a nearby sofa and dropping onto it heavily. He pulled a small photo-- the one he and Alma had taken when undercover at the carnival-- from his pocket and stared at it, his fingers running over the image of her. It had just been for show, he had told himself at the time; but the way she stared at him in this photo told him otherwise. It had never been for show for her. 

And, if he was honest, it had never been for show for him either.

“Are you alright?” a familiar voice asked from next to him. He hadn’t even noticed Nate had sat down with him.

Adam closed his eyes and folded the photo closed. “No.”

Nate rested a hand on his shoulder and Adam looked at him. “We have to believe she’s going to be okay, Adam. Entertaining any alternative isn’t going to help anyone.”

Adam dropped his shoulders. “I know.”

“But?”

Adam reopened the photo and looked down at it sadly. “We’ve spent so long trying to protect her from our world,” he began, “that we never once thought about protecting her from her own.”

“No one could have predicted this, Adam,” Nate reasoned. “Try as we might, we can’t protect her from everything.”

“It’s our job to protect her from everything,” Adam argued. “I-- we should have been there, with her. We could have--”

Nate tightened his hold on Adam’s shoulder. “It was an accident, Adam. A preventable one, yes, but an accident nonetheless. We’re not seers; we can’t predict what’s going to happen every time we walk out the front door. You can’t beat yourself up over that.” Adam sighed and said nothing but Nate knew he had heard him. He squeezed his shoulder once more then stood up. “She’s in the best care possible; and she’s strong. She’ll pull through.”

As Nate walked away, Adam returned his attention to the small photo, once again tracing Alma’s image. “She’ll pull through,” he repeated, in a whisper. “She has to.”

------------------------

Twenty-four hours passed slowly. And with very little update.

Rebecca had been allowed into the room around the eight-hour mark and Unit Bravo had been allowed in a few hours later. If Adam had thought seeing the detective would ease his nerves, he had been wrong. Her blood had been long cleaned off and any open wounds had been cleaned and stitched but she still looked so small. So fragile.

Alma laid unconscious on the hospital bed, her arms and face covered with bruises and scratches. There was an IV attached to one arm while the heart monitor beeped consistently in the corner; not that it was necessary. Adam had been listening for her heartbeat ever since they had returned to the facility. He was reassured that it remained as steady and strong as always. Still, the current sight of her made his heart ache. 

He watched the rise and fall of her chest, her breathing steady, then looked over her face, eyes relaxed in sleep. He hoped she was having a good dream; she had mentioned once that she still had nightmares of Murphy. The idea that that monster still haunts her made Adam’s fists clench; he hoped, above all else, that she wasn’t dreaming of him at this time. May she never dream of him ever again.

As the hours ticked on, Unit Bravo began to retire to their rooms, after reassurances from the doctors that Alma wasn’t likely to wake until tomorrow. Even Rebecca eventually retired, emotionally drained from the day. Eventually, the only person to remain in the room was Adam.

When he was alone, Adam moved from his place in the corner to a nearby chair. He dragged it over until it was right next to Alma’s bedside and took a seat. For a long moment, he sat in silence, listening to the sound of Alma’s heartbeat and the quiet sounds of her breathing. Then, he reached for her hand and took it in both of his, his fingers resting on the pulse point on her wrist. It was one thing to hear it, but upon feeling her heartbeat, his shoulders dropped from their tense position and he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Come back, Alma,” he said, quietly. He was positive she couldn’t hear him but he still felt the need to say something. Anything, really. He just… needed to talk to her. “Come back to me. Please.” He clasped her hand in his and he placed a soft kiss to her knuckles. “We need you. I need you. Please.”

The night passed slowly, the hours feeling more like days. With the exception of the occasional check-up from Elidor, Adam remained Alma’s only visitor for the entirety of the night, his hand never leaving hers. He would occasionally talk to her, sharing mindless thoughts with her, ranging from a book he had recently read to Felix’s recent antics with Mason’s laundry. He had hoped that by talking to her, she might be able to hear him and know he was there. That he would always be there.

It was nearing sunrise now; the early hours were quiet and undisturbed. Adam’s hand still held Alma’s tightly as he watched her heart monitor, her heartbeat still strong and steady as it always was. A small smile on his lips, he became so focused on the monitor that he almost missed Alma’s hand tightening around his. Almost.

He looked down at their clasped hands before looking to her face to find her hazel eyes fluttering open. He sucked in a breath as her eyes adjusted to the bright lights of the hospital room before locking with his. “Adam?”

He released a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a sob and used his free hand to brush some stray strands of hair behind her ear. “Good morning.”

She leaned into his touch. “What happened?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

He frowned. “You were in an accident. You were--” he hesitated to speak his next words-- “you were hit by an intoxicated driver.”

Alma released a breath. “Shit. Are-- are they okay?”

There she went again, worrying about others before herself. Adam fought the urge to shake his head at her kindness; she was too good with people sometimes. “They do not deserve your concern; as far as I care, they’ve been arrested and incarcerated. That is all that matters.”

Alma frowned in disagreement but didn’t argue the point further. Instead, she tightened her grip on his hand. “Where’s everyone else? Mum?”

“They retired for the evening last night. I should alert them that you’re awake.” He began to slide his hand from hers as he shifted out of the chair but she held on tightly.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “I-- I don’t really wanna be alone.”

His eyes met hers and a small smile settled onto his lips before sinking back into the chair. Instead, he pulled out his phone, sent off a quick text to the rest of Unit Bravo and Agent Cunningham, then returned his attention to Alma. She was studying his face, a thoughtful look on her face.

“What is it?” he asked.

Tentatively, she reached with her free hand and cupped his cheek. He leaned into her touch almost on instinct. “You look tired. Did you sleep?”

He chuckled dryly. “No. I don’t need to sleep, remember?”

“Adam--” she began, the sound of disapproval in her voice.

He shook his head. “I’m alright, Detective,” he told her, quietly. “I-- I didn’t want to miss an update on your condition. I--we were worried about you.”

She brushed her thumb across his cheek. “Thank you for staying.”

He closed his eyes and relished in the feel of her hand on his cheek. He covered her hand with his free one, as if holding it there. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you, Alma,” he said, softly. It was so quiet Alma almost missed it; but she was grateful she hadn’t.

“I’m here now,” she reassured. “And I’m safe. That’s the important thing.”

He nodded. “That it is.” 

“Tu omnia,” she whispered.

He smiled. Then, acting off of instinct rather than logic, he removed his cheek from her hand only to turn his face and place a soft kiss on the inside of her wrist, right above her pulse point. Her pulse sped up at his gesture and he placed one more kiss higher up on her palm. “Tu omnia,” he repeated.

Just then, he could hear the sound of several sets of feet rushing their way towards the hospital room and he stood up from the chair, giving Alma’s fingers one last squeeze, then moved away to the corner of the room. Alma gazed at him confused but understanding soon flickered across her features when the door opened and her mother appeared.

“Alma!” Rebecca practically ran to her daughter’s bedside, pulling her into a tight hug as the rest of Unit Bravo trailed in after her. Alma returned her mother’s hug before looking to the rest of Unit Bravo and smiling. Within seconds, Felix and Nate had her wrapped in a bear hug, Mason standing nearby with his signature smirk, making Alma laugh in response. 

Adam’s heart skipped a beat. There was that laugh again; the one he had missed so much, the one he had craved to hear when she had been unconscious. Hearing it now was like hearing a beautiful piece of music for the first time after being unable to hear anything; his shoulders released their usual tension and he smiled softly.

“So, no one’s bothered to tell me what happened to my car,” Alma said, looking at her mother.

Rebecca grimaced. “Uh--”

“Your car’s totaled,” Mason interjected. “But on the plus side, the forest now has a nice shiny fender element to it.”

“Mason!” Nate reprimanded.

Alma shook her head, smiling. “I should’ve known.”

“You can use one of the Agency’s vehicles while we find you a replacement,” Rebecca offered.

“Preferably something that doesn’t look like it’ll break upon getting into it,” Mason muttered.

Nate groaned. “Mason!” 

Alma laughed again, making Adam’s heart swell at the sound. There were still some loose ends that needed tying up: Alma would still need time to fully recover and the intoxicated driver would need to be taken care of at some point. But for now, she was smiling and laughing and safe. For now, that was all that mattered.

Tag List: @sanguineverefae @little-flowers-on-heaven @mia143 @takemyopenheart​ @jamespotterthefirst

[tessiete]

hi ive read like all your stuff about korkie is a kenobi in the span of about three days and i'm so EMOTIONAL?? it makes such narrative sense - star wars is a story about fathers and sons and what happens when mothers are lost and in eternal spring, when obi wan doesn't reject korkie, and korkie doesn't reject obi wan, and they love each other and accept each other despite the gaping hole that satine left in their relationship it like heals and breaks that cycle of little blonde boys being 1/

of little blonde boys being left in the desert without their mothers and with father figures who don't quite accept the responsibility of being a father to all of their detriments! it lets padme live, and it lets luke escape, and it lets everyone who wants to heal and work towards a better future. anyway, this is some Good Fucking Food and thank u for writing it. if you're still open to prompts i would really like to see some kryze-kenobi family bonding. just the three of them happy and together 

AH! This has been sitting so beautifully, and lovingly in my inbox for ages now, and I do apologise, but I just - I saw fluff and I panicked. I PANICKED!!!

And, as you can probably see, wrote reams of whump and h/c instead. But I tried.

Anyway, there is so much I want to say about this - I’m going to have to bookmark this whole thing just so I can come back again and again to your generous words. Thank you! I do have such a fondness for Eternal Spring, and whether or not it began as a joke, I am SO attached to the idea of Korkie as a Kenobi, the idea that blood isn’t always bad, that healing can happen, that good people make mistakes, that forgiveness IS an option - and I love how that aligns with the Pacifism of Satine’s New Mandalorians. I wish we had more of it (that insistent, unrelenting kindness and compassion) in SW, and Korkie is my little effort at that.

RANTING ASIDE, I hope you find and enjoy this little bit of fluff for the Kenobi-Kryzes. MUCH LOVE.

AND BY THE HAND LED

It was not Life Day. It was not Holyrod week, and Belli’s birthday had been a full ten month ago. Yet still, on this day, Kirokicek Kryze woke with the sun, and raced to his window where he could see the Sundari dockyard in the distance. 

Personal shuttles buzzed to and fro. Docking tugs hauled heavy freighters into place. Long, thin vactrains hurtled passengers from one platform to the next, or further on into the heart of the city. A few large ferries which had found mooring overnight made their ponderous voyage upwards, headed for the small opening at the apex of the Sundari dome. They were bound for transports anchored in wet space, the people aboard away for deep space travel to distant stars. 

Korkie watched as one neared the aperture, then, with incredible steadiness of hand, cleared the narrow gap with ease. He let go his breath, but his eyes remained fixed upon the opening. He was not much concerned with the ships that left, but instead found great interest in those ferries which were currently arriving.

They took turns - one in, one out - and with every exchange, Korkie felt as though the city was making room for a very special guest. One who loomed larger than life in his young consciousness, and one who occupied more and more space in his heart the closer he came.

Bebu was coming home.

A knock at his door was not enough to tear his attention from the spectacle outside, but he shuffled over to make room for his mother beside him at the window.

“Good morning, cyar'ika,” she said, pressing a kiss to his hair. “And what has got you up so early?”

She still wore her nightclothes beneath a fine gown of pressed velvet. Korkie leaned back into her embrace, stroking the soft fabric, and letting the warm, sweet smell of sleep wash over him.

“I’m watching the dockyards,” he said. “Look! Do you think that one of them has Bebu on it?”

Satine let her chin rest on the crown of his head, and followed his gaze to the sky.

“Perhaps,” she allowed. “Are you excited for your Bebu to come home?”

Korkie turned, trying to get a glimpse of her expression which could only be as teasing as his own was incredulous. She smiled.

“Excited, Belli?” he asked. “I am so, so, superlatively excited!”

“My,” she said, her face transforming to one of awe. “That is quite a superlative word you have discovered. Is it new?”

Korkie nodded. “I am saving it for Bebu, for our collection. Do you think he shall like it?”

“I think he shall be quite impressed, dinui.”

“I have another, but I always say it wrong, so I think I shall write it down, instead.”

“That is very wise,” she said. “For then there is no chance of misunderstanding, and then your father can teach you to speak it correctly.”

Korkie grinned, and squeezed her hand, so glad to be in such perfect accord. 

“That was exactly my plan, Belli!”

“Te jatne mind jo'lekir ti ast,” she said, laughing. “Now come.”

“Are we going to the docks?”

“Not yet,” she said. “First meal first, I think, and then we shall see.”

She stood from her place behind Korkie, and smoothed her skirts. The early morning sun fell kindly over her face, so that it lit her eyes from behind, like the facet of some bright gem. She held out her hand to him.

“But Belli -!”

“Is that fussing I hear coming out of your mouth?” she asked, the perfect image of confusion.

“No,” he conceded, hanging his head in defeat.

“I thought not,” she said. “Not my Korkie. Besides, we must first ensure that we are properly fed, and tidied before we appear at the docks. We cannot have our tummies grumbling and complaining while we are at the height of a superlative joy, now can we?”

“That would be rather distracting,” he allowed.

“And what would your father think if you showed up all bleary eyed, and sleep tousled? He’d hardly recognise you!”

“That’s not true,” protested Korkie. “He’d think me a ‘devoted legislator’. He said so last time.”

Satine cocked her head, a smirk curling in the corner of her mouth, and pinned just there, until such a time as she could give it to the owner of those borrowed words. 

“Well, cyare, I cannot think he meant it as a compliment,” she said, wiggling her fingers temptingly. “Now come - to firsts.

In the kitchens, his mother suggested they arrange a menu, scrounged from the conservator and pantry, while the staff set about preparing for the rest of their day.

“No need to bother anyone too much when it’s just us, right?” She placed a stool in front of an out of the way countertop, and held his hand while Korkie made a great leap to stand atop it. “Now, what are we hungry for?”

“Isbeans, and egg!” he cried. “With fresh muja juice!”

“Muja juice!” she echoed in surprise. “My, but we’re feeling quite indulgent today!”

“Well, it is a special occasion!” he said.

“Of course, you’re right. Muja juice it is. Anything else, ad’ika?”

He thought for a moment, but knowing how easily she had acceded to his first request, he concluded it most reasonable to forward several more.

“Perhaps some toast,” he said. “And flatcakes. And melon squares with black fire jelly? And then some moof milk and summerberries because they’ll go bad if we don’t eat them. With sucre crystals on the top. And maybe - only because Bebu says it’s healthy - a cup of kava. But just one, or I’ll be up all night.”

She crouched down to meet him, mischief sparkling in her eyes and not a word of protest at his requests. Instead, her tone was conspiratorial, as though they were together in some great game of hide and hunt. 

“Let’s brew a whole pot,” she said. “So that we may share it.”

He laughed in delight. Satine pulled down a tin of weava flour, and let him sprinkle the surface while she portioned out another measure into a shallow bowl for flatcakes. Under her careful eye, he cracked a tip-yip egg, and tipped in some sucre. She worked the mixture into a sticky dough, and portioned out small spheres for Korkie to press out upon the counter. Cook A’den looked on skeptically, but when his stack of raw discs began to pile up, she stepped in with a sigh, and a fond smile and lifted him on her hip while she fried them over a nano-cooker. 

As he worked, Satine gathered the berries and the milk, and a little pot of sucre. Helping hands piled plates high with toast, and ulik butter. Isbeans and hard boiled eggs followed, kept warm beneath heated domes. A whole pitcher of ice cold muja juice was produced from the conservator, and a fresh pot of kava was left to steep with wide, green leaves still in it. There was so much food that, in the end, a small cart was required to bear the fruits of their labours, while Korkie added the final touch of perfectly browned flatcakes.

Normally, they would eat their firsts in the family dining hall, but Satine insisted that she could not possibly do so while still dressed in her nightclothes.

“And scandalise the whole parliament? I think not, my very shocking dinui. No, it’s best we take everything back to my rooms, and eat there where no one will think us as uncivilised as we appear.”

So with many thanks to A’den, and her workers, Korkie followed his mother down the glistening marbloid halls with their wide windows. The sun was nearly all the way up, and the traffic in the sky had only increased since Korkie last looked. He was hit with the sudden realisation that perhaps many ferries had come and gone in his absence, and any one of them might contain his father. He raced to the window to check.

“Come along, Korkie,” said Satine. “Soon. I promise.”

Torn between food and the possibility that his father was waiting for him even now, Korkie gave into the demands of his hunger, and followed his mother down the hall.

They stopped outside her door, the cart pushed just off to the side. Satine looked at him appraisingly, smoothing one hand over his determinedly erstwhile hair.

“Oh dear,” she said, straightening his synfleece robe, as he reached for the cart to steal a summerberry from the pile. “You do look a sight. But I suppose it cannot be helped.”

She gave him a fond caress, her thumb tracing the swell of his little cheek with such reverence, and care that Korkie nearly felt guilty for snatching the fruit. But she smiled as he swallowed, and he supposed it must just have been one of those strange things buirs did from time to time, where they mixed up joy and sorrow and said nothing about it.

“I shall comb my hair later, Belli,” he offered. That seemed to do the trick, for she laughed, and stood, and gave his hand a brief squeeze.

“I will remember you said that,” she said. “Now, be a good boy and get the door for your Belli, would you?”

She returned to the cart, as he wiped his hands down the length of his robe, and reached for the palmpad. The door chimed, and slid aside with the barest sigh of air. Inside, Korkie could see that the curtains had been pulled back, and the room was flooded blue and gold with the oncoming day. Playful shadows danced across the floor where hanging tassels toyed with the sun. The carpet glistened like thick grass, lush and crowned in dew. A small table with three chairs sat to one side, and an old cloak lay thrown across it. There were boots, too large for his mother to wear, a belt too wide to be hers, and there, in the bed, swaddled in silkweed sheets and haloed by the sun, was Obi-Wan Kenobi, hovering on the edge of waking.

“Bebu!” Korkie shouted.

At his cry, Obi-Wan opened his eyes, and smiled, catching his son as raced across the floor and leapt upon the bed in a single motion. 

“Ah, ner wer'ika! Ni mirdir tion'tuur gar ru'kel olaror. Bic cuyir ori'udes tion'tuur gar cuyir dar.”

“Bebu!” Korkie cried again, laughing and wriggling with joy. His father lifted him over his head, holding him aloft as he made his cursory examination.

“Korkicek!” he groaned, as his strength gave out and Korkie tumbled atop his father’s chest in a tangle of limbs and blankets. “You must be very much grown since I last saw you, for you are getting too heavy for me!”

“No, I’m not, Bebu,” he said. “I’ve only grown two centimeteres since you were gone, and Belli says that’s only because I’m on a spurt.”

“Only two centimeters?” Obi-Wan demands. “Dear me, that’s not very much at all. I shall expect more diligence in your efforts at stretching if we are to make any serious headway in this matter.”

Korkie giggled. “Don’t be silly, Bebu,” he said. “I cannot stretch myself bigger. It takes time.”

“And heavy reading,” Obi-Wan agreed gravely.

“And good eating,” Satine added from behind them. She’d set the table in their distraction. Obi-Wan’s cloak now hung respectably from a hook by the fresher blind, and three plates sat waiting to be filled. The isbeans steamed, their skin crackling and blackened. The flatcakes dripped with galek syrup and butter. The summerberries shone plump and delectable in their precarious pyramid. The black fire jellies jiggled, and the muja juice sparkled.

“Is that fresh kava I smell?” asked Obi-Wan. 

“It is!” said Korkie. “And all sorts of things which Belli and I made! I suppose it’s a lucky thing we made so much extra, for now you can share it with us.”

“A lucky thing, indeed,” Obi-Wan agreed. He looked at Satine with such adoration that the smirk she had pinned up earlier unfurled completely and crossed her face in a radiant smile. 

“Come, Bebu,” said Korkie, taking his father’s hand in his. “Enough lazing about in bed. Let’s eat, or the kava will get cold.”

“Quite right,” Obi-Wan agreed, standing as Korkie slid to his feet beside him, and tugged him over to where Satine was waiting. “We can’t have that.”

“And you may have my cup as well,” added Korkie, magnanimously, “As it is truly a rotten drink, even if you say it is healthy. But since it is such a special day, I don’t think I should be forced to have it, anyway.”

“He drives a hard bargain, your son,” said Obi-Wan, leaning in to beg a small kiss.

“Ah, but of course,” said Satine, quick to grant his request. “He gets that from you, cyare.”

--

“Ah, ner wer'ika! Ni mirdir tion'tuur gar ru'kel olaror. Bic cuyir ori'udes tion'tuur gar cuyir dar.” - Ah, my little terror! I was wondering when you might show up. It has been far too quiet without you.

