#I could say aliens or near dark but that feels obvious

[borom1r]

HMMMMM i think i need to rewatch Mortuary tomorrow. it’s Bill Paxton’s birthday tmrw……

[starlightkun]

⇢ word count: 20.8k ⇢ warnings: past unethical experimentation, brief blood and gore descriptions (some human and some non-human), you have to accept the premise of a single human empire in space in the future with colonies and a military and not think deeper about that, multiple needle/injection mentions, knife/injury/blood description, main characters are morally gray, and oh yeah cursing ⇢ genre: sci-fi, set in the near-ish future, humans and aliens and robots, black op mission, captain kun, ?????? reader, slow burn, fluff, dash of angst, ft. wayv as the crew of the vision ⇢ extra info: took a lot of obvious inspo for this one from isaac asimov’s robot stories, specifically his concept of positronic brains & the three laws of robotics (and if you’ve read any of his stories, you’ll probably be able to see some other places too) ⇢ series masterlist | prev. | next

“You deserve to know that I’m not entirely human.”

“Is that really how you feel? Inhuman?”

“There are parts of me that are… manufactured. Irrevocably altered. I don’t think I remember how it felt before I was like this.”

The next morning, you were awake early again. You stared into the darkness, listening to Dejun’s breathing. The distant sounds of two voices started getting closer, and you perked up at this. If some of the others were up, you’d be more than happy to join them, see if they needed any help getting breakfast together.

Just as you’d swung your legs over the side of your cot to stand, you heard the distinct sound of your name float in as it sounded like they had stopped right at the campfire. They were keeping their voices low, but it did little to help with the absolute silence all around. You paused, overwhelmed with curiosity.

“I asked Xiao last night, if he thinks Y/N will ever remember.” The first voice was Kun, and you looked at the sleeping doctor in front of you curiously. You could only imagine this conversation happened before you walked into the captain’s tent last night.

“Yeah?” It was Kunhang with him. “What’d he say?”

“He can’t say for sure at this point, since he doesn’t know what caused it.”

“Useful.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Part of me hopes she doesn’t remember.” Kunhang let out a bitter sigh with his words.

“What?” Kun responded, and you imagined that his face was as bewildered as yours was right now. Why wouldn’t Kunhang want you to regain your memories?

“Dude, you saw where we found her.”

“God, yeah. The sort of shit she probably saw.”

“Or did. She’s the only survivor. You don’t exactly get through Hell by being sweet and virtuous.”

Kun’s voice was surprisingly harsh, “We don’t know—”

“Hey, no judgment here. Who knows what she had to do to survive. I wouldn’t want to remember that either.”

“Her hands were clean when we found her.”

“A bit too clean, don’t you think?” A third voice had joined them now, Ten.

“Maybe she hid early, got out before the worst of it.” Kun was still vehemently defending you.

“You think the same person who pulls people out of the way of falling ceiling chunks without thinking is a coward?”

“I’m saying we don’t know anything.”

“And I’m just saying something’s not right about how Y/N ended up in there, Captain.”

“Nothing here is right, Ten. This facility, the experiments, the Skippers, all of it.”

“And you’re letting the only person left who might be responsible for it walk around free.”

“I wouldn’t call being stuck with all of us ‘free.’”

“But it’s not exactly a prisoner’s watch.”

“Because she’s not a prisoner. For all we know they could’ve been experimenting on her—”

“Or she’s part of that vague They we keep referring to.”

There was a moment of tense silence—or at least it sure felt strained to you from inside your tent, you had to imagine it was suffocating out there—before Kun spoke again. “We have no clue what was going on here, and no proof that she did anything. Until we know anything for certain, I’m not going to treat her like a criminal.”

“I’m not saying you have to. Look, I like her too, she seems like a nice person, but maybe—”

A loud yawn came from your roommate’s cot, and the conversation outside suddenly ceased. Dejun sat up slowly, rubbing sleep out of his eye as he let out another forceful yawn.

“Oh, morning, Y/N,” he greeted you, stretching and groaning. “Sleep okay?”

“Yeah, I uh, I just woke up,” you replied awkwardly. A couple minutes could be classified as just, you were pretty sure. “How about you? Sleep okay?”

