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onceattwice · 4 years

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TWICE’s Headcanon: Dating

Request: May I requested dating the girls of TWICE Headcanon, separately please? I really enjoy those and your writing, it’s really good for someone whom just started.

A/N: Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this one just as much :) I didn’t include an NSFW for each girl because it wasn’t specified but if you would like one, feel free to send in another request!

word count: 6,007

IM NAYEON

she is the sweetest girlfriend ever! she tries her best to be the perfect girlfriend. sometimes, you wonder how you got so lucky.

wakes you up by planting tiny kisses all over your face. she always gets super giggly when she sees your sleepy and confused expression.

she makes you take lots and lots of photos when you guys go on dates. they’re usually photos of her.

although, you aren’t really complaining because now you have a whole album full of pretty candid photos of Nayeon. there are also a handful of funny ones that you use for playful blackmail against her.

you usually end up in the middle of her disagreements with Jeongyeon, big or small. when this happens, she’ll expect you to take her side. when you don’t, she gets pouty and won’t let you touch her until you take her side.

her laugh is absolutely contagious and you really can’t stop yourself from laughing along with her.

Nayeon loves to hit you when she laughs really hard so your shoulder is constantly sore from all her smacking.

she keeps a pack of muscle relaxants in her cupboard just for you. although, you can’t tell if you should be happy that she’s trying to take care of you, or annoyed because your shoulder is always sore, to the point where she feels the need to keep muscle relaxant stickers.

she LOVES physical affection.

when you guys are alone in your room, she becomes a cuddle monster.

she doesn’t mind displaying PDA but will limit it to hand-holding, hugs, and cheek kisses. anything beyond that stays AT HOME!

so many pet names/nicknames! she finds it super cute when couples have pet names and will bother you until you give her one. sometimes her pet names for you will spawn from a funny memory or it’s just something super sweet/basic.

“Can you pass me my water bottle, love?”

lots of hitting and smacking when she hears your pet name for her: bunny. you say it’s because of her teeth but she whines that you're not being original enough and that her fans already call her that.

is your biggest cheerleader in everything. literally will smother you with compliments and praise.

you never doubt how much she loves you. she always makes sure to remind you and is not afraid to show you just how much she loves you.

it’s always out of the blue, sometimes for no apparent reason. you can never pinpoint when she’ll say it next but you appreciate it nonetheless.

tons of back hugs.

sometimes you guys will argue due to her stubborn nature, but she will always apologize if it’s her fault and try to make it up to you. in turn, she expects the same from you.

if you get mad or annoyed at her, she’ll bring out the aegyo. it’ll either be super ridiculous and make you laugh, or super adorable. either way, it always works on you.

matching couple outfits. so many matching outfits.

you swear she has a problem and there have been many instances where you’ve had to physically hold her back from ordering dozens upon dozens of couple outfits.

“But it’s so cute!”

she can be unexpectedly protective of you. whenever you get hurt, she’s the first one by your side. Nayeon can sometimes be overdramatic and will try to call an ambulance when all you did was scrape your knee.

you usually have to calm her down with loads of kisses and reassurance that you’re okay.

can also be super jealous if you get too close with the other members. Sana once crawled onto your lap and Nayeon refused to talk to the both of you for days.

it's not because she’s insecure or doesn’t trust you, it’s just that she likes to have you to herself. she also likes the feeling of seeing a side of you that others cannot.

all you had to do was treat her to a nice dinner date, whereas Sana had to grovel for forgiveness.

she smiles and laughs the most around you. the members all approve of you because they can see that you really do make her happy.

restaurant bills are always split because neither of you will let the other pay. the only solution would be to split 50/50.

she sometimes worries about not spending enough time with you. her job makes it difficult for you guys to meet up often. you have to reassure her that you love her and that you guys have all the time in the universe.

after all, you are each other’s forever.

YOO JEONGYEON

although she’s known for her strong girl crush image, whenever she’s around you, she becomes a huge softie.

really cannot resist you in anything. if you ask for it, she will give it to you! although it’s mostly just you asking for hugs and kisses

she’s super protective of you and will literally fight anyone who makes you sad. you like to think of her as a big cuddly bear.

she likes to spoil you with gifts!

most of the time, it isn’t something super expensive because she knows it can make you a little uncomfortable. but if she travels, she makes sure to bring back a small souvenir for you to keep.

“Look! It’s a bear keychain!”

loads of online shopping together. you have to physically stop her from checking out the hundreds of items in her cart. some of them are absolutely useless.

you guys most definitely do not need a new welcome carpet. you already have a dozen of unused ones from previous shopping sprees.

it’s definitely a problem. but you kind of think it’s cute.

she always asks for your opinion when it comes to her hair. if she wants to cut it, she’ll ask you for permission first. you think it’s kind of ridiculous that she keeps asking you so you just tell her to do whatever makes her happy. if she's happy, then you are too.

she’ll blush and grin at your response.

after that, she’d switch up her haircut every couple of months just to surprise you.

“I kind of went for a new style this time. How do I look?”

you think she’s beautiful either way.

her reaction to your enthusiastic response is always the same: a shy ‘thank you’ with a bright smile accompanying it.

staying up late with her in the dance practice rooms and encouraging her to keep practicing even though she may get frustrated sometimes.

she can be super competitive sometimes and when she gets into the zone, she gets super loud.

truthfully, you had to go out and buy noise-cancelling headphones.

whenever the other members come over, your house becomes a warzone. Jeongyeon gets super excited and basically forgets that you are there as well.

however, when all the other girls leave, Jeongyeon cuddles up to you and you guys spend the rest of the night just in each other’s arms.

the girls always love to tease Jeongyeon about your relationship. she’ll deny being whipped but you’ll tell them stories that show otherwise.

she’ll get annoyed that her street cred is being ruined and claim that the girls won’t respect her anymore.

“Say one more word and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight!”

“But I can only fall asleep next to you.” You pout and pull out your famous puppy eyes.

“...Fine.”

“Whipped!” Sana screams. laughter ensues.

she’ll be your biggest cheerleader.

when you went into a cafe for your first job interview, she sat in the table behind you guys and threw you encouraging thumbs-ups throughout the interview.

she may have also been the one to send multiple plates of ‘anonymously paid for’ cookies to your table for you and the interviewer to enjoy.

needless to say, you got the job!

she’s not big on PDA and will smack you lightly if you try to do something fishy in public.

but at home, she loves getting cheek kisses from you even if she denies it. Sana pouts when she catches wind of this but eventually gets over it.

she’s practically glued to her phone whenever she’s away from you. she highly anticipates your texts and will stay up late just to talk to you. 3am conversations always result in some very funny inside jokes.

she won’t outright say that she misses you. instead, she’ll send you a photo of something with the caption: “reminded me of you”.

you’ve learned to appreciate and love the little things when it comes to her.

HIRAI MOMO

you guys actually met through a mutual friend! she had invited you to her birthday dinner where she introduced you to Momo.

you two hit it off right away, bonding over your mutual love for food, and natural dorkiness.

of course, you spent the entire night goofing off, trying to impress her and keep her attention on you. you would later find out that she thought it was absolutely adorable.

you asked for her number at the end of the dinner and she shyly gave it to you, making you promise to text her the next day. the rest is history!

Momo loves stealing your hoodies, especially if they end up looking big on her. she loves the fact that they always smell like you.

More often than not, she’ll end up taking it home and you won’t see it for another week. it’s the main reason why ever since you started dating Momo, you’ve managed to lose half of your hoodies.

whenever you tell her that you love her, she always blushes before saying ‘i love you too’ back.

most of the time, Momo is the one to initiate physical contact first. it doesn’t matter where you guys are or what you are doing, she’ll always try and get as much skin to skin contact with you.

this results in a lot of bear hugs and linked arms.

she’s super soft and gentle with you. whenever you get hurt, she has to resist the urge to start babying you. although you’ve told her that you don’t really mind it, she still tries to refrain from doing so because she doesn’t want to suffocate you.

a lot of late-night texting. Momo doesn’t really know how to start the conversation first so she’ll just send you something random and hope you reply.

she always manages to rope you into dancing with her. whether it’s uncontrolled party dancing, slow dancing, or hip hop, she’ll always try and convince you into dancing with her.

she told you it’s because dancing makes her happy and so do you. therefore, she feels the most joy when the two are combined together.

and honestly, how could you refuse to dance with her after she’s told you that?

she’s actually super shy around her members when you’re around. they love to tease her unstop, especially Jeongyeon and Sana.

she always whines whenever this happens and tries to hide her blushing face by burying it into your body, whether it’s your arm, chest, back, neck, etc.

you’d never tell her but you secretly love it when she gets teased and that’s why you’ve never once tried to stop the girls from doing so.

“Stop teasing me or I’m going to move out of the dorm! You’ll never see me again!” Momo whines.

“Oh? Are you going to move in with Y/N instead then?” Jeongyeon wiggles her eyebrows as Momo groans in embarrassment.

soooo much eating out together. whenever you have the chance to, you like to take her out to eat. she’s super appreciative of the fact that you always let her choose where you guys eat.

she’ll try and get into your hobbies as well. you guys once went hiking and although she was extremely tired, she never once complained. it’s because she knows how much hiking means to you and she doesn’t want to bash on it or make you feel as though she’s not enjoying it.

Momo wants to know everything about you. so, she’ll end up becoming super serious when you let her know about the things that you are passionate about.

as long as she’s spending time with you, it doesn’t matter to her what you guys are doing.

so much cuddling. a tremendous amount of cuddling. it’s her favourite thing to do with you.

she changes between little spoon and big spoon, depending on what she feels like at the moment.

Momo is just the softest girlfriend ever.

MINATOZAKI SANA

contrary to popular belief, she actually likes to go slow with her relationships. she doesn’t ever want you to feel rushed, so she always takes extra care in making sure that you never feel uncomfortable.

kisses are either super sweet or super passionate. there is no in-between.

her favourite way of waking you up in the morning is to place kisses all over your face.

you’ll often find her staring at you with a gaze full of wonder and curiosity. when you ask her why she’ll just say that she doesn’t think she’ll ever get over the fact that you’re hers.

she’s not afraid to be touchy with you in front of the other members. sometimes a little too touchy. the members usually end up cringing and telling you guys to get a room.

she smiles and laughs the most around you. sometimes you aren’t even doing anything and she’ll look at you and smile.

Sana loves it when you call her ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart’. she finds it so adorable and her heart flutters every time.

it’s usually rare that Sana will get flustered, but around you, she’s always blushing and can sometimes become timid.

she just loves you way too much.

movie nights always end with her crying in your arms. it’s because she always insists on watching a heartfelt romantic film, even though you keep telling her that she’ll end up in tears.

Sana feels too deeply, that’s just who she is as a person. this means that she loves you more than she could ever describe in words. however, this also means that when you guys fight, she’s unable to think properly and will become overwhelmed with sorrow.

she’s usually the first one to apologize, even if you were in the wrong. she just hates fighting with you and wants it to be over as soon as possible.

“Can you please come back to bed? I can’t sleep without you in my arms.”

you can also get jealous when she’s acting too flirty with other people. whenever you bring it up, Sana will understand where you are coming from and will try to be more aware of her actions.

the time that you two spend together is mostly spent cuddling, kissing, or goofing off. she’s super playful and that only gets amplified when she’s around you.

whenever she can, she’ll drag you to the JYP practice rooms so that you can keep her company as she dances and trains.

this usually starts off innocent but when she starts dancing to a sexy routine, you just can’t keep your hands off of her. this results in a LOT of making out and the occasional unplanned trip back home.

let's just say that the security cameras at JYP have a lot of unnecessary footage of you and Sana in compromising positions.

so much aegyo. you are bombarded with aegyo 24/7.

she’ll bring out the aegyo whenever you’ve had a bad day because she knows how much you secretly love it.

however, she’s just a naturally cute person. so honestly, aside from the times where she will purposefully exaggerate her cuteness, you basically live with a human aegyo machine.

one of her favourite things to do is to go shopping with you. she loves making you flustered when she comes out of the change room with a sexy outfit on.

of course, she’s not allowed in the kitchen because you are seriously afraid she will burn it all down. she’s too clumsy for her own good.

and because of her clumsiness, she managed to break four plates in the span of two months.

although you suppose it’s not too bad since next morning, you’ll find a brand new set of plates sitting outside of your front door.

you’ll band together with her to tease the other members. they’ll often joke about you being the 10th member of Twice since you end up becoming so close with all of them.

this makes Sana really happy because she loves her members and she also loves you. she’s always wanted to date someone who gets along well with her members, and ta-da, she found that with you.

she tells you that making you her ‘forever’ was the easiest thing she’s ever done.

PARK JIHYO

she’s honestly such a softie when it comes to you. she’s so loving and cherishes you so much. when Jihyo is around you, it feels like she’s found her missing puzzle piece.

she’s a sucker for romantic gestures, and so your anniversaries are always so well thought out and heartfelt.

you still have the poem that she wrote about you! you keep it in your desk drawer. she was so embarrassed when she found out and told you to throw it away.

though secretly, she was glad that you kept it.

she loves kissing your cheeks and forehead. Hand holding is also super special to her. it’s her favourite form of physical contact.

with Jihyo, it’s the little things that matter the most. you don’t need to buy her extravagant presents or shower her with expensive dinners. as long as you show through small gestures that you care, she’ll be forever grateful.

she never takes you for granted. in fact, she’ll always preach about how she must’ve saved the entire universe in her past life for her to have been so lucky.

you’re the one she rants to when it comes to netizens. she’ll almost always end up in tears and you’ll rush forward to comfort her.

you’re the only one that she feels comfortable around enough to show her vulnerable side.

she tries to make you feel as special as you make her feel. she’ll shower you with compliments and will melt whenever she sees your face light up.

anytime you shower her with your love, she’ll end up paying you back tenfold.

there is nothing in this universe that could keep her away from you. whenever she has time, she always makes sure to spend it with you.

she can sometimes get scared that you’ll find her busy schedule too much to handle. as a result, you always have to reassure her that you love her as much as she loves you. and unless she wants you to, you will always stay by her side.

“I choose you, forever and always. You will always be my first and only choice, okay?”

whenever she goes on a diet, you’ll go on the same diet with her. you told her that that way, you guys can go through it together. you hope that she knows she’s never alone. not with you.

never with you.

she’s too embarrassed to say it, but she really appreciates it. it only makes her love for you grow.

she especially admires how selfless you can be and really strives to become a girlfriend that you can be proud of.

you think it’s a little ridiculous because really, how could you ever not be proud of her?

she always pushes herself to be better and will take any of your concerns about the relationship seriously. if you think that you guys aren’t spending enough time together, she’ll start planning extra dates with you.

you told her that it’s not necessary to do that but she just waved it off and told you that you’re being ridiculous. you’re the most important thing in her life. of course it’s necessary.

“I don’t want you to feel neglected. And even though I can’t guarantee that you won’t feel that way with others, the least I could do is make sure you don’t feel that way with me.”

she loves eating sweets and you’ll try to indulge her every time you get your paycheck. it’s become a small ritual and routine for you guys to go out and eat sweets.

eating healthy is super important to her though. she kind of becomes a mother figure and will hound you if you develop unhealthy eating habits.

she’ll wake up earlier than normal and will personally cook you homemade meals as an attempt to get you to stop eating out.

she eventually had to stop because you kept whining about not being able to wake up with her in your arms. and honestly, you looked way too adorable to resist.

that and because her heart skipped a beat when you admitted that you love waking up to the feeling of holding her.

you love her and she loves you. that’s a fact, not an opinion. nothing in this world could ever change that.

MYOUI MINA

you guys met at a flower shop. you were picking up some lilies for your mother, and she was ordering some daisies for Chaeyoung’s birthday.

you couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. thus, you mustered up all your courage and decided to make small talk with her.

unexpectedly, you guys had so much fun that when it was time to leave, you found yourself unable to move. she felt much of the same. you guys exchanged numbers and the next day, you picked up a couple of roses on your way to meet up with her.

although she’s known to be quite shy, she actually becomes super talkative when you’re around.

Mina just finds you so interesting. you’re like a puzzle to her and she desperately wants to solve you. she wants to see the full picture.

during the summer, she’ll sometimes wake you up early in the morning so that you can both take a stroll in the nearby park.

she just loves your presence. parks help to bring her peace and she secretly wishes that they do the same for you.

she can become surprisingly protective of you. at first, the members were skeptical of you. after all, they had no idea who you were and what your intentions were.

Mina kept on defending you and shooting down every remark that they made. she insisted that you were a good person.

in the end, she managed to convince them. she’s extremely strong-willed when it comes to protecting you.

she loves hand-holding. it’s her favourite thing to do with you. it always makes her smile when she sees how perfectly your hands fit together.

you are the only one to truly witness the extent of her ballerina abilities. her fans have seen little bits and pieces, but when she truly gets into it, you are always awestruck by her skill.

you’re her pillar of support. whenever she isn’t feeling well, you’re the first one she’ll call.

she really does depend on you for a lot of things. you have to constantly reassure her that no, she is not a burden to you. and that yes, you love her.

her love for you is silent and strong. she doesn’t often express it in words. rather, it comes in the form of small gestures.

sometimes, you’ll come home to a homemade dinner or you’ll find small encouraging sticky notes tacked to your laptop screen.

it’s almost scary how well she knows and understands you. whenever you’re stressed, she just automatically knows and will bring you some tea.

you’ve asked her how she knows, and she just replied with:

“Guess you really are my soulmate.”

she’s such a soft girlfriend.

will have sweater paws even as she plays her video games.

you guys play various video games together. to be honest, sometimes you’ll purposefully let her win because her entire face lights up when she does.

you’d never tell her that though.

never has she ever taken you for granted. she always ensures that you know how much you mean to her.

she’s so cheesy. most of the time she isn’t even trying to be, but you just bring out that side of her.

loves super romantic gestures. she’s never outright told you, but she really does appreciate it when you take the time to plan out a small and special date for the both of you.

she cherishes every date that she gets to go on with you.

she also has a habit of counting the number of kisses she gets from you every day.

“I got 27 yesterday so I should get 27 or more today.”

you think it’s absolutely adorable that your kisses have now turned into a bargaining chip.

she likes to whisper ‘i love you’s. you’ve always wondered why, so one day you decided to ask her.

she bashfully told you that if she whispers, it almost feels as though it can stay just between the both of you. it becomes something special, almost like a secret that only the both of you know and understand.

her love should only be heard and felt by you, and you only.

KIM DAHYUN

you guys are the craziest couple ever.

no joke, whenever you’re invited to the dorm, it somehow manages to become 200% louder.

mostly because Dahyun gets louder when she’s trying to impress you. which, in retrospect, is probably 24/7.

she’s really playful and likes to tease you a lot. the rest of Twice doesn’t even get the chance to tease you guys, Dahyun does all of it already.

“You know Y/N told me yesterday that-”

“I’m leaving.”

you like to tease her back by watching her old weekly idol videos. that always manages to make her blush.

her laugh is so contagious. seriously, it’s your favourite sound in the entire world.

she’s extremely outgoing but becomes even more outgoing when she’s around you. not to mention, she’s absolutely won over all your friends. they’ve threatened to break your legs if you ever hurt her.

which is unfair because a) they’re your friends and b) you would never dream of hurting her. ever.

she really is like a small ball of sunshine. she’s just naturally cute, but whenever you point it out, she likes to exaggerate it by drowning you with her dramatic aegyo moves.

when she gets serious though, she gets serious. this usually happens when you guys get into a small argument or disagreement.

she’ll try and isolate herself so that she can sort through her own feelings first before she blows up on you. when she comes out though, she turns into another person completely.

you aren’t allowed to leave until you two fix the issue. you were extremely surprised when it first happened.

underneath all her smiles, she’s actually a really thoughtful and mature individual.

she always puts your needs above hers. although, it’s usually through small unnoticeable gestures.

she doesn’t mind that you don’t know half of the time. the only thing that matters to her is that you are happy and well.

due to her pale skin, she actually blushes really easily. whenever you say something sweet or romantic, her entire face will turn red.

you think it’s cute but she sees it as a complete betrayal.

“My body has betrayed its owner!”

her skin is just super soft in general. you don’t know how she manages to get it that way but wow, it’s so soft.

how you found out? well, that’s a story for another time.

she’s so energetic. not really in the mornings, but when afternoon hits, she’s vibrating like a generator.

Dahyun really does manage to brighten your days.

whenever you get sick, she becomes your very own personalized nurse. she will also search up puns and jokes to try and lighten up your mood.

they really are bad jokes but you laugh because they’re from her.

also because she put a lot of effort into finding the jokes and memorizing them.

her kisses are usually pretty short and sweet. she likes to keep the making out to the confines of your own home. PDA just is not her thing.

your text chats are filled with inside jokes. she’s somehow funnier over text. maybe it’s because there's a lot of emoticons to choose from, but she always manages to pick the perfect one.

she’s doesn’t really mind what you guys do when you hang out. as long as she’s with you, anything is fine.

soooo cheesy. Dahyun is loaded with cheesy, and sometimes cringy, pickup lines.

“OUCH!”

“Dayhun! Are you okay?”

“Woah. I think I fell for you again.”

“I’m never talking to you ever again.”

for some reason, she loves it when you call her baby. she will get extremely flustered and will give you a peck on the cheek as a reward.

it’s honestly the easiest way to get her to kiss you.

at the end of every day, she’ll send you a small heart. it’s become a ritual for you guys even though you’re still not too sure how it started in the first place.

she really has a knack for making you feel special.

she truly does love you to infinity and back.

SON CHAEYOUNG

she actually approached you first and made the first move.

so many cute artistic dates. she keeps mini canvases stored in her closet just for you.

you only recently found out that she has a whole notebook dedicated to little sketches of you.

she’ll get little bouts of inspiration. and when she does, she’ll grab her notebook and sketch you performing your every day tasks.

you’re still annoyed that you never noticed.

whenever she travels, whether its for vacation or for a concert, she’ll always bring back cute little trinkets for you.

it’s gotten to the point where you have a small drawer full of key chains, plastic flowers, toy cars, etc.

she has sweater paws 24/7 and you think it’s absolutely adorable.

a lot of the time you guys spend together is either spent in silence, just enjoying each other’s company, or in absolute chaos.

she’s becomes an A list comedian around you. Chaeyoung somehow manages to memorize an entire set of jokes and will tell you one every day.

seriously so cute though. you love making her smile and will stop at nothing to get a laugh out of her.

sometimes a small snort will escape if she laughs hard enough. that’s when you’ll know you have accomplished your mission.

she’ll tie her hair up in ridiculous hairstyles and will always ask for your opinion.

“How does this look?”

“Chae I love you but you look like a clown.”

“That’s the point!”

before she dyes her hair, she’ll ask you which colour you would like to see on her. your opinion actually matters a lot to her.

post-concert celebratory dinners are almost always spent with you. most of the time, she’ll be the one to pay because she wants you to save up your money.

she’s super independent and doesn’t like to rely on you for too much. however, when things get tough, you are the first person she will go to for help and comfort.

she doesn’t really mind PDA. in fact, in some cases she will welcome it. she thinks it’s perfectly normal to show affection for her significant other.

this results in a lot of cuddling, hand holding, and kissing around her members.

they always tease her about how she’s basically whipped for you. she won’t say anything in retaliation because she knows it’s true, but she will definitely throw the nearest pillow at them.

Jihyo was the most skeptical of you at first. Chaeyoung is like her little sister and she didn’t want her to get hurt, especially since this would be her first relationship.

you ended up getting interrogated by Jihyo, but unsurprisingly, you passed with flying colours.

when Chaeyoung found out about this, she wouldn’t stop pouting. for the next couple of days, she ignored Jihyo as a way to show her disappointment in her elder’s behaviour.

you had to calm her down and tell her that there was nothing wrong with what Jihyo did. you weren’t mad and you guys actually had a really pleasant conversation together.

after that, Chaeyoung stopped ignoring Jihyo.

you got a basket of wagyu the next day, coupled with a card that was signed with J.

Chaeyoung can be so protective of you. if anyone hurt you, she would get super quiet. that’s how you would know that she was angry.

she would take steps towards ensuring that they would never be able to hurt you again. this usually meant utilizing her various idol connections to her advantage.

when you guys had a fight, which was rarely ever, she wouldn’t exactly blow up on you. instead, she would be really levelheaded while trying to solve the issue.

she hates it when you guys fight and sometimes she’ll end up in tears. she can be really sensitive around you and she doesn’t ever like it when you raise your voice.

so many cheek and forehead kisses. however, because of her height, they’re only ever done when both of you are sitting down.

she gets embarrassed extremely easily. her entire face, up until the tip of her ears, will flush red.

a lot of tickle fights will ensue. she loves being playful with you.

she genuinely is at her happiest when she’s with you.