“Te jatne mind jo'lekir ti ast” - The best mind agrees with itself. (read: Great minds think alike.)

ad’ika, dinui, cyare - little one, gift, beloved.

[sirowsky]

The Flowers Always Know

Description: When a mad scientist uses you as an experiment while you’re on holiday, the Heroics only just manage to save you. And in your recovery you become very close to the leader of the group. (Slow burn)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Language, angst, physical injury.

Link to Masterlist

Comment: Reader continues to struggle with her abilities, but with some help, she finally begins to understand them better. Though, no good news without bad ones too...

(Is this GIF yours? Let me know, and I’ll credit you!)

Chapter 21

  The next morning you woke up in a secure room. They didn’t trust you with med-chambers anymore. That was probably about time.   Tuesday. Today was Tuesday. You sighed as you wondered just how long it would take before you’d inevitably mess up the days again.   You already missed waking up to Amaire’s brisk and energetic ‘Good morning, champ’. They were so good at using just the right level of enthusiasm to give you a boost, without stepping over into overly energetic, or annoyingly chipper.   Here, there were no lovable nurses, no doctors checking on you every hour, just sensors in the walls that continuously scanned you for changes in energy-levels.   Unfortunately, though, the science division had been kept up to date on your move, and within five minutes of you waking up, the door opened and another fucking piece of cardboard was shoved in your face.

  “Seriously? Do you people even sleep? It’s not even 6am yet…”

  “We sleep in shifts, miss. This is important, we want to get you that assessment as soon as possible.”

  Oh, great, now you felt bad for being snarky, on top of your usual less than stellar morning mood.

  “How thoughtful of you. And what about making this shit actually edible? Any idea how soon that might become a priority?”

  “Uh… sorry, miss. It’s a process.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed. Does the recipe actually change at all? Because it still tastes like something between paper and dirt, no matter how many times I eat it.”

  “It does, but they actually remove as much flavour as they can, since it’s so full of synthetic materials.”

  You raised your eyebrows at him before swallowing the synthetic piece of crap.

  “Sorry I fucking asked.”

  He squirmed a little where he stood, clearly uncomfortable with your language. But you were pretty sure he’d actually been waiting outside the door for you to wake up, and then not even had the decency to wait until you’d been to the bathroom before barging in. So, you didn’t really give a fuck about his feelings right then.

  “What?”

  “Sorry, I just have to ask if you feel any sense of fullness?”

  “I’ve barely swallowed it…”

  “I know, it’s just that the effect should be pretty instantaneous.”

  “Well, then – it isn’t. Can I go and do my morning bathroom now, or do you have another annoying and useless point?”

  He all but ran from the room and you felt a tiny little bit bad for him. But they really should know better than to bother you first thing in the morning, by now. Especially with nervous tweens.

  You missed the relative warmth of the med-chambers. These rooms were literally just empty squares of powers-proof materials, or, as close to it as you could get. There wasn’t actually any material that was 100% proof against powers, but some metals combined with force-fields could withstand incredible amounts of supernatural forces.   There was a simple bed, and two chairs and a table, all of it made with the same power-resistant metal. That was it.   And while you did see the wisdom of keeping you in there, it also felt more like a prison than anything else, and it made you anxious. Especially since Marcus was still on single supervised visits.   He’d been verbally reprimanded for taking you to the in-house restaurant, and sitting you down among dozens of other guests yesterday, but in these circumstances that was like getting a slap on the wrist. You hadn’t really been in any state to be able to harm anyone, since he practically had to carry you there. And he’d made the judgement call that getting nutrition into you was more important than keeping you isolated, at that particular moment.   He’d sat with you while you’d gone through the equivalent of about six dinners, continually refilling your plate as you emptied it, until you’d finally had enough, and damned near fallen asleep over your plate.   You didn’t expect him to visit until school was out for the day, so you prepared yourself for a long and dull morning, probably accompanied by nothing but the fucking science division.   Oh, joy.

  It was just before lunch that the door opened for the fourth time that morning. You were just completing your eight set of push-ups, burpees and hand-stands, and you were in no mood for more synthetic foods. Today was the kind of day where your morning mood just lingered, and became your overall mood.   You were pushing yourself physically in an effort to keep yourself calm and balanced, despite the boredom and interjecting annoyances, but it wasn’t quite working.

  “Did some idiot give you coffee?”

  You actually warmed at the sound of Anita’s sharp voice behind you, and you let your legs fall down from your last hand-stand and stood up to see her magnificent scowl.

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “Well, sit down before you pass out.”

  “I’d rather stand. I have a little too much energy at the moment.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I generally do. So, what brings you to my dungeon on this unremarkable Tuesday?”

  “Just checking on you for Marcus. He’s a bit worried after yesterday.”

  “Yeah… that wasn’t a very good day, either. I don’t seem to have a lot of those lately.”

  “Mm. It’ll get better. All supers struggle after discovering their powers, it’s just that, usually, they’re kids or teenagers which means they don’t have the grown-up problems to worry about too. You’re juggling a lot, loco. Give yourself a break.”

  “Wow. Marcus must be really worried if you’re actually being nice to me.”

  “I’m always nice to you.”

  You looked at her with a mockingly shocked expression.

  “Incredible. You’re lucky I kinda love you.”

  She squirmed and got up to leave, and you couldn’t help but grin widely behind her back.

  “You’re welcome, by the way.”

  “For what? The privilege of your visit?”

  “No, niña. For the smile on your face right now.”

  She didn’t even look back as she said it, somehow still knowing the smile was there. It lingered on your face for a good few minutes after she left.

  You gave up on trying to exercise your stress away, after your arms gave out and you fell on your face, during your fifteenth set of hand-stands.   You did have an actual bathroom, with a shower. But it was an adjoining room that could be detached from the actual cell, if anyone feared you might try to use the toilet as a battering-ram for some reason.   You took a long and soothing shower, letting the soap wash away the sweat and grime, but also some of the nervousness that seemed to live in your skin. You took some time to take care of your nails and put on creams and blow-dry your hair.   You hadn’t taken the time to really groom yourself in weeks, and it somehow made you feel better. Less chaotic and messy.   When you stepped out of the bathroom, the errand-boy from science was back, and whatever good mood you’d managed to accumulate, evaporated in an instant.

  “Oh, for the love of fucking Hades, will you just leave me alone, already!”

  A puff of energy escaped you, and it was enough to fling the scrawny little boy across the room and into the wall, head-first.   All the anger inside you morphed into a lump of ice in your heart, as you watched him collapse into a pile on the floor.   You ran over to him and picked him up into your arms, holding him tightly as you pushed your energy around him, and felt that thing leave you. That thing that wanted to make it right, to make him whole again, and in the next moment; he was.   You felt him twitch back to life, and your own energy drain, but you kept holding him.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to, I swear, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry.”

  “Uh… it’s okay, miss. I’m fine.”

  You let him go just enough that you could grab his face and look into his eyes to make sure.

  “Nothing hurts? Nothing feels bad, or weird?”

  “I feel… great. My shoulder’s been killing me after a baseball accident last week, but it’s all better now. How’d you do that?”

  Suddenly terrified of how easily and effortlessly, you’d hurt this boy, for no reason, you crawled away from him.

  “Go. Get out of here. Don’t come back, don’t let anyone come back in. Stay away from me.”

  You crawled all the way to the opposite wall, before the fatigue overpowered you, and you passed out.

  When you came to, you’d been moved.   You were on a hard bed of some sort, in what looked like a lab, and there was an elliptic-shaped, transparent dome covering most of your torso, as well as two thin tubes leading into each one of your arms, and another two into each leg. IV-tubes. And the banana-bags they were attached to where in the gallons- not ounces -category.

  “What… what are you doing? It’s not safe… you have to put me back, it’s not safe…”

  “Calm down, miss. Everything’s fine, these instruments have been calibrated to absorb your energy, you can’t hurt us here.”

  Her voice was soothing, comfortable without feeling forced.

  “My name is Doctor Emily Kane, and you’re in the Research division right now. We’ve decided to go ahead and do your assessment. For the moment, it seems more urgent to understand your abilities, than keeping your energy up. That said, we’re not going to push you until you’re completely drained, don’t worry. We’ve taken as much precaution as we can.”

  “I… I think I killed that boy…”

  “And then you saved him. It was an accident, and I understand that it frightens you, but the key to controlling your powers in the future, is precisely by not being afraid of them. And the best way to reach that point, is to understand as much about them as you can.”

  She met your eyes and held your gaze until you nodded.

  “Okay. Then let’s get started. This machine on top of you is going to absorb and measure and categorise your energy, so I want you to try and activate your power right now.”

  You took a few deep breaths, and tried to push your energy out, but it wouldn’t come. Your fear had locked it down, and you wanted it to stay down. Forever.   After twenty minutes of failed attempts, no matter how much the good doctor tried to either soothe your worries, or antagonise you, she finally had to admit defeat and was forced to change tactics.

  “Okay, this isn’t gonna work. Bring him in.”

  The door opened and Marcus stepped in, and came towards you, and every piece of equipment in there that was attached to you, started beeping and moving.

  “Marcus… you shouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. You won’t hurt me.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “But I do.”

  He kissed you, really kissed you, and the machines went crazy as you heated up for him. You wanted to touch him so badly, but your arms were trapped by the elliptic dome on top of you. Your ghost hands found him, curling into his hair and holding him to you, and all the while the room got louder and louder.   The frustration of not being able to feel his skin against your body, eventually made you angry. Angry enough that your energy flared, and the dome really did absorb it.   Somehow, that was a big enough surprise to you to break through your lust, and make you pull away from Marcus to stare at the dome while you shot another burst of energy through it.   It just disappeared from you as the machine sucked it up, and for reasons you couldn’t understand; it all seemed like a challenge to you. Like it was baiting you to try harder.

  Challenge accepted, Data.

  In your periphery, you saw Marcus back away, as you held back and gathered your energy under your skin. You had broken an entire med-chamber by filling the room with an invisible density, you’d certainly be able to break one little machine.   When the energy was so thick under your skin that you feared you might burst from the pressure, you released it. The whole room shook, but only for a moment, and then the dome had swallowed it all up.

  “Amazing…”

  Dr. Kane’s voice broke into your concentration, and you forgot your challenge.

  “I’ve never seen this type of energy before. It seems to exist in several dimensions simultaneously. Fascinating.”

  “Dimensions? Wait, it really is ghost energy?”

  She chuckled slightly at that.

  “I guess you could call it that.”

  “So, what does that mean?”

  “Well, we’ll have to perform more tests, obviously. But, basically, it means that you have the ability to tap into one or more alternate dimensions, and draw energy from them, into this one, using your own body as a conduit. It also means that there’s theoretically no limit to how much power you could wield, with the exception that acting as a conduit is seriously draining on your own body. So, let me be clear: your power absolutely can kill you.”

  You took a minute to absorb that, not that you actually could yet, and you felt, more than saw, Marcus shift nervously at your side.

  “And the healing?”

  “That one I can’t answer with any definity until we’ve had a chance to observe it through these instruments.”

  “But… your best guess?”

  “My best guess would be that that power actually comes from you, not some other dimension. It seems to be a clean transference, your energy and life-force is transferred to the injured person, instantly weakening yourself, much more than acting as a conduit does – but also instantly healing the recipient. It’s interesting that you’d develop these two powers specifically, though. It seems to indicate that you have a naturally self-sacrificial tendency.”

  Marcus flinched.

  “Self-sacrificial?”

  “Yes. A willingness and capability to take on difficult or even impossible tasks and burdens in order to protect others, regardless of personal pain or even the possibility of death.”

  That was a little too true for comfort.

  “And… while we’re on the subject of things that are less than fun to talk about, I feel obligated to inform you about something we’ve discovered about healing abilities in general.”

  “Okay.”

  There was something in her tone that made you feel like running out of the room.

  “We don’t know why, exactly, but it seems that women with healing abilities of any kind have an increased difficulty in conceiving children. We think that it might have to do with the fact that women bleed during their cycles and that their abilities instinctively try to prevent it, thereby messing with the natural order of the female body.”

  “But… I can’t heal myself.”

  “It doesn’t seem to matter. Have your cycles been regular?”

  “…No… not since the experiment. I figured it was because of the coma, since nothing at all worked during the time I was under, and for a while afterwards.”

  “Irregularity is one of the tell-tale signs, I’m afraid. But, listen, this is not an exact science. Couples that have been medically declared infertile or sterile have managed to get pregnant anyway. Nature’s amazing, and there’s so much we still don’t know about supers. So, if this is something you want, don’t let the science get in your way.”

  You had no idea what you wanted, only that you were suddenly glad that you’d at least started this conversation with Marcus a while back. It felt like it would’ve been a more difficult subject to broach now, if you hadn’t.   But this wasn’t the time to have it. There were more tests that needed to be done, and for the first time, you really wanted to know what more the science actually could tell you.

  You glanced at Marcus, hoping not see him crushed by the news, and were relieved to find him looking calmly determined.   You’d talk about it later.

Authors’ Note: I love criticism, don’t be shy to let me know if there’s anything you like/don’t like/have questions about.

@blueeyesatnight​ @farfromjustordinary​ @allmyspideys​ @hrk-fic-recs​ @strawberryperegrine @lucrezia-thoughts​ @computeringturtle

[densi-mber]

Paramnesia

A/N: For today’s prompt. This particular scenario was suggested by @mashmaiden. Set in early season 4.

***

“Agent Blye?”

Kensi groaned, pushing at the hand tapping her shoulder.

“Agent Blye, can you hear me?” the voice said more insistently.

“Where am I?” she mumbled, just barely able to open her eyes. Even that made her head pound.

“You’re in the hospital, ma’am,” the man explained. “I’m Nurse Jackson. I noticed you were waking up a few minutes ago.” Kensi gave the barest of nods, becoming increasingly confused. She didn’t remember scheduling any procedure. Actually, she couldn’t remember much of anything.

“What happened to me?” Lifting her hand, she frowned at the needle inserted in the back of her hand.

“Your vehicle crashed and turned over in a ditch this morning. You suffered a head injury, but your doctor can tell you more about that when you’re a little more settled.”

“Am I going to die?” she asked, squinting up at the nurse. Something started beeping loudly and he gently grabbed her hand.

“No, ma’am, the injury was not that severe. Please calm down.” She tried to take a couple breaths, instinctually knowing that she wouldn’t like the results if she couldn’t calm down on her own. When the monitor stopped beeping, Nurse Jackson added, “Your partner will be back soon. He had to step away to make a call.”

“My partner,” she mumbled. She didn’t remember having a partner either.

“Yes, Marty Deeks. He brought you in.” He checked her IV, glancing at her a couple times. “I’m going give you a dose of pain medication and I’ll let your doctor now you’re awake.”

Laying back down, she tried to force herself to remember something, repeating the name Marty Deeks in her mind until she felt calmer. A few minutes later, the door opened again.

“Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re awake,” said the man who walked through. He was tall with messy blonde hair that curled around his ears and a wide mouth that was currently narrowed with worry. Kensi felt something flutter in the pit of her stomach at the sound of his voice. As he drew closer, she noticed some blood smeared across his forehead.

He hesitated for a moment and then bent to hug her, the fluttering feeling increased and she wrapped her free arm around his neck. This was obviously Marty. It felt good, comforting to be in his arms.

“The nurse said we were in an accident,” she said, pushing herself up higher in the bed. She must have guessed right that he was there too because he nodded, his expression turning worried once more.

“Yeah, you don’t remember it?”

“Some of my memories are a little foggy,” Kensi hedged. She grabbed his hand and his eyes flew down to their linked fingers. “But my head barely hurts.” That was a bald-faced lie. “Can you get me out of here?”

“I don’t know, the doctor-“

“Please, Marty.” He arched an eyebrow at that and he shook his head, allowing a tiny smirk.

“You’re super cute when you beg Kensalina, but I think they’ll want to keep you for a while for observation. It was a pretty bad crash.”

“I just want to go home.,” Kensi murmured, pressing his hand to her lips.

“Ok, yeah, wow. Apparently that TBI made you a lot more affectionate that usual,” he said, his cheeks flushing just a little. It was pretty adorable.

“What, I’m not always affectionate with my husband?” she teased, looking right up into his gorgeous blue eyes. It felt normal, easy, and took away some of her discomfort at having absolutely no idea who this guy was.

“Husband?” He chuckled, turning away slightly before he rubbed his jaw. “Ok, yes, I’m definitely your husband. I uh, I want to talk to your doctor...about getting you released. Don’t go anywhere.”

He returned about five minutes later with the doctor in tow. While Marty stood in the background, the doctor, who introduced herself as Doctor Martinez, gave Kensi an amnesia test. At first it took her longer than she was proud of to come up with the simple answers to questions about the date and time, but then they became progressively easier as more information returned to her.

She even started to remember more about Marty.

The only things she couldn’t seem to remember were what happened directly before and after the accident. Dr. Martinez didn’t seem particularly worried about that and since she didn’t ask any questions about her personal life, Kensi didn’t volunteer the information.

“So, what does this mean?” Deeks asked, rubbing at his bottom lip. Kensi had noticed he had a habit of running his fingers through his hair, which made it even messier.

At some point during the exam, he’d taken her hand again. She was grateful for the support and didn’t mind the feel of his warm fingers gripping hers. “Is Kensi going to be alright? Does she need to stay in the hospital?”

“I want to look at her CT scan again, but I think she should be alright to go home,” Dr. Martinez said. “As long as she has someone to watch her the first couple days and nights for any changes.”

“Marty will be with me,” Kensi said, glancing up at him with a small smile. His own smile looked kind of odd, but she didn’t worry about it too much. She trusted him.

“Well, in that case, I’ll be fine with releasing you. And Mr. Deeks, her memory should return in a few days to a couple weeks. It’s an encouraging sign that her amnesia is already resolving.”

“Babe, can you take care of the paperwork?” The words sounded a little strange coming from her mouth, but she shook it off. Everything felt a little strange right now. Marty didn’t immediately answer, so she touched his stomach lightly to get his attention. He jerked, his eyes widening in surprise. “You’ll take care of the paperwork, right?”

“Uh sure, I’ll get started on that,” he muttered. She tipped her chin up expectantly and after a moment of hesitation, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

***

“So, uh, what exactly do you remember about us?” Deeks asked as casually as he could, flicking a quick look at Kensi. She was propped up in the passenger seat with a couple of pillows, but other than the small bandage at her hair line, she didn’t seem that much worse for wear.

Oh, except for the fact that she apparently thought they were married. He wasn’t sure what had led her to believe that were in a relationship at all, but he hadn’t figured out a way to break the truth to her yet.

“We work together,” she began slowly, looking at him for confirmation, “at NCIS.”

“That’s right.” At least that was a start. Maybe with enough gentle leading, she would realize the truth.

“We met when when we were both undercover at a gym. We didn’t get along very well at first, but then we started working as partners.” She paused and glanced at him, her smile turning reminiscent.

“I think you thought I was pretty annoying and kind of idiot when we first met,” Deeks said, smirking at his own expense. “Still do sometimes to be honest.”

“Mm, but I love you anyway,” Kensi commented drowsily, reaching across the consul to run her fingers over his cheek. A shiver ran down his spine at the simple touch combined with her soft, almost dreamy expression . He wasn’t used to her touching him this much when it wasn’t followed by a sarcastic comment or the promise of violence.

“Uh...here we’re are.” He pulled into her driveway, and parked, grabbing her bag from the back and then helping her out. When he offered her his arm, she wrapped her arm around his neck instead, obviously expecting him to pick her up.

After a little fumbling, he had one arm around her waist and the other under her knees. Kensi once again didn’t seem to notice his discomfort and laid her head on his shoulder, sighing.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“My head hurts,” she mumbled. “And my back is kind of sore too. Maybe you can rub it for me.”

“Sure.” Deeks huffed out a laugh. God, this was like all his dreams come true but in totally the wrong way. He used the spare house key Kensi had given him a couple years ago for emergencies and carried her straight to her bedroom.

Despite their usual lack of boundaries and the number of times he’d hung out at her apartment, he rarely set foot inside her room. It was an unspoken line that neither of them was willing to cross, a sign of intimacy, which was now being completely trampled.

He set her on the bed and then grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of sweats from a pile by the door. Before she could ask for help with changing, he told her,

“I’m gonna check in with Hetty and let her know how you’re doing.”

“But you’re not leaving, right?” She checked, grabbing for his hand.

“Of course not,” he assured her, crouching down in front of her. “What if you tripped over a pile of clothes on your way to get a late night snack? I’d never forgive myself.”

“Shut up. And I promised I clean up the mess this weekend,” she said, rolling her eyes. “As soon as we get a break from work.”