“Mm, like a baby. You’re a much better bunkmate than Liu. Kid talks in his sleep. Recites code and equations.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a little at the mental image, momentarily distracted from the conversation you’d just been listening to. “That’s rather unfortunate for Ten and Kunhang then.”

Dejun shrugged. “Wong shouldn’t have been such a weirdo, then he might’ve been your roomie.”

He stood up then, groaning as he leaned over to touch his toes, then reached up and fully stretched his arms over his head. “Alright, breakfast?”

Ten and Kunhang had just started on breakfast when you left your tent, and apparently didn’t need any help, so with nothing better left to do and a lot on your mind, you turned down the paths between the fields. The artificial sun had already risen, full daylight around you, making it easy to keep your eyes on the ground under your feet. It wasn’t long until you heard footsteps behind you. You stopped in your tracks and turned to see who it was.

“Don’t tell me I’m late for breakfast again,” you groaned. “I’ve been gone for two minutes.”

“No, you’re not,” Kun informed you, putting his hands in his pockets as he stopped in front of you. “Can I join you? On your walk?”

You put your hands on your hips, suspicious. “Why?”

“Why do I want to walk with you?”

“Yeah. The exit doors are within view of camp.”

“I don’t think you’re trying to escape. If you managed to get out of the facility, your only two options would be a K’llor ship that you don’t know the state of, and our ship that has ZEN on it, who would never let you past the entry bay, much less off the surface. I don’t think you’re that stupid. Are you?”

“No. Glad we’re on the same page.”

“So… was that a no on the walk?”

“You didn’t answer my question, Kun,” you replied frankly. “You’re not as good at that as you think you are.”

“At what? Avoiding?”

“Yes, like you’re doing now. Why do you want to walk with me?”

“You went on a walk with Liu yesterday, did you interrogate him beforehand as well?”

“You’re still not answering my question, you’re just asking me more questions.”

He rubbed his face and sighed. “You know, never mind.”

You let out an incredulous laugh. “Really? You just fold like that?”

“Clearly you want to be alone. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say that. All I did was ask you a simple question that you apparently can’t answer.”

“Ten and Wong are almost done with breakfast, I’d get going on that walk if I were you.”

“Fine.” You held your hands up. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Five minutes wasn’t nearly long enough for your liking, but as promised, you were back at the camp for breakfast. Kun and Dejun were already discussing something when you got back, Ten and Kunhang made you a bit uneasy after the conversation you overheard this morning, so you were pleasantly surprised when the Professor intercepted you, already with two plates of food in his hands.

“Want to eat with me?” He offered. “We can talk about plans for today.”

“Sure, Professor,” you accepted the food from him gratefully.

“I don’t think the notes will be too excessive for you to go through,” he began. “ZEN came equipped with the UHN’s entire language database, including what few Outspacer glyphs they had. My notes are just additions to that gathered during this mission—it’s not my focus language back in academia, so you’re not going to be reviewing years’ worth of research or anything.”

“What is your focus language then? For your xenolinguistics?”

The Professor momentarily looked over your shoulder, then back to you. “Ourogish.”

You tilted your head curiously. “Can you… make all those sounds?”

“I speak with an accent. But it’s passable.”

So they were doing something involving Ourogos and/or the Ourogi. Didn’t help much more, but it was information.

“So any corrections, missing links, anything you can give me and ZEN will be a help,” the Professor continued.

“I mean, I don’t know how good of a teacher I’ll be… I don’t even remember learning it.”

“Don’t worry, ZEN and I are quick learners.”

The other five left right after breakfast, and you were left with the Professor and ZEN. You took the Professor’s tablet that contained all of his notes under the shade of a tree in one of the nearby orchards. Resting your cheek in your palm, you started in on the file that had already been opened for you. You doubted ZEN would let you access anything else that was on here. The AI was projecting himself as a small cube above your knees, slowly bobbing up and down like a buoy in the ocean, but otherwise quiet as you worked.

The Professor, meanwhile, was restless, asking you what you were doing every two minutes, as he did something to the tree you were under, which you could hear by the rustling of branches and leaves.