CHOU TZUYU

at first, you totally thought she hated you.

you met Twice at a company event and she completely ignored and avoided you. you tried multiple times to try and talk to her but she always stared blankly at you.

eventually you gave up trying.

in reality, she was just too shy to try and talk to you. Tzuyu was absolutely stunned by how gorgeous/handsome she thought you were. whenever you were around her, she would freeze up.

when the end of the night neared, she kept whining about how cute she thought you were. Jeongyeon eventually got fed up and asked for your number in place of Tzuyu.

that’s how you guys started talking.

she’s usually pretty quiet but she gets super excited around you.

she likes to go on small picnic dates with you. you guys would take turns planning it out, and at first, you guys would bring foods that the other person liked most.

after a dozen or so picnic dates, you guys just started to bring weird and wacky food that the other persons never tried before.

the surprise element was what kept it interesting for Tzuyu.

you most definitely got smacked for bringing fried scorpions once.

she’ll rope you into starting a very extensive skincare routine with her. it has a total of 15 steps, lasting around 45 minutes.

whenever her mother sends her new skincare products, you suddenly become her guinea pig.

“Stay still! You’ll get wrinkles if you keep moving.”

at first, she was really awkward when it came to physical affection. she was never one for cuddling, but once you guys started dating, it quickly became one of her favourite activities.

she’s a really innocent person. you had to explain a lot of... things to her.

sometimes she’ll just sit and stare at you for no reason other than the fact that she loves you.

you never pegged her as someone who was into romantic gestures, but she manages to prove you wrong.

for your anniversaries, she always goes full out. she usually spends 2 weeks planning the event beforehand.

when it comes to you, she’s incredibly patient and understanding.

if you guys can’t see each other, she’s perfectly content with just video calling. to her, just feeling your presence is more than enough.

although, when you guys are together, kissing is definitely a bonus.

you passed the ‘Gucci’ test.

aka if Gucci likes you or not.

to her, it is highly imperative that Gucci likes you. after all, Gucci is one of her best friends.

every once in a while, you’ll bring Gucci some dog treats. you’ve also brought a couple pieces of dog clothing that you bought online. Tzuyu always appreciates the fact that you’re making an effort to show love to her dog as well.

when you guys are at the dorm, she likes to spend half of the time with the girls, and the other half with you in her room.

she values personal space a lot so sometimes she will need a little bit of time off to herself. however, you’re the only person she doesn’t feel the need to distance herself from.

in fact, you’re the only person who’s allowed to enter her room without her permission first.

she’s so appreciative of you. she notices every little thing that you do for her and will silently melt inside.

Tzuyu just loves how attentive you are when it comes to her.

whenever she sings “One in a Million”, she always thinks about you.

You really are her soulmate.

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good-as-i-am94 · 4 years

Text

Secret

Peter was relieved when the bell rang and he could leave. He just wanted to get outside and breathe fresh air. The school had been redoing the parking lot and smell had lingered heavily in the building the whole day until all Peter could think about was the smell and his pounding headache. He hadn’t been the only one complaining about it but he had been the only one with super sense to have to put up with it for that many hours.

Peter saw Tony’s car right when he stepped outside. It was extremely hot on this sunny Monday. Peter slid into the car and asked his mentor, “Can I open the windows?”

“I have the AC on, Pete. Besides you always complain that the wind messes up your hair and you’d rather have the AC on.” Tony signaled before pulling out into traffic.

“TONY, LISTEN I NEED FRESH AIR! I NEED AIR!” Peter wasn’t kidding either.

Tony glanced at him at a red light before turning off the AC and opening the sunroof. Peter took that as permission to open his window too. He just leaned his head back and breathed the fresh air willing his headache and upset stomach to go away.

“Sensory stuff?” Tony asked.

“It’s complicated.” Peter mumbled not opening his sleepy eyes.

At that moment it dawned on Tony, “The parking lot. Oh, Peter. You should have called May or I. You probably feel awful.”

“Yeah but everyone did.” Peter knew it was rude to keep his eyes closed but he didn’t want to throw up in this car and he was focused on calming his body down.

“You want me to pull over?” Tony asked worried. He knew he should be worried that all of the kids had suffered for 7+ hours in that building with that smell but the only one he could be worried about was his own.

“No. I want to go home.” Peter answered before grabbing his noise proof headphones from his bag and slipping them over his ears. Tony passed him his sunglasses and Peter put those on too.

Tony had tried to convince Peter to come inside but he had insisted that the fresh air was helping and he was currently laying outside on the grass. He had thrown sunscreen at him and let him be. He knew what being around that smell for a long time did to a person. Peter had senses dialed up to ten compared to Tony so he winced at what Peter must be feeling.

“You know Peter’s laying on the grass?” Pepper asked coming inside.

“He wants fresh air.” Tony glanced over at his fiancé.

“Is he okay?”

“Parking lot is being redone at school.” Tony explained.

“Poor kid. It’s probably going to be bad the next few days.” Pepper grabbed a water bottle from the fridge.

“I need to call May. We can’t send him to school with that smell. I know she’ll agree. I’ll figure out getting a doctor’s note out of Dr. Cho if I have to.”

Tony’s phone rang the next day while he worked in the lab. He glanced at the caller ID and answered when it showed Peter’s school. He wasn’t sure why they were calling because Tony and May had agreed to keep Peter home, but maybe she had forgotten to call him in.

“Hello?”

“Umm. Hello. May I speak with Tony Stark?” The man on the other end requested.

“For the time being you can—At least until I get bored.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“Well I’m calling because you are listed as Peter Parker’s emergency contact and he is complaining that he doesn’t feel good.”

“Wait a second.” Tony put his tools back down on the table in front of him,

“Peter’s at school?”

“Umm. Yes, sir. School is five days a week you know?”

“Gee. Thanks for that clarification. I’m coming to pick up the kid, Okay?” Tony grabbed his keys. Why the heck was his kid at school?

Tony walked into the school and found Peter in the nurses office, “Sick?”

“Smell.” Peter responded. Tony didn’t miss how pale he was or the fact that he looked about ready to throw up.

“Let’s go. I signed you out.” Tony wrapped an arm around the teen and Peter didn’t even argue that people might see them.

Tony didn’t say anything until Peter was on the couch sipping some water with the balcony doors open letting in fresh air, “May should have called you into school. I talked to her last night.”

“She did.”

“Excuse me? What did you just say?” Tony sat down next to Peter.

“I waited until she left for work and I went to school.” Peter avoided his gaze.

“Because you like feeling awful?” Tony was having trouble understanding.

“My friends were going to be miserable too. They weren’t allowed to just skip school. I wasn’t even sick so the note from Dr. Cho was a lie. I just thought I’d be fine!” Peter moved his arms so that he could cross them over his chest.

“Pete, buddy. I love that you are looking out for your friends, but they don’t have super senses. You do. The note from Dr. Cho was a gray area. You weren’t sick at the time but May and I knew you would be sick if you went to school and look what happened! You have to learn to trust us! If we say something it’s because we care and we want what’s best for you!” Tony knew he shouldn’t raise his voice but Peter constantly put himself at risk for other people.

“I do trust you both!” Peter argued.

“Do you? BECAUSE I CAN’T TELL!” Tony got up and walked out of the room.

Peter sighed. He pulled a blanket over himself and laid on the couch. Tony would be back after he cooled down. He always got heated when Peter got hurt or sick. Peter had talked to May about it one night because he thought Tony was mad at him. She had set him straight.

Peter walked into the apartment and slammed the door, “He’s just unreasonable! DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO!”

May was staring at a casserole that she had pulled out of the oven, “I can’t believe I burned this!”

“I mean it’s crazy talk! I don’t want you to be like me, I want you to be better!” Peter continued to mock his mentor.

“Maybe I can scrape the top part off and it’ll be fine.” May thought out loud.

“I don’t even know why he has me come over if he’s just going to yell at me any time I do something that he doesn’t agree with! I’m not stupid!” Peter huffed sitting down on the couch in the small apartment.

“Dang it. We’re going to have to order take out I think.” May sighed.

Peter laid down against a pillow and screamed into it.

“Are you thinking pizza?” May asked.

Peter glanced over, “Are you hearing me? I don’t think you were listening.”

“No. I heard you talking crazy talk so I thought I’d join in.” May winked.

“Crazy talk? You’re taking his side!” Peter stood up and yelled.

“Hang on. I’m not taking anyone’s side. Let me run something by you, okay?” May reasoned and Peter nodded.

“Tony got hurt last month. He went into a mission and he ended up in the MedBay all week. You remember he cancelled on you, right?” May asked.

“Wait, is he okay now? What happened? How did he get hurt? Why wouldn’t he have called me! I could have helped! HE LIED! He SAID HE HAD A MEETING!” Peter started to pace.

“Well he really thought he had it handled until he got in over his head and figured out that he didn’t. It was too late. He was worried you’d be upset with him if he called for help.” May explained.

“That’s crazy!” Peter argued.

“Yeah so he went into surgery and it was touch and go for a while. All because he threw himself in harm’s way for someone else.”

“But is he okay now?” Peter asked worried.

“Does it worry you that he got hurt?”

“YES! Now is he okay?” Peter groaned.

“Oh. He’s fine. That never happened!” May shrugged.

“MAY! That’s mean! I was scared!” Peter didn’t understand how his aunt could lie about something like that.

“That fear you just felt? Tony lives with that fear for you every time you put someone else’s well being before your own. Remember that before you jump to the ‘he’s unreasonable and angry conclusion.’” May ruffled his hair and grabbed her phone to call for a pizza.

Tony came back upstairs after a couple of hours and found Peter still laying on the couch half asleep. He played a game on his phone, “Sorry, I should have stayed calm.”

“I’m sorry I went to school. I’m sorry the call from the school worried you.” Peter locked his phone and set it next to him on the couch.

“How’d you know it worried me?” Tony wasn’t sure when the kid had started to read him so well.

“If I got a call about you being sick or hurt I’d be out of my mind with worry.”

“You would?” Tony asked with wide eyes.

“Of course! I—-Umm—Ya know…I think you’re great.” Peter fidgeted with his blanket.

Tony got this weird feeling and he wasn’t sure what it was, “No. I’m not. I’m kind of okay.”

Peter sat up at this, “Kind of okay? Nope. Best ever in my opinion. Don’t get weirded out at this, but I kind of, might, sort of…UGH. WHY WON’T THESE WORDS COME OUT? I just umm. Love you or whatever.”

There was that feeling again. But what was it? Oh. Yeah. Love. That weird feeling is love for another human. Tony reached over to ruffle his hair, “Yeah. Love you too, Bubs. Now are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry.” Peter started.

Tony and Peter said at the same time, “THAT’S MY SECRET!”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042219

If you like this--PLEASE leave a comment and KUDOS!

#IRON DAD AND SPIDER SON #iron dad #Iron Man #spider-man #spidey son #Peter Parker #tony stark #Tony’s kids #ao3feed #ao3fic #fanficwriter

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chasseurdeloup-retired · 4 years

Text

They See Us Trolling, They Hating || Rio and Kaden

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: @3starsquinn and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Rio and Kaden meet a family of trolls in the woods. CONTENT WARNINGS: Minor mention of abuse, mental and physical.

In other towns, hunting was exhilarating, an adrenaline rush. Kaden remembered it fondly. But not here in Wicked’s Rest. No, in White Crest, hunting felt more like a burden than it ever had before. Maybe it was the sheer number of monsters everywhere, maybe it was all the extra bonus weird shit happening everywhere else all the time. Or maybe it was just him. Maybe he’d changed enough that he was as broken as his mother implied he was. Still, it didn’t change what he was. So out in the woods he was, guns and knives on him and a crossbow strapped to his back. His brows at the rustling in the distance. Definite sounds of movement. He crouched down and hid behind a tree, keeping as quiet as he could. His hands coiled around the barrel of the gun and slowly pulled it from the holster, careful to make no noise as he loaded it. There was nothing but darkness and the sounds of footsteps growing louder as he waited, gun raised, aimed, and ready. With a deep inhale, he peaked around the tree to see… flannel kid. “You should try walking a little quieter,” he said, lowering the weapon. “Or come armed. I have a feeling you’ll go for the former.”

If it weren’t for the Scribe building, Orion would never go into the forest again. He hated this place. As if the creepy noises and constant threat of danger weren’t enough, the woods had always frightened him in other ways. They were both open and cramped. Quiet, yet extremely loud. Despite how lonely the place was, he never felt safe with his own thoughts. Perhaps that was the irrational fear talking. He tried to stay alert in the woods, but sometimes his hearing was so deafening that the only way to block it out was with headphones. Today, he had a pair in, playing music just loud enough to block out some of the usual noises. He never really knew when his hearing would cooperate or not. Some days it was perfect, he could cancel out noises he didn’t want in order to focus on certain sounds or people. Other times, everything poured in at once, needles jabbing at his ear drums and making him dizzy. He could only guess that his level of control may be tied to stress or anxiety. Both things that Rio had a surplus of. Of course, the downside to using music to drown at the noise was that he didn’t hear when someone- an armed someone was a yard away from him, popping out from behind a tree and scaring Rio to death. Rio jumped what felt like a mile high, letting out a scream and ripping the earbuds out by their cord. “Holy- Why?” Rio yelled at him through gasped breaths, “Maybe you should try being a little less quiet. So you don’t give people heart attacks!” Of course it was Kaden. Of all the people he could run into from town. His feelings on Kaden were…. Complicated. The two had gone from yelling at each other about the supernatural to casually discussing the humanity of the job. By the end of the conversation, Rio wasn’t exactly sure if Kaden hated him or liked him. Rio wasn’t really sure where he landed on the topic either. The uncertainty only worked to make Rio more uncomfortable by the sudden meeting. “I don’t do weapons.” Rio explained, “The last thing I need is to accidentally stab or shoot myself in the woods. I’d be a lost cause.” He already was, honestly.

“I was hunting. The whole fucking point is to be quiet.” Kaden didn’t intend to roll his eyes. Sure fucking happened anyway. “Putain, were you wearing headphones, too? In the woods?” Was he sure he had hunter training? No weapons? Not listening to anything around him? “You may have a point but even Regan carries mace with her. Do you have a death wish or something?” It was hard to reconcile having the powers that they shared and ignoring them, if he was being perfectly honest. At least Rio was useful with all the book learning and research. It was something he could barely tolerate. Only when it was a subject he was sincerely interested in. And hunting through ancient texts for possible mentions of a thing that may or may not be the thing you’re looking for wasn’t the kind of shit that held his interest. “Where are you headed anyway? I know you seem to be doing everything in your power to get yourself killed out here but I’d rather you didn’t.” Who he was hardly mattered. Rio was human and that was more than enough reason for Kaden to make sure the kid lasted the night.

Orion was going to assume that Kaden did not actually want Rio to answer that question about the death wish, “My hunter hearing isn’t… great. I use things to drown out the noise if needed.” Rio admitted. Kaden might be the worst of the hunters that he could have run into tonight. Clearly the two couldn’t agree on… practically anything. As far as Kaden was concerned, Rio’s lack of a handle on his hearing was probably just further proof that he was just one big giant failure. Rio had enough hunters in his life reminding him of that. He didn’t need Kaden adding to the chatter. And in French no less. “And language” Rio mumbled under his breath. Not that mumbling mattered, since Kaden probably had mastered his hunter hearing. He crossed his arms, suddenly nervous that he was out here in the woods with Kaden. He wasn’t afraid that Kaden would hurt him. Kaden seemed way too dedicated to the whole protecting humans thing that hunters used to justify the violence. He was more nervous about whatever Kaden was out here hunting. “Um- Scribe building.” Rio pointed back towards the direction of the building, “I was just grabbing a few things. And now I was heading home. What…” Rio was afraid to ask, “What are you out here looking for?”

Kaden shook his head at the reluctant hunter. “I know you have zero interest in your abilities but you didn’t even get a grip on your hearing? How the fuck have you not gone insane?” He could understand this from someone who didn’t grow up with hunter parents, didn’t know what they were. But he did. Fucking baffling is what it was. He rolled his eyes at the language comment but dropped it. Wasn’t worth it. Though it did make him want to curse even more, had to admit. Of course the kid had come from the library. He should have expected. What was Kaen hunting, though? “I don’t know. Anything,” he said with a shrug. “Didn’t find much yet surprisingly. Missed a shot at a chickcharney earlier but that was about it.” It was strange that he forgot how much this kid was probably going to squirm at the thought of him hurting a single hair on a supernatural creature’s head. “You know, I feel like I should offer to make sure you get home alright. I know how much you love the thought of violence but I know how much I don’t love the thought of you dead for no fucking reason.” Before they could move a foot, there was a low rumble in the distance. Vibrations rippled through the ground. Kaden concentrated and tried to pinpoint the direction of the sound and turned to his left, putting himself between Rio and the potential threat. He reached for the gun again and brought it up, aimed and ready to fire at whatever monster was headed their way.

“I think the jury is still out on whether or not I’ve gone insane.” Orion sighed. He was sure that his parents, and especially his sister thought that Rio was crazy in some capacity. Seeing the incredulous looks that Kaden gave him implied that he probably thought so too. Rio probably was, in some ways. “I wouldn’t exactly call my family’s training conventional. And I wouldn’t call myself a star student or anything.” Maybe Rio should have focused on their teachings a little longer, tried to master the basics before tuning out all of their outdated, cruel teachings. But clearly it was too late now, and he was stuck trying to figure it out on his own. “You really don’t have to do that,” Kaden offered to get Rio home. It was a nice offer, but Rio wasn’t sure why Kaden would offer. Sure, hunter duties and all. But neither of them wanted to be stuck awkwardly talking about how different their lives were. Rio had escaped hearing about his hunter duties once already, no need to go back. But then the ground started shaking. And Kaden reverted back to hunter mode in an instant, gun up and ready to shoot while Rio’s heart exploded in his chest. If the earth weren’t already shaking, he would be. It wasn’t until the ground began rising and taking a form that Rio realized what they were dealing with. Without thinking it through, or maybe because he truly did have a deathwish, Rio forced his body to move, moving in front of Kaden and using his body to block Kaden’s gun pointing towards the creature. “Don’t shoot them!” Rio held his own arms up in surrender. He was confident that Kaden wasn’t going to shoot him. That was why he had jumped in front of Kaden’s gun, right? “It’s a troll. They’re… not dangerous.” Rio stole a glance over his shoulder at the creature. He had read about them a lot. They had drastic size ranges, from tiny to bus sized. This one must be fairly younger, being no larger than a human child. Still, that tiny creature could lift a bus, and they weren’t exactly unknown to target humans. It just wasn’t super common. “Well, I mean they could be dangerous. But we should be fine. If we leave. Because they usually travel together.” As if on cue, that familiar vibration started echoing around the forest again. The creatures, more trolls it looked like, crept from behind a hill, following along a trail of tries that slowly led up to the one that had now noticed Rio and Kaden standing there. Rio was pretty sure those were his friends. And they looked a lot bigger than before.

Before Kaden could make a single move. Rio was practically throwing himself in front of the gun. “Alright we really have to talk about this fucking deathwish of yours,” he snipped. Putain, he nearly missed what was up ahead. It looked like a clump of moving rocks. A lot of moving rocks. “Get out of the way,” he hissed, not lowering the gun just yet. Still, his finger was fully off the trigger; he really didn’t want to accidentally shoot the kid. He hoped the visual threat would be enough. And yet there was no movement on his part. He caught a better look at the monsters with his peripheral vision, his focus stayed on Rio, hoping he’d get the fucking hint and move. They were trolls back there alright. “I know what a troll is. And you want to tell the hunters they’ve crushed to death with rocks how dangerous they aren't?” Honestly, Kaden wasn't sure anymore how many of the stories he'd’ been told among colleagues at hunter bars were true. Looking at them, though? He’d fucking believe it. Just as he was about to yank Rio by his shoulder and force him out of harm’s way, another fucking monster showed up. And then another. And another. Merde. “Move and let me fucking take care of them. Unless you have a better fucking plan. And if so you better start talking. Quick.”

As more and more began to show up, Orion was willing to admit that he was beginning to get a bit more nervous. Not out loud to Kaden of course. The last thing Rio needed was Kaden with those ‘I told you so eyes’ or worse, actually telling him that he told him so. But internally, Rio was able to begin freaking out. But he tried his best to stay calm, even if the shaking hands and quivering voice may or may not work to give it away. “Yeah well- uh trolls are not typically violent. From what I’ve read. So maybe those hunters were attacking them or something. We don’t know.” The sinking feeling in his stomach made it harder to argue. As it was, arguing over his opinions on the supernatural was a lot easier to do online from the safety of his bedroom. Staying calm and level headed seemed a bit more challenging now. “I- uh yes. I do have a plan actually. Just put your gun down. Or point it somewhere else.” Rio swallowed hard. His legs felt like gelatin as he tried to force himself forward. He wobbled, a straight path across the greenery impossible in his current state. But he tried moving with purpose, and his arms raised slightly in the air as if surrendering. “Hey there!” Rio called out to the group, shrinking himself as he stepped closer and closer to the group. “We are not here to hurt you. We were just passing through. We can both head on. Peacefully.” Rio said as loudly as his voice could manage at the moment, hoping his words got to all of the trolls scattered around the duo.

It was hard to tell exactly how the trolls were feeling at the moment. They stared at the hunter as if studying them, but their features were rigid, literally and figuratively. They weren’t easy to read. Finally, the one closest to Rio spoke, “Hun-ter” The voice was deep, methodically spoken and drawn out. It sent a shiver down Rio’s spine. “No!” Rio immediately called out, looking back at Kaden, the freaking gun in his hand a dead giveaway, “No. Just passerbys. No hunting here. I don’t have any weapons. I don’t even like fishing. Too violent.” He laughed nervously, wondering if the trolls understood humor the way that other Fae might. Jury was still out on if Trolls were even considered Fae or not. “I- we are not here to harm you. I just want to go home.”

Not a single fucking moment of this sounded like a good idea. Kaden was pretty sure this was how they got crushed with rocks. But some stupid part of him wanted to trust that the kid was right. If he was right here, maybe he could be-- Not the time, not the place. He remembered Theo’s words, and the words from his training. Uncertainty is death, decision is survival. He put his gun down by his side and was willing to give this shit a chance. Plus, he had a feeling if his weapon was drawn and this went south, the kid would get attacked first. Better to be a little cautious for his sake. It wasn’t like Kaden wasn’t a quick fucking draw either way. The conversation seemed okay at first. Maybe. But the reply of hunter didn’t exactly bode well for them. “Kid. Might be time to back away,” he whispered mostly through his teeth. He had a bad feeling about this. Of course Rio took this as a fucking opportunity to chit chat with the trolls. Bleeding fucking hearts. It was clear they were too dumb for so many words so fast. “Vio-lent? Squishy humans are violent?” it growled. Putain. That sounded bad. Almost like they missed the many other words the kid threw at them. “You try harm troll? You hurt?” Yup. Dumb fucking rocks were not listening to any words other than the not so great ones. Kaden made sure the safety was off and he was ready to shoot at any moment, slowly inching towards Rio to hopefully pull him away the second this went wrong. “Maybe we should just turn around.” Fuck, there were too many of them to fight if this got ugly.

“Tiny hunter no hurt troll!” it yelled out and before Kaden could leap into action, the nearest troll grabbed Rio and threw him like he was nothing more than a rag doll. Fucking hell. Kaden raised his gun and unleashed a few rounds at the trolls but it was doing shit all. Because fucking relicts were the worst. He ran over to see if the kid was okay. Fuck, they were fucked. One of the rocked fists reached out and grabbed his ankle. Kaden kicked out with his free leg, hearing the crunching of his shoes against the rock, not sure that it did much. Especially with its friends descending.

For how slow the trolls seemed to lug around the forest, they sure could throw people quickly. Before Orion could react, the troll in front of him had latched onto his clothes. He didn’t have much time to try to pull himself free before the troll had flicked him through the air as if he was no lighter than a tic tac. It all came to a screeching halt when Rio collided with the tree. All the air rushed out of his body and was replaced with searing pain. His nerves went haywire, and he was pretty sure he heard something cracking. The pain only got worse once he completed the fall and smacked hard against the ground, his back breaking the fall. Everything hurt. He tried pushing himself off the ground and his chest did not want to cooperate. Every breath felt like something sharp was piercing his lungs. Ribs. Something may actually be piercing his lungs. He was able to push himself up enough to drag his legs under his body and push up to his knees. Where was Kaden? He spotted him, heading towards Rio. Rio sighed in relief, flinching from the pain it caused in his chest. Kaden was coming to help. The two could get away. But then Kaden fell. No, Kaden was grabbed. Rocks were pulling at Kaden’s ankle, knocking him to the ground and starting to drag him.

Rio forced himself to move forward. He had trained with broken ribs before. This should be nothing by now. Whether or not Rio regretted what he tried to do didn’t matter. He was the reason Kaden was in trouble now. Rio searched desperately for something that he could use to help Kaden get free. Maybe there was still time for the two to escape. Rio ducked down and picked up a large rock from beside a tree. Fight fire with fire or something like that, Rio supposed. He stumbled his way through the forest until he could finally get to the troll that was holding onto Kaden’s leg. Rio fell back into his knees and smashed the rock against the troll’s arm, hoping to hurt it enough to let go of Kaden’s leg. “Let. Him. Go!” Rio yelled, one word for each swing. His voice was hoarse, it came out as barely more than a whisper. But it wasn’t working. The body was too hard. And Rio was panicking. Until he remembered the stomach area. The idea of hurting the troll still made Rio sick to his stomach, even now. But the pain from hitting the true drowned out the nausea. Turning the rock so that there were no jagged edges, Rio swung the rock one last time at the stomach, jabbing the troll in the stomach and sending him tumbling backwards. Rio allowed himself a moment of triumph that Kaden had been freed before a troll grabbed Rio from behind and began dragging him backwards.

Shit, Rio looked like he was in pretty bad shape. It was lucky he had hunter genes or else Kaden was pretty fucking sure he’d be a lot worse for wear. Or at the very least, less prepared to deal with the pain. If they had to run, though, they were clearly fucked. “Get out I’ve got th—“ he started to shout, but there was the kid, coming to help anyway. Putain, he was hoping he’d have one less factor to worry about.

Kaden kicked and trashed his feet to try and break free, but it wasn’t doing any good. Rio’s swinging didn’t make much difference either. Until he gut punched the troll with a rock. Alright then. Kaden pulled his foot free and scrambled back. Only Rio didn’t exactly think to do the same. Fuck. Kaden stood and tried to take aim again. No clear opening. If he shot, there was no way to be sure he wouldn’t hit the kid. “Let him go!” he shouted at the troll. “Tiny hunter hurt Borg. Both hurt tiny hunter.” Kaden had no advantage here that he could see. Other than… He took a shot at one of the other trolls genius Borg, aimed for the squishier looking stomach. It growled in pain. “Let the tiny hunter go and we walk away or big hunter will keep shooting.” Another one of the trolls lunged out at Kaden, this time he kneed it in his guts before reaching back for his knife, pushing it right up against the beast’s belly as he reached around to try and headlock the thing. One slice and the troll would be toast. “What do you say, Borg? Yours for mine?” He kept the knife digging, small pinpricks of troll blood spilling out. This better fucking work. He was running out of plans.

Orion couldn’t break free. The troll had hold of the back of Rio’s sweater, dragging him through the woods. His body caught on rocks and branches, stabbing into his back and legs as his own sweater choked him. The troll’s rocky hands dig into his back as he was pulled backwards. Eventually, the grip on Rio’s sweater was loosened, but before Rio could scramble away a fist came down on him. It smacked against his face, crushing his head against the ground and ricocheting off of the hardened dirt. His head felt like someone just hit him with a rock, which he supposed was the case. Hot liquid dropped down his cheek and he could taste the metallic sting of blood as it dropped between his lips. He coughed it free immediately, a mixture of spit and blood pooling beneath him. The punch had split his cheek open, Rio could tell that much without even seeing it.

The troll grabbed onto Rio’s wrist next, squeezing it tightly and twisting it upwards, forcing Rio to follow its direction. He sat there, right arm raised in the troll’s grasp and facing towards Kaden. Rio was shaking, minutes away from full on tears, but he begged himself to stop the tears from coming. Not now. Not in front of Kaden. Kaden bartered for him, threatening another troll for the release of Rio. “Please let me go. Please” Rio begged. His voice was whiny and came out scratchy. He was so freaking pathetic and useless. He had gotten Kaden into this situation. If he had only come up with a better idea. Something not as stupid as begging for safety. As if any troll would have believed that coming from a hunter anyways. Rio used his free arm to feel around the ground, looking for anything he might be able to use to break himself free. “Big hunter lie.” The troll yelled to Kaden. Rio’s hand finally caught on something, a piece of a branch maybe? It was jagged and jabbed into Rio’s hand as grabbed onto it. Rio hissed in pain, pulling his hand back before going back for it more gently this time. His fingers just barely reached it. He stretched his hand as far as it could go and used the tips of his fingers to slowly start pulling the branch closer to him.

Some of the other trolls joined in on the yelling. Rio’s head was swimming, but he could tell that they weren’t positive. They didn’t want them to get away. “Kill tiny hunter” the troll spoke. His grip tightened on Rio’s wrist and he cringed in fear. This was it. Rio was going to die. Killed by the trolls in some horrible misunderstanding. His hand tightened against the wood. What did he intend to do with this? Hurt the troll? Kill it? Was Rio even capable of that? Or was he better to just let himself get killed? “Kill big hunter next” the troll stated, matter-of-fact. If they killed Rio, would Kaden leave or try to kill them all? Would Rio get him killed too? The troll’s hand switched again, wrapping around Rio’s neck and squeezing. He couldn’t breath. Now or never. Now or never. Rio pulled the branch up and swung it behind him as powerfully as he could. He knew he hit his target. When the grip on his neck didn’t lighten, Rio twisted his arm, snapping the branch off and using the shortened piece to stab again. And then one more time. Finally, Rio could breathe again and he tore the arm off of him, refusing to look back as he threw his body forward and started to run back towards Kaden.

The more Rio was injured, the more Kaden could feel his blood boil. He had no idea if the kid saw it that way or not, but Kaden knew point blank they were dealing with monsters. He’d fucking kill every single one of them without hesitation if he could do so without jeopardizing Rio’s safety even more. “I’m n-- I’m telling the truth!” Kaden almost said he wasn’t lying but it seemed the trolls weren’t good with negatives, only the main words being said. “Let him go!” he yelled again. “We’ll fucking leave just let--” The troll didn’t fucking stop, just kept dragging the kid and Kaden could barely concentrate beyond the pounding of his pulse in his ear. He had to stop this but he couldn’t get a shot in, there was still no safe opening. Every time he thought there was, another twist and turn.

“No!” he shouted at the troll’s yelling and ran up to the monster as soon as he saw the rock hands clasp around Rio’s neck. As soon as he tried to get close, another troll cut him off. It reached to grab his arm and Kaden twisted away, shooting at it, not hitting a whole hell of a lot that was significant. The monster got his leg again instead, but this time Kaden knew what to do. He unleashed the rounds into the stomach and the troll growled and wailed, collapsing in a rock heap. Kaden wriggled and struggled to get his leg out from under the previously living boulder. Shit, shit shit, was he dead? Was Rio dead? There’s no way he-- He couldn’t hear past his own panic and breathing as he scrambled to get up, get his gun aimed again. Just in time to see the monster fall forward. Putain. He did it. He was a hunter. For a whole two seconds. Fuck.

Kaden didn’t waste a moment and rushed over to the “tiny hunter’s” side, dragging him away from the other trolls as soon as he could. Some of them had shambled away at the sound of gunshots earlier and the sight of their fallen companions. “Hunters bad! Hunters kill Borg and Trag!” the others bellowed as they turned away. “Yeah we fucking did! And we’ll kill the rest of you two if you don’t let us leave. So back off!” Kaden’s voice was pure venom and anger. It was enough. Whatever it was, it was enough to make them turn back and let the humans shuffle away. “We come back. We kill hunters if see again! We kill you!” the last one grumbled though rock.

Everything felt distant. Orion felt himself being pulled again, just barely registering that it was Kaden this time. And he was yelling… something? But Rio couldn’t focus long enough to understand the words. There was a loud humming noise in the back of his head that drowned out everything else. All Rio could do was stare at one single spot on the ground. His feet began moving on their own, following Kaden who seemed to be leading him through the forest. Or were they still in the same clearing they had been during the attack? Rio couldn’t tell anymore. He could barely feel the pain in his chest or wrist or head. All he could think about was all the blood on his hand. He could hear it dripping onto the ground. Some of the blood was his, probably. But most of it… He had killed that troll. Rio was a murderer. Just like his parents.

When Rio finally broke out of the trance he had been in, it was to finally start sobbing. His legs gave out on him and he found himself on his knees on the ground, a blubbering mess as he tried and failed to choke back the hysterical sobbing. He knew he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t know why he even tried. Probably because he was embarrassed that Kaden was here to see it. “I’m sorry!” Rio coughed through the tears. The pain came back, and every single breath reminded him of the pain some broken ribs could bring. “I’m so sorry.” He wasn’t sure who he was talking to at the moment. Kaden? Or the troll he had just killed? A mix of both, most likely. “This is all my fault. We could have avoided that if-” He cut himself off. Kaden didn’t need a reminder of how badly Rio had screwed up. And now Kaden was hurt. And trolls were dead. Rio noticed Kaden’s limp, but was too afraid to ask him how badly he was injured. Rio couldn’t take that guilt. He felt sick to his stomach, bile rose in his throat but Rio forced it back down. He grabbed onto his chest and tried desperately to quell some of the stinging pain, but all he could do was cry and cry. “I did this. I killed them.” His voice was nothing more than a whispered cry at this point. How did hunters do this? Rio felt like his entire life was coming to an end.

Once Kaden could help pick Rio up off the floor, they started hobbling away. Kaden did what he could to help, but he seemed okay enough to walk and it also looked like he needed a moment. Shaken probably didn’t begin to cover it. They were making their way back towards town, very slowly, the long way around to boot, but they would get there eventually. Kaden heard a collapse into the ground and whipped around to check on Rio, make sure he hadn’t passed out or hurt himself to the point he couldn’t carry on. From what he could see, it wasn’t the physical pain that brought him to his knees.

Every instinct from his training told him to be harsh. To tell him to suck it up, stand up, and keep moving. That was how you survived. Shit was hard but you killed the monsters and moved on, saved your pain and your tears for your pillow if you let them plague you at all. That’s what his training said he should do. But looking at Rio there on the ground, clearly broken hearted and in pain over whatever the fuck had just happened back there, the words caught in his throat. He couldn’t say them. But he sure as shit didn’t know what else to say. It didn’t make sense to him to cry over a few dead trolls. They were monsters. Maybe the next passers by in the woods would be a little safer. Something dropped in his stomach at the thought. Some small piece of him knew that wasn’t exactly true. Those trolls were angrier now and likely more of a threat to humans now then they had been a few minutes ago. He really should have found a way to kill them all.

Kaden stood and watched a few moments, let him figure it out or whatever, then out out his hand to help him up. No part of him could remember what he really felt after his first kill. It was so long ago now, he was only ten. He remembered the fear, though. The fear of dying and the panic when that fight or flight moment kicked into overdrive. The moment no amount of training could possibly prepare you for, no matter what anyone said. His parents had been proud. Even when offering their critique for next time. And what should have been a beginning felt like an end in a way. An end of choice. Or something like that.

He couldn’t say for sure what Rio was feeling right now exactly, but he figured there was some overlap or two. And no part of him could bring himself to tell the kid how to feel. “Was this your first time? Killing anything? In the field?” It was hard to imagine a hunter with parents like his refusing for this long. If that was true, he had to be used to immense pain. Kaden wasn’t sure where that pain would be coming from exactly, but he knew it was there at the end of a refusal to hunters like that. He just knew.

Orion expected to be belittled. To be yelled at or made fun of or something. Anything to bring back some sense of familiarity. But this was all new territory. Something was dead by Rio’s own hands. In just a few seconds, that troll had taken its last breath. Rio had stolen that from the creature. But Kaden let him have this moment. Rio wasn’t forced to listen someone berating him or telling him everything he had been wrong. Or even worse than that, risk his parents actually being proud of him for something. If they ever knew about this, what would they think? Rio would rather risk their insults anyday. Nothing could be worse than feeling for a second that he was like them. “It- I killed a stupid mime once, but-” That hadn’t been real. It had exploded into smoke afterwards, and then again with Winston’s. It wasn’t anymore more than some illusion or clone. “Not like this. Those things disappeared after they died. They weren’t alive. This-” He had stopped from crying, finally. And he accepted Kaden’s hand when it was offered to him. His entire body ached. All he wanted was to go to sleep. Could he even sleep, after what he had done? “You saved me. I got us into that but you still saved me.” He had no idea where he was going with that. He didn’t have it in him to thank Kaden, the murder was still too fresh. So he simply stated it as fact. “Can you- take me home? I don’t think I can drive right now.”

Kaden sincerely couldn’t imagine growing up in a hunter household and never killing one single thing. He was fairly certain he’d have been disowned by his own parents a hell of a lot sooner if that had been the case. “Right. The fucking mimes. Well, I had to kill mine twice. Or well, it was killed twice. I fucked up and let someone else get the killing blow the first time. Guess you really are smarter than I am.” Once Rio was up and standing, he waited a second until they walked again. So taking away life was his hang up? It was hard to argue with that. More and more, Kaden was starting to feel a bit more like a harbinger of death than his banshee girlfriend. The only thing people ever asked him for help with seemed to be killing shit. Alright, maybe that was unfair, but it was most people’s first thoughts all the same. “What, did you think I was going to leave you there?” He gave a small shrug, wanting to brush it off. Thanks and gratitude in any form weren’t something he was ever good at fielding. He was just doing what he was supposed to the best that he could. And he hadn’t done a stellar job of it today, as far as he was concerned. If the kid didn’t have hunter healing, he would have insisted that they go to the hospital. But as it stood, he knew Rio was familiar enough with pain management if not the rest of the hunter benefits package. “Yeah, I can do that. As long as you promise to be more careful next time you’re out here by yourself, got it?”

#wickedswriting #writing #chatzy #3starsquinn #orion

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friedengineeryouth-blog1 · 4 years

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7 Work from Home Essentials

Working from home used to be a dream for a lot of 9 to 5 jobholders before, but if you ask them now — the story is quite different.

Remote work is always a double-edged sword. It can be a good thing and it also can be a bad thing. The two foremost things you need to keep in mind are productivity and health while you are working from home.

Both are very important for your work and both go hand in hand. Hence, here is a list of seven essential things you need to have at your home.

Let’s dive in…

Essential Items:

Dedicated workspace

A comfortable chair

Armor laptop radiation pad

Noise-cancelling headphones

A reliable and fast internet connection

Project Management Software

Solid keyboard, mouse, and monitor

#1 Dedicated Workspace

If you are like me, it is very easy to overlook this simple but effective tool. Trust me, I have experienced a lot of struggles just because of an uncomfortable workspace. An effective workspace can impact you in a lot more ways than you can imagine.

Workspace may not look significant but think of your office atmosphere and why it makes you work. Yes, it looks professional and is a soothing environment at the same time.

Due to its serene surroundings, you don’t feel any negative vibe around your workspace and it lets you work without distractions. Hence, try to create a workspace that replicates your office environment. Keep it clean, keep it organized, and keep it functional.

In short, keep a clutter-free environment.

#2 A comfortable chair

Time and time again, I’ve noticed that having a great chair is crucial to being productive. A comfortable chair doesn’t make you feel uneasy while doing your work.

Also, your back, arms rest, and comfortable height are all significant while you are doing your work. Make sure you have a comfortable seat so that you can work properly and be productive at home

Most of all, a comfortable chair is great for your body.

#3 Armor

If you are working on your laptop for long hours, it is most likely that you are going to face a lot of health issues in the future. Laptops not only emit heat but also emit some harmful radiation.

I have been constantly worried about my health due to this very reason. Recent studies go on to show that radiation from laptops can lead to several health issues, some even as serious as infertility in men and miscarriages in women.

So, I have now decided to buy one good Armor that can shield the laptop from emitting harmful radiation and heat.

Working in front of a laptop for a major portion of our day is exhausting, to say the least. Therefore, it is very important to take care of your health.

#4 Noise-canceling headphones

One of the hardest things at home is probably working without any disturbances. We all know the home environment is entirely different compared to the office. In this case, it is important to make your environment as noise-free as possible.

I, for one, consistently faced this issue time and time again during this pandemic period. In fact, it not only wasted my time but also affected my work.

I am a person who is very conscious of my work. It is not that I want perfection, but I want some quality. There is no point if you do work for the sake of it.

The work should be a testament to your character. Whenever someone sees your work, instantly that particular person needs to realize that it is your work. It is like creating a brand for your work.

Hence, I suggest, noise-canceling headphones as a valuable addition to your work from home essentials that guide you to excellency. The thing is that they not only provide soothing surroundings but also let you work efficiently.

#5 A reliable and fast internet connection

This goes without saying. We all know how important it is to have a good and fast internet. The internet is probably the lifeline of any type of online work today. Don’t we all get impatient when we lose our internet connection for even a couple of minutes?

A good internet not only enhances your productivity but also allows you to work faster so that you can save your time.

#6 Project Management Software

Sometimes working from home can be difficult due to the volume of work. If you have deadlines for a project, then it is important to keep track of it and work on projects that are the main priority so that you won’t finish the project late and irritate the client.

Oftentimes, there might be some requirements to be included in the project. If you have too many requirements for the project — more often than not, you are going to forget the requirements due to so many projects that are on the line to complete.

In that situation, a project management software is a very useful tool to keep track of everything you are doing and not miss a thing.

Plus, you can draw a chart of what you should do every day, every week, every month, and if possible, every year so that you will know what your goals are and what you want to learn and what you want to achieve in your career.

#7 Solid keyboard, mouse and monitor

All three are indispensable to your work from home journey. This might be as important as a fast and reliable internet. If you have internet but not a good keyboard, mouse, and monitor means — you cannot do your work without any of these.

Invest some money in all these three items so that it’s durable rather than just for a short period of time. You will realize the value of it as time progresses.

So, invest some good amount of money in all these three items for better results, but don’t overdo it because ultimately, it depends on the requirement of your job. If you are a graphic designer, it is reasonable to go for a higher definition monitor rather than a less expensive one. Hence, invest the money according to your need.

Final Words

Today we are living in an uncertain reality, a lot has changed during this pandemic period, especially in conceiving the work from home jobs. Those early morning wake-ups, commuting daily on a bus/vehicle/metro, or whatever it is — There was some sort of order in doing it even when you don’t like doing it every day.

Yes, it was very hard. Daily you have to wake up pretty early and get ready for breakfast and take the bus/metro/vehicle for transportation, but remember, it was still a good feeling to do things in order.

Due to the pandemic, everyone has missed those things, especially going out. Yes, you can go outside now with some relaxation in the lockdown, but it is still not as safe as earlier.

But during this lockdown period, everyone realized it is not that easy to do work from home. Mainly, it is due to the absence of an office-like atmosphere.

I don’t blame anyone for this. Yes, working from home indeed has some shortcomings to it — but is it really that bad? I don’t think so.

If you can manage the above seven essential things at home then you will be good to go and you will also start appreciating the work from home option again.

I want to end this article with a slogan — work hard, work smart, and get the work done.

All the Best!

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joaquinbumblebee24 · 5 years

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Onslaught 1/11

Onslaught

Paring: House/Wilson Established

Timeline/Summary: Alternate timeline June 2019, A conference and a storm would change the trajectory of House’s life forever. Adventure, Love, Autistic!House

Inspired By: J_Baillier: Where The Streets Has No Name, a Sherlock fanfic

Authors notes

House and Wilson would be of the same age, they would be around 38. Like in the original pitch.

Infarction never happened. Autism is his Achilles heel instead. In this story, House had what you call Hypotonia (low muscle tone.) He would need a cane for long distances.

The team is Foreman, Cameron, Chase and Hadley.

I am Filipino, and the place where I would be dropping the boys is in my father’s hometown, of Liliw four hours drive from the capital of the country, Manila. Liliw is a third- class municipality in the foot of a mountain called Banahaw.

I am writing this story, because I want to practice the descriptive part of writing.

11 chapters

Chapter 1

***

Dr. James Evan Wilson, the head of oncology, of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, was called to the office of Dr. Lisa Cuddy. “You called?” He said when he popped his head on the door frame.

“I need to talk to you?” Cuddy said, standing up and crossing her arms.

“I heard,” Wilson said sardonically, sitting down.

She took a deep breath and sat down herself opposite him. “I need you to convince House to go to this conference in the Philippines on infectious Diseases.”

“No, why not asked Nolo or Jacobson from Infectious Disease, they are the best at what they do.”

“I might not admit it out loud,” said Cuddy, exasperated. “Gregory House is the best infectious Disease specialist in this whole wide world.”She said the last words with a childish tone.

“No,” Wilson rolled his eyes. “You called. you know why it’s not a very good idea to bring him to another country, Cuddy.”

Cuddy frowned. “Why? Because of autism? He seems fine to me..”

Wilson wanted to smack her, she is so dense sometimes. “Cuddy— You don’t understand. He won’t go.”

“Wilson, He needs to go. If he doesn’t go, I’ll fire him.”

“You can’t do that, Cuddy.” When he looked at Cuddy’s face, he didn’t see a bluff.

“You mean, you're serious.”

Cuddy sighed and fished out papers from the desk and handed it to Wilson. ‘The New Jersey Medical Board would revoke his license because he doesn’t go to conferences. Wilson. He needs to go.”

Wilson knew that because of the autism and House’s social anxiety, His spouse literally felt sick while talking to big groups. However, if it would prevent him from being fired, then he would convince him to go. “Please talk to them, Lisa. Please bumped his schedule speeches to the first day.”

“Deal,” Cuddy said.

Wilson sighed, “Now the hard part.” Wilson muttered under his breath. He stood up and left.

****

House was at his office when Wilson passed just before lunchtime. The diagnostician was playing with his ball, tossing it back and forth. Wilson examined his face for a couple of moments, he looked peaceful. The case was going fine, or as fine as an undiagnosed patient was. “Greg?” Wilson said, and the ball stopped.

“Uh… Sorry, bit distracted.” House sighed. “How can I help you?” He said, though he couldn’t understand sarcasm, he used it well.

“You need to eat,” Wilson said. He knew that House didn’t eat until forced to. His executive function was nonexistent; his self-preservation gone.

“Yes, It's lunchtime.” He stood up and walked toward the door. “I want to go to lunch elsewhere.”

“McDonald’s?”House nodded. There was a Mcdonald's outside the hospital, which they often frequented,

They walked from the elevator; and thru the main door. As soon as House ventured to the busy restaurant, it became overwhelming for him. He almost put his hand in his ear. He had forgotten to bring his noise-canceling headphones from the hospital.

The urge for him to flee the area kicked in. “This isn’t very beneficial," House said, Meanwhile, his spouse was ordering their food. House hummed the theme from Star Wars while drumming his fingers on his crossed arm. He was stimming.

A five-year-old boy approached House. “Your weird; what is wrong with you?” The mother chastised the young boy when House’s humming became louder as if he was reaffirming his belief that there was nothing wrong with him.

Beside him, Wilson noticed and paid House no mine. Because he needed to do those things sometimes, hence the ‘thinking ball.’ He finished paying for what they ordered.

House led Wilson out away from the noise of the fast-food joint; luckily for him, there was a small courtyard outside. “Is there something you want to talk to me about?”

“Why would you say that?” Wilson asked. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he was.

House sighed. “You only go to lunch when you want to ask me something or to talk other important reason.” He said picking up a chicken nugget and putting it in his mouth.

Wilson sighed as well, looking at House. “Lisa called up to her office, and we have…. A chat…”

Narrowing his eyes in suspicion, House said; “I did nothing wrong.” He splayed his hands up in surrender.

“Greg, Your license is due for renewal this year, and you hadn’t gone to a single medical conference….”

House’s breathing picked up. He started to hum and rock back and forth. He was remembering a past that stayed hidden in his life except for Wilson. Growing up with a marine fighter pilot father, every time they would leave one country for another, the change of time zone and weather would be hell on him. As an adult, House hated routine. However, he hated to be apart from his piano, guitars, and his motorbike for even a couple of hours.

“Hey? Greg?” Wilson said, circling the table to come to him. He knew that House loved deep-pressured hugs. “Are you alright?”