“Kensi, I’m not going to let you clean anything while you have a concussion.” He started to stand again, but Kensi leaned forward, hugging him tightly.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me.” She dipped her head and he didn’t move as she gently kissed him. It was just a brush of lips, less than the kiss they shared while undercover. Somehow it was so much more. Clearing his throat noisily, he untangled her arms, and rushed into the living room, not caring if Kensi thought it was strange.

He quickly updated Hetty on Kensi’s status. Hetty gave him the rest of the day off without him even asking with instructions to take good care of “Ms. Blye”. He felt a twinge of guilt at that, but didn’t mention anything about Kensi’s memory lapse. The team would figure that out soon enough.

When he hung up, he fixed Kensi a bowl of soup and a small sandwich, remembering she hadn’t eaten since early that morning.

“Hey, I made you some food.” he said quietly as he walked back into her room with a tray balanced on one hand. Kensi was curled up in bed looking way too soft and drowsy-eyed for her own good. “I couldn’t find any twinkies or peanut butter cups, so it’s just plain old tomato basil.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said. He didn’t think that was a particularly good sign, but set the food to the side and crouched in front of her again. Just to be at eye level, he told himself.

“Ok, do you need anything else?” Kensi slid a hand out from under the covers and clumsily cupped his cheek.

“Just you.”

***

A/N: I played this like Kensi was remembering some bits from when they were undercover in Neighborhood Watch. And yes, there will be a part 2.

As always, I am not a medical expert or professional. Although I do try to do some research, this is just for fun and there’s bound to be some mistakes.

[wychive]

𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙠𝙚𝙣 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨

summary // you found your pile of ‘letters’ to hyunjin that contain thoughts that have never been said and decided to write to him one last time.

pairing(s) // hyunjin x gn!reader, hyunjin x oc, slight minho x reader

genre(s) // angst, letter fic 

warning(s) // mentions of food, themes of being forgotten, vulgar wording, humiliation, overthinking

word count // 2.0k

author's note // happy birthday @noya-sannnn​ !! im sorry this was so late hhh you know how i am irl,, but i hope you enjoy this! i love you so much, jane <3 i apologize for the many grammar mistakes gn. i recommend listening to iu’s ending scene while reading this! btw y/n/n means your nickname.

[10/01/14, 3:55am]

dear jinnie,

hi there! it's y/n <3 i hope you're doing okay - i mean of course you are pfft anyways, just writing this short letter (more like paragraph)  sort of as a venting mechanism? for things i cant tell you about lol  im not so sure how you would call it, since you're so much better at words than i am. basically were like:

hyunjin: ow a brain freeze!

me: haha brain go brrrr

anyways haha yea <3 it's 4am so like,, ill see you at school!

signed,

your loser,

y/n/n

[15/02/14, 12:34am]

yo heartthrob!

im back with this kinda stuff haha it's been a whole? week? since ive written one of these so like yes..hi! i just wanted to say thanks, for today. you really know how to cheer me up huh? you really outdid yourself by setting up that little picnic for us. congrats on making the strawberry cake so perfectly <3 this day will always stay as a core memory in the back of my brain. you're too caring sometimes,,, istg you'll pay for this [maybe hugs?] >:) 

signed,

your partner in crime,

y/n/n

[30/02/15, 01:29am]

jinnie-senpai~~

LMAO you hate me calling you that, doesn't change a thing though. hehe,, nways i hope you enjoyed your birthday present :) i got you that really cool skateboard that you wanted. i worked my ass off for that in my mother's garden so like,, you gotta thank me for that a thousand times :D nah jk, its a sincere gift, from me to you. i rarely do this for ANYONE so consider yourself lucky to have a best friend like me -3- also, seungmin is like….kinda the cutest person ever. introduce me to him pls, thank!

signed,

<your bestest friend3,

y/n

(p.s. you're kinda cute too,,,, ig,,, still stinkee tho)

[13/04/15, 9:04pm]

hey 'baby' (HAHAHA ihy for this)

i hope your day was okay! i didn't see much of you today (which was sort of a bummer but wtv) so like…. uh yea. you told me you were doing okay over text, which kinda surprised me because like?? we always video call lol this is kinda the first time,, but its okay, i trust you! (i really hope youre doing alright tho, i'll beat anyone up if they make you sad >:( ) you also called me 'sweetheart' today which was like…. omg wtf haha????????? that was so weird to me for some reason… a good kind of weird :D we haven't done those kinds of nicknames in a while so…. happy to know that they're back in session <3 i talked to the new girl today, she's really cool! like she knows the bean song on tiktok so like its a total win heh, ill introduce you to her tomorrow! you'll love her a lot

signed,

your 'lover',

y/n/n

[08/06/16, 10:23pm]

hey howl (hehe go back to that movie night we had)

this spring break sucks so much,, esp because youre not here (you still couldve brought me along :'[ ) but wtv i hope youre enjoying yourself. ive been hanging out with yeonnie lately and i found out she likes conan grey too like pls i love her sm. can we adopt her?? please???? she told me you guys have been video calling too and that makes me so happy!! you two are getting along so well aaa my precious babies </3 

what if you developed a crush on her? haha…..jk unless?? (no jk dont shes all mine, stay away >:) ) anyways, i hope the three of us hang out soon. maybe go to that ice cream parlour where they serve the best cookies and cream?  

signed,

your daisy,

y/n/n

[19/07/15, 01:23am]

peepee poopoo hello

heyheyhey!! (heh, haikyuu thingz) i hope youre doing okay! i mean sure you are, with everything going so well. also i feel like you're not telling me something. maybe it's just me? is it? i hope it is because you tell me everything,, we've been talking less these days but its okay! i know how busy you are, especially with your dad always bugging you,,

also, i think yeonbin likes you :0,, she keeps talking about you whenever we hang out. don't get me wrong, its not bad that she likes you but...something doesn't feel right. i feel like i'm being the third wheeler here and like ugh idk. haha laughs yea i think its just me.. im sorry, i didnt mean to do you like this,, anyways, ill see you soon + her too ofc- yall are inseparable lmao

signed,

your moonlight,

y/n/n

[23/07/15, 01:56am]

greetings, kind sir

lol more like mean sir but like aight KSKSK,, anyways,, how have you been? we haven't really talked in a while,, our convos are always so short with it being one-sided :/ i wish you were online more. yeonnie is ignoring me,, do you know why? i think you do,,, but when i asked you just said you didnt know. did i do something wrong? pls tell me.. 

she blocked my contact the other day and she won't even smile at me when i pass her in the hallways. its,, sad and stressful especially because she was the only one that would genuinely talk to me. i hate to say this,, but i miss you. us, hanging out like the best trio we are, yknow? but i dont think you miss me the same way. sorry, im getting out of hand. i know im just overreacting. im just gonna sleep ig,, good night! sweet dreams,,

signed,

your pink lemonade,

y/n/n

[25/07/15, 03:25am]

hi there

i heard you and her got together?? congrats, jinnie! im so proud of you,, especially because you never had even considered getting a girlfriend a few months earlier lmaO you really woo the ladies huh? anyways,, i hope you've been well since we last talked,, how many days has it been?? i would say nearly a week or so but honestly it feels like a hundred years,, considering you and i used to talk every day. but you have her now to keep you company.

keep this a secret but can you possibly tell me why it hurts when i see her? or when i mention her or even think of her?? is it because she's connected to you? but.. you're my best friend, so why? is it because i miss you? is it because im alone now? is it because you left me with a simple 'i have to go now,, bye y/n/n.'? im not sure either. im being silly, i apologize. ill figure it out sooner or later. sweet dreams, jinnie

signed,

your asswipe,

y/n

[25/07/15, 04:30am]

jinnie

it's because i love you. 

signed,

your butterfly,

y/n

[??/08/??, 05:??am]

you

i miss your lame jokes. i miss your smile. i miss your laughs. i miss your funny faces. i miss the way your eyes twinkle. i miss th way you would make me happy just by doing the bare minimum. i miss the disaster you made when cooking breakfast. i miss the night when you snuck me out just to go to that pretty lantern event. i miss when you would call out my name everytime we met. i miss when we would share earbuds in train rides. dont you get it, hyunjin? i miss you.

[??/??/15, ??:??am]

asshole.

please tell me that isn't true, please. you're too kind to do these kinds of things, right? + i was your best friend,, then, why, why did you hurt me like this. i didnt do anything wrong.. you couldve just told me you didnt like me,,, why did she have to tell me? out of all people. 

youre so pathetic for this,, i thought you were brave, bold - but youre just a fucking coward. i loved you, i really did. and i realised too late… im sorry. she,, i shouldn't have talked to her in the first place, right? i bet you knew she humiliated me, in front of everyone. of course you did, you were the only one that knew. you told her. fuck, i hate you so much (yet why do i long for you on a night like this?). you know how much that'll affect me and yet, there you are, laughing about it with her.

signed,

fuck off,

you know who i am.

[31/08/15, 03:41am]

ah, jinnie

please tell me this is just a nightmare. please, please. stop just reading my texts, please answer them. jinnie. i miss you so much. i dont care bout her, please just let me be in your arms. i dont care if you love me back, please just talk to me at least. tell me what i did wrong,, jinnie,, please,,, clear these tear stains on my cheek with kisses.

signed,

your fuck-up,

y/n

[15/09/15, 04:59am]

jinnie

why do i keep crying because of you? its been a few weeks since everything has happened. please, nothing has changed. i still love you the same even with all the hatred i have pent up in this stupid brain of mine. i wish i could just walk back in time, to where it all began.

when i first met you in third grade and you pushed me while playing soccer or maybe when we took those ridiculous prom pictures, remember those? i hope you still have them,, because i do too. i hope the pictures of us on your wall still hang there,, it'll remind you of the happy times. hm,, maybe you don't need them. 

you already have millions of pictures with you and her,, i bet you printed some and replaced those with ours right? sly dog. 

signed,

friend,

y/n/n

[04/02/16, 12:57am]

hey

i went to the park today and saw both of you being happy. it's nice to see your smile again. im sorry i didnt go up to you,, i just thought it would be awkward. when i heard that adorable laugh of yours, it made me realise that i lost something special. but it's okay isnt it? as your happiness matters more than mine. 

signed,

y/n

[06/01/20, 08:00pm]

dear hyunjin,

im doing fine here. how about you? gosh,, how long has it been? years? since we last talked to each other. i havent heard from you since. i would just like to say i still think of you sometimes, when watering the plants or dancing while making pancakes. sometimes i think you're here with me too, just being the pals we were. 

sometimes i'd see you out, just reading a book in the park or buying pasta sauce at the grocery store. it's nice to see you having a stable life. im not sure if you're still with her or not, but its good to know that you still have that large friend group. also! you're never gonna guess who im dating--

it's minho! do you remember him? the one that i used to hate,, uh yeah. he asked me out the other day- you may wonder how tf,,, i too do not know how tf but he gives the best hugs ever. he gave me the love i wanted from you. he stitched my heart back together after it broke,, i love him so much, jinnie..

it's snowing,, do you remember when we would skate on the frozen lake in front of your house? are your parents well? i wonder if your mother still has those earrings i bought for her birthday. i never told you this but your laugh and hers sound so similar. 

i would just like to say thank you, for everything. you were a big part of my life, up until now. when we see each other after this, we would just be strangers. maybe flash a little smile or give a little wave whenever we greet each other but nothing more. some memories of us would flow in every now and then but it'll just be a short teaser. well, i'll be going now. smile for me, okay?

signed,

the one that loved you the most,

y/n.

taglist // @/noya-sannnn, @crvgio​ , @neo-shitty​

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[pedros-mustache-main]

a series of fortunate events

summary: the three times the line between friends and ~something more~ is blurred and the first time that line is demolished.

word count: 1.5k+

warnings: language, mention of harassment

a/n: dang right i stole the title from my favorite children’s book series! what’s it to ya?

i. 

the first time it happens is completely by accident. you’re mates––nothing more––so when he asks you to go with him to the oscars you tease him about his lack of a proper date, but ultimately say yes. it is the oscars after all. you find your dress (a pale lilac chiffon gown, only eighty pounds on the clearance rack at h&m), begrudgingly allow him to purchase your plane ticket, and pack you bags. 

after a long flight and full saturday of sight-seeing and overpriced meals in the city, sunday evening finally rolls around. you get ready in the comfortable silence of your hotel room. introvert that you are, it’s easier to get ready alone knowing you’ll be out until the wee hours of the morning. plus, the solitude gives you a moment to collect yourself in private. you’re nervous, naturally, but it’s likely he’s ten times as nervous as you. the thought forces you to get your emotions under control; you’re here to be a support, not a burden.

he knocks on the door at five p.m. sharp. grabbing a pair of earrings, you hurry to the door and pull it open, turning your back as you search for your shoes amidst the pile of clothes on the floor.

“that would be a riot if i forgot my shoes,” you say dryly. one hand shoves the back of your earring into place while the other tosses a shirt out of the way. “could you imagine me showing up barefoot?”

you rise from where you’re crouched near the floor and turn to face him. what you see stills the air in your chest. he’s painfully handsome in his suit, and there’s a part of you that likes his short hair, but that’s not what stops you.

he’s staring at you with a mixture of awe and adoration. so much so, heat rises to your cheeks at his open gaze. you want to look away because if you don’t soon you’ll surely start to sweat, but you can’t. his stare holds you frozen.

clearing your throat, you motion to your gown. “i got it on sale.” it’s lame, a foolish attempt to ease the heaviness in the room. if anything, as his eyes move from your face to your body, the heaviness only grows stronger.

“it’s... nice.”

a moment longer and you know you’ll burst, both out of confusion and excitement, so you find your shoes, slip them on, and shove him out into the hall with a quip about being late.

still, once you crawl into bed well past midnight, buzzed and content, you replay his look over and over because friends don’t look at each other that way and the idea alone sends a nervous thrill down your spine.

ii. 

the next time it happens is barely worth mentioning, but it’s kept your wheels spinning and your heart thumping for days despite the moment’s smallness.

you’d gotten coffee together, caught up on a few weeks, and shared a laugh. it’s nothing out of the ordinary. but there’s one moment––the moment that nearly drives you to insanity––which you cannot shake.

from his place at the table, he can see out the window over your shoulder. as you talk, he watches the road outside, his eyes trailing the passersby. he’s always been that way, a people watcher. you like his thoughtfulness, but sometimes it can drive him to distraction.

you snap your fingers in front of his nose. “hey, earth to gwil. i’m just about to get to the best part of the story.”

“wait.” he sits forward, grabbing the hand still hovering in front of his face. his fingers curl around yours, and he squeezes your palm in a silent message. “that lady dropped her grocery bags and that guy’s about to help her.” 

you twist, hands still entwined, to look out the window. sure enough, an older woman, tomatoes and fruit and cardboard boxes littered around her feet, is helped by an older man. the scene is sweet, like something about of a film.

you face him again. “that’s cute.”

he sits back and shrugs before taking a sip of his coffee. “finish your story.”

as you finish, your hands remain meshed together on the tabletop.

iii.

the last time is happens––and when you know one of you has to make the first move or else you’re fucked––is on holiday. your families have gone to the shore as one large unit for years and this summer is no different.

one evening, you follow him, your sister, and his siblings to a nearby pub. you’re tired after a long day of doing nothing, but he convinces you to come. something about trivia night and the smile on his face, the eagerness in his voice, breaks you down despite your initial protests.

you’re just grabbing another pint from the bar when a hand slaps your ass. you jolt out of surprise, beer sloshing over the rim of your glass to wet your arm. torn between the offender and the trail of beer spreading across the counter, you freeze, uncertain. the offender takes the mute reaction as encouragement, and he leans against the bar next to you.

“hey.” his breath is foul, a mixture of bad beer and garlic. you cringe and reach for a pile of napkins. “nice ass.”

“fuck off,” you mutter.

“just bein’ friendly, that’s all. you don’t gotta be so uptight.”

“i’m not uptight.” you level him a glare and upturned brow. “i’m simply not attracted to anyone who thinks a good pick up line is slapping a complete stranger’s ass.”

“is everything okay here?”

on some level, you wish he would let you handle your predicament on your own. you’re a big girl. surely you can handle an asshole without someone coming to your rescue. but he looks concerned, his eyes darting back and forth between the offender and your angry features. he sidles up next to you, weaves his arm around your waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and gives the offender a once over. he’s taller than the offender, which not uncommon for him, and tonight he uses his height to intimidate.

worry flashes over the offender’s face. he gestures between you and your rescuer with a meaty finger. “you know him?”

before you can answer, he answers for you. “she’s my girl.”

you feel your face react before you can stop it. your eyes go wide in surprise, your jaw slackens but doesn’t fall open, thank goodness. the hand you slowly bent around his back goes hot. 

he’s just playing a game, you tell yourself. he doesn’t mean anything by it.

the offender huffs, pulls at his beer, and sulks off. 

his arm remains snug around your waist, his fingers fluttering over the exposed skin of your hip. you shift, nerves forcing you to look elsewhere.

“thanks,” you say. “but i could have handled it.” that’s the pride speaking, but also the anxiety.

he moves to help mop up the spilled beer. “sure, but i meant it––you’re my girl and i look out for you.”

you still and look up at him under your lashes.

your mind is made up.

iv.

later that same night, you resolve to demolish the line between friend and lover once and for all. you’re tried of wondering and dreaming. you’re already too far gone to care about the repercussions. god, you think you probably love him already. 

the house is quiet, asleep, as you tiptoe your way across the floor where your sister lays on her air mattress. he’s lucky enough to have scored his own room this year. he was fastest out of the car when you parked, and he beat his brothers to the loft above the cabin. it’s semi-exposed––you can peer down over the railing to the house below––but he’s alone and that’s enough to keep you moving. 

he’s awake, which surprises you. there’s no door so as you round the corner, you can see him sitting cross-legged on his bed. a small table lamp shines across the book in his lap. his hair is mussed, as if he’s woken from an unhappy sleep. the floorboards creak under your feet, and he looks up, sleepy eyes peering through his glasses. when he realizes it’s you, he sits up straight.

“hey,” he whispers.

“hey.”

“couldn’t sleep?”

you shake your head.

“me neither.”

he sets the book aside and rubs a hand down his face, elbows propped on his knees. his sleep shirt––a godawful t-shirt with the phrase dad jokes? i think you mean rad jokes written across the front––is too small for his muscular shoulders. it tightens around his back as he moves.

“gwil, i think...” you nearly loose your muster when he looks at you. years of memories play through your head, and you wonder, if he rejects you, what will come of those memories.

but then he stands. he reaches for your wrist, circles his long fingers around it, and pulls you close. you stumble toward him. just before he lowers his head to kiss you, his fingers propped under your chin, he smiles.

“me too, kid.”

[deathonyourtongue]

Winter Passing | Chapter 7

Summary: After car accident leaves him at the base of a mountain with no sign of civilization for miles, a breakup is the least of Henry’s problems. Just as death’s icy fingers begin to coil around him, salvation presents itself in the form of an old cabin in a clearing. Despite years of being told fairy tales and ghost stories that warn against such things, he uses his last of his strength to reach the cottage. When he wakes, he finds not a demon, but an angel, long removed from the insanity of the modern world. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 3K Warnings: A microscopic amount of smut. And an apparition that’s a little gory. A/N : Who wants to guess which actress plays Tabitha?  Like what I do? Buy me a coffee (or a commission)!

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Over the next few days, Olivia and Henry fell into a pattern. She’d wake before him, usually to a report of the night’s happenings from Dyster, who’d taken to patrolling ever since Tiago had come and gone. By the time Henry woke, Olivia was making breakfast, and the two would share quiet conversation about everything and nothing. She learned he was an actor who’d had something of a big break, and--up until the accident--had been looking for the perfect follow-up script to keep his momentum going. Henry learned what Olivia was willing to share about her practice and her past, but overall, she remained something of a mystery to him. While that was usually a turn-off for him, with Olivia, it only added to the entrancing nature of her and the place she called home. 

Once Henry’s injuries healed completely, he began pulling his weight around the property. He became the early bird, always up and outside when Olivia woke to Dyster’s pecking at her window. She’d never asked, but without fail she’d find him either chopping wood, or taking care of the animals. Though she often wondered what his motivations were for being so helpful, it didn’t take long for Olivia to realize that he simply enjoyed being busy and useful, a quality that made a bigger impression on her than his smile or charm ever could have.

“Good morning, love,” Henry panted as he came in, stomping the snow off his boots and wiping them as best he could before trying to toe out of them with a stack of wood in his arms. 

“Here, let me take these,” Olivia smiled, not missing how rosy his cheeks got whenever he exerted himself outside in the nipping cold. If she were truthful with herself, Olivia would admit to having more than just a passing fancy for the man who’d been on death’s door not two weeks prior; she was truly starting to fall for the handsome Brit, and each day they spent in each other’s company, her heart opened just a little further. 