After the fifth interruption, you finally told him through gritted teeth, “You know, Professor, this would go much faster if you didn’t stop me every two minutes.”

“Right. Sorry!” And he went back to messing with the tree.

A few moments later, he plopped down next to you, breathless, and held a plum out to you. You looked between him and the deep maroon fruit before accepting it.

“You seem off,” he said.

“What?” You mumbled, setting your plum aside.

“You seem off.”

“Do I?”

“Pissed that you have a babysitter?”

“Aren’t you pissed that you got landed with babysitting duty?”

He shrugged, taking a bite of his plum. “I’m a civvie, remember? I’d much rather stick back here and talk about a dead language than go look at a bunch of alien corpses.”

You made a noise of acknowledgment, still combing through his notes on syntax.

“So… What’d you do?”

“What?”

“To get put in time out. What’d you do that you need a babysitter?”

You let out a frustrated sigh, pushing some of your hair back from your face. “I deserve it, I know I do. It’s perfectly reasonable for Kun to stick me in camp all day but—I hate it.”

“Come on, you can tell me.” He nudged you with his elbow. “Us civvies have got to stick together, you know. What’d you do?”

“We were walking through the facility yesterday, and a piece of ceiling came loose. I didn’t even think about it, I just pulled Kun back so it didn’t hit him.”

The Professor burst into laughter, a stray drop of plum juice dribbling down his chin as he coughed through it. He sat forward, hitting himself on the chest with a fist. “Oh my God, that’s really good.”

“What’s so funny about that? I’m a liability, he had every right to leave me here with a babysitter.”

“Well, yes,” he chuckled. “If you’re going to be trying to save the guy in Class-V armor as an unarmored civilian with nothing but a rebreather, that’s a little concerning. But it’s also pretty funny. I bet that’s the first time Captain’s been genuinely surprised in years.”

“I’m glad you can see some humor in the situation.” You put your cheek back in your palm, striking out an error in his notes and starting the correction. “I think I ruined my chances of ever leaving the ag bubble again until you all take me to UHN Main for debriefing.”

“It’s not so bad in here.”

“Yeah, but… everything’s out there. Whoever I am, whatever I’ve done, whatever I wanted to do, whoever I wanted to be, is out there, was out there. And I’m stuck in here grading.”

The Professor was quiet, and for a second you were worried that he was offended at your comparison between his notes and a grade-schooler’s homework until he spoke. “Would it change anything?”

“What?”

“If you remembered? If you found out who you were, what you’ve done, what you wanted to do, who you wanted to be? Would it change anything?”

“How could it not?”

“Would you decide that’s who you are now, just because that’s who you were?”

“I-I mean, it was me. I’m not a different person just because I lost my memory.”

“How do you know? You just said, you don’t know who you were, what you’ve done, what sort of future you wanted for yourself.”

“Well…”

“Y/N, what do you want for your life?”

“To remember what it is. My life.”

“And if you can’t? Right now, what do you to do? What sort of person do you want to be?”

“I-I guess I want to be an okay person. Like, pretty good to the people around me? And, live a life that I like? I don’t know a lot about what I like, but I guess I’d figure that out, and do more of that stuff?”

“That’s good. That’s a pretty good aspiration, actually.”

“Isn’t it kind of boring?”

“A little.” He shrugged. “But maybe, the person you were before you lost your memory, didn’t want that. Maybe you wanted something that you would now consider to be bad. Imagine if the you before this wanted to kick as many puppies as possible before you died.”

“Why—”

“It’s a hypothetical. Do you want to do that, right now?”

“No, of course not.”

“If you found out, right now, that you wanted to do that before you lost your memory, would that change anything? Would you suddenly want to kick puppies?”

You crossed your arms. “No.”

“And do you want to crusade for Universal Peace until the end of your days?”

“That… sounds very tiring.”

“Yes? No?”

“Probably not.”

“So if you found out that the you before you lost your memory was dedicating your life to doing that, would you suddenly want to? Would that change anything?”

You took a deep breath. “No.”

“Obviously, it’s got to suck not remembering friends or family or anything like that. But you’re still a person without those memories, Y/N. You’re still you, just whoever you are now.”

“Thanks, Professor.” You smiled a little, spinning the stylus around in your fingers.

“Now, why did you cross that out?” He pointed to the section you had been absentmindedly correcting. “I could’ve sworn I had gotten that listing function correct.”

“You were close!”

“You completely scribbled it out.”

That night, you were helping Ten and Kunhang prepare dinner again.

“Everything okay, Y/N?” Ten asked as the two of you shucked some corn.

“Yeah, fine,” you answered shortly, tossing a corn husk onto the pile at your feet. “Why?”

“You seem a bit…”

“Off?” You guessed.

“Yeah.”

“That’s what the Professor said earlier.”

“Something happen with the captain?” Kunhang questioned from where he was chopping up ingredients with a pocketknife and plastic container as his cutting board.

You pressed your lips together in a line before replying. “I don’t know. Why are you asking?”

“He uh, he said he was going to join you on your walk this morning. And then came back alone.”

“We had an argument, I guess. It was about nothing.”

“Y/N—”

“No, seriously, it wasn’t anything of substance.” You huffed, grabbing your next cob. “I asked him why he wanted to walk with me, he refused to answer. That’s it.”

There was an odd pause, and you turned your gaze up to see the other two exchanging a look.

Ten spoke next, “Well I’m sure being stuck in the ag bubble with the Professor all day wasn’t fun either.”

“The Professor wasn’t the problem. Sucked being put in timeout. Rightfully so, but it still sucked.” You had finished with your ears of corn, and took them over to Kunhang’s makeshift station.

“So you saved him from getting concussed by falling ceiling with no concern for your own safety, big deal,” Kunhang scoffed, gesturing wildly with both hands as he talked. “If you ask me, that kind of instinct is a good thing. Bit hypocritical for the captain to be punishing you for it anyway.”

Ten watched Kunhang waving the knife around warily. “Careful with that thing, Wong, you’re gonna—”

As Ten was talking, Kunhang had tried to spin the knife around his finger by the handle, but you knew it wasn’t going to be successful, grabbing the spinning blade before it could take his finger off. And before you even realized what you were doing. The action registered in your mind at the same time the sharp edge cutting open your palm did, and you let out a yip of surprise and pain, dropping the knife to the ground.

“—take someone’s eye out.” Ten finished his sentence almost absentmindedly, staring at you with wide eyes.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—” Kunhang cursed as you all watched blood well up in your hand from the cut. “Captain Qian’s going to kill me.”

“Well don’t just stare, go get Xiao!” Ten scolded his teammate, getting to his feet. “Or—fuck! ZEN! Where’s Xiao? Tell him to get over here!”

“Shit, Y/N!” Kunhang was scrambling around for something. “God damn it! Don’t we have paper towels or something?”

“What the hell is going on out here?” Kun emerged from his tent, annoyed gaze quickly flitting over all three of you before zeroing in on your hand and turning hard. He made it over to you in three quick strides, taking your hand by your fingertips to avoid where your blood had started to drip down your forearm to your elbow.

He looked down at the ground, and saw the knife at your feet glinting in the firelight. “What happened?”

Ten took the lead, “Wong was—”

When the captain immediately turned on him, Kunhang quickly jumped to defend himself.

“No, no, listen, I didn’t—Okay, yes, I probably shouldn’t have been trying out tricks with the knife, but Y/N just grabbed it. I didn’t do this to her,” he pleaded with Kun, then look at you desperately. “Y/N, tell him, come on.”

Kun turned back to you, a frank eyebrow raised. You looked between the three of them and nodded. “He’s telling the truth, Kun.”

“Wong, stop doing knife tricks,” Kun ordered sharply.

Kunhang gulped. “Sir, yes sir.”

“ZEN, call off Xiao,” Kun commanded, making the other two exchange a worried look. The captain’s tone was still biting as he addressed the AI again, “Of course not, tell him I’ve got her.”

Then Kun was ushering you towards his tent, and you obliged. The flap had been clipped up when you entered, and you noted that he unhooked it after him, letting it hang closed and unzipped. He nodded towards his own cot for you to sit, and you did so hesitantly, holding your non-injured hand under your elbow to catch the blood that you were now very aware was dripping onto anything under you.

Kun rooted around in a pack at the end of the cot, then pulled up and sat on the container that had served as your seat last night when you administered his injection. He unhooked his canteen from his waist, putting a towel across his knees before he flushed the wound and washed your arm. He patted your arm dry, and grabbed a flashlight from one of his pockets to shine onto your hand to get a closer look at the cut. It was a thin slice across most of your palm, but the majority of it didn’t look too terribly deep at least. More blood rushed to the surface again as he clicked the flashlight off and put it away, grabbing his next materials.

Kun didn’t even need to speak for you to feel the disappointment seeping off of him. He silently pressed a gauze pad to the slice, and you felt both a dull pressure and sharp sting, gritting your teeth against it to avoid making a sound. As he started wrapping bandages around the site, you finally put some kind of words together.

“I don’t know who I used to be, before I lost my memory,” you started quietly, and he flicked his gaze up from your hand to your eyes for a moment before looking back down at his task. “And it’s going to take a while for me to figure out who I am now. Maybe my whole life. But I know that I can’t stand the thought of seeing anybody, any of you, getting hurt if I can do something about it.”

“You’re telling me you’re going to keep doing stuff like this?” He was still meticulously wrapping your palm.

“Yes. And you can keep me in camp, have the other guys babysit me, whatever you need to do for your mission. But I didn’t want to make some promise to you that I know I’m not going to keep.”

Kun sat up straight again, having finished with bandaging your hand. He held your gaze steadily this time. “I suppose I should thank you for your candidness, and not lying to me just to get out of here.”

“Was that you actually thanking me, or…?”

“Let’s make a deal, since I’m not keen on making you a prisoner in the ag bubble for however long we’re here, you’ve proven yourself useful, and I need my crew out there and not on… babysitting duty.”

You perked up at this. “Okay, what are the terms?”

“I assume Xiao has already asked you to give me the injections?”

“He’s mentioned it. I’m not sure why he thinks I’d convince you any better, but you need them, Kun.”

“You can give me the injections every night, no complaining, no skipping. And you can leave the ag bubble with at least one of us. But whenever you do some stupid thing like this, you come get me, okay? I’m the captain, which makes everyone here my responsibility, including you.”

You nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Kun held out a hand, and you eagerly shook it with your non-bandaged one.

“So, I will see you back here after mess then.” He stood, starting to clean up.

“See you then.” You nodded, standing and slipping back out of his tent.

The others had all returned to camp, and Dejun immediately threw his hands up in disbelief as he saw you coming back over.

“What the hell?” He reached for your arm to inspect the bandages. “First I have ZEN telling me you have a medical emergency back at camp, then thirty seconds later he’s telling me there’s direct orders from the captain that I don’t need to come back for your medical emergency because he’s going to take care of it? Did the captain go to med school in the fifteen minutes I was gone?”

“It was just a cut, Dejun,” you reassured him, nevertheless letting him turn over the injured hand. “Clean cut, no debris in the wound, it just needed to be cleaned and bandaged up.”

He rolled his eyes, letting you go. “God, why am I here? Everybody’s a doctor now!”

Mess was a quiet and short affair, and you swore Kunhang scooped out an extra big portion for you tonight. After, everyone tended to their post-mess duties, and you kept an eye on Dejun in your periphery. You weren’t sure how much the others knew about Kun's injections, so you figured intercepting him in your tent to let him know was the safest choice. When Dejun ducked into your tent, you looked at the couple dishes that Ten was still drying and you would then need to put away.

“Hey, uh, I’m sorry, but do you mind if I go ask Dejun for something?” You asked them sheepishly, hoping they wouldn’t have any questions for that extremely vague question.

“Oh, shit, your hand!” Ten looked down at it. “Yeah, of course, I’m sure your endorphins have worn off by now, it must hurt like a bitch. Go, we can finish up.”

You hadn’t really thought much about the dull, persistent pain throughout dinner. Sure, it felt a bit uncomfortable whenever you bent or closed your palm, but that wasn’t really in the forefront of your mind. After all, you having a cut palm right now was much more manageable than Kunhang missing a finger for the rest of his life.

You bit down on your lip, feeling a little bad about misleading them, but then shot them a quick smile. “Thanks, guys.”

Hurrying over to your tent, you barely caught Dejun before he left, nearly toppling him over, in fact.

“Jeez, Y/N, see a ghost?” He stumbled back. He was still in his casual clothes, one of his medic packs around his hips like usual.

“No, sorry, didn’t mean to hit you,” you apologized. “I just wanted to find you before you went to Kun’s tent.”

“Why? Everything okay with your hand?” He asked.

“Huh?” You looked down at your hand, having once again forgotten that it was injured for a moment. “Oh, no, I’m okay—”

“I don’t mean to be abrasive, but can it wait? It usually takes at least fifteen minutes of coercion on a good day before he’ll let me do it. If he even does.”

“That’s why I’m here. Kun agreed to let me give him the injections. Every night, no complaining and no skipping,” you explained, watching as his face turned into a deep frown. “That’ll be okay, right? It’s just med-pods, those are designed for soldiers to use on themselves and each other in the field with no medical training.”

“Yeah, I’ve just been doing it because it’s kind of a weird angle for him to get to on his own, and I couldn’t trust him to do it every night himself.” Dejun slowly unzipped the pack, still with that same look on his face.

“Then… what’s wrong? You look worried.”

“Captain Qian just agreed to let you do the injections? Out of the blue?”

“We did make a deal,” you admitted, watching as he pulled a couple things out of the pack.

Dejun’s eyes shot up to yours as he placed a med-pod and alcohol wipe in your clean hand. “And what was your end? Stop catching flying knives with your bare hands?”

“Not quite… We both know I’ll probably do something like that again, so—”

“House arrest? Can’t leave the ag bubble until the mission is over?”

“When I leave the ag bubble, I have to be with one of you guys.”

Dejun didn’t conceal his unimpressed look very well. He probably wasn’t trying to.

“And when I do something like this again,” you held up your injured hand, “I have to tell him, since he’s responsible for everyone.”

The doctor rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Uh-huh. Go, I don’t want to give snark to the wrong person.”

“What—”

“Go. You need to give the captain his injection, remember?”

“Right. Uh, see you in a bit.” You tucked the materials into your pocket before ducking out of your tent.

The entrance to Kun’s tent was still down and unzipped, and you stopped outside, having learned your lesson last night. Hesitantly, you called out his name instead.

“Come in.”

You quickly parted the flap and slipped inside.

Kun was sitting on his cot already, and when he had appraised that you were alone, you saw his features contort from their usual stoic default to a slight wince. You pulled up the container seat next to him, and gestured for him to lie down.

“How’s your hand?” He asked, staying upright as he reached for your extremity.

“It’s fine, Kun,” you informed him, letting him look over the bandages. “Honestly, I keep forgetting about it, it barely even hurts.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Now come on, your turn.” You took your hand back and pointed insistently at the cot.

He grabbed at his lower back and huffed a little bit as he maneuvered around to lay on his front. You frowned thoughtfully as he pulled up the hem of his shirt for you.

“Is the med-pod as effective as before?” You questioned, opening the disinfectant wipe.

“How do you mean?”

You delicately wiped the area, careful not to touch his skin with your fingers. “Is it wearing off faster? Does it not relieve as much pain as before?”

“I can’t be using up all our supplies.”

“Is that a yes?”

“One is fine.”

“But two would be more effective.”

“I can’t be using twice as many as before. If someone else needs them—”

“The UHN won’t resupply your vessel?”

He sighed. “They will. I’m just—I don’t know. I’m used to scarcity and self-reliance. Must be a Dura-Jil boy thing.”

You lined the med-pod up, and like last night, didn’t give a countdown before pressing the start button. “Is this your first crew?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because you said you’re used to self-reliance. If you’d been a captain for a while, you would have gotten used to relying on others, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah, they are,” he chuckled fondly. “I do rely on them. Or I’m learning to, I guess.”

There was a pause, and as you watched the med-pod drain you felt a sense of urgency, not wanting to waste the opportunity you had in front of you. The conversation you’d heard this morning was still on your mind.

“What if it turns out that I was involved in whatever was going on here? Did horrible stuff…” You asked tentatively. “Then what’ll you do?”

“I don’t think you were,” he replied simply.

“You don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Call it a hunch.”

“I won’t resist, or try to escape. Whatever the UHN wants to do with me, I’ll comply fully,” you declared, quiet but firm in your convictions.

He turned to look at you over his shoulder, brow furrowed. “Why are you talking like you’ve already been put on trial and found guilty? You just said it yourself, we don’t know anything. Either way.”

“Yeah, but we know they weren’t doing good things here… and I’m here.”

“No, we don’t even know what they were doing here. Somebody made sure of that. Besides, you could’ve been scrubbing the floors for all we know. I don’t think you deserve the death sentence for that.”

“I doubt they had people scrubbing the floors…” You pointed out.

“I’m just saying, there’s other reasons you could’ve been here, Y/N.”

“Like… being experimented on.”

“I didn’t want to say anything.” His gaze and his tone softened. “Do you… You don’t remember anything like that, do you?”

“No, I don’t have any episodic memories before meeting you. But that’s what you were thinking, right? That I was either the experimenter or the subject?”

“You weren’t wearing a lab coat when we found you, and you don’t have a neural port.”

“Dejun doesn’t have a neural port, and he’s UHN.”

“We don’t know enough to think anything about anything, okay?”

“ZEN should be finished with synthesizing the Outspacer into his translation program by morning. We can go through the computer tomorrow,” you reiterated yours and the Professor’s report from the pre-mess meeting. “With any luck, there will be employee profiles.”

“And what will you be hoping to find in them?”

“The truth.” The med-pod clicked off then, and you reached out to grab the empty device. “Whatever that is.”

Kun sat up, keeping his eyes on you as you went to stand. Your task was done for the night, so was your time with him.

“Why do you seem so convinced that you were involved?” He questioned, drawing you back into conversation and stopping you from leaving entirely.

“I… know too much, Kun.” You shook your head. “Why do you seem so convinced that I wasn’t?”

“You said it yourself, Y/N. You can’t stand the thought of seeing anybody get hurt if you can do something about it. I find it hard to believe that you’d do something like… whatever what going on here.”

“Dejun said that humans can do really bad stuff if they think they’re doing the right thing. Even to each other. Maybe I just thought it was the right thing.”

“Maybe,” Kun shrugged. “Or maybe you didn’t do anything. What were you two talking about? When he said that.”

“Your skeletal enhancements,” you admitted.

“I see.”

“Do you know how much longer your mission here will be?” You asked. “When can you get your next adjustment? Dejun said it happens at UHN Main, so it’ll be when you drop me off after this, right?”

“No, I don’t know how much longer this mission will take,” he replied. “It depends on what you and ZEN find on that computer tomorrow. And yes, it’ll be at UHN Main.”

“Then ZEN and I will just have to be quick.”

“Don’t rush for my sake,” he warned, an edge to his voice. “We need to make sure we get everything from here. I can wait.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “Fine. But I’m bringing two med-pods tomorrow, and you’re taking both of them, no complaints, no skipping. Understood?”

The corner of his lip twitched as he nodded. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Kun.”

And with that, you left his tent. Back in your own, you gave the med-pod back to Dejun, filling him in on Kun’s condition.

“It’s getting worse,” you told the doctor, keeping your voice hushed. “The medication wears off faster and isn’t as effective. I think he needs two.”

“Damn it…” He sighed, zipping the pack up. “Yeah, start taking two tomorrow. Stupid son of a bitch. I told him not to skip his last tune-up.”

“Do you have any idea how much longer he can go without one before… it gets worse?”

“No.” Dejun informed you shortly, running a hand through his hair. “No clue. This is the longest he’s missed one before.”

“Oh no…”

“Yeah. Like I said, stupid son of a bitch.”

“This mission… He really believes it’s that important? More than him? Than his health?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “The program he was in… Let’s say he didn’t just get some skeletal enhancements and cool armor. You should ask him about it.”

You were quiet, and Dejun plopped himself back down onto his cot. You silently put yourself to bed, staring up at the ceiling of the tent listlessly as Dejun put out the lamp, plunging you into the darkness of night.

Resting your cheek in the palm of your injured hand, you tapped the edge of the keyboard with your fingernail anxiously as you waited. ZEN had to break off another fragment with his new Outspacer translation update, then join those two fragments together once plugged into the computer. And of course, the fragment(s) in the computer were asynchronous with the one in the crew’s HUDs and the Professor’s tablet, so there was no way for you to get an update from the ZEN that could actually vocalize anything. The computer had no microphone or speakers that you could see, only the keyboard, mouse, and monitor in front of you. You couldn’t even see the end of where the wires led, the actual computer itself. ZEN was plugged into a docking station at the base of the monitor.

The entire crew was in the robotics lab. Some milling around behind where you were sat at the computer, a couple others looking at the defunct robots in the side room.

Yangyang walked up behind you, one of the schematics books in his hands again.

“I didn’t know you were ambidextrous,” he commented conversationally, his eyes on the pages.

“What?” You looked up at him questioningly.

“Your hand,” he gestured to the bandaged one, “You caught the knife with that one, but you’re using the computer with the other. I don’t think my first instinct would be to catch a flying knife with my non-dominant hand. Well, it wouldn’t be to catch it all, but still.”

You looked down at your hand that was hovering over the mouse. “Oh. I don’t know, I guess.”

“What do you make of this?” He pointed to a drawing.

“It… looks like a hand. A prosthetic?”

“There’s no indication of anything mechanical, why’d you jump to prosthetic?”

“You found it in a robotics lab. I didn’t think they’d be doing anatomy practice for fun.”

“Robot-people…” Ten muttered under his breath.

A small window popped up in the bottom right of the right then, a chat box.

ZEN: I’m ready.

Y/N: How are we dividing this?

ZEN: I can review data without interrupting you.

Y/N: I’ll start in the first folder, you start at the last, we’ll work our way towards the middle?

ZEN: I’ll let you know if I find anything of interest.

Clicking into the first folder, ‘Robotics,’ you skimmed through the subfolder options. They were mainly named with seemingly incomprehensible codes, combinations of glyphs and numbers that made no sense. You randomly clicked into the first one anyway, and were presented with more subfolders. These were simply labeled in trial phases and sub-phases: Phase 0.1, 0.1.2, 1.0, 1.3, 1.5, 2.0.3. You again clicked on the very first one, 0.1, and were greeted with nothing. It was empty, not a single file to actually review. You clicked back out and selected the next one, 0.1.2. Empty again. Narrowing your eyes at the display, you clicked on 1.0, hoping that they had just maybe moved all of those into the succeeding phase. Nothing.

Letting out a huff, you clicked back into the chat window.

Y/N: ZEN, do any of the folders I’m looking in actually have anything?

ZEN: No.

Y/N: In the entire Robotics folder?

ZEN: No data.

You groaned, going back out to the main menu.

“What?” Kun questioned as you clicked into ‘Synthetic Biology.’

“That folder was purged. It’s just empty subfolders,” you informed them with a sigh.

“What were the subfolders?” Yangyang asked with interest.

“The main branches were just random glyphs? And then each main folder had even more subfolders with phases.”

“Must have been project names. Maybe serial numbers?” The roboticist suggested. “Can you go back?”

You did as he asked. “Now what?”

“Just read the first one for me? The individual glyphs, not as a sentence.”

“Blue, red, add, inside-of, twelve hundred. As in the time, not one-thousand and two hundred.”

“Noon?”

“Well, yeah,” you nodded. “But I figure everyone used twenty-four-hour time around here, right?”

“What are you thinking, kid?” Kunhang asked knowingly.

“Assuming it’s meant to be read as noon, translated back out and using only the first letters… B-R-A-I-N. Brain.”

The Professor lit up at this. “A code within a code! What’s the next one?”

You read it off, “Cube, add, sun, inside-of, noon, green. Casing?”

“Positronic brain casing. