#I don’t like airport security they look at you weird and sound angry.

[fated-normal-767]

I GET TO GO ON A PLANE AGAIN SOON I FUCKING LOVE PLANES. IVE ONLY BEEN ON 2 FLIGHTS BEFORE BUT ITS SO MUCH FUN ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[laurie-stark]

Get up and get out

Summary: Sort of part two to Unwanted. A year after fighting in Germany, y/n has to deal with the insufferable Peter Parker being around the house all the time. 

Pairings: Peter Parker x stark!reader, tony stark x daughter!reader, Natasha Romanoff x daughter!reader. 

Warnings: swearing, angst? i guess? mentions of blood. mentions of panic nightmares 

A/N: Again, I want to make it very clear so there isn’t any confusion: Y/n is Tony’s biological child, however, being raised also by Natasha, Steve and Pepper, she calls them Muma, Pops and Mom. Hopefully that makes sense LOL oh and also i’ve never written like...kiss scenes before so just go with it okay?

He was here again. Third time this week that he has come barging into my home and taken over my training center. Okay, to be fair, it was not my training center but still. Peter Parker will never stop being a pain in my ass. Ever since that stupid trip to Germany, he has been coming over and training for hours, or working with Dad. Three times just this week I’ve had to endure listening to Peter talk with his stupid little voice and walk around my house like he owns the place. Who does he think he is? And every time I have to sit through another dinner of Dad blabbing on and on about what a miraculous boy he is.

               “Really y/n, I think you two would be great friends,” I rolled my eyes as I picked at my dinner. The rest of the family ate in silence around the table. The last thing I wanted to do is spend more time with stupid Spider-boy. On the afternoons when he was here, I tried my best to stay out of his way. I would stay on my floor and he stays on his. Simple. I don’t need a new friend.

“…And he’s coming by again tomorrow, so I was thinking of showing him A.P.R.I.L. if you wanted to join us-” Dad continued.

What the hell? I thought. “No!” I snapped. “No way. A.P.R.I.L. is mine, I don’t want him messing with her.” Dad frowned at me. The rest of the table looked up in my direction. My shoulders tensed up as I faced my father. A.P.R.I.L. is my baby and I was ready to go toe to toe with him if I needed too.

“What do you mean no? I thought you’d be excited to share that with him,” he started.

“Well I’m not, so back off,” I sneered. The shift in his expression made me want to bite my own tongue. “Please.”

“I seriously do not understand what your problem is. You’ve been complaining for years how there’s only adults but the second a kid your age comes by you’re all “oooh no don’t talk to me Peter!””

I scoffed. “Sorry, I guess I just don’t want to bother you and your new best friend.”

“There it is. Why are you so jealous of him? He’s not that cool. He hasn’t made a fully functioning A.I at the age of 15. He just spits sticky stuff out of his fingers. Honestly y/n, you’re making zero sense right now.”

“Whatever, I’m over this,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table. I grabbed my untouched dinner plate and headed towards the kitchen. “I’m not hungry. And don’t show him A.P.R.I.L., I mean it!” I dumped my plate in the sink and marched right down the hall towards the elevators. My dad was right. I wasn’t making any sense. Ever since I made A.P.R.I.L I’ve used every excuse I could find to shove her down people’s throats. Anyone who would listen to me, I would tell them. Tell them all about how I programmed her to have realistic personality. How she’s running through the walls of this place, through my room, even inside the bracelet I never take off. All I knew is that I didn’t want Peter Parker anywhere near her.

I shut the door to my hard, and flopped onto my bed. A.P.R.I.L. reminded me that slamming the doors usually results in a punishment. I acknowledged her with a half-hearted grunt. I started programming A.P.R.I.L. when I was thirteen. Or rather, reprogrammed. A.P.R.I.L. was made from an older prototype version of F.R.I.D.A.Y. The base stuff was already there, I just moved some things here, recoded there until she was perfect. I don’t know why I got so defensive about Peter meeting her. Or why I had to pick another fight with my dad.

It was easier these days. To fight him, I mean. I suppose I never got over the whole “Peter is better, I choose him over you, blah, blah” thing as much as I thought I did. So, I would pick fights. Fighting over Peter was the simplest way to go, considering he was the reason I was so angry in the first place. Sometimes we would fight over him, other times we would fight over silly things. Like how I keep forgetting not to put my coffee grounds in the garbage disposal. Most of the time it was all just bickering that would blow over in thirty minutes, give or take. Sometimes it was explosive, like today.  I took in a shaky breath and sprawled out across my sheets. Sometimes this family is a fucking nightmare.

Dad didn’t come by this time. It threw me off for a second because he always comes by. Even if it’s six hours later and neither of us should be awake, he still comes by with a box of milk duds that we share in silence before one of us apologizes first. That’s how we work. When it finally sunk in that he was not planning on coming, I put A.P.R.I.L. on the job. I figured perhaps he left the compound, maybe took Mom for a nighttime stroll.

“Your father is on floor B, Miss Stark,” A.P.R.I.L. informed me.

“Jesus A.P.R.I.L., how many times have I said to cut the formalities,” I muttered.

“My apologies, y/n.”

Floor B. What the hell is he doing on floor B at…12:00 in the morning? Floor B is strictly for members of household and other Avengers. There are a billion different training rooms down there. Weight rooms, boxing, a huge pool, stuff like that. Not to taint his image, but I can safely say the last time my father willingly worked out for fun was probably before I was even born. Why was he down there? Unless…

“A.P.R.I.L. who else is on floor B right now?” I asked. “Throw it on the hologram, would you dear?

The sounds of the hologram starting filled the room. A.P.R.I.L. pulled up the security map of floor B, like I’d asked. There was my dad, floor B in the boxing room of all places. Pops and Sam looked to be going at it in another one of the combat training rooms. My confusion only rose when another nametag popped up on the screen. My brows furrowed.

Peter Parker

What was he doing here? Why was he boxing? Why was he not in his own home at midnight on a Thursday? My mind was spinning with questions. A knock at my door startled me.

“Come in…”

Natasha popped her head through the doorway. “Hey there…whatcha doing kid?”

I swiftly swiped away the hologram screen and sat up straight. “Nothing. What’s up?”

“Well, we’re getting a little worried about you,” she said. We being everyone else at the table who had to witness my brawl with Dad. She sat down beside me. “You haven’t fought back like that in a long time and I’ve noticed you’re fighting with him a lot recently. You want to tell me what that’s all about?”

I wanted too. God, I wanted too. I hadn’t told anyone what my father said to me that day after the airport, not even my mom. But it didn’t matter. I’d get over it sooner or later, so there was no point troubling anyone else with my problems…right? My eyes started to well up but I blinked away the tears. “No. Everything’s fine,” I put on a smile.

Natasha tucked me in under her arm. “Okay then. Maybe tomorrow.” That was Muma for you. She never pushed me to talk but knew I would come around at some point. In the meantime, she just held me. I cried into her embrace. She let me cry into her shoulder for a long while, until I was empty. After a time, I let go and she got up, giving me a kiss on the head before wishing me a good night.

I rubbed my hands over my face, brushing off any remaining tears. “A.P.R.I.L. bring the hologram back up please.”

“Are you sure y/n?”

…

“Yeah.”

Peter was still in the boxing room but my father was not. Upon further digging, I found the nametag reading Tony Stark on my floor. He’d gone to bed. I pondered to myself as to whether or not I should venture downstairs. What is the worst thing that could happen? Peter is secretly a Hydra spy and kills me? No, I shook my head. Don’t be ridiculous. Another minute passed and I’d made up my mind.

“A.P.R.I.L. engage “I am definitely here”,” I commanded.

“”I am definitely here” protocol engaged. Volume minimized to 5% and your tracking tag will be pinned to this room,” A.P.R.I.L. responded. “Good luck on your mission small agent.”

“Oh shut up,” I chided. I closed the door to my room as softly as I could. It was nearly one in the morning, most of the hall would be asleep. Or at least they should be. The hallway was silent, except for the soft noise of my socks padding along the floor. I cursed myself for looking so ridiculous. If anyone caught me, I could easily say that I was just getting a midnight snack. Not sneaking down to spy on Spider-bitch. Boy. Whatever. Sneaking added to the excitement.

I made it downstairs all in one piece. Steve and Sam nearly passed me in one of the halls, but I had ducked into a briefing room. I could totally be a spy. Maybe I’m a Hydra spy. I thought. And they sent me here as a baby to take down the Avengers from the inside. What was I going on about? This was why I should really be in bed, I was clearly delirious. Once again, distracting myself in my thoughts led to me getting startled. I hadn’t even realized I was outside the boxing room. I would have walked right in if not for the handy wall that I smacked into.

Peter was in the ring, practicing his punches. He’d lowered down one of the punching bags from the ceiling and it was close to ripping at the seams. He was really going ham on it. The questions piled on. So, he came over to my house at midnight to…train? Something he had all afternoon today to do? God, he was weird. I suppose I didn’t quite know what I was going to get myself into when I finally walked in to confront him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, arms folded tightly across my chest.

Peter started and looked down at me. Sweat was dripping down his face. He looked exhausted. “Training,” he said bluntly. He returned to treating the punching bag like it had run over his dog.

“At one in the morning? And after you spent like six hours today doing just that?” I was not letting him off that easy. Peter ignored me and continued punching. “Your form is shit.” I mocked.

That made him stop. “Funny coming from the girl who never leaves her room. When have you ever trained? Like ever?”

“I still beat your ass.”

“Yeah like, a year ago when I was barely an avenger.”

I rolled my eyes. “You still aren’t.”

“What do you want?” Peter spat.

I shrugged. “Dunno.” I stared him down with a smug look on my face.

“You are always such a bitch, you know that?”

I faked a pout. “Aw…bite me.”

Peter was chewing the inside of his cheek in anger. “If you’re going to stay here and pester me, you might as well get a few punches in.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Consider it a rematch.”

I studied his physique for a moment. He’d grown a lot since Germany. He’d also trained a lot since then as well. I had done little of either. I knew that entering that ring would probably end up with me losing my dignity and maybe even a tooth. But I was not going to let him stand there with his stupid, sweaty face and get away with it. This is not a good idea, I thought as I took off my socks. I moved the ropes and stepped into the ring, standing a foot in front of the boy.

“I’ll still win.”

“No powers either.”

“Deal.” Not like I’ve touched my powers since…since the incident.

Peter took his stance and I did my best to mirror him. I realized in that moment that I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know the first thing about boxing. Or sparring. I didn’t know how to fight without my powers. Oh, sweet Jesus.

We kept our distance at first, fists up. He threw a few punches and missed. I followed in suit. I finally got the first hit, a nice throw to his chest. He took it like a champ and didn’t flinch. Or rather, I couldn’t hit for shit and it didn’t hurt. He threw a punch to my left, only to miss on purpose and punched me square across my jaw. Ow. I chuckled lowly. The taste of blood filled my mouth from the fresh cut on my lip. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. All I could see was white rage.

Forget form, forget rules, forget everything. I lunged at him with everything I had. Lunged at him for all the bullshit he had brought into my life. For all the bitter things I had to hear my father say that weren’t even Peter’s fault. He was clearly not expecting my attack because we both fell to the ground. We fought tirelessly on the mat. He was physically stronger than me, so by default he was winning. He wrestled me until I was pinned under him. One hand was pinning my hand above my head, the other arm pinning down my body. In any other circumstances I would be amused to find myself in such a scandal. I looked in his eyes briefly and I could already tell he thought that he was winning. If there’s one thing I learned from Nat, it’s to always step on their moment. I hooked my leg around his knee and used all my force to flip us over. I had him pinned down now, my hair falling around my face. We were both breathing heavily.

“Told you,” I taunted. I was mentally preparing him to punch back but he didn’t. He snapped his arms out from under me and shoved me off him, hard. I fell back against the mat. He rose to his feet, brushing his hands off on his pants. “What the hell?” I exclaimed. I jumped to my feet while his back was turned to me and gave him a taste of his own medicine. He stumbled a few steps after I pushed him. Slowly, he stretched back up to reach his full height.

“You’re right,” he turned to face me and extended a hand. “Shake on the truce?” I took his hand, accepting his surrender. Only, he was not really surrendering. The moment my hand touched his, he yanked me towards him. I tripped over my feet and fell into him. My chest crashed onto his. The world was a blur as he grabbed me with force and spun us around, so he could push me up against the ropes of the ring.

“Stop, Peter get off me you bitch!” I fought back. I flailed my whole body around, trying to break loose. One hand reached up to grab the back of my head, pulling my hair and forcing my head back. I froze. His face was dangerously close to my exposed neck. His shift let my opposite arm break free. I took a breathe and reeled it back, ready to smack him in the across the face. He caught my wrist in time without taking his eyes off mine.

He lowered his head to whisper in my ear, “I win.” His breathe trickled down my neck. He had won, but he wasn’t moving. One hand was still in my hair, the other was pinning me against the ropes. His chest breathed heavily against my own. His grip on my head loosened slightly and I was able to look him straight on. He had that same smug look pasted across his face. His eyes moved from mine, trailing down my face, my neck, my body, before they settled on my lips. I momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

He kissed me hard. I tensed up slightly before giving into him completely. It tasted like blood and sweat and I felt like I was losing my mind. He pulled me closer, if that was even possible and claimed my mouth with his until my knees gave out. A newfound wave of warm washed through me. The hand in my hair gave a slight tug and my lips parted while that same hand moved to cup my jaw. For all I knew, the entire compound was wide awake and watching but I did not care. I brought my fingers to his hair, tugging at the ends. I smiled cunningly when he groaned into my mouth. He kissed me greedily and fully. Like he hated me. And I hated him.

We broke apart, limbs numb and chests heaving. The moment had passed, and our actions sunk in. What. The. Fuck. He lifted the ropes for me, and I climbed out of the ring. My head was still spinning from that kiss and my lip stung. Consequences I suppose, for kissing someone with a busted lip. I silently pulled my socks back on and Peter handed me a towel. Neither of us said another word. I left the room and didn’t look back. I could hear him behind me, but I was in no rush to have to look him in the eye ever again. What just happened?

 I woke the next morning to A.P.R.I.L. alerting me that “Father Dearest” was outside my door. He came in and sat on the edge of the bed. We both stayed quiet for a while.

I spoke first. “Where were you last night? You didn’t come by after…” I let my words trail off.

“I was going to, I swear. But then something came up with Peter and I had to go take care of that,” Dad answered.

I frowned. “Typical. Peter over your own flesh and blood, right?”

Dad inhaled sharply like he was going to bite back, but changed his mind. “That’s not true and you know it. Peter is…he’s going through something and I knew how to help him. Not everything is about you, you narcissist,” He said, joking at the end.

I had to push down my own smile. “Yeah well where do you think I got it from?” I sat up and leaned into my father. He brushed a hand down my back. “So, what’s wrong with Peter then?”

“I really shouldn’t tell you, it’s personal.” I looked up at him with my doe eyes. He rolled his eyes and sighed, nodding a silent defeat. I felt like I was nine again and he was gossiping with me about the latest secretary. Like every fight had been forgotten in this moment. “He’s been having some nightmares ever since DC. You remember the ones we used to get after Loki?” I nodded. “Now you, you always amazed me at how you handled those. But for me and Peter, we needed a different outlet. So, I let him come over in the middle of the night. I didn’t think anyone would notice.” I hummed in response, not sure what to make of that information. I mean, I kind of felt bad for the guy. He was still a bitch, but those dreams suck. No one should have to deal with them. “He really isn’t as bad as you think, you know.”

“Yeah,” I hummed. “I think you’re right.”

tag list:

@runawayolives @ creation-magician @ eridanuswave @ markhyucksmells @ beep-beep-losersclub

[pepayinprogress]

Today's Bad Dream

I was at the Philippine International Airport. I actually don't know what it's really called now. But I meant the original one. The really old one with a flyover for an entrance for international travelers. I forgot what I was wearing but I only had my phone, a 20100 mAh powerbank and charging cord, a card-holder, and my passport. I didn't have a bag.

I had time to kill before my flight. Flight to where? I had not slightest clue. I just know that I had time for coffee before boarding. So I went to a Starbucks coffee shop. It was jampacked and there was a long line at the cashier. I waited for my turn anyway. I didn't have to wait long. I ordered for a "Macadamia Six", which was a very weird name for coffee, and a chocolate chip cookie. I could still remember the coffee name when I woke up because, even when I was dreaming, I thought it was really weird. I guess it stuck.

The lady at the cashier told me to just come back after 15-20 minutes because there were a lot of orders and, because they probably noticed I was alone, so they can save me a solo seat.

So I wandered around. It was nice. The airport people were doing as they should. I had fun observing them and the travelers as well. I passed by a string of shops but I didn't buy anything because I really wanted to travel light.

For some odd reason, I found my way back to the entrance part. I looked at the check-in area and realized there were a lot of outbound flights that morning. The busy humming of bags being hauled to the conveyor belts, people talking, and occasional airport announcements was somewhat peaceful to me.

Then I heard gunshots outside the door. Loud ones. One. Then two. Then too many at the same time. I lost count.

I heard a megaphone being turned on and a Chinese man was shouting something in Chinese. I can tell from his volume and cadence that he was angry. I felt a chill run down my spine. I think he handed over the megaphone to someone else because the thing made a horrible screeching sound. And then a guy. who was obviously Chinese too, shouted just as furiously but in bad English for everyone to drop on the ground and to stop running. The man shouted the same announcement three times before I heard more gunshots. I think there were multiple gunmen because I heard multiple shots go off at the same time.

I was scared. I knew the security men who were stationed at the entrance couldn't handle it.

I ran. I ran away from the area as fast as I could.

Eventually I found my way back to the Starbucks coffee shop I ordered from. It was weird because I haven't even said anything but the people there were already scrambling and panicking. I realized someone in the front area must have been smart enough to leave all the microphones on. Whatever the mic could pick up was announced to the whole airport. That's how everyone knew about the attack.

I was panicking myself. I didn't know where to go nor where to hide. I was about to look for a security personnel when I saw one Starbucks employee sneak to a corner of the room and looking at people--wary. Worried. She opened one of those pillar-like foundation things on the corner of the room and went inside quickly. I immediately realized those things were probably old mini-bunkers. She probably snuck in discreetly so nobody would dare to steal her hiding place. I did the same. I looked for one. And quickly but warily went inside. A weak light turned on inside. I locked the door, which had two locks. I was half-crying and half-trying to keep my head straight.

I made a quick inventory of my things. I had my phone, my passport, my cards. But I realized I lost my powerbank. I must have left it on the cashier counter. But it was too late. I didn't want to risk going out and getting it. Either someone can shoot me dead or another traveler could steal my bunker. I decided to stay inside. I looked at my phone which had 30 something percent battery power left. I opened my Messenger application and sent two voice messages, one for my family's group chat and another for Stephen. As I'm typing this, I realized my dream must have been so traumatic to me that I can still remember the exact words I sent in the voice message in my dream. "I can't explain everything right now. But if anything happens to me, know that I love you. I love you all." Thankfully, the messages were sent right away. I put my phone battery on low power mode and turned on the do not disturb setting. I couldn't risk a single sound coming off my bunker. I was trying not to cry hard.

Then I heard loud footsteps outside, as if heavy boots were stomping on the carpeted floors. I heard doors being forced, even smashed, open. Gunshots. So many gunshots. I heard people clearly begging for their lives. Tears were falling from my eyes as I hoped hard that they wouldn't shoot at the windows and the pillars. One sound from a bunker then everyone else hiding at the pillars, myself included, would be dead men too. More gunshots. Then silence. Radio silence. It was too quiet, I could heard my own heavy half-crying breathing.

I figured that either everyone outside were already dead or they're all just really good at hiding. I remembered the wailing a while ago and dismissed the thought of anyone surviving that shooting spree.

I knew it would take more than a day for the Philippine authorities to arrive and save us. They're always late anyway. So I did the stupidest thing a person in hiding could do. After a few minutes of contemplating, I realized I should try to get my powerbank. So I slowly opened the door. Slowly and quietly. When I opened it enough to see anything, I saw red. There was blood everywhere. Dead bodies of people who were trying their hardest to hide. And there were red stickers--on the dead bodies, the floors, the tables, the walls. There were Chinese characters on them but I don't know Chinese so I don't know what was written. I saw my powerbank on the cashier table. I crept as low as I could on the ground. My plan was to play dead the second I hear as much as a sign of life or a footstep. My phone's charging cord was still attached to the powerbank. It was dangling so I pulled it downwards. I caught the powerbank just as it was about to hit the floor. I then turned my whole body around. I saw that the other pillar/mini-bunkers were still closed and all that I could see were still intact. Good, I thought. I crept towards mine and I slide in blood. I was wet and cold by the time I could go inside my bunker. The moment I plugged my cable into my phone, I saw many notifications from news outlets and even Facebook. "The Chinese had attacked the international airport" "The whole airport is held under hostage" "Many civilians are believed to be already dead"

I was crying so hard that I found it difficult to keep quiet. I opened my Messenger to tell my family and my boyfriend that I'm alive and that I'm in hiding but the messages won't send. The Chinese attackers had cut off the cellular signals and even the wifi wasn't working.

I realized I would have to stay inside the bunker for as long as I could until help comes. But my family and friends have no way of contacting me. More tears were shed. I hated it. I hated being so helpless. I forced myself to wake up.

I woke up crying. It took me a while to wrap my head around it. I immediately called my then boyfriend and told him about my dream. Then I went out of the room and told my mama. Then my papa.

I figured I should write the whole account down.

I know it's not impossible.

It could happen. Maybe not in my lifetime. But it definitely will.

[fikidurin]

Prompt: The Price of Fame [AO3]

Celebrity!Kili AU, break-up and make-up

The public loved Kili.

Cheeky, charming and approachable.

He always had time for his fans, always stopped to take selfies and sign autographs. He took the time to educate himself on current events and issues before speaking out about his own opinions.

He took an active role in protests, donated to charities, and never forgot where he came from before he was a big time movie star.

Kili loved his life, he just wished he had someone to share it with.

Kigrid love affair? Kili Durin and Sigrid Bardsdottir spotted having a romantic candlelit dinner.

“It wasn’t a fucking romantic candlelit dinner,” Kili muttered, glaring at the headline of the crappy airport magazine. “And there were three other people with us that they’ve just cropped out of the picture!”

Shaking his head, he stalked away from the magazine stand, looking for his gate. He was going home, and he couldn’t wait to see his mother.

It wasn’t that he minded the rumours, it was the price of fame. He’d been linked romantically to countless costars, there was just never any truth in it.

The truth was, Kili had already given his heart away. It just hadn’t worked out.

Despite the many blessings he’d been given, the stars hadn’t aligned for his relationship with Fili.

It had been an accidental meeting and a whirlwind romance. Fresh out of a failed relationship, Kili had gone out to have a few drinks with friends. There’d been an accidental bump, a spilled drink, and Kili had whirled around to throw a punch.

He hadn’t banked on how adorably embarrassed Fili had been, or the attractiveness of the mouth that was apologising over and over.

They’d spent that night together, and the next. Three months later, Kili had all but moved in with Fili. 

Two days after that, he’d gotten a call from his agent.

Another two days after that, Fili had kissed him goodbye at the airport.

That had been two years ago now, and they hadn’t spoken since.

*

“I am so, so, sorry. I’m just… god, I’m just the clumsiest person in the world. Can I buy you a drink to make up for it?

“...yeah, okay. No harm done.”

“I’m Fili. Fili the fundamentally uncoordinated.”

“That must look really awkward on your passport. I’m Kili. Nice to meet you.”

*

Fili’s phone buzzed, and he glanced at the hands-free display distractedly.

Kili Durin leaves costar Sigrid Bardsdottir’s manor in the early hours.

He swiped off the notification with irritation and hit the indicator with a little more force than was necessary, and then chastised himself mentally.

He was working, had to pick up yet another rich arsehole flying in from some mansion, and drive them around for the weekend.

He didn’t have time to be angry.

He shouldn’t be angry anyway. It had been two years.

Kili was allowed to date whoever he wanted.

It wasn’t wrong for him to move on. Deep down, Fili knew that. He was the weird one. He was the one who was still clinging on to what might have been.

The one following Kili’s career in the news.

The one still in love, though he’d never even admitted it aloud.

Fili pulled into the designated parking spot at airport arrivals and cut the engine. He needed to stop torturing himself with thoughts of what might have been. If things might have been different, if only he’d told Kili he loved him.

If only he’d asked him to stay.

Instead, when Kili had finished telling him about the audition, Fili hadn’t know what to say.

So he’d let him go.

*

“So? What do you think?”

“It sounds like the big break you’ve been waiting for. You’re not likely to get another chance like this.”

“You think I should take it then? It’s… it’s a whole year in LA.”

“Kee, of course you should. We never made any promises about this. About us. It’s still new. Too new for you to make any rash decisions, and I know I don’t want to hold you back. Take the role.”

“...yeah, okay. You’re right.”

*

Kili grabbed his suitcase from baggage claim and stopped to take a couple of selfies with some approaching fans.

“Is it true you’re dating Sigrid Bardsdottir?” One of them asked, bravely.

“Not at all.” Kili assured them swiftly, putting on a charming smile for the camera. “She’s just a friend.”

He ducked away at the first polite opportunity, wishing them a pleasant day, and began looking for his ride. It had all been arranged for him, under the pseudonym ‘Mr. Thorinson.’. Supposedly his driver would be holding up a sign with that name.

It was easy enough to find. He saw the placard and, weary from the long flight, was already halfway over before he bothered to look up at the man holding the card.

Only to stop dead, shock reflecting back at him along with recognition.

“Fili?” He gasped.

“Kili?”

Kili closed the gap between them, dropping his suitcase on the floor and enveloping Fili in a firm hug. Maybe if he’d thought about it for a second longer, he would have reacted differently, but he didn’t think so.

All he knew was a familiar face, a face he’d been yearning to see again. Luck and coincidence and maybe fate had brought them here.

And oh, Kili was just so happy to see him.

Fili returned the embrace just as tightly, Kili was glad to note. But all too soon they broke apart, not having any clue what to say.

“I… I’m working,” Fili mumbled, gesturing to his placard.

“That’s me.” Kili rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Mr. Thorinson was what my PA booked everything under.”

“Oh.” Fili’s face was unreadable. “The car’s this way, then.”

Kili nodded, feeling like there was suddenly half-a-dozen walls between them. Walls he wasn’t sure he could break down.

Walls he wasn’t sure he had any right to.

*

“What are you thinking? That’s your serious face.”

“That I’m going to miss this. Going to miss you. Being here, like this, with you… it makes me happy.”

“Let’s not talk about it anymore. Your flight leaves in, what, nine hours? Just for now, let’s be right here, in this moment.”

“I’m here, Fee. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

*

They drove in silence for a long way, silence broken only by the sound of the radio.

Kili had refused to sit in the back of the Bentley, separated by a screen. Instead, he’d climbed into the front with Fili.

“So… you drive fancy cars now?”

“It’s a job, and it pays well,” Fili shrugged. “We can’t all have movie star wages.”

Kili flinched, and Fili felt a bitter stab of satisfaction. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean? That I’m not making the most of my skills? Or maybe that I haven’t done much with my life since you’ve been gone?”

“I had no idea you thought so poorly of me,” Kili replied quietly.

Fili glanced away. “I haven’t thought of you at all,” he lied.

He didn’t mean to be so hostile. He really didn’t. But Kili was here and Fili was just so aware of how lacking his life was without him.

How he’d lost his drive to do more. Be more.

“I thought about you.”

Fili felt his anger drain. Why did Kili have to be so completely honest all the time? He always just said whatever he was thinking, and it was one of the things Fili had always loved about him.

“Yeah?” He asked wearily. “Was that before or after your date with Sigrid Bardsdottir? Or maybe after Tauriel what’s-her-name?”

“That’s horseshit and you know it. All of those rumours are crap,” Kili snapped. “That Tauriel rumour was less than a month after I arrived in L.A. If you think I would just tumble into bed with someone when I still hadn’t moved on from you, then—”

“Hang on,” Fili wasn’t even sure where to begin dissecting that sentence. “You’re trying to say that in two years, there hasn’t been a single person…?” He trailed off.

Kili stared out of the window, his jaw clenched. “No.”

“Bullshit,” Fili said eventually.

“Believe whatever you want. Fee… Fili. But it wasn’t me that ran out of the door. You told me to go. You don’t get to blame me for not immediately moving on.”

*

“You’re going to miss your flight.”

“I don’t care. Just… kiss me again.”

“Kee, are you crying?”

“Of course I am, you prat. I’m going to miss you.”

“You’ll forget all about me in a couple of weeks, once you get a taste of the celebrity life.”

“Not a chance.”

*

“That’s not fair, Kili. This was your big chance. I had no right to hold you back, to put that kind of pressure on you. We’d only been dating for a few months, we hadn’t even said… things.”

“I know.” Kili stared out of the window. Two years he’d been gone, and everything looked so different and yet so fundamentally the same.

“Then how could I ask you to give that up to be with me?”

Kili shook his head. “You could have let me know the option was there. You told me to go, so I thought… well, maybe you weren’t interested in me staying. Like you said, we’d never made any promises.”

When Fili didn’t immediately reply, Kili glanced over. “What?”

“I never wanted you to go,” Fili admitted.

Kili gave a bitter smile and turned away. “If only you’d said that two years ago.”

“Would it have made a difference? If I’d asked you, that day you told me about the audition, to give it all up and stay with me, what would you have said?”

Kili had thought about that exact scenario almost every night for the last two years. The answer rolled off his tongue without a second thought, before he could make any attempt to censor it or hold it back.

“I’d have told you I loved you. And that I wasn’t going anywhere.”

*

“This is Fili, leave a message.”

“Hey. It’s me. You’re probably driving home now, I’ve just gotten through security. I’m just sitting here feeling like I’ve made a huge mistake, Fee. I should stay. Please, just call me back and ask me to stay. I need to tell you that I love—”

“Message complete. To re-record your message, press 1. To delete, press 2.”

“... Message deleted.”

*

“You can’t know that.” Fili’s voice came out strangled, but he did nothing to repress it. Overcome with emotion, he pulled over at the side of the road, cutting the engine.

Kili had loved him too.

“I do. I called you from the airport lounge. I would have stayed.”

“Then you would never have known if you’d made the right choice. And even if you did, I wouldn’t have. I would have been always wondering if I’d made you give up your chance at the life most people dream of. I would have always wondered if you regretted it If you’d made the wrong choice.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Kili admitted. “But I can tell you with complete honesty that I did make the wrong choice by going.”

Fili nodded.

“I don’t have to make that mistake twice,” Kili offered quietly.