Taking the wood from Henry, she moved to the living room, placing the cut logs on the top of the already-neat pile of dried wood. Olivia couldn’t stop her smile as she watched Henry make a beeline for the kitchen, ruffling the top of Gunnar’s head absently as he peeked at everything that was cooking on the stove. 

“You outdo yourself every day, darling. I can’t wait!” Henry said with genuine awe and excitement, his blue eyes brighter than ever. His expression sent a rush through Olivia, her heart fluttering and her own cheeks ruddying as she moved to check on breakfast, gently nudging him out of her way and earning herself a chuckle in the process. 

“Won’t have to wait much longer. Food’s ready,” she smiled, Olivia laughing sweetly as she watched Henry bolt into action, grabbing plates, cups, and cutlery. By the time she reached the table with the skillet, Henry had already poured their tea and had her plate in hand, ready to serve her first. 

It was the little things--like always serving her first--that became endearing; things Olivia knew she’d miss once spring came and Henry was able to go back to his normal life. He was a thoughtful man without any need for validation, and while she figured that part of it was that she’d saved his life, Olivia liked to think that it was mostly just the product of being raised by someone just as thoughtful and caring. 

“Thank you,” she murmured softly, Olivia’s eyes closing as she felt Henry’s large hand smooth over her hair, her expression one she rarely wore. So rarely in fact, that even Gunnar noticed, the husky cocking his head to one side in confusion. For the first time in a long time, Olivia seemed content.

“Of course. Thank you for cooking,” Henry replied without hesitation, his smile warm as he served himself. 

They ate in amicable silence, bites occasionally interrupted by a glance up at one another, glances that quickly shifted back to their plates, their smiles ear-to-ear. Though neither could deny their attraction, neither was ready to make the first move, so they danced around it, taking what they could in secret smiles, little touches, and--in another quickly-formed routine--solo time spent thinking of the other while they worked out their desires in the most primal of ways.

Alone time had become just as much a part of their routine as anything else, and like clockwork, when breakfast was over, Olivia headed outside to forage, while Henry moved to bathe. Though it was an unspoken agreement, it wasn’t without its perils, and more than once Olivia had walked back inside either to the sounds of his moans, or to him, still wet, moving from the bath to his room to dress. It was frustrating, to say the least, but made for quick work on her part when Henry moved outside to finish whatever chore he’d started before breakfast.  

When they’d both had their fill, life would return to normal. With no TV or electricity, they spent the daylight hours reading, writing, and occasionally playing a board game. It was a peaceful existence, one which, aside from the company of Henry, went largely unchanged for Olivia. It was a pleasant surprise to not have to veer so far from her routine as to turn her world upside down. Even her daily practice went unchanged, as Henry seemed to have a preternatural ability to tell when she was ready to use her altar or crack open her book, and without fail he would head to his room to nap or read in bed, always with a warm smile and a gentle touch as he made his way. 

Nighttime was when the cottage came alive. It always began with dinner, Henry taking over cooking duties while Olivia handled the drinks. With her hand-crank record player providing a quiet soundtrack, the two danced, drank, and ate without a care. The more they drank, the more affectionate they became with one another, and more often than not, the two would end up on the couch, snuggling together as the snow fell outside. The combination of Henry’s charms and the alcohol flowing through her veins, brought Olivia’s walls down further and further. Each night, her carefully guarded history came out, chapter by chapter, a bedtime story for Henry, who always lay listening intently, as she played with his curls. Though more open, Olivia’s tales were always about her personal history, never about her life as it related to her craft, and Henry knew it would take more than a few drunken evenings for him to earn that part of her story.

“What’s something you believed when you were younger that you know to be false now?” Henry asked, his eyes closed in pure bliss as Olivia’s fingers traced lightly over his face, releasing muscles he didn’t even realize had been tense as he lay with his head in her lap. 

“Love magic. Like any other little girl, I believed in all the syrupy-sweet hag tales of frogs turning into princes, true love’s kiss, finding ‘the one’. All a load of crap when you grow up and realize people are cruel to one another and that no one truly cares about your heart if it gets in their way. Even the ‘spells’ I cast back then were silly and sappy.”

“Like what?” Henry asked, his smile ear-to-ear as he opened his eyes to gaze up at Olivia. With his expression so tender and sweet, Olivia found herself saying the words on autopilot, one hand placed over Henry’s heart while the other continued to outline his features.

“By the loving heart of Hecate, by fire, air, earth, and sea, please draw my love to me. Someone to love with all my soul, once we’re together we’ll both be whole. I’ll give my love freely, I’ll love him completely, please Hecate, bring my love to me. As I do say, so mote it be!” Each phrase matched a line traced over Henry’s face, and it wasn’t until she’d closed the spell that Olivia realized what she’d done. Waiting for a tell that the spell had worked, she felt relief when she couldn’t feel a change on the wind. A blush colored her face as Henry looked up at her once more, a gentility in his expression that she couldn’t get enough of. 

“Silly or not, that’s a lovely sentiment, darling. There’s nothing wrong in asking for the love you deserve.” Sitting up, Henry made Olivia feel light as a feather as he picked her up and set her in his lap with ease. His hand was warm as he cupped her face, his eyes searching hers. “It may not have worked when you were a child, but now that you’re a grown woman, I’d chance it to say things might go differently.”

Without another word, Henry leaned in and pressed his lips to Olivia’s. It felt as though the earth stood still, Olivia’s heart feeling too big for her chest as she returned the kiss with the utmost passion. Allowing the dam that held her feelings to crumble, she slung her arms around Henry’s neck, getting lost in the softness of his lips and the tickle of his beard.

Henry felt as though he were floating, the experience of kissing Olivia different from any other woman he’d been with. Her lips were nectar-sweet, and the scent of all the herbs she worked with enveloped him in a warmth unlike any other. He felt his heart skip a beat as she settled in his embrace, silently showing that she was just as much at peace with him, as he was with her. The words of the spell echoed in his mind, and Henry couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, knowing at least one passage had come to pass; it seemed as though, in the few weeks they’d known each other and traipsed around their affections for one another, their first kiss truly had made them whole. 

“Yes, hello officer. I’d like to report a missing person. Yes, my boyfriend, Henry. He’s been missing for...almost three weeks now? When did I last see him? Oh, well, the day he moved out. You see, we had a little…Spat and he thought it meant we were over, but that was hardly the case. Yes, I’m very worried. Describe him? Well, he’s quite handsome, in the Prince Charming kind of way. Dark hair that curls something awful if he doesn’t keep it trimmed. Blue eyes. Tall, at least six feet. Muscular, but not a body builder by any means. He’s British. I last saw him pulling away in his Escalade--well, not his to be truthful. It was mine and I sold it to him for a dollar when his old car broke down...Oh, right, of course. He said he’d found an apartment on the north side of town. Why he’d want to make the commute to New York that much harder for himself, I’ll never understand. Oh? Yes, he’s an actor, if you can call it that. I called it a vain pursuit, but that’s just me. No, no family here, I’m afraid. I’m his family. Yes, of course! My number is…”

Tabitha Norwood’s voice was sickly-sweet, her smile beaming as she spoke to the detective she’d been transferred to. Standing in her kitchen, she pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder, her perfectly-manicured red nails an accent to her delicate fingers, which busied themselves with tightly closing the lid of a small jar. When finished, she placed the jar by her open window, and washed her hands, her sphynx, Fluffy, jumping onto her shoulder just as the detective hung up. 

“Don’t worry, boy. We’ll find him. He can’t have gone very far.” She smiled, tucking one side of her copper bob behind her ear, her smile never once faltering.

“Oh fuck, Henry! Yes, right there! Don’t stop!” Olivia’s back arched high off the mattress as Henry’s hips slammed hard into hers, their bodies fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Her voice hoarse from the filthiest, most orgasmic foreplay she’d ever had, she was certain Henry would be her total undoing, tea leaves be damned. Every stroke of his length inside her was heavenly, and Olivia didn’t hesitate to plant Henry firmly at the top of her ‘Best I Ever Had’ list, mentally kicking Henry’s predecessor off the podium, unable to remember what her other lovers even looked like as her new love brought her to the mountaintop.

She came with his name on her lips, Henry following suit, his body trembling as visibly as hers was. They lay still connected for some time, indulging in afterglow kisses and feather-light touches, both Henry and Olivia thrilled by how the night had turned out. 

Were it not for Dyster’s sudden pecking at the window and Gunnar’s alarm-growl, everything would have been perfect. Henry and Olivia both jumped, but for very different reasons, Henry startled by the noise and Olivia on full alert, understanding her animals’ calls better than anyone. Pulling out of her as gently as he could, Henry scrambled to put his pants on while Olivia wrapped her robe around her body, moving to the window once she was covered. 

Though her first instinct was to open the window to speak with her raven, Dyster flew away just as her hand went for the sill and in doing so, allowed Olivia’s gaze to see what had caused all the ruckus.

Outside, by her altar, stood a woman in white. Despite a veil covering her face, Olivia recognized her immediately. A shiver ran through her and tears filled her eyes within seconds. Stuck in place, she watched as the woman held up a grotesque effigy of a child. Deformed in every possible way, the infant’s cries were terrifying and made it clear it was in pain. 

In her practice, Olivia asked for very little, preferring instead to give from her heart, and receive only that which the goddess and the lesser gods she worshipped deemed suitable for her to receive. This was a clear message that someone was displeased.

Olivia jumped when Henry’s hand wrapped around her shoulder, and without needing to think, she pushed him away and out of sight. “Stay there. Whatever you hear next, stay where you are.” 

There was no room for discourse as Olivia moved to action, yanking open her nightstand and pulling out a long test tube with a cork stopper. Stepping through her door, she opened the tube and let the contents spill into a neat line on the floor. Olivia hopped over it and did the same with the window sill both in her room and the attached bathroom. With one final line at the bathroom door, she changed out of her robe and into a dress, wiped her eyes, and headed downstairs.

Henry sat on the bed, eyes unblinking as he listened for every minute sound he could make out. At first, he heard only the child and the creaks of the house as Olivia moved around downstairs. Gunnar’s bark and Dyster’s cawing came next, both animals clearly agitated beyond reason. Finally, he heard Olivia’s voice, stronger and more firm than he’d ever heard it before. 

“GO BACK FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, EVIL SPIRIT! YOUR MASK FOOLS NO ONE! LEAVE THIS PLACE IN PEACE!” 

There was no stopping Henry from bolting to the window as an ear-piercing shriek cut through the clearing, and though he might have brushed things off as simply his overactive imagination before, there was no denying what he saw. As Olivia threw a bucket of salt in the direction of the woman, she began to dissolve, reminding Henry of cotton candy in water. Closing his eyes tightly, he pressed the heels of his palms over them, willing the image of the woman’s unhinged jaw and oozing mouth to leave his mind as quickly as it entered. 

After a few minutes, Olivia came back inside, and it took only a moment for Henry to realize she was sobbing. Quickly, he moved downstairs, his heart breaking for Olivia as he found her crumpled on the floor by the hearth. Hearing his footsteps, she looked up with a hitched inhale, quickly wiping her eyes in embarrassment. 

“Who was that, love?” Henry asked, stopping at the foot of the stairs, his face making it clear that his only concern was for her and her well-being. 

“That…” Olivia’s lower lip quivered and more tears slid down her cheeks as she fought to speak. “That was an apparition with my mother’s face.”

[lilwenney]

looking for affection in all the wrong places (iv)

pairing: will x female!reader warning(s): *to the beat of lil jon’s ‘shots’* angst angst angst angst, alcohol, mentions of smut, people are shit at communicating, adrian  word count: 4k a/n: part i, part ii, part iii / playlist can be found here / woah boy. sad times are upon us. i realized while writing this that i need a friend like cleo. 

One night stands were awkward only if you allowed them to be. They were sloppy, rushes of lust filled with twinges of passion in the moment while the following morning were mostly always filled with regret. (Y/N) could count on two hands the times she had shuffled around a dark, foreign bedroom after a one night stand to find her clothes and leave as soon as possible, because well, she was now sober and sticking around until the sun came up in a stranger's room didn’t seem like an ideal way to spend her Saturday morning. 

But the morning after James’ last party with Will next to her in bed was anything but awkward, for reasons completely unknown. She never thought that laying in bed naked with one of her close friends would somehow be... comfortable? Relaxing? She didn’t know what it was. She thought she was still drunk and her shame hadn’t kicked in yet. 

Her and Will laid in bed at 11 a.m. Saturday morning, laughing as they looked at the photos that everyone had sent to the groupchat either the previous night or that morning. There was a photo of George hanging half-way off the back of the sofa, Ciarán had a birthday hat on, Simon had found (and fixed) the inflatable penis and was cuddling it on the bathroom floor, and there were numerous other photos of them dancing, group shots, or general nonsense like cup-stacking and beer pong.

There was never a time that she felt uncomfortable around Will, even right when they first met. They had met and became instant friends all in the same night. Throughout the years he had seen her naked, held her hair back while she threw up in a bush, they had made out now numerous times before, and now they were a notch in each other’s bedposts, but they laughed that morning like friends. 

Now she felt like she was teetering on the borderline of comfort and attraction. Was she just comfortable being around him, even while naked? Or was there an unspoken feeling deep down that she never acted on? Before, the thought of any of this happening wasn’t even a possibility, and now, they were here. And it happened. 

“I need to shower.” She yawned, locking her phone back and placing it on the nightstand. 

Will looked at the time on his phone and nodded, then yawning after her, “me too. You mind if I shower here?” 

“Ah, don’t care. You have clean clothes here from the last time you were over.” 

“When was that?”

“When Gee beat you at Monopoly and you left to stay here for the night.” There was a running theme here - Will was just really bad at board games and he was also a sore loser. 

“She cheated, y’know!” 

She shook her head with a smile, “whatever you say, love.” 

Will kicked his legs out from under the duvet and over the edge of bed, and when he stood up, she saw his butt in full view for the first time. “Oh my god you have a boy butt!” She shouted as he grabbed his briefs from the floor and slid them on. 

He turned around and looked at her with an amused expression, but a scrunched brow. “What are you waffling about?” 

Her bedroom was dark when they stumbled inside, neither of them willing to break away for just a second to flip on a light. Now she caught a glimpse of his behind for the first time and let out a small squeak in laughter. 

“Boy butts are weird Will. You have a long torso and such a little butt.” 

“Little butt?” He asked, shocked. “I have a perfectly plump bottom thank you.” 

She laughed, throwing the covers over her head, “just go take a shower.” 

Will shuffled around, grabbing his clothes so he could leave the room (without scarring Cleo), and he laughed before playfully throwing his jacket on top of (Y/N) as she remained under the covers. She giggled and uncovered her face as he walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him. 

A few minutes after Will left, she got out of bed and got into the showering in her adjoining bathroom. Steam filled the tiled room as hot water poured down her back and washed away sweat and body glitter, the scent of berries filling the bathroom and her nose, allowing her to finally relax her tensed muscles and her shoulders. 

Stepping out of the shower door and wrapping herself in a towel, she opened the door to see the bedroom door ajar, so she knew that Will had come back in. She gave it a second, brushing her teeth before calling out; “Hey,” to see if he was actually in the room with her. When he made a noise back, she asked, “do doughnuts sound good to you right now?” 

“Immensely,” 

“Alright, then we’re getting doughnuts.” 

Within just a few minutes of drying her hair, (Y/N) was in a pair of joggers and a jumper, and her and Will were heading down in the lift to her car. Looking at themselves in the mirror of the lift and taking photos, she had a good laugh at Will’s outfit - black joggers and a baby blue jumper, but a pair of her neon yellow socks were shining underneath the cuff of his joggers. He didn’t leave any socks the last time he was over, so he settled for hers instead. When the lift doors opened to the car park and they stepped out, he told her to piss off and they both slipped into her car. 

For the middle of December that year, London’s weather wasn’t all too bad, except for the cold nights and rain that came around far too often. That afternoon she drove them through the rain, her wipers raking against the windshield almost on the beat to the music Will was playing. What would be a ten minute drive to Shoreditch any other time took them an unsurprising thirty minutes instead due to normal weekend London traffic. 

Sure the nearest place to get doughnuts was literally next door to her flat, but where she was taking Will was a hidden gem of a doughnut shop, and while (Y/N) loved it, taking thirty minutes to get there did test her patience. And Will’s. He had a low tolerance for traffic on a normal day, so this one was particularly worse, and she ignored his complaints by turning the music volume up and smiling at him in response and he rolled his eyes. 

Right in the middle of Shoreditch was a corner shop painted bright green, standing out among the other buildings in the bleak Winter. She pulled her car along the side of the street and her and Will piled out, stepping onto the pavement and walking across the street to the window. 

“Get whatever you want,” she said, crossing her arms to fight off the cool wind, “I’ll buy since you complained about it the entire time.” 

Will stared at the building, glanced at the menu, and then looked at her. “Didn’t mean to complain, I just don’t trust your taste in gourmet doughnuts.” 

She shot him a look and he tried to hold back a smile before she playfully slapped his arm. “Just go order something,” 

When Will stepped up to the register, eyes scanning over the array of doughnuts behind the glass and began picking and choosing, (Y/N) felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She switched her keys into her other hand and quickly fished out her phone, turning it over to look at the screen, expecting it to be Cleo, to be the groupchat. 

Adrian Russell Are you free today? 

When she first read over the text, she thought that she had misread the name, so she read it back in her head, spelling it out letter by letter until she realized she had not been mistaken. All it took for him to text her was a week and three days since the last time they spoke, nine hours since they were in the same room together. 

Her heart dropped at the realization of what was going on, a sudden heavy weight pushing on her shoulders. He was trying to come back to her. For the most part, she had completely gotten over him since unblocking his number a mere three weeks ago. There were no late nights crying herself to sleep or days spent sulking on the sofa with a mouth full of popcorn because he had yet to text her, instead she found solace in being single and going out with friends and surrounding herself with good people. 

And that was the slow understanding that she was no longer making out with Will at parties to make Adrian jealous. She was making out with Will because she wanted to. 

However, there was a twinge of mixed emotions that clouded in her head. She had spent the last year with Adrian, gave him everything she had to offer and more, and a piece of her longed for the familiarity of being with him, but the other half remembered most of the bad in the relationship. She was more in shock, her brain frazzled, trying to figure out what exactly broke the camel’s back for him. 

“Hey,” her head snapped up, watching Will take a step back from the window. 

“Oh,” she breathed out before looking at the cashier, “sorry.” 

(Y/N) quickly pocketed her phone and stepped forward, rambling out her usual order plus an additional few. Cleo would be pissed if she didn’t bring back one for her specifically, so she made sure to add in a few extra. 

Will took notice of her bouncing on her toes, one of her nervous habits. “You okay?” He asked when she finished her order and she nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” 

Picking up the folded boxes of sweets, Will watched on while she tapped her card and paid for their food. He decided it wasn’t worth it, running the good mood they were having that morning, so he let go of her nervous mannerisms and they walked back to her car. 

Unlocking the doors from a distance, trying to combat the rain, they jogged quickly across the street and slid back inside to their seats. Will held the doughnut boxes in his lap, adjusting his seat-belt while (Y/N) turned on the engine and turned on the heat. 

“So how about a coffee?” He finally asked when she slid on her own seat-belt. 

She hummed, sitting back in her seat. “There is a Costa nearby, yeah?” 

“Yeah, yeah, think so,” he nodded, “oh, and I got it this time, don’t worry.” When she didn’t say anything for a second, he turned his head to look at her, and she was smiling. “What’s that grin for?” 

“Do you even know my Costa order?” 

Will licked his lips and read off the order from memory, “regular iced latte with almond milk.” He said it with such certainty. It had been well over a year, but he still remembered her order from the time they had Costa delivered to his flat. She was persistent with the almond milk after all. 

Her smile grew even wider. She cared about the little things, that’s what made her happy. And Will remembering her coffee order was definitely one of those little things. “Damned you, what’s your order? I feel like a right shit friend.” 

“That’s for you to figure out and memorize yourself. Not playin’ easy here.” 

“Oh piss off,” she laughed again before pulling her car onto the street. 

***

It was rare for the friend group to hang out more than twice a week, and it was even more rare for the friend group to see each other more than three times in five days unless they were on holiday. But (Y/N) and Will became the exception; a Friday night party, a Saturday morning doughnut and coffee run, a Monday movie night at hers, and a Wednesday game night at his. 

He called her earlier in the day and she came around a few hours later, they had take-out and a few beers and then ultimately settled on playing video games that Will knew he would 100% beat her at. 

“This is all just muscle memory, love,” 

“Oh fuck off with that,” she cursed loudly, stretching her foot to the side to nudge his controller in attempt to throw him off. But Will was too quick, dodging her at the last second and crossing the finish line just inches ahead of her. A groan of agony followed a cheerful shout, then belly laughter at their drastically different reactions. 