House scolds his face to an inscrutable mask. “I am fine. where is it?” The tremble of his hand bellied his panic.

“In the Philippines, I have no details yet, Greg.”

“Okay, I can’t let Father win. If I didn't do this the medical board would revoke my license, right?”

Wilson nodded. “You need to eat more, You just ate a chicken nugget.” Then House’s pager went off. “Who is that?”

“Chase,” House said, moving towards the street.“Tell, Cuddy I want to go there.”

Wilson smiled, but the lingering thoughts were still in his head.

*** Wilson followed his partner out to the hospital. But He went to Cuddy’s office. It was good that she didn’t have a visitor. “Lisa,” Wilson said. “When and where is this conference on?”

“You chat with him. Seat down, James.” Wilson sat down opposite Cuddy’s chair.

Wilson nodded. “Yeah, I want to put on the record; that Greg was on the verge of a panic attack earlier,” Wilson said.

“Yes, You can’t protect him from the world,” Cuddy said sardonically.

Wilson glared at her. “You have no idea how much he'd worked to be ‘normal,’ do you? Cuddy didn’t reply, instead, she handed him an envelope. Wilson opened it. He read the information; it would be for four days in July. However, House needed to acclimatized to his surroundings. “We need to be there a week or two before the conference.”

“James?” Cuddy said, with an angry frown. “You’re not coming.”

“But Why?” Wilson stood up; and began pacing. “Lisa, You know him. He doesn't eat on time. How can I just sent him on a plane; and just hoped that he ate? He has autism.”

Cuddy wanted to argue more with Wilson. However, She knew not to. House’s functioning level is that of a 12-year-old boy. He may be a genius in Music, Medicine, and Motorsports, but in many ways, he was still a child. “Okay, you will be on vacation leave.”

“Fine. Get us first-class seats.”

“Already did, for him. I’ll get you one.”

“Thank you, Lisa.”

***

House was home late, he’d driven his motorbike in to work; It wasn't advisable, because of his issues with inattention associated with the ASD. He could drive for heaven's sake!!. This morning Jimmy informed him that they would be going to the Philippines for a conference, at first he was angry because this was being forced on him; however, He loved the Philippines, being back there with Wilson; it would be a bonus.

His family lived in the country for almost five years, the longest time they had, from when he was nine years old until he was fourteen. They had lived in a base, but because it wasn’t a war zone, he and his mother could go to civilian zones, where he met locals.

House entered their bedroom, he knew that Wilson was already asleep in his side of the bed. He could wake him if he wanted to. He decided not to, they had a tiring day. House sat on the bed, the bed dipped, Jimmy stirred. “Go back to bed.”

Wilson woke up fully. “Greg, What time is it?”

“Eleven. Maybe eleven-thirty.”

“What time did you get home?” Wilson asked, turning on the light.

House rolled his eyes. “I can ride perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

Wilson knew not to dignify that quip. “You eat already?”

“No, nothing since three, I am busy, finishing up the Johnston case.”

“Greg,” Wilson said, swinging his legs up. “You need to eat. I’ll make you something, Burrito?”

House nodded his head. They headed to the kitchen, where Wilson made House dinner. Deciding against drinking coffee, Wilson made a glass of milk instead.

“Still have a beer?”

“We have apple cider.” House nodded, he ate in silence.

Wilson watched him eat. Remembering the conversation with Cuddy earlier, how could she suggest that House can manage the four days; House didn’t eat; if he could help it. He needed to have a reminder constantly to eat or to go drink. One time he had left for a conference, he got home to the apartment a mess. House was spinning on the desk chair. When he approached House, his partner looked annoyed. House hadn’t eaten in two days. Wilson vowed to not leave House alone overnight.

“Jimmy? You okay?” House asked, looking at him thoughtfully.

Wilson nodded. “I have an annoying chat with Cuddy,” He needed tread very carefully here. “I want to accompany you in the Philippines. She said no for some reason.” Wilson didn’t elaborate on what Cuddy told him.

House’s breathing picked up a bit. Wilson hugged him; and kissed him from behind. “Bedroom, now,” House told Wilson, they walked to the bedroom arm over shoulders.

End of chapter 1

#House MD #House/Wilson #medical conferences #Philippines #Greg House #James Wilson #House MD Fan fiction

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mysweetestcreature · 7 years

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Wish Upon A Star (StepBro!Harry) Part VI

Part V

***

Present Day: Six Years Later

“Look, I don’t care what Clintworth wants, the budget is the budget. So, you can tell him that it just can’t be done,” she slams the handset back on the base. She leans over to prop her elbows on the surface of the desk and brings her fingers up to soothe her temples. It’s April, and the marketing department has already hired their quota of new strategists for the season. However, the bloody head insists on taking in more than their budget permits. “Stubborn Americans,” she grumbles to herself.

After graduation, Y/n had been offered a job at one of the fastest rising corporations in New York. In just eighteen months, she managed to rise in the ranks to executive accountant. It’s a true testament to how much one can achieve with grueling nights of overtime and coffee running through the bloodstream.

With a loud sigh, Y/n grabs her purse and coat, and pushes out the doors of her office, “I’m going out to lunch. If I have any messages, write it down and put it on my desk, yeah?” she calls to her assistant as she heads straight for the elevator. “Thanks, Miguel,” she winks.

The weather is beginning to shift to higher temperatures after having suffered through a ghastly winter. She enjoys the moments when she’s able to walk through her city rather than having to hail for a cab. It’s true what they had told her before, the energy here is an incomparable force, and to think she almost ran away from it all. Truth be told, she hasn’t been home in over three years. There’s nothing there for her anymore, all that she could ever want is all right here.

The money she’s making at work is decent enough that she’s able to afford a nice apartment on the Upper West Side. From her bedroom window, is a nice view of the Hudson. The thought that at twenty-four, she’s able to live such a lifestyle, still baffles her. Although, she has gotten accustomed to the nightlife that surrounds the area, it’s rather enjoyable.

On special occasion, like when she’s sick of reading through all the financial reports that seem to pile high on her desk every day, she’ll call up either Anne or Eric for a few minute’s chat. They’d recently sold the house in Holmes Chapel and are now living in Camden. The decision was brought about when Eric was promoted to lead the London office, and he just couldn’t refuse such an offer.

Her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket and she smiles when she sees who it is. “Hey there,” she flirtatiously greets.

“Someone’s running a bit late,” the person on the other end says. She giggles into the phone as she rounds the corner of 51st.

“I’m walking into the restaurant as we speak. I can even see you right now!” she hangs up her phone and strolls over to the man dressed in the fitted navy-blue suit. He smirks when he sees her approaching and opens his arms out for her to enter. The man kisses her on the cheek before pulling out the chair for her to sit in.

“I see you decided to walk here,” he teases. “How’s work?” he asks while he glances over the menu.

She places the folded napkin in her lap and does the same. “Nothing out of the ordinary, it would just bore you,” she shrugs off.

“Dollface,” he reaches for her hand across the table, “you could never bore me.” She looks up from reading the mouthwatering description of the taglierini to smile at him.

“If you’re that curious, I’ve practically been breathing down marketing’s necks,” she says lightly.

He chuckles and kisses her knuckles, “It’s what you’re best at.” She playfully shoves at him before pulling her hand away.

“I resent that, William!” he lifts his hands up in mock surrender.

They had met during her last year at NYU. He was in one of the major business-exclusive fraternities and had bumped into her at one of their parties. At first, she didn’t think anything of him, but he was persistent and pursued her. It took about three months before she accepted to go on a date with him. One night out turned into frequent evenings spent walking through Central Park, and the rest is history.

***

He tilts his head up and studies the way the wall is being painted. As he takes a closer look, he notices the air bubbles forming just above the arch. “Repaint this part when you get the chance, will you, Tony?” he orders. He waits for Tony to give him a salute before continuing to supervise the rest of the crew.

This is Harry’s biggest project to date. A social networking company based in America had acquired him to design the plans for their new London branch. They’ve made quite the wave in the recent years, and Harry was honored to take on such a job.

Upon completion of his education, he’d been contracted by his place of internship to be a full-time architect. Harry has quickly become one of the most requested, and soon he’ll be eyeing a position as a partner. While he may be a bit young for that, if this project goes off without a hitch, he’s guaranteed for early consideration.

His mum says he works too much and complains that he never visits them enough. He tries to see them at least twice a month, but it seems like he’s always got stuff to do, or so he tells them. Anne’s tried to set him up on dates with daughters of friends she’s made. None of them are of major interest to him. Relationships in general aren’t of any interest.

Some would say he’s married to his job, and they’re probably right. Even while at university, Harry had poured his all into his school work. He considered everything around him to be a distraction, and he would only make time for social activity once he was sure to be at least two weeks ahead of deadlines.

***

Age 20:

It’s a Friday night, and everyone in the dorms is out drinking, or partying, or both. Harry has his headphones on to cancel out the noise while he focuses on completing a blueprint which isn’t due for another week. His professor has been quite impressed with him, and he’s even offering him a student internship at his firm.

Harry pretends that he doesn’t see his door open, and he chooses to ignore the blonde that waltzes over to him. He sighs when she takes off his headphones and insists on sitting in his lap.

“Where’ve you been all week?” she questions, as she attempts to discreetly shove her breasts in his face. “I’ve missed you,” she huskily whispers in his ear. He can’t help the way his eyes roll in annoyance. He had shagged her a few days ago while under the influence of some concoction one of his mates had given him. She had been giving him suggestive looks all night, before he thought ‘fuck it’ and let her take him back to her room.

Although, he thought he’d seen the last of her when he’d left once she’d fallen asleep. The one-night stands had become his thing, and they were to remain just that. So, as this girl—whose name he can’t for the life of him remember—is disturbing him from his assignment, well, it just won’t do.

“Look…Tessa, I had a great time the other night, really I did, but I’m not exactly looking for anything more right now,” he says and does his best to politely shove her the fuck off him.

“Excuse me? It’s Monica, you dick!” she responds, looking fully offended. He throws her an unconcerned look, and she storms out of the room.

He sits back in his chair and breathes out in relief.

***

Present Day:

When she finally gets home, she opens up a bottle of wine and pours a glass for her and William. He’s making her dinner tonight, having left work early. For the last month or two, he’s been hinting at wanting to move in. She first noticed when he asked her if she wanted him to make space in his closet for her clothes. It’s a sweet gesture, but Y/n doesn’t know if she’s ready for that kind of commitment, or if she’ll ever be ready to take that next step.

“I’ve got some exciting news for you,” he calls to her from his place in front of the stove.

She takes a sip from her wine, “Do tell.”

William stirs the vegetables around in the saucepan and puts the heat on low. “I’ve got business matters to attend to in London, so I have to fly out there in a few weeks. Since you’re from there and all, I was hoping that you’d want to come with me?” he grins at her.

“First of all, I’m from Manchester,” she pokes him in the side, “and…I don’t know, Will. I’ve got work and you know they can’t function without me.”

He dismisses her with a wave of his hand, “I told you, you should just come work for me. I can pay you double than what they’re paying you now.” Her cheeks suck inwards, not this conversation again. Not wanting to ruin the mood, she brushes it off. “I can finally meet your parents. You said they live around the area, right?”

“Yeah, but my dad-”

“Great! I’ll book our flight after dinner,” he cuts her off and goes back to his cooking. Y/n leans back against the counter, in distress.

***

“You’re really coming here? To London?” Carrie’s voice booms through the phone. After their meal, Y/n had faked drowsiness in order to get William to leave. She submerged herself in a hot bath before calling up her friend.

“Apparently. The new branch is about to open up and he wants me to come along,” she mutters.

“Well it can’t be that dreadful.”

A sarcastic laugh echoes through the bathroom, “Trust me, it can. He wants to meet my parents.”

The line is silent for a moment, “Is that a bad thing? I mean you’ve been with the guy for, what? Two, three years?”

“I just don’t think I’m ready for him to meet everyone,” Her leg splashes out of the water, and she watches the suds flow down her skin.

“And by everyone, you mean him, don’t you?” Her heart drops at the mention of him.

“Of course not, it’s been six years…” she sighs. And in those six years, she hasn’t spoken to him once. She hadn’t come home for Christmas break that first year, and he’d been gone for the entire summer holiday. He has an Instagram, but rarely ever uses it, so she’s pretty much in the dark in everything concerning him. Although, the few pictures he has from a few years ago—wow. If she thought he was gorgeous before, it’s rather frustrating how he’s just…unreal.

“Then get your arse back here! If you’re really over him, it won’t be a problem, yeah?”

Her body further immerses itself into the bath. From what her mum had told her over the phone, he rarely sees them anymore. Too busy with his job and whatnot. She thinks carefully about this, what are the odds that they’ll even see each other? London is such a big city, it can’t be that hard to avoid someone.

***

Harry is lying face down on the bed when his phone rings. He reads the caller ID and immediately picks up. “Yes, Mr. Schwartz,” he answers, the naked body next to him slings an arm over his back. He carefully picks it off before pulling the covers off. “I’ve got my people doing the finishing touches.” The voice on the other line continues to babble on, and quite pretentiously at that.

“Ok, I’ll be sure to contact the decorator to follow-up on the tables.” His head falls back, and he covers his eyes with his palm. “I’ll be there, see you,” he hangs up his phone. The project, while he’s incredibly thankful for it, has him working with some of the snobbiest people he’s ever had the displeasure of working with—that’s from having only talked to them over phone. Just the way this man talks makes his skin crawl. He thinks they feel entitled, calling him at inconvenient hours because they seem to forget about the five-hour time lapse.

He gets back into bed and allows the woman he picked up at the bar to straddle his waist. Her lips fall onto his in a sloppy kiss. She starts her trail from his neck and down his body until her lips wrap around his semi-hard member. He sucks in a breath and keeps his eyes shut because that way, he can pretend it’s her.

***

Y/n is panicking, actually scratch that, she’s gone into a full mode frenzy. She’s been pacing around her office for god knows how long, trying to pull herself together. Miguel is watching her with concerned eyes from where he sits on the couch tucked in the corner of the room.

“This is insane! I’m a grown-ass woman and bringing her boyfriend to meet her parents shouldn’t be such a nerve-biting thing, right? Right?” she nearly yells at him for confirmation.

“Honey, you’re making me dizzy. You need to sit down,” he motions for her to lie on the cushions. When she does, she lays her feet in his lap for him to massage.

“I just don’t know what to do. I haven’t seen my parents in-”

“Three years, I know.”

“And I haven’t seen him since-”

“He left you in that closet.” She glares at him. “What? Not my fault you spill tea whenever you’re drunk.”

Miguel has been her assistant since she’s taken the position as executive accountant. He probably knows more about her than any employee should ever know about his boss. He quite enjoys it though, he finds her life to be so exciting and dramatic.

“What am I going to do? I can’t handle this! It’ll be nearly impossible!” she groans, nearly pulling out her own hair. She hasn’t even forgiven her parents for ruining her last relationship, and now she’s expected to introduce them to her newest? “Give me advice,” she whines to Miguel.

He lets out a huff, “Like you said, you’re a grown-ass woman. Everything that happened to you before should remain in the past. That includes your,” he pauses and bites his lower lip, “extremely fine stepbrother.”

***

Age 14:

Harry is at some stupid sports camp, and Y/n has become extremely restless at home. It’s only been three days since he’s left, and he’s not scheduled back for another four. She already misses him like crazy. Who would have thought that she’d be searching for his incessant pestering and corny jokes that only she seems to find funny? Her mum has suggested calling him up, but she can’t do that! If Harry were to find out that she misses him, he’d never stop teasing her about it.

“Sweetheart, just call him. I think he’d really appreciate it if you did,” Anne nudges her towards the phone. Y/n crinkles her nose in thought and squints at it, as if touching it would burn the flesh off her hand. “Oh, for goodness sake,” Anne mutters and before Y/n can do anything, Anne’s already dialed the number and is waiting for someone to pick up.

“Yes, this is Anne Y/L/N, Harry Styles’ mother. If it isn’t an inconvenience, I’d like to speak to him,” she smirks at Y/n. Anne’s eyes are suddenly widening and she literally shoves the phone to Y/n’s ear.

“Hello?” Y/n gasps when she hears Harry’s voice. She looks to her mum, but the sly woman has already made a sneaky escape.

“Hi, Harry,” she shyly replies. Curse her mum for putting her in this situation.

“Y/n! Hey! How are you? Wow, didn’t realize how much I missed you until I heard your voice.” Y/n can feel her face flush and she bites her lips together to prevent the huge grin threatening to form. “You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” she pauses. “I miss you too, like a lot. Hurry home, ok?”

“I’ll try my best, anything for my favorite girl.” She slides down the wall and suppresses her squeals with her knees.

***

Her reflection seems to be of someone she doesn’t recognize, it’s the first thing she notices when she takes a good look at herself in the hotel bathroom mirror. The person in front of her lacks the confidence that she normally radiates. There’s this pang in her chest that hasn’t left her since landing this morning. And no matter how many times she tells herself to relax, she feels like she’s sinking further into the feeling.

Being in this city makes her anxious. All the broken promises that should have been glare at her wherever she turns. They had passed her would have been university in the car here. Y/n quickly wiped the single tear that fell down her cheek before William could notice. She wonders where she would be if they hadn’t gotten caught but forces the thoughts out of her mind. What’s over is over.

Her and William are meant to meet her parents for lunch in a bit. She’s peeved at the part of herself that’s hoping that he’ll be there. “Of course, he won’t be there. He’s probably busy or something,” she points at her mirrored image, “You. Calm yourself down, Y/n.” When she recognizes how ridiculous she’s being, her lips flap to mimic a motorboat engine.

***

Eric and Anne anxiously await their daughter at the restaurant. He’s eaten half the bread in the basket as he anxiously eyes the entrance. It’s hard to believe that it’s been this long since he’s last seen her. They’re not as close anymore, haven’t been since he’d forced her to leave. When they talk on the phone, it’s a simple ‘hi, hello’ before she’s hanging up to attend to her duties.

“Honestly, Eric. I know you’re nervous, but please try to contain yourself,” Anne scolds him. She’s only slightly more put together than he is.

Her husband taps his fingers impatiently on the table, “I can’t help it. Surprised she even told us she’d be here. I haven’t had a fully decent conversation with her since...” he shakes his head, not wanting to remember.

“See! There she is now,” the pair of them rise once they spot her walking towards them in some of the highest heels she’s ever seen.

“There she is!” Eric slowly wraps his arms around her.

“Hi, Dad,” she hugs him back awkwardly, then turns to greet Anne. “Hi, Mum.”

“You look amazing! My goodness, New York has been good to you, hasn’t it?” her mother has her twirl in front of her. A blush creeps onto her cheeks, but an almost obnoxious cough has her turning back to William.

“Um…Mum, Dad, this is William,” she angles herself to reveal the man standing behind her. “My…boyfriend.”

The older two give each other weary looks. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, William,” Anne is the first to speak. Eric eyes the man from head to toe. There’s something about him, he can’t quite put his finger on what it is, but he’s not sure if he likes it. However, he does extend his hand when he feels Y/n burning holes through his skull.

“Let’s sit down, yeah? I’m starving!” Y/n tries to progress. She basks in the time that everyone takes to gloss over the menu, the less talking, the better.

***

“So, tell me, Anne, what was this one like as a child?” William asks. “Y/n rarely talks about her life before NYU.”

Anne wipes her mouth her napkin and adjusts her posture, “She was the sweetest little girl! Always wanting to help me around the house and help me cook because the men were completely useless.” She sends her daughter a knowing smile.

“Hey, Harry and I did our best to keep up with you two!” Eric defends with a chuckle. Y/n watches as confusion adorns over William’s face.

“Harry? Who’s Harry?”

Her parents give her that look, and she crinkles her nose at the sight. She may have failed to tell him that she has a brother, but for a good enough reason. When she met William, the only thing she had mentioned was that she was from Holmes Chapel, that’s it. He, of course, asked about her parents, of which she obviously did mention.

“Harry is our son,” Anne says as a matter of factly, “Y/n’s brother.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a brother?” he eyes her disbelievingly. Y/n takes a long sip of water, hoping to buy time to think of an excuse.

“Sure, I did!” she slowly places the glass down. “I mentioned him briefly once or twice.” She bites the inside of her cheek and hopes he’ll buy it. And thank god he does.

***

Everything looks perfect. Harry had walked through all twenty-five floors of the building to make sure that the setup met his standards. And now, he watches as the people who will be using this space mingle amongst each other. His clients had invited him for the grand opening celebration. As much as he would rather avoid any big social gatherings, there is a lot riding on this, and he would like to meet the people he’s working for, in person. He’s asked around, and some people—he assumes are employees—tell him that the big boss is running a bit late. It’s a bit unprofessional, in his opinion. Harry grabs a fluke of champagne from a passing server and gulps it down in one go.

That’s when he spots her from across the room. It’s like everything around him slows down. She’s just as beautiful as he remembers, if not, more. Her hair is curled just below her shoulders, and she looks so elegant in that satin dress she’s wearing. He thinks back to if he’s had too much to drink, when he realizes that the one he had just consumed is only his first. His eyes blink a few more times, but it’s not an illusion. She’s here, but why? All he wants to do is run right up to her and embrace her, kiss her.

“Are you Mr. Styles?” he breaks contact with her figure when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns to meet a man that’s a few inches shorter than him.

“I am, but please, call me Harry” he replies.

The man gives him an over exaggerated smile, exhibiting his too-white teeth. “William Schwartz, it’s nice to finally meet you,” he shakes his hand. “You know, I must say, I’m rather impressed with what you’ve done here. I mean, I’m just blown away by all the detail. This place makes the New York office look like a garbage dump.”

Harry chuckles and shakes his head, “I’m sure that’s not true, but thank you for the compliment. My team and I have worked really hard.”

“My girlfriend was just telling me how wonderful the place looks,” William peers behind him, “Y/n!” Harry is frozen in his spot. In his head, he’s praying that it’s not the same Y/n, his Y/n.

***

She graciously pardons herself from the conversation when she hears William call for her. He’s talking to someone, but his back is turned to her. Once she’s close enough, her heart stops.

“…Harry?” she can’t believe he’s here. He slowly pans his head until their eyes connect. Suddenly she’s a teenager again, the butterflies in her tummy acting out whenever he’s near and look at her with those eyes. All she can think about is the urge to touch him again. The pictures she had seen on his profile hadn’t given him any justice. The first few buttons of his shirt are undone, and she sees fragments of tattoos over his chest. She remembers him telling that he wanted to get inked, but never expected this much.

The world around them seems to fade away as they take a good look at one another. She’s so close, yet seemingly untouchable. There’s a spike in adrenaline coursing through his system as he watches her lip tuck beneath her teeth. It’s been so long.

William looks between the two of them, “Do you two know each other?”

Y/n hesitates at first, she’s still trying to figure out if the man in front of her is really there. “He’s my…” but it’s as though she can’t find the words.

It’s him who breaks eye contact to look at William, then he clears his throat. “Her brother.”

“Yes,” she narrows her eyes at him, “my brother.”

“Oh,” William drags out, “so you’re the prodigal sibling that I’ve recently learned about.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at her, “I guess that’s me.”

“What a coincidence, isn’t it, Dollface? What are the chances that your brother is my architect?” his arm fastens around her waist, and she can’t help but feel awkward in her place. She does her best to put on smile to shield the inner turmoil. “Well, I’ll let you guys catch up.” Her eyes remain wide open when he pecks her goodbye.

The pet name has Harry about ready to throw up. His fists clench in his pockets as he watches them interact. He can’t stop the twinge of jealousy that rushes through him when William kisses her. “So, Dollface.”

***

A/N: This is a major catch-up part since I’ve jumped over a lot of time. Feels like we’ve just started, but now we’re starting the countdown to the end??? I love you all ❤️Tell me your thoughts here!

#stepbro!harry #harry styles imagine #harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfction

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bi-swan-trash · 7 years

Text

SQW Summer 2K17 Day 7

Parent Trap

Heyo! This one is a little later, but a little longer than all the rest! It’s a second part set five years later to my SQW day 5 post!

Henry sat at the counter, waiting. He didn’t have to wait long until Deputy Nolan took a seat right next to him and ordered a coffee.

“Are you sure the storm will be big enough next week?” Henry asked, without looking up from his milkshake.

“No one can really predict the weather,” Deputy Nolan reminded him, “but it looks like a doozy.”

“And Ma will be on duty?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Deputy Nolan promised. “How are you going to get Regina to the station?”

“Leave that to me,” Henry told him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Meddling in your moms’ love life?” he asked.

Henry finally turned to look at the deputy. “David, I’m fifteen and for the five years since the divorce they’be both been miserable. The first two years, okay, I got it. It was awkward and there was still a lot of tension. But now? Only those two can’t see what’s right in front of them.”

“Emma told Mary Margaret about the fights when it first started,” Deputy Nolan said, “Emma told her that it was what was best for all of you, especially you. She hated thinking of what it was doing to you.”

“I was ten not that long ago and let me tell you, I don’t remember tension until Ma left the house,” Henry pointed out. “That’s really when Mom thought she was sleeping around.”

David shifted uncomfortably. “You’re very candid about all of this.”

“I have to be. Neither of the other two are being logical about this situation,” Henry said.

“Love isn’t about logic,” Deputy Nolan told him. “Love doesn’t work that way.”

“I have to try,” Henry insisted.

***

The storm arrived as the weatherman predicted. No one was very prepared seeing as the weather channel has a way of never being completely accurate. This worked out well in Deputy Nolan’s favor. He told Emma that he and Mary Margaret hadn’t fortified their basement and asked her to pick up an emergency shift for him. She, of course, readily agreed.

Henry had a plan of his own to get Regina to the station. He knew she was a tad overprotective and had a tracking app on his phone, so he stashed it in one of the filing cabinets that Emma barely opened. He hoped the first person Emma would call for backup on his behalf would be Deputy Nolan since Henry would be with him. He didn’t want to scare his parents that much.

***

Regina paced. She’d been pacing for fifteen minutes. The storm outside was getting bad and Henry wasn’t home. She pulled out her phone and saw that he was at the Sheriff station. She tried to convince herself that he was fine-- he was with Emma-- but she was thoroughly convinced that her basement was safer.

She called him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. She looked outside and took a deep breath. God, she hated storms, but this was her baby boy. She ran to the car in her raincoat and drove to the station. When she arrived she was relieved to see Emma… until she didn’t see Henry.

“Where is he?” she asked, slightly panicked.

“Where’s who?”

“Henry!”

“He’s not here? I haven’t seen him all day,” Emma told her.

“The app on his phone says he’s here,” Regina insisted.

“Oh, come on! You still track his phone? He’s fifteen!”

“Exactly. He’s fifteen. And besides, I use it for emergencies only.”

“Well it must be wrong because he’s not here.”

Suddenly the wind picked up outside and a loud thundercrack pierced the air.

Regina dropped to the floor with her hands over her head.

Emma was up from her chair in a second and crouching next to her, speaking in a soothing voice, “Regina? Hey, it’s okay.”

Regina hadn’t had this type of comfort in five years. She sat up slowly and pressed herself against the blonde’s firm body. “We still don’t know where Henry is,” she whispered.

“I’ll call David. He might know,” Emma said. She got up, promising she’d be back quickly, and called David.

“Emma?”

“David, have you seen Henry?”

“He was walking by and I saw the storm getting bad not that long ago. He’s here and safe. We just tried to call Regina, but she didn’t answer,” David told her.

“She came looking for him here,” Emma told him. “Thanks for looking out for him. We’ll pick him up when we can.”

“Take your time. It’s really bad out there and I’d rather him even have to spend the night then anyone risking anything.”

“Really? You’re a lifesaver, David.”

“What are friends for?”

The two exchanged goodbyes and Emma returned to Regina, who was still sitting on the floor, but had pressed herself against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her jaw was tense, eyes unfocused ahead of her, and her right would sit still. Emma could see how hard she was trying to not have a panic attack-- especially in front of her.

Emma sat down next to Regina and wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close again.

Regina turned into the comfort and buried her face in Emma’s neck.

Emma rocked slightly, trying to help Regina calm down.

This was something Emma very quickly learned about Regina when they first met. She hated storms. Not just hated-- she was terrified. She was anxious during light thunderstorms, but with ones like the one outside she was a full blown mess. A month into their relationship there was a horrible storm and Regina, as much as she tried to fight it, couldn’t handle it. Emma had immediately asked her what she needed and did what she could. Regina had thought that the relationship would be over then and there, but it just bonded the pair even more.

“Regina,” Emma called softly, “if we move to the supply closet it might muffle the storm a bit more.”

Regina nodded into Emma’s neck and Emma helped lead her over to the supply closet. There were so many reams of paper, Emma hoped they absorbed the sounds outside.

The two sat there in silence for a few minutes, Regina with her head on Emma’s shoulder and Emma rubbing Regina’s arm. When Regina seemed to be a bit more calm, Emma decided to try and get her mind off of the situation.

“How have you been handling these alone?” Emma asked, knowing full well that since the two had split there had been at least half a dozen of these types of storms.

“I bought noise cancelling headphones,” Regina replied quietly, “I go to the basement and sleep on the pull out couch while listening to music.”

“You know, the first time it happened after we divorced-- oh I’d say about a year and a half after-- I drove to your house,” Emma confessed. “I knew it was going to be bad for you and I was torn between being there for you and leaving you alone like I knew we agreed on.”

Regina shifted to look up at Emma and gave her a small smile. “At the time I either would’ve been very grateful or very angry.”

Emma laughed, “yeah, I figured those were the two emotions you could’ve had.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m grateful you thought of me then,” Regina told her.

Emma gave her a sad smile. “It’s not like I could just forget.”

Regina pulled Emma into a tight hug. “I’m sorry.”

“You never let me feel alone on my birthday, so you must’ve never forgotten either,” Emma replied.

Regina pulled back. “How could I?”

Emma shrugged. “I guess I always thought you’d never consider it your job anymore.”

“It was never my job, Emma. I hated seeing you so… so depressed those first few years we were together,” Regina told her. “I knew I never wanted to see you like that again.”

“Having the kid over and you sending him with mountains of food was definitely a shock the first time. Especially since it wasn’t my day to have him,” Emma said. “I’ll admit I teared up when I saw him at my door. You did sometimes special for me every year and I feel like I’ve done nothing for you since… since the divorce.”

“The third year after we separated,” Regina started, “I was up for reelection. I was told you worked your butt off to promote me.”

“You heard about that?” Emma asked. “Well, I didn’t want a different boss. We work.”

There was a tense silence.

“We do as coworkers,” Regina said softly.

“Regina, look,” Emma pulled back so she could look Regina in the eye. “I miss us. And I don’t mean being together or being married-- I still think we made the right decision-- but we were such good friends. We don’t have to be in a relationship to have family outings, or watch movies on the couch, or even go to a freaking PTA meeting together. I miss us as a team. We’ve been avoiding each other for the last five years and I think it’s affecting Henry more than our actual fights.”

Regina sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I know. I know you’re right. And I haven’t helped the situation much-”

“Hey, neither of us were. Don’t take it all on yourself,” Emma interrupted.

Regina smiled and snuggled into Emma’s side. “I do miss this too, you know.”

“I know,” Emma said quietly, pressing a kiss into Regina’s hair, “but I don’t think I trust myself with you.”

“Trust was my issue, if I remember correctly,” Regina pointed out.

“Yes it was, but I didn’t handle that very well.” Emma paused before getting serious. “I didn’t cheat on you, Regina.”

“I knew that as soon as you brought up giving birth to Henry,” Regina confessed. “I had forgotten in those ten years how much you hadn’t wanted to be pregnant, but you did it for us as a family. You reminded me of that the day we went to Dr. Hopper’s office.”

“The kid may have been a pain in the ass the carry, but he was worth every minute,” Emma said.

“I’m also very grateful that you didn’t fight for full custody,” Regina told her.

Emma furrowed her brow. “Were you afraid I was going to?”

“At the time, yes I was,” Regina replied.

“I never had any intentions of that,” Emma told her. “I never would’ve taken him away from you.”

“It took about a year for that the sink in, but I never did thank you,” Regina said.

“It’s what good coparents do,” Emma pointed out.

“Well, while we didn’t work out as a married couple, I’m glad we can at least be decent coparents.”

“We could be better,” Emma said. “We could try to start next week with a dinner and a movie night?”

Regina looked at Emma and smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Until then, I’m here for you to wait out the storm, okay?”

“Okay,” Regina said, holding onto Emma tight.

#sqw #swanqueenweek #swan queen #day 7 #fanfic #mine

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avidbeader · 7 years

Text

Here’s more of the Sheith soulmates AU

Voltron fanfic. Probably rated T for language and suggested sexual situations when it’s done. Definitely Shiro x Keith. Situational names/pronouns for Pidge/Katie. Feedback is always welcome. Still pondering titles.

So I said I was going to finish this before putting it up on AO3/FF-net. I may break and start posting chapters soon instead, because this thing is sprawling out of control fast.

Start here: Part 1

Last Chapter: Part 8

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

In the cabin, the trio quickly grew bored. Katie pulled out her laptop and opened the program she was using to try and decipher more of the alien code. Hunk leaned over her shoulder to watch as she dug out the diary she used to record the terms she had defined. He frowned, looking at a series of numbers on one page.

“Do those numbers really repeat like that, the way you wrote them?”

She looked up at him. “Yeah. So?”

He looked around the room and saw a few large sheets of paper on the makeshift coffee table. He grabbed one and a pen and quickly marked off a graph. “Read them to me?”

She did and watched as Hunk plotted the numbers and then linked them, showing a line moving up and down. “I think this could be a Fraunhofer line, don’t you?”

Katie tilted her head, trying to place the term. “Um, I suppose?”

“You know, the number describing the emission spectrum of an element, only, I don’t think this element exists on Terra.”

Her eyes widened and she sat up. “Holy shit! Maybe it’s the Voltron thing!”

“Could be…and I think can build a machine to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter.”

Lance had been pacing back and forth, barely following the conversation, but stopped at that. “Hunk, I always knew you were a genius!”

Katie set her laptop aside and looked around the cabin. “Can you do it with the stuff that’s here?”

“Maybe, let’s see.”

Lance scowled at that. “Why don’t we just go ask Keith?”

“Lance, we are not interrupting them!” she snapped. “You can fangirl over Shiro all you want later, after two soulmates who have been separated by light-years for almost eighteen months have had the chance to at least say hello!”

He pouted, but stayed silent.

Hunk seemed to know what to do in order to distract him. “Lance, look in that box over there. I think I see a regular Geiger counter. If we start there maybe I can convert it and have it ready by morning.”

Lance started for the box in question, but reeled and dropped to his knees when the earth around them began shaking. Hunk cowered next to Katie. “Earthquake?”

Katie’s fingers flew across her keyboard as she brought up a government tracker. “Nothing’s showing up on the seismic monitors.” The three of them froze, waiting as their surroundings continued to shake, building and cresting and finally fading. Lance’s head jerked and he looked around in confusion. Katie frowned at him. “What is it?”

“Uh, nothing, I guess. For a minute I thought I heard something…like an animal. Are there wolves or coyotes around here?”

“Maybe, but I didn’t hear it.”

“Must be imagining things. It sounded more like a lion roaring anyway.”

Hunk snorted at that. “Yeah, no. No lions around here.”

<> <> <> <> <>

As their bond slowly calmed down into a state where they could think again, Keith pushed himself up from where he had fallen across Shiro’s chest. Shiro reached up and pushed a lock of Keith’s hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. “No time for a barber, I take it?” he joked lightly.

Keith blushed slightly and shook his head.

“I like it. It suits you.”

The blush deepened, but Keith smiled. Shiro pushed himself to sitting so he could wrap his arms around his soulmate again.

Keith buried his face into Shiro’s shoulder. “I missed you so much. Knowing what was happening to you and not being able to help—”

Shiro pulled back a little at that, putting one hand to Keith’s face to meet his eyes. “You did help! I can’t count how many times knowing you were there kept me going. I think I would have killed myself or gone insane without you.”

Tears gathered in Keith’s eyes as Shiro stroked his cheek with his thumb, the metal one. Then he noticed what he was using to touch Keith and started to pull away. His awareness spread to the scars riddling his face and body, the shock of white hair, all prematurely aging him.

Keith sensed the shift and clapped his hand over Shiro’s prosthetic and held it in place. “This is not going to make me regret being bonded to you. Scars aren’t going to make me regret it. The only thing I regret is how much you suffered and how much time we’ve lost.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Shiro’s nose, where the scar cut across it, and then moved down to his lips.

Shiro responded immediately, hungry for more of the first warm and kind contact he’d felt in ages. He had been careful not to push Keith very far in physical displays of affection before Kerberos, knowing that some people would disapprove of their relationship, soul bond or no. But now, with the reality of Keith being restored to him in spite of the odds, Shiro wasn’t going to hold back any more. He licked Keith’s mouth, asking him to open to him, and Keith did so eagerly, his own tongue meeting Shiro’s as they deepened the kiss. Their bond hummed with energy.

As they paused to catch their breath, Shiro slid over and held up the blanket in invitation. Keith pulled off his jacket, belt, and boots before sliding into the bed to lie beside him.

The familiar purr sounded in Keith’s mind, very content with the situation. Shiro paused, looking around. “Do you…have a cat?”

Keith snorted and shook his head. “No, I think I’ve got a guardian angel.”

<> <> <> <> <>

She had done her part. Zarkon had sent the nearest warship, scouting for the Blue Lion, in pursuit of Champion. She had deceived her lord, carefully implying that Champion might be after the Lion himself, to get him to divert resources away from his obsession. Zarkon didn’t think chasing after one escaped prisoner was worth it, even a prisoner as renowned as Champion. But to find another piece of Voltron…

Haggar retreated into her lab as soon as she was able and gathered ever last shard of the shattered containment unit. The flesh from Champion was gone, vaporized by the sudden overload of energy, but the bits of the unit retained the tiniest impressions of the quintessence. With this as her guide, she could go into deep meditation and continue her search.

<> <> <> <> <>

Katie went back to her efforts with the alien transmissions while Hunk worked on altering the Geiger counter. With nothing better to do, Lance conked out on the futon and soon his snores echoed in the cabin. Katie glanced over as Hunk deftly rebuilt his device with the array of tools he had found by poking around the room.

“How do you stand it, sleeping in the same room as him?”

“He usually doesn’t snore like that, actually. And we both have noise-canceling headphones since our sleep patterns don’t always sync up.”

“Really? Didn’t think those were allowed, in case you miss a Garrison alarm.”

“They also flash the lights in the rooms if one goes off. Kind of impossible to miss one way or the other.”

Something pinged on her laptop and Katie sat up. It was a message alert from her mother. Her mother knew not to contact her directly unless it was an absolute emergency. She opened the message and read it.

“Oh, fuck no.”

Hunk looked up from his work. “What is it?”

“One of Mom’s friends who’s a journalist on the science beat just contacted her. He keeps her in the loop because of Dad and Matt. He got wind that the Garrison is planning to announce the three of us as dead due to a training accident!”

“What the hell? I need to contact my moms!”

“So will Lance! And we need to let the Shiroganes know he’s alive, too!” She typed furiously back at her mother for a few minutes and then held out her laptop to Hunk. “Okay, I’ve let my mom know the basics and asked her to contact Shiro’s family. Here, I’ve got an anonymous video caller and a messenger up. Use whichever will get you through to your folks. I hate to do this, but we better see if Shiro’s awake.”

<> <> <> <> <>

They had progressed to trailing kisses across each other’s necks and Shiro’s hands were working their way under Keith’s shirt when the knock sounded at the door.

“Keith? It’s Katie, I’m so sorry, but is Shiro awake? We’ve got trouble coming from the Garrison!”

Shiro paused. Should I know who she is? Before he could chase the thought down, he realized that Keith’s pulse rate had skyrocketed under his lips, But his soulmate responded instantly in a steady voice. “What kind of trouble? Do we need to clear out of here?”

“No, we need to get Shiro in touch with his parents. The Garrison’s going to announce that Lance, Hunk, and I were killed in a training accident and it looks like they’re burying the fact that Shiro returned.”

Shiro felt chills down his spine at the implications of that news. It had been mere hours—wasn’t the Garrison going to try and search for them first? How long did they think they could keep the existence of aliens a secret?

“Okay, give us a minute.” Keith climbed out of the bed and moved across to a small chest of drawers. He dug around and pulled out a very familiar black vest.

Shiro pushed himself up. “What?”

“I was in a rush when I packed some stuff, in case I needed to leave in a hurry. Got some of your clothes mixed in. There’s a bathroom, you can shower and get out of those rags.” He held out the vest.

Shiro stood and accepted it, along with the black jeans and a gray tee. He shifted the clothing into his metal arm and reached out with the other to pull Keith close. He paused for a second, blinking in surprise. Before the mission, Keith had barely reached his chin in height—now the top of his head was up to Shiro’s nose.

He dipped his head and gave Keith one more kiss before the two of them exited the bunker and entered the house.

<> <> <> <> <>

Shiro cleaned up and began dressing, then paused in jeans and sleeveless black undershirt, looking at the long sleeves on the gray shirt. He wasn’t sure about having the sleeve cover the cybernetic prosthetic – after the implantation, the slave uniforms he received had a short sleeve on one side, designed to tuck into the edges of the unit.

He opened the tiny medicine chest, looking for scissors. Don’t look in the mirror…don’t look in the mirror.

There was a tap at the door. “Come in, Keith.”

As the door opened, revealing Keith with a pair of scissors in his hand, a voice came floating in. “Okay, that was just creepy! Don’t do that!”

Shiro sniggered at that and Keith’s mouth quirked up in a ghost of a smile. He whispered, “Oh, we’re going to do that as often as possible in his presence.”

Shiro raised his eyebrows at that. While Keith had been quiet and introverted away from Shiro, he hadn’t been actively antagonistic to others…

…unless provoked. He resolved to keep an eye on the situation.

Shiro heard a familiar voice coming from a speaker and looked around. He froze when he got a good look at the person sitting with a laptop. “Matt?”

They looked up and Shiro realized immediately that this wasn’t Matt. This was someone younger and smaller, but the hair, eyes, and shape of the face were the same.

“That’s Katie Holt, Matt’s sister,” Keith murmured in his ear. “She knew that things were wrong with the Garrison’s cover story over the loss of the Kerberos mission. She disguised herself as a boy and enrolled under a false identity to try and learn more.”

Shiro blinked at that. Matt was a dedicated student and scientist, but he had never shown that kind of steel. On the other hand, he wasn’t the one searching for his missing family.

Keith continued, “The skinny one is Lance, who seems to worship the ground you walk on. The big guy is Hunk. They turned up just as I was trying to get you out of the quarantine area.”

Shiro nodded. Katie looked up from her laptop. “Shiro, come here!”

He went over and sat as Katie tugged his arm down. She put the laptop over so he would be in the view of the webcam. He saw Colleen Holt’s face on the screen and she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Shiro! What happened to you?”

He swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the missing Holts sink in. “I…it’s a long story. I should tell you what I know about Sam and Matt instead.”

She swallowed, clearly steeling herself for the worst.

“The three of us were taken together, alive. The Galra, the aliens, separated Sam from us in just a few days because of his age. All I could get was that he was sent to some kind of work camp—the Galra use the weaker members of the races they subjugate as slave labor.” Shiro looked down, ashamed that he couldn’t tell her anything more than that.

“And Matt?”

“He and I were sent to the gladiator rings.”

Colleen and Katie both looked at him in horror, realizing why Shiro carried scars and assuming that Matt had not survived.

“For a while we were on the same team, sent in to bring down large animals for their entertainment. But one day they changed it and were going to send us in one by one against a famous fighter. They chose Matt to go first.

“He was about to panic—there was no way he was going to survive that fight. I…I faked a bloodlust and injured him so they would send me in first. They always sent the fighters who got injured enough off to the work camps. I hoped they would send him to Sam. I was never able to find more information about either of them.”

He had made it through the recitation without breaking down, but as tears spilled down Colleen’s cheeks and Katie curled into him, he felt the first sob rise in his throat.

“I’m so sorry…I should have done something, anything, to try and save them.”

He felt Keith’s hand on his shoulder and his love through the bond. Katie tightened her arms around him. Colleen’s voice was rough as she spoke through her tears. “Honestly, Shiro, what could you have done differently? When you were able to do something to protect Matt, you did it. And you paid a huge price for it. We don’t blame you.”

She wiped her face. “We just have to keep pushing for a way to get out there and search for them. Shiro, your parents are in Osaka with your grandmother. She had a stroke about a month ago but she’s recovering. Katie has their contact info.”

Shiro nodded and got his voice working again. “Thank you.”

“Katie, keep me informed. I’ll pass it all on to Greg—he’s the reporter who let me know what the Garrison was going to do. I think the McClains and Garretts are going to make a joint statement denying it if the Garrison does go through with their claim.”

“Will do, mom.”

Katie closed the connection and opened a new window. “Ready to talk to your folks?”

“I…” Shiro looked down at his arm, still exposed for all to see.

Keith’s hand left his shoulder and ran through his hair. “It’ll be all right. They’ll just be glad to see you alive. Trust me.”

Never a question about that.

Shiro drew a deep breath and nodded at Katie. “Okay, I’m ready.”

<><><><><><><><><><><><>

More to come…

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #sheith #voltron fanfic #fanfic: voltron #quintessential bond by avidbeader

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mist-chance · 7 years

Text

From The Ashes Part 2

Enji flexed his fists until he felt bones creak, and watched All Might drape the second place medal on Shouto’s neck. He turned away as All Might leant closer to Shouto, the flames on his chest flaring enough to send spectators flinching away. His temper was still simmering by the time he’d reached the ground level of the arena. So when he saw All Might’s “Hisui-chan” walking a few feet in front of him, his reaction – grabbing the redhead by the arm and crowding him against a wall (Again.) – wasn’t unexpected.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Hisui demanded, tilting his chin up to glare at Enji.

“What did you say to him?”

Hisui’s glare dulled into a contemplative stare as he looked at Enji’s face. After a moment, he gave an irritated sigh and squared his shoulders. “This may come as a surprise to you, but –" He stopped mid-sentence, eyes widening and head snapping to face the direction of the arena. His fingers flew to the buttons on his headphones, jabbing at them so violently that the click-clack of plastic echoed in the empty corridor. “Shit,” Hisui muttered, a frown creasing between his eyebrows. “That’s not good.”

Enji shook the redhead’s shoulder and pinned Hisui harder against the wall, until narrowed eyes looked up at him. “What. Did. You. Tell. Him.”

“I have better things to do than feed your ego, Endeavor.” Hisui tried to break free from Enji’s grasp. When he couldn’t, he huffed and opened that damned notebook from earlier, propped it against his thigh, and scribbled in it. “But if you think your son can be so easily influenced by someone he’s only met with once, you’re even more of an uncaring asshole than I – Hey!”

Enji held the stolen notebook well out of the redhead’s reach, fingers curled around its cheap cover; his other hand dug into Hisui’s bony shoulder. Something burned. He glanced up and saw acrid gray-white wisps slithering off the notebook from under his hand, while black puddled across the laminate.

“If you burn that, I will kick your ass,” Hisui promised, his mismatched eyes flashing bright and fierce.

Enji raised his arm higher when Hisui reached for the notebook, and bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. “I’d like to see you try,” he said, though he stopped smoldering the cardboard covers. Pain lanced up his shin, and Enji gripped Hisui’s shoulder harder in retaliation. Hisui winced, but the satisfaction Enji felt was brief.

“You fucking bastard!” Hisui snarled as he strained against and clawed at Enji’s unrelenting hold. Enji was sure that, if he let go, the redhead wouldn’t settle for anything less than ripping out his throat: most likely with teeth. “I’m gonna –”

“What the hell is going on here?”

It took a moment for Enji to recognize Eraserhead’s voice – it lacked its usual droning tone, replaced instead with a hard edge that wouldn’t be out of place when the Underground Hero dealt with Villains, criminals, or misbehaving students. While Enji seethed at being spoken to like a goddamned brat, and glared over his shoulder at Eraserhead, Hisui let out a long, deep breath and sagged under Enji’s hold.

“Shouta, please get my notebook from Endeavor before he decides to burn it to ash,” Hisui said in a calmer, but still rough, voice. “Or get him to give it back to me.”

Eraserhead’s bloodshot eyes darted to the notebook. “Hand it over, Endeavor. Hisui may not look or act it, but he’s an informant. If you destroy that notebook, we lose whatever edge Hisui’s managed to get.”

All Might had said Hisui was a consultant – however, it wasn’t surprising that the giant oaf was inaccurate about the redhead’s job description, given previous instances where he’d glossed over information he hadn’t considered important. But was it possible for Hisui, as unimpressive as he appeared and infuriating as he acted, to have gathered valuable intel about criminal activity – about notorious players such as the Hero Killer Stain and the League of Villains – during a large event like the U.A. Sports Festival, as Eraserhead was implying? …And if so, how?

Enji inspected Hisui’s headphones as he gave the notebook back. Now that he was paying attention to it, and not just noticing how the redhead had pushed at the surprisingly numerous buttons on its casing, Enji realized the headphones had the bulky but sleek design that marked it as military-grade equipment.

“What?” Hisui snapped, scowling as he tucked the singed notebook away from Enji’s sight and reach – presumably, into the waistband of his jeans. He clicked his tongue when Enji didn’t answer, and with a pointed look, asked, “Wanna try letting me go, too?”

“You should come along, Endeavor,” Eraserhead said as Enji let Hisui push off the wall, and then slowly uncurled his fingers from the redhead’s shoulder.

“What?” Hisui frowned and rolled his shoulder. “Shouta, he’s –”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Eraserhead interjected in a bland voice. “He’s Number Two for a reason; it’ll be useful to have his input. Also,” he continued, glaring at the redhead through the slits in the bandages covering his face, “you’re an adult, Hisui, you can’t behave as you like and blame it on your Quirk. Try to act like you’re a functioning member of society.” A noise clawed out of Hisui’s throat, a strangled mix of a growl and an exasperated sigh. He slunk off to stand at Eraserhead’s shoulder and glared at the floor. “Let’s go, then. Nedzu-kouchou and the others will show up after the students and most of the spectators have left,” Eraserhead said as he turned and walked down the corridor. Hisui fell into step beside him without looking back.

It pissed Enji off. No matter what Eraserhead claimed, he’d only invited Enji along to punish Hisui; at the same time, he’d managed to successfully attract Enji’s attention with hints of information on things going on in the background at U.A. Getting manipulated, and knowing he was getting manipulated, ranked high on his list of irritants; but being left in the dark ranked higher. So Enji growled under his breath, and strode after the pair.

Instead of heading to a meeting room, Eraserhead led them to the teacher’s lounge down the hall from Nedzu’s office. He made a beeline for one of the couches and collapsed onto it, tilting his bandaged head back and resting his equally bandaged arms on his stomach. Hisui sat next to him and flipped open his notebook – this time, though, he made sweeping motions with his arm as he traced his pen across a page.

“An artistic informant?” Enji snorted as he sat on the opposing couch, crossing his arms. He frowned deeper when Hisui didn’t respond.

“He can’t hear you. He Silenced his headphones,” Eraserhead said while he stared at the ceiling. “It means,” he went on to say, before Enji could demand further explanation, “he put his headphones on the noise-canceling setting; there’s no sound entering them.”

“…Noise-canceling headphones don’t exist.” There were some advertised as such; but it was similar to the way specialized stores assured, in all-caps and in dark, dark bold, that their custom-made clothing was completely fireproof. (He had just disposed of a trashcan full of sportswear and casual clothes that testified otherwise; and that was only a month after he’d restocked his wardrobe.) Most material things didn’t live up to their advertisements.

“These do.”

The door opened then, and Tsukauchi from the Investigations Unit of the Musutafu Police Department stepped into the room. He smiled at Enji, but it softened into something disgustingly warm and sincere when he looked at Hisui. It morphed into a stern expression when he noticed what the redhead was doing. “Is something wrong?” he asked Eraserhead. Hisui stood up, notebook in hand, and with the single-minded focus Enji had witnessed earlier, slipped past Tsukauchi.

Eraserhead shrugged. “He said he needed to sketch something before All Might and Nedzu-kouchou get here.”

Though Eraserhead didn’t seem concerned, Tsukauchi’s lips pressed into a thin line. The detective sat on the couch, leaving space between himself and Eraserhead. He placed a pair of blue and white headphones on the table. They looked, Enji noted, custom-made and well-worn – additional buttons, much like the ones Hisui was currently wearing, decorated the scuffed, faded left-side casing.

“These are Hisui’s,” Tsukauchi said, noticing Enji’s gaze. “I hold on to the pair he’s using now, when he’s not consulting.”

“If he’s the only one who can use them” – because Enji doubted the headphones were user-friendly to anyone other than Hisui; and, most likely, the inventor who designed them – “why wouldn’t he have them?”

“Well, there are security reasons for that.” Tsukauchi smiled the bland, impersonal smile most civil servants wore while under orders to make sure the government was portrayed in a positive light. “Mostly though, it’s to make sure Hisui’s grandfather doesn’t destroy them again ‘on accident.’ Those headphones aren’t cheap.”

Eraserhead snorted softly and muttered something that was muffled by the bandages over his mouth.

“Good evening!” Nedzu chirped as the door slid open again. He was perched conveniently on All Might’s shoulder. “Where’s Shinkou-kun?” he asked, looking around. If he was surprised by Enji’s presence, he didn’t show it.

“Here,” Hisui said as he appeared behind All Might, carrying a small stack of papers on top of his notebook.

“Endeavor!” All Might exclaimed as he sat on Enji’s couch. Hisui settled between Tsukauchi and Eraserhead. “I didn’t know you’d be here too!” He laughed, but his usual smile looked strained. If it were anyone other than All Might, Enji would have thought his presence wasn’t wanted.

“You mean he doesn’t know about your Quirk?” Tsukauchi asked Hisui as they traded headphones.

“Nope.” Hisui put the scuffed pair around his neck, and straightened the stack of papers. “Shouta thought he might be able to help with some of the things I’ve Seen.”

“Then, Endeavor,” Nedzu chimed in as he slid down All Might’s shoulder, and perched on the edge of the couch, “Shinkou-kun’s Quirk is known as Precognition. He can See the futures of anyone he hears.”

“Except myself,” Hisui interjected as he placed stapled packets on the table in front of everyone. “I can’t See my own future, or the futures of the people I care about.”

Enji briefly met Hisui’s gaze, and had a sudden jolt of insight. “Your headphones block out voices you don’t want to hear, and focus on the ones you do.”

“Yes. And since I’m only getting clips of possible futures a person might have, without a way to record them, I have to make do with shorthand notes and sketches. What I’ve handed out are the pages I think are relevant to what Nao-chan and Nedzu-kouchou wanted me to pay attention to, as well as some information Shouta might find important. The last page is a key for the shorthand I used…”

Enji picked up the packet and let Hisui’s voice buzz lowly in the background. His gaze was drawn to the characters of “Fire-Ice” on the first page, which could only mean Shouto, with three lines connecting them to: “no flames = loses” “flames = lose” and “flames = win.” The last one was circled.

He skimmed the rest of the page and leafed through the packet. The page he had startled Hisui into scribbling jagged lines on wasn’t present. Hisui hadn’t bothered using names, or even initials, to identify whose future he’d seen; instead, he’d used the person’s Quirk or appearance. From what Enji could tell, it wasn’t one future Hisui saw – it was two, three, sometimes even four or five of them, a snapshot collection of possibilities.

It made sense. The future wasn’t something set in stone, and a person’s entire future could shift by making a split-second decision on a whim. (It was part of the reason Enji had never, and could never, work with Nighteye – All Might’s ex-Sidekick’s Quirk defied everything he understood about the future and fate. He refused to accept that Nighteye could definitively see a person’s future for an hour. But possible futures…that, he could accept.) Enji wondered what determined how many possibilities Hisui could see, how much detail they had (if he saw more than what he was able to write down), and how far into the future they were.

“…the Hero Killer Stain will be arrested,” Hisui said, helpfully flipping to the next page of Eraserhead’s packet as he read off his own.

“What?” Enji said sharply.

Hisui’s mismatched eyes calmly looked at him. “I was explaining why the people I sketched on the third page of your packet became part of the League of Villains. The catalyst seems to be Stain’s arrest, which will happen either this month or the next.”

Well, that answered how far into the future Hisui could see.

“When enough people share the same possible future, it’s safe enough to assume it’ll actually happen,” Tsukauchi elaborated, when Enji didn’t show any indication of understanding.

“I can’t tell you how it’ll happen, or an exact time, just that it will. I wasn’t entirely sure about the new recruits for the League of Villains until after the Festival; I happened to hear one of their voices. Stain’s arrest motivates her to become a member. Other than the sketches, I can only confirm that this guy” – he tapped his finger against a surprisingly detailed profile sketch of a young man with spiky dark hair, facial piercings, and severely scarred skin along the lower half of his face – “has a fire Quirk.”

“And you’re certain students from Classes 1-A and 1-B will encounter these new recruits?” Nedzu asked as he inspected the page.

Hisui nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’ll happen during a training camp hosted by the Pussycats. It’s a bit outside of my range, so it must be in the summer – problem is, I can’t See any further details for then, either.” He frowned at the sketch. “Especially on this guy.”

“So you’ll be involved with the Hero Killer’s arrest, and the training camp. Presumably, you’ll be interacting with the guy with a fire Quirk,” Eraserhead listed. “Have you determined a motive for the Villains attacking the training camp?”

“Other than fear and possibly discrediting U.A. – and that’s mostly speculation – no. But…” Hisui hesitated for a moment, and glanced at All Might and Eraserhead. “Well, I get the sense that…that they’re targeting the students.”

“They’re targeting who?” All Might said in a low, dangerous voice. Eraserhead visibly stiffened, and then leaned closer to look at the sketches.

“I wasn’t there for the USJ attack; my Quirk doesn’t work if I’m hearing a recording,” Hisui directed the aside to Enji. “I only know as much as the rest of you do about this League of Villains group. Based on the reports you guys submitted on the incident and on Shigaraki’s character, though, I think someone’s working in the shadows, influencing him. And because he had that creature, one that was supposed to defeat you, Toshi-san…” he trailed off, but looked intently at All Might.

To Enji’s surprise, All Might’s face had paled dramatically, and his idiotic smile was overshadowed by a strange, horrified expression. A glance back to Hisui showed the redhead was equally pale – and terrified. His hands shook as he smoothed the papers in front of him.

“You said you Saw some things that may interest me,” Eraserhead said, cutting through the tense air with a nudge to Hisui’s shoulder.

Hisui jumped a little. “Y-Yeah.” His hands stopped shaking as he flipped through the packet. “So, I can See events closer to the present more clearly than those one to two months in the future. Other than Midoriya and Todoroki, I’ve determined where the rest of your students will go for their work placement training – but I’ve got a hunch as to where those two will end up.” He read over the page, and, for a moment, looked uncertain – but it melted away as he turned to Eraserhead. “I thought you’d be interested in that.”

“Where do you think Midoriya-shonen will go, Hisui-chan?” All Might asked as he looked at his packet. His face had regained its color and irritatingly confident expression.

“Do you really have to ask?” Hisui said dryly as he glanced at All Might. “I was home when Gramps got your letter, you know.” “A-ah,” All Might stuttered and chuckled weakly, looking slightly ill. “So, it’ll be him…”

“And Shouto?” Enji demanded, because he really didn’t care where All Might’s brat ended up.

“Like Shouta said, Endeavor, you’re Number Two for a reason. Even if he doesn’t like you, your son’s going to choose you because you’ll be the best of the offers he’ll get.”

Enji’s initial response was to bristle at Hisui’s words, which contained an almost-compliment but were borderline mocking. However, Hisui’s tone was matter-of-fact, and his eyes didn’t have a glint of malice or a hint of a sneer when they steadily met Enji’s. In the end, there wasn’t anything for Enji to say at all.

Strangely enough, an hour later while he was on his way home, Enji caught himself thinking about Hisui – and not in a strategic sense.

He didn’t know what to make of it.

#BnHA #BnHA Fanfiction #My Fanfiction #Endeavor #Todoroki Enji #Hisui #From the Ashes Part 2 #Eraserhead #Tsukauchi Naomasa #All Might #Yagi Toshinori #Nedzu #From the Ashes #My Writing #Aizawa Shouta

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dearophelia · 7 years

Text

for saviours (victoria, 10,700 words)

Victoria Ryder: selections from her pre-game life. (or, @moustache-conversationalist asked me to talk more about Victoria, and then this happened). Also on AO3.

Warning for a physically abusive relationship in #5 (aftermath of), and it’s referenced occasionally throughout the rest. No spoilers as long as you’ve made it to the Nexus.

[Here’s the corresponding playlist]

01: Lift Her, Pull Her

now she was smart, she grew up with this complex that the people that surrounded her seemed to expect the world

thirteen.

Glaring at the group of boys in the backyard, Victoria slams her window shut. The fresh air would be nice, but she needs to focus, and twelve boys fresh off their tenth win in a row are not going to help with focusing. The window only muffles the noise, and she screams underneath her breath. She can’t tell them to shut up - she got in trouble the last time she told him to shut up.

(“Scott’s allowed to celebrate, Victoria,” Mom said gently, but firmly, as Dad sat silent at the table, reading his email. “Just shut your window, or listen with headphones.”

Three days later, she found a set of sound-cancelling headphones on her desk. A note on top of them - you can, and you will. There was manufacturer, no label, no serial number. She tried searching, and came up with nothing. But they blocked out all noise, even thirteen year-old boys.

At breakfast the next day, Dad winked conspiratorially at her before he left for his trip.)

Her ears need a break from headphones, so she sighs, resigning herself to having to listen to muffled Rowdy Boy noises all afternoon. She rests her head in her hands, staring at the textbook in front of her.

The test is next week. If she doesn’t pass, she doesn’t get into the Academy. If she doesn’t get into the Academy, she’s stuck going to normal high school, like Scott. If she’s stuck going to normal high school, then she’s stuck going to normal university, stuck going to medical school at 21 instead of 18, stuck waiting an extra four years for her life to start the way she wants.

But the human respiratory system stands in front of her. She knows the rest - all the math, the biology, the chemistry, the physics, even the history and literature she knows they’re going to ask just to make sure she’s “well-rounded” - but the respiratory system has been tripping her up for days. It’ll be four questions on the test, if that, but she refuses to fall into that trap. She can get four questions wrong on the physiology section and still pass, but that’s four questions she has to get right somewhere else.

Her classmates may play those kinds of mathematical games, but she doesn’t.

“You can do this,” she tells herself, straightening her shoulders. “You can, and you will.”

eighteen.

Her email beeps, pulling her attention away from krogan organ redundancies. She shakes her shoulders out - she wasn’t paying much attention to the words and diagrams in front of her anyway. She is very tired.

So tired she thinks she’s hallucinating when she sees who the email’s from. Dad. She got a birthday card from him - three weeks late - but otherwise hasn’t heard from him since she was home at Christmas.

Subject: Good luck

Victoria frowns, and wonders if Mom said something to him. She hadn’t quite melted down on their last vidcall, but she came close. She’s done with written exams, but she still has interviews and practicals to finish before any of the eight medical schools she applied to will consider her acceptance. Eight interviews, eight practicals, starting in two days, over in a week.

There’s a light, a distinct end point when she can get more than two hours of sleep at a time, reboot her circadian rhythm, and take a breath without also thinking about asari reproduction, krogan headplate mechanics, dextro drug protocol, or salarian digestive systems. The light is nine days out, but it’s there, and is the only thing keeping her from sitting in the middle of her room, amidst notes and textbooks and flashcards and mismatched socks, and completely and utterly giving up.

She opens the email.

You can, and you will.

- Dad

She scrolls down. A forwarded shipping notification for new guitar strings and a pack of new picks. “How did you know?” she asks, as if her computer has any answers. Her guitar’s sitting next to her bed, untouched for two weeks since she tuned a string too hard and it broke. She rubs her left forearm, where the string had snapped against her skin; medigel had sealed the cut, and a dermal regenerator sped up the process - it’s barely even a scar now.

She checks the package tracking details; it was delivered to her Academy mailbox yesterday. She stands up, pulls on pants, throws a sweatshirt over her tank top, and shoves her feet into sneakers. It’s a good excuse for a break, maybe she’ll get some food and coffee while she’s out.

The cool night air is refreshing against her skin; she’s been inside for three days straight studying, has hardly left her room except for the bathroom and to shower. Thunder rolls quietly in the distance, and she feels rain on the air.

The walk across campus to the student center and the mailboxes is a short one, but she consciously slows her pace, taking her time. A voice inside of her yells at her to hurry up, that she needs to study and practice, but another voice yells right back: ten minutes isn’t going to make a difference, and fresh air is good for her.

She puts in an order at the café next to the center - carbonara with triple spinach and tomato, add mushrooms, no prosciutto, and a large iced black coffee - and goes to check her mail while they’re making her food. Her mailbox is empty except for the small package, and she waves at the mail clerk - a woman from her dextro pharmacology course who looks about as stressed as Victoria feels.

The rain starts as she pays for her food and drink and heads back to her room. It’s only a slight drizzle, not even enough to worry about, and she doesn’t speed up her pace until her dorm is in sight and the rain picks up.

She pauses at the door, not sure she’s ready to face her room and krogan organ redundancies again. She takes a deep breath. “I can. And I will.”

twenty-three.

It’s silly, but she keeps every acceptance email she’s ever received. From the email welcoming her to the Paris Academy of Science at age thirteen, to the eight acceptances to medical schools (though she only starred the one from Aeghor), to her internship at Shenzhou, and her residency at Tereshkova, she’s kept all of them.

And now, she’s staring at the one she’s been chasing since she was sixteen.

Dr. Victoria Ryder,

It’s my pleasure to welcome you to my xeno-obstetric fellowship. The applicant pool was remarkable, and your clear, deep passion for your work, your thesis on genophage fertility treatments, and your colleagues’ wide respect for you as a person and as a doctor made you stand out from the rest.

Congratulations. I look forward to working with you in the next years. We begin on the first of August, at Galatana Orbital Hospital.

Enjoy your summer, and I will see you then.

Sincerely,

Dr. Lauren Walsh

Victoria’s read the email no fewer than ten times since it arrived an hour ago. She almost can’t believe it. Four thousand doctors applied for this fellowship. Three were accepted. And she’s one of them. She isn’t sure whether to cry or jump up and down for joy. She settles for reading it again. It’s my pleasure to welcome you.

“Doctor Ryder to OB, code two. Doctor Ryder to OB, code two.”

Good - her patient finally went into active labor. She finishes her coffee and stands up, sending a message to the charge nurse that she heard the page and is on her way. Cracking her neck, she heads for the elevator.

While she’s waiting, Victoria reads the email once more. Ten years. She’s wanted something like this for ten years - the chance to work with a galactically-renowned doctor at the leading edges of medicine. And she’s wanted this specific chance for seven years, since Doctor Walsh spoke at a symposium her sophomore year at the Academy.

And it’s here. It’s real. It’s happening.

The elevator doors open, and she waits for the team to exit and roll out their patient before she steps in. She presses the button for Labor & Delivery.

She taps forward on the email, and types in her father’s email address. They haven’t spoken in two years, not for any reason other than crazy schedules and focused priorities. But this - even if he’s bogged down in a cave somewhere, totally surrounded with only one clip left, he’ll want to know about this.

I can. And I did. - V

The doors open, she hits send and closes her email, and steps out onto her floor, tugging her white lab coat on as she heads for her patient.

02: Icarus

look out to the future, but it tells you nothing, so take another breath

“Time of death, 14:47,” Victoria calls quietly. The room is quiet for a moment, and the low, monotone beep of a flatline heart monitor sounds like a hull breach siren. She takes a breath, and then another before stripping off her gloves. “I’ll go tell her family,” she says.

Reyat stops her at the door. “I’ll tell them,” he says gently.

Victoria looks up at her intern and shakes her head, even though she wants nothing more than to pass this responsibility off - even to a salarian intern her patient’s family has never met before. Especially to a salarian intern her patient’s family has never seen before. “She was my patient,” she says, feeling so completely still that she’s off-balance. “Thanks, but I’ll do it.” She steps around him and out into the hall as the others start to unplug machines and clean up the woman - the body.

She’s lost patients before, had to deliver this news before. But she was there from the beginning with this one - Rebecca Peters, aged 52, with her husband Steven, trying for ten desperate years to conceive before they finally made it to her office. She’d helped them through fertility treatments, through failed IVF, through experimental gene therapy. Three years of intense, constant work, and eight months ago she had the privilege of telling Rebecca she was pregnant.

Now she has to tell her husband that his wife and his unborn son are dead.

“I quit,” she says, hours later, standing in the doorway to her mentor’s office. She’s taken a shower, but she still feels gross. Exhausted. Gritty.

“Doctor Ryder,” Walsh says, looking up from her computer.

“Doctor Walsh.”

“We are not having this conversation with you in the door. Come in, please.”

Victoria shakes her head. “No, I quit.” She takes a deep breath. “I…I cannot do that again.” Obstetrics and fertility are all she knows, all she’s ever trained for, but now - now all she knows is that she can’t go through today ever again. Can’t spend three years with someone, learning everything from her favorite color (blue) to her top choices in baby names (Michael, Adrian, Oscar) to the topic of her master’s thesis (commerce standards as they relate to and enforce batarian exclusion from a galactic society) only to have them die on her operating table.

Walsh leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. Her angular eyebrows furrow together in disapproval. “You’ve been on this track since you were fourteen. What are you gonna do instead?”

“Trauma,” she says. Get in, get out, turf the patient before you learn too much. Before you care too much.

An eyebrow quirks up, briefly. “You’ll have to redo your entire surgical rotation, unless you’re thinking of quitting on surgery, too.”

“I know. And no, I’m not quitting surgery.”

“Well,” Walsh says, “at least that’s something.”

The bitter disappointment of her mentor’s tone cuts deep, and Victoria winces. “I…”

Walsh interrupts her with a sharp shake of her head. “No. You had a bad day, Ryder. You lost a patient. It sucks, but you’re a doctor - it happens. Our specialty is longer term, and you need to learn the difference between being friends, and being friendly.”

“And I’m sure as shit not going to make that mistake again,” Victoria spits out. She feels tears starting to build again, and balls her hands into fists, pressing her fingernails into her palms.

“Walk out that door if you want,” Walsh says, “I’ll even write you a recommendation for Doctor K’Taara’s program. But you are not welcome back into mine. Understand? Walk out that door, we’re done.”

She’s wanted to be a doctor since she was six. A surgeon since she was seven, an obstetrician since she was eleven. She sailed through her pre-med high school, graduated fourth in her class at medical school, made it through her internship and residency years without a single locker room meltdown, got accepted as one of Walsh’s three fellows, and was the only one invited back for a second rotation.

And now she’s twenty-six, standing in Walsh’s door, half in, half out, ready to be all out. She looks up at the ceiling, as if it holds any answers at all.

“Yeah,” she says, exhaling slowly. She looks at Walsh. “I’m done.”

With a curt nod, Walsh dismisses her. “Clean out your locker by the end of the day. You’ll have your recommendation by Friday.”

A tight, painful knot forms in her throat, and Victoria tries to swallow it down. She’s either just made the biggest mistake, or the best decision, of her life. She won’t know until a month from now, when the trauma program starts up. Maybe she’ll go home, visit Mom, hide in the basement for a while.

Victoria nods and steps backward, out of the door and into the hall.

“Doctor Ryder,” Walsh calls just as Victoria’s about to turn the corner.

Slowly, Victoria walks back to her former mentor’s office.

Walsh is the one standing in the doorway now, hand extended for a parting handshake.

“You are an incredible doctor,” she says, clasping Victoria’s hand in a firm grip. “Own it. Be the best damn trauma surgeon in the galaxy. Be terrifying.”

03: Hejira

in the church they light the candles, and the wax rolls down like tears, there’s hope and the hopelessness, I’ve witnessed thirty years

She squints up at the bright sun in the cloudless blue sky. A light breeze blows through her hair, carrying with it the scent of honeysuckle and freshly-mown grass. Birds chirp and sing cheery greetings from the trees, bees buzz about the yellow and pink flowers, and crickets chirp in the grass, as if they aren’t aware that they’re supposed to be quiet. As if they didn’t get the order for respectful silence.

She closes her eyes. Amidst the rustle of leaves and singing of birds and buzzing of bees, she hears the low murmur of mourners conveying condolences. She should be over there with them, standing between Scott and Dad, shaking hands and accepting hugs from people whose names she doesn’t remember, who she hasn’t seen since childhood - if ever. But there’s a perk to being family of the dead, and it’s the phrase it’s too much, I can’t and being able to walk away.

Too many people, too many versions of I’m sorry, she was a wonderful woman, too many hugs and handshakes and reminders that her mother is actually dead.

Dead. Gone. In the ground, now. There’s even a bouquet of daisies thrown on top of the coffin amidst the traditional roses. Mom loved daisies, and everyone else seemed to forget that.

Victoria wraps her arms around herself, cold despite the black dress and early summer sun.

She’s on day six of three weeks of bereavement leave. Her boss - the very definition of good intentions, bad execution - insisted she take the full three weeks. She’s ready to go back now. Hell, she was ready to go back four days ago, except she didn’t want to miss the funeral. Someone had to stay to put daisies in Mom’s grave.

A hand settles on her shoulder. “You okay?”

Given that Mom died and you are obviously not okay, are you okay? is what he really means.

With a deep breath, she nods. “Yeah.”

As okay as I possibly can be, which isn’t that okay at all.

She turns and looks up at Scott, squeezing his hand when he lets it drop from her shoulder. “Do you think anyone would mind if I left? I’m getting a little,” she gives him a slight grimace, and jitters her free hand. Words don’t exist to describe what she’s feeling, only the overwhelming sense that if she stays in this cemetery any longer, she’s going to break down in a way she doesn’t want her own family - much less the strangers still gathered beside the grave - to see.

“Go,” he says, pulling her in for a hug. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Thanks,” she says, and returns the hug. He walks back to the grave, and she takes a deep breath and walks toward the road.

She kicks at a pebble and waves off the driver. It’s only a mile, she’ll walk home.

Home. A place she hasn’t been back to in a way that requires more than five pairs of underwear since she was eighteen. She didn’t even live in this house - they moved in when she was sixteen. Her room has always felt less like a room, and more of an afterthought: a rather uncomfortable pull-out couch in the basement, next to a ping pong table and some home brewing equipment of Scott’s that always smells like it never quite got clean. Mom at least made sure there were flowers on the table whenever she was home, and filled the shelves nearest the couch with books and mementos and little things she had in her old room. But there wasn’t even a dresser or a closet, or really any place to unpack her belongings, until she found a set of drawers behind an old LOKI mech missing an arm and dragged it out to sit beside the pool table. Not like she actually ever unpacked, not even this time.

Fifteen more days of this. Fifteen more days of Dad locking himself away in his lab. Fifteen more days of sleeping on a crappy couch and glaring at a shower with questionable water pressure and pretending she and Scott have a clue how to talk to each other. Fifteen more days of overwhelming and ceaseless reminders that your mother is dead.

She’s going to scream. Or lose her mind. Or punch someone. Possibly all three, and not necessarily in that order.

A block from the house, her work email chirps. She glances at it - her out of office message gives her an excuse to not respond, but she likes to keep up on her inbox. She lifts an eyebrow: it’s from Reyat, her intern at Galatana Orbital, and who she hasn’t seen or heard from since she left the station three years ago. From his email address, it looks like he’s at Jaëto Immunology now. Good for him.

Subject: Thought you might be interested

Well, now she is. She walks the rest of the way to the house and sits down on the front porch steps to read his email.

Ryder;

I’m sorry to hear about your mother. I lost my father several years ago, and unfortunately I can offer no words of wisdom or quick fixes: grief is something you just have to get through. You have the strength to weather it, I know you do.

I know you’re currently running Gagarin’s second trauma team - and I’ve heard great things about you - but in case a change of scenery will help you through the grief (I know it did for me), I thought to pass on an interesting opportunity.

Dr. Mordin Solus has been running a clinic in the Gozu District of Omega for the past two years. Communication in and out of Omega is fuzzy, but he seems to be in need of a new trauma specialist. I worked with him for six months after leaving Galatana, and he’s brilliant. He’s also a little crazy, but I’d focus less on that and more on the brilliant.

A human coworker of mine told me that food is something you bring to human funerals; there should be something called a “fruit basket” arriving shortly.

I wish you well,

Reyat

As if on cue, a delivery drone zips up the driveway to the porch. Victoria signs the touchpad and lifts the large - very large - fruit basket from its compartment. “Thanks,” she says; she always feels rude not thanking them, even though they’re robots. It beeps at her and flies away.

She carries the basket inside and sets it on the table amidst casseroles, cheese platters, cookies, cakes, and what she’s fairly certain is a fully-organic-never-even-heard-of-a-vat pot roast. She picks an apple out of the basket, washes it, and bites down. It’s the first time she’s smiled in six days. The apple is crisp, juicy, and just on the right side of tart. She wipes a dribble of juice off her chin and walks downstairs to the basement to change out of the black dress, black tights, and black shoes.

But she catches herself in the hall mirror. She looks almost as dead as her mother. Pale skin - she’d left her blush in her apartment on Gagarin, and hasn’t yet had the emotional energy to buy some, not even to place an extranet order - dark brown hair pulled up in a French braid, hollows under her eyes deep and dark enough to look like craters, black clothes…she looks like a ghost. And there are fifteen more days to go.

She sits down on the couch and unties her shoes with one hand, then bites down on the apple and holds it with her teeth while she shimmies out of her tights - her nail catches on them and drags a rip all the way down her thigh - and tugs her dress off over her head.

And then she starts to laugh. Because she’s standing in her parents’ basement, after her mother’s funeral, wearing only her bra and panties, eating an apple sent to her by a former intern, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first thing she’s eaten in a couple of days. She feels her body start to cry, feels the tightness in her throat and the sting at her eyes, feels her shoulders pull forward and an arm wrap around her waist - but she’s fresh out of tears. There are none left.

So she stands there, mostly naked, and finishes her apple in silence.

Maybe it’s the sudden rush of sugar, maybe it’s the total abyss of grief swallowing her up, maybe it’s the prospect of sleeping next to a ping pong table for the next fifteen nights. But she tosses her apple core into the matter recycler and books a ticket to Omega on her way to the shower.

Her transport from Indianapolis leaves in two hours, and it’ll take her five days. From Indianapolis to Armstrong Orbital Transit, and from Armstrong Orbital to the relay transit station off Io, from Io through the Charon Relay to Tereshkova, from Tereshkova to Shenzhou, and from Shenzhou finally to Omega.

She orders blush, pays the extra fifty credits to have it delivered in half an hour, and gets in the scalding hot shower to wash her mother’s funeral off of her.

“I love you,” she says to her mother’s empty office, dressed for travel and with her backpack slung over her shoulders and her duffle bag propped up next to her. She took four apples from the basket, and three of the chocolate chip cookies brought by a neighbor she never met. With a nod, she walks out onto the porch, and to the waiting skycab.

She’s on Shenzhou before she finally checks her messages, and finds twenty-three from Scott. She blinks at them, blinks at his words and desperation and where are you. But they all stay in focus, nothing goes blurry with tears.

(You are not fine, she tells herself. You’re numb.

I know. I’m gonna try being numb for a while.)

The gate agent calls for her transport to start boarding, and she stands to get in line. With a deep breath, she replies to Scott - I’m alive, headed to Omega - and removes her personal and work email inboxes from her omnitool. Scott’s twenty-three messages disappear, along with the rest of her life.

She smiles at the gate agent, displays her ticket - the agent raises her browplates at the lack of return date, but doesn’t say anything - and finds her seat.

04: Paris

if we go down, then we go down together, they’ll say you could do anything, they’ll say that I was clever

Victoria sighs as the elevator creaks its way up to her floor. She rolls her neck, trying to stretch out the knots that have formed in the last ten hours, with little success. Removing the bullet and setting the quarian’s arm had been fairly easy - repairing her environmental suit, on the other hand, was not. Good thing Mordin’s inventive, or all of Victoria’s efforts with the woman’s arm would’ve been for naught.

The elevator shakes and, for a moment, it feels like the cables are going to give out. But they hold, and the door slowly stutters open at her floor.

She checks the hall on either side of the elevator - empty - and yawns as she walks down the hall to her apartment. The palmprint scanner is old, twitchy, and needs three tries before it registers her as human, and another try before it figures out that it’s her. The retinal scanner, however, is brand new and works on the first try. She spent the last four nights in a tangle of wires, trying to override the palm scanner’s control of the door and reroute master control the retinal scanner, but she’s maxed out her knowledge of electricity. She’ll have to ask Mordin.

The door locks itself behind her, and she yawns again, dropping her bag beside a small pile of shoes just inside the entryway. “Ugh,” she groans. She needs a shower, food, and bed (preferably not in that order - she’d like to just fall face first into bed, but she really should shower and eat something first).

Two steps further, and she stops and stares her couch.

A very large, very blue, lizard is sitting in the exact middle of her couch, tail curled around itself.

She blinks at it. “What?”

It blinks at her.

She tilts her head.

It tilts its head.

She squeezes her eyes shut, waits a moment, and then opens them again.

Nope. The lizard is still there.

“Okay, not hallucinating.” She’s way too tired to process giant lizard in my apartment. “How did you…what…I don’t even know what to do about this. How did you even get in?” She scrubs a hand over her face.

The lizard blinks again.

“Thank you, that’s very helpful.” Victoria activates her omnitool and takes a picture of the lizard, running it through a reverse image search. If it isn’t going to eat her, poison her, or otherwise kill her in her sleep, she’s deeming the lizard a Morning Problem.

Her omnitool beeps: it’s a blue iguana, male. Herbivore. Not venomous. Good.

Victoria yawns. “You can stay the night. Don’t eat all my lettuce.”

***

When she wakes in the morning, she wakes with thoughts of breakfast, of focusing on her back and shoulders with her yoga, of maybe giving the smoothie place around the corner from the clinic a try.

But when she walks out of her bedroom, the lizard is still curled up on her couch.

“Oh, fuck,” she says, “I forgot about you.”

He shifts, settling his weight differently. Like he’s claimed the couch for himself. Like he’s moving in.

“Seriously?”

He blinks.

Victoria turns on her coffee maker. “Okay. You can stay until I figure out what exactly the hell it is I’m supposed to do when a giant lizard shows up uninvited.” His torso is bigger than her bicep; short of enlisting her biotics - and she’s never been too good at finesse - she doubts she can make him leave.

She sits down at the small kitchen table and sips at her coffee, staring at the lizard. “I dub thee Albert,” she says.

Albert flicks his tail and closes his eyes.

05: You Want It Darker

I struggled with some demons, they were middle class and tame; I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim

“What happened there?”

Aria’s voice catches Victoria off-guard almost as much as the question itself. Aria makes a point not to get involved with the patch-them-back-together side of her empire - Victoria can count on one hand the number of times she’s seen Aria actually on this level, in a room with someone bleeding - and she sure as hell doesn’t ask personal questions. But the black eye’s only a few hours fresh, and she hadn’t had time to even attempt concealer before she got the 911 to Afterlife. As bad as it looked when she caught herself in the mirror on the way out, Victoria bets it looks far worse now - even more so under the sickly green-white lights of the bathroom in Afterlife’s lowest level.

She considers lying - she can get a new apartment, dye her hair, change her access codes, bribe a batarian to loiter around the corner just as well as anyone - but it’s been two weeks. Two weeks since she had enough and told him to get the fuck out, two weeks since he’s been trying to prove the theory that adding bruises will make her change her mind. Two weeks of Mordin patching her up (of lying to him, of saying she’s found a boxing gym, of him clearly not believing her), two weeks of nearly every part of her body hurting.

Two weeks, after four months.

She’s been working for Aria long enough to know that Aria only asks questions like this once.

“Doral,” Victoria says, peeling off her latex gloves. She turns them inside out into a ball, elbows the biohazard recycler’s activation panel, and tosses them down a chute to be burned, compacted, and blown out into space. Upon examination of her shirt, she grasps the hem with both hands and pulls it over her head and tosses it down the chute after her gloves. Her pants probably deserve the same treatment, but she’s not about to take her shoes off to change out of them - this bathroom floor is the most questionable thing she’s ever seen in her life - and, besides, they’re black; not that bloodstained clothing would raise too many eyes on Omega.

“He do that, too?” Aria asks, looking pointedly at Victoria’s torso mottled with bruises.

“Yep,” she says, pulling a wrapped, sterile bar of soap out of her bag. She doesn’t look at herself in the cracked mirror as she turns on the faucet. The plumbing hisses and clanks, and then water burbles out. She sighs. The other bathroom on this level - the one that’s actually clean and has proper lighting and a decent sink - had an altercation of the evisceration-and-death variety earlier this evening, and a cleanup crew hasn’t made it there yet.

The lights flicker. Victoria sees something unpleasant scurry through the shadows into one of the stalls. She closes her eyes for a moment. She hates this bathroom.

“You should ditch him.”

“I tried.” She tests the water - it’s as hot as it’s going to get - and rips off the paper around the soap. She wore gloves and had Bray work her over with a scrubber omnitool, but she’s been elbow-deep in a krogan for the last eight hours trying to keep his secondary heart from exploding. A hot decontamination shower would be a better choice, though she doubts there’s one of those in all of Omega. “It’s having some trouble sticking.”

The hot water and soap sting the broken skin of her knuckles and she hisses. She’s been trying to return the favor as much as she can, but she can’t overrule physics: Doral is a foot and a half taller than her, has at least a hundred pounds on her, and was a hand-to-hand drill sergeant in the Hierarchy before joining up with the Blue Suns. She’s good in a fight, but not take-a-guy-three-times-her-size good. And he tends to crowd in and grab her wrists - she can’t even pull the mnemonic for a barrier trapped like that, much less a warp field.

Aria’s silent for a while, watching Victoria clean up as best she can in a crappy bathroom after an eight-hour surgery in the basement of a club. “Want protection?” she says when Victoria finally turns off the water, and it’s with a tone that makes Victoria think it isn’t exactly a question.

The answer’s most definitely yes, but - “How much is that gonna cost me?”

“Nothing,” Aria tosses her a towel and her bag. “The last three doctors I’ve had on my payroll would’ve given Volak up for dead the minute they saw him.” She pauses, lets that sink in. “It’s in my best interests to keep you alive.”

Victoria dries her hands and forearms, and then pulls on the clean sweatshirt from her bag; her ribs ache with the motion. She shakes out her ponytail and pulls it right back up again, and then looks at Aria in the dim, flickering light. “You know,” she says evenly, “I’m not gonna complain if one of your guys gets a little rough and he ends up in a dumpster.”

Although its attempts certainly keep her busy, employed, and paid well enough to have a decent apartment, she doesn’t advocate murder. But she’s sporting bruised ribs - probably at least one broken - and her eye’s starting to throb, and this isn’t the worst he’s done. She won’t ask directly, but she’ll happily look the other way.

First do no harm has a pretty blurry line these days. A year ago, she’d be horrified by herself.

A year ago, her mother was alive. A year ago, she was working the day shift on Gagarin. A year ago, she would’ve called Volak the minute he hit her table. A year ago, she didn’t know how to shoot with one hand and field dress a bullet wound with the other.

A year ago, broken ribs weren’t quite so common.

The bulb overhead flickers again - once, twice, three times, and blows out.

Aria smiles, and in the shadows it even looks genuine. “I’ll pass that along.”

06: Comes And Goes (In Waves)

this one’s for the torn down, the experts at the fall; come on friends, get up now, you’re not alone at all

Victoria stirs her straw around her empty drink, clinking the ice against the glass. She pokes at the lime wedge, stabbing it into the ice cubes. Afterlife’s music pulses around her, its patrons weave and dance and stumble past her, and she’s bored. For the tenth time in the last twenty minutes, she checks the clock on her omnitool - no matter how she spins it, she’s been sitting here, waiting, for forty-five minutes.

She’s going to have words with Bray after this one.

The drell beside her vacates his seat, and it isn’t thirty seconds before a turian male takes his place.

Victoria stiffens. Jailen and Qorra followed her here - they follow her everywhere, she’s sure they rented a unit in her building - and no one’s stupid enough to try anything in Afterlife anyway, not even Doral. She’s safe, she knows this, but her head and heart aren’t agreeing much on logic these days.

Three deep breaths, she forces her shoulders to relax, and she gestures for the bartender to refill her club soda. She looks at the turian - the only way to really convince herself that he isn’t Doral is to look and prove it.

Crappy armor, and he sits awkwardly in it, like it’s new. Like he’s used to wearing something else, something better. He sits strangely too, like he’s trying to act natural - he’s failing pretty miserably at it. He turns to catch the attention of the bartender, and the lights illuminate his profile - strong, confident, with blue markings under his eyes.

Definitely not Doral.

He orders three shots of quadruple-filtered turian brandy, and throws them back in rapid succession.

Victoria bites on her straw and raises her eyebrows. “Bad day?”

He sighs, and knocks on the counter, ordering another three. “You could say that.” His flanged voice is strained, tight. He drinks one shot, but lets the other two sit, and doesn’t look at her.

She cracks her neck and checks the time again. Forty-nine minutes. This is ridiculous. She messages Bray - what the hell?

they’re blocked in an alley, had to send guys to help clear em out

She scoffs. If her patient has any blood left in him by the time he finally gets here, she’ll be amazed. She should’ve risked it and gone to meet the car.

The turian snorts. “Sounds like you’re not having a great day either.”

“I’m not four shots in,” she points out, though she’s rapidly considering the merits of catching up. “I think you’re still winning.”

He laughs, and it’s a strained, chaotic, unstable thing. “Fair enough.”

“I’m Victoria,” she says. She isn’t one to strike up conversations in bars, much less introduce herself to strangers, but it’s late, and she’s tired, and there’s a shotgun-ravaged batarian on his way that’ll keep her up for at least another four hours.

And he isn’t Doral. And for the first time in almost five months, she doesn’t feel quite so twitchy around a turian, even if this one does sound like he’s two seconds from leaping off a cliff.

“Garrus,” he says, finally looking at her.

She clinks her glass against one of his still-full shot glasses. “Nice to meet you.” She pushes her hair out of her face. Afterlife is hot, and she wishes she’d thought to take a hairband out of her medical bag before she parked it at the bar.

His mandibles tighten, and his sharp intake of breath is audible even through the music. “Looks like you had a really bad day a couple weeks ago.”

She winces. What she thought was a black eye was really an orbital fracture. Mordin knit the bone back together, but there’s nothing she can do for the bruising except wait. “Yeah,” she acknowledges. “But it’s over now.”

He stares at her, and his brow plates flatten.

And that’s when it hits her - he’s a cop. Not the corrupt ones that pretend to patrol Omega in exchange for credits in their pockets from one gang or another (or many), but the good kind. The kind she could’ve used when Doral started showing his love with his fists. The kind she maybe would’ve used, if he’d been around.

Garrus recovers quickly, affects a disinterested slouch again, and she respects his choice and doesn’t say anything.

“Good,” he says.

“You gonna get through your bad day?”

He sighs, and swallows one of his remaining shots. “Somehow,” he says.

“Ryder!” Bray calls.

She turns and looks over her shoulder.

“They’re five minutes out, get your ass downstairs.”

She throws him a sloppy salute and drains the rest of her drink.

“You work for Aria?” Garrus manages to sound disappointed and impressed at the same time.

“Mmm,” she says, bobbling her head in both a nod and a shake, “tangentially.” She slides off her stool.

He takes it at face value and finishes off the last shot without a word.

Victoria steps in beside him and rests her hand on his arm. “Whoever your bad day is? I bet they’d be happier if you didn’t destroy your liver.”

He blinks at her, and suddenly his discomfort and good cop vibe and six shots of brandy all slide away, replaced by a deep, relentless sadness in his eyes. It isn’t just a bad day - it’s a bad week, a bad month. He’s here to cope.

That, she can relate to.

She pats his arm and gives him a smile. “I gotta go save some lives. Have a good night, Garrus.”

07: Castle Down

and would you tear my castle down, stone by stone, and the wind run through my window, ‘til there is nothing left but a battered rose

Penny takes her hand and gently laces their fingers together. “This is nice,” she says, looking down at Victoria.

Victoria smiles up at her. “Yeah, it is.”

“That’s nice too,” she squeezes Victoria’s hand, “but I mean being able to walk without looking over your shoulder, or hurrying back to your apartment.”

Shrugging, Victoria checks around her. Nope - still no bodyguards. Aria called them back after Doral’s body was found mostly decomposed in a depressurized airlock last month. What was it Baylor called her the other day?

Switzerland.

She laughs, shaking her head.

“What?” Penny grins widely, looking at her. “What?”

Victoria pulls her laughter under her control again and takes a breath. “Apparently, I’m Switzerland.”

Penny raises an eyebrow. “You’re an Earth country that makes accurate watches?”

She looks at Penny, but Penny’s biting her lip, trying to hold back a grin. Victoria sticks her tongue out at her girlfriend and lightly swings their hands as they walk along the promenade back to their apartment (her apartment, Victoria hopes Penny will say yes to moving in with her, and then it will become their apartment). “I’m…the metaphor doesn’t work, actually.”

She’s not neutral. Far from it. Aria’s seen to that in the last few months, which has annoyed Victoria less than she thought it would. Maybe it has nothing to do with neutrality, and everything to do with Omega having enough common sense not to mess with its doctors.

“Because of the guy in the airlock.”

Victoria stops and turns. She’s wearing black skinny pants and a navy blue top, black eyeliner and dark lipstick, with knives sheathed into black boots she can run in. Penny, on the other hand, is in a fluttery pink dress and silver sandal heels, an outfit way better suited to the resorts of Virmire than even the better sections of Omega. Long copper hair curled into waves frames her gentle face, with soft, dewy makeup that hardly looks like makeup at all.

Penny’s a senior auditor with Irune Intergalactic Bank, on Omega for a long-term audit of the bank’s station accounts. Penny is an accountant who likes flowers and dancing and pancakes, whose entire repertoire of self defense moves is wrapped up in running very fast in the other direction and screaming, who is far too sweet and sunny for this dump of a station. Penny shouldn’t know about things like the guy in the airlock - she doesn’t know how Penny even does know about the guy in the airlock.

But if Victoria wants Penny - and she does - she needs to tell Penny about her life. More than just the clinic and the abusive ex.

She lifts up on her toes and kisses Penny. Her lips are soft and smooth, and taste of the citrus in her lip gloss. “Because of the guy in the airlock,” she says. “And a few other things I shouldn’t tell you out here.”

Penny pulls away, with an inquisitive eyebrow raised high.

“Do you want to come up?” Victoria asks.

“For those few other things you shouldn’t tell me out here?” Penny smirks.

Victoria returns the smirk. “Yes. But that’ll only take five minutes. The rest of the night’s up to you.”

“Hmmm,” Penny says. “I like the sound of that.” She takes Victoria’s hand again and leads her up the steps and into the elevator.

Victoria’s spent the last year hauling herself out of the dirt Doral ground her into, and Penny is nice. Penny is soft and sweet and caring - Penny is everything Doral wasn’t. Penny gives wonderful hugs. Penny is a delightfully normal person in a life that is rapidly becoming anything but.

The minute she steps out into the hall, Victoria knows something is wrong. She doesn’t see anything out of place, doesn’t hear anything out of place, but the hair on the back of her neck stands straight up. The shift out of Date Mode and into Defense Mode is instant and instinctive.

(Some day, she should examine that - how easily she unsheathed the knife from her right boot, how naturally she stepped in front of Penny, how quickly she pulled a barrier around both of them with only a twitch of her fingers.)

“Tori?” Penny asks, a scared waver in her voice.

“Stay close behind me,” she says. She thinks for a moment and pauses right outside her door. “Do you have any pepper spray in your purse?”

“Yeah,” Penny nods, withdrawing the can.

She runs an infrared scan with her omnitool - two shapes, in the living room. One human, one salarian. She frantically looks for Albert, and sighs in relief when she finds him sleeping in the bathtub. And then she rolls her eyes: he’s the same way with bugs, totally useless. “Don��t use that until I tell you, okay?”

“Just what were you going to tell me in those five minutes?”

She intends it to be teasing, but Victoria hears the undercurrent of concern - of fear - in her girlfriend’s voice. Before she triggers the retinal scan and they walk into whatever nonsense is waiting for them, she turns around to Penny.

“Short version? I work for Aria,” she says.

“Why do I get the feeling the long version involves you and several street fights?”

Victoria wonders whether Penny has any idea how close she is to the truth. “You don’t have to stick around for this,” she says.

“My alternative is to walk home alone, knowing my girlfriend is walking into an ambush. Besides,” she smiles, and it’s clear that she’s still scared, but there’s a tiny sparkle in her eyes, “I’m not missing you go ninja on some people.”

Victoria lifts up on her toes and gives Penny a quick kiss. She turns, pulls a tight annihilation field around both of them, and activates the retinal scanner. The door swings open. She adjusts her grip on the knife and steps inside, Penny right behind her.

Her annihilation field growls, and lifts the table lamp into the air. She targets the lamp, ready to throw it if necessary.

“Put it down, Ryder.” A voice calls from the dark.

Victoria frowns - she knows that accent. Scottish, with the hard, rough edge that comes from living on Omega too damn long. Yeah, she knows him. She’s patched him up in the clinic four times in the past six months. She lowers the knife, a little. “Monteague? What the fuck?”

He flips a light on and grins at her. He’s found a decent dentist since she last saw him - he’s no longer missing the teeth he lost in the fight that brought him to her two weeks ago. “Put the knife down, we’re not here to hurt you.”

“Who’s your friend?” She feels Penny wound up and on guard behind her, and takes her hand. A brief, hopefully reassuring, squeeze - it’s okay, I know this guy and he’s probably not going to kill either of us - and she lets go.

“Sensat. Needed him to get through your security.”

“It’s there for a reason, you asshole. What do you want?” Victoria sheathes the knife and dissolves her annihilation field. The lamp drops back onto the table, precariously close to the edge, but Penny catches it and gently sets it upright.

“One of our guys got hurt bad. Archangel said to grab you and get going.” Monteague stands, wincing a little as his hip straightens.

Victoria raises an eyebrow - she fixed that, and wonders if he decided to kick his way out of a fight anyway, just like she told him not to. Shaking her head, she lets the barrier fall. “Archangel know how to use a phone?” She crosses her arms. “Even Aria calls first.”

He shrugs. “It’s an emergency. You coming or does Sensat have to carry you over his shoulder?”

Though the salarian is scrawny - even for a salarian - she doesn’t doubt he could make good on the threat. But either way, the choices Monteague’s offered will end in her going with him. No matter what, she isn’t getting hugs - or anything else, for that matter - from Penny tonight.

Even if she could, she wouldn’t turn them away. Whatever and whoever it is, they need her help badly enough that they broke into her apartment to find her.

She turns to Penny. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I have to do this. But you’re welcome to stay. Sensat will fix whatever security he broke getting in here; you’ll be safe here.” She looks over her shoulder and glares at the salarian.

He dips his chin, nodding once.

“That’s okay,” Penny says, smiling as though it’s totally normal that her girlfriend got a house call from some local goons who need her medical expertise. “Albert and I can watch television.” She glances over Victoria’s shoulder at the two men waiting impatiently. “Are you going to be okay with them?” she asks quietly.

Victoria nods. Archangel’s done good work - his body count has hit her morgue, but they’re all people who have deserved it for years - and Monteague’s an ass, but he’s a good guy. “I’ll be fine.” She squeezes Penny’s hand. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I’ll be here,” Penny promises.

08: Gesture

look at me like it’s a lesson, I know to take it all in

Her omnitool chirps mid-surgery with an email notification. She ignores it - the salarian open in front of her needs her attention more than whatever scam has found its way through her spam filter. She widens the forceps, and hisses at what she sees inside his chest.

She’s no epidemiologist, but those growths are not normal. There have been rumors - low, but steadily growing stronger - of a bug running through the district. Something gnaws at her, something she overheard outside Afterlife. Vorcha aren’t exactly reliable sources of information, but she’d rather overreact.

“Everyone who’s not human, leave the room. Now.”

“Doctor Ryder?” Nivera asks.

“Out.” She looks up over her mask at the turian. And at the drell, Raetaq. And at the salarian, Zaan. And at the krogan, Bruna. “All of you. Now. Decon protocol level 5.”

She waits until the others have left the room before she looks across the body at Daniel. “This guy’s a goner,” she says. He came in as a stabbing victim, but it’s not the knife that’s going to kill him. Or rather, the knife sped up the process - if he even survives surgery, which is unlikely, his body won’t be strong enough to heal the wound and fight the infection in his lungs.

“Doctor?”

Victoria shakes her head. There are no good options here: patch the knife wound and save his life now only for him to probably die in days, or sacrifice his life now to gain valuable research into what looks like far more than just a nasty bug. It’s a shitty choice either way. “Prepare a sterile biohazard container. We’re taking samples, maybe Mordin can do something with this.”

***

It’s another six hours and three patients before she finally gets to check her email. She slumps into a chair in an empty room - almost empty, except for a dead drell on the table, covered by a sheet - finishes half of her protein shake in one go, and pulls up her email.

She doesn’t get much email these days. She started a new account when she got to Omega, and it’s somehow remained blissfully off mailing lists and scams. There are only five messages in her inbox - one from Mordin with preliminary results from the samples she took earlier (doesn’t look good), two from Bray confirming when and where they need her tonight, a sale flyer from Harrot, and…

One from Lauren Walsh. Subject: Job Offer.

Victoria frowns. Walsh has connections - the fact that she found Victoria’s new email address isn’t surprising, what is surprising is that she used it. She hasn’t heard a word from Walsh since she left her program six years ago, and truthfully never expected to, and certainly not via something with job offer in the subject.

Hesitantly, she opens it.

Dr. Ryder;

I’m putting a team together at Huerta Memorial. It’s an obstetric trauma team, focused solely on human biotic pregnancies. The first generation of human biotics is beginning to reach its childbearing boom, and we have - as I’m sure you can imagine - encountered complications. The Alliance has thrown full funding behind my proposal to create a research and treatment team to help prevent and treat these complications.

I know you are currently on Omega, doing what I’m sure is excellent, necessary work with Dr. Solus, but your talents would also be beneficial, and welcome, on my team. This is an open offer.

My condolences on the loss of your mother.

Regards,

Lauren Walsh

She reads it again. And again. And a fourth time.

The Citadel’s nice. But so is Omega.

No, she thinks, it’s not. Omega is a shithole.

Omega is dirty and mean and broken, and she came here to run away - it was pure luck she stumbled into something resembling a life. It’s been three years, and maybe the grief has lifted, maybe it hasn’t, but she wants to live in a building with a working elevator. She wants a proper day-night cycle. She doesn’t want…whatever the hell it was that just scuttled across the operating room floor.

She wants a proper vegetable, one she didn’t have to coax into existence with a bank of secondhand grow lights she got from the weed and mushroom dealers across the hall. Maybe she wants an apple.

Another email pops up, from Mordin again. Schedule changes for next week.

No. She definitely wants an apple.

Victoria finishes her protein shake and sends the changes to update her calendar. She likes her work here, she does, even with whatever impending disaster is about to fall on their collective heads. But Walsh’s team - she could actually help. Make a real difference, not just triage gang fights and sickness. Go back to her roots; god knows, she’s actually missed it.

She should think about it. Talk to Mordin, see if he’s thinking the same thing she is about the illness, see if he wants her to stay. Vidcall Penny on Illium, see how she’s doing, find out what she thinks about her options. Get more details from Walsh, see exactly what they’d be doing, exactly where she fits into the team, maybe ask why Walsh wants her when she made it clear Victoria wasn’t welcome back.

She should take her time and think about it. The last time she didn’t take her time and think about it, she ended up here.

She replies to the email.

I’ll be there in a couple of weeks.

10: Riders On The Storm

into this house we’re born, into this world we’re thrown

Victoria inhales sharply and stares at the dead plant behind Scott’s right shoulder. She deserves this, she absolutely deserves this - number two lesson she learned from Omega, own your bullshit (number one: always be armed) - but she’d rather be shoulder-deep in a pregnant vorcha than in Scott’s apartment with his dead plants and his bought-it-off-a-quarian-street-vendor crappy hotel room art on the walls and his broken coffee maker that beeps every forty-eight seconds, listening to him unleash three years of pent-up anger all directed straight at her throat.

But she deserves this. They’ve never been close, and she’s been leaving him behind her whole life, but this wasn’t just going to high school in Paris and leaving him to navigate blockheads, goons, and girls who broke his heart all by himself. This was abandonment.

She knows this. She’s known this for three years. She was just too numb to feel guilty about it.

He’s been throwing Omega in her face for ten minutes - god only knows how he found out about Doral, and somehow that’s her fault too - and she’s gearing up to shout right back at him (how dare you - he broke my fucking face) when Scott finally snaps.

“I needed my sister!” Scott yells.

Her words die on her lips.

She stands there, still tense, still primed to drag this thing from a one-sided screaming match into a spiteful contest over who had it worse when Mom died, in utter, stunned silence. Scott’s never needed anything from her in his life. Hell, if it weren’t for Mom getting sick, they’d probably still be doing hardly more than exchanging e-cards at Christmas and their birthday.

“You never said anything,” she says quietly. Not that she would’ve known what to do with it. But she could’ve tried. She could’ve thought about trying.

“How could I?” he spits out, green eyes glittering with grief now, not just anger. “You left for Omega straight from her fucking funeral. I thought you were just going home.” His voice breaks on home, and he turns away, running his fingers through his short hair. He walks a few steps over to the window, his hitched breath the only sound in the whole apartment.

The coffee maker beeps.

Victoria watches as his shoulders shake. She knows how to comfort an upset friend. She doesn’t know how to comfort her upset little brother. It occurs to her that she’s not been a very good sister, not for a long time, and Omega’s just the most recent item on a very, very lengthy list.

She bites her lip. Though she tries to hold them back, tears sting at her eyes. Omega was good for her, in the end, and she found solace there - a strange gritty calm amidst a maelstrom of chaos. But it wasn’t all good, far from it. There’s a lot in the beginning she wants to forget. She clenches her teeth hard enough that her jaw aches, and the tears fall anyway. She probably needed her brother, she just didn’t know it. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and wraps her arms around herself. “I’m so sorry, Scott.”

His apartment blurs as she lets herself cry. Hot tears stream down her cheeks and she hears her brother choke back a sob. She tries to hug herself tighter, but it doesn’t help.

It isn’t immediate - the coffee maker beeps six times before either of them make a move - but Scott turns back to her, and Victoria takes a step toward him, and slowly, slowly, they meet in the middle of the living room.

“Do that again, and I will kill you,” he says, burying his face in her hair. “I’m an N5 now, I know how to make it look like an accident.”

She laughs through her tears and holds him closer, not caring at all that she’s smudging mascara onto his shirt. “Yeah, well, I spent three years on Omega, I wouldn’t count me out.” She sniffles.

Scott smiles and kisses the top of her head.

She hasn’t been hugged in a while, and lets her arms settle around his waist. By the way that he’s holding onto her, she bets Scott hasn’t had a hug recently either; she hugs him a little tighter.

They stand there, in the middle of his apartment with the dead plants and the bad art and the broken coffee maker, long after the lights outside have dimmed into their night cycle. Victoria rubs at her cheeks - gritty with tears, streaked with eyeliner - and her stomach growls.

He laughs and takes a step back. “Would you like me to make you food?”

Her mouth waters. Scott’s been a wizard in the kitchen since they were kids, and -

“Before you answer that, yes, I have the stuff for macaroni and cheese.”

The grin that breaks across her face almost hurts with how good it feels. “That would be amazing.”

10: Echo

we are golden stars above silver seas, we hear echoes from another galaxy

Scott sits in the crypod next to her, knees bent to his chest, eyes wide as he watches the organized chaos of the brightly-lit cryo facility.

“Scared?” she teases. She pulls the hairband off her wrist and tugs her hair up until a ponytail. 600 years should be enough time for the gene mod to take permanent hold, and she hopefully won’t have to do any maintenance on it in Andromeda. Bright orange hair permanently, here she comes.

He looks at her. “Did you read how this process works?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re not terrified?”

She shrugs. She’s never frozen herself before, but she’s put plenty of eggs and embryos into cryo, and even pulled them out. “Not really.”

Her omnitool beeps. She looks down, and smiles. A selfie of Penny, with Albert sitting on the couch behind her, his chin resting on her shoulder. We both love you. Good luck!

Tears spring to her eyes, and she tries to blink them back. She’ll miss them both, more than anything else. But Albert’s in good hands on Illium with Penny and her wife, and Penny’s in good hands with Albert and Malia.

I love you both, she writes back. Take care of yourselves.

Make good choices! :)

At that, she laughs, and wipes the tears from her cheeks. I’ll try. This is one last plea not to name your kid after me.

A picture of Malia’s rounded blue stomach. Victoria T’vellan. It has a good ring to it.

“Ryders,” Harry says as he taps a sequence onto the crypod across from them. “You’re up next. Time to put the toys away.”

Alright, it does. They’re telling me I have to hang up now, so: I love all three of you (and the fourth who isn’t there yet). Have wonderful lives. She checks the camera, makes sure she’s brushed all the tears away, and then sends Penny a picture of herself in the crypod, thumbs up. She powers down her omnitool.

“You’re sad about the lizard,” Scott teases.

She is. She’s sad about a lot of people, but she’s saddest about Albert; she tried, and even for a Pathfinder’s kid they weren’t going to allow her to freeze him alongside her. She swallows and looks over at Scott. “Like you didn’t bawl when you gave Rusty to David.”

He opens his mouth to argue, and then closes it. “Fair point. Here’s hoping Andromeda has suitable pets.”

Harry steps up in between them, and they fall silent. There’s a tight schedule. “You guys know the protocol?”

They nod and lie down. Harry presses a button first on hers, then on Scott’s. Thirty more seconds, and they’re past the point of no return.

Victoria turns and looks at Scott as the clear glass closes around her. “See you on the other side,” she smiles.

“See you on the other side,” he says.

She settles flat on her back, staring up at the bright white lights in the ceiling. Harry’s face comes into view, and she nods - she’s ready. He gives her a thumbs up, and she closes her eyes as a deep, frigid cold starts in her veins, spreading outward.

She has one last moment to think about Albert, about Penny, about Scott, about Mom in the ground outside Indianapolis and the daisies she planted beside the headstone, and then nothing.

Nothing for six hundred years, nothing until another galaxy, nothing until she wakes up with different stars outside.

She blinks, and a smile slowly grows across her face despite the increasing chaos of the Hyperion’s medbay. “We made it.”

#screams loudly hits post #victoria ryder: don't threaten me with a good time #torific #s:mea #s:words #s:2017 #(please reblog my babe this was an Endeavor)

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seven-for-president · 8 years

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Request? I hope you don't mind, can we do one for the boys and jaehee (duh) Reacting to mc singing in the shower? ps. i love your hcs that i have read. KEEP GOING THEY ARE GREAT!

Of course I don´t mind (*^▽^*) And by the way I think duh is one of the best words ever (*≧▽≦)So here you go (/^▽^)/

_Yoosung_

° most of the time it was really nice living together, but sometime it wasn´t

° you alwys took your showers in the evening too lazy to use a hairdryer

° but as a Student Yoosung was home most of the time

° which meant that you couldn´t work on your singing-carreer under the shower

° yes, he played LOLOL, but without headphones in case you needed him

° buuut MC here, is a sneaky person so what to give him on his birthday?

° right: new headphones

° and these he had to try out immediatlely

° aka, your chance to shower without him listening

° as soon as the hot water started to pour you started singing

° and since you were sure he couldn´t hear you you went full voice with the next song

° resulting in you almost screaming Come as You are by Nirvana

° I love Nirvana XD

° you blended everything out while singing so you almost fell in the shower when you heard clapping from outside

° “MC, that was great, you should keep singing.”

° “Yoosung get the hell out of the bathroom!!”

° why, Yoosung, why?

° dammit, he heard

° now you were too embarassed to step out of the room for the next 20 minutes

° when you finally did you hoped that he wouldn´t speak up to you about it

° but we all know Yoosung….

° “Hey MC, you´re a great singer.Why don´t you try working with Zen on Musicals?”

° “Yoosung, let´s not talk about this again. EVER!”

° “But MC-”

° “EVER!!”

° and he was frightend for life

_Jaehee_ (because duh)

° she was usually working when you took a shower

° well, when wasn´t she working??

° but whatever

° so you could sing to your heart´s desire and as loud as you wanted to

° unfortunately for you, one day Jumin decided to let Jaehee go home earlier

° she wanted to interfer with a cat project again

° but to suprise you she neither called or texted you in advance

° you, knowing nothing of course, went to step into the shower as you always did

° you voice echoed a bit in the room, which you thought was just perfect for singing ballads

° and you often did

° Jaehee opened the front door right as you started with your awesome opera-solo of Bohemian Rhapsody

° the thing is, it was recorded with at least four seperate persons so singing it all by yourself may sounded a little different than the original

° hands up who tries it anyways

° nevertheless personally you thought it sounded great

° but maybe someone didn´t Jaehee

° “MC, would you mind not being that loud and come out of the shower!”

° shit, why is she home already??

° “Okay, I´m comming!”

° you got out of the shower and dried yourself as quick as you could and went in the livingroom to meet Jaehee

° “Hey, you home already?”

° “I am. You know, I don´t mind if you sing in the shower, but please don´t sing Things for four voices. Alone.”

° you kind of understood what she meant …

° but anyways as you understood, you could Keep on singing songs for a single Interpreter

° and of course this wasn´t the last time she caught you singing Bohemian Rhapsody

° but hey, you got better each time

_Zen_

° if there is a king in singing under the shower, it would probably be Zen

° he was loud, but he also sang very well so you didn´t have a problem with it

° so you were a bit embarrased to sing when you knew he could hear it

° you thought your singing skills were pretty ordinary, so that wasn´t the Problem here

° his skills were miles beyond average, meaning compared to him almost everyone was bad

° that´s why you were to shy to sing around him, the fear of disapproval

° so you reduced your singing-time to the moments he was away

° that means Performances, where you didn´t watch in the audience and rehersals

° sounds like a lot of time and let me tell you, you´re right

° it was a happy coexistance between your skills and his

° you were happy, he was unknowing

° so what could possibly go wrong??

° a cancelled rehersal of Course

° you stepped into the shower and felt relaxed the moment the water hit your skin

° in the state of pure happines, you wanted to express this with singing

° so you just did

° you felt free when you sang and let the water wash away all of your thoughts

° but since you tended to be quite….loud while singing you didn´t notice the door opening

° you screamed as the shower curtains opened

° a very naked Zen stepped in to join you

° “Z-Zen, what are you doing her? And why are you in here!”

° “I heard you sing so I wanted to participate too.”

° by now your head was bright red, not only were you naked but he also heard you sing, obviously

° “Still, please get out of here.”

° Zen was probably the only Person who Comes into the shower when there is someone singing

° to say you were embarassed was by far an Understatement

° after that incident he came home early suprisingly often

° and you got afraid of showering and built in a doorlock

° true love

_Jumin_

° oh my god, he had one of a luxury bahroom

° seriously, you wouldn´t have been suprised is there was a Karaoke-System installed

° that would be awesome by the way

° you always took your time showering and enjoyed the Luxus

° one time you even tried to bring Elisabeth too, but cats and water on´t mix that well…

° no, rly MC?

° anyway, having such a nice bath , it would be a waste not singing in there

° it was a natural Thing after all

° maybe there wasn´t a karaoke-system installed, but a sound system wich you could connect with your phone

° so there was always music playing when you used the shower

° sometimes the real thing sometimes Karaoke

° but as much as you loved singing, you also were scarred that Jumin could find out about it

° in School you were bullied because of your voice, although it wasn´t bad

° they were all jelaous

° it resulted in a Trauma of yours, which kicked in whenever you knew someone heard your voice

° Kids in School are the most evil human beings out there..

° one day, you just started your shower-playlist, Jumin came woke up from the nap he took and to his suprise you weren´t where he last saw you

° he panicked

° but Elisabeth was kindly enough to sit ifront of the bathroom and listen to your singing

° aren´t cats great?

° he heard water and was relived you didn´t left him (for what reason whatsoever)

° but then he herd another Sound, it was……singing?

° on second thought it was really beautiful singing

° he recogniced your voiced, but didn´t fel the need to Interrupt you

° you inished your shower and got out of the room, only wearing a twle around your head and one around your chest

° “Jumin, why are you sitting infront of the bathroom?”

° “I heard you singing and before I realiced it I sat down infront of the door and listened.”

° you felt the Panic rush in your head and your vison started to get blurry, follwed by heav breathing

° “MC, is something wrong with you? Aren´t you Feeling well?”

° “I´m fine. I´m just not good with People Hearing me sing.”

° he was worried, so hadn´t any other choice than telling hi the whole Story..

° he was very caring and Held you tight till you felt better

° despite you being still afraid of being heard, those bastards from your old School somehow landed on YouTube, with the most aweful singing-video of all time

_Saeyoung/Seven_

° he was always at home

° so it was hard to get a Moment of peace under the shower

° you also weren´t quite sure he hadn´t put CTV and voice Recorders everywhere in his house

° or worse, someone else put cameras and microphones everywhere in his house

° finally! the day you waited for for sol Long came around

° Seven and Saeran went out Shopping for clothes and ice cream

° and we all know Seven probably takes his sweet time doing so

° that meant you had to use your alone-time in the best way possible

° so it was Netflix and a good Long shower for you

° and yes, in that order

° after some nice movies you turned off the TV and went into the shower

° you turned up the Radio and simply enjoyed the sounds of water and Music

° soon you couldn´t resist anymore and sang along

° the louder the better, right?

° well, your suspection was partly right

° there were Sound Recorders and cameras but they only activated when a certain Level of volume was reached

° apparently you were so loud that you crossed this Level

° so Seven got a message on his phone, informing him that the noise Level in his house was above the line

° he was afraid you fell or somthing broke or worse, there was a robbery

° he didn´t Panic but felt a Little uneasy, so he checked the CCTV

° when he saw you singing under the shower he did two Things

° first: stopping his nosebleed, which was a reaction to your naked Body

° second: turning up the volume so he could hear you sing

° damm, you were good, so good your voice deserved to e on YouTube

° but he couldn´t just put a Video online where you sang naked in the shower

° so he turned on the Speakers and spoke to you

° “Hey Babe! Can you sing again when I´m home so that I can upload itlater?”

° you screamed, loud, very loud

° “Relax MC, I´m speaking through the Speaker up to your right.”

° “What the heck did you think, scarring me like that??!!”

° after all the time living together you weren´t embarassed anymore, far worse happend by now anyway

° you were angry

° when they got home,Saeran hurried in his room as fast as he could

° you decided to have a … talk with Seven

° don´t ask me where you learned that but he ended up tied to a chair infont of an open back of Honey Buddah Chips

° what a torture…., but brilliant

_V_

° since his eyesight was rather bad, but his Hearing was better than anyones

° the TV was always quiet, so was the Radio

° you couldn´t be loud in the house and not even curse without him knowing

° so singing in the shower was off-Limit

° he would hear you and that was embarassing, too embarassing for you

° you were a very sensible Person and not very self-confident to begin with

° it was a nice Change, when V went out with Jumin to an old class-meeting

° do´n´t get me wrong, you loved him dearly and enjoyed every Moment you could spend with him

° but it felt good being able to turn up the volume for once

° you danced through the house and sweated so much you had to take a shower afterwards

° in the shower you didn´t stop being noisy

° you sang all of your favourite Songs again and again

° and probably wasted a lot of water

° nevertheless, even if you didn´t notice, V came back

° you were still in the shower, singing nonstop and very loud

° of Course he heard

° “MC, are you in there?”

° no answer

° “MC, can you hear me!?”

° he screamed, and it suprised you to the Point you fell and landed right on your butt

° gotta love the booty XD

° “V, you´re already back. Sorry if I was to loud.”

° you apologiced but it seemed he wasn´t angry this time

° “MC, I never knew you were such a brilliant singer. from know on, please sing to your hearts desire.”

° this was an offer you just couldn´t refuse

° the house became more lively after that, now filled with the Sound of your voice

_Saeran_

° he was the Queen of grumpy cats

° so on his bad days nothing could satisfy his will

° you got him ice cream, it was the wrong brand

° you made him his favourite Food, unfortunately his diet started today

° you were sick of himbeing like this

° but deep down you knew he couldn´t be blamed for his mood

° to calm down, you went to take a Long shower

° it cleared your head and you felt at ease like this

° soon you started humming some old children-songs and before Long you started singing too

° you didn´t know why it were children-songs, they just popped into your mind

° you dried yourself off and went back to look what Saeran was doing

° when you tried to open the door there was a resistance, preventing you from stepping outside

° “ Saeran, why are you blocking the door?”

° “Keep singing.”

° woah, did he Sound less grumpy than before??

° “Eh.. sure, but could you let me out first?”

° he did and you had to spend the rest of your day singing Songs to Saeran

° a happy ending? maybe for him but not for your voice…

Again, I have to apologize for taking this long. I lost all my editing on the text 3 times already… I think I´m going to try it again later….because itá already 11PM ｡(*^▽^*)ゞ

Anyway, I hope you liked it and it didn´t turn out that badly (*^▽^*)

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger headcanon #mystic messenger v #mystic messenger zen #jumin han #saeyoung choi #saeran choi #seven #yoosung #jaehee kang

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