“Are you saying—?” Fili’d head snapped round, his mouth falling open in a gape.

“I’m saying that my feelings haven’t changed, not after all this time. Have yours?”

Fili exhaled. “No. But I have. As a person, I mean. We might not… we might not fit together anymore.”

But this time, he wasn’t going to talk Kili into leaving him behind. The choice had to be Kili’s, but Fili would present him with all his options.

“I’m in no rush to get back to L.A.” Kili smiled, holding his hand out. “We could find out.”

“I’d like that.” Fili took the offered hand and used it as leverage to pull Kili forward. Their noses bumped together slightly, and then Fili corrected his angle and kissed him gently.

“Stay,” he breathed, as their lips parted.

“Always,” Kili whispered.

*

“Hey Bilbo, this is Kili. I know I asked you for six months off, but the thing is… I’m getting married. And I’m ready to settle down out of the spotlight now.”

“I see. This isn’t entirely unexpected, but you’re a talented lad and I’m sad to see you go, my boy. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, though… are you sure this is what you want?”

“There’s not a doubt in my mind. I found where I’m supposed to be.”

“Then I wish you and Fili the best of luck. And if you ever change your mind and need an agent again, you know where I am.”

 “Thanks, Bilbo. You will come to the wedding, won’t you?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

[meet-me-in-the-kitchen]

... Where’s Your Heart?

A cold midnight makes for an even colder Harry, and y/n doesn’t know how to process anything over the sickening sound of her heart shattering into pieces, because Harry isn’t in love with y/n anymore.

Angst / 3.8k words

A/N: lots of cliche angst, lord give me strength. feedback is always appreciated. happy reading! x

It’s hours past midnight when she’s still waiting up for him, and somehow, when her fingers reach for the left side of the bed, they come back empty after tracing over perfectly smooth sheets. She sighs sadly: he’s not home, but when is he ever?

Y/N had spent the day trying to fill in the empty cave in her heart, trying to stop the raw aching from weeks of waking up to find him gone and feeling his presence only when she was unconscious. Ever since Harry had come back from his tour, he’d been so distant. Y/N wasn’t sure where her Harry was.

“Hi,” she had squealed, jumping up at the airport as soon as her searching eyes landed on a head full of curls, followed by the shocking green eyes that struck her with lightning every single time she made contact with them. Without fail, her heart skipped three beats. That familiar swooping sensation in her stomach followed, and she found herself releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding all this time.

He walked into the airport, security surrounding him. Y/N was near certain her heart was glowing.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” she mumbled, right after leaping into his arms, him tensing as his hands hovered above her lower back uncertainly.

Y/N breathed in his strong scent- pine and sandalwood and intoxicating Tom Ford. Her voice was muffled into the skin of his warm neck, where she telled him she loved him and recounted how much she’d missed him while he was out on tour for months.

“We’re in public,” he’d hissed, Y/N smiling at first, because she thought he was being playful. Then, he’d pulled her out of where she’d been clinging to him, and the blank, cold stare he’d seriously given her had caused the smile on her face to drop instantaneously, falling with her face.

“Christ, Y/N, give me some space.”

“S-Sorry,” she’d shuffled back a few steps, hesitating on what to do and, yes, shoving down her prickling hurt deep inside of her and locking it up. She plastered a bright smile onto her face, avoiding the cameras and trying to keep up with his fast, long legs.

His harsh words echoed in her mind the entire drive home, as he refused to speak more than two words to her.

What had she done wrong?

The days after his arrival were spent with Y/N trying desperately to make some contact with Harry— sitting beside him while he watched Netflix, trying to catch him eating so she could join him after refraining from doing so before he got home, or something as simple as bringing in her own coursework and hoping to enjoy the quiet intimacy of working together in the same proximity.

However, Harry would simply roll his eyes or tense whenever she would make attempts to do so, walking out of whatever room they were in in complete silence. There were nights he wouldn’t come back to bed, opting instead for the guest room or couch. In the morning, he’d head off without a note or anything to some celebrity’s house. She’d find out from the tabloids instead of his word of mouth.

And fuck, it sounds selfish and needy, but the first few days she’d been anticipating the sex after long months of not seeing each other. But he wouldn’t even touch her, and that hurt, to see him move away as if she’d burned him if she cuddled close to him as she grew sleepy or had attempted to kiss his cheek.

She had thought it would blow over, but it hasn’t. And when he finally has sex with her, its perfect and warm and safe. But the next morning, it’s cold and she’s alone all over again. And the next time is worse. it’s angry and rough and clearly entirely for him, and she has to bite back a saddened frown and suppress the strong emotion in her throat as she laid there.

She’d wanted to make love and he’d fucked her.

Afterwards, he’d pulled out of her after he’d reached his high, fallen back onto his side of the mattress while gasping for air, and he’d quickly fallen asleep. y/n tried not to think too much about how he hadn’t even bothered to notice she hadn’t reached her own orgasm. blinking back tears, she’d walked to the washroom unsteadily. she had used a towel to gently remove his excitement from all over her, and had made sure to shower to make sure she was clean.

The morning after, she woke up to his half of the bed empty, like always. He was probably meeting up with friends and people she’d never even heard of, people who were the catalyst to a plethora of insecurities that churned inside of Y/N. Insecurities reminding her that she wasn’t as reknowned as they were. That maybe she couldn’t give him what he needed. The longer she had time to think about it, the less sense their relationship made. When these worries has first become visible early on in their relationship, Harry had been quick to shut them down— told her “don’t think about it, baby. it’s only me and you. me and you.”

Now, he wasn’t here. And Y/N had enough time to remember every article that had pointed out many facts. Including the one that hit home most. How she couldn’t really give him anything substantial. Whether it be fame or money or anything that seemed to mean something. Instead, she brought on a surplus of hate and bitterness at meet and greets and triggered mobs by the paparazzi, yelling the usual questions of why Harry was with a girl that only weighed him down. She saw his shoulders go from relaxed to tense, slowly over time. She couldn’t help wonder if he was coming to the realization that she really couldn’t give him anything.

Blinking back tears, Y/N iced the two tiered chocolate cake she’d spent ages making while waiting for Harry. She knew he hated normal icing, spooning over the overly sugary substance until it had evenly fallen off of the cake. However, this was hand crafted whipped cream and she knew he didn’t mind that, so she’d made it, even though it took a little longer and made her wrists ache from all of the mixing. Shredding some strawberries over the blank whipped cream, she smiled a small smile as a heart formed on top of the cake. She sprinkled it with crumbled graham crackers and brought out the vanilla ice cream from the fridge, knowing he liked to eat cool ice cream with hot, freshly baked cake. She had claimed it was weird until he had gasped and coaxed her into taking a bite. Y/N silently hoped he would come home soon, pushing back the fear that he wouldn’t at all.

Biting back a yawn, Y/N looked over at the clock, which read 3 A.M. in bright red. I’ve waited this long, I can wait a little longer, she thought, stubbornly. Excitement and hope bubbles in her stomach, along with a little nausea she attributed to staying up this late and overthinking until she’d driven herself to stress bake. Maybe this would make him happy. Maybe he’d finally become hers again. As another yawn exited Y/N’s mouth, her shoulders dropping with fatigue, she shook herself and walked over to the sink, splashing her face with some water.

“Why am I so tired?” she muttered in annoyance, thinking back to how the past few weeks had been spent with her waking quite late and sleeping earlier and more frequently throughout the day. Y/N couldn’t even complete ordinary tasks without growing breathless, and moving too fast caused her head to spin until she slowed down.

Click

The familiar sound of the doorknob jiggling and keys jingling from outside of the door caused Y/N’s stomach to swoop, and her heart to soar. She could recognize those footsteps from miles away. He was home.

Quickly jogging over to flick the light switch, Y/N fought back a grin as she waited in the silence, a giggle slipping from her lips at the spontaneity and slight creepiness of it all. She flattened the little black, low cut dress she’d thrown on over her thighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. and waiting.

He swung the door open, immediately taking off his shoes and hanging his coat up on the rack near the entrance. He cleared his throat, a strange smell crawling into the flat upon his arrival that had Y/N inching away from him, trying to stop the bile rising up her throat. Alcohol, she thought grimly, her smile fading away to confusion. Why?

“Surprise!”

“Christ,” Harry hissed lowly as she exclaimed joyfully, flicking on the lights. He shields his squinted eyes from the sudden brightness.

“Since we haven’t properly celebrated you coming home from your tour, I thought we could tonight,” y/n beams, pulling up a chair for Harry at the candle lit table before beginning to balance the cake stand in her arms, carrying it over to him gingerly. “I’m so proud of you, Haz,” she expressed softly, looking at him with all the admiration in the world. “I always knew you could do it, and you did. I love you.”

Harry acknowledges y/n with a cold, blank stare. as she nears him, her bright smile is suddenly too blinding. Too much.

“I know you like chocolate cake with ice cream, so I made that! I figured we’d eat it first, because dessert is obviously better than anything else. And then afterwards there’s steak and spaghetti and a bunch of other stuff, because I know you must be hungry and it’s no fun to eat out after months of doing so,” she pouted sympathetically at him, recalling him facetiming her back when he used to, whining of how he missed eating food that had been prepared ‘from the heart’ instead of some automated machine. “And I even got that champagne you like from the—“

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well that’s not true,” Y/N argued, waving him away with her carefree expression. “You’ve been out all day, Harry. You need to eat, ‘s not good for—“

“I ate out.”

His responses were bleak, short. Distant.

“You’re always hungry, Harry. And fast food doesn’t fill you, anyway. And I made your favourite. There’s even brownies and muffins. Remember that time in Italy when—“

The sight of the nearing two tier cake finally forces him to crack.

“Y/N, give me a break,” Harry’s voice rises with every word, arm subconsciously pushing out to where the cake stood, causing it to crumble slightly before the shock of it all caused the platter to slip from y/n’s trembling fingers. “I said I wasn’t. fucking. hungry,” he snarls, darkening green eyes so mean, confronting, and unfamiliar— his gaze so bitter.

She flinches back from him, as if her feet are trying desperately to increase the distance between him and her.

“If I can’t have anything else, at least let me have my health. How am I supposed to maintain my health when you keep giving me all of this damn food?”

Huffing a frustrated breath, Harry’s fingers pulled at the roots of his hair in pure anger. “You need to quit it,” he snaps harshly. “Look at me, Y/N!”

Startled, she looks up at him, immediately regretting it and wishing she could erase the pure rage from her memory. He’s trying to control himself, but is failing miserably. His attempts at ‘clearly’ creating some much needed distance are harsh.

“You need to quit meddling with everything in my life. You need to understand: I need some damn space. Please.”

He wasn’t saying anything about her, and was attempting to go back to his cool, resolved self, but that was even worse. His cool restraint meant distance, meant quiet, meant emptiness. It meant no care.

Compulsively accommodating, she apologizes for her hours of labor, her chocolate-chip banana muffins, her walnut fudge brownies. Keeping her eyes trained anywhere but into his, she moves his plate to the sink. Then, she retreats into their bedroom, trying to block the noises of him sighing exasperatedly while rubbing at the burning wetness in her irises.

Sniffling slightly, y/n turns on the shower after walking into their shared washroom. Locks the door, and peels off the dress before standing still underneath the water, shoulders shaking as a desperate kind of pain weighs itself inside of her chest, tears falling with the scalding hot water. She holds the sounds of her cries and tries to focus on the sight of hours of carefully applied makeup washing down the drain.

It wasn’t even what he’d said, if Y/N was being completely honest with herself. He had had an outburst, much like anyone else would, because she had been pushing too far, not listening to what he had to say. Harry wasn’t hungry, he’d clearly eaten, and she was bothering him over something like food. He hadn’t even said anything to her. Had only inadvertently told her to back off. That he’s had enough.

It was more this distance she had been trying so hard to bridge between them. What had happened? They were so happy. The days where they’d danced easy like one-two-three and kitchens were like ballrooms seemed so far away. The first date, the butterflies, the emotional devotion seemed so faraway. He was so faraway...

She had been so stupid. Some candles, a dress, make-up, lingerie, and some giant cake couldn’t salvage a dying relationship.

“Oh my God,” her fingers fell against her lips shakily as the sob unwillingly exited her traitorous mouth. Her sad eyes widen with the realization. “It’s dying. We’re dying.”

Harry isn’t in love with her anymore.

It’s obvious. How could she have been so blind? Or maybe she’s known along, and has been running from the bitter truth.

The thought is so sickening, she finds herself bent over on her knees, gagging aggressively before the bile finally burns its way uncomfortably out of her, down the shower drain, leaving a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. Sobs fall from her lips as she wipes her mouth pathetically, her free arm clutching her sensitive, throbbing abdomen.

When she finally finishes getting dressed- in his shirt, because it felt like goodbye and she still needed him, if only for tonight, Y/N finds him sprawled on his side of the bed, fast asleep. I’ve spent a long time in there, she thinks to herself, unable to keep herself from smiling a sad smile. Quietly, she nears him, emotion clogging her throat once again as she realizes this is the closest she’s been to him in weeks.

Sitting at the edge of bed, she hesitantly nears her fingers to the slant of his cheek, before resting them on the skin, gently. He leans into her touch, unconsciously, and she can’t suppress the longing in her chest. The heartache. How he looks so peaceful when he’s fast asleep, how she feels him breathe and it regulates her own heartbeat. The moon shines a ray on his handsome face, his cherry lips in a slight pout, his eyebrows furrow in his sleep as a few stray curls lay over his face. y/n strokes her fingers over his forehead, rubbing away the worry and smoothing over the curls. She leans downwards, biting her lip slightly as emotion flashes in her eyes.

“My Harry,” she whispers. “Mine.”

And she knows she has to do what makes him happy, or it’ll end up breaking the two of them, in the end. Even if it tears her apart. I’m not what makes him happy, she thinks to herself, not anymore. From the hate from the public, the months away from each other, and the miscommunication; their relationship was going to eventually take an ugly turn. Her eyes widen as a tear traveling down her face splashes down warmly onto his cheek. Y/N rubs it away, pressing her lips to the area featherlight, but heavy with love.

“Where’s your heart?”

The softly muttered question is heartbreakingly tragic as y/n recounts their relationship and how it had ended like this, with his heart so icy and distant. So far away that she couldn’t feel it anymore. couldn’t feel anything, but the pain. So much pain. Like she was bleeding, the organ in her own chest draining to nothingness.

“Hummingbird,” he had cooed, plastering his face closer to her, ear pressed against her chest and arms slung around her hips. He opened his eyes briefly, staring up at her with all the brightness and adoration in them. He tapped his finger against where her heart beated, smirking at her sudden sharp intake of breath. “‘S sounds like a hummingbird. So soft n’ lovely and pretty.”

“It’s not a hummingbird, Harry,” she had tried to scoff as the hummingbird in her chest burned and electrified to the point where she thought it was glowing and it was obvious. He simply shook his head stubbornly, flopping his head of curls to her neck, warm lips positioned at her chest. “My hummingbird.”

“I love you,” she whimpers. “You’re the only boy I’ve ever been in love with, and I need you to know that, just like I need to do this. Before it ends us both.”

Though if Y/N Y/L/N is certain of one thing, it’s how much she is infallibly in love with Harry Styles. But what they have between them right now, that isn’t love. Yes, love is work. However, the work must be two-sided. y/n was raised to give herself until she was drained. but if he does not reciprocate, it isn’t love. Contrary to popular belief, love isn’t pouring gasoline down the drain, hoping the sparks you felt might light a fire that keeps you warm. Love is coming in, out of the cold. knowing he was already there with a cup of hot chocolate and his rom-coms and back massages.

Whatever this was between them couldn’t possibly be love. And it would rear its ugly head and end them, eventually. Inevitably.

And so, quietly, Y/N reaches down to kiss Harry, one last time. Savouring the moments he was still hers. Pulling back quickly enough so not to stir him, but he unconsciously whines and his fingers latch onto her wrist, pulling her to him. she tore her eyes away from him, staring up at the ceiling wetly with her lips pursed for a few seconds spent collecting herself. trying not to think of how the boy was in love with was as distant as the sun. Then, she pulled her wrist out of his hold, before quickly and silently beginning to collect her belongings and leave what hurt too much to take behind along with him. Knowing Harry, he was too deep in his sleep to notice.

Forty-five minutes later, she was done packing. With trembling lips, her shoulders heaved and nausea coiled in her stomach as she pulled the simple band of silver from around her index finger off, staring at the small, glimmering diamond at the center and the engraved words ‘me and you’ at the inner ring. y/n opened his fist to reveal his palm, placed the ring carefully onto the expanse, and then closed his long fingers over it.

“Bye, H,” she sniffles, wrapping her jacket together around herself, otherwise clad in his t-shirt and a pair of jeans. “I hope... I hope you’re happier after this. I’ll stay away.”

Hope you can find your heart. I made it go away.

She left when the sun began to rise, deciding to crash at a hotel before she figured things out. Besides, it would help to have somewhere to stay when her stomach was doing that thing again that triggered her gagging reflex.

With the events of the past few weeks weighing in on her with her own doubts and her body’s unexplainable daily exhaustion, y/n couldn’t say she was surprised when her Uber Driver’s face was hazy and panicked as he looked over her—

“Ma’am? Are you alright? Would you like some water—“

“I’m fi—“

Before she could finish the sentence, her body slumped over, splayed all over the car’s leather seats. Her last few moments were spent trying to recall if she’d drank or eaten anything drugged from the driver and thinking of Harry. And that’s when everything grew darker and blurrier, slowly, then all at once.

*

Y/N woke with a gasp, her senses evaded by the scent of sanitizer and rubbing alcohol. Her back was stiff from laying on the slim bed, her hair a tangled mess and her body clad in a small, thin gown she detested, because it made her feel stark naked everytime.

The hospital.

Panic grew inside of her as she sat up quickly, looking around and finding herself in a room with the curtains around her. Some shuffling at her side caused her to jump, before she realized it was a nurse.

“Oh! You’re awake,” her voice was kind, eyes calm and soothing. Y/N relaxed a little at her facial expression, although she was still caught off guard.

“Why am I here? I don’t remember... Oh God, i wasn’t raped, right?” She choked on her own breath, fighting a shudder. “My Uber driver.. I fainted in the car, I don’t know why—“

“No, no,” the nurse waved her off, gesturing to the machines connected to y/n, seemingly filling her up with fluids. “It’s nothing like that. Your driver brought you here, himself. Looks like your blood sugar was just low, and you were dehydrated. The doctor will discuss everything with you shortly.”

The nurse shot her a smile before exiting the room with a clipboard to her chest.

“I don’t want to be here,” y/n whispered to herself, wishing Harry was here, in this moment. To make it better. He wasn’t. And he shouldn’t be, she thought to herself.

“Good morning, Miss Y/L/N,” the curtains were drawn back by a woman in a lab coat. “I’m your doctor, today.”

“Hi.. I don’t understand. Can I go now? It was just low blood sugar, right?”

“Yes, you will be discharged, but there is more,” the doctor said, noticing y/n’s distraught expression before quickly adding in: “nothing bad, of course. Just a little.. surprising?”

“What’s going on?” Y/N asked, squirming a little back onto the headboard as nausea spun its way into her stomach.

“While you were unconscious, we ran a few tests on you per protocol, and they came back with some results,” the doctor sat herself closer to y/n, smiling brightly while taking a pause. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

Y/N Y/L/N promptly hunched over, opened her mouth, and ejected her vomit all over the hospital bed.

“What?”

MASTERLIST| Requests are open!

A/N: there will be a part two.

[jmeddows2]

You (Roger Taylor x fem!Reader)

This is my Halloqueen gift for @mezzomercury​ Happy belated Halloween! I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it on time,but here it is. I’m really nervous about it ARGHH  @dtfrogertaylor​ Summary: Reader is an opera singer, with a chaotic manager with just the right contacts in the industry  Warnings: only a bit of swearing, else we have Fred and Reader become best friends, fluff Word count: 2k+ Notes: sorry for mistakes, english is not my first language Roger is single and childless in this story! The Duck House really exists and Queen used to stay there quite frequently when recording in Montreux :)

You were supposed to get a real job with a purpose, regarding the field you were actually educated in, but Steve, your manager had quite the reputation. Especially in terms of missing dates and mixing things up, making him the chaotic mess of a man that he naturally was. As an opera singer, that’s just started out, you struggled with auditions. Steve’s lack of time management was rather poor, that sometimes he wouldn’t tell you about the most important auditions in time, or miss most of them, because they just weren’t on his radar. If it wasn’t for all the contacts in the industry Steve apparently had, you would have run for the hills ages ago. One day, when Steve waltzed into the office to your meeting, which of course he was again late to, he was restless, jumping from one foot to the other. "I have it. This is going to be IT for you.” He explained it as a project. To 'expand’ your horizon, to fill your CV with something, that would make your future opportunities skyrocket from 0 to 100. .....to stand in for the band Queen as a background singer (in case of use)...... living, food and drinks provided.... is what the contract read ...should not be opposed to beer and fun. Must be flexible and be available to fly out during the time period of recording from June 1981 - March 1982. Place: Montreux, Switzerland. The few black letters on white seemed to get even more ridiculous throughout the over 100 page contract. But also funny. Mainly ridiculous though. Being crammed up in a recording studio in Montreux, Switzerland as an "option of use” wasn’t exactly your idea of a job. Or at least not what you were aiming for at the moment. The numbers with a 5 digit payment that crested the contracts last page, made you rethink the whole deal though, much to Steve’s joy. So you agreed. Your first encounter with Freddie, Brian, John and Roger was weird. Well, not with Freddie, Brian and John. They were all kind and excited to get to know you better. Roger was another thing. He didn’t even look at you or recognize you when you all gathered in one of the temporary Queen offices, to go over all the details. He was too distracted reading through the schedule for the upcoming months. It felt more like he pretended to be interested in the schedule on his lap, while absentmindedly toying with the pen between his fingers. You later found out, that he was dealing with the aftermaths of a really ugly breakup. Montreux, Switzerland You arrived at Geneva airport on a cold January morning, approximately 7 months after your first encounter with the band. Your personal driver was already awaiting you with a sign that read your name in capital letters. He had a wide grin plastered on his face. The exclusivity didn‘t stop there though. The one hour ride from the airport straight to the recording studio in the black limousine felt more like 10 minutes. A bottle of champagne, a few snacks and the heated leather seats in the car that made you feel oh so comfortable, may have been the reason why time passed so quickly. The nervous feeling crept back into your mind, as soon as the driver dropped you off in front of the casino, in which the recording studio was located.  The recording studio was situated in the basement. As you pushed the door open, there was only a friendly security guard in the foyer, checking your ID.  "Hi love, are you lost?“ It was Roger. His hair was a bit shorter than the last time you‘d seen him. "Oh hi, no actually, I‘m supposed to be here. As a background singer“ The uncertain tone in your voice made it sound more like a question. "uhh, I received a call to come out here. We had a meeting a few months ago“ Roger looked confused, but not bothered by your presence at all. "Well, be my guest then“ he awkwardly shook your hand and gestured for you to make you feel comfortable. "Where are you from uhm?“ "Micaela. Born and raised in New York City“ “A NYC girl?  pretty sure you’ve got some stories to tell” he teased.  “I’m sure not nearly as many as you” You got right back at him. That was something Roger highly valued. The wit, someone who’s not afraid to speak up. He smiled to himself and soon after Fred, Brian and John entered the studio as well. They each greeted you warmly.  Freddie was very excited to have you on board. When he wasn’t busy recording, as a fellow opera enthusiast, him and you always found something to talk about. Or it was rather having Freddie listen to all the stories you had in store, even if it was just a few. It almost felt like telling bed time stories to a child, seeing his dark, beautiful eyes light up, even at the slightest mention of words like ‘stage’, ‘orchestra’, ‘costumes’ or ‘opera’ in general. "I’m going to be honest with you, darling” Freddie said, as he took a seat beside you on the couch, while Roger was banging his drums frustratingly to the already finished guitar and bass backing track of ‘Las Parablas de Amor’ in the recording booth.  "We don’t actually need your beautiful vocals here” Freddie patted your thigh gently.  "You’re kidding, right? Why am I here then?” "I thought you may enjoy a little holiday out here. You know, there’s great spa resorts around town. And you could do some small assistant work, nothing hard or bad, I promise! No, I promise on Montserrat Caballé, so you really know I’m not joking” he swore. Well, you couldn’t say no now.

Out of nowhere there was a loud crash. You turned around to see Roger tossing his drum sticks across the room, nearly hitting John in the head. Roger continued to throw casette tapes around, that were properly lined up on the shelf nearby. “I’m done with this. It sounds like a cheap piece of crap.” he stormed out of the room. The boys only looked at each other, as if they were communicating through their minds on who’s turn it was now to go after Roger. "I’ll go” you volunteered, seeing as no one else made a move and what could you possibly have to lose? Except for a huge amount of payment. Ok, maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but the other boys looked quite relieved when you got up from your seat. You prepared for the worst,  grabbing your coat from the hanger on the door on the way out. It was really cold outside. Roger wasn’t hard to find. He was just outside the building, a cigarette hanging from his lips and rubbing his hands up and down his arms. He certainly wasn’t clever enough to bring a jacket with him, after his dramatic, oscar worthy departure. "Hey” how exactly do you approach an angry person you don’t know, but find really attractive? "Did they send you out here?” a chuckled groan left his lips.   “No, I came out here on my own. Want to talk about it?” you suggested. He offered you a cigarette, but you declined. 

"Talk about what? about the crap we’ve been recording lately? It’s disco.” he grimaced a pained face. “It sounds like the music they play in gay clubs. I mean don’t get me wrong, I support everyone’s sexuallity, but not everyone’s taste in music! I’m just not made for Disco music. It’s a load of bollocks. God, now I’m just venting” he threw the cigarette on the ground, putting it out with his boots. "I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m actually an opera singer. Not really Rock 'N Roll, is it? Yet I’m here in a recording studio with one of the biggest rock bands.” "Ok you have a point. Why did you agree to do this anyway?” he was shivering, while lighting another cigarette. "Sometimes you make sacrifices for the sake of others, but only as long as you’re feeling comfortable in your own skin ”  "God,I hate that you’re right.” he sighed, unable to hold the pout anymore, that was was replaced by a smile forming on his lips. "Now let’s better get back inside before you freeze to death” you gestured for the door. "Just a minute” he grabbed you gently by the arm. "Thank you” Roger hugged you tightly, nuzzling his face into your neck. The feeling of his cold cheeks in contact with your warm skin made you jump a bit.  “ Now let’s go and make some disco music” he laughed, grabbing your hand.  Expecting another fight and argument by Roger, Brian, Freddie and John were surprised to experiece as calm as he ever was. Stil, you decided to put the recording on hold for the day and locate back to the house, in which you all stayed. "Welcome to Duckingham Palace” when entering the house, you quickly noticed why Roger called it like that. There were hundreds of wooden duck statues situated all around the house. They were evrywhere, quite creepy, but as time passed, they became pretty much invisble to you. Believe it or not.

You all had gathered around the living room with a hot drink in hand, when John lit the fireplace, creating a cosy atmosphere. It felt like you’d known Freddie, Brian, John and Roger since forever, as you seemed to pretty much share the same or at least similiar interests and humor. "Ok now Micaela. Tell me. What’s your favorite Queen album?” John asked curiously while pouring a generous amount of rum into his hot chocolate. "Easy” Freddie answered for you. “Has to be A Day At The Races” you nodded in response. "See? we’re besties already, you guys better step your game up” Freddie threw his arm around your shoulders.  Roger couldn’t stop giving you little looks while having a conversation with Brian, who as expected also wasn’t a fan of the new direction in music they were headed at. “ how did you tame the lion, darling?” Freddie chuckled into your ear. " you know..How did you get Roger to calm down so fast? I know how he can get when he’s in a mood” "The cold outside did the job actually” you tried to sound nonchalantly.

"Of course yeah, that’s also why he’s been eyeing you up, ever since we left the studio. Did something happen?” Freddie kept pressing, but in a playful way.  "He never gives in so easily. Usually not even to pretty girls like you when he’s mad” Your only answer was a light blush of cheeks. At 2 am, John was the last one to go to sleep. Roger and you literally had to drag him up to his room. He was so plastered, that he didn’t even recognize his own song on the radio. Roger and you decided to sip on one last ‘good night drink’ to reward yourselves for all the hard work of tucking John into bed like a little baby. There was a silence upon you, but it wasn’t awkward at all, just relaxing. "Thank you again for today” Roger broke the silence. "Nothing worth thanking me for” "It is actually. Y'know I’m glad you’re here. You’re going to make this much more bearable for me" you snorted out with laughter, not realizing how serious he was about the words he said. "I’m being honest, love! I really fancy you and I want to get to know you better.” he was so close to you now, you could feel his warmth. "the seaside promenade is really beautiful, almost as beautiful as you.” Roger brought his hand to your hair, to brush a few strands behind your ear. "So, it’s a date then” you nervously drew a circles with your fingertips on the surface of the wooden kitchen counter, while looking into his ocean eyes. "Yeah it’s a date” he smiled at you. You both took your last swigs of your drinks.    "Good night Roger” you hugged him tightly and gave him little peck on the cheek, before wandering off to bed, thinking of all the beautiful scenarios the following day would have to offer. Roger followed closely behind, entering his own bedroom. The feeling of your kiss on Roger’s cheek lingered with him, until he fell asleep, thinking of his newly found happiness. You.

[beckzorz]

Spring Break (one-shot)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Words: 5905 Prompt: “Try that again and you’ll wind up dead.” Summary: A collision in JFK International Airport leaves Bucky Barnes with the wrong phone. You can still take photos of your vacation on his, but the nuclear codes are a slightly bigger problem. Warnings: Swearing, lingerie photos A/N: Happy spring break (for me at least)! This was written for @ruckystarnes‘ 2K writing challenge—congrats and thanks so much for hosting!! I had a ton of fun :D Thank you also to my wonderful friend @kentuckybarnes for beta reading <3 Hope you enjoy!!

He raced through the terminal, heart pounding and blood rushing in his ears. The device in his hand felt heavy, heavier than its half-dozen ounces. It wasn’t the black and charcoal case weighing it down, but the knowledge that it held more deadly information than even Bucky Barnes was comfortable holding.

Bucky scooted around a large tour group, taking the opportunity to shed his garish jacket and toss it under a nearby row of chairs. He glanced down at the phone in his hand and swore under his breath; the battery was flashing, its life all but drained away.

Then it died.

Bucky cursed for real this time, his eyes glued to the now-black screen. How long would it take to boot back up? He chanced a look over his shoulder as he ran on, but his pursuers were nowhere in sight. At least he had—

Slam.

Bucky grunted as he pitched forward, his legs tangling with someone else’s as the phone in his hand went flying. He caught himself on his right arm—the left would have made a very noticeable noise—and rolled away from the woman gasping under him, snatching up his phone.

“Sorry,” he blurted. He barely registered her wince, too busy scanning the terminal.

“Fucking hell,” she gasped. She clambered to her knees with the help of her friend and grabbed her own phone, its case also muted dark colors. “Watch where you’re going, will you?”

Bucky’s ears caught the telltale sound of his pursuers—still too far to be seen, but still far too close for comfort. His eyes flitted briefly over the woman’s face. She was more angry than hurt, at least.

“Sorry,” he said again, and then he ran on.

By the time he made it through security—thank god for his fresh SHIELD badge—Natasha was waiting in her corvette. He dove into the passenger seat. A charge cord was already plugged in, waiting.

“Go, go,” he urged.

“Nice to see you too,” Natasha said drily, but she pulled away from the curb, weaving expertly between cars as Bucky fumbled with the charge cord. He waited with bated breath for the lock screen to come up.

When it did, Bucky gaped. Instead of the plan black background he’d expected, there was a background image. A painting? Was that Monet?

A text message notification slid onto the screen.

Disha: Have fun girl!!! Take lots of pictures of the beach for me while I wither away in the library 😂 😂 😂

Bucky’s eyes bugged out.

“What the fuck?”

—

“I can’t believe we made it,” Mira said. She sagged in her seat, kicking off her flats. “First the train gets delayed, then you have to run into a fucking maniac—”

“Hey,” you said, “he ran into me.” You brandished your arm; you could already feel a bruise forming on your elbow.

“It’s not like you were watching your step.” Mira snorted and leaned forward to peer out the window. “How long before we take off, d’you think?”

“As long as it’s soon, I don’t really care.” You lean back and spread your hands, painting a picture in your mind. “All I want is to be lying under an umbrella with the waves lapping at my feet in less than twenty-four hours. Is that too much to ask?”

“After four months of a New York winter? Hell no.”

You giggled along with Mira. The plane finally drove onto the runway, and in minutes, you were in the skies.

—

“I’m sorry, you what?”

Bucky kicked the doorpost, scowling. “My phone got swapped with some—some girl’s.”

“How the hell did that happen, Buck?”

“They were on my tail,” Bucky snapped. “Airports are busy when they haven’t been evacuated, Steve!”

Steve groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, yeah… Well, now what? Where is it? That phone’s got so many hot secrets on it that someone’s bound to realize we’ve lost it sooner than later.”

“That’s the problem.” Bucky screwed up his face, dreading the inevitable reaction. “I did too good a job encrypting my phone. I’ve got no idea where it is.”

Steve’s eyes popped. He grabbed his hair until it all stood on end. “Bucky! What the fuck! There are nuclear codes on your phone right now!”

“Think I forgot, punk?” Bucky scoffed and flung himself into the nearest chair. “Trust me, if I look calm it’s only so I don’t bust any more holes in Stark’s fancy-ass walls.” He clenched his hands together, the knuckles on his right hand white with tension. “I need the footage from the airport. If we can figure out where she’s goin’—”

“Right.” Steve ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back down. “I’ll get on it. In the meantime, figure out who this girl is. If the wrong people figure out what she’s packing, she’s gonna be in some deep trouble.”

—

“Hey, can I borrow your charger? Mine’s in the overhead bin.”

“Sure.” Mira unplugged her phone. You plugged yours in and drummed your hands on the armrest between you as you looked out over the Atlantic. Cirrus clouds floated below you, casting wispy shadows along the rippling water miles below. Germs, noisy children, and airports aside, you did love flying.

“Did you change your phone background?” Mira asked.

“Huh?” You glanced at your phone, then snatched it up with a frown. The photo you’d taken of Monet’s Water Lilies was nowhere to be seen. Just a boring black background. “No…” You pressed your thumb to the home button, but it vibrated in your hand and stayed locked. “Weird.” You tried again, rotating your thumb a millimeter this way and that until you were prompted to enter your passcode.

But that didn’t work either.

“What the hell?”

“Wait,” Mira said. She shook her finger in midair, lips parted. “That guy you ran into! He dropped his phone too! Maybe you swapped!”

“Oh nooo,” you groaned. “Fuck! What am I going to do?”

Mira snorted. “You can live without your phone for a week, silly.”

“No I can’t! I was going to take photos! I can’t grab your phone every time I want to take a picture.” Even as you spoke, you thought of something. You swiped up on the strange phone and grinned triumphantly. “Ha! I can still take photos. Whoever’s phone this is is just gonna have to deal.”

You looked out the window again. It was a perfect view—some more clouds now, and the sun hitting the waves… You angled the phone and snapped a photo.

“Do you think they have iCloud?” Mira said.

“Who knows. All I know is that I’m going to stop caring about this little misstep and start enjoying myself.” You stuffed the stranger’s phone under your leg, linked your hands behind your head, and grinned.

—

Bucky took a swig of coffee. Breaking into the stranger’s phone had been insanely easy. He wasn’t used to working with civvie tech. After putting in so much effort to cracking through actual security, this felt absurd. Did she have any idea how easy it was?

Were all civilian phones this easy to get into?

Dear lord.

He pushed the thought aside and focused back on the array of screens. He’d hooked the phone up to the computers in his room, and now it was as simple as scrolling through emails and contact lists, text message histories, photos—

Bucky choked on his coffee. It sloshed in his mug, some spilling over his fingers. He swore, but his eyes were glued to the screen.

The third-to-last picture was um. It was.

Lingerie.

The picture wasn’t even blown up; it was just there, the same size as two dozen others, almost innocent in its placement between a photo of a salad and another of some latte art. Apparently this girl—woman, dear god, she was a fucking woman alright—liked taking photos of food.

And of herself, in a mirror, barely clothed.

The fleeting glimpse he’d gotten of her in the airport had done her zero justice. A scowl was never the best introduction, but… Damn. The difference that the soft lighting and soft smile and soft skin made was fucking huge.

Bucky swallowed and closed the window. He did not need to be seeing that. Distracting, that’s what it was. Unsettling. He shifted in his seat, tugging at his pants.

Data. Right.

He started with the emails. Easy enough. Most of them were forwarded from a university—was she a student? He checked some of the opened emails. There it was—grad student union. Suspicion confirmed. He found her flight receipt in short order. Grand Cayman? He leaned back in his chair to check the calendar on the other wall. Mid-March?

Had to be spring break.

A knock came at his door as he was scanning for any information on hotels or Airbnbs.

“What?” he called.

Natasha poked her head in. “Something popped up,” she said. She held out her tablet, eyes wandering over to his screens. “Your phone’s locked, but she’s still using it.”

“Huh?”

“Camera’s still accessible,” Natasha explained. “Looks like she’s en route to—” She peered over his shoulder and passed him the tablet. “Grand Cayman.”

Bucky stared. His iCloud photos were on display. The whole screen, save the newest photo, were photos of documents he’d temporarily filched from a facility in Irkutsk Oblast. Then, at the bottom right, there was the new photo. It wasn’t Russian documents, and it certainly wasn’t from Irkutsk Oblast. Just sun on the water, with soft clouds hanging in the sky.

It looked a lot nicer than New York at the moment, that was for sure.

“Well, I knew she was gettin’ on a plane.”

“What else have you found out?” Natasha asked.

“Grad student, from the area, on vacation with a friend. Nothing about a hotel so far.”

“Maybe the friend booked it.”

Bucky hummed. Made sense. He did some more digging. The woman didn’t have a banking app on her phone.

Finally, some common sense.

“What now?” Natasha asked. She snagged his discarded mug and finished off his coffee. “Ugh, I don’t know how you can handle so much sugar.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink other people’s coffee,” he said snidely. She stuck her tongue out at him, eyes twinkling. Bucky rolled his eyes. “What now? I’m gonna figure out how to get in touch with her without being entirely creepy about it. Don’t want her freakin’ out.”

“Good luck with that,” Natasha said with snort. She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, James, I’m sure it’ll be juuust fine.”

—

“Mira, this is too swanky!”

You turned in place, mouth agape. Your hotel room looked right out onto the water, the bed plenty large for both of you and the sheer curtains blowing in the breeze. And there was a table with two chairs, a mini fridge, bathrobes even…

“My dad had a lot of points on his travel rewards card,” Mira said. “And given that we’re graduating in May…” She shrugged a shoulder, smiling coyly. “We deserve a little treat.”

“Well, bless your dad!” You squeezed Mira in a tight hug, then ran to the window. The sun was low in the sky, almost skimming the horizon, light glittering off the gentle waves. “This is absolutely heaven.”

You opened up the camera on the stranger’s phone and snapped a photo of the water. You lowered the phone and bit your lip. Did the man who’d bumped into you have iCloud? Could he see the photos you were taking? So far, you’d only taken shots of the ocean. Was it safe to take a photo of yourself? It’s not like you needed one, but more than one person had asked to see pics.

Wait.

This guy had the same phone as you. That meant he had the same charger. That meant—

“Mira, can I use your phone?” you blurted.

“Uh, what for?” Mira looked up from her perch on the bed, where she was sorting through her suitcase. She’d already taken out her two bathing suits, but you ignored the cute frills in favor of sticking your hand in her face.

“I’m going to text my phone! Maybe that guy will have charged my phone by now, and then we can figure out how the hell I’m gonna get my phone back after we get home.”

“Ohhhh.” Mira proffered her phone. “Just don’t go giving him your passwords or anything,” she warned.

“Are you kidding? I’m not stupid.” You flopped down in the chair by the window, the breeze tickling your skin, and got to typing.

—

Mira: Hi, this is the person you ran into at the airport. We switched phones after you knocked us over. We should figure out how to get our phones back. Can you send me an email at [email]?

—

“Oh thank god,” Bucky muttered. He reread the text, grateful beyond words that she’d beaten him to the punch. He’d been about to send this Mira a text of his own, but couldn’t figure out how to do so without exposing himself. Now, he had an out. He opened a new browser window and sent off an email from one of his many covers, hoping his desperation wasn’t too obvious.

—

“This James guy seems pretty desperate to get his phone back,” you said. You were lying next to Mira on the bed, the BBC muted on the tv on the other side of the room. Mira, bless her, was letting you use her phone to check your email.

“Who can blame him?” Mira laughed. “Look at you!”

“Hey, these things are expensive!” You couldn’t help but giggle in return, embarrassed though you were. “Besides, pretty much everyone’s a little addicted. So what’s on the docket for tomorrow? Breakfast downstairs, then beach?”

Mira started to respond, but her jaw dropped. “Look!” she gasped.

You stared at the tv. Mira scrambled for the remote, and with the push of a button a crisp English voice piped out of the speakers.

“—engers are apparently in the midst of a scandal of their own today, as can be seen from this chase in JFK International Airport in New York. Sergeant James Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, is seen here fleeing from members of a Russian terror organization known as—”

Mira muted the television.

“What the fuck,” you breathed. You stared down at James’ phone, then back at the tv. A severe headshot of the Winter Soldier stared back at you. You’d seen his face for a second, maybe two, but there was no denying it.

You had the Winter Soldier’s phone.

“What the fuck?!” you yelped.

“Omigod, be quiet,” Mira hissed, clapping a hand over your mouth. You made frantic noises into her uncomfortably strong grip until she dropped her hand.

“Sorry, sorry,” you said quietly. Your shoulders were up around your ears, your bra straps digging into your skin. “I—what? What the fuck? This was almost funny before, but this?” You gestured wordlessly to the black-cased phone at your feet. “This is unreal.”

Mira reached out and picked up the phone gingerly. “I wonder what’s on here,” she mused.

“Well I don’t,” you said. “Dear god, how many state secrets are on that thing?!”

“Yes, well, of the two of us, I’m the polisci major, so…”

Mira’s cheeky grin was enough to break the tension. You chuckled, shoulders dropping a little.

“I suppose this is what I get for running late this morning.” You collapsed back onto the bed and stared up at the smooth ceiling. “Mira, do you think we’ll be okay?”

Mira grabbed your hand and squeezed it fondly. “Of course we’ll be okay, babe.” She got up to turn off the lights and crawled back in beside you. “Now get some beauty sleep. We’ve got a beach day tomorrow!”

—

“Bad news, Barnes,” Tony announced. He tosses a dossier onto the briefing table. “Someone tipped off the news. BBC, CNN, Fox—they’re all over your little jaunt at JFK.”

Bucky groaned. He was tired enough—a midnight briefing was never fun, but this? Today? He’d had it. “Seriously?” He opened the folder and winced. There it was, a blurry screenshot of his little tumble to the ground. He glanced at Steve and Natasha; both of them were wincing, too. “Fuck.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Tony said. He gestured for Bucky to turn the page.

Same screenshot, but it was blown up even more. And there, easily visible, were the two phones on the floor.

“We intercepted that particular picture on the dark web an hour ago.” Tony sat on the edge of the table right next to Bucky, his foot tapping in the empty air. “There’s a race to see if you ended up with the wrong phone.”

Bucky’s blood ran cold. “What?”

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance you snatched up the wrong phone,” Tony said. “So…” He shrugged. “They’re hedging their bets in favor of you being an absolute idiot.” Tony’s face had lost all traces of humor. “That civilian, not to mention her friend or the rest of Grand Cayman Island, is in serious danger right now. All it’s gonna take is one trigger-happy goon, and—”

“I get it!” Bucky snapped. His brain supplied him with plenty of fodder: her in her lingerie, her in a bikini, her in jeans and ankle boots like she had been at the airport, blood spreading around her in a puddle. “How fast can you get me to Grand Cayman?”

—

You woke with a lazy stretch as morning light filtered in through the curtains.

Mira was already in the shower, humming loud enough that you could hear her from bed. Her phone was charging on the far bedside table; you’d shut James’ phone off before you’d fallen asleep, not particularly interested in dealing with its existence while you were sleeping off the flight.

You padded over to the window and smiled at the view of the sun-kissed ocean. God, this place really was heaven.

A sharp buzzing from the bed disrupted the serene setting. You wandered over to Mira’s phone, curious.

Your heart leapt out of your chest. It was you calling.

You glanced at the bathroom door, blood rushing in your ears, before you snatched up Mira’s phone and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Is this Mira?”

Your breath caught at the familiar voice on the other end. “No. Is this James?”

A pause.

“Yeah. Yeah it is.” James let out a low breath. “You, uh…”

“I saw the news,” you said quickly. Would he understand? You weren’t sure how much was safe to say.

“Oh. Um, good.”

You sat on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the charge cord. “Are you alright?” you asked.

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” He sounded bewildered. “Are you okay?”

“Well, my vacation just got a little more complicated, but yeah, I’m fine.” You couldn’t help but smile a little. For all that he was a fearless assassin, he was worried. It was… cute.

“I don’t think ‘a little’ quite covers it,” he said quietly.

You froze. “What do you mean?”

“I fucked up,” James said bluntly. “People are going to try and come after you.”

A shudder ran through you. You clenched your free hand into a fist, the cord cutting into your fingers. You opened your mouth, but no words came out.

“I’m on my way to you,” he continued.

“What?! How?”

His low chuckle cuts straight through your fear. “You said you saw the news.”

“Oh,” you say stupidly. “Right.” James Barnes, Winter Soldier, assassin, Avenger. Of course he’d figured out where you were. Hell, he had your phone. No doubt the security on a normal iPhone was nothing to a guy like that. You ran your tongue along your lips as you thought of how sturdy he’d felt barreling into you.

Mm.

“So,” James said, cutting into your thoughts. “I should be there in a few hours. Can you keep to yourself til then?”

“No way! I’m not holing myself up in my hotel room on my spring break,” you said. “I’ll lay low, sure, but—”

“You do know your life is at risk, right?”

“I’m a woman. My life is always at risk,” you snapped. “I know how to handle myself, okay?”

“You—” James cut himself off. “Listen. I obviously can’t tell you what to do, but I really don’t want your death on my conscience. Please be careful—” He broke off again.

Had he been about to say your name? You suspected so. The worry in his voice softened you. Maybe he wasn’t thinking of you specifically, but… well, it was nice to pretend. Despite the unflattering photo from the BBC, you knew the man was gorgeous. Was it so bad to imagine he cared?

“Alright,” you murmured. “I’ll be careful.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “I’ll see you soon.”

—

Bucky had flown across the globe countless times. To Australia, to Irkutsk, to Antarctica. From New York to Grand Cayman in one of Tony’s jets was less than four hours.

But on the other end was a woman with guts, with an inner fire and yet enough reason to listen to his advice, with fucking lingerie photos on her phone. He shifted in his seat and stared down at the water below.

He’d never had a longer flight.

—

Three hours later, you were fuming. You couldn’t believe you’d agreed to stay inside. Mira was out on the beach below, and every so often she’d wave up at the window. She’d made friends with a gaggle of bubbly undergrads that you could hear from the hotel. You were so fucking bored from sitting here watching sitcoms and drumming your fingers on the windowsill.

Mira had understood, of course, but still, you were beyond ready to take yourself and your new bathing suit into the water. You were already dressed for the beach—sultry bathing suit, a sheer white cover-up skating along your thighs, strappy sandals to save your feet from the burning sand. Your sunglasses and floppy hat were waiting on the rumpled bed.

Dammit, when the hell was James going to get here? He’d said a few hours, and it had already been three…

If you had to wait another whole hour, you were going to scream.

You wandered over to the hallway door and peered out of the eyehole. No one. The door was double-locked. Your hand hovered by the deadlock as curiosity teased your brain. Would a little peek hurt?

The elevator dinged in the hall, and your heart leapt into your throat. You pressed your eye back against the peephole and held your breath. Two men, dressed conspicuously in dark, thick clothes, wandered slowly down the hall towards your room. They passed your door, though one of them looked straight at the peephole with narrowed eyes.

You jerked away, heart pounding. They were scoping the place out! They knew where you were!

Mira had left her phone with you in anticipation of James’ next call. You typed in the passcode with shaking fingers and locked yourself in the bathroom, hoping the strange men wouldn’t be able to hear you from the hallway. You dialed your phone number. Every ring went on forever.

Finally, James picked up.

“I’m almost there. What’s wrong?” he said without preamble.

“Oh thank god,” you whispered. You pressed a hand to your thudding heart. The edge had already come off at the sound of his soft baritone. “I think someone knows my room. Well, there’s two of them—white men, heavy clothes. Not vacationers. They were going down my hallway, but they looked right at my room…”

“Well, keep the door locked,” James said. “I assume it’s locked.”

You rolled your eyes. “Yrs. It’s double-locked. Should I stuff a chair under the doorknob too?” you asked sarcastically.

“Might as well,” he said. There was a touch of humor in his voice. “No harm in being thorough.”

A little giggle burst out of you, and you stuffed your knuckles in your mouth to stifle yourself. “Whatever you say, Sergeant Barnes,” you teased, voice low.

His breath hitched, and a sudden flush spread across your face and down your neck. Did you really just say that?

Oops.

“Right,” he said, voice slightly strangled. “Well, I’ll be there in five. Don’t get killed before then.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “Put the chair under the doorknob. I’ll call when I’m there.”

He hung up. You cradled the phone to your ear, longing to hear his voice again.

Five minutes.

For James Barnes, you could wait that long.

—

Bucky’s disguise was good. He looked like a buff hipster. Round sunglasses, a v-neck white tee, fitted jeans with more stretch than their appearance let on, and his customary black boots rounded it all out. The backpack was all straight lines, and far too small for a reasonable amount of stuff. He’d had to leave most of his favorite guns behind. Still, he had a few knives tucked away, not to mention the pistols in easy reach.

Then there was the holographic cover for his left arm, though Tony, the bastard, had given it a tattoo that Bucky never would have considered. Watercolor flowers and vines crawled up from the pretend wrist right up to his shoulder. Bucky didn’t even know if his real skin would hold a tattoo, what with the advanced healing. Would his body just flush the ink away?

He wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.

Did she like tattoos?

Bucky shook his head as he climbed out of the rental car and squinted up at the swanky hotel. He whistled under his breath. Damn, this was almost as fancy as the sort of places Tony liked. No doubt the rooms all had nice, big beds…

“Enough,” he muttered to himself.

He eased his way through the milling tourists and headed straight past reception. No one questioned him. He looked like he belonged. He made sure of it.

Bucky bypassed the elevators for the sweeping staircase and climbed up two steps at a time. Her room was on the second floor, down the western corridor. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the two men she’d described loitering halfway down the hall. He ducked down a side hallway before they noticed him, heart hammering in his chest.

It was one thing to give her advice over the phone. Seeing two men at her door, men he recognized from his Irkutsk Oblast mission?

This was something else entirely.

He knew almost nothing about her, but what he did know—and what he’d seen—painted a picture he wasn’t likely to soon forget. If something happened to her, with him so damn close…

No.

Bucky whipped off the sunglasses and hooked them in his collar. He slid a semi-automatic pistol out of his belt and let out a slow breath as he turned off the safety. He let the memory of her face flicker in his mind one last time before he pushed it aside, saving it for later.

A bang echoed down the hallway.

Bucky ran silently down the hall. Neither man had noticed him yet. They were clambering inside the room, forty feet away, now twenty, and then the taller one glanced over.

His eyes widened comically.

Bucky fired at the man’s kneecaps in rapid succession. He collapsed with a howl, curling up into a fetal position. The other leapt inside the room with a grunt. Bucky covered the last few meters and skidded to a stop by the bust-open door, eyes wide and gun at the ready.

—

The lamp shattered against the shorter goon’s head just as he jumped to his feet.

He wavered in place. You scampered back breathlessly, snatching up James’ phone and scanning the room for another weapon.

Then the goon collapsed face-down at your feet. You sagged in relief, and then you realized someone else was there.

In the open doorway, behind the knocked-over chair and through the open door, stood James. His eyes were wide as he took you in. You stared back at him, lips parted in surprise. He looked totally different than the last time you’d seen him. He looked… suspiciously like a hipster.

Your lips twitched. You slapped your free hand over your mouth before you burst out laughing. This—this was James Barnes, Winter Soldier?

No way.

James’s lips twitched.

“Well, nice to see you too,” he said, smiling. He turned to grab the man from the hallway, giving you a perfect view of his ass in those tight pants. You swallowed as he dragged the whimpering man in.

“You’re getting blood on the carpets,” you told him.

“Eh, we’ll leave a big tip.”

The whimpering man wriggled against James’ hold. James tossed him against the wall and shut the splintered door, double-locking it and setting the chair back under the doorknob.

As his back was turned, the still-conscious goon started reaching in his belt. You rolled your eyes.

“Ahem,” you said.

James turned and placed a well-aimed kick to the man’s busted knee. “Try that again and you’ll wind up dead,” he warned. His low growl sent an involuntary shudder through you that—thank god—he didn’t seem to notice. He dragged the unconscious man, the one you’d so excellently knocked out, beside him.

“Want something to tie them up with?” you asked.

James lit on you with such a bright grin your heart skipped a beat. Hipster disguise or not, the man was gorgeous.

“So thoughtful, too,” he murmured. “Thanks, doll.”

A blush rose to your cheeks as you grabbed Mira’s charge cord and tossed it to him. He caught it deftly and tied the goons’ hands together between their backs.

James stood back and crossed his arms as he looked down at the two men on the carpet. “Nice to see you two again,” he said, conversationally. “What brings you here, Yudin?”

The tall one, Yudin, spat at James, who tutted and shook his head. In a flash, his left hand was at Yudin’s throat, stretching his neck uncomfortably high.

You blink, confusion racketing through you as you stare at the pale skin and the watercolor tattoo of James’ left arm. Doesn’t the Winter Soldier have a metal arm? Is the whole thing fake? Did he get a new arm?

“Talk,” James growled.

“Your—phone,” Yudin croaked. “They thought—”

“Who?”

“Общество змей,” Yudin gasped. He wriggled in James’ grip. James threw him back to the floor.

“Спасибо.” He kicked Yudin on the side of the head; the Russian collapsed in a silent heap.

At last, James turned back to you. His sculpted face was lined with concern, and you realized belatedly that your hands were shaking slightly. You laughed nervously and clutched James’ phone tighter.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyes on your face.

“Well, they’re the ones tied up and unconscious, so yes, I think I am.” You let out a slow breath and sat heavily on the bed, James’ phone tucked between your legs. “Thank you, James. You came just in time.”

“Almost too late,” he muttered. He ran a hand through his hair, gave the goons a last look-over, and came to stand in front of you. You gazed up at him, heart racing, as he studied you. He reached a hand out, but it fell back before it touched your face. “They didn’t get to you?”

“No,” you said. You swallowed. He was so close you could practically feel his body heat. Your eyes darted along his body, from the possibly fake tattoo to his thick chest and the pulse point at his neck. Warmth tickled at you, from your face to your neck and down your body. “They didn’t get to me.”

You did, though.

James bit his lip, his eyes as hungry as you felt. Only now did you realize how exposed you really were. There he was, pistol tucked into his belt, fully dressed, while you were in a flimsy cover-up and a bathing suit that showed all too much.

From the look in his eyes, you wondered if to him, it showed all too little.

A fresh wave of heat flooded your face, and you finally looked away. Meekly, you held out his phone.

“Huh? Oh.”

James took his phone from your hands, the brief brush of your fingers electric. Did he feel it? You couldn’t tell. You were afraid to look, afraid that all the feelings swirling inside you were affecting you alone.

But James put a finger under your chin and tilted your face up. His eyes were bright, a flush high in his cheeks. His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“It was worth it,” he murmured.

Your eyes widened, but before you could speak he ducked to press his lips to yours.

Roaring filled your ears as you gasped into James’ kiss. His hand slid around the back of your neck, hot and heavy against your skin. His lips were like fire. You grabbed hold of his shirt, desperate for purchase. You fell back, legs still dangling off the bed, and tugged James down with you. He grunted, caught himself on his other hand, but he didn’t let go of you and he definitely didn’t stop kissing you. He ran his tongue along your lips, prompting a moan. Only then did he pull away.

If his eyes had been bright before, they were smoldering now. You swallowed and pressed your hands against the broad planes of his chest.

“Totally worth it,” you agreed breathlessly.

James’ answering grin was brighter than the sun. You traced the shape of his mouth with your eyes, committing it to memory, but then he was kissing you again, and you realized there was no way you could ever forget the feel of his mouth on yours.

When you broke the kiss, desperate for air, he hovered with his mouth a hair’s breadth from yours. You lay dizzy beneath him, one hand trailing along his torso while the other tucked his hair behind his ear.

“I thought you seemed a little desperate for your phone back,” you murmured.

He dropped his head against your shoulder and chuckled. “Yeah…” He rolled to lie on his side next to you, one hand propping his head up as the other reached into his back pocket. “Here. I’ve got yours, fully charged.”

You squealed happily and grabbed your phone. Lots of unread texts, but it still had the Monet lockscreen, and it opened under your thumbprint without question.

“Oh, thank you so much, James!” You kissed him again, brief but happy.

“Call me Bucky?” he asked.

You glanced at him, still smiling. “Alright. Bucky.” Then you remembered what you’d said not even fifteen minutes before. A coy smirk grew on your face. You blinked innocently up at him, one finger tapping your chin. “Are you sure you don’t prefer Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky positively growled. He grabbed you by the waist and dragged you up the bed, eyes burning as he settled on his hands and knees over you. Every last ounce of air left your lungs as he dipped his head to suck a mark against your collarbone. By the time he pulled away, you were putty in his hands.

“Doll,” he said, voice thick and his eyes carrying a world of meaning, “you are about to find out.”

A/N: I don’t speak Russian, so it might be wrong! It translates to “Serpent Society” (which is a canon Marvel evil organization) and “Thanks.”

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think :D

[s-j-ace]

The Same Question

Chapter Six

Characters:  Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi

Words: 14290

Summary:

After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma  for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief  do what he does?

This is Chapter Six, Here are Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, and Five

Read on AO3

[Log of Text Messages from Maki Harukawa’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Did you touch down at Haneda yet?

From: Principal Emo

Yeah

A while ago actually

I’m actually on the train home right now

Which I guess is a little silly considering I’m coming right back over tomorrow

But also I definitely need to sleep in my own bed at least once before meeting people Kaito works with

From: Me

Ugh

Meeting people

From: Principal Emo

Yeah

Especially meeting people with Kaito “What’s your favorite blood type?” Momota

From: Me

Hey that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about

And your description is completely accurate, continue

From: Principal Emo

Ugh sorry that was mean

I’m mean today and I don’t like it

I need coffee :(

From: Me

Or, you know

A decent night’s sleep

From: Principal Emo

Too hard

From: Me

Oh, you’re right, taking care of yourself is too hard

Back to relentlessly roasting Kaito it is

From: Principal Emo

What no

I’m not roasting him

I’m just

Trying not to be mad at him because the only reason I have to be mad at him is that I’m going to miss him while he’s on his mission and I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me he was going on the mission soon enough that I had time to ease into missing him and if I’m just angry at him about that then I’ll be missing him when he’s here so I should try and not be angry at him so that I don’t let time with him go to waste while he’s not in space yet

That makes sense right?

From: Me

I mean feel about it how you wanna feel

But I’d just be mad at him if I were you

From: Principal Emo

:(

From: Me

*>:(

From: Principal Emo

*<:(

From: Me

What is that

A party hat?

From: Principal Emo

No its like

Concerned eyebrows

From: Me

What are you concerned about?

From: Principal Emo

Right now? Or in general?

Because right now I’m worried that people on the train are giving me weird looks because my suitcase is taking up too much space

But like in general I fear that I am somehow secretly inadequate according to an unclear set of standards that only exist in my own mind

From: Me

Cool

Well not cool actually

You want me to give you a ride to the open house so that you don’t have to take the train again tomorrow

From: Principal Emo

I would actually very much appreciate that

I know that the lines under the Towa bridges have the newest trains and the most up to date security and all

But also there’s just a lot of people on trains and places to hide knives one would use for a train stabbing and even thought that’s super unreasonable maybe it’s not that unreasonable because we have a lot of stabbings in proportion to other countries but also we have a low homicide rate

From: Me

Ah so you don’t just want to carpool for my charming company

From: Principal Emo

If you’re trying to be sarcastic let me just say your company is genuinely more charming than the motley crew of characters one would expect on the Towa to Tanegashima line at ten in the morning

From: Me

Even though my car has the same amount of places to hide knives?

From: Principal Emo

Yeah but those knives are for your purposes and not train stabbings

From: Me

My purposes?

From: Principal Emo

You know what I mean

From: Me

Yeah I do

Also

While I do not want to validate your fear of train stabbings via the association of an abrupt subject change

I’ve been meaning to say for a while that I am sorry that I don’t trust your detective work more often

Well I don’t know about more often

What I mean is

I think that you are a good detective

Even when you say stuff that obviously sounds stupid

And if I implied a different stance through my words or actions

Then I regret those words and/or actions

From: Principal Emo

What?

Oh are you talking about what you told me before I went to Paris

From: Me

Yeah

I mean I don’t think I’m in the wrong when I say clowns stealing toilets from the louvre is a stupid premise for a crime

But I guess criminals are stupider than popular media and common sense would lead me to believe

And I think I should have believed in you more

But also I think I was right that you need a vacation and you haven’t taken one yet and I think that’s not great for you either

From: Principal Emo

Oh um

I guess not?

From: Me

And Kaito told me you’re not allowed to chase the clowns anymore

So maybe you should take a break now

From: Principal Emo

Well

I feel like in a way following the DICE case was a break?

Because I essentially didn’t get any cases done the whole time I was working it

Which means I’ll have catching up to do when I get back to the office

From: Me

Not if I kill you first

From: Principal Emo

Sorry, we’ll have to fit that in later

If you kill me then I’ll be even more behind

From: Me

Your eyeballs better be behind your eyelids at 8pm today or else I’m taking them

From: Principal Emo

Taking what?

From: Me

Your eyeballs

From: Principal Emo

No I need those

From: Me

Then hide them because I’m coming for you

From: Principal Emo

Okay, maybe I’ll sleep a little tonight

From: Me

You better still be sleeping when I get to your house

I’ll be there 8:30

From: Principal Emo

Maki if you want me to sleep at 8pm then that means you want me to sleep for 12 and a half hours

From: Me

Did I fucking stutter

From: Principal Emo

<:( --- Kokichi Ouma's flight from the Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy to the Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan was the first time he had ever been on a plane by himself. He had done that on purpose when organizing the flight groups yesterday. Ace and King had suggested that groups be made up of twos and threes to avoid "unnecessary danger," which Kokichi heard as avoiding "letting our boss eat paper and be in vents." Naturally Kokichi responded that it was a positively splendid suggestion, considering he had come up with it already, and he had obliged by it, organizing them into four groups with Kokichi's own group including Queen and Jack. Except somehow they had booked tickets for the wrong flight. Oooh noooo, how could that be? And Queen had been the one to book the tickets too…

Kokichi supposed that he hadn't quite thought this whole being on a plane alone thing all the way through when he was hacking into the airline's online ticket system last night. It seemed now, in the daylight of sitting in the window seat of aisle 22 watching the clouds stroll listlessly across the sky so that he wouldn't have to look at the lady next to him paint her toenails, that there was nothing overtly beneficial about the lack of a familiar audience to his exploits. Sure, it was nice that he could have his blue eyes white dragon on the plane with him in his pocket instead of hidden within the checked bags, but what was the point of it if there was no one to duel with?

Basically he was bored.

But also weirdly not motivated to do anything to end the boredom. Which seemed counterintuitive, because not being bored was his whole deal. Then again maybe having a whole deal was counterintuitive to his supposedly liquid personality. If he wanted to stir things up maybe he should indulge this part of himself that wanted to be boring because then that would vary from his constant need to not be boring, which in excess could be viewed as boring. Then again, changing things about his personality just to avoid an arbitrary standard of boring-ness would also be pretty boring, wouldn’t it?

He tried to think of what the Kokichi who didn't want to be bored with all of his being would do right now. Maybe he would turn around and just start picking apart the insecurities of miss "my toes need to be pink for the beach!" over here until she started crying and jumped out of the plane. Then again, he didn't trust his brain not to imprint onto the next person who had long eyelashes and who he thought might fuck up his whole deal if he let it wander free into the dangerous world of airplane small talk. Sure, he could steal something or break something or just cause some sort of problem on purpose, but, very concerningly, it didn't seem like he wanted to.

It just... seemed like a hassle right now, to think about things and scheme. If he was the maitre d' of mischief then what was the point of it if there wasn’t someone important's perceptions to attend to?

So his brain was left here, grasping at straws, rewatching episodes of Detective Conan in his head, and wondering where he went wrong with the whole dashing phantom thief thing.

It also felt like there was something he was supposed to be doing that he was forgetting to do but he didn't have a lot of time to think about it, what with the recently discovered antique fabregé egg being stolen from the Suzuki Modern Art Museum in Osaka and all. How did Kaitou Kid do it?

Oh, wait, Kokichi knew what this feeling reminded him of. It felt something like being twelve again. Back when DICE was just around a year old and they were still living in that apartment in Hokkaido. They were barely scraping by at that point. Spades and Clubs were in junior high, still seriously considering going back to the old home. All the other teens were still in highschool, except for King, who was just starting nursing school, and Ace still had their first job with that phony resume Kokichi made them. Wait, they hadn't even come up with their code names yet had they? Yeah, they still called him Ouma-sama back then.

That seemed kind of silly, looking back on it. While everyone was at school or work, Kokichi would stay in that little apartment and watch anime for hours, sometimes making nasty little bills disappear through some light, white collar crime. Well, it wasn't always anime he watched while committing tax fraud. Sometimes he would watch game shows or browse the internet while sending emails that would topple companies in just the right way so that rice cakes would be on sale the next week. He memorized a lot of different security detail layouts while lazing around and rerouting rubber horse mask deliveries to the CEO of the Towa corporation because their stupid TVs were too expensive. He also played a lot of video games. Like… a lot a lot. Most of his time was spent playing video games now that he thought of it...

Recalling those times now felt like looking down at half of a person. Or more like looking back at someone who didn't know he was a person yet.

Except now he was a person and he knew that he was one and he was on a plane by himself because he wanted to sulk defiantly. Wait sulk? Sulking? Was that what he was doing?

Well yeah, maybe he was a bit bummed about Saihara. He hadn't been able to think about that earlier because if he thought about the pit of disappointment sapping in the back of his head it might suck the rest of him in too and then he'd be no use to anyone. But now he was alone and it didn't matter how he felt about anybody and somehow he was still confused by it.

Maybe Saihara just wasn't the hot shit Kokichi thought he was. Actually, Kokichi was probably just being dumb for expecting more. Or, on the other hand, Saihara might just be doing things the right way. Tracking an internationally traveling thief through flight records was logical, but somehow knowing how the trick was done made it lose a little bit of magic. Or all of it, seeing as magic isn't real and all. Maybe Kokichi had just been excited by the possibility that Saihara had presented, and thus blew his minor deductive talent out of proportion.

Obviously whatever had made Saihara so interesting to him was of no consequence now, because the detective wouldn't be able to find them with his little method this time, what with DICE staggering out the ticket buying and all. He wasn't even going to leave a note to Interpol this time around. And so the semi-epic story of Shuichi v. Kokichi would end here.

Then Kokichi could just keep leading DICE in heists. Forever. He guessed. He didn't know, actually, what the long term plan was vis a vis their ever escalating chain of petty thefts. Bishop had said they made ¥2,000,000 this month. Kokichi didn't even know how much they had saved up in out of country bank accounts. It seemed like too much.

What was he supposed to say about that to DICE though? Ok guys, we’re making too much money actually, time to slow it down a bit and face the fact that we've wasted our young lives on being only mildly disruptive to but somehow somewhat supportive of the institution of capitalism.

Then what would happen after that?

When he started planning these heists, Kokichi had never really thought of an “after” to becoming an internationally wanted thief. He had seen it as the end goal. The destiny career.

How do you end that?

Maybe he should just pull a Ryo from GX except instead of a heart condition killing him he could just jump off a-

“Ladies and gentlemen,” The crackling voice of the Captain over the plane intercom interrupted the train of thought Kokichi was having as well as where he was in his mental Detective Conan Kaito Kid best hits Marathon, “As we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Make sure your seat belt is securely fastened and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you.”

Uh. What? This was a twelve hour flight and that sounded an awful lot like a landing announcement. Was the Captain on crack or someth-

Kokichi realized that the sky outside the window he had been spacing the fuck out through was dark now. Even more telling of the passage of time, though, was the fact that he was on episode 703 now, the train one where Kaitou Kid disguises himself as a maid.

In order to function like a real living person who experienced the passage of time, Kokichi banished anime from his brain.

Okay, not thinking about anime anymore… thinking instead about what to do when not on the plane….

Right, he was supposed to wait at the baggage claim until Rook, King, Queen and Jack’s flights came in. Then they would drive to the rendezvous in central Tokyo where they would meet the members who landed at Haneda instead of Narita. Then they would head to the JAXA launch site on one of the islands in the Kagoshima prefecture and Kokichi would lay out the heist plan he came up with on... the…. plane….

Oh... he forgot to do that, didn’t he?

…

See, who needed a nemesis when Kokichi had self foiling down to a science? --- Shuichi Saihara really meant to sleep last night. He really did. He went through the whole thing too, brushing his teeth, putting on a sleep t-shirt, and lying down in the bed. Yet somehow his brain never got the message that it was time to shut down.

Instead, it compulsively lit up with anxiety, which began dueling it out with the half hearted self reassurances he postulated to pretend he was coping.

The afternoon before, Shuichi had returned to the small building which served as his dual purpose home/office to find a slew of missed phone calls and letters. He spent three, gut-wrenchingly guilt-ridden hours sorting through everything from distress calls from potential clients, some well wishes from clients he had been following up with, and worst of all extremely distressed calls from clients he had failed to follow up with in wake of the DICE case.

He felt like the stupidest, most pathetic excuse for a detective on the face of the earth. He knew that he shouldn’t feel that way, but how could he not come to that conclusion with all the evidence that lay before him? Every call and letter was from a person that Shuichi had failed to help because he had somehow decided vainly pursuing international thieves was something only he could do. Maybe early on it had seemed like the logical step to pursue the thieves where interpol couldn’t. Shuichi had just come off of a big bust in the organized crime sector of Towa City, tracing back a series of revenge killings at the behest of a secretive swordswoman, and had been passively keeping up with the DICE case on the side. When he had managed to get his hands on one of the encoded letters sent to Interpol, he was certain DICE was going to hit the Smithsonian, so he and Kaito had gotten on a plane to America. And then they didn’t catch the thief and obviously that was Shuichi’s fault because the evidence was all in his hands if he had only been fast enough… So he got the next letter and pursued the thieves to Paris and he got even closer and when he failed it was even more obviously his fault because he should’ve been smart enough to notice an internationally wanted thief sitting literally right next to him. And then some how he had decided that? Stealing plane records was the next logical step? How did he even get there? It was so obviously over the line… But would he really have been satisfied, then, if he had just given up on the truth? Was he really satisfied now? He couldn’t possibly-

It didn’t matter whether he was satisfied or not. Not everything was about him. He had his own job to do here in Towa City and he had forgotten that for about a month and a half to chase after a group of essentially harmless thieves. There had been four murders in Towa City since then! And Shuichi knew that because four people had called him to investigate them! And Shuichi was aware that people would be calling him about violent crime! And he had seen the evidence that the thieves had a zero casualty count! And yet somehow he still had to have Agent Ishimaru spell it out for him that he should’ve just stayed home!

Okay he was freaking out a bit, things were fine. Interpol was going to take care of DICE now. It wasn't Shuichi's case. He needed to calm down. Stop trying to convince himself there was more to the case. Why would he think he knew the case best when he worked on it for less than half a hear? Interpol had been tracking criminal activity suspected of the organization for nearly a decade now. Then again maybe that was a point against interpol. What if they were in-

Stop! No! Not his case! Stop being suspicious!

Shuichi had other things to focus on now. He had managed to get into contact with most of the people who had left him messages, and to make up for lost time he had decided to try and take up a few cases at a time. Except contrary to his own self-conceited beliefs there were more detectives in Towa City than just him, and everyone who had called him about a case had managed to hire someone else already.

He tried to convince himself this was a good thing, as he lay awake at night. Everything was fine. He wasn’t failing anyone. There were so many other capable detectives in Towa city. No reason to be concerned.

Yeah, nobody needed him, the pathetic detective he was anyway. He hadn’t even managed to get close to catching DICE’s leader, let alone the nine other members of the group…

Well maybe he had gotten pretty close. He remembered grappling with the thief in Taipei and Milan. The close contact with the pilferer of his pursuit only made Shuichi’s own incompetence more frustrating, his mistakes made more obvious in the light of hindsight.

He really wanted to know why-

Not his case. God what an idiot. What had Dr. Iruma diagnosed him with after the thief escaped? Ah that’s right, shit for brains.

… That reminded him, he should follow up with the Idabashi labs people. He had gotten so caught up in making sure he stayed on DICE’s tail that he forgot to even perform the most basic courtesy in his practice as a detective. Being able to check up with clients, bystanders, and victims without risking a witness tampering charge was one of the main benefits of being a private detective versus being a police detective. When he had started his private practice Shuichi had promised himself that now that he could put the people involved in a case before the case itself he would do so to the best of his ability. He usually took much better care to address concerns of breaking and entering victims, what had he been thinking leaving the labs immediately to pursue DICE? Dr. Iruma had still been uncertain if her friend would recover from being shut down right in front of her! Shuichi was shocked at his own behavior. It was the kind of awful thing he would have pulled as a reckless teen detective, pursuing the truth without regard for who he accused or lied to along the way. The resurfacing of this behavior seemed appalling to him now.

He should call Idabashi labs right away to apologize.

It was this thought that finally stirred him from his half-awake stupor at 4 AM. At realizing the time, the part of Shuichi’s brain that was still capable of higher reasoning decided that calling would be rather rude at the hour, but he was too anxious he’d forget to call at all if he postponed now to abandon the idea altogether. In compromise, he took out his laptop and began drafting a letter to Dr. Iruma instead, expressing his regrets and apologies of every little thing he could think of. The broken windows, the used bomb, the cup of coffee he had made in her kitchen without asking…

He was typing and retyping the sign off at the end of the letter (Sincerely was a good stand bye but not very personal? Concernedly? Too personal. Thank you for your time? Ugh not the right tone) when he heard the knock at the door.

Shuichi blinked, breaking the trance-like state that he now realized had led him to write a four page letter. He looked at the grandfather clock on his mantle. It read 10:31 AM. Which meant it was actually 8:27 AM because that clock was 2 hours and 4 minutes fast and Shuichi was too afraid he might break it to try and fix it.

Maki had promised to pick him up at 8:30 so by process of logical deduction Shuichi could safely assume that it was her outside, coming to bully him for being sleep deprived.

Sure enough, the sound of the spare key he’d given her and Kaito could be heard jiggling in the door knob. Maki opened the door.

The desk Shuichi was working at was in his client reception area, which was unfortunately immediately in view of anyone opening the door. Maki locked eyes with him almost instantly, and the look in hers was that of disappointment.

“And here I was thinking you might actually be asleep.”

“Uh. Sorry.” Shuichi said, closing his laptop. Then he opened it again. “Hey if you were apologizing to someone for not catching a burglar in their home/place of work and then leaving while their friend was sick so that you could chase said crook to another continent, would you sign the letter ‘sincerely’ or with something more like ‘once more expressing deepest apologies...”

Maki frowned, coming in and closing the door. “I’m not good at apologies. Those both sound polite but, knowing you, you probably didn't do something you would actually need that level of politeness to apologize for.”

“Um.” Shuichi went with ‘deepest apologies, -Shuichi Saihara.’ “Better safe than sorry?” He hit print. The printer his laptop was connected to was upstairs in the office where he kept his case files, so he had to run up the stairs to grab the printed letter.

Maki, seeming to sense he was going to need a second to put his four page letter in an envelope, sighed and came into the building from the entryway. She took off her shoes, heading towards the kitchen in the next room over.

When Shuichi got back down stairs with his four page apology letter safely tucked away in an envelope with a nice international stamp on it, he came into the kitchen to find Maki unplugging his coffee maker.

Both took a moment to register what one another was holding in their hands. Then they both frowned disapprovingly.

“Maki come on…” Shuichi protested weakly. “I don’t want to fall asleep at the JAXA open house.”

“Shuichi you’re at ten-page-apology-letter crazy right now and you think caffeine is going to help you?”

“Yes.” Uh. Wait. Was that healthy? “Maybe.” Probably not. “It’s only four pages.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Okay Shuichi was not on the winning side of logic here that much was clear. But still…

“Okay you win.” Shuichi relented, moving toward the kitchen counter as if to set down the envelope in his hands.

The second he dropped it, he made a mad lunge for the coffee maker cord. Maki effortlessly pulled it out of the way and grabbed his wrist, twisting him into a lock and then bringing him to a pin on the ground.

“What was the plan there?” She asked. Was it just him or did she sound bemused? He couldn’t really look at her face to garner her expression because his own face was currently smashed against the tile of his own kitchen.

“No plan.” Shuichi admitted through a mouthful of the floor. “Only caffeine withdrawal.”

“Okay.” Shuichi felt his center of gravity flip once more, “You’re sleeping in the car.” Shuichi realized that Maki had scooped him up into a princess carry too late to actually do anything about it.

“Hey!” Shuichi protested, a little indignant.

Being close friends with Maki Harukawa came with the knowledge that you were going to be treated like you weighed less than a ragdoll from time to time. She had a tendency to muscle her way through social interactions if at all possible. Her significant other just gave her a compliment she didn’t know how to deal with? Punch him. That guy at work wouldn’t stop talking to her about his fucking car? Walk through a door and close it in his face if he tries to follow. Her best friend wants to make a series of regrettable decisions? Physically prevent him from doing so because he is easier to lift than a handful of grapes.

Shuichi had been friends with Maki for about seven years now, and he knew this all well enough, but that didn’t mean he had to go down without a fight. “Maki I have to get my letter to the-”

“Shuichi when you get back to that letter tomorrow morning you’ll be embarrassed you even wrote it.”

Okay, maybe Shuichi would go down without a fight. Maki made a good point, Shuichi was very often embarrassed by things he himself did while off his daily recommended prescription of z’s and or caffeine.

“Okay! I give! You’re right.”

“I know.” Maki had gotten to the front door and seemed to be puzzling out how to open it with her elbow.

“Here I can walk by myself.” Shuichi made a move to roll out of Maki’s arms, but she was still gripping his shoulder in place.

“Walk to the car by yourself or walk to your kitchen and feed your caffeine addiction?” She looked down at him with a stern expression that implied only one correct answer.

“The car.” Shuichi relented.

“Alright then.”

Maki set him down and opened the door while he grabbed his coat from the closet.

She gave him another look.

“What is it?” Shuichi thought she was scrutinizing his appearance, so he mentally did the same. “Oh! I forgot to do my eyes-” Today his morning routine had been: get out of bed, go to computer, write apology letter, whereas usually it went: get out of bed, apply eyeliner, worry about inadequacies, drink coffee, feel marginally better. Shuichi had skipped the second step, and he was about to rush to the bathroom to correct it, but Maki grabbed his arm.

“Shuichi we’re going to Tanegashima in August. It’s 30 degrees there. Your eyes are going to melt. Along with the rest of you.”

Shuichi took a moment to realize that Maki herself was wearing shorts and a loose aloha shirt. Meanwhile he was standing here in his baggy sleep t-shirt, skinny jeans, and black trenchcoat.

“Uh.” Shuichi took off his coat and tied it around his waist. “Better?”

“Hmph.” Maki grumbled, walking out onto the sidewalk. “If you die of heatstroke on the way there, I’m not going to your funeral.”

“Not even if Kaito went?” Shuichi followed, locking the door behind him.

“Especially not if Kaito went.” Maki pulled out her keys and unlocked her car, which was parallel parked on the street by Shuichi’s office. “He’d cry like a baby. It would be insufferable.”

Maki’s car was an old black honda that always smelled a little like burnt sugar. With Maki, Shuichi couldn't be sure if the smell came from a baking mishap or the trace of nitroglycerin from a recently fired gun. It was probably both. On hot days the air inside was unbearably warm until the AC was turned on for at least a minute, because the seats were made of a dark, greasy pleather sort of thing that made it its mission to absorb as much heat as possible. Shuichi had a distinct memory of pressing his face against the material to avoid being shot from behind. In fact he sort of had a slideshow of bad memories associated with riding in this car on various high stake chases or on the approach of even more stressful social situations. Yet despite all that, the second Shuichi settled into the passenger seat and pulled the seat belt over himself, he felt more at home than he had pulling up the covers when he’d been trying to sleep last night.

What happened next was embarrassingly predictable. From Shuichi’s point of view it seemed like Maki started the car, he closed his eyes, and then when he opened them his face was pressed against the window and he could see the Towa Bridge Expressway zooming past him.

The road was on the upper side of one of the bridges Towa Corp had built about a decade ago connecting Islands like Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Towa City to the mainland. On the underside of the bridges were bullet trains that ran underwater between the islands.

Regardless of this, all roads feel the same under the wheels of a car you forget falling asleep in.

“Hghh.” Shuichi was half aware that his throat was the thing that just made that noise.

“Wow you got a whole REM cycle in there.” Maki seemed to hear his rooster cry of wakefulness despite the interference of some sort of j-pop song coming out of the car speakers. As Shuichi’s eyes adjusted to the pale daylight stinging his retinas, he could make out that his friend had her eyes fixed on the road. “That must be a new record.”

“If you’re gonna-” Shuichi realized his speech was muffled and that it was because his face was still against the window. He made an effort to sit up straight and started his sentence again, unobstructed. “If you’re going to make fun of me for sleeping the same as not sleeping then why should I even bother?”

“Because your health is your health and that isn’t beholden to my judgement.”

“Everything about me is beholden to judgement.” Shuichi muttered, still thinking miserably about his poor uncle’s good name, which he was most certainly running into the ground by having the office closed for another day. He was working a sum total of NO cases right now. Maybe he should write his uncle an apology letter too. Then again he wouldn’t want to bother him in his retirement… Who would want to have their nice day interrupted by their whining nephew? No one.

“Yeah, you should fix that.” Apparently driving for an hour and a half hadn’t changed Maki’s stance. She still had biting comments about his poor self esteem at the ready.

“Hghk.” Shuichi replied eloquently.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Maki muttered in reply.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing." Maki replied a little too quickly. She was chewing her lip. After a moment of thought she went on. "Well I guess it means something. But I'm still trying to wrap my head around it and I don't want to tell you until I have it phrased right in my mind."

"Hm. Okay."

Shuichi tried to regain faculty over his higher social functions in an attempt to discern what Maki was upset about and to make sure it wasn’t anything that he did. But while he was performing this heroic feat he closed his eyes on accident and then when he opened them again Maki was parking, presumably on the campus of the Tanegashima Space Center.

Shuichi groaned, now finding himself leaned in the opposite direction of the window. “Why does it feel like the part of my brain that produces melatonin is always waiting to get me by surprise?”

“Because you keep trying to drown it in caffeine,” Maki replied readily, seeming to have lost her contemplative mood after another hour of driving, “it’s fighting for it’s life, of course it’s going to use guerilla tactics.”

Shuichi shook the feeling back into his legs as Maki pulled into a spot. He remembered when he used to drive a lot more. When he was on the force he had access to a police cruiser, but nowadays Shuichi had trouble driving a car while he was on his own. He kept having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting pedestrians. A lot of grisly murders happened like that. Even now he could picture that guy whose head had been crushed under the wheel of a yakuza boss’s car…

“Come on, we haven’t got all day.” Maki tapped him in the arm with her fist, then got out of the car. Shuichi was going to follow suit, but he paused to check himself for eye crusties in the pull down mirror. He had just regained the mental capacity to remember he didn’t put on his eyeliner and now it was time to be anxious about his appearance again. Well, at least this would probably go better than the last time he encountered a social situation without doing his eyes. He really thought he’d be safe going to ask Keebo about the wi-fi, but he had managed to stumble into a robbery in process, which had then turned into a hostage situation, which had then turned into an all night police investigation and journalists tried to talk to him again and then Dr. Iruma was doing robot surgery and he got chewed out by Ishimaru again and-

“Shuichi?” Maki had ducked her head back into the car. “Are you coming?”

Shuichi startled out his internal anxiety tirade. “Y-yeah! Sorry.” He shut the mirror and opened the door of the car. It took a second to untangle his coat from the seatbelt, but he managed to get out and retie it around his waist.

“Hey…” Maki had locked the car and come around to his side. Her eyebrows were furrowed. “Are you alright?”

“What?” Shuichi blinked. Did he really look that bad? “No, yeah, I’m fine.” It only occurred to him he was kind of lying for no reason after he said it. “I mean, well. I’m just like. Embarrassed about not being able to see that case I was doing through all the way to the end. Like, I’m thinking about all the ways I messed it up, you know?”

Maki nodded. “Yeah. I feel that way too. About my own stuff. Sometimes. A lot of times. Actually.” Her fingers tangled into a strand of her hair. “But… Well, you know what he would say about it already, don’t you?”

Oh yeah. “Probably something like… the past is the past. What really matters is what you do now.” Just thinking about what Kaito would say made him feel better... He shook his head. “I really should just get ‘what would Kaito do’ tattooed on my brain…”

“Yeah, as long as you’re not in a haunted house.” Maki pointed out.

Shuichi laughed. “Yeah… I guess so…”

Maki looked down at her feet, still carding her hands through her hair.

“I’m… Going to miss him.” She confessed.

Shuichi suddenly felt extremely guilty. Here Maki was trying to keep his anxiety from preventing the performance of his every day functions and he had totally neglected to consider she was going through a lot right now too. Shuichi knew that Kaito had been a lifeline for Maki for a long time, and even though she was in a much better place now Shuichi would be much less of an awful friend if he had realized how much harder Kaito’s absence would hit her.

“What’s with that expression?” She muttered. Shuichi realized he was making a very fretful face. “Ugh. Nevermind, talking about this is pointless anyway…”

“It’s not pointless!” Shuichi rebutted quickly. “Of course you’ll miss Kaito. Talking about your feelings is an important step in processing them… And you know I want to be here for you if you ever need that. I’m your friend.”

“Yeah.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “I know.” She was chewing her lip again. “Uh. Thanks. Sorry if I’ve been kind of… mother henning you today. It’s just. I don’t want to be… Alone again.”

Now Shuichi really felt like a bad friend. “Oh, Maki-”

Shuichi was interrupted by the 2012 song ‘Space Unicorn’ blasting from Maki’s phone. Whenever Shuichi heard that song, it reminded him of udon noodle soup, because that’s what he’d been eating in the college cafeteria when Kaito set it as his ringtone in Maki’s phone.

“Ugh. I hate that song.” Maki took the phone out of her pocket. “We’ll talk later.” She told Shuichi, before answering the call.

“What is it.” Shuichi overheard Maki’s side of the conversation. “We just parked… Yeah… Where?... That’s troublesome… I’m kidding… Ok, see you there… Gross.”

She hung up.

“He says he’s waiting for us by the bus terminal at the museum. Which is on the other side of the campus.”

Oh, Kaito… “It’s like he’s making us run laps again…”

“I’ll try not to leave you behind.” Maki offered, kindly.

“Hey, maybe I’ll be able to keep pace…” Shuichi postulated. “I’ve been in a lot of chases recently.”

“You won’t be.” Maki said, already jogging in place.

“I’ll try my best…” Shuichi promised. --- Kokichi Ouma found himself wondering where exactly that big old brain of his had wandered off to. He knew that by all accounts he was very good at coming up with plans on the fly. Yet for some reason the performance of the actual organ that processed his mental functions was lacking at the moment. Like it didn’t know it was supposed to be the brain of an internationally wanted criminal today. Spontaneity was supposed to mean fun for him, but for some reason this whole build a plane plan seemed more like a point of stress than anything else. Which was weird because Kokichi didn’t usually get stressed. There was just something about this heist that he wasn’t looking forward to and he couldn’t identify what exactly it was or how exactly he was supposed to get around it.

Kokichi was still trying to halfass his way to a half decent plan when DICE reunited in Tokyo. And on the drive down to the Kagoshima prefecture he had more than enough time to think about a plan. In fact he had another 15 hours. And he just… Didn’t. He just didn’t think of a plan. He just sat around pretending to be sociable and analyzing the rest of the group’s conversations and sleeping habits. He thought that maybe he was anxious about them scheming behind his back again, but realizing that he was anxious should have made the being anxious go away, so he decided that it wasn’t that.

So when they finally did arrive at the Tanegashima Space Center in their stolen Space Center Tour bus the next morning and everyone huddled in the backmost rows of seats to hear what exactly the plan was, Kokichi had to pause for a second.

Uh. Okay. Plan time.

“You may not have noticed,” Kokichi started off after compiling some observations in his head, “But there’s an open house happening at this facility for JAXA employees and family members right now. We’re going to capitalize on that for our fakeout heist, which will be centered around the museum’s gift shop.” Right because the open house wouldn’t let them have access to the non-touristy shit. “Rook, King, Bishop, you’re going to be on that.” Ugh that wasn’t very detailed. “The fake mark is…” Fuck think of something stupid. “As many of those freeze-dried ice cream things as you can carry.” Okay that left him with 7 pieces for the real heist. “Jack, Clubs, Spades you’re on floor duty, make sure to call in suspicious personnel, we have the map of the space center in the heist planning chat.” He had remembered to do that much at least. “So spread out as much as you can.” Four pieces. “Queen, you know what you need. Get Ace to handle transport.” Should he really be delegating that much power to Queen after his little upstart? Or did it just show insecurity to not trust him? Too late to contemplate. “When you get back to the bus, text us and then take off ASAP.” The jet engine would take up most of the tour bus, so they had to get an alternative means of escape. “Hearts, you and I are going to disable security systems and get the secondary escape car.” That was something he knew how to do at least. “Any questions.”

Kokichi would usually expect a hearty “No sir!” to that concluding statement, but instead he observed a smattering of queer looks from the car full of clowns.

Hearts was the first to pipe up. “Uh, boss, your plan for disabling the security system wouldn’t happen to involve getting into the vents, would it?”

“Yeah.” There wasn’t really a better way to covertly sneak around a facility like this when their identities may be compromised. “What about it?”

Kokichi really didn’t have time for Hearts’s whole ‘I don’t like getting vent dust on my white uniform’ thing. He would just pretend like the whole group misheard him and he assigned her to ground duty in the first place if she said she wanted to swap-

“No, I just think maybe I could handle the security system myself.” Oh. That was a new one. “There’s not really a need for you to... You know, risk yourself.”

Kokichi was suddenly made aware of the bandage that was still wrapped around his forehead. He consciously resisted the urge to graze his hand over it. He didn’t want to play into the whole damaged goods bullshit that was going on right now in terms of how his subordinates were viewing him. Then again maybe that’s exactly what he should do…

“Believe me, I’ve considered the consequences,” Kokichi compelled himself to shed a single tear, clenching his fist like a shounen anime protagonist. “And though I may be suffering great pain and personal injury… I’ll risk it if it means not letting my friends down…”

Queen rolled his eyes, seeming to buy Kokichi’s bit, but Hearts still looked concerned, and now King was getting ready to add his two cents.

“Uh, Boss.” Ugh him and his stupid Nurse’s license, “It’s really fine if you wanna stay back…” Maybe if Kokichi cried he could derail this? “Your head is still healing and if, you know, an accident happens, you could re-open it and then we might have to suture...”

No, crying would just make him look worse now. The power dynamic would make it look like he was trying to convince King to let him go on the heist, which didn’t make sense at all. Maybe he could slot himself into a different group? No, most elements of this plan involved being in civilian wear and that’d just remind his crew about that time he just casually let a detective get a police sketch done of him like one of his french girls. Besides, he didn’t strictly need to participate in every step of this heist anyway. Kokichi’s real goal here was to maintain the idea in his subordinates’ minds that he was not a twerp trying to find the most unreliable time to bleed out. Hmm, okay, let’s go with this then.

Kokichi flashed an incredulous grin before smothering it into an exaggerated damsel expression. “Oh,,, I hate to admit it, but you’re so right, King.” He leaned over dramatically, “Every second is torture in this frail body of mine, it’s taking all my strength just to stand here before you!” He wasn’t standing but that was probably the easiest thing he was lying about right now, “I guess I’ll just have to.. Stay here, and.. Regain my strength… While you guys do all the work.” He pulled out the handkerchief he just remembered he had and was going to blow his nose into it before he remembered at the last second it wasn’t his handkerchief. He settled for a grotesque imitation of blowing his nose instead. He lay down across the back seat in a faint. “Ohh, alas, I fear I am not long for this world…”

   “I vote we leave him here to die.” Jack bought in, rolling her eyes.

   “I second the motion.” That was Queen, and yeah, Kokichi had expected that much.

   “Hey, since when is this a democracy?” Kokichi sat up, adjusting the fluidity of his motions to reflect perfect health once more.

   “Since our boss died,” Jack wiped away a fake tear with her finger. “I miss him every day… Sometimes I even hear his voice…”

Kokichi tossed aside the handkerchief and took a bag of chips out from the seat in front of him where he had seen Bishop stash them earlier. He poured the chips into his own lap and then crumbled up the bag into a ball before throwing it at Jack’s face.

Jack, in turn, batted it away, and it hit Spades, who caught it and threw it back at Jack, who dodged, which led the bag to hit Rook instead. Rook picked it up and got ready to throw it again, but Hearts took it out of their hands, leading to Rook just throwing air at Clubs, who squealed despite nothing actually hitting him and jumped out of his seat.

Okay, success. Concern about Kokichi’s injuries had all but dissipated as Club’s reaction got a smattering of giggles.

“Wow,” He remarked to Hearts, who was still holding the crumpled chip bag. “I’m sure a dove of peace such as yourself can handle the security system all on your lonesome.” He gestured to his lap, which was still covered in chips. “As you see I have other business to attend to.” He picked up one of the chips and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly. When he finished the first chip he issued his final direction. “You guys better get started on your assignments. I’ll be here when you need to hijack the second getaway car.”

“Yes, Boss!” Most of his crew said the words more for their ritualistic purpose of ending the team huddle rather than out of genuine enthusiasm. They collected their gear, mostly stored in beach bags and casual purses, and filtered out of the van one by one. Everyone was still in their civilian clothing, so they’d blend right in with the crowds of tourists and open-house-goers.

And then Kokichi was alone again. Except instead of a plane he was on a tour bus. Eating chips off his lap. He got through them in about four minutes, which he estimated was about how long it would take DICE to get out of sight’s distance from the bus. When that time had passed, he licked the remaining salt and grease of his fingers and then stood up, brushing chip crumbs off his lap. Once he was clean, he picked up the handkerchief he had thrown aside earlier. He folded it up along the crease lines into a square, and put it in his pocket again. He convinced himself it was just because he wanted something to do.

He went up to the driver’s seat, sitting down. He didn’t have his license to drive a normal car, let alone a bus, but it didn’t really matter because the bus’s windows were reflective from the outside. They had parked the tour bus close to the entrance in the bus lane, so Kokichi had a good view of the people coming and going from the space center. If he had put any effort into this plan at all, he might’ve stationed Club or Spade here as a look out. Well, he guessed he was the look out now. Hah. Great.

….

BORED. He was bored again. Hgghghgfffkk.

He considered hitting his head against the horn of the car just to do something and by “considered” he meant he tried to actually do it but missed and almost hit his head on the dashboard before stopping and realizing that was a bad idea. For one, honking the horn would just make the vehicle look conspicuous, which was not ideal for a getaway car. And then there was also the fact that his plan had needlessly included bashing his head again which could open his cut and just cause a big hassle when King got back with his whole ‘I’m a licensed practical nurse’ thing he had going on.

So, okay. No horn honking. Right.

Kokichi took out his phone and checked Discord. The channel for heists had no new notifications. He put his phone away again.

God he was going to die in here. Wow, needy much? Shut up brain. Um.

Kokichi leaned over, smushing his chin against the dashboard, and occupied himself by looking at the passersby and picking out random details to build conspiracies about them. That guy’s shirt was untucked, untucked had eight letters in it, magic eight balls could see the future, eight balls were round, you know what else is round? An eyeball. Illuminati, natch. Next. That woman’s achilles tendon was chapped even though she was wearing sandals, which meant she wore heels a lot. Heel was something you said to train a dog. Who was trying to train the human race like dogs? The Illuminati. Next. That guy had really ugly hair. Looked like he used a lot of gel. Gel has three- wait, what?

Kokichi recognized that dumb hair style. It was almost like… No, it couldn’t be. The guy who had been with Saihara at the Smithsonian. What?

Kokichi didn’t let himself get excited until he spotted the slightly less dumb and slightly more familiar haircut on the guy standing next to him.

There was Shuichi Saihara, who was, apparently, the best detective in the world. Also, he was wearing a T-shirt, which was hilarious because he usually wore business casual button ups under his dark trench coat. Kokichi could see his arms, which were-

Wait, no, forget about his arms. How did any part of him even get here? How did he know? There wasn’t any way- Did he lie? HE LIED TO INTERPOL.

Wow, Saihara had more balls than Kokichi had originally anticipated. He should get out there and tickle them a little.

Kokichi started reformulating everything he had originally thought about this heist. If Saihara was going to buy into the phony heist he would have to get into the mix himself. How much would the detective have learned from their last bout in Milan? He knew about Kokichi’s head injury, surely. Kokichi stood up and headed for the door out of the bus. He would have to make his approach subtly, but the buffoon probably wouldn’t be much trouble to deal with. If anything he might make Saihara easier to trick. They were on the move, Kokichi would have to catch up. Was that woman in the hawaiian button up with them too? Yeah, it seemed like it. When she paused to look around, they paused too, looking back, presumably to see what was keeping her. Her eyes were scanning the crowd like she was some kind of terminator bot or something-

Every part of Kokichi froze when that gaze slipped past his.

He saw her face in that moment. Blunt brunette bangs. A dark birthmark. Blood red eyes.

For one shallow breath, a metallic tang poisoned the air in his lungs.

The eyes glanced unnotably over the JAXA tour bus. And then the red woman just... turned and walked away.

Saihara followed her into the building.

Kokichi sat back down.

…

…

What the fuck was she doing here. --- Shuichi Saihara’s best, it turned out, was most certainly not enough to keep pace with Maki Harukawa in a run across the Tanegashima Space Center’s beautiful green campus. Shuichi had plenty of time to admire that beautiful green color the grass had as he stood doubled over trying to catch his breath in front of the center’s main entrance.

Maki was standing by Kaito, breathing perfectly fine with only a modest sheen on her forehead as evidence of the run. Meanwhile, Shuichi was over here sweating through his t-shirt and trying not to let his lungs burst.

“Is he okay?” Kaito not so quietly whispered to Maki.

“He will be.” Maki replied, “He’s just an idiot who decided black skinny jeans were the way to go even though it’s the middle of the sunny season…”

“In my… Defense…” Shuichi panted out between gulps of air. “I didn’t… know… I’d be… running…  today…”

“Hey man, sweat’s just another word for hard work.” Kaito claimed, coming over to pat Shuichi on the back. “Awesome effort, sidekick.”

“Thanks… Kaito…” Shuichi was still trying to suppress his aching lungs into a normal pattern of breathing.

“Hold your hands over your head.” Maki advised, “It’ll open up your chest.”

Oh right, right. Shuichi should know that by now. He moved up from his hands-on-knees-to-make-sure-he-didn’t-fall-over position to one where his arms were up with his hands on his head. Immediately he found breathing easier, although the air was just as hot and stifling as before.

“You know,” Maki was looking at Kaito now. “We wouldn’t have had to run if you had been more specific before I paid for the parking permit… You said you wanted to show us the launch spectation sites, so our car is parked all the way out there...”

“Well, yeah, I did say that…” Kaito was characteristically unflustered by the accusation, “but, then I realized it would be better to show you guys the museum building first! This way we can take our time looking at the launch viewing sites without having to worry if the museum will be open or not later...”

Shuichi wondered if that was just an excuse for Kaito changing his mind about hiking when he realized how hot it was today.  Kaito had a tendency to be a little unreliable when it came to making plans with friends, but then again Shuichi also had a tendency to forgive him for that.

Maki usually did not. So when Maki just sighed and shook her head, Shuichi took that as a signal to let Kaito off the hook on this one.

…

It was so strange to think that in just another week, Shuichi wouldn’t be able to make any plans with Kaito at all…

Ugh. He shouldn’t think about that right now.

“Hey, what’s with the sour looks, you two?” Kaito’s words made Shuichi aware of his own conflicted expression, “Come on, I know what’ll cheer you up!” Kaito turned, walking towards the entrance and gesturing for them to follow him with a sweeping arm movement.

Shichi complied, but stopped when he noticed Maki wasn’t moving with them.

Instead, she was scanning the parking lot behind them with a dangerous look in her eyes…

“... Maki?” Shuichi asked hesitantly.

She didn’t seem to register him, but Kaito did, turning back around.

“Is something the matter, Maki Roll?” He called.

That seemed to snap her out of it. “It’s nothing.” She shook her head and started walking into the building. “Let’s go inside.”

“Hey, what’d I say about secrets?” Kaito confronted her, but he followed her through the doors anyway, Shuichi not far behind him.

“I never agreed to that…” Maki muttered, still walking. “But it really isn’t anything. I just felt like someone was watching us out there…”

Shuichi felt a chill go down his spine. He had also felt something off, but he thought it was just a him thing. He had been seeing the faces of DICE in random passerby ever since he touched down in Tokyo and it was setting him on edge even though he knew his suspicions were completely unsubstantiated. In fact there had been that big tour group of 9 or 8 people that passed them by while they were at the entrance... Could-

“Oh well, they probably were,” Kaito shrugged, “You know, I’m a famous astronaut and all.”

Oh. Yeah. Duh. Maybe the chill Shuichi had felt was just the museum’s AC …

“That isn’t…” Maki cut herself off, seeming to think better of whatever she had been about to say. “You’re probably right. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Alrighty, whatever you say, Maki Roll.” Kaito moved forward as if the issue was entirely settled and had maybe never been unsettled in the first place. “Now come on! I want to show you something!”

What Kaito had wanted to show them turned out to be a series of star maps that were up for display as a promotion for the upcoming launch. Included were larger infographics about which lights in the sky were actually satellites, but those weren’t what Kaito was interested in.

“Look!” He exclaimed, pointing at a section of one of the maps, “Right here! What do you see?”

“Stars?” Maki asked, looking mildly amused by her boyfriend’s enthusiasm.

“Well, yes but…”

“Oh!” Shuichi exclaimed, now pointing as well. “I recognize this one! It’s the beard of despair!”

He was pointing to a circle of stars that he and Maki had named after the cheek to cheek beard Kaito came back from his winter break with in their last year at Towa Community College.

“Hey, that’s right!” Maki exclaimed.

“Why is that the only one you guys remember…” Kaito grumbled.

Come to think about it, a lot of the stars looked familiar… “Are these the stars that appear over TCC?”

“Well, it varies depending on the season, but yeah that’s what we were looking at most of the time!”

Shuichi was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. He first met Maki and Kaito when he had been doing the mandatory two years of training it took to become a Towa City police officer after he had passed the national exam. He had been disillusioned with a future in his uncle’s practice because the idea of getting paid to dig up dirt had skeezed him out, not to mention that he still had huge doubts about his own ability as a detective to earn a living off of it. A police detective had seemed like a more secure, if more restricting, job than private detective work.

Well, maybe it was more accurate to say that Kaito had met Maki and Shuichi and then decided they were all going to be friends because he said so. He used to make them meet him in the school court yard every night after dark to do exercises of various kinds. Sometimes they put aside exercise in lieu of star gazing when Kaito was in the mood.

“Hey, do you remember when Kaito told us which planets he thought were most like us?” Maki asked Shuichi, probably remembering the same times he was, “And when we asked him what planet he was, he said the sun?”

Shuichi squinted. “Oh yeah… I think I remember…” he vaguely recalled thinking that the planet Kaito assigned him was weird, but he didn’t remember why or which planet it was.

“Well, now that I know more about space and stuff, I think he was right.”

“Aww… Maki Roll.”

She smiled a little. “Yeah… The sun is a big ball of gas, just like him.”

“Hey!” Kaito smacked his chest, acting as if taken aback, but Shuichi was pretty sure he was secretly delighted that Maki admitted to knowing more about space now.

Maki laughed, “This is what you get for talking about astronomy every night…”

Shuichi remarked to himself how long it had taken for Maki’s laugh to seem commonplace in a conversation. She was really a lot more open then she had been when they spent those first few nights under the stars. It was understandable, though, considering…

“Which planets did you say we were again?” Shuichi found himself asking.

“Hm?” Kaito paused, squinting for a second in thought. “Uh… I’m pretty sure it was…”

“You said I was Mars,” Maki supplied, “And I think Shuichi was Venus.”

“Oh yeah!” Kaito made a sort of ‘That’s it!’ gesture with his palm and fist, “Maki was Mars because she tried to seem dry and uninhabitable, but there was definitely a frozen ocean in there somewhere, and Shuichi, you were Venus, because even though you thought you tried to blend in with the stars all the time, sometimes you could appear in the day as a second sun!”

Huh. That was pretty nice to say, but Shuichi wasn’t sure it was what he remembered…

“Oh, wait.” Maki interjected, “Didn’t you say something else last time?”

“Hm?” Kaito put on his ‘I’m remembering something’ face again. “Did I say… Oh yeah!” He laughed. “I said Venus suited Shuichi because Venus is the goddess of love and Shuichi’s clients keep falling in love with him!”

Shuichi suddenly remembered exactly why he had been so offended by Kaito’s characterization of him all those years ago.

Maki gave him a bemused look, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the face you made last time too...”

“Yeah, that’s because it’s a really weird thing to say about my clients Kaito…”

“Oh yeah?” Kaito grinned now that he wasn’t the one being teased, “You can’t say I’m really wrong though, bro…”

Shuichi shook his head, “A detective can’t think that way about his clients! It’s exploitative!”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop them from thinking that way about you…” Maki pointed out.

“I- What- Maki-” Shuichi did not want to talk about this actually, he turned to Kaito hoping for some kind of escape, but his so-called friend just shook his head.

“You gotta face facts some time, Shuichi. You’re a heart-throb!”

“I don’t know what you mean…” Shuichi was finding that there was nowhere to hide his face and he cursed himself for letting Kaede talk him out of wearing his hat again.

“What about that girl who gave you chocolates?”

Oh, why had he told Maki that story?

“They were just for gratitude-”

“What about the guy who invited you on his yacht?”

Maybe asking his friends to help him out on cases all these years had been a mistake…

“That was to set up a trap for the-”

“The person who asked you out for dinner?”

Hghk.

“That was only to meet another contact-” “But then the contact didn’t show up and it was just the two of you.”

“They got in a car accident!”

What about the guy who pretended to be your husband on a plane? His own brain supplied rather unhelpfully.

*Bweeeeoop* *Bweeeeoop* *Bweeeeoop*

Shuichi had never been so grateful to hear an alarm sound off in his entire life.

Maki and Kaito stopped railing into him, looking around as if to see where the noise was coming from.

“I didn’t even know we had one of those…” Kaito muttered, barely audible over the continuing beep of the alarm. “I’m going to go ask someone what’s going on.” He declared, before storming off into a door marked ‘employees only.’

Maki, seemingly unperturbed by the sign, was about to follow him, but Shuichi grabbed her arm.

“Wait,” He said, retracing his own memory, “Come with me, please.”

“What?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “Where are you going?”

“Somewhere I’m more likely to get in a fight than Kaito…” Under scrutiny, Shuichi found that he didn’t recall seeing that group of suspicious tourists among the exhibits… They disappeared at the entrance, which was by the...

Shuichi started making a beeline for the gift shop, untying his coat and wrestling it onto his shoulders as he went.

“You two are so high maintenance…” Maki grumbled, following him nonetheless.

Sure, Shuichi had thought his gift shop theory was pretty on point, but when he got to the doorway of said gift shop the cartoonishly big mallet coming down over his head took him by surprise.

Maki grabbed him, pulling him back just in time. “Watch where you’re going, idiot.” She scolded him before grabbing the hammer and pulling it out of the hands holding it, which were the gloved hands of, you guessed it, a clown with a checkered scarf, standing over the doorway and poised to pounce.

This wasn’t one of the DICE members Shuichi recognized, but it seemed that they recognized him.

“What the hell is this guy doing here?” They called back into the shop, where Shuichi realized two other DICE members were shoving freeze dried ice cream into a bag, before diving down and trying to sweep Maki’s feet from under her. Maki jumped up and tried to use the gravity of her dodge to kick the clown in the head, but the clown rolled away, hopping back up, where Maki was waiting to meet them with their own mallet in the face.

Shuichi heard a sickening crack and the clown crumpled to the floor.

“Rook!” The leaner looking of the two members grabbing ice cream dropped his bag and ran up to help his friend.

“Maki!” Shuichi exclaimed, rather horrified at this level of violence, “They’re just thieves!”

“What?” Maki asked, unshaken. When she saw Shuichi’s expression, she blinked as if genuinely confused. Then she straightened up in a gesture that Shuichi recognized as sheepish even though her tone remained flat as she clarified, “That wasn’t the clown’s skull, it was the hammer.” She raised the big mallet to show him the end of it, which had popped off, “This is just a toy.”

“Yeah! That don’t mean it don’t smart, lady!” The one on the floor, ‘Rook’ if their friend was to be believed, waved off the other DICE member, rubbing their face under their mask.

“Was I talking to you?” Maki fixed the clown with her patented death glare, taking the stick of the broken mallet and twirling it into a fighting ready position like a bo staff.

“Where’s your boss?” Shuichi muttered aloud. “And the rest of you for that matter…” Maybe the gift shop was a distraction, it didn’t seem like the most attention had been given to it. Then again if there were something happening further inside the facilities then Kaito’s people were probably wise to it by now, so there might not be any point in wondering...

“I dunno, ask your mom!” The bearded DICE member standing next to ‘Rook’ threw something at him.

Maki acted quickly, hitting the object dead-on with the broken mallet handle before it could smack him in the face. It burst open, and by the time Shuichi realized it was a smoke bomb his eyes were already stinging from exposure.

“Gah!” He exclaimed, hiding his face in his arm to prevent himself from inhaling the smoke.

Maki, however, ignored the smoke, pressing forward into the gift shop.

Shuichi stayed back, blocking the doorway and tried to remember if he had seen an external entrance to the gift shop. The question was dismissed from his mind as he heard the clattering of shattering glass and remembered that these thieves had no qualms about making their own exits. When the smoke cleared, Shuichi saw that Maki was now holding the bag stuffed with freeze dried ice cream. She dropped it and started walking towards the wall of windows opposite to the entrance. She pulled back her hair and grabbed the side of the window like she was going to try and climb out the hole at the top, which the clowns seemed to have escaped out of.

Except… As Shuichi came up the steps from the entrance he didn’t see any clowns beyond the window. Remembering DICE’s knack for misdirection, Shuichi did a quick glance around the room and… There!

“Maki!” He called as he moved forward, “There’s a sliding door back by the register!”

It was open just a jar, and as Shuichi got closer he spotted the last DICE member vaulting over the balcony just outside.

Maki beat him to the door, sliding it open and hopping on the balcony. She paused for a second, then turned back to look at him. “Stay here.” She ordered, as if it had crossed her mind Shuichi might try to scale down the wall as well.

He would have found it weird that Maki would take the time to tell him something so obvious as ‘you would fall if you tried this,’ but Shuichi remembered what Maki had said to him before, about not wanting to be alone again. He nodded in an effort to reassure her. “Right, I’ll call the police.”

She seemed satisfied with this, turning around and shifting off the balcony to climb down the wall. Shuichi, in the meantime, pulled out his phone and called 110. The operator put him through to the Kukinaga substation, which was the Tanegashima police station only four minutes away from the space center. Shuichi reported what had happened, and the substation representative asked him to stay put to give a report to the officers when they arrived. He voiced acquiescence and thanked the representative before hanging up.

And then Shuichi was standing alone in a gift shop with broken glass and a bag full of freeze dried ice cream on the ground. He noticed some things he hadn’t before. For instance, it looked like the gift shop was partially divided into a sort of cafe, with a freezer full of purchasable food and tables by the windows to sit and eat. For some reason, he decided that sitting alone in a gift shop with broken glass and a bag full of freeze dried ice cream on the ground would be marginally better, so he pulled out one of the chairs, sitting at the table.

…

It was weird how much time Shuichi sat around, waiting for things to happen. Well, maybe less weird and more just plain old pathetic… He wasn’t really the action type like Maki and Kaito were. A lot of his work as a detective was done in the aftermath of events. He was usually only trying to figure out what had already happened. This whole DICE thing was a bit of a change of pace, requiring him to be able to predict the next course of events and perhaps even stop potential crimes. Except, well, maybe he wasn’t so good at that part of it… Today was pretty clear evidence of that. This gift shop robbery was obviously a ruse covering up some sort of bigger crime. Something similar had happened in Egypt, where in order to keep one room’s artifacts secure, Shuichi had to alert the actual museum security to take care of things. Except, had that really been the right choice? The entire museum besides the room Shuichi was in were rugless because he refused to take action. Shuichi knew that staying in this gift shop would prevent it from being robbed, but he had to weigh that against the great uncertainty of what was happening elsewhere right now. It just felt shitty, knowing he could do nothing right now but wait. It had been part of the reason being a detective had yucked him out when he was a teen. For a while he had been solving exclusively murder cases, which were the worst way to be reminded his job was usually only useful after the horrible things happen… Maybe working on the DICE case had felt good because so much of the work was preventative. Predicting where DICE would strike next always gave him the hope that the next time would be the last and it would all be thanks to him… How stupid…

A memory flashed through his head

“You’re really something else, Shuichi.” A face very close to his had said.

Maybe that was something else about the case that felt good. Chasing DICE’s leader had been light and exciting. A mystery less pursued out of a sense of requirement or needed justice, but rather because the mystery itself was genuinely intriguing. Shuichi had started out fearing that DICE may have had some sort of tie to organized crime or some sort of international conspiracy, but… After investigating into such ties and looking at all past robberies attributed to them, Shuichi had turned up nothing. It was almost comical how good these clowns were at going about their globetrotting crime-spree untraced. And it was weird that Shuichi kept crossing paths with them by almost complete happenstance. Sure, he had predicted their movements in DC, Paris, Reno, and Milan, but Egypt, Taipei, and now… Yeah, completely by chance. Unless… DICE weren’t following him, were they? No, there really would be no point to that at all… Hah, Shuichi was starting to see why Interpol suspected that he had ties with-

Oh, fuck. Interpol.

For about four minutes, Shuichi had forgotten how much trouble he was going to be in. --- [Log of Text Messages from Kaito Momota’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey where are you guys?

I can’t find you anywhere?

From: My Sidekick

Sorry I’m talking to the police right now

From: Me

What??

Bro

I’m gonna need like

A follow up on that

From: Maki Roll

Did you not know the police were here?

From: Me

Uh no

Should I have?

Oh I get it

They’re here about the alarm right?

Well you can tell them it's nothing to worry about

We figured out that a sleeping security guard tripped it on accident...

From: Maki Roll

The museum got robbed

From: Me

What??

From: Maki Roll

Well Shuichi thinks something was stolen

I’m pretty sure I chased the clowns away though

From: Me

Wait the clowns are here?

From: My Sidekick

Sorry Kaito! I’m back

Maki is being questioned now

The alarm going off was probably staged as part of the distraction

Did you check the other exhibits to see if anything was stolen?

From: Me

Yeah everythings fine we did a whole check

From: My Sidekick

What about other buildings on the campus?

Anything missing?

From: Me

Nope everything is where it should be

From: My Sidekick

Well I guess that’s somewhat of a relief

Although that does open up a lot of questions about what exactly happened here…

From: Me

Shuichi I need you to come down to the Space center building

The one with the rocketship

Like right now

From: My Sidekick

What?

What happened?

Kaito?

From: Maki Roll

Where are you guys?

The police are gone and you’re not by the space center

From: Me

We’re chilling in the museum gift shop

From: Maki Roll

What?

It’s not closed?

Isn’t it a crime scene right now?

From: Me

Nah nothing was really stolen

So me and Shuichi were fixing the window

But now we are c h i l l i n g

From: Maki Roll

Huh

I thought you might be investigating still

From: Me

Nah

Shuichi needed to do something with his hands

From: Maki Roll

Oh so you mean Shuichi was fixing the window and you were watching

From: Me

I was moral support!

From: Maki Roll

You know you won’t be able to get other people to do your chores when you’re in space…

From: My Sidekick

He wasn’t making me do it

It was something I needed to do

To like

Avoid freaking out

From: Maki Roll

Oh

Are you okay?

From: My Sidekick

Yes

I just uh

Lost an entire space engine and i can’t do anything about it

From: Maki Roll

What?

From: Me

He did NOT lose a space engine

He was interrupted while doing an investigation on our STOLEN rocket engine

From: Maki Roll

What????

The engine in your shuttle was stolen???

Are you not concerned about that? You can’t fly without one of those right?

From: Me

Hey we’ll find it!

Or maybe we’ll build a new one

It doesn’t matter I’m going to space no matter what!

From: Maki Roll

Wait and you’re not out looking for it right now?

From: Me

Well Shuichi was having a moment here

And hey when it comes to looking after your ride or looking after your sidekick your sidekick has gotta come first

From: Maki Roll

A moment?

From: My Sidekick

I

Uh

Found out I’m on red notice

From: Maki Roll

What’s that

From: My Sidekick

Uh

It like

Means that

Interpol thinks I should be arrested

But Interpol doesn’t actually have the power to arrest me

So they’ve basically told every recognized country in the world to arrest me if I’m spotted

So maybe Japan will try to arrest me if they find that they agree with interpol that I should be arrested

From: Maki Roll

What??

Did you do something???

From: Me

No! He didn’t!

Get this

Some asshole in a green coat just came up

And told Shuichi that his boss thinks Shuichi is too good of a detective to be doing things legally

But it's like

No actually he really is just that good

From: My Sidekick

Hhhhghhhghghhghg

That was Agent Sakakura

Them sending him means they really want me dead…

From: Maki Roll

That’s so stupid

You’re just doing your damn job

Hey do you want me to kill that guy for you?

Because it sounds like he sucks and I will totally kill him for you

From: Me

No you won’t because killing is not good

But your anger is valid I am also very angry about this

From: My Sidekick

Hghfgfhhghhhgggggggggg

From: Me

Hmmm Maki roll Shuichi needs to vent some more so we’ll stop texting

From: Maki Roll

Ok

I’m bringing the car over

Tell me if you want me to kill someone for you Shuichi

From: My Sidekick

No thank you

But I appreciate the sentiment --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “#boss-where-he-shouldnt-be” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Ace: Hey, I know this is like a meme chat

Ace: But it's like the only one boss doesn’t have access to

Ace: And I wanted to know if anyone has noticed anything up with him?

Ace: Because I feel like he’s been kinda weird since we got the rocket

Queen: It’s not a rocket its an engine

Queen: In fact it’s actually only about 2/3s of an engine

King: What do you mean weird?

Queen: Rocket engines are built with mechanisms of fuel oxidization that won’t be strictly necessary for an aircraft that isn’t designed to operate in 0 ppm oxygen environments

Queen: So we’ll have to substitute it with an intake mechanism

Queen: Although the pre-existing combustion mechanism is EXQUISITE

Rook: No one cares queen

Queen: Its an important distinction

Hearts: Queen we have a channel for infodumping

Hearts: rn this channel is for gossiping about boss

Ace: He’s been quiet

Ace: Idk ive been worrying about it

King: Do you think it has to do with his injury?

Ace: Naw like

Ace: I feel like he was actin weird because of that before the space station

Ace: But now he’s actin weird a different way

Ace: Like before he seemed a little terse

Ace: And now he’s like catatonic in conversation

Queen: wym

Queen: I literally talked to him five seconds ago

Rook: no wait that is suspicious

Rook: if I were him I wouldn’tve just sat there and let you yap

Queen: oh shut up

Rook: MAKE ME

Ace: honestly i don’t know

Ace: but like you guys saw that detective guy there right

Ace: Do you think something happened with them that we didn’t see

King: What??

Jack: Oh you mean how boss definitely has a crush on him

King: What?????

Jack: Literally in Paris he dropped his entire 100 page plan just to go bully that guy

Jack: He’s like a middle schooler pulling pig tails

Hearts: Hmm… Hate to bring it down but pulling pigtails is a misogynistic notion that reinforces the normalization of violence against women...

Jack: It's true tho

Jack: My pigtails got pulled all the time because as you all know I am extremely attractive

Hearts: Maybe they were just bullying you darling

Spades: Yeah I can see that /s

Spades: Hey you know who really normalizes violence against women?

Spades: That detective guy

Spades: He flipped me in Milan!

Spades: Guy knows fucking aikido or some shit

Spades: And boss isn’t really a fan of violence

Rook: No wait

Queen: What? I thought he really liked yamikawaii shit

Rook: Even though that guy’s friend literally gave me a black eye

Spades: No I’m pretty sure he hates it

Rook: I see what Jack is saying

Rook: Boss totally has a thing for him

Rook: Like literally you can see the hearts pop into his eyes when he spots that guy

Rook: He dropped a display case on my foot when you told him the detective was in Cairo

Ace: Okay well thats not what I meant though

Jack: What you mean you don’t think he got his heart broken by aged up kid conan

Clubs: Conan’s name in his adult form is Shinichi Kudo.

Clubs: Also I think that talking behind Boss’s back is kind of not cool guys. :(

Spades: If you snitch I’m firing you from being my brother

Clubs: :(

Ace: I just meant like maybe he embarrassed himself platonically

Ace: Or I guess adversarially? Idk whatever word you would use for that

Queen: kismesissitude

Ace: What?

Spades: I will swiftly execute you

King: I mean i guess i could see him getting bent out of shape about that

King: But we were kinda onto the detective the whole time

King: I don’t think they would’ve had time to interact at all

Jack: Maybe he’s just sad he missed him

Ace: Ok sorry I don’t know if he’s sad

Ace: Just maybe in a weird mood

Ace: We haven't been in japan for a while and we haven't stuck around a place for more than a week in an even longer while

Ace: It’s putting me in a weird mood too so maybe that’s it

Hearts: Yeah he always likes to be on the move maybe he’s just antsy

King: Or maybe he feels bad cuz Rook got kinda beat up today?

King: I mean I feel bad about that

Rook: I’m okay <3

King: I know <3

Queen: Gross

Queen: You two are literally sitting right next to each other get a room

Bishop: He seems fine to me

Spades: Oh wow Bishop stopped scarfing for a second to weigh in...

Bishop: And by fine I mean terrible because he just dipped his pork dumpling in his panta right in front of me

Bishop: Also you guys know he can see you texting each other right

Bishop: We’re literally all eating at the same table rn

Queen: Oh yeah

Spades: Oops

[ruinedthatfriendship]

Only Forever

A/N: In which Simon uses Demi for free child care. A lot. Also this one is LONG, so sorry about that! Originally dated from mid 2014. 

The first time he called her, she hadn’t heard from him in six months.

Demi jolted awake in a rush, her heartbeat thundering in her chest. She was tangled up in the bedsheets and her hair was falling in knots across her sleepy face, and at first she didn’t know what had woken her.

Then her phone rang again and she was sitting up hurriedly, fumbling around the duvet to find the device. She cleared her throat, hoarse from sleep, and held it to her ear. “Hello?” It’s two am, what the hell, she wanted to say. On the off chance it was someone important, she bit her tongue.

“Hello, darling.”

Demi almost dropped her phone in shock. For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t still dreaming. That certainly wasn’t a voice she’d ever expected to hear in the waking world again. “Simon?” she asked incredulously. So much for someone important, her brain added sarcastically. Wearily, Demi let herself fall back against the sheets with her phone still pressed to her ear, eyes barely open. “Oh, what the fuck,” she whispered vaguely, not really intending for him to hear her.

“Demi?” Simon sounded amused.

“Uhm,” Demi cleared her throat, her free hand winding a loose string in the duvet around her fingers. “Simon, what do you want? It’s the middle of the night.”

There was a long pause, and she became aware of the sound of a baby crying rather hysterically in the background. “Simon?”

He sighed, rustling something, and the screaming got louder. “I’m sorry, Demi, I really am. Lauren’s, um, not here right now and I need to--. Eric--” more rustling, his voice fading into something intelligible as his mouth moved away from the speaker. “--can’t--missed you,”

Demi’s eyes rolled upward. She was tired, annoyed, and hearing his voice again was creating a wave of emotions she wasn’t in any way prepared for. “Simon, I don’t know if you want a booty call or a babysitter, but in any case I can’t help you. I’m in Miami. And it’s…” she pulled the phone from her ear briefly to check. “2:36 in the morning.”

“So am I,” Simon said softly.

“Oh,” Demi replied, feeling stupid. And there went her number one reason for not having anything to do with him and whatever he wanted.

“And you’re not…” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “A booty call,”

“Oh, right, that was the other women,” Demi fired back quickly.

Simon sighed wearily, the background screaming intensifying again. “Look, Demi, I am sorry about this. But I don’t know what to do about Eric and--”

“Multi-million dollar empire and you don’t have a babysitter?”

There was a long pause, then, “No.”

Something wasn’t right. It may have been a while, but Demi could still read him, and something was wrong. Damn it. She threw the duvet off of her legs with an audible groan, sitting up on the edge of the bed. “Right now?”

“Lauren...I need to go,”

“What’s wrong with Lauren, Simon?” Demi was almost fully awake now, pinning the phone against her shoulder and stumbling around in the darkened bedroom for a set of clothes.

“She left,” Simon returned, barely above a whisper. “Demi…”

“Yeah, okay,” she cut him off grumpily, wiggling into a fuzzy shirt of some kind blindly and hoping it was on right side out. She walked barefoot down the stairs of the house to the kitchen, in search of a coffee mug. “Calm down, old man. I’ll be-- shit!”

She should have turned on a light. A plate she had forgotten on the counter now lay in glass shards on the hardwood, scattering all over her bare feet. Demi sighed heavily. “I’ll be there in a half hour.” Without another word, she hung up the phone, turning it into a flashlight and carefully hopping over the glass. She’d clean it later.

Swiping her keys off of the table, she shoved her feet into the first available pair of shoes she had downstairs and made her way out to the car. There would be hell to pay with her security staff in the morning, more than likely, and that would be the least of her problems. What was she doing here, in the middle of the night, driving down a highway because Simon Cowell called? Face it, you could never tell him no.

She pulled up outside his Miami property twenty minutes later, peering through the windshield at the darkened house, and the unmistakable outline of paparazzi on the street outside. Seriously?

Demi glanced around the floor of her car, coming up with a discarded blanket in the backseat. I can’t believe I’m doing this. She yanked the dusty fabric into the driver’s seat with her, wrapping it over her head, and got out of the car before she could change her mind. The last thing she needed was a TMZ article about Demi Lovato running to Simon Cowell’s house in the middle of the night, half dressed.

At least this way it could be an article about a weird blanket stranger with bad fashion sense, and then it would just be Simon’s problem.

Demi made it through the gate a few moments later, running up the driveway and realizing as she did so that she was definitely not wearing two of the same shoes. What a way to reintroduce herself to the former love of her life. Former. Who do you think you’re kidding?

She rang the doorbell, leaning against the side of the house and feeling her irritation mounting. Oh, this better be good, Simon.

The door swung open a few seconds later, and for a moment Demi stared dumbly. Finally, she took in a deep breath. “Hello, Simon.”

She’d be lying if she said he looked good. He was obviously exhausted, standing in the doorway in his typical white t-shirt and jeans, feet bare and a screaming baby cradled in the crook of his elbow.

His eyes flicked over her rapidly. “What on earth are you wearing, brat?”

She ducked under his arm and into the entry of the house, yanking the blanket off her hair with a scowl. “You have photographers lined up outside, you know that?” Privately, she was congratulating herself on her lack of outward reaction, even though her heart was throwing a rebellious party in her chest at hearing that nickname again.

“What is going on, Simon?” Demi reached unconsciously up to her shoulder to adjust the strap of the tank top she had left on under her shirt, shaking the sleeve up. She’d grabbed some oversized thing out of the back of her closet, and she probably looked like a sleep deprived vagrant.

“Thank you for coming. I--” Simon trailed off suddenly, a weird look flashing over his features as he stared at her. “I…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Demi rolled her eyes. “I know I look like a disaster, you don’t have to be mean about it. I wasn’t exactly dressing for the red...carpet…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at herself, actually looking at what she was wearing for the first time. “I got dressed in the dark, you know,” Demi tried lamely, biting her lip. I completely did not mean to wear your sweater here Jesus Christ why do I even still have this where did this come from what are the odds. 

She was determined to put the awkwardness out of the way. If she had to see him again, and under such strange circumstances, she could at least be professional. “So...why am I here?”

Simon gestured to the very angry bundle in his arms. “Lauren’s gone.” he explained abruptly. “She took a bag and left a note to tell me she doesn’t intend to come back. And I…” he lowered his head. “...have no idea what to do with him,” he muttered lowly.

“And you think I do?” Demi burst out. “I wasn’t even paying attention when Maddie was born…” she sighed. “Oh, give him here.”

Simon carefully passed his son into her arms, and Demi smiled brightly down at the screaming infant, hoping some kind of instinct would take over. “Oh my goodness,” she said lightly. “You’re not very happy with us, huh?”

The sudden introduction of a new person was enough to temporarily distract Eric, who was still red-faced but now silent and staring up at her with his mouth open. Demi smiled, a rush of love welling up inside her. He was beautiful. And he looked just like his dad. She glanced over to Simon, careful to keep gently rocking him, and her lips twitched into a smirk at his look of obvious annoyance.

“Of course he’ll behave for you.”

Eric snuffled, waving one tiny fist into Demi’s face. She fought the urge to toss back a sarcastic comment about Cowell men. “How long has Lauren been gone?”

Simon shrugged helplessly and ran a hand over his face. “I just woke up to...this.”

“Do you have any bottles? He’s probably hungry.” She redirected her attention to baby Eric once more. “Would you like that, huh? Should we see if Auntie Demi can find you something to eat?”

“Auntie Demi?” Simon echoed, bemused.

Demi shrugged a little self consciously, her lips twitching upward. “Shut up, it’s two am.” She was well aware of the picture she was currently painting. Standing barefoot in his kitchen in a pair of shorts and his old sweater, long hair falling over her shoulders and into her face, holding his baby son. In another life, Eric could have been theirs.

She shook herself, refocusing on Simon. “Right. Should we see about that bottle?”

***

The second phone call came three months later, in the middle of LAX. She was just heading off of the plane, turning her phone’s service back on, surrounded by her security and her assistants.

She answered it anyway, immediately holding it away from her ear and wincing. “Okay, slow down and calm down. What is going on?”

It took her a few minutes, but she managed to wrestle out of Simon that he’d taken Eric to the hospital for a fever, and was, once again, well out of his depth.

“Simon,” Demi sighed, earning some odd looks from her travelling companions. Those closest to her knew what had happened between them, and were understandably surprised to be witnessing a phone call now. “Look, kids get sick, I’m sure he’ll be fine. But in any case you did the right thing.”

“Demi, I--”

“I’m in the airport,” Demi cut him off, “I have to go, okay?” She heard a sound like he was about to protest, and sighed. Damn it. What if something really was wrong with Eric? And the tone of Simon’s voice was breaking her heart. 

“What hospital are you at?” she finally asked, resigned. “I’ll get a car, if it’ll make you feel better.”

She brought Max with her to the hospital, ignoring the curious and slightly worried looks he was giving her. “Just don’t start, okay?”

Max just spread his hands in a surrendering gesture of not my business. Demi gave him a tired smile in response. She really was lucky to have him; his kindness and his tact were a blessing.

It took them forty five minutes to get out of the airport and make the drive to the nearby hospital, which left Demi with plenty of time to worry about what on earth she was doing. She wasn’t actually Eric’s godmother. She certainly wasn’t his actual mother. She’d parted on astonishingly bad terms with his father. And yet here she was again, hastily walking through the emergency room doors and making her way to the nurses’ desk, because Simon had called. When was she ever going to learn?

“I’m looking for Eric Cowell,” she said quickly, hoping it would go over smoothly. The nurse gave her a startled look, confirming that she knew who Demi was, and furrowed her brow. “I’m sorry, um, Miss Lovato, right? I can’t...it’s family only.”

Demi sighed. “Right. Could you let him know I’m here? Or…” she trailed off, glancing uncertainly toward Max for suggestions.

“She is family,” a familiar voice cut in suddenly from behind. 

She turned away from the desk, leaving the astonished nurse behind and meeting Simon’s eyes across the room. She crossed the distance quickly, making a point of leaving plenty of space between them. They were already catching too much attention, and she didn’t need rumors flying around on top of the insanity of her reality. “How is he?” Just focus on Eric, you’re here for him. She wasn’t going to think about what he’d just said. She wasn’t going to think about how she wasn’t family, actually, but she could have been. 

Simon actually looked slightly embarrassed. “You were right,” he murmured. “Just a cold. Probably didn’t need to come here, but...he spiked a fever and--”

Demi reached out impulsively and squeezed his hand briefly, needing to offer him some sort of comfort. “He’s lucky to have someone worrying about him. Too careful is better than the other way around.”

“Come on, I’ll take you back.”

Max followed them at a distance while Demi was escorted into the room where little Eric was sleeping restlessly, a nurse watching over him. She smiled reassuringly at Simon, shot a startled look at Demi, and left the room.

Demi carefully smoothed dark hair off of his forehead, a smile touching her lips. “He’s okay,” she whispered gently, mostly for Simon’s benefit.

She tried not to think about how, for the second time in three months, she was acting out the life she could have had in some other world.

***

He called her for Eric’s first steps, his first word, and plenty of sleepless, tantrum-filled nights. Demi didn’t even try to fight it anymore; if she was in the state, she came. If she wasn’t, she came whenever she got there. And they’d tried to enforce ‘Auntie Demi’ or, at minimum, just ‘Demi’, but she still remembered the way her heart clenched the first time Eric had held tiny arms out to her and babbled, “Mamma!”

At the moment, she was sitting cross legged on the floor with the little boy in her lap, singing along while they watched Aladdin and making him giggle. “Will you take me on a carpet ride, my Prince?” Demi asked dramatically, tickling his ribs.

Eric collapsed into a fit of giggles, his warm tiny body wiggling out of her arms. She let him go with a kiss to his dark hair, smiling indulgently while he walked unsteadily over to the floor rug and sat down on it. He really was the best thing in her life, a perfect angel. A beacon of brightness in the dark, just like his father. They were as much a part of her journey as the tattoos on her wrists, reminders to keep going and the loves of her life.

Yes, Simon too. She’d had to admit it to herself months ago, there wasn’t any point in pretending. Someday, maybe she’d find someone. But until the day she died she was never going to love anyone else like she loved him.

Demi made her way back over to Eric, sitting beside him on the rug. “Is this our carpet?”

He nodded enthusiastically, so Demi pulled him back into her lap and went along with the game. “Okay then, little Prince. Where are we flying to?”

“Daddy!”

Demi laughed. “We’re flying to see Daddy, huh? All the way to England?” Simon was in London that week for business with BGT, hence Demi’s presence in the house as babysitter. “That’s quite a trip. Are we going to sing all the way there?”

Eric nodded again, clapping his hands uncoordinatedly, earning another kiss atop his head from Demi. A pang went through her heart for a moment, looking at him. He looked just like Simon, enough that she could almost forget Lauren had any part in creating him, could almost pretend he was hers. Theirs. The life she could have had.

But for now, they went on with their game. “Well you’ll have to help me! My voice might get tired. It’s a long way to England.”

“Magic,” Eric informed her matter-of-factly.

Demi giggled. “Of course! How could I forget? The carpet can go way faster than a regular plane. Are you ready? Here we go!”

***

It wasn’t often that Simon made it home early from trips, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. He’d missed his son, though of course he completely trusted Demi, and it had been one of those weeks. He was in rather desperate need of uplifting little baby hugs, and quite possibly one from Demi too if he could persuade her.

Sometimes he thought he was just torturing himself, inviting the love of his life to help raise his son. And if he was, there was no doubt he deserved the punishment. He couldn’t regret Eric, but what he’d done to Demi had nonetheless been unforgivable.

But he was selfish enough to still want her close. And she made Eric so happy. And even if he could never have her, the two of them would always have all of the love left in his pathetic old heart.

Shutting the door behind him and taking off his jacket, Simon smiled. Somewhere upstairs, Demi was singing, accompanied by Eric’s shrieks of laughter. Technically he still had work to do, but it could wait. Not bothering to even take off his shoes, he set off up the stairs in search of his family.

Simon found them on the floor in one of the living room areas, both of them with their backs to him. He hadn’t been noticed, so he just leaned on the doorframe and watched the scene unfold, smiling as he felt the tension of the past week slip from his shoulders.

They were sitting in the center of the area rug, Demi cross-legged with Eric in her arms, and the end credits to Disney’s Aladdin were still playing on the TV in the corner, sound muted.

“Are we there yet?” Demi asked, making a show of looking around. “There’s so many clouds up here!”

Eric laughed at her. “No! E’land!”

“Right,” Demi giggled. “We still have to fly all the way to England. Are you going to find Daddy?”

Eric grabbed at her nose suddenly, making her squeak. A Cowell family tradition, apparently. “Sing!”

“If I sing, does that make the magic go faster?” Demi hmmed. “I see,”

His son clapped enthusiastically in response, and the angelic little brat broke out into song.

“A whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew, but when I’m way up here, it’s crystal clear, that now I’m in a whole new world with you,”

Simon had no explanation for the lump that was suddenly in his throat. He swallowed hard, blinking, just in time for Demi to toss Eric up in her arms, spinning him to look over her shoulder and lock eyes with his father.

“Daddy!” he shouted.

Demi’s voice cut off suddenly, and she spun around on the floor hastily, letting Eric go to run across the room to Simon. She looked thoroughly startled, a blush staining her cheeks. “Oh,” he heard her mumble. “Magic indeed.” Then, louder, “Hi, Simon. I didn’t know you were back already.”

Shifting Eric in his arms, Simon moved out of the doorway and into the room properly. “I got an earlier flight,” he explained. “Didn’t want to interrupt this lovely little game, though.”

Demi stood up hastily, pushing some of her now brunette hair out of her face. “We--Eric--wanted a magic carpet to go find you,”

Simon smiled, his gaze shifting between the two of them. “Looks like it worked. But now, this one needs to go to sleep.”

“Not tired, Daddy!” Eric announced.

Simon just shook his head. “I know, but I’ll still be here tomorrow. We can play something then, okay?”

“And M-Demi?” he mumbled, his eyelids drooping in spite of his protests.

Demi felt a pang. He knew calling her ‘Mamma’ upset her, and it broke her heart that he was so perceptive. That at his young age he was learning to correct himself because she and Simon had screwed up so badly before he was even born.

Something flickered in Simon’s eyes, too, but he just nodded. “Of course, you can see Demi.”

Satisfied, Eric tucked his head on his father’s shoulder and allowed himself to be carried. “Bye, Demi,” he mumbled.

Demi smiled, a bit sadly in spite of herself. “Good night, Eric.” She glanced around the room once, making sure she hadn’t left anything here in the course of her five-day stay as babysitter. Her purse was downstairs, she’d just grab it and slip out. Now that Simon was home, she didn’t really have an excuse to stay.

“Demi?” Simon murmured in a low voice. He had turned in the doorway again, carefully holding Eric in his arms. “Would you mind waiting while I put him to bed?”

She tried not to react. “Uh, sure. I’ll just be downstairs.”

In his kitchen now, Demi tried to resist the urge to fidget. Sure, they’d seen plenty of each other in the last two years. But they’d never really been alone, without Eric as a buffer of some sort. He probably just wants to talk about Eric, she reasoned. That, however, led her down a new train of panicked thought. What if he wants to tell me he doesn’t want me to see Eric anymore? What if he actually hired a real nanny? She wasn’t entirely sure she could take that. And what was taking him so damn long, anyway?

Finally, Demi sat down on a bar stool in the kitchen and propped her head up in her hands, her hair falling down in a curtain around her face. And that was how Simon found her a few minutes later.

“Demi?”

She jumped, startled by his presence for the second time that evening. “Oh my god, Simon!” she said, sounding annoyed. Irritation, though irrational, seemed to be her first response to the anxiety she was feeling. And then, against her will, an overwhelmed tear rolled down her cheek.

“Why are you crying, darling?” He instinctively laid a hand on her shoulder, his thumb tracing comforting circles on her back. “Demi?”

Some combination of the stress and his touch and the note of gentleness in his voice again broke the dam entirely, and Demi burst fully into tears, turning automatically into his chest. “I don’t know!” she said stupidly, her voice choking on a sob.

She heard a soft sigh from Simon, and he just caught her tightly, cradling the back of her head and running his fingers soothingly through her hair while she sobbed all over his trademark t shirt. She was sure her makeup was smeared everywhere and her eyes were red, and part of her wanted to pull away and apologize. But there was something so relieving about letting go in his arms again. Everything she hadn’t allowed herself to feel for the past two years about him, about Eric, was coming out now whether she wanted it to or not. So Demi just gave in and clung to Simon like the life raft in her personal storm.

He held her silently until she began to calm down, and then finally moved her head away from his chest and wiped her makeup-tinted tears from her cheeks. “Come on, brat,” he murmured, rearranging her slightly on the bar stool and then sweeping her up fully into his arms.

Demi squeaked, hanging onto his neck instinctively and protesting in a still-scratchy voice. “Simon, put me down! I’m too heavy for this--I’m fine!”

He ignored her protests and carried her across the house easily, depositing her safely on one of his expensively minimalist couches. Demi allowed him to sit back down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and looked down at her lap. Really not the way she’d wanted this to go.

Simon tilted her head up with a gentle finger under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Demi sniffed, her hand playing idly with the collar of his shirt. “I let my imagination get the best of me,” she shrugged as casually as she could. “I still don’t know what you wanted to talk to me about before I kinda derailed everything...but please don’t keep me from seeing Eric,” she finished softly, sniffling again as her eyes welled up once more.

Simon flinched. “Darling, of course not. I would never--I know how much you love him. How much he loves you.”

Beginning to relax, Demi let her head fall back against his chest, smiling to herself a little as she felt him resume playing with her hair. She was going to hate herself for it later, when they went back to barely interacting outside of Eric, but she had missed this. For now, she wanted to enjoy the moment.

“But,” Simon went on softly, and she stiffened immediately. “I do think it’s past time I hired an actual nanny. No, Demi, listen to me--” he said as she tried to fight her way off of his lap. “Doll, please,”

Giving up, she went limp, blinking furiously to keep the tears at bay.

“Of course you can still see Eric,” Simon was saying. “But I--I made a mistake. You hardly have a life outside of your career and this house, with my son. It was never fair of me to ask that of you.” He faltered slightly, but went on. “You deserve more than an obligation to help me raise a child that--” he cut himself off.

“Jesus, Simon!” Demi burst out. “I’m not just going to walk away! Don’t try to tell me what I deserve, I--”

“I’m trying to do the right thing!” Simon shouted back. This time, when she scrambled off of the couch, he let her go.

“The right thing?” Demi was pacing in front of him, throwing her hands up. “Maybe you should have thought about doing the right thing before you slept with your best friend’s wife!” Her shoulders slumped at his kicked-puppy expression, and some of the fight went out of her. “Look, Simon, I don’t care about the right thing. It doesn’t matter what I ‘deserve’, I don’t want anything else. I just--”

“Do you remember Tate Stevens?” Simon asked suddenly.

Demi gave him a strange look, her hands now planted on her hips. “Yes? Of course I do, what are you talking about?”

“You told him you wanted to find a husband who would love you as much as he loved his wife,” Simon said quietly, looking at some point behind her. “You deserve to find the life you want. The life that will make you happy, Demi. And ‘babysitting Simon Cowell’s kid’ is not the kind of baggage you--”

“The only thing I ever wanted,” Demi interrupted him flatly, “was you. I said that on the live show that night sitting next to you and all I wanted was you. It doesn’t matter if I ever get married,” she shrugged, “because I already know that I will never love him the way I loved you. It’s forever, I guess.” 

Now that she’d started, laying the facts out was surprisingly easy. “Does it kill me a little bit every time? Of course it does. Of course it hurts every time I come here and I know that I don’t get to have you. Of course every time I look at Eric I remember he’s not mine even when he calls me ‘mom’ by mistake.” She shook her head, wiping the few stray tears hanging off her eyelashes with an impatient movement. “But I would rather be here, because it doesn’t matter. Because I love him. And--” she spread her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I just wanted you, Simon. I--I wanted you to love me. But apparently that was too much to ask.”

For several seconds, Simon just stared at her like she’d grown a second head. She could practically hear the wheels spinning in his brain, and it would have been funny if it wasn’t so entirely nerve-wracking. “Simon--”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that before, baby?”

Demi blinked at him tiredly, trying not to let on how much his throwaway use of that nickname still bothered her. “Simon, I’m not your baby. And I know you’re not in love with me and I didn’t say any of this to try to--”

“I do,” he said softly, looking at her with an unreadable expression. “I always loved you, Demi. Lauren knew that, I still think that’s why she left. That’s why I called you that first time. I couldn’t do this without you and I should be able to but I can’t. And I know what I did to you was unforgivable but I still can’t let you go. And maybe that just makes me a selfish, selfish old man but damn it, Demi, I love you. I still love you. I will be in love with you for whatever is left of my life, and you will always be ‘baby’.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” Demi asked wildly, her heart threatening to race right out of her chest. She had to slow her breathing before she hyperventilated. Now what? She could barely process what she was hearing, but he’d gotten his point across. And everything in her life had been based on the unshakable foundation that Simon didn’t love her; a sad fact, but something she knew to be true nonetheless. But apparently...not.

Simon shrugged and spread his hands helplessly. “I’ve wanted to say that since we left Rhode Island,”

Demi shook her head disbelievingly, trying to do the math. “That was literally two--three...You’d known me for less than a month, Simon!”

“I know!” he threw back, getting agitated again.

And suddenly all Demi could do was laugh. It bubbled out of her throat in an almost hysterical fashion, and maybe she really was just losing her mind. Simon looked vaguely affronted, and she realized that he thought she was laughing at him. That poured a bucket of cold water over her mirth and she snapped her mouth shut, hand still covering her lips. “We’re just...really bad at this,” she managed, a stray giggle escaping in the middle of her sentence.

Simon’s lips twitched upward, and he flashed her the smile that was only ever for her. And then he was up and across the room in a few quick strides, reaching out to take her hand.

“Dem, if you let me, I’ll do better. I can be better for you. But no matter what, I will--”

“Simon?” she interrupted dryly. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

And later, sprawled out under the duvet in his giant bed, he would poke her playfully and point out that she could never resist interrupting him, even when she didn’t have a microphone to steal. And she would laugh and tell him he was an annoying old man who talked too much, and roll over to straddle his hips and make love once more.

And in the morning, Eric would crash on top of them with a delighted squeal upon finding Demi--thankfully wearing a shirt of Simon’s--and both of them would smile when he called her Mamma again.

There would be a messy call to Dianna, a few carefully staged ‘accidents’ with the paparazzi, and a temporary deletion of social media while the storm blew over. And eventually, there would be two pink lines in the bathroom trash, and Simon on one knee before her with Eric holding a ring, and a white dress tailored to fit the new curve of her belly. Because they were never going to do anything in quite the right order, really.

But for now, Demi closed her eyes and leaned into his kiss in the middle of the living room, content for the moment to let go and trust that they could figure it out. Together.

[gossipchii]

Just two beers

FF.net: here

Characters: Yagami Taichi, Ishida Yamato.

Pairing: Taiyama-ish

Words: 1500+

Notes: Happy Odaiba Day!!! I know I could’ve written something cute and cheesy to commemorate this special day, but as soon as we confirmed Taichi and Yamato grab a drink from now to then, I had to write about it.

Plus they made me do it in Twitter, not my fault.

Enjoy!

Taichi, your flight to New York leaves at 7 am. This is not a good idea. As soon as Yamato saw Taichi had texted him, he knew exactly what he was going to propose. And his liver wasn’t in the mood for those kinds of proposals.

But we haven’t celebrated my birthday yet. He rolled his eyes, this was so typical of his brunette friend.

… We celebrated your birthday for an entire week.

I meant YOU and I. Sora can come too. On Yamato’s birthday the two of them ended up celebrating because originally Yamato hadn’t felt like going out at all, but Taichi had set up a trap for him. His liver hadn’t forgiven him entirely for that night.

You know Sora wakes up super early on Thursdays, you should follow her good example and NOT go out when you must be at 4am at Narita.

P L E A S E. It’ll be just one or two beers, I promise. Yamato knew damn well it wasn’t going to be just two beers.

I don’t believe you, they’re never chill plans lately.

I promise it on the Courage Crest. But he also knew Taichi was stubborn as hell, and he wouldn’t shut up until he accepted to go out.

Fine, I’ll see you at 10.

YOU WON’T REGRET IT.

.

It was 10pm sharp and Yamato was already seated on the same spot he always sat at their favorite Pub. Taichi and him had run into that place by accident, and since the first time they went there they barely ever went out anywhere else. Except, of course, on Yamato’s previous birthday.

“I’m not late, I’m not late!!! I swear to God I’m not late!” Taichi sprinted through the door, but it was a minute after 10pm, which meant he was late.

“What do we say, Hideki? Is he late?” Hideki was their typical barman, a man in his mid-thirties who refused to grow up. They loved him.

“A minute after 10pm isn’t 10pm. First round’s on Taichi!” They had made a bet that whoever was later paid the first round. So far, Yamato hadn’t paid a single round.

“Man, you guys are awful. In some countries it’s considered normal arriving a little late. It’s even rude to be on time, did you guys know that?”

“Don’t try to use your international knowledge against me, Taichi. I’ve been to Mexico, remember?” Taichi rolled his eyes, Yamato grinned victoriously.

“Three Pilsners, Hideki. Tonight, you’re drinking with us.”

“Why is it that you guys are here, anyway? Your usual nights are Saturdays.” The three boys cheered before giving the first sip to the beer, which was, of course, the best one.

“Taichi leaves for New York tomorrow at 7am, hence why we’re only having two beers tonight. Right, Yagami?” Taichi and the bartender looked at each other before exploding in laughter.

“Last time I heard that was on…”

“My birthday, I know, I know. But I won’t forgive myself if Taichi misses his flight. Sora would end up killing me as well. It’s just not a good idea to end up how we did on my birthday.”

“But we’re also celebrating my birthday tonight, remember?” Taichi tended to do a certain face whenever he wanted to get something specific. Yamato had no idea if he had learned to do that in one of his classes, but dang it worked.

“Didn’t you celebrate your birthday for like a week?” Hideki got a glare as an answer, “I guess a week is not enough, the second round’s on me.”

As Yamato had expected, that night didn’t consist of two beers only. Taichi tended to get louder the drunker he got, and Yamato less stressed about consequences, which was a bad match because Taichi suggested something, and Yamato was less likely to deny it.

Taichi began telling the other common costumers of the bar that it was his birthday, and Yamato confirmed the statement even if his birthday had been almost two weeks ago. The two beers they had promised turned into six, and a couple of shots in between.

“It’s 2am, guys. It’s been fun but we must close the bar,” Hideki mentioned.

“Did you just s-say it was 2am?” Taichi was half asleep, half awake, holding onto Yamato’s shoulder to stand still.

“TWO AM?” Yamato looked terrified as he realized Taichi had to be in the airport in a little over two hours, and his luggage was still in his apartment. Suddenly he imagined how mad Sora would be if Taichi missed his flight and he had been involved in that, and it was real mad.

“I meet the United Nations Secretary General tomorrow, cool.” Taichi was one of those drunk people that would easily fall asleep anywhere when they had drunk a little too much, and he was currently in that stage. Yamato had no idea how he was going to get a cleaner version of Taichi safe and sound to Narita in two hours, but he suddenly didn’t feel as drunk anymore.

“He should be awake, he’s going to kill me, but I have no choice.” Taichi was full asleep as soon as they left the bar, Yamato was sweating cold, hearing a loud tick tock inside his head. “Please answer, please answer, please answer…” The beeping noise of the phone ringing lasted more than Yamato would have wanted, but nevertheless his friend’s voice appeared on the other side of the line.

“Yamato? It’s 2am,” Koushiro tended to stay up at weird times of the day. He didn’t really care about missing some of his classes because he had more important things to do – like running his own company.

“Yes Koushiro, thank you for stating the obvious!” Yamato noticed he needed to calm down and how his words were eating each other. Maybe he was still drunk. “I’m sorry. I need help.”

“What happened?” Yamato explained the whole situation as short and concrete as he could. “I’ll be right there, do not move.”

Fifteen minutes had gone by when Yamato finally saw Koushiro’s red head on the horizon. Everything felt better, he didn’t even care about Taichi’s heavy head on his shoulder any longer, until he saw two redheads instead of one.

“I can’t believe you fell for his face, again!” Sora was mad, like really mad, just as he expected. But she didn’t hesitate one bit in helping Yamato stand up and hold Taichi. “Here’s the plan, we’re going to Taichi’s apartment and while you and Koushiro help him take a shower…”

As soon as both boys wanted to complain, they ate their words when they saw the look on Sora’s face, “… I’ll pack everything Taichi needs in his luggage. I’m damn sure he didn’t pack at all. GOD, he meets one of the most important people in this planet tomorrow and you both decide it’s a good idea having a drink.”

Yamato could swear Sora’s face was as red as her hair, even in the dark of the night sky. As much as he didn’t like seeing her angry, he couldn’t thank Koushiro enough for calling her.

“At least Taichi’s apartment is nearby…” Yamato whispered.

“At least.”

Helping a drunk Taichi shower was quite an experience for Yamato and Koushiro. It was not the first time they had seen him naked, but it was the first time in a while. No matter the water on his face, Taichi was struggling on staying awake, which made both his friends scream with laughter.

“I’m fine, I’m fine I can s-shower by myself!” Taichi swore, right before falling asleep again.

“You really need to cut your hair, how much do you spend on shampoo on a monthly basis?”

“Are you seriously asking that question?” Koushiro was astonished.

“Good point.”

“IT’S TIME TO LEAVE!” They had been showering Taichi for less than fifteen minutes and that was enough time for Sora to pack for the two weeks Taichi was going to stay in New York.

They decided an Uber would be a better idea than using the metro considering the brunette’s current state – even if he was notably better after the shower. They used Taichi’s credit card to pay for it, of course. Sora was so nervous they wouldn’t let Taichi into the plane because of the alcohol, but by the time they arrived at Narita, he just seemed sleepy.

“I owe you guys,” Taichi said right before going through security.

“You sure do!” they all replied.

.

Thirteen hours later, and a text message appeared on Yamato’s phone, again.

That was the worst experience of my life. I went from still being drunk to hangover, ALL IN ONE FLIGHT. Yamato couldn’t help but laugh. Sure, he was also a little hangover, but at least he got to sleep in his bed.

Did you throw up?

Hell, yeah, I did. I had to pretend I was dizzy. Remind me not to do this ever again.

Sora will never let me do it, don’t worry. Good luck meeting Ban Ki-moon.

Thank you, I’m quite nervous.

You’ll be fine, just be yourself, but less idiot. Happy birthday, baka.

[tisfan]

Normal Everyday Asshole Aliens

86 Tony/Eddie/Venom @journeythroughtherain  & Anonymous “Damn, you’re strong for a little thing.”

The last time Tony had been in San Francisco, he and Eddie had gone on a pub crawl, sampling not beer or whiskey, but onion rings. Tony had been determined to find the best god damned pub rings in the city, and Eddie had laughingly tagged along.

Some five hours later, groaning from too much grease and fried dough, they’d gone back to Eddie’s apartment and made out until they’d fallen asleep in the middle of necking. Tony had woken up with a stomach ache, a horrible crick in his neck from sleeping slumped over on top of Eddie on the couch, the worst morning breath of his entire life, and absolutely no regrets.

He knew why Eddie’d had to leave New York, and he understood, but he kind of wished it hadn’t been necessary. Eddie was fun, challenged Tony’s assumptions about things, and understood completely about the kind of schedule Tony had to keep and the reasons he couldn’t commit to being a boyfriend. What they had was good. It was enough.

It had been more than half a year since Tony’d had an excuse to go to San Francisco, and he was looking forward to meeting up with Eddie. Maybe hooking up, if they could make their schedules match up.

He wasn’t expecting Eddie to meet him at the airport, but there he was, leaning against the wall as Tony’s private jet touched down. Tony wasn’t sure how he’d gotten past TSA or security, but he didn’t ask, either.

“You… uh, you look good, Tony,” Eddie said. “Came on my bike, thought you might want a ride?”

Eddie paused, tipping his head to one side, his eyes glazing a little bit, as if he was listening to a phone conversation, before he shook it off and gave Tony a wide grin. Eddie was nothing like most of Tony’s partners, scruffy and wearing a shlubby hoodie. He had a bike helmet in one hand, but pulled Tony in for a quick embrace with the other.

Tony grinned back and swung his leg over the bike, snuggling up against Eddie’s back suggestively. “Got a bitch helmet for me?”

“This one is for you, I don’t, uh… I don’t wear one anymore,” Eddie said. He handed over the brain bucket to Tony and then kicked the bike to life. The motor roared and the whole thing buzzed like an overgrown vibrator between Tony’s thighs.

(more below the cut)

Tony pulled on the helmet. “Your funeral,” he said, raising his voice a little to be heard over the growl of the bike. “I heard they were cracking down on helmetless riders, though. How are you not swimming in tickets?”

“Gotta get caught to get a ticket,” Eddie said, and with that, he gunned the motor and they peeled out of the airport, leaving a very angry Happy behind waving Tony’s suitcase at them. “Long story, lemme take you-- uh, someplace special. And I’ll… I got some stuff to tell you that you won’t believe.”

Tony laughed. “I was fighting off shapechanging aliens in Chicago last week; what’ve you got to top that?”

“Challenge accepted,” Eddie said. He was pushing the bike well past the original engine’s capabilities, and not at all safe for the hilly roads and narrow pavement of the city, but Eddie never faltered. It was like flying in the armor, only… more. And lower to the ground. It was all but impossible to stifle a whoop of excitement.

Eddie took them out of the city and up through a suburban neighborhood, still topping well over ninety, and then skidded to a sudden stop at the very edge of a cliff that overlooked San Francisco's famous bridge.

“Pretty up here,” Eddie said, casually, slinging himself off the bike.

Tony was still thrumming from the ride as he joined Eddie at the edge of the cliff, the helmet dangling casually from his fingertips. He looked out over the water. “Nice,” he agreed. He cast a sidelong look at Eddie, who was shuffling around a little, which usually heralded a case of nerves. Tony looked back out at the view, willing to wait for it, whatever it was.

“So, you were dealing with shapeshifting aliens, huh?” Eddie asked. “You ever… deal with any that aren’t bad guys? I mean, not benevolent, or nothing, but maybe, just normal everyday asshole aliens?”

“Oh, sure,” Tony said. “I mean, Thor just for starters, and the rest of the Asgardians. And there’s the Guardians of the Galaxy, they’re an okay bunch, most of the time.”

“So, uh, if I mighta had, well, a close encounter, that’s… it’s not a deal-breaker, you know? With us?” Eddie was wringing his knuckles together hard enough that his skin was white. White, and perfect. Hadn’t… hadn’t Eddie had scars on his hands, from where he’d gotten into a fist-fight with a plate glass window and lost?

“I... wouldn’t think so,” Tony said cautiously. “Who did you run into? The Kree?” They had weird healing abilities, Tony thought.

“They call themselves Klyntar,” Eddie said. “They’re… um. A little difficult to describe, and unfortunately -- oh, would you just--” Eddie’s eyes did something weird, and they were suddenly jet black, sclera, iris, pupil and all. We want to say hello.

Tony didn’t hear that so much with his ears as sort of feel it in his skull, loud and aggressive and eager.

“Oh, shit!” Tony took a step back, startled, then paused and leaned in again, looking closely. “That’s... It’s... In you?”

We are together. One of Eddie’s eyes went back to normal, rich sapphire blue. “Will you let me do th’ talking, Vee, come on, man, we had a plan, can we not just stick to the plan?”

He is very small. That black, almost oily color oozed out from Eddie’s eyes until it covered most of his face, and then-- Eddie grew, tall, taller, impossibly… not quite as tall as the Hulk, but certainly huge, with gnarled, massive limbs and… fucking claws, and goddamn teeth--

Tony flicked his hand to the side and a gauntlet formed. He aimed it at the... thing. Klyntar. Vee. Whatever it was called. “What the fuck-- What did you do to Eddie?”

The enormous clawed hand reached for Tony’s gauntlet. What is it? This-- he? It? Whatever. Grabbed Tony’s wrist and pulled the gauntlet (and Tony practically up onto his toes) up to examine it closely. Is this a weapon?

“Buddy, you’re going to find out just how much of a weapon it is if you don’t let Eddie go,” Tony snapped. He wrenched his arm around until he was aiming right into those dagger-like teeth.

“Woah, woah,” and the face, that monstrous thing, fucking unzipped and Eddie pushed his way out. “No shooting, no… Vee, love, come on, let’s all calm down and talk about this--” Eddie’s shoulders came out of the Klyntar and he balled it up until he was cuddling a little fanged oil slick about the size of a cat. “Let’s just all take a few deep breaths and calm down.”

Eddie demonstrated the calming breaths, sounding like some sort of bad victorian heroine who was about to need a fainting couch.

Tony looked at him dubiously. “You’re okay?” He looked at the thing in Eddie’s arms, and then back at Eddie’s face, suppressing the urge to pat him down and check for injuries. “Jesus Christ, I thought it ate you.”

We wouldn’t eat Eddie, the goo confided. Eddie is ours.

“Tony, this is Venom. Venom, Tony,” Eddie said. “I’d say not to worry, that his bark is worse than his bite, but it’s really, really not.”

“You’re... friends,” Tony said. Venom (and there was a name that didn’t inspire trust) oozed up Eddie’s arm and draped around his neck like a scarf with slitted opal eyes at one end.

The whole thing suddenly seemed utterly absurd, and Tony let out a bark of not-quite-hysterical laughter. “Only you, Eddie. Only you.”

“Unfortunately, not only me,” Eddie said, stroking the little alien gently, and it purred/rumbled under Eddie’s caress. “And, uh, they’re not all as, uh--”

Protective. We will protect Eddie. From Carnage. From Riot. From anyone!

The little alien stretched and snapped like a rubber band, lifting up Eddie’s bike with arms that formed out of nothingness, apparently planning to chuck it in the bay to express its anger.

“Not the bike, Vee!”

Venom hesitated, holding the bike aloft over their heads. Sorry. Venom gently lowered the bike back to the ground and then patted it for good measure.

“...Damn, you’re strong for a little thing,” Tony said.

“So, if… uh, you and Venom are good with getting along, I thought we might do another pub crawl? Venom’s quite the connoisseur of tater tots and french fries?”

“Well. I guess any alien that eats fried potatoes can’t be all bad.”

[wowihatewriting]

Peter is really really late for his plane, partly because he didn’t know that TSA would take that long and because he’s a disaster of a human being and is late to absolutely everything. He’s running to what he hopes is the right gate after almost boarding the wrong plane and then having to run all the way across the airport to find to the right one when he sees a familiar set of messy, dark brown curls at the gate across from his. He can’t see the little girl’s face so he passes it off as a coincidence because he knows that Ellie’s at home with Wade for the weekend, but his spidey sense is going wild and would it really hurt to check? No, it wouldn’t, and Peter turns away from his plane-which-is-about-to-take-off.

The girl’s standing next to a sketchy looking guy whose hand is on her shoulder and her body language is making it seem like she definitely doesn’t want to be near this dude, and yeah Peter’s pretty sure something weird is going on even if the girl isn’t Ellie.

He’s almost close enough to be able to take a glance at her face when she turns around really suddenly. And yeah, that’s definitely Ellie and the guy next to her is definitely not Wade, and Peter is absolutely 100% going to step in and stop whatever the hell is happening.

Ellie sees Peter before he has the chance to say anything. Her eyes widen and she looks scared but also really hopeful and relieved and she all but runs towards him, so he crouches down and opens his arms, then hugs her when she flings herself onto him. The man that she was with turned around instantly, looking furious. He starts yelling at Peter and telling him to let go of his daughter, so Peter stands up holding Ellie on his hip.

Peter: “This isn’t your daughter, and you’re in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

Man: “Oh yeah? I have both of our fucking passports and our last names are the same. Give her back before I call security!”

Peter: “That’s funny, because I know her dad and you don’t look like him at all.”

The man tried to grab Ellie, but Peter saw it coming and sidestepped him. At this point, a few security officers have gotten to them and handcuffed the weird man when they saw him try to grab Ellie. Peter explained what had happened, and the security officers lead him and Ellie and the weird man to a different room to sort out the mess. Peter doesn’t get handcuffed and follows willingly, still holding Ellie. The officers believe Peter over the man because Ellie clearly trusts Peter, and they have each of them explain their side of the story separately and Ellie and Peter’s stories match up.

The weird man is being held in the airport’s temporary jail cell while Ellie and Peter are in another room with one the officers. Peter calls Wade.

Peter: “Hey, uh, this is gonna sound weird, but I found Ellie at the airport. I have her safe with me right now in a security guard’s office.”

Wade: “Wait, what the fuck? Is she okay?Why was she at the airport? How-“

Peter: “Hold on, I’ll explain. She seems to be fine, just a little freaked out. Like I said, she’s with me right now, so she’s completely safe. I was at the airport, and I saw her about to board the plane with some stranger, so I went up to them to see what was going on. She ran to me and the guy got angry and said that she was his daughter, so I called bullshit and wouldn’t give her back to him. The security guards stepped in and after some interrogating and what not, the guards threw the guy in a jail cell. Ellie and I are still at the airport, and she can’t leave without a parent and I’m not gonna leave her here, so can you please come pick us up?”

Wade says he’s on his way and frantically asks more questions, then Peter passes the phone to Ellie and she talks to her dad. Wade makes it to the airport in record time and after proving that he’s Ellie’s dad, the three of them go back to Wade’s place, since Peter missed his flight anyway. The airport sends Peter a full refund, which further lightens Peter’s dirt poor heart.

[psychospeak-blog]

Won’t Go Slowly // 36

One // Two  // Three // Four // Five // Six // Seven // Eight // Nine // Ten // Eleven // Twelve // Thirteen // Fourteen // Fifteen // Sixteen // Seventeen // Eighteen // Nineteen// Twenty // Twenty One // Twenty Two // Twenty Three // Twenty Four // Twenty Five // Twenty Six // Twenty Seven // Twenty Eight // Twenty Nine // Thirty // Thirty One // Thirty Two // Thirty Three // Thirty Four // Thirty Five

You almost felt nervous, waiting outside the airport for Tyler to come pick you up, standing there with your suitcase next to you, looking at your phone only for something to do.  Which was funny, because it was only Tyler.  

But everything felt different now, all of a sudden.  

And now you were waiting here, in the dark of the evening, the lights all around you, listening to other people greet their loved ones.  

You were eyeing the bench, thinking maybe you should sit down again, and get off your feet, when you felt a tap on your shoulder and instinctively turned to face the direction of the sensation, only to be wrapped in a big hug.  He felt warm around you, and he smelled clean, like he'd just taken a shower, and you let him hold you, hands on your upper back, and your chin rested on his shoulder.  

"Was your flight okay?" he asked, as he started to pull away.

"Yeah, it was fine," you said, watching as he looked you over, which would seem a little uncomfortable had his eyes not gone right for your belly.  

"Did he behave himself?" Tyler asked, settling just a hand on your belly, and then pressing a kiss on your forehead.  So, the affection was back.  

"Yes," you laughed, rubbing your hand over your belly, and your fingers just brushed against his, and then you were looking up at him, and everything stopped for just a moment and then sped up again.

Tyler cleared his throat, his hand sliding away from you, "Uhm, let me grab your bag for you," he said, reaching around you for your suitcase, and then pulling your purse from your shoulder, as if you couldn't carry it yourself.  You were about to protest when you heard an 'excuse me' from behind you, and both of you turned to see a brunette woman who looked to be in her early to mid 20's.

"Are you Tyler Seguin?"

Tyler looked at you, as if he needed to check with you who he was, and then back to her.  "Yep, hi."

"Hi," she smiled now, "Would you mind taking a picture with me? If that's alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Tyler said, and now you noticed the phone on her hand as they got closer to each other, Tyler going to put his arm around

her.

"Did you want me to take it for you?" You offered.

"That'd be great," she said, opening up the camera app for you.  

You were trying to get them in frame, only to realize that Tyler had your purse tucked in his elbow still, and you weren't entirely sure if this girl wanted his entire arm out of the shot.  You tried not to laugh as you festered to him, and he tucked it behind his back.

"Thanks, babe," he said before smiling, and then she did the same, and you took a couple  of pictures before you handed it back to her to take a look.

"Thank you," she said, smiling happily like it was the best day in her life.

"Yeah, no problem," Tyler said, grabbing your suitcase again as she left.

"I can take my purse," you said. The suitcase was fine too, it was on wheels for God's sake.

"Nope," Tyler said, securing your bag in his hand,nodding towards the parking lot, "this way."

You swore you heard a snicker, before you heard the rolling wheel of your suitcase behind you.  "Oh, you waddle when you walk now," he said.

"Shut up," you said, looking over at him, and he laughed at your reaction.

"You're so cute when you're angry," he said, unlocking the car with one hand, and then throwing your suitcase into the trunk.  You got into the passenger seat and he quickly followed suit, handing you over your purse.

"Can you fit alright?" He asked, as he went to buckle up his seatbelt.

"Tyler!"

"I meant because I had the seat pushed forward for the dogs, not because you're huge," he said, sticking his tongue out slightly.

"Thanks," you said sarcastically, trying to buckle up your own seatbelt, but it was rather difficult to buckle it.  

"Here," Tyler said, taking the buckle from you and pulling it over you, securing it. "It's kind of tricky."

"Is it?" you asked, completely doubtful, because everything was so sleek.

"No, I was just being nice" Tyler laughed, and then glanced at you, pushing a button on his door, and then the next thing you knew you were letting out a little scream, trying to grab onto the door handle as your seat started to move.  He looked over at you, eyebrow raised, biting back a smile on his lips.  "You gonna be alright?"

"You could have warned me, Geez," you said, and he just gave you a funny look.  

"I'm going to start driving now," he said, very clearly and slowly.  "Prepare yourself."

"You're such a jerk," you laughed.

"Yeah, but you love me," he said, the corners of his mouth curving up even as he kept his eyes on the road.  

"I do," you confirmed, but he had no idea just how much.  You needed to distract yourself, so you pulled out your phone, typing away.

"Tired of me already?"  Tyler asked.

"No, I promised my mom, and Danielle, and my sister I'd text them to let them know I was here," you said, "I didn't want to forget."

"Mm..my mom wanted me to text her when you got here, too.  Can you text her, too? Please?"

"Sure," you said, doing so and then slipping your phone back in your purse, shifting in your seat, trying to find a comfortable position for your back.

"You can drive my other car while you're here," Tyler said, "you'll fit better."

"Can you stop saying how big I am?" You laughed.  Literally no one you knew had commented, but he'd already pointed it out three times, and you hadn't even been there half an hour yet.

"But you are," he said, his hand moving over to pat your belly.  "You're supposed to be, it's healthy."

"Keep both hands on the steering wheel," you said, before you could stop yourself.

"Yes, Mom,"  Tyler rolled his eyes, putting his hands to 10 and 2 and adjusting his posture, and you were grimaced, even as he relaxed again, but kept both hands on the wheel.

"Don't called me that."

"Mom?" He asked, and you  shook your head, "You don't like Mom? But you're gonna be a Mom..."

"Yeah, but I don't like you calling me 'Mom'."

"Why?" He asked, and you just shrugged, "So you've been letting me call you 'mama' for months and hated it the whole time?"

"No, I like it when you call me 'mama', just not 'mom'".

"Why?" Tyler laughed under his breath, clearly thinking you were weird.

"I dunno, I guess because  you call your own mom 'Mom'?"

"So what am I supposed to say if I'm talking to your kid? I can't be like, "Go see Y/N", he'll get confused."

"You can say 'Your mom'" you said.

"Your mom," Tyler said under his breath, then looked briefly over his shoulder as he changed lanes. "I was going to bring the dogs to come get you, but the last time I did that, it didn't go well.  They're gonna lose their shit when they see you."

You smiled, resting your head in your hand and leaning against the car door, watching the lights of the cars drive by on the other side of the highway.

"You tired?"

"A little," you said, biting back a yawn.  

"We can just go home and watch T.V. and eat snacks," Tyler said, "I have practice in the morning, but I'll feed the dogs before I go so you can sleep in.  And then, in the afternoon, they've planned a date for you."

"What? The dogs planned a date for me?"

"Yeah, they've had the idea for a couple of weeks now, so you better not stand them up.  You'll break their hearts."

You laughed under your breath, as Tyler pulled into the neighbourhood that was familiar to you now, having been there so many times before.  You shifted, running your hand over your belly, ready to get out of a seated position and lay down properly.  

"Yeah, so I guess I need to get a car seat for this car," he said.

"What? Why?"

"So the baby has somewhere to go when you guys come to visit me next year," he said obviously, "I don't think the car seat you bought will fit."

You barely had time to consider this because, then, you were pulling into his driveway, and getting out the car, Tyler grabbing your suitcase for you, putting his finger to his lips to motion for you to be quiet as he unlocked the door, and you stepped inside.  

"Where are they?" you mouthed, and Tyler shrugged and then started walking throughout the house, motioning for you follow, and then he pointed up towards the bedroom, and you followed him up the stairs.

Gerry walked casually up to Tyler, a toy in his mouth, and then turned his head towards you, doing a double take, and dropping the toy from his mouth, just staring at you.

"Go say hi, dude," Tyler laughed, tapping him on the back, and then Gerry seemed to realize you were really there, taking off in a run towards you and then jumping up onto your legs, his tail wagging and he whimpered excitedly, continuing to jump even as you tried to pet him.  Then, just as suddenly, he launched himself off you, running back into the bedroom, where you could hear him running in circles and barking.  

Tyler started laughing again and then held up his hand towards you, "Stay there."  You frowned in confusion until both Cash and Marshall slinked up to Tyler, like they were just trying to get away from Gerry.  

"Hi guys," you said, and their eyes lit up, and then you were surrounded by fur and wet noses and wagging tails.  "I missed you guys," you cooed, petting them, and then Gerry came running back, trying to push between them, and then you had all three dogs vying for your attention.

"Are you so excited?" Tyler asked, petting them on the back, as it was the only part he could really reach, "Is your Mom here?"

It was hard to hear him over the sound of tails wagging and panting, and this weird excited cry thing Gerry was doing, but you couldn't miss that.  "Did you just call me their mom?" you asked, looking up at Tyler but still petting the dogs. You thought, for sure, when you'd heard him say that after your surgery, you were losing your mind.

"Well, yeah," Tyler said,  taking his hat off his head only to run a hand through his hair, "they listen to you better than they listen to me.  They probably love you more than they love me."

"They do not love me more than you!" You said, even though they were all still crowded around you.

"I don't blame them, I would, too," he said quietly, and then cleared his throat. "Anyways, you need something to eat, or..?"

"Nope," you said.  You hadn't noticed Tyler had brought your suitcase up with him, until he started unzipping it. "What are you doing?"

"Figured you brought this," he said, pulling your pregnancy pillow out and then tossing it onto his bed, taking your suitcase into his closet.  

"You want me to sleep in your bed?" You asked.  

"Yeah."

"Where are you gonna sleep?"

"In my bed," he answered, like you were weird for even asking. You always slept in the guest room, though.  "We've slept in the same bed before."

"Yeah, when you didn't have practice or a game the next day."

"So?"  

"So, I have to get up like four times a night to pee now, and I'm tossing and turning a bunch."

"I don't care," Tyler said, and you gave him a doubtful look, "I'm used to sleeping with three big dogs who don't give a shit whether they wake me up or not.  And it's just easier if you sleep in here, then we can hang out until we fall asleep."

"Okay," you said, sitting down on the foot of the bed and then lifting your legs up, lounging because your body was tired, and the next thing you knew, all of the dogs where jumping onto the bed as well.

"I set out some stuff for you in the bathroom.  If you want to take a bath or whatever." Tyler said, nodding towards the counter, and your eyes lit up a little when you saw the very distinctive Lush bag sitting out.

"You got me bath bombs?"

"Oh, no, those are mine."

"Oh."

"Of course they're for you, you dork," Tyler laughed,  "You want to take a bath now, or you just want to cuddle?"

"Cuddle," you answered, your hands gliding over the dogs that were surrounding you.  

"I'm gonna go get some snacks in case you get hungry," Tyler said, leaving before you could stop him, "leave some room for me."

You slid your body up the bed so you were laying more properly now,  patting the free section by your side. "Cash," you invited, and he walked over to wear you patted, laying down and  you started petting him, watching to give him a little extra attention,  since both his brothers had gotten to stay with you.  Gerry tried to climb over you, but you held him back, patting the area next to your legs.  He didn't look very happy but he laid down, resting his head on your leg, Marshall stretched out along your back.  "Good boys," you said softly, letting your eyes relax as you continued to pet Cash, settling  your hand on his belly.

You hadn't heard Tyler come back until you heard a soft laugh, and looked up to see him at the foot of the bed, his phone held out like he'd just taken a picture.  

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," he said, even though the smile on his face gave him away.

"Tyler," you said firmly, and he laughed, "give me your phone."

He handed it over, still giggling, and then sat on the only spot of bed still open.  You sighed when you saw he had Instagram open and that he had a story posted, so you clicked on that, rolling your eyes at the picture from the windshield of his car, with a 7:23AM time snap.  And then the next one appeared, posted less than a minute ago.

It was a picture, focused in on you curled up around Cash, with text that said "Eats too much" and then two rough arrows drawn, on pointing to Cash and then the other right to your pregnant belly like it wasn't already obvious.  

"Tyler!" You said   "I am pregnant and in your bed,"  It was completely obvious it was his bedroom. And already over 300 people had seen it.

"Yeah, I know."

"So people are going to think you got me pregnant," you said in a harsh whisper.

"Well, I did," Tyler said, and then laughed at your reaction. "I don't care. But you can take it down if you want."

It was over 800 people now.

"That'll just make it worse," you said, and he looked at you questioning, clearly not understanding the ramifications of this.

"Relax, it's just a cute photo," he said, flipping over onto his back.  You barely had time to deal with the thoughts in your mind as you felt the baby wiggle around inside of you, and then Cash's head popped up, his eyes wide, and he started sniffing your  belly where his body had been pressed against it, and you started laughing at his reaction.

"Did the baby just kick?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah."

"Did you feel that, bud?" Tyler laughed, leaning over, one hand brushing your belly as he talked to Cash, "Is that your new friend in there?"

**

The problem was, Tyler refused to tell you where he was taking you.  And he had a whole backpack ready to go, along with the dog's leashes in hand.

"Are you sure this is okay?" You asked, gesturing down at the blue dress you had on.  It was surprising warm, like a nice spring day, and with the extra blood you your body, you were thankful you'd brought dresses.

"Yeah, if you're comfy."

"Okay, but I'm in sandals and I'm almost 8 months pregnant,  Tyler," you said,  "I don't think I can do a hike like this."

"We're not going on a hike," he laughed, slipping his sunglasses on, "you ready?"

You nodded, going to take a step forward but then you froze, taking a deep breath.

"What's wrong?" Tyler asked.

"Nothing."

"You put your hand on your belly, what's wrong?"

"I'm just having Braxton hicks."

"Braxton who? What's that?"

"It's false labour."

"You're going into labour?" Tyler yelled, the leashes dropping from his hand, and all three of the dogs jumped.

"No, no, no, false labour, key word being false."

"What does that mean?" He said.

"It's just, like, your uterus contracts to get ready for when you do go into labour, it's normal," you said, "We can go now."

He looked doubtful, but got you and the dogs all in the car.  He kept glancing at you, which is why he noticed about 10 minutes later when you started breathing more deeply.

"Are you sure you're alright?" He asked.

"Yes, it's been happening for a couple of weeks," you said, "I just got checked at the doctor before I left."

"Should we go home so you can rest though?"

You shook your head,  "It doesn't hurt, it just feels super tight for a second," you said, "it goes away.  I want to know where we're going." You looked at the dogs who were sitting on the backseat, looking out the windows like they knew where they were headed. "Have I been here before?"

"Umm.." Tyler ran his hand over his face, "I think once, when you came down here that summer after I bought the house.  But it was at night."

You were trying to figure it out, especially why he needed to bring a bag with him,

"It's not really that exciting," he warned.

"Well, I wasn't expecting you to plan any activities."

"Well, you should experience Dallas," he said, "you know, take in a Stars game or two while you're here."

You laughed, rolling your eyes and looking out the window, as you rolled up towards a park.  "I've been here?"

"Yeah, we went to some outdoor concert thing, remember?" He asked, and you nodded. Before you could even finish unbuckling your seatbelt, Tyler was over on your side of the car, opening the door and then givingyou his hand like you needed help getting out of the car. He then let the dogs out and put them on their leashes, grabbing his backpack and tossing it over his shoulder.

You still didn't know why he had a damn backpack.

"There's a dog park back here," Tyler said, leading the way, reaching for your hand and tangling his fingers with yours like you'd get lost, holding all three leashes in his other hand, and you could hear stuff moving around in the backpack as he walked.

"This is a really nice park," you said, taking it all in.  It was huge, and the dogs walked in front of Tyler, sniffing in the green grass with their tails wagging.

"Yeah, they've got stuff for kids, and they do yoga classes, and there's outdoor checkers and chess for nerds, " he said, "the dog park has fountains, too, for the dogs to run through."

When you got to  the dog park, there were already several dogs running around, and Tyler let his dogs off their leashes so they could join in.  "Can you watch them for a sec?" He asked, shifting the backpack,  "I need to go do something."

"Do what?"

"It's a surprise," he said, grinning slyly at you, "just don't look behind you."

You laughed, but went to go sit down on the bench in front of you, the dogs running off the play and then circling back around you, although Marshall seemed fairly content just to get head rubs.

After awhile, you felt a head leaning over your shoulder from behind the bench, and then he whistled for the dogs, hooking them back onto their leashes and then he motioned for you to come with him, and you kind of felt your heart skip a beat and you almost gasped when you took in what he'd been working on.

Like, why? Why was he doing this to you?

"It's a picnic?" You asked.  

"Yeah, I know it's kinda lame but.." he said, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, looking like he hadn't done anything at all.

Like he hadn't stretched a blanket out across the grass, a couple of cushions tossed across it.

Like he hadn't set out slices of baguette bread and crackers, little containers of hummus and tapenade, a plate of what looked like different fancy and non-fancy cheeses, olives, and meats like salamis and sliced turkey,  a container of bright red strawberries.

Like his backpack tossed off to the side, he was acting completely casual and non plused.

"It is not lame," you said,  going closer and then he took your hand, helping you sit down on the cushion and then walked to sit next to you, his legs  sticking off the blanket.

He handed you a cup of lemonade and then took one for himself, looking off into the park.  "I thought you'd like to hang out here with the dogs for a bit.  Get out of the house," he said, popping a strawberry in his mouth.

"I would," you smiled.

And so you ate, the dogs walking around you or laying beside you, occasionally bringing a stick over to chew or play tug of war with, or drink the water Tyler had brought for them.  They had their leashes dragging after them as they were apparently supposed to be leashed in this section of the park, but no one seemed to mind.

It was a really nice afternoon.

Once the sun felt like it was going to start to set at any moment, Tyler leaned over towards you.  "Do you want ice cream?"

"Sure?" You said.  You kind of always wanted ice cream.

"Watch them, I'll go get it," he said, "Vanilla with gummy bears,  right?"

"No," you said, and when he raised an eyebrow you explained, "I can have that tonight at home and I like the gummy bears to be frozen."

"You like the gummy bears to be frozen? Okay," he said, clearly judging you, "what kind do you want then?"

"Surprise me?" You asked, looking up at him and smiling.

He nodded, and you kept your eyes on the dogs, calling Gerry back when he tried to follow Tyler.  The dogs were all well behaved for quite awhile until Gerry took off running again and you tried to stand up, squinting into the sun until you saw Tyler coming back towards you,  a tray in one hand, and you relaxed back down.

I didn't, however,  see the toddler in the path between Gerry and Tyler, until he moved out of the glare of the sun.   You opened your mouth to call for Gerry at the same time as Tyler swooped forward, grabbing the toddler's arm, and and steadying as Gerry bumped against the little one's legs, knocking him off balanced.  Your heart slowed down, even as the kid started to cry, and then it sped up as Tyler picked him up, and then handed him off to a parent.

You could see, however, the rage on Tyler's face and the shame on Gerry's face as they walked back to the blanket. "Go lie down," Tyler said in a stern voice, pointing an area on the grass, "that was bad."

Tyler sighed as he sat down beside you, "I swear to God if he knocks over your kid, I'll.."

"You'll what?" You laughed, and a smile broke out across Tyler's face.

"Probably get mad at him for two seconds," he said, "Maybe threaten him with obedience school."

You laughed, and then looked at the writing on the cup of ice cream and laughed even more, "Jeffrey's Ice Cream Palace?"

"Yeah, it's a weird name, but the ice cream is really good," he said, grabbing his cone.

"What did you get me?" You asked as you picked up the cup.  

"Mint chocolate chip and some raspberry vanilla thing."

"Ooh," you said, digging in, and watching Tyler take a bite of his cone.  "What did you get?"

"A swirl cone with chocolate dip and frosted flakes."

"Frosted flakes?" You asked.

"It's my favourite and I don't get to have it often, don't judge," he said, holding it out to you, " Want some?"

You took a bite,  and he raised his eyebrows waiting for your verdict.  "I like mine better," you said, and he laughed, both of you eating your ice cream and you sneaking bites of the vanilla kind to Marshall and Cash.  You would have given some to Gerry too, had he not been next to Tyler, still in his time out spot.

"No wonder you're their favourite," Tyler said when he caught you, and then nodded towards Cash. "He does not need ice cream."

"Yes, he does," you said, giving him another bite and then patting him on the side, "he's muscular. And he has a fluffy coat, it makes him look  bigger than he is."

"Fine," Tyler said, "just know that if you spoil the shit out of my kids that means I get to spoil the shit out of your kid."

"But if you're calling me their mom then I can do whatever I want then," you retorted, and Tyler threw his head back he was laughing do hard.  You started   laughed a little, too, it was that contagious.

You finished with a smile, still looking at him.  "This was really nice, thank you," you said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, his skin feeling warm under your lips, which were cold from the ice cream, and you just barely felt him smile underneath you.

"Don't thank me, thank them," he said, gesturing to  dogs that were laying around you, "It was all their idea.  They wanted to show you off to their dog friends."

[lostwords-found]

Afterimage, pt 30: Black

(Previous: Hair | Next: Together, part 1 | From the top on AO3)

(Note: still the TWEWYtober prompts, I just figured I’d stop labeling the posts as such since it’s. uh. Going to be December in two hours.)

The alley mouth is pitch black. Shiki peers into it dubiously, the lights of the main street shops and streetlamps casting shifting gold and green shadows across her face. "Neku, I don't know."

"It's all right. I promise." Neku doesn't know why he knows that, entirely, but the street's been warning him lately when he's walking into trouble. The other night he was out on a quiet street near the studio, just about to start a quick piece, when a high note pinged at the back of his mind. His spray cans and mask were back in his pack and he was walking away thirty seconds before the police came around the corner.

(Though he's been finding lately that he doesn't always have to worry about the police. The sense of belonging he's felt running up through the soles of his feet seems to be broadcasting off him, somehow; whatever he does, people seem to assume that he's supposed to be doing it. It's weird. He's trying not to rely on it lasting.)

He holds his hand out, and asks: "Trust me?"

And at that question, she doesn' t hesitate, only nods and takes Neku's hand. His cell phone flashlight spills a pool of silver light ahead of them as they step into the alley; he turns the light up to the back wall of a currently-empty building, and Shiki stops, staring.

He kept the web motif he's been playing with lately, though he modified it, the strands connecting and dividing swirls of chaotic color—here a suggestion of an eye, there the outline of a wing, quick jumbled impressions of people and abstract shapes blurring together. It's the biggest thing he's done in years, and he didn't quite trust his newfound invisibility to keep him safe for the time it would take him fussing over the details of a swarm of variegated insects. This was quicker.

But still effective, judging by the look on Shiki's face. "Oh," she murmurs, sounding struck. "Oh, wow. That's beautiful, Neku."

He can't help himself; he beams from ear to ear. There's something in this moment that makes him feel like he really is fifteen again, just from a different vantage point this time: standing here in the dark and looking at the wonder on someone else's face as she stares up at the wall, and knowing: I did that.

He wonders if he ever would have believed it of himself, back then.

She stands and stares and smiles for a long time, still squeezing his hand. Then they turn away, back to the main street.

The thing about street art is it won't last. Neku knows that. It could be gone by tomorrow, it could survive a few weeks, it might make it to the new year at the outside, but it won't last forever.

In the meantime, there's something magical about knowing that even if he can't see it right now, even if only two people in the world know it's there, the black alley behind him hides a world of life and color.

#

Neku thinks maybe Vaugirard approved of the mural, because the day after it goes up he's got an email from a friend of a friend of Eri's who just saw a piece Eri's friend commissioned from Neku back when he first got here, and could they talk?

So they go for coffee, except it turns out it's not just the two of them. By the end of that conversation Neku's been introduced to a couple of reputable gallery owners and an equally reputable agent who all have their eyes on his work. Nobody's made any decisions on anything and Neku's going to have to take a little time to process all this and he's not sure how much time that will be because he's feeling kind of light-headed right now, thanks, but he leaves with several new email addresses and phone numbers in his contact list. This has got to be somebody pulling strings, somewhere, but Neku's… thinking maybe he won't question it.

But there are other things he has to figure out first.

For starters, he's known all along he was going to have to go home to Shibuya eventually, and eventually ends up being ten days after the mural's done. He hasn't quite run out the three months yet, but it's getting close enough, and he thinks… he thinks he's ready.

Shiki and Eri both hug him tightly at the airport, and order him to come back soon. In a moment while Shiki's distracted by a display of touristy advertisements in the entryway, Eri pulls Neku aside, takes a deep breath, and lowers her voice. "Hey. Look, I know…" She bites her lip. "I know there are things I don't know. And I figure they're not my business, or you or Shiki would tell me, so I'm not gonna pry, okay?"

Neku swallows. "Yeah. Thanks." He's not sure what else to say to that.

Her eyes scan his face, searching. "I just want to say, whatever's been going on for you, I hope it gets better. And I know you love Shibuya, but I hope… I hope you know you'll always have other places to go, if you need to."

He nods, words sticking in his throat, and she holds her arms out for another hug, squeezes him tight. Shiki comes back, and it turns into a group hug with the three of them, and finally, reluctantly, he disentangles himself.

Eri's still watching him. "Take care of yourself, Neku. Okay?"

"I'm gonna try," he manages. "I think… I think it's going to go better. I think I got some things figured out while I was here."

And sometimes you've got to walk away whether you want to or not, so he gives them a smile and a final wave, and heads for security.

#

There's something eerie about looking out the window of an airplane at night over the ocean. Neku's not sure why; it's just a black square. But he keeps thinking there should be city lights down there, if he looks hard enough. Keeps going back to look, straining his eyes, for something that's just—not going to happen.

There's probably something to learn, there.

He pulls the shade down over his window, and pulls out a book instead.

#

The flight goes smoothly, gets in on time, and Neku gets back to his apartment building just before midnight. He stands out on the sidewalk under a flickering streetlight, staring up at it.

It's okay. He's going to be okay. He can do this.

The elevator bell dings at the third floor, and he steps off, hauling his suitcase behind him. He stands outside his apartment door and shuts his eyes and just breathes. Lets everything go black for a moment longer, lets himself stay in that place.

It's okay. He's not some kind of Chosen One, and that's… there's still a pang at that thought, sharper now that he's back here than it was in France, but it's all right. He doesn't have to spend the rest of his life tied to something that happened to him a decade ago, when he was a stupid, angry, lost kid. He doesn't have to keep waiting for someone who's never coming back, someone who was barely there to begin with, someone who—the darkness behind his eyes sparks with red and gunshots, and he makes himself back off from that thought and just breathe until everything fades again.

He's going to be okay. He's got some serious prospects, after that cup of coffee; life will go on. Hell, maybe he'll actually start dating, now that he doesn't have to wonder when Joshua's going to get around to turning up again. (Maybe. Though the uncomfortable twist in his stomach makes him think, in a brief rueful burst of self-awareness, that what he's probably actually going to do is find a new set of excuses not to.)

It's time for him to stop staring into the black for things that aren't there, and turn the light on to see what is.

He opens his eyes.

He takes a deep breath and rummages in his pocket for his key. His apartment door unlocks with a quiet click and he pushes it open, automatically reaching for the light switch just inside.

The light's already on.

"Hey there, Neku." Joshua glances up from his seat on the couch and raises a hand in greeting. A crooked grin spreads across his face. "How was Paris?"

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Mental Visitor (Volturi x Reader)

Mental Visitor (Volturi x Reader)

The chill that ran down your spine just as the cold air hit your skin told you that you weren't safe. This was then reinforced by the the tall men dressed in a dark grey and cloaked approaching you, Bella and Edward. The three men spoke borderlining confrontational when you jumped as Alice opened the door behind you with a grin which was quickly washed away when a much younger looking blonde girl dressed in black headed down the hall. Ironically she looked the most threatening and your heart pounded in your chest, which didn't go unnoticed. "Aro sent me to see what is taking so long." The blonde said before turning expecting them to follow and with a push to both Bella and yourself by Alice, you all complied. "Just do as she says..." Alice locks eyes with Bella who turned to look at her with uncertainty. Something told you that you didn't want to look into the blonde girls mind. Some minds looked more welcoming than others and her mind was certainly not welcoming. The disadvantage to your gift was that some were more aware of your presence inside their head than others, it was like poking a bear and no one liked being accompanied in their own mind. You thought about the tall dark haired man behind you. He looked a lot more promising than the blonde girl did.

It felt like zoning out, a daydream and soon you felt like a visitor, or perhaps wearing a costume. That's when you knew it had worked. You were startled, it was like being surrounded by starving lions as they eyed up their next meal. That next meal being Bella. It made your stomach turn, you could feel their hunger but you were so much more aware of how wrong it felt. You didn't time to prod around as you were in an elevator so you immediately focused getting back into your body which you successfully did, just in time for the elevator doors to open.

You knew this was dangerous but you were dangerous. You stated at Aro who openly wondered what to do with both you and Bella with the responses of his brothers to kill you both. You didn't waste anymore time and pushed, your eyes fluttered and suddenly you were no longer staring at Aro but instead watching Edward, Alice and Bella. You heard Aro talk as though it was yourself speaking. You concentrated just as Aro muttered "Felix..." And Edward jumped into action with protest and a full blown fight ensued.

You tried to contain your fear. 'What if they were to change her? That would be a happy ending that would last forever.' Felix yanked Edward to Aro waiting for Aro to pull off Edwards head just as Bella began to protest. 'They must be serious about one another to go through such bother.' It must have been working as Aro seemed to be postponed in the execution as Bella began screaming which got Aro's attention as he raised a hand signalling for Felix to wait. You stayed silent in Aro's head being very cautious and luckily Alice's interuppting sweetened the deal. Both of you would be changed, starting with Bella. You felt relief before you panicked again, Edward and Alice were tugging your body to walk out the door, without you. You panicked and Aro inhaled sharply as Edwards jaw clenched. 'No! No!' You darted out of Aro's head and the doors were closing, a blonde guard stepped in the way of you and your body which was quickly blocked by the door as it shut. You found yourself in his head. His name was Afton and you swallowed hard. Afton felt a sudden unease, and scratched his head slightly before going still. You terrified. You're body was being walked away from you. The further it got, the more difficult it would be to return to it and you couldn't let any of them know you were here, or what you could do. You travelled to Jane's body and felt the Alec's hand securely holding Jane's. It wasn't comfort meant for you but you took it because right now, you needed it more than anything.

Even leaving the throne room, Alec's hand didn't leave Jane's. You had buried yourself in the darkest, furthest place of Jane's mind, huddled into a ball.

"Are they going to be okay?" Bella whispered eyeing your still form. Edward nodded. "I think it's the shock, Bella. We'll get them checked over by Carlisle once we land."

"You've gone quiet, sister. Are you alright?" Alec tilted his head, sitting in front of a crosslegged Jane. "Are you still angry about that human?"

"Yes," Jane said stiffly. "but that isn't bothering me as much as this rather odd feeling I keep getting."

"What feeling?" Alec took Jane's hand.

"I kept feeling rather...stressed for brief moments and I don't know why, like fear."

"You have nothing to be afraid of, Jane." Alec assured her.

She didn't, but you did and you couldn't contain the feeling of panic for a moment clenching your eyes shut. "I know." Jane snapped before shaking her head. "I'm sorry, brother. I'm not sure what has been wrong with me the past few hours. It'll pass."

Your body was back in America, you knew it because the further it got, the worse this crawling feeling got. You didn't feel like yourself anymore, you felt drained and just wanted to cry. It had clearly affected Jane, who after another few hours was alone and lying on her bed. She hadn't done so in decades and acknowledged something was very wrong but insisted it would pass. She was laying curled up on her side.

Your condition had gotten worse since you landed. Alice was slowly walking you to the car after explaining to airport security that you weren't feeling very well after a rough flight and she was taking you home to rest. Edward noted you were still very quiet and that your eyelids had begun to droop as though you were tired. Your steps taken looked more like you were dragging your feet. They tried talking to you but eventually gave in as you looked right through them.

Reunions were cut very short when the Cullen's got home. Edward took Bella home your body was left behind with the Cullen's. Carlisle shone a light in your eyes, your pupils had no response in dilation and you didn't react to any kind of sound. Your eyes were nearly shut, fluttering open briefly for a second. "Are they okay?" Esme looked at Carlisle. Carlisle turned to Esme and shook his head. "No. Alice and Edward were worried that perhaps (Y/N) was in shock or scared but this is purely medical." As though on queue, your body gave out, suddenly slumping bit quickly caught by Carlisle before you could hit the ground.

'Please, help me.' You sobbed feeling completely trapped and weak within Jane's head. You were almost as startled as her when she suddenly sat up in alarm, her eyes darting around the room. She sniffed. She was the only one here. You knew it was a mistake but you didn't care anymore. You knew something had just happened to your body.

"Who's there!?"

'You won't see me. Please, i need your help. I'm stuck and- and I need you to go to America so I can get to my body!'

"Where are you?"

'You need to stop talking, I'm in your head! Say it in your mind! You sound crazy!'

'Are you why I've been feeling strange?'

'Ive been trying to keep out of your way but they took my body back to America and the longer I stay away the worse the situation will get. I can't stay out there for too long.'

'Youre that other human...' Jane's eyes narrowed with accusation.

'Please, please, help me! I promise you'll never see me again if you help me!'

'As delightful as that offer is, I can't just get up and travel to America.'

'Why?'

'First of all, I need to show you to Aro.' Jane smirked before wincing at the sudden horror that you felt. 'No no please!'

'Im one of the most treasured and permanent guards of the Volturi. I have responsibilities and I can't just get up and leave!' Jane ignored your further protests. Aro was excited by Jane's claims which sounded more of a bizarre story of a child than anything else. That was until he took Jane's hand and noticed that she was infact, not alone in her own head. "Oh my..." Aro looked up from Jane's hand.

"I don't understand, their symptoms lead to a coma, but there is no explanation as to why." Carlisle looked at you as you lay on the bed, now connected to different fluids. It had been a few days since you collapsed and he was no closer to finding out what caused your state.

"I told you, I would go in the morning." Jane said very aggravated. "If you ask me one more time, I assure you that you will be returned to your body so I can torture you and then kill you!"

'Im sorry...' you said meekly. 'im just really cold and I don't feel well.'

Jane paused. "because of me?"

'No. It's because I've been so far from my body for too long. It's weird being in here- no offense. It's always alien to be in someone else's head.'

'I imagine so.'

'Can I ask you something?'

'That depends on the question.'

'I wanted to know more about you and your brother...'

'Why?'

'You don't have to answer, I could just use something to keep my mind off this awful feeling.'

Jane sighed after a period of silence. 'We were accused of witch craft and burned at the stake.'

'Woah, why?'

'We were twins, a rarity which were considered witches and as we grew older, it became clear that we weren't normal. We were outcasted from our village. I was attacked by a boy in the woods, one of the children of the village. That was the last straw and then Aro saved us.' You didn't push Jane for the minor details. You were grateful to have been distracted as well as hear her story from her personally.

'You and your brother are very close...'

"Were all we had." Jane confirmed.

'I wish I had a bond like that.'

"Do you have any siblings?"

'No... not many friends either. I never really fit in much. I kind of got used to getting along with everyone but never really making any real connections. It gets rather lonely some times.'

"Yes...I'm lucky I have Alec."

'For what it's worth... I'm sorry that happened to you, you didn't deserve it.'

Jane didn't seem to take your words too kindly. "Shut up."

The twins clearly felt an invasion of privacy as the two sat silently in discomfort, very aware you could hear them.

'What time is it?'

"10:52pm." Jane said quickly. You thanked her before muttering to yourself about keeping it together. "Are you alright?" Jane asked and Alec lifted his head.

'Im fine... just a little light-headed. I'm just gonna...curl up here.'

"Are they okay?" Alec asked and Jane gave him an uncertain look. "What happens if we don't get you back?"

'I don't know and to be honest, I don't want to know.' Jane didn't feel well in that moment and so wanted to keep you distracted and alert. "Tell me, where's your favourite place in the world?" Alec understood what his twin was doing and so added his own input. "Perhaps we've been there?"

Jane heard you chuckle. 'You definitely haven't been there.'

"Well how would you know?" Jane pushed.

'If I tell you, you can't laugh.'

"We won't laugh."

'In all honesty, my favourite place in the world is my bed.'

"You're being funny." Jane deadpanned before turning to face her twin. "They said their favourite place is their bed."

"I don't know if I should be worried but I'm more dumbfounded than anything..." Alec said. "I mean, they were right, we haven't been there."

'hey! If there is a place that treats me better than my own bed then that will be my favourite but until then-!' you huffed.

As the night continued, you were distracted by the awful dull feeling you felt by Jane and Alec who had begun to become more of friends than acquaintances, the ice falling away.

As promised Jane went to America but you had also gone very quiet, she was alone for most of the journey. Jane was greeted by the unnerved Cullen's. Eventually, they believed Jane and let her see you.

Jane looked down at your body. You were softly breathing, your heartbeat stable, but there was no other sign of life, not even the flicker of eye movements behind your eyelids. It was bizarre, dare she say difficult to see you like this when you were so filled with life when talking that night. In all honesty, Jane had grown worried for her little human friend. You had went quiet. she wasn't sure what was happening and could only assume the worst which was being too late. She lightly touched your hand and got no response. A few moments later your lips parted and you took a deeper breath before turn your head to the side. After a few minutes, your eyes opened and greeted Jane with a smile.

[ick25]

Rockman.EXE Episode 46 Review.

In Battle Network universe, curry takes YOU out!

Are you gonna explain how Regal gets Dr. Wily’s robot eye gene or something?

We begin the episode with one of my least favorite characters in this season demanding curry at the restaurant of my least favorite group of villaines. Count Elec is working while complaining about Rush and wondering if the WWW will ever come back. Suddenly, his PET starts to emit a sound with a bright red screen, and we see that the rest of the WWW members also have the same problem.

They are all gathered at the Maha ichiban, with Rush still waiting for his dang curry, trying to figure out what is going on. The PETs then slowly reveal an image of Dr. Wily.

Are we forgeting already that Madoi has sleeves?

After the title card we see that all PETs are connected to a tv where they find out that it is a video recording of Dr.Wily’s will. Wily tells them about a special chip where he engraved his intellect and where to find it.

All of this as the monitor shows the mod code for HP+250 for some reason.

After hearing this the WWW members are amazed and glad that they will finally return, but a certain dog hears them and escapes to alert our heroes.

Another way to make this character useful. I honestly don’t know why they don’t even question Rush, like they already know who he is and what he can do.

We cut to Netto who is happily skating while singing Aki’s cheezy song (very badly BTW) until he is surprised by Rush who suddenly appears in his way. Rush seems to be trying to tell him something, but Netto simple can’t understand him.

Why? She speaks bitch? XD (It’s not a bad word if I’m not using it as an insult)

In the next scene we see the Ex-WWW stealing a helicopter from a local airport by drowning the employees in curry. I also want to point out that Madoi and Count Elec are wearing those weird looking hats from when they were hand gliding in episode 31.

Custom hats for their hair styles?

Madoi reminds them that Gauss might also be interested in finding Wily’s brain chip, before we see him at his company with the family picture we saw in episode 30.

Meanwhile, in Yaito’s secret tree house base, Roll somehow translates what Rush said about the Wily chip, (ignore the weird spacing in the second panel) and for some reason they all think it’s THEIR job to stop them.

Rush demonstrates once again that he can cross between worlds to show them the map to the chip, and right after this, Yaito calls them from a entirely different art style and background just so we can get Yaito’s animation of getting into her private jet Batman style.

It just looks so weird going back and forth between art styles like that. Even the shading is different!

They find the island with no signs of the Ex-WWW anywhere, until Rockman totally jinx it because it turns out they were waiting for them to fly and shoot at them!

Rockman in forth panel: “I hate to be right all the time”

It’s been a while since the WWW tried to MURDER Netto! They literally shoot at them because they knew Netto and Rockman were there!

After blasting them out of the sky, the WWW land on the island were they find a waterfall that, of course, has a jack-in point next to it. This means the waterfall is fake because it dries up once they plug-in to reveal the chip.

Just plug-in, play Wily’s video and no more waterfall. Before they can take the chip though, one of Yaito’s drill cars bursts out of the ground. Yaito, Dekao and Tohru attempt to runaway with the chip only for the drill to stop working leaving them stuck there. Meanwhile, Netto is driving underground in a second drill car.

“Girl please, who’s the main character here? I can find the plot with my eyes closed.”

The loser squad try to defend the chip, in a very poorly way because Mahajarama ends up picking it up easily after Madoi drops it. Hinouken celebrates, but they are all interrupted by a blimp from Gauss that suddenly arrives before cutting to commercials.

We return from commercials with Gauss blasting the WWW helicopter with a laser from his airship.

Yeap, that happend.

Gauss reveals himself and immediately proceeds to insult Madoi.

I like how the camera switches to Madoi dissapearing and then going back to Gauss getting slapped by her. This is officially the second time Madoi slaps him.

Gauss reveals that he is interested in collecting Wily’s chip for his fan girl collection before Netto and Meiru finally burst out of the ground behind the blimp. Gauss then reveals a vital piece of information to eveyone.

Whaaaaa... I’m just kidding, we already knew that.

Turns out Gauss changed the family name to Magnets after their mother died and considers the Count a failure. He offers to take him back on his blimp in return for him handing over the Wily chip. The Count accepts shocking everyone, except for Mahajarama who has fate in him.

Then Meiru comes running at Yaito and the others telling them that Netto is on that ship too.

“Main character!”

Inside the airship, the Count refuses to hand over the chip and challenges Gauss to a Net Battle, but not just any Netbattle, one with the same rules used in his battle against Rockman back in episode 30. 

Were the subs done by the same guys from episode 38? WHAT THE HECK ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?!

Gauss accepts and we then see Netto hiding in a closet where Rockman tells him that he will disable the security so he can sneak around. The electric battle begins with Elecman and Magnetman rushing at eachother as we then cut to Rockman taking out the security Navis with his cutted buster shot.

I’m liking the lighting effects used in this episode.

Elecman attacks Magnetman with his Elec Sword, but the magnetic Navi blows him away. Magnetman attacks with his Mag balls, Elecman tries to avoid them but one of them eventually touches him causing the Count to get shocked by the battle machine.

So gay. 

Anyway, the Count shuts him up after he sends a lightning rod to Elecman to protect him from Magnetman’s attacks and returning the damage to him.

That’s not a real chip, but I don’t care.

Gauss gets angry and Magnetman manhandles Elecman.

This battle is intense! I am personally rooting for Elecman and the Count. I don’t have anything against gay people, I just happen to dislike Gauss, and his Navi Magnetman is very vicious. You can see how Elecman struggles in the battle just for the Count. That is Navi loyalty at its finest!

Meanwhile, we go back to the island where one of Yaito’s maids tells her that their rescue crew has arrived, they can now go get Netto from Gauss’s blimp. Speacking of Netto, we cut to Rockman now in the Heat Guts style burning more security Navis to disable what I guess is a motion sensor.

I think this is the first time we see burn marks left by the Heat Guts attack, it is suppouse to be a flamethrower after all.

Back to the battle, Elecman and Magnetman launch their attacks at the same time. The collission of their attacks for some reason means that both Gauss and the Count get electricuted. During this, a spark runs wild and starts a tiny fire somewhere in the blimp.

Netto finally arrives at the room where they are having their Net Battle and spots Wily’s chip in front of their family picture.

Just wanted to brag my good timing with this shot where Netto sees the Count before hiding.

Magnetman and Elecman are both tired, the fire in the airship starts to expand, the Navis decide to take the other one down with their fists resulting in a double log-out and both operators getting electricuted and falling over.

On the floor, they both talk about the past. Gauss even admits that their mother and him were worried about the Count before she passed away. 

This tender conversation is interrupted by an explotion caused by the growing fire, but there is another surprise for them, Netto attempting to sneak away with the Wily chip behind their backs.

You know, Netto, you could’ve taken advantage of the explotion to run away without them realizing it. 

Netto runs away and plugs out Rockman who was still burning security Navis in the cyberworld with Gauss and Count Elec right behind him.

Rockman deleting the security might have weakend the airships emergency protocals in case of a fire...Wooops. Either that or Gauss’s blimp was poorly designed.

Netto tries to escape from them by running to the roof only to be stopped by the fire.

.........

Only in the original version can you find an openly gay Gauss.

Netto threatens them by throwing the chip overboard, but another explotion causes him to lose balance.

The villains saved the hero?

Of course they did it because they thought he still had the chip. Luckily for Netto, he grabs on to a lose part of the blimp slowly tearing its side and leaving him hanging from it.

Gauss and Count Elec once again start to fight over the chip, and once again an explotion occures making them fall over with the chip sliding pass between them and finally falling off the ship.

LOL, there goes Wily’s brain.

The blimp is slowly falling with Netto getting closer to the water until something saves him from drowning or freezing to death.

Oh no, its the return of the Yaito Mako!

Netto is saved and the blimp ends up crashing into an iceberg while our heroes just watch the bad guys die.

Oh the Elec-Manity! Or Magnet-Manity? o-o

After this we see the Ex-WWW on a boat in front of the iceberg believing that their dear friend died. Of course this isn’t the case because the camera quickly shifts to the Count and Gauss bickering on a block of ice, ending the episode with both of them sneezing.

What do I think?

The beginning was pretty dumb. Netto and friends just trying to stop the Ex-WWW like it was their responsability. I mean, granted, Rockman is the hero that stops their evil plans, but they never got directly involve before. Fighting against the WWW Navis was because they were causing problems to them and the rest of the city, but their operators don’t stand a chance against a group of adults in real life. The cyberworld is where Rockman is superior and is able to stop them, that’s the Battle Network formula, giving kids an advantage over adults.

The best and most important part of the episode was the revelation of Gauss and Count Elec being brothers and the Net Battle between their Navis. If you saw the anime before playing the games like me, this was something we were waiting for after seeing the Count’s family picture in episode 30. The game was pretty vague about this, how were we suppoused to know that the Cout’s real name was Jack? They are never seen interacting with eachother in the games, Gauss’s introduction was the only time where this was mentioned. During the plane hijacking in BN2, Gauss reveals that he came from a very poor family and that his brother Jack was taken in by a wealthy family, making him bitter towards humanity and the reason why he joins Gospel. Here, they both come from a rich family but chose different paths, specially since the Count ran away from home a long time ago.

The reason why there was a mod code in Wily’s video was part of their publicity for BN3, by adding secret codes for the game in the anime. It is very plausible that we will see more secret codes hiding in some of the future episode.