She looked at Will as he tossed his controller down, hands thrown in the air in rejoice. In a bout of 2-out-of-3, Will had come out victorious with a last second pull away, securing his second win of the three races, and he celebrated by teasing, poking her cheek as he called out, “I told you I was gonna win!” 

While he was quite literally the only person on this planet who could annoy her, she was now realizing just how much she took these moments for granted. No weekends spent together or holidays with friends abroad was like this - it was just them in the most natural environment possible. 

Luckily for her, Will was starting to feel the same way. He found himself waking up in the mornings with his mind immediately on her, wondering what she was doing, wondering if there was a way he could see her. The days he was used to spending alone in his room editing until the early hours were no longer. His fingers always found her number in his phone. 

He didn’t understand it, really. How a friend for years was always just a friend until one night. 

Moving her legs from his lap, she allowed him to stand and stretch his long limbs. They had been playing games for a while - at first it was FIFA, that he absolutely destroyed her at until it was no longer fun, and then they switched to Mario Kart, which he was also having a blast beating her at. Video games were the only way he could beat her at a game, and she did well at reminding him of all the times he went bankrupt in Monopoly. 

“Want a beer?” He asked rounding the edge of the sofa, heading towards the kitchen.

She nodded while still focused on the screen, changing the color of Yoshi for the next race, “yes please.” 

After changing the color of Yoshi back to green, she was picky, she placed the controller down on her lap and waited for Will to walk back in. Her attention was elsewhere when she felt a phone vibrate on the sofa, and she immediately started to look for her own phone, but saw that it was Will’s phone instead - the screen lit up on the cushion next to her leg. 

It was a harmless glance, one she didn’t even really mean until she realized it far too late that it wasn’t her phone, but her stomach had already dropped. 

Hanna Day Missing you x

And just like that, they were coming back around. 

In all fairness, it took Hanna a few more days after the last party in comparison to Adrian’s handful of hours after. And (Y/N) rolled her eyes, trying to push out the idea of the girl that floated in her head. 

It was to no one’s surprise that Hanna and (Y/N) hadn’t got along well while Hanna and Will were dating. Hanna was the type to be your best friend one second, and then be behind your back the next, and everyone close to Will knew that, specifically the girl friends he had for years. Hanna was never fond of her boyfriend’s best friend, because there were always questions that revolved around their status as “just friends.” Just like how Adrian questioned it, too. 

But (Y/N) and Will’s friendship wasn’t even particularly new, they had been friends for years after meeting at Fabric, a London nightclub, just months after they both moved to the city. They met through Gee, Will’s flatmate, and by the end of the night (Y/N) was helping Will find his keys on the sticky nightclub dance floor and then wound up asleep on his sofa. And they were close ever since. 

It was the summer following their meeting that they crossed the line of “friends” while in Barcelona, but it was a line they never crossed again once returning to London. And it wasn’t much longer after than that, she and Adrian met through James and began dating, and then a handful of months later, Hanna and Will started dating too. So there was never any true reason for Hanna to dislike her - she just didn’t like the fact that Will had other female friends with a history of being close. For her own insecure reasons, (Y/N) assumed. 

“Was that mine?” Will asked, coming back from the kitchen, handing (Y/N) one of the uncapped beers he brought from the refrigerator. 

She nodded, immediately taking a sip before replying, “yeah, think so.” 

Out the corner of her eye, she watched Will sit back onto the sofa and reach for his phone, but his expression didn’t change after seeing the name across his screen. Deciding she didn’t want to know if he was replying or not, she focused back on the telly screen, flipping through the colors of her character again to occupy herself. 

“It’s Hanna,” was all he said before locking his phone back, placing it on the coffee table, now upside down. 

She played it off like she hadn’t seen it, raising a brow, “yeah?” 

Will hummed as he sat back against the cushion, immediately choosing his character and allowing the screen to move on. He didn’t say anything else, leaving it at that, but she felt obligated to say something. 

“Adrian texted me too,”

Will glanced at her hastily, “when?” 

She let out a deep breath, not meeting his eyes but watching the screen count down to one again before their race started, finding herself in an awkward limbo of telling him the truth or lying for the sake of whatever was going on between them. She knew that she should have told him before now, that she should have on Saturday, but she felt like it would have ruined everything. If she had told him right then, she doubted if he would have even come over Monday, if she would be on his sofa right now.

After all, they got what they wanted, right? They won. But it was feeling much more complicated than that. 

“Saturday,” she blurted out.

Will didn’t say anything for a moment, playing it off as focusing on the race instead of the thoughts racking his brain. He remembered Saturday afternoon in Shoreditch - sitting in her car eating doughnuts and drinking coffee on the side of the street while rain pattered down onto the roof, them laughing and listening to music while talking about anything that came to mind. And he remembered thinking at the time that her mind seemed elsewhere, but he decided not to push it for the sake of ruining their time together. 

It then clicked in his head that that was when Adrian texted her, when she looked like she saw a ghost at the doughnut shop.

“Yeah?” He asked casually. “Did you text him back?” 

She shook her head, “no,” 

There was a second of pause between them.

“Are you going to text her back?” 

But there wasn’t any hesitation for Will’s answer, “no,”

Later that night, after a few more games of Mario Kart, (Y/N) slumped back into her flat in Poplar. The door clicked shut and she tossed her keys down onto the foyer table, her ears picking up the sound of music coming from down the hallway. She followed the sounds to Cleo’s bedroom. Cleo didn’t even look up from her laptop, where she was writing an already extremely late paper for her history of cinematic fashion course, to see her flatmate fall face first into the duvet next to her. 

A few minutes passed and Cleo finished up her paragraph before asking, “and how are you?” 

“Don’t know, honestly,” she replied, voice muffled by the material of the duvet. 

“And that is because?” 

“I don’t know what I’m feeling on the inside.” 

Cleo leaned forward and sat her laptop on the bed, her attention now away from the linen skirts of a 17th century period piece and onto her flatmate, who at this time, hasn’t caught a break in two weeks. 

“You were at Will’s flat, yeah?” Cleo received just a nod in response before (Y/N) rolled over, head resting on her friend’s thigh. “So what happened?” 

“Everything was going really well, and then Hanna texted him.” 

“Hanna? Hanna Day?” 

She huffed. “Yeah, she was telling him that she missed him. I accidentally read it and now I wish I hadn’t read it because I feel sad.” 

Cleo reached down, running fingers across her cheek and then moving to play with her hair. “And why do you feel sad?” 

(Y/N) stared at the ceiling, opening herself up and releasing the feelings she had kept inside for the last few hours. It was hard for her to keep things in, but this was something she couldn’t particularly explain easily. Especially to Will. 

“I don’t know, really,” her voice was like a whisper, “I think - I think it’s because I’m scared he’ll go back to her. What we are doing is just something dumb to make them jealous, at first it was anyways..” 

Cleo frowned, feeling where the conversation was going. She hated seeing her best friend fall into a mess of feelings, but sometimes, it just happened, whether you wanted it or not.

“And now I don’t want it to stop. But I don’t want to do it just to make them jealous.” 

“Because you like him,” Cleo said softly. 

Her eyes drifted closed and she focused on the feeling of Cleo’s fingers then smoothing at her hair, and then running through the strands again, and she nodded. “Yeah,” she admitted, “because I like him.” 

Cleo was always the logical one of the two when it came to feelings. She liked to listen and then talk things through, so a lot of their friends relied on her for her wisdom in times of need. This was one of those moments.

“You wanted a sweet moment of revenge, but what you wound up with was an ex-boyfriend who texts you while you gained feelings for quite literally the only person you’re not supposed to have feelings for.” 

“I didn’t bloody mean to gain feelings for him.” She said harshly. “But it’s just nice - I don’t know, it’s nice that what I feel around Will is new, and it’s refreshing.”

“You were looking for that feeling in the wrong place, because you got yourself into quite a mess.” There was the brutal honesty, but it was what needed to be said. “But don’t beat yourself up over it, your feelings are just messed up and it’s understandable.” 

“What should I do?” 

Cleo let out a small breath, twirling the stands between her fingers. “First, I think you need to talk to him.” 

“I can’t talk to him about this. It’s embarrassin’.” 

The blonde sighed again, shaking her head at her friend’s stubbornness. “And then you need to figure out what you want.”

“It just sucks,” she said again and Cleo nodded, leaning down and placing her head on her arm, kissing the skin of her shoulder. 

“I know it does, I know it does,” she whispered, and their conversation died down, the music continuing on for them. 

[polandspringz]

POL pol pol polpolpol you should write... Everyone finding a way to hug Chase and them just having a huge cuddle pile and Chase being inexplicably happy

This took over a year to write. I hope you enjoy…

You’re All Flying High, But I’m Drowning Down Below

After four years of no sensations, you couldn’t really blameChase for forgetting to tell the team.

Although there had been instances when he had been removedfrom the tank to correct the placement of an IV or for cleaning, due to thepresence of the nanotech lying dormant in his body, those instances were alwaysvery brief and fleeting. To keep his body stable outside of the safecontainment of the tank while they worked for long periods of time, Dr. Wellerfrequently administered amnesia to Chase. In some ways, it was a welcomesensation. The numbing was a pathway to sleep he could no longer achieve on hisown but, that numbness always seemed to come too fast and too soon.

As the tank was drained of fluid and opened, sometimes, Chasefound himself wishing he could hold on for just a moment longer. But, hiseyelids always closed just as Dr. Weller and Caliban’s hands brushed past todisconnect his body from the supports, and he felt nothing.

Chase was certain he still could feel. He had lostthree of his limbs when his interceptor crashed and the wreckage tore throughhis flesh, giving the nanotech a clean entry to chew up his muscles and feastoff his nervous system, but he wasn’t paralyzed. He could still move his leftarm, and he knew that there was something that rushed past his skin whenhe raised it up to tap the glass. It was heavy at first, and it made hismovements slow as he swam through it, but other than that, there was nothingdistinct for him to connect a feeling to.

Along the way, he must have become numb to it.

The amniotic fluid that filled the tank, he could onlyvaguely remember the cold feeling of it the first time he woke up suspended init. Now, it had simply become mundane. His body treated the liquid pushing onall sides of him no different than how the rest of humanity regarded the milesof atmosphere that tried to crush them with pressure. Perhaps, he would havebecome truly comfortable living the rest of his life inside the tank, treatingit as natural as his life before it, had he not experienced the freedom hishologram and Holon gave him.

When he was still learning how to upload, and his Holon wasstill in early stages of design, his hologram was all he had to ground him withhis old self. He still wielded control over four limbs in his avatar, and as hetook a midnight stroll around the Experimental Science Unit’s headquarters twoweeks after being overwhelmed with information and choices, he foundhimself struggling to grapple with the reality that three of them were gone.

He had mixed into the main lab, facing his body in theprototype tank while everyone else slept. Weller had performed surgery for daysto save his life, and probably would have continued had his assistants notdemanded he take a break. They had cut off the infected limbs and sealed themup with metal plates to keep the nanotech that was in from spilling out.It wasn’t hard to look at the body that was floating in the tank. What was hardwas calling it his own. With his hologram’s face reflecting off the glass ofthe tank, his artificial image overlaying the new reality of himself, it washard to accept and believe that he was looking at himself, and not anunfinished clone of himself.

But, the Doc had said cloning was still far out of reach-even with regeneration being the solution to almost every war injury today- andneither were an option for Chase with that damn nanotech occupying more of hisbody than his own cells. Frustrated, he shut his eyes and banged his hologram’sfist against the tank, the pixels scrambling as they came in contact with ascreenless surface. A buzz went through Chase’s hand as the pixels rejected themotion. He froze.

He did it again. Another buzz. He reached forward and triedto push his entire arm through the tank to the other side into the fluid. Theprojection denied it, but Chase’s entire arm, his right arm, that should begone, was alight with that buzz.

He fell to his knees, both fists sliding down the front ofthe tank as he collapsed at the base. His artificial chest began to rapidlyrise and fall as his shoulders shook, and he clattered the tank with bothhands, forcing a rhythm of that buzzing sensation to build as he struggled tobreathe.

It was still there. He could still feel it. He couldstill feel.

At least in this form…

It’s not enough.

The lifeless, nanotech host with Chase’s face remained asmotionless as a corpse in the tank as bubbles rose to the surface. But, slowlythe displays on the monitors connected to the body began to flash and scream,and suddenly the room was dyed in red emergency lights instead of the calmingblue, but Chase couldn’t find it in himself to care. He kept slamming againstthe tank, frustratedly trying to make that buzzing sensation stronger andstronger.

He wanted to feel the soreness of his skin as his fistswelled with the repeated blows. He wanted to feel the sting rushing up hisarm, his right arm. He wanted to feel it frustrating his brain, angerand aggression as it demanded him to stop, but all he got was the faint buzzesas pixels moved aside and reformed the hands around the glass blocking theirway.

Footsteps pounded down the hall and there was a loud clangas the automatic doors were punched in and opened up- Caliban speeding up theemergency override by breaking them in as Weller jumped inside with two otherscientists hot on his heels.

“It’s his heart rate! The nanotech might have activatedagain and started-” Doc cut himself off as he saw the crumpled hologram on thefloor. His arm slowly fell, lowering out of where he was pointing for theassistants to go and instead, without glancing away from Chase, commanded, “Go.”

“Dr. Weller, but-” He raised his hand in a ‘stop’ motion,eyes still locked on Chase.

“It’s not the nanotech. I can handle it. Please, return toyour rooms,” he smiled before folding his arms behind his back and stridingtowards Chase, “Some of us should get sleep tonight. Tell the rest of theemergency team to rest too. False alarm.”

The two assistants stared at their boss for a moment beforethey shrugged and made their way back through the doorway and into theelevator. Dr. Weller stopped when he was standing right behind Chase, and spokesoftly.

“Caliban, please cancel the emergency alert and close thedoors, please.”

There was shifting as shuffling as the android moved aroundthe lab, the lights eventually fading back to the soft blue as he finishedsending off the cancelation. Then, he went to folding the doors back into theframe and realigning them on their automatic track. When the lab was quietagain, Chase finally spoke.

“Doc,” his hologram whispered with a broken voice, “I knowwhat you said earlier but… will I be… stuck in there forever?”

With his head bowed, Chase missed seeing Dr. Weller’s facecrumpling with guilt as he pulled his glasses off his face and pinched thebridge of his nose, shutting his sunken-in, shadowed eyes as he forced hisheadache to dull before slipping back on his spectacles and a reassuring smile.

“Oh, Julian,” he soothed, kneeling down behind the youngman, one hand settling down on the other’s shoulder, “I swear to you, I will doeverything I can to help you.”

Chase’s hologram shut his eyes. Inside the tank, somethingshiny materialized under Chase’s eye for just a second before it was swept upby the current and rose to the surface in a bubble, glittering like a pearl asit disappeared.

** 

It took many months for things to change.

But, like Doc had promised, they did.

It was still before the Anvil, before the rest of the worldknew about gen:LOCK’s existence, and it was just when he was beginning toregain the feeling of having a family. He thought he had lost itcompletely in the Battle of New York, but now it had been almost a year sinceChase had met Yasamin, and he felt like he had gained a sister again. She wasno Dri, but he didn’t mind.

If you asked him what got the ball rolling, Chase wouldpoint to the night that he and Doc stayed up late in an effort to comfort Yazafter her Holon had very nearly been swiped by the Union. It was supposed tohave been a small raid they were intercepting, but they had more resources thanthe Polity base that requested the help had anticipated. Chase was standingnext to her, and while the Doc was speaking to her calmly, hugging her tightand telling her that no one was going to take her away from them, shehad turned towards Chase and reached out to try and bring him into the embracetoo, but stopped when her hand cut straight through.

He chuckled and brushed it off, but Yaz seemed dissatisfied.That was what sparked the question:

“Would I be able to touch him if he was outside of the tank?”

Chase’s answer was, “Of course, I’m not a ghost, you know.”

To which Yaz punched through the hologram’s face, sendingChase’s pixels out of alignment as he fake-gasped as they reformed. Doc pulledher arm back and calmed her down, reassuring her that Chase was only trying tobe the funny guy because it’s a sensitive topic, I’m sure he would rather wenot discuss this now.

Chase didn’t see any reason to avoid it. Once he wasrealigned again, he just shrugged, “I don’t mind. We can talk about it.”

So they did. It was obvious that others’ could touch Chase’sbody outside of the tank, so long as the nanotech remained dormant andthey were assured of that. Although Caliban could handle making repairsto the tank alone, Weller insisted on doing it because he was stubborn andrefused to let Caliban bumble around while he shouted orders from behindprotective glass. Although, Chase had overheard many phone calls with theColonel that insisted he do otherwise. But, there was still no guarantee thatChase would feel anything from the experience.

Still, Yasamin confided in the two of them-

“I would like to touch him. At least once. To know that heis real.”

Doc smiled, “Then, you can assist me the next time we do acheck up. Perhaps we can run some tests while we are at it. See if he registersany feeling.”

“Sounds good to me,” Chase said.

But, when he got in his Holon one day after weeks of seeingthe Doc slave over mysterious upgrades, nothing prepared him for the experienceof feeling wind rushing over him. He could feel it pushing him back,buffeting underneath the armour of his helmet as if it had a real face and notmetal. He had almost short circuited, and Yasamin herself seemed surprised atthe new sensations, and was bombarding the Doctor with questions over theirchannel. She ran past Chase with a confused expression, but any snap abouttelling him to hurry up died as she felt the wind rush through the hangaragain.

“You can feel it?”

“Yes. Yes! It’s-”

“Cold, right?”

“Yes! This is California though, I thought it would bewarmer?”

“Go outside!” Yaz gestured and Chase ran ahead of her,skidding to a stop as he stopped on the concrete runway.

A beautiful cerulean horizon line stretched out before him,just beyond the gray of the ESU’s training grounds. The ocean was rough today,crashing hard against the side of the raised base, and Chase wanted to run atit, jump straight on in and plunge. He had been trapped in liquid every day,but this was different, this water he would feel, he would feel thechill of it, feel the rush of bubbles and air flying around him. He took a stepforward, but a hand caught a hold of him and he was jerked to a stop.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up,” Yazwhispered, but Chase didn’t let it bother him. He was brought back to realitywhen he saw her armored robotic hand on his own manufactured arm. He smiled ather as they met each other’s gaze in the mindframe.

“Don’t worry about it, Yaz. My brain’s in here right now, soit wouldn’t be a good idea to fry everything if we don’t have a backup.Besides,” her body floated to stand beside him, “I can feel the seabreeze again. I forgot what that was like.”

“New York is by water too, is it not?” Her Holon let go ofhim and followed him to look into the distance.

“Yes, but I lived deeper into the city. You would only tastethe ocean air if you lived right next to it, but Mom always took me and Dri duringthe summer. One time, we even drove down to New Jersey for the beaches.Whenever we went over the bridges, Dri would stick her head out the windowbecause she didn’t want to wait to smell it.”

Yaz shifted, “Can you smell it?”

Chase tried, “Not yet. I’m assuming there is a lot more thathas to go into that, right, Doc?”

As if on cue, the Doctor’s hologram materialized a few waysin front of them, “Unfortunately for you Julian, yes. It may take a long time,but I am confident by the time we reach that point we will have come so farwith gen:LOCK and our research about nanotech that we will remove it from yourbody so we can regenerate you fully.”

The older man folded his arms behind his back and, turningto face both of his recruits, beamed at them with the sun shining on his face.Chase had to admit that, at the time, he did feel some fondness and gratitudetowards the man, who had become somewhat like a father to him with all of histime and dedication focused on helping him. Chase spread his arms out as thecurrent whipped up another cold wave of air, letting it buffet him, and hewished he had wings again so he could soar through the sky and push through theair, creating sensations all over him without having to wait for each rush ofwind.

“Chase,” Yasamin’s voice was quiet again, and she wasfidgeting, eyes cast downward even though they were the only two things in themindframe’s visuals, “Do you think that… since we can share our minds in here…If we sync up, you might be able to feel something too?”

Chase stiffened, but forced another white smile to adorn hisface, “You don’t have to force yourself Yaz, but thank you. I’m fine with justright now.”

“It wouldn’t be forcing me- I thought you would like a hugor-” but Chase was already floating away, his Holon started to move towards thetraining course.

“Don’t worry about it, Yaz. This is actually too much stimulationfor me right now. Having nerves again? I must be burning through my uptimealready! Let’s go.”

He heard Yasamin hesitate, but soon her Holon was clamberingafter him, heavy feet pounding upon the ground as they left Dr. Weller waitingby the dock. If he had anything to say about this, he kept his mouth shut.Chase was thankful for that.

**

“What do you mean he can’t feel anything?” Cammie gesturedtowards his tank even though his hologram was standing beside her, “How longhas he been like this?”

“About four years,” Dr. Weller said, spinning around in hischair.

“It’s fine, Cammie. I’ve gotten used to it by now.”

“He can feel things when he is inside his Holon. Ispecifically added that feature in to help him interact with the physicalworld. Unfortunately, that’s why the rest of you can feel pain when somethinghappens to your Holon body too.”

Doc’s voice dropped at that last sentence. Cammie’s mechhaving its head ripped off was still fairly recent, but whether the girlignored it or just didn’t pick up on the implication, she breezed right pastit.

“But it’s not the same right? Our Holons are too clunky toeven hug you! You mean your hologram doesn’t feel anything?”

Cammie’s expertly aimed poke missed as Chase teleported tothe other side of Yasamin, and the girl just doubled her efforts and chargedhim until Valentina caught her by the scruff of her collar.

“Nope. You’re all just registering as little buzzes to mybrain. But, it’s cool.” He tried to put on his most reassuring smile for theyoungest member. She seemed to buy it after a minute of scrutiny, and droppedthe conversation.

He should have put more effort into making Valentina andKazu believe it, but he didn’t think they really cared enough to do something.

Until training happened.

It was the same mix of group exercises- trying to get pastthe Vanguard, obstacle courses for Cammie to acclimate better to movement, andsparring- but everyone was acting out of sorts, at least to Chase it seemed.Yaz seemed to talk to him more during training, although normally she wassilent as she soloed her way, charging through the maze before stealing theflag. Her and Chase had been working together in the program for so long, theydidn’t need mindshare or communication to read each other’s movements, or asshe liked to put it-

“-to understand you’re going to do something stupid, eventhough it will probably work.”

Today though, Chase’s music stream was interrupted just ashe made a sick shot into the hoop after charging up the cliffside with thebasketball to avoid Kazu. Yasamin’s voice cut in through his feed, even as shewas in the middle of fighting Valentina in the ring.

“How are you feeling? You’re not doing those tricks just toburn through your uptime, right?”

The ball swished through the net and Chase lowered his armsdown as he skidded back down the rocks. The lenses of his Holon’s eyes meshedtogether as the lights dimmed as he sighed.

“You know we aren’t on a private network. Everyone can hearthis conversation, you really wanna talk about this right now?”

Kazu, who was bumbling after the runaway ball, stopped as hepicked it up, glancing over at Chase who was stopped at the base of the cliff.Valentina’s head looked up as Yasamin’s voice came over their channel, eventhough the yellow Holon continued an onslaught of strikes.

“Of course I know it’s not private. Everyone has beenlistening to your playlist for the past hour. Turn it down, please.”

“Fine, fine. But guys,” Chase said, “can you give us someprivacy?”

“Kind of hard to do when you’re all talking so loud!” Cammiecalled out from where she was on the grounds. Last Chase had seen, Miranda wasmaking her do more jumping exercises across the courtyard to get more used tosnapping from low to high in the Holon.

“Well, you heard ‘em, Yaz. Let’s save this conversation forlater. Kazu! Let’s go another round!”

Yaz sighed over the channel, “I was just checking to- Woah!”

Valentina’s right hand suddenly jutted out in a cross,Yasamin ducked out of the way in time and the fist soared cleanly past and overYasamin’s shoulder. Before she regained her bearings though, Valentina circledthe arm above Yaz’s head to hover above her other shoulder, gripping it tightlybefore their left hand came up and slammed her in the jaw, knocking her to theside like a ragdoll.

She slammed into the sides of the ring and instinctivelyclutched the jaw of the helmet as she glanced up at the purple Holon stalkingover to her.

“He told you to shut up, let’s leave them to their game.Besides, you need to keep your eyes on me.”

Yasamin pushed herself to her feet and lunged for Valentina’slegs with a shout, invigorated.

“So, kyoudai,” Kazu said as he spun the ball, “Wantto start playing fair?”

“Come on man,” Chase laughed, “You could’ve chased me upthere? Why not use some uptime to increase your speed?”

“Nah, I’m not meant for those crazy jumps and flips. Iprefer sticking close to the ground.”

Kazu punctuated his statement by jogging over to Chase, hisHolon’s heavy steps slamming into the dirt and kicking up dust as he boundedforward. He clasped one hand on Chase’s shoulder as he dropped the basketballinto the other’s palm.

“Now, let’s play something I’m good at, likebaseball.”

Chase’s brain stilled as he felt the weight of Kazu’s handagainst his shoulder. Kazu himself seemed startled when he felt Chase’sapprehension in the mindframe. To him though, his fingers just curled over theheavy armor, then pulled off suddenly when he felt the other stall. It wasn’tawkward, just surprising. Kazu’s hand floated above Chase’s shoulder, and thenhe narrowed his eyes, and slowly placed it back down.

Warm. The Holons were machines, and there was always thechance of overheating, but the heat from underneath the armor was different. Itwas present, radiating. Their armor sets were exactly the same, save for Chaseand Yaz’s having a few enhancements, and Kazu had dusted off his shoulders manytimes to clean off the dirt that piled up whenever Valentina used him as alaunchpad, but this felt different. Underneath his armor, it was just him, butunderneath this armor…

He patted Chase on the shoulder twice, before giving him astrong squeeze. The blocky fingers of the Holon skeleton were much larger thanhis own, and Chase’s mecha body was much, much different than his body insidethe tank. But, Kazu smiled.

So this is what Chase felt like.

“Come on, before the Colonel finds out.”

Chase breathed again as Kazu’s hand slipped away, and he letout a sigh he had been holding in before turning around to chase after theolder man.

“She’s gonna have Doc’s head if your swing breaks anotherstrider!”

**

A few days later, they all were lined up practicing theirshooting. Valentina slowly crept away from their spot, waltzing behind thegroup before their fingers trailed across Chase’s back. The armor dulled thesense, but Chase still flinched and missed the shot. Yaz fired her shot andglanced over at him, confused, but stopped when she saw Valentina creepingbehind him. She turned back to firing, but listened as Valentina’s voice cameover the channel.

“Would you perhaps be up for a spar?”

“You? Missing firing practice?” Chase quipped.

“I may like to slink off on my own, yes. However, having tostand around and shoot is no fun at all. Besides, the Vanguard wants me to workon my teamwork abilities, so why not?”

“Not really sure it counts as teamwork if you’re beating meinto the ground.”

“It will be a good chance to get to know each other. I feelas though we rarely have spoken outside of the team. Kazu is fun to play with,but I grow bored of his predictable movements.”

Kazu shot too high towards the sky, and the bullet clippedthe side of one of the building’s roofs, “Hey!”

“Ugh, just go, Chase,” Yaz said, exasperated, “If two keepon distracting everyone, nothing will get done.”

“Oh! Can we all come watch?” Cammie asked.

Chase looked towards one of the cameras, “Are we good totake a break, Doc?”

Inside the lab, Dr. Weller pulled away from a series ofblueprints he was writing on, to glance at the five Holons staring at him. Hewaved his hand dismissively even though they could not see him.

“Yes, yes! Go have fun. I trust the Vanguard to superviseif anyone tries to modulate their fear response again. Cammie.”

“Oh come off it, will ya? I haven’t done anything like thatsince!”

“You heard him,” Valentina said, and placed their hand backon Chase’s back just to trace it along the width of it before slipping awayagain, “Let’s go.”

The fight went as Chase expected. Sure, he had moreexperience than their new teammates, but Valentina was always an enigma. Eveninside a closed ring and with bodies so big, they found ways to hide, to sneakunderneath Chase, and stealthily land him in a chokehold before tossing him tothe ground. It was frustrating to be shown up in front of all his old friends,as even Migas had mixed into the courtyard with his hologram to watch thefight, but there was something more nerve wracking that kept stealing Chase’sattention.

Valentina was touching him.

A lot.

“Knock it off, would you?” He hissed as he dodged anotherswing from them. Valentina stepped back and tilted their head slightly. Hadthey been in their human body, Chase would have seen them raise an eyebrow.

“At what?”

“Touching me.”

“Hand-to-hand combat like this requires touch. I thought youwere aware of that?”

“Don’t mess with me like that. You know what you’re doing.”

Chase pointed a finger at them. The rest of the team sittingnearby looked at each other in confusion. Valentina stared at the accusatoryhand in front of them for a moment before they shrugged and yanked it towardsthem, tugging Chase forward so they could strike him in the middle of the backwith their elbow. Then, they were jumping up and over him, flipping in the areaas they moved behind him to deliver another strike.

Chase felt it again. Their hand dancing over his back as hefell forward. He whipped around, angrily.

“I told you to stop that!” He roared. Valentina stumbledbackwards as Chase suddenly rushed them. Valentina’s legs hit the barssurrounding the ring, and Leon prepared himself to order for Chase to be pulledfrom his Holon, but then Valentina shot their leg out and Chase tripped.Valentina stood up in time and pressed their hand squarely in the center of hischest, and pushed.

Chase fell in the center of his ring, and stared up at them.The harsh sunlight glinted behind Valentina’s head, which with his mechanicaleyes caused no pain, but Valentina’s figure became cloaked in shadows as theywere backlit. Chase could only watch their silhouette as they flexed theirfingers, staring down at their hand.

So this is what Kazu was referring to, Valentinathought. They glanced down at Chase, who somehow looked dumbstruck despite thelimited expressions of the mechanical face.

Valentina reached out a hand to him.

“I apologize for being so rough. Perhaps I did go a littletoo far.”

Chase stared at their hand.

“But, I did get to learn quite a bit about you. Let’s dothis again, sometime. Maybe then, you’ll beat me?”

It took him a moment, but Chase finally smiled at thethought of the challenge. Valentina saw his Holon’s eyes adjust for a moment,the blue light stuttering as if blinking before they glowed brighter once more.Chase reached up and clasped their hand tightly.

“Alright. I won’t go easy on you next time.”

Valentina felt the pulse in their grasp, and pulled him tohis feet.

**

There were more instances after that. Perhaps Chase was justhyperconscious of it, now that everyone seemed to be talking about it more, buthe had to wonder if the team was intentionally going out of their way to touchhis Holon whenever they were uploaded. The number of times he had been sluggedor wrapped in some sort of hug before being suplexed by Kazu suggestedotherwise. Valentina began making more offers to brawl, but they ended all oftheir fights with a handshake now instead of how they normally waltzed overtheir opponents and off the field, much to Yaz and Kazu’s continuedannoyance. Chase knew these little things had to be a result of theconversation they all had, but he decided to let it go. Nothing good came fromhim getting angry about something so small.

Besides, touch was… nice. Even with his hologram, he had noproblems trying to wrap his arm around Migas or even the Doc and Yaz. He couldn’tfeel it, but he knew that the gesture still meant something, and it wouldn’t bethe same with his gigantic robotic arms and their small forms. He couldtechnically touch Yaz with his Holon’s build but, each time he did that, shewould creep closer to him in the mindframe, and he would run away.

But, touch with the other Holons he could handle. Touch wasacceptable. Touch was good, even when Cammie ran up and tackled him as soon asshe got in her Holon as a good morning, afternoon, or evening as thanks forplaying with her in the Ether.

What wasn’t good was when Cammie asked him the sleepquestion.

She had been staying up late apprenticing under the Doc tolearn more about gen:LOCK. While Chase usually stayed in his tank at the end ofa long day, Cammie’s presence made him uneasy, so he let his hologram roamaround a bit more to observe her note-taking and tinkering. There seemed to beno harm to it, as she was mainly working with the armor and mechanical build ofthe mechs themselves, but one day while the Doc’s back was turned to his ownproject, Chase walked by and caught a glimpse of her display blown up with hispersonal data.

“Hey! What the hell is this?”

“Oh, Chase!” She hastily closed the screen, tucking it awayinto the toolbar on the holograph, but Chase reached over and pulled it backout, “I didn’t mean to, I was just-!”

Chase didn’t mind Yaz and Weller discussing his condition.He thought he was fine with the rest of the team knowing too. They were justfacts at this point.

Or so he had been telling himself. But seeing Cammie withall his files on screen made something in him panic.

“Doc, what’s this about?”

Dr. Weller merely turned around, blue eyes behind hisglasses calm and collected as always, only the slightest wrinkle suggestingannoyance, while the crow’s feet at the corners showed wisdom and understanding.He folded his hands in his lap, “Cammie is preparing for the day she needs totake over the program.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Doc isn’t going to live forever, y’know,” she scoffed, “It’simportant I know about each one of you now so I can help select future recruitsand keep you guys safe in the Holons.”

Chase saw his old Vanguard photo from four years ago blastedon the screen. Brown eyes and a normal face and hairline, uncorrupted by metalplates holding him together from all sides.

“Why does she need to see my information? Why isn’t shelooking at Yaz’s? Or Valentina’s?”

“Now, Chase, I understand the hostility, but-”

“I already looked at those,” Cammie folded her arms behindher back, “There isn’t much I need to know about everyone else. You however, inthe event we can’t regenerate you, there are many other things we have to takeinto consideration. If you’re still applicable for gen:LOCK, if you aged out,if you-”

“Alright, I get it,” Chase hissed with a little moremalice than necessary. He pressed a hand to the temple of his hologram. In hisreal body, he could sense a headache coming on. He still felt those.Somehow, “So, you’re just looking through our files. That’s all?”

“Well, I did have a few questions, but since you showed up-”

“Cammie,” Doc intervened, “I think it would be prudent tohave our discussion in the new year revolve around this.”

“I read that it has been difficult for us to decipher whichparts of you retain a sense of touch, but in the Holon, your senses return. Weknew that already. If you don’t have any sense of touch in your real body, Iwould say it’s related to your spinal cord damage and not damage to the brain,otherwise you wouldn’t be able to upload-”

“Cammie,” Doc warned, “Tread lightly.”

“I know. I know- But, spinal cord damage doesn’t make anysense. Yeah, you lost some of it, but only the parts for control of your lowerhalf, and pretty much any organs you lost. So, it doesn’t make sense for you tolose all sensations. So, that leaves us with your brain.”

She swiped and pulled up a spinning image of his brain.

“But! What I’m concerned about is the signs of damage andstress that are appearing on your brain data. If you’re gen:LOCK compatible,then you should be super neuroplastic, and recover from any sort of stressquickly. Heck, even though I’m still shaken up about my head being torn off, myscans don’t show as many signs of PTSD as you’d expect.”

Chase sighed and crossed his arms, “And? I’ve seen a hell ofa lot more combat and lived through a hell of a lot more than you. You think Iwouldn’t have some damage to my brain?”

“That’s the thing though,” She said, flipping through thescreens, her left hand pulling up an itemized list of medical recordsdocumented with dates that continued to scroll as she turned back to Chase andrested her arms on her lap, “All the dates from when these abnormalities andflare ups on your brain appeared are from a long time after the Battleof New York. At first I thought it might be an adjustment from uploading, butVal, Kazoo, and I aren’t showing any signs either. So, what’s the deal?”

Chase looked to Weller, giving the man permission to speak.With a sigh, Weller began.

“Cammie, if you must know, Chase has been suffering frominsomnia.”

“Insomnia? Why not just pump him with sleeping meds then?”

“It’s not that simple. I know you know, but your minds areincredibly important. Sleeping medication may be a temporary solution, but longterm use and overuse can have adverse effects on the mind.”

“Besides,” Chase mumbled, “We’ve tried that already.”

Cammie’s mouth formed into a small little ‘o’ before sheturned around to trace her hands over the screens. She easily found a date shehad skipped over, listing the medications that had been pumped into Chase earlyon in the gen:LOCK program, “Oops, sorry for missing that. But, is sleepdeprivation really causin’ all of this damage?”

“We’ve been… analyzing it for a while. It’s difficult todetermine with you five being our first test group, so we can’t rule outgen:LOCK as being a possible cause. Chase has been uploading for asignificant longer amount of time than the rest of you. However, we’vediscussed it before, and we both believe the issue is… much moreunderstandable.”

He extended a hand to Chase, giving him a chance to speak orback out. Chase let his arms drop to his sides and the tension left hishologram. Cammie was only trying to help, there was no reason for him to get sodefensive, but it was just… hard.

“It might be post-traumatic stress, but I feel thatit’s just from being in the tank so much. Sure, I can be out here and with y’alland I can go inside the Holons, but, at the end of the day, I have to go backin the tank. I may not be able to feel the walls around me, but… I know they’rethere. Sometimes, it takes me by surprise is all.”

“You’re claustrophobic? Hm, I didn’t think it would be thatplain.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately, Chase can’t leave the tank. It isvery difficult with the nanotech to contain what remains of him, and the fluidhe is in helps to prevent it from spreading, and keeps his body from gettinginfected in it’s weak state.”

“So, Cammie,” Chase said, “Why are you so focused on mysleep?”

“Oh, yeah! Well, I’m no doctor-”

“I am!” Weller chimed in.

“Yeah, yeah. But, I’m wondering if you being sleep deprivedis affecting your sense of touch.”

Chase looked at her incredulously, crossing his arms. Shethrew her hands in the air and groaned.

“I know it sounds dumb. I couldn’t find any research tosupport it, but I honestly was too set in the idea to have it proven wrong bysome overly long academic journal. But, the way your eyes work is affected bysleep, right? So when you’re all groggy, and you’re slower at picking up onthings going on around you, don’t you think that could also apply to how yourbrain receives signals from your hands to register if something is hot or cold?Your danger signals might just be operating slowly, and since you’ve been likethis for a while, if you just get a good night’s sleep, we might start seeingsome results.”

Weller hummed, “She does have a point. Besides the senses Iput into the Holons, your cyberbrains don’t require sleep, and you’re alreadyoperating faster than you are as humans, so your senses aren’t dulled butenhanced…”

Chase sighed and hung his head, “I mean, it’s a good ideaand all, but like you saw Cammie, I’ve been this way for a long time now. I’mnot sure what’s gonna help fix me at this stage.”

Chase missed the way Dr. Weller’s eyes darkened in thoughtwhen a call from Migas caught his attention.

“Woah, sorry guys. Migas wants to play a game of siege. Let’stalk later.”

He vanished in a flash of pixels, and Cammie watched as Dr.Weller stared through the space Chase’s hologram had been residing in,boring a hole into the wall of the lab.

“Cammie,” she flinched when he addressed her, “for Chase’sbenefit, let’s keep this discussion confidential, shall we?”

Dr. Weller raised a finger to his lips and smiled at her.She gave a nervous smile back and squeaked out, “Of course,” before swivellingaround in the chair to squint at the files again. Dr. Weller looked back towhere Chase had been, before he turned back to what he was working on too.

In the silence, Cammie tried not to scream as she stared downat Nugget in her lap, thinking about the text she had already sent to the teamwith all her findings.

She ran her hands along her face as she began to sweat. Shejust hoped no one would confront Chase on the issue before she could tell themthe whole story.

**

Perhaps he had been too generous to give Cammie the benefitof the doubt, Dr. Weller mused as he entered the lab one night to find the teamasleep on the floor in front of Chase’s tank.

It had been a rough day for all of them. There was no mission,but during training he could tell they all seemed distracted. Even the Vanguardseemed concerned by how they kept slipping up. Cammie’s performance had takenseveral steps backwards, and Valentina and Kazu seemed to be more isolated fromthe team than usual. Yasamin was back to being silent rather than talking, andChase left everyone in the dust as he charged through the mountain range, onlyto overclock and burn through his uptime before he could continue.

Dr. Weller had to endure an earful from the Colonel all dayabout how useless his recruits were becoming, but he knew the root of herincreased high-strung attitude was because of the appearance of that Unionmech. It was almost a month ago now, but for that reason, they had beendelaying sending the Holons out on any missions. They needed to be prepared forwhatever or whoever they may have to face when they got another look atit. (Or him…)

Dr. Weller walked closer to the tank. Caliban was goingabout his normal routine of programmed tasks, but steering clear of thesleeping team piled up at the base of the tank. Chase’s eyes were shut, andWeller didn’t need to look at the monitors to know Chase’s breathing was slowand relaxed.

Good. It had been a while since he had last witnessedthat.

Technically, it was incorrect of Chase to say that he couldn’tsleep or couldn’t dream anymore. The crash and the nanotech haddestroyed his body, yes. But, that didn’t stop his body or his brain fromrequiring rest and other human needs. The first few nights adjusting to thetank were hard, yes, but Chase did eventually learn to sleep. Dr. Wellerhad records of his REM sleep after the surgery, detecting several dreams evenif Chase himself didn’t remember them. While inside the tank, Chase was hookedup to several IVs that provided him with nutrition and removed any waste toprevent infections. He could still eat and drink, just not in the traditionalsense. The oxygen mask was there for a reason too, after all.

He was still a human. It was wrong of him to think ofhimself as anything less. But, Dr. Weller knew Chase was miserable inside ofthe tank, and he cursed himself everyday for not being able to find a fastersolution to free the boy.

Because, that’s all he was in the eyes of the man. A boy.

He still remembered the scared look that flashed acrossChase’s face when he first explained gen:LOCK to him. They had pulled him outof the wreckage, flew him all the way to the west coast and then laid him on atable only for Dr. Weller to stand over him and shout what was likely nothingmore than mad science nonsense in the startled mind of the twenty one year oldwho was still feeling pain as the nanotech invaded his body.

Chase took the deal, and the rest was history. It shouldhave been. But, the thing that kept Dr. Weller from sleeping at night was thememory of the look in Chase’s eyes when the deal was offered. It haunted him.The nervous glance to the side before speaking. Perhaps it was Weller’s faultfor explaining it so poorly, but for a moment, and probably still to this day,there was a part of Chase that believed that had he not agreed to the gen:LOCKprogram that day, he would have been left to die.

They were his kids now. He would never leave them, healways reasoned.

But had he not agreed, what would you have done? Youwould have no obligation, no connection to him. You made a boy surrender hisautonomy to become your scientific toy. Now you’re doing the same with Yasamin,Kazu, Valentina, and Cammie. You continue to search for more recruits, morechildren to steal. How do you-

Dr. Weller took a deep breath and pulled off his glasses andwiped his eyes. When he was done, he slipped them back on and stared up at thetank. Kazu was asleep on Valentina’s shoulder, both of their legs stretched outas they leaned against the left side of the tank. Yasamin was against the rightside, turned away from the group. Her head rested against the fogged up glass,just below where Chase’s arm was. Cammie was sprawled out across the three ofthem, her head slinking down Yasamin’s back, her legs and feet across Valentinaand Kazu’s lap as Nugget slept on her chest. Dr. Weller smiled down at them.

He had told Cammie they couldn’t be sure but…

Some days Dr. Weller believed it had been his technologythat did more damage to Chase than the nanotech. After all, Chase had foundsleep easier, even with the nanotech inside. It was right after his secondbirthday that things went to hell.

Well, everything went to hell, Weller thoughtas he stepped over Valentina and Kazu’s legs, making his way to the monitornext to the tank. He really should send them back to their dorm so they couldproperly rest up, but-

He tabbed open the page displaying Chase’s brain waves, andtried not to gasp.

He looked over into the tank. He looked back at Chase’sbreathing.

Dr. Weller quickly and quietly rushed through shutting offany unnecessary noise and lights in the lab. He pushed Caliban over to hischarging pad and continued to dim the place until only Chase’s bedtime mixcould be heard drifting over the speakers, and the blue light from the tankilluminated the room. Then, he collected the things he needed and left the labas swiftly as he could.

He boarded the elevator, and clutching the blueprints in hisarms, he tried not to sniffle fearful that any noise would wake Chase from hisslumber, and his first, real dream in four years.

Good things had come since expanding the gen:LOCK program.He silently wished they would continue for his kids for a long while.

**

Then, the Anvil was attacked by the Union.

The battle was an ugly, chaotic, panicked mess. Chase hadstormed out of the eastern observation deck and immediately uploaded, takinghis anger out on Nemesis as soon as he collided with the other mech’s neck. Heknew if he didn’t stop him, everyone would die. The team, Migas, Miranda, Weller.But he wanted nothing more than to go up to Dr. Weller in his Holon andstrangle more answers out of him, to make him understand the gravity of what hehad done to Chase by not telling him he was just a copy.

If he could taste, he was certain he would taste bilewhenever he said the word. As he swung at Nemesis, he had to wonder if what theother him was saying was true or not. Did he even deserve to exist in his body,their body, if he wasn’t the original? Were either of them even theoriginal, or perhaps he had died four years ago in the Battle of New York andthe Doc had just copied his consciousness then. He had lied to him already,about the network going offline, about the mission being scraped, and he hadbelieved him. Could he fabricate memories too? He had heard from Cammie aboutthem being able to delete them, did the Doc go inside his mind and alter him tobe the perfect, obedient soldier so he would agree to the program?

He had always thought since he first saw himself in the tankthat something was wrong. But then Dr. Weller came in and comforted him. Maybehe had been right all along. The body didn’t belong to either of them. Itbelonged to the Chase who was dead.

In the background of the fight, him and Nemesis heard therest of the team clicking onto the network, and soon they were flying pastChase as they fought off the spider tanks and other Union soldiers storming thegrounds. Kazu and Valentina synced up, and suddenly their minds went silentacross the network as they became one. Yasamin crashed down next to Chase as hewrestled with Nemesis, and she reached out to him.

“Chase, we should try and fight him together!”

Chase continued to fire his gun at Nemesis as he struggledto free his leg from the mech’s claws. He couldn’t deal with distractions rightnow.

“What’s stopping you?”

“No, I mean really together!” Yasamin shouted as shemoved closer to him in the mindscape.

Her hand was so close to him, and Chase’s rage boiled as hethought about her touching him, getting inside his head. Nemesis yanked himcloser, nearly disarming his gun and pinning him down. Chase sliced his armacross the space between Yaz and him, shoving her away and he shouted at her.

“Let’s not do this now!”

She recoiled and floated away, going silent in the channel. Finally.Chase only had a few moments to savor the peace and quiet before Dr. Weller wasyelling at them to retreat. He punched Nemesis harder when he heard Doc’sfrantic speaking. Then, Yasamin was back in his ear calling out to him.

“Chase, fall back!”

“He doesn’t mean me, Yaz!”

“Chase!” She pleaded. And Chase grit his teeth as heprepared to jump Nemesis, hissing at the woman a reminder-

“My body can’t run, Yaz!”

His body slammed into Nemesis, and then the gen:LOCK channelwent silent for good.

**

When they first landed and hid behind one of the mountainranges, Yasamin immediately took control and began delegating tasks toeveryone. She spared no moment to make sure they were aware of their rationsand fuel, planning possible routes and trying to see if it was feasible to makeit back to the ESU’s headquarters on the west coast. The entire day, she wasnonstop in storming around the ship as she investigated every possible usefultool.

At nightfall though, things changed.

Kazu, Valentina, and Cammie had gone to bed. Chase was outin his Holon, patrolling the area to make sure no one was following them, andto clear his head by getting through his racing thoughts faster with theincreased speed and clarity of his cyberbrain. Yasamin was still in thecockpit, ready to open the ship’s doors if they needed to hide the Holon fromany sudden threat. She had gone quiet for the past hour, and Chase was going incircles as the rain pelted down on his armor.

He was somewhat thankful that the rain was slipping down inbetween the spaces of his armor. When the droplets touched the metal skeleton,he could feel the cold rush of it, like slime dripping down over his mechanicaljoints.

Doc had really improved the sensory features of theHolons. It was practically like having real skin.

He just started to lift his hands to the sky when he heardit.

“Chase…”

Yasamin’s voice crackled over the mic of the airship. Heturned around. He could barely see her sitting in the pilot’s chair, and so hewalked back and crouched down so he was eye level with the windshield.

She was curled up in the chair, a blanket around hershoulders as she pressed the mic button with one hand.

“Yo, what’s up?” He asked, the blue lights of his eyesflashing as he zoomed in to see her better. Her finger traced down underneathand around the control panel of the dashboard, her arm limp and her eyes low.Then, when she nearly let her arm drop, she puppeteered it back to the button,pressing down once as she whispered.

“Can you come back inside? I want to speak to you.”

Chase blinked at her for a moment, but then knelt downproperly, letting his Holon rest as he mixed into his hologram. Within a fewseconds, Yasamin heard the electronic noise as pixels materialized by the doorsbehind her, but did not turn around. Chase strided forward with easy, steadysteps, stopping behind Yaz with both palms up and his arms open.

“What’s the matter?”

She was silent, but Chase was patient. He watched as sheslowly lowered her hand again, folding them both into her lap as she pulled upher knees and leaned back in the chair. She stared out at the rain pouring downfrom the sky and hitting the windshield. A ring appeared around Chase’s restingHolon as water bounced off it and back down again. If there had been any lightleft behind the gray, murky clouds, perhaps the water would have glowed.

“The Doctor…”

He heard Yasamin’s breath hitch.

“He sacrificed himself for us to escape.”

Chase felt his heart stop in his real body inside the tank.

“Are you serious?”

Yasamin ran her hands up and down the fabric of the suitstretched over her thighs, “He helped us escape. We were getting into theelevator when Union soldiers appeared. When the doors closed, there was anexplosion.”

Chase cursed, “That’s just like him.”

He pressed a hand to his head and closed his eyes. All day,the others had been silent about what had happened and why they had fled. Hehad assumed it was everyone in shock over the sight of the nanotech drowningthe Anvil, but now he understood.

“Well,” he ran the hand down his face to his mouth, pressingit against his lips hard as he struggled to bite back more curses, “At least itwasn’t the nanotech. I lived through that hell, if it was an explosion, atleast it was mostly instantaneous and painless-”

“That’s not the point!”

Yasamin stood up from the chair and turned around to faceChase, an enraged scowl marring her face as she seethed.

“He sacrificed himself for us, Chase! Doesn’t that meananything to you?”

Chase stepped back, confused, “It does! Why do you think itdoesn’t?”

“Because you’re not upset! You’re just standing here makingsnide comments and-”

“I’m not making snide comments. I’m in shock, Yaz. I’vegone the whole day thinking, yes, all of my friends and family in the militarywere just eaten alive by the thing that nearly killed me four years ago. But, Ithought somehow the Doctor escaped on another ship.”

“Where would he go without our protection? We have Caliban,you know he would get captured right away without someone to guard him-”

“I was trying to be optimistic!” Chase shouted back, “Whyare you fighting with me? What do you gain by yelling at me?”

“I don’t know but the fact that you were so caught up inyour fight with the Union’s you that you let him-”

Chase snapped, “I didn’t kill him, Yaz! You can’t force theblame of his death onto me like this!”

Silence rang out in the cockpit after that, and Chase wassure that they had woken up the rest of the ship with that. The rational partof his mind prayed that they would take the hint and not try and intervene. Hecaught his breath after a moment, and just stared at Yasamin. Her head wasbowed so he could only see her brow etched into a scowl, her eyes scanning thefloor as his words continued to process in her head. After a few minutes, whenshe didn’t respond, he turned to go mix back into his Holon.

“I understand you’re tired,” he said, looking over his shoulderat her, “You should get some sleep. It will help clear your mind. I’m sureeveryone else is just as shaken up. They’ll need both of us to be level headedtomorrow.”

“Chase…”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting his mindseep back into his Holon outside.

Yasamin reached out and her hand phased through Chase. Hiseyes snapped open and he turned around. She fell through him to the other side.

Chase stared down at his chest, where her hand had justforced its way through.

“Yaz, you of all people should know that I can’t-”

She whipped around, and her face crumpling with angry tears,she threw herself at him again.

This time, she stopped herself so she was hovering over his hologram, thepixels continuously vibrating at every point of contact as she wrapped her armsaround him, and tucked her head against his hollow chest.

Chase’s arms hovered by his sides, unsure of where to rest.

Then, he felt the gentle shake of her as she began to cry.

He relaxed easily, and put his arms around her.

He wished he could say he felt something during theexchange, some sorrow or grief or comfort in sharing this moment with the womanwho had become like his sister, but, the thought of her being familybrought up memories of the Doctor, and Chase’s mixed up thoughts scrambled evenmore inside, and so-

He awkwardly glanced out the window as she shuddered close,and Chase was thankful for the fact that he couldn’t feel.

**

After being interrupted three times during the night byUnion drones dropping Nemesis on them, Chase had downloaded after therealization Nemesis’s connection on the network. An argument about what to dowith the technology erupted, and although Chase was still angry at Dr. Weller,now that he had been given more time to think, and process what had happened,he still felt it would be a disservice to what the man had done to him to justshut down the program.

Especially since it was what gave Chase the littlefreedom he still had left. If Valentina, Kazu, Cammie, and Yaz just left, wouldhe just be left behind in the middle of nowhere, with only his body in a tankfor Nemesis to come and collect alongside him?

And so, he spoke the words, and unwittingly unlocked thefinal message from the Doctor.

He felt Yasamin’s hand slide through his pixels when Dr.Weller’s hologram disappeared. She awkwardly retreated when she remembered.Chase’s fingers twitched as the buzz went through them. He looked down at Yaz’sface, who was still staring where her father had vanished.

No. Their father.

He wasn’t just a scientific tool to the man. He had donenothing but care for him tirelessly. Chase was just too blind with rage to seeit.

Then, later, once the team had tried going to bed again,this time with more security in their minds about not being found, Yasaminapproached him again. She leaned on his tank and spoke to him quietly, but thecloseness frightened him and so he switched to his hologram again. Now with hisfeelings about Dr. Weller cleared up, his heart was only left to focus on thelarger knot tangled inside of it.

Nemesis.

He had come to accept that the Doc only lied to him aboutthe mission, and that he was being paranoid with thoughts of him ever doinganything malicious like fabricating memories of the past. He was obviously onlytrying to protect Chase from falling into despair and terror. But, that leftChase alone with the realization that while he had remained unchanging duringthe years, something devastating had to have happened to change the other himinto that.

Was it maliciousness at being left unsaved? Was it slowlybreaking trust in the Doctor and Polity that never came to his aid afterdisappearing? Did the original know he had been replaced, been copied? Did hissense of self warp into thinking he was so valuable, so important, that theywould fight a war to rescue him, only to discover they never even needed him inthe first place, just a copy of his mind?

But then Yaz reached out and touched him again, and Chase’sheart panged.

It wasn’t fair to her, to the rest of the team, to closehimself off like this. He had regarded her as if she was an idiot for the pastfew hours for trying to get close to him, for thinking that he was real. Thereal him was inside the tank, everyone knew that, but that didn’t change theway Cammie tried to always poke him, the way Kazu had patted his back andcalled him his brother, the way Valentina would help him up after they kickedhis ass.

Yaz was right, he was real to all of them. He just needed tostart thinking the same about himself.

But, the mess of knots in his chest wouldn’t subside, andso, he pulled away again.

He receded back into the tank, the buzzing of Yaz’s touchfading away as he hid behind glass, where no one could touch him, ever.

**

At RTASA, things were different. They felt like they allwere playing a game of catch-up as they explained things to Dr. Jha and then toHolcroft, being given amnesty despite being an ever present threat to endangerthe facility and also Holcroft giving them the timer to defeat Nemesis beforethey went forward with the future of gen:LOCK.

Their Holons needed repairs, so Cammie sought out gettingfinancial backing with Jha from Holcroft so they could print the new armor. Shehad been running around for days, between helping direct where to place them onthe Holon to modeling new skeletal designs on the CAD files.

A few days before the armor upgrades were to be finished,she sat down in private and went about dissecting whatever the Doc had leftbehind inside of Caliban’s mind. She had already been given files on monitoringChase’s condition, and most of the things he had locked away was all theresearch on the early stages of gen:LOCK with Chase, the incident thatled to the end of copying- Cammie shuddered when she finished reading, andlocked that file back away where she found it- and the goals for theprogram had it not been militarized.

There was a set of files that were fairly recent though. TheDoc appeared to have uploaded them only a few days before the Battle of the Anvil.Cammie nervously opened it, afraid it might be another confession like therecording of his final message or the copying.

A blueprint appeared on screen. Another CAD file? Shesquinted as she looked over it better.

She sat up when she read the title.

Oh.

There was another set of things modelled in the folder. Shepulled up that file too.

Oh! Her eyes widened, and she excitedly began to readover and rotate the designs inside the file.

She had felt a bit disheartened when she realized how far backthe prerecorded message was. Although she knew all the words the Doc had saiddid apply to how he truly thought of them, it made her wish he had the time togive them a more individual goodbye. Something more genuine than just a willand the end note of “Be well.”

They had been wrong. That wasn’t the Doc’s final message atall.

This was, however.

Cammie copied the files into her own folder and then mutedCaliban again, dashing out of the room as she sought out Dr. Jha.

**

Chase wondered if he had been forgotten about. Over the pastfew days, everyone seemed to have made themselves scarce. He didn’t mind beingleft alone in his tank, usually, but he had grown accustomed to openinghis eyes in their new dorm to seeing the rest of the group doing something. WhetherKazu playing the guitar, Valentina laying down as they logged into the Ether,or Yasamin reading, it had become a small comfort to him to know they werestill together, even though so much had changed.

But one morning, he opened his eyes and everyone was gone.

At first, it was no issue. He could navigate in his hologramaround RTASA as much as he did at the Anvil or the ESU. There were stillscientists working around the clock, and soon enough, he found his team huddledin some corner of the base, talking amongst themselves.

“Hey guys! Why did you tell me we were having a meeting?”

He was met cordially, but they all seemed a bit too quiet.They wouldn’t give him answers about what they were discussing, and they alldispersed quickly after his arrival. He was left confused, and ultimately hedecided to mix back into his tank.

A few days later, he was walking around again and spottedCammie and Dr. Jha outside a conference room.

“Oh, nothing! I just have to talk to Holcroft again!” She saidwhen he asked what was going on.

“Again? Is he pulling out of our deal?”

“It’s nothing like that, Chase,” Dr. Jha reassured him,significantly calmer than Cammie was, “There is another thing we have decidedto build for the benefit of your team, but we require more financial backingbefore we go ahead with the project. We also must decide how soon we canconstruct it.”

“Oh? What is it? Did you find something cool in Doc’s filesagain?” Chase looked to Cammie, who smiled nervously.

“Uh, yeah! Super cool, but like everything else withthe upgrades, it’s a surprise! So you better stay out of the hangar until they’redone, or else I’ll block your hologram from entering without my permission!”

Chase laughed, “I promise, I promise.”

“Cammie, we should get going. Holcroft is waiting,” Dr. Jhaushered her inside. Although she cast a smile back at him as she closed thedoor, Chase stiffened. He caught the faintest glimpse of Yasamin in the back ofthe conference room before the door closed shut, and Chase had to wonder if thewhole team was in there.

What were they talking about without him?

**

That night, Dr. Jha found Chase. She entered the dorm roomand stood patiently in front of his tank, waiting for him to notice her. He wasmixed into one of the observation decks, watching the sunset alone when heheard rustling coming from the dorm. Excitedly, he warped back into his tank,but his expression dropped when he saw Dr. Jha. 

“Chase, wonderful, I have something I need to speak with youabout.”

“Is this regarding what you all were discussing withHolcroft earlier?”

Her expression fell for just a second, but she quicklyregained her smile and folded her hands behind her back.

“So you did see the rest of your friends in the room. I’msorry we excluded you. Holcroft wanted to speak to them too.”

Chase felt nervous. Dr. Jha seemed honest, but he didn’tlike the secrets that were floating around.

“Why not me?”

“Chase,” she cleared her throat, “Cammie had stumbled acrossRufus’ instructions on how to care for you. As the sole investor in gen:LOCK,Holcroft has also been providing funding for keeping you alive.”

Oh.

“So why wasn’t I in the room? You guys aren’t cutting meoff, right?” Chase joked, but Dr. Jha seemed startled by that remark. A brief panickedthought went through Chase’s mind, and he couldn’t help but cut out hislaughter, “You’re not, right?”

“Of course not, Chase. You are a highly valuable member ofgen:LOCK. It would be irresponsible for Holcroft to pull out of providing supportfor you when you are the most experienced.”

Sensing his apprehension, she continued.

“I assure you though, Holcroft would never be allowed tosimply cut you off like that. Not that I, or any of your teammates would allowthat. I assure you, we were not discussing anything of the sort. We thought itwould be uncomfortable for you to speak with Holcroft about such a topicthough, since he can be brash and might have misled you.”

Chase chose to believe her and move past it, “So, why haveyou come to talk with me?”

“Although you and I have not known each other for very long,Rufus did keep me updated on your condition, and we here at RTASA are equippedto support you.”

“So, where is this all going?”

“Cammie noticed that in Rufus’ logs of you, you were longoverdue for a check up. If you would allow it, we would like to remove you fromthe tank tonight temporarily. My medical team and I will oversee that you aresafe and unharmed during the procedure. Do you agree to allow us to do this?”

Chase still felt that something was off, “Are you going tohave to put me under to do it like the Doc used to?”

She nodded, “In Rufus’ instructions, he believes it to bethe least shocking way to help your body adjust to the lack of fluidsurrounding it. If you would like us to-”

“No,” Chase shook his head and sighed, “Let’s follow the Doc’sinstructions. He kept me alive this long, I trust his judgement.”

Dr. Jha smiled, “Excellent. Then, in about four hours, wewill begin. We will transport your tank to our medical wing right before then.”

She bid him goodbye and left the dorm with a wave. He wasalone again. An hour before the start time, the rest of the team came in andhelped Caliban walk him down. They all spoke happily and assured him everythingwould be fine, and Cammie told them all that she was almost done withthe upgrades and they would see them soon. Although Chase laughed alongsidethem and pressed his hand against the tank as they all patted the glass, as hewas pushed through the doors, he couldn’t shake the fear in the back of hismind that this was the last time he would see them again.

Cammie and Caliban stayed in the room as they set up Chasefor removal. They administered the anesthesia through the IV that hooked to thetop of the tank, and then, slowly began to drain the tank.

The last thing Chase saw was Caliban reaching out to catchhim, but everything went dark and then he was gone.

**

Chase opened his eyes to water.

He had grown accustomed to first seeing the fluid that was aglowwith the blueish light from the heaters of the tank. His eyes always took amoment to adjust to being hit with the harmless, but unnatural, liquid thatcovered his senses. He had learned to see through the fluid clouding hisvision, to move his arm through the heavy gel to gesture what little he couldto those who approached his tank.

This time, when he opened his eyes, however…

The liquid felt different.

It was lighter. Although he had grown used to thefluid to the point the weight did not bother him at all, the speed at which hefelt his hand jerk awake and cut through the liquid felt too smooth. Itwas too fast, like if someone had submerged his Holon self inside of it.

He had to wonder if that was true for a moment whenhe realized he could feel the individual bubbles in the liquid pebbling aroundthe skin of his face, the oxygen mask keeping them from touching his lips, butthey gathered around it all the same.

His eyes shot open as the sensations overtook him, andsuddenly his arm was swinging out- and there was no wall there to catch it.

Had he fallen into the ocean? Had RTASA sunk into the sea atlast? Why was he drowning?

Did they throw him into the ocean after thinking he wasdead?

And why was it so bright?

“Chase!” He heard Cammie’s scottish yip fizz over thechannel that hooked him to gen:LOCK, the ether, and his hologram. This timethough, it sounded more muffled. Not in a quiet way, but as if Cammie’s voicewas echoing inside a helmet or a mask before it was being picked up by the microphone.

He glanced around to try and see where her voice was comingfrom. It was strange, it was like her voice was buzzing not only over thesignal, but through the liquid too. As he tried to look around, he was stunnedfor a moment by the realization that he could turn his head. He couldalways move it somewhat, but for the first time in years he was able totouch his chin to each shoulder, and then he realized he was swimming.

There were still tubes connecting him and supporting him up,but as he moved his arm about, he realized he was drifting. Through the blue,oceanic like liquid, he swam, slowly coming to realize the more he thought aboutwhere he wanted to go, the more the machine supporting his torso helped himglide that direction. He smiled behind the mask and glanced where he thoughtwas up as he heard the rest of his team’s voices filter through thespeaker.

“It appears he is happy with the new arrangement,” Valentina’svoice wasn’t muffled like Cammie’s was. It sounded far away though.

“You can see him through there? It’s too foggy for me,” Kazusaid.

“I’m going in. Cammie! Are you ready down there?” Yaz calledout, to which Cammie responded cheerfully.

“Yup! It’ll take a moment to swim down, but I promise you it’llbe worth it!”

Swim down?

Chase turned around.

Cammie was there. Inside the water. She was floatinga few feet away behind Chase, a clear, helmet encircling her head and coveredin the same hexagonal patterns as their holograms loading in were. She wasn’twearing her gen:LOCK suit, but instead a suit he had never seen before. Itcertainly wasn’t Doc’s design, but he could see the influences were there. Itwas a green diving suit that covered her hands and feet completely. Althoughshe appeared to be free floating, Chase could see a harness of some alloy thatreached all the way up to wherever the surface was. She was typing into ascreen that was illuminating from her wrist. When Chase met her eyes, shegrinned, and waved.

“Cammie!” Chase cried out, and swam towards her.

“It’s me! In the flesh! Well, in the suit, I guess. Youlike?”

“So this is what you guys were up to?,” he laughed, “You putme in some sort of aquarium.”

“Of course not, you dummy. But, I suppose it is like a bigfish tank. We built it all in one night. It was still hard to keep it a secretfrom you though.”

“Well, you did a good job. This is amazing.”

“You’re not claustrophobic?”

“Not at all!” Chase swam in a circle, his arm freely glidingthrough the water. He faced her again and watched as her green eyes piercedthrough the helmet, practically matching the hue of the glowing water. Thebubbles crawling to the surface pearled around the screen of the helmet andsurrounded her face as she smiled at him. There were faint distortions on themask like when the holograms bumped into something. She swiped the screen onher wrist back into her watch.

“Try doing a flip!”

“I can do that?”

“Hell yeah you can! We rearranged all the tubes and wireskeeping you alive, and outfitted you with a harness that spins. Look, mine doesthe same!”

Cammie arched back and flipped backwards like a mermaid, thealloy attached to her harness rotating to the side as she curled over and backunder it again. When she was swimming down, he could see how the metal bar connectedto a protruding disk shape on her back and that was what spun and bent themetal into different angles.

“You try!” She said, and Chase took a moment to try ithimself. It was a little different than when he used to do flips at the poolwhen he was a kid, because back then he had legs that would push off and kickand bring him around in the circle, but he didn’t need them now. When hecompleted the trick, he moved towards Cammie, excited.

“You gotta tell me how this all works. This is amazing!”

“I know, right?”

“How am I swimming?”

“We took the signals that read your nerves signals tocontrol your hologram away from your body and hooked them up to this machine.Now, instead of it reading it and transferring it to an avatar like in VR, itjust moves in accordance to how you want to move. Quite simple to programactually, since we already have so much tech that reads brainwaves, it waspractically a step backwards for gen:LOCK, but building all this was whatdelayed it.”

“Delayed it? But you built it so fast?”

“It was actually the Doc who designed it.”

Chase stopped swimming.

“He came up with the blueprints, at the very least. I foundthem in the files saved in Caliban. He had been thinking about it for years, Ithink, but Holcroft wouldn’t give him the funding. He wanted Doc to put all hisfocus into gen:LOCK first, but Doc never stopped thinking about it. This washis final design. He uploaded it only hours before-”

“Cammie, you don’t need to explain. It’s wonderful. I’mthankful. So, that’s what you were actually talking to Holcroft about. Ithought you were discussing killing me!”

Cammie gasped, “Killing you? Are you crazy? Of course not!Why would we ever-”

There was a rippling through the water and Chase feltsomething vibrating behind him. He spun around slowly, watching as Yasamindescended gracefully down to their level. Chase had to wonder how big the tankwas, for he could not see the surface nor the sides of it. There was just anendless ocean everywhere.

“Yaz!” Chase shouted out, “Did you know about Doc’s plansbefore- Oof!”

Yaz flew towards him, unbound by the weight of the liquidshe soared forward and wrapped her arms around him. The screen of her helmetbuzzed like the pixels of a hologram against the side of his face as she tuckedher head into his shoulder, and he gently rested his arm on her back as theyheld each other.

Wait a minute.

Chase’s fingers ran along the fabric of Yaz’s suit, tracingthe fabric lightly until he began to shake. It was soft beneath hishand, not soft like a pillow or a feather, but the liquid against it made thematerial pliable and a bit silky. It was almost like… skin? He couldfeel warmth exuding from underneath his hand, despite the cooler temperature ofthe water, and then Yaz shifted her head and the helmet bumped against his faceagain and he felt the same warm sensation fluttering through the buzzinghexagons and fading into his skin.

“Chase? Are you okay?” Yaz started to pull back when shefelt the tremors going through him, “Cammie, is it a bad reaction to the newfluid?”

“No, it’s-”

“It’s just… I thought she was a hologram,” Chase said,glancing at Cammie before he turned back to Yaz and tightened his fist in theback of her suit, “I thought you were all just projecting yourself in here. Ithought-”

“No, no, Chase, we’re real. We’re here,” Yaz’s hands reachedup to cup his face, her thumbs careful of the oxygen mask as she caressed himand touched her forehead to his, “Dr. Weller wanted to be the one to show youthis, but… He didn’t have time. I was so worried it would never happen, butCammie made it possible.”

“I can feel you. How can I feel you?”

“Like how our gen:LOCK suits enhance our abilities bysharpening the speed at which our neurons transmit information and commands, Docwas looking into finding ways to share that information, beyond justmind sharing when uploaded. Her suit is sending information out to you, andsending that information to the nerves in your hand and skin,” she explained,swimming a bit closer, “It’s still in a very early stage though. When wetransferred you out of the tank, we had to run a series of tests while you wereunconscious to see if your nerves still work, and because we didn’t want torisk putting you in a completely new suit and disrupt your easy connection togen:LOCK, you’re actually experiencing a very dull version of what could be.”

“It’s enough,” Chase choked out, “It’s enough.”

“Oh, are we making you cry?” Cammie teased, floating infront of him with a smirk, “I didn’t expect this big of a reaction. I think youowe me a thank you!”

“Knock it off Cammie,” he batted her away while Yasaminwiped his tears that were being swallowed up by the liquid anyway, “It’s beenalmost five years since I felt anything like this.”

I didn’t know I could cry too.

“Besides, you don’t get all the credit,” Yaz said, “Youwould have never survived in arguing with Holcroft without us.”

“Yo!” Chase shouted up to the surface, “Are the rest of youcoming in or not?”

“I suppose that’s our cue,” Valentina stated, “You first,Kazu.”

“Huh? Why me? Wait! What are you-!”

There was a loud noise and crackling before Chase saw ashadow appear overhead, before the red suit of Kazu burst through the water andlanded in between him and Yasamin. There was a neater entrance made byValentina, who dove through the surface and shot down towards the bottom of thetank to join them. They floated up to hover by Yasamin as Kazu fumbled to righthimself.

“Poor fool couldn’t hook up his harness by himself”Valentina huffed, “Made me do everything.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t shoved me in, I would’ve figured itout!”

“We couldn’t keep them waiting any longer. It’s not my faultyou’re so slow.”

“Hurry up and hug Chase already, Kazoo! Before he getsannoyed by all of us bickering and kicks us out!”

Chase breathed out a laugh as he opened up his arm again anddrifted towards Kazu, “I could never get tired of you guys.”

Kazu righted himself and swam towards Chase, reciprocatingthe hug before he pulled back and draped one arm over his shoulders as heattacked his head with a harsh noogie.

“Woah, hey!”

“That’s for all the trouble you’ve been causing youraniki. Been wanting to do that for a while. It never felt right in the Holon.”

Chase winced as he lifted his head from underneath theattack but smiled still, “Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Do you think we could playbaseball here? I can still pitch with this arm.”

“Let’s keep it restricted to our Holons, please. The glassis strong, but it’s not indestructible,” Yasamin chided.

“So there is glass? It seemed infinite in here,” Chase said,looking around. Cammie pulled the command screen out of her watch again andbegan fiddling.

“Yeah, unfortunately Holcroft wouldn’t let us build you a lifesizeocean, so most of this is an illusion.”

She dropped the imagery and the endless, blue shadows andlight refracting through the water shrunk back, revealing the main hangar ofRTASA. The tank was still quite big though, and Chase felt as though hewas a shark inside an aquarium tank. He could now see above, where a smallplatform hovered overhead. Built into the top of the tank was a small room thatled to where the tank could be opened for maintenance and if people needed toenter.

“But, the good news is, you’ll have full control of the settings,so if you ever want to see our lovely faces outside of the tank, you still can,even if you’re not walking around. And, the illusion works on the outside too.You’ll be able to block Kazoo out if he annoys you too much.”

“Don’t you mean he’ll block you out?”

“Nah, I’m too cute for him to want to block out. Besides, ifhe did, I’ll just disable it. I’m the only one you can’t get rid of!” She saidas she pounced on Chase’s back, being careful of the machinery strapped to him.

“Wait a second, the nanotech. Is it even safe for you to bein here?” Chase asked, suddenly drifting away from all of them.

“It’s still dormant, but, just to be safe, that’s anotherfeature of the suits that Doc designed.”

“We have to cover ourselves head to toe to prevent anypossible infiltration,” Valentina said, stretching their arm and fingers outthrough the water as they eyed the fabric of the suit up and down, “The helmetsare a bit clunky, but it’s like our Holon heads. Not too uncomfortable.”

“So, you’re safe?”

“As long as we’re dressed like this, and there’s no cracksin the helmets,” Cammie knocked on the outside of the helmet for emphasis, “We’regood.”

“But, just in case,” Yasamin reassured, There’s an emergencysystem that will draw us all out of the water if it ever detects yournanotech begins to move again.”

Cammie lunged at Chase and tackled him again, this timepushing down on his shoulders and flipping up over him until she was floatinghigh away. Her ponytail swished around inside the helmet, and as it brushed theinside of the container, Chase felt the distinct sensation of hair brushing hisforehead as she nearly collided heads with him.

“Let’s have some fun! This is like your, what, thirdbirthday?”

“Fourth if you count the fact that I’m the copy. How longcan you all stay in here though?” Chase asked.

“Don’t worry about it! We’ll be with you as long as you wantfrom now on!”

**

Or so they had said, but now…

Now Chase was trying to rip himself away from them.

Again.

“Not when we’re so close! We don’t have time!” She beggedthe rest of the team as the uptime warning flashed in all of their minds.

Chase had finally agreed to mindshare with her, with all ofthem. He was finally ready to let them in, and now they were talking aboutrunning away only to give Nemesis the perfect opportunity to kill all of themwhile they were back in their human bodies.

She wouldn’t let them get Chase. She wouldn’t let them killthe rest of her family.

“Yeah you do. You’re going to get the time you need to reset,”Chase’s affirmation made her freeze up as he lowered his hand on her shoulder.She had longed to finally be able to touch him for so long, and after gettingthe chance in real life, all that remained was in the mindscape. For him totruly open up and accept them all. But, as his hand settled on to her, fearstruck her at his next words.

“You can bet on it.”

She wanted to scream. Her mouth struggled to speak,eventually all she could get out was, “Chase, no!”

If he let go now, if he exceeded uptime…

“This has to stop now!”

“No! Not like this!”

The warning flashed louder in their ears. Yasamin felt herworld closing in around her as Chase continued to insist they run and leave himbehind.

“You will lose your body!” She shouted exasperated. They hadno more time. No more time for her to find the words she wanted to say. To tellhim why it wasn’t fair that he ran away from them after he just started to openup. To tell him why she was scared he would die before they got back to him.What happened beyond uptime was unknown. Chase’s body would be renderedcompletely empty, Chase would never be given a chance to be human again.

It wasn’t fair. She had just gotten the chance to touch him-

“Yaz… I lost that four years ago,” He confessed,  “This is me now.”

Yasamin wanted to cry.

“You just said it. I gotta let go, right? Change. “

Yasamin reached out and grabbed his hand, desperately tryingto merge with him so she could run his Holon back with them.

“This is not what I meant!”

But Chase was already pulling away.

**

After the battle, Chase stood in front of the emptytank.  

The others left him alone. They had downloaded and gone totheir room to retire for the night. But Chase couldn’t download now. Hehad burned through all his uptime, and now was stuck inside his Holon.In the adrenaline rush of battle, he didn’t mind it. Although they were bulky,they did provide a lot more freedom than his human body.

Perhaps he would have felt that way had his friends not justbuilt him a giant tank to give him so he could hug and be with them. Perhaps hewould have felt that way had he not just wasted their gift and time andenergy and arguing with Holcroft about how vital this would be to Chase’srecovery, to his improved gen:LOCK performance.

But, there was something about seeing the dark tank, knowingthe time his friends and his family had spent trying to make him happy again,that made him tighten his fist against the surface, and shut his eyes.

He regretted it. It was necessary in the moment andit helped them win, but he regretted it. There was a slim chance he could everreturn to his body now. There was the matter of Leon too, if he would ever wakeup. Chase should be thankful he had a consciousness left at all after how muchhe did during the battle. At least, he could still ping out in his hologramform to walk about with everyone like he used to. It just felt like he burnedthrough more than just uptime when he left his body behind.

But.

As he thought back to the battle, to the way he had syncedup with all of his friends, perhaps it hadn’t been a wasted opportunity.

Mindshare was different than any physical touch. It was moreintimate, yet more pure. Chase had spent so long longing to feel touch again,he had been denying perhaps a better alternative all along. When Yasamin hadreached out to him at the Battle of the Anvil, had he taken her hand, couldthey have saved the Doc? Would they have been able to beat Nemesis together inthat moment?

No, probably not. Chase was still so angry at that time, hewould have just clouded Yasamin’s mind and put her in danger, making thesituation worse. He was thankful he didn’t make her first experience inside hishead one so full of hatred and confusion. Especially since all that anger was directedat the Doc, it would have made for a terrible mix.

Still, it was strange. Learning he could touch again onlyfor it to be ripped away from him. He did it with his own hands though. Thiswas his own choice he made. He did feel that he was dishonoring Doc’s finalgift to him, though. Perhaps, had he not been so self-sacrificing, he couldhave experienced the touch of more people before the end. They could have allgone back to the Anvil, and maybe he would have gotten a chance to hug Migasagain, Leon even, had he not had to upload into the last Holon. Maybe even-

Miranda.

But, this was the choice he had made. It was something onlyhe could do in the moment, and now he had to live with that choice. And, he andMiranda had chosen to go their separate ways. He couldn’t keep going back onhis decisions.

Besides, his body was still alive inside the tank.Just not this one. They had moved him back into the smaller tank when the timecame for him to go to the transport ship and upload. Pretty soon, Dr. Jha andeveryone else would work on deconstructing the larger one now that it would gounused.

For the time being, he remembered her telling him.

If they continued to advance gen:LOCK, there was hope forLeon to be able to wake up again in his normal body. Perhaps the same could besaid for Chase, that one day he and his copy, however many they were,would get to download again and live a normal life. When the Union was gone,and the Polity was restored, Chase hoped that somehow, they all couldfind peace.

They all were human, after all. Doc had believed in that,had believed that Nemesis could come back to them somehow. Chase had to believeit too, so he could keep moving forward towards tomorrow.

Left alone in the hangar, Chase took his Holon and sat downin front of the tank, his back to it as he went into sleep mode. It was nothinglike sleeping as a human, but it would rest his mind enough to help pass thetime. He would have to get used to it from now on, having insomnia without the,well, insomnia.

As the light left the eyes of his mech, Chase let himselfdrift in the mindscape.

**

He woke up when he felt something roll off his shoulder.

Reacting quickly, he caught that thing that toppledoff his arm and rolled into his hand. His eyes adjusted and zoomed in on thesmall thing, gasping fully awake when he realized it was Cammie.

“What? What are you doing?”

She was dressed in her pajamas, and the hangar was dark, soit must not be morning yet. He lifted her up closer to his face, but that waswhen he caught sight of another abnormality, and connected it to the strangeweight on his leg.

Draped over his knee, Kazu was asleep. Chase used his otherhand to scoop the man up and deposit him beside Cammie in his right hand. Theyboth barely stirred. He searched around in the dark, looking for Valentina andYasamin. He found Yasamin had barely climbed up onto his form, and instead wasjust sort of hanging against the hip of his armor, slumped against it. Hepicked her up too, but was starting to run out of space in his one hand. Now,where was Valentina-

He turned his head, and felt him knock into something beforea weight flopped against his shoulder. Valentina had hidden themself on top ofthe groove created by the armor’s breastplate, leaning into its curve as itcurled over his shoulder, like it was a hammock. Chase carefully nudged themoff and caught them too, and then with both hands together, lifted histeammates close to his face as he stared down at their sleeping figures.

Because his hands were free of any armor, he could feeltheir warmth through his metal skin. It wasn’t just a weight pressing down ontohis skeletal frame, but instead he could feel them breathing, them moving aboutas Cammie rolled over again and nearly punched Kazu in the face.

Chase laughed softly as he tried not to wake them all up. Hewould have to ask them in the morning what brought them all out here. But, fornow, he just admired the senses he could feel transmitted through the Holon tohis brain, and savored it.

Perhaps this was the last thing that Doc had leftthem. Chase didn’t doubt that Weller hadn’t considered the possibility thatChase would do something this reckless. Maybe he saw it the moment Chase agreedto the program, saw that he was willing to die again, and decided he wouldn’tlet that happen. He created uptime so gen:LOCK candidates wouldn’t overclockthemselves to death, and then gave them all a sense of touch. Even thoughsometimes it caused them pain, he kept it in, to keep them feeling human.

To keep Chase feeling human.

He had to keep feeling human. He had lost his body, but nothumanity.

That was what the Union wanted, and as he looked down at thesleeping faces of his family, he refused to give them what they wanted.

Besides, if Cammie was able to interpret Doc’s notes soaccurately, who’s to say that she couldn’t go forward and do what even hecouldn’t do?

Chase tucked his friends close to his chest, and went intosleep mode again. This time, he dreamed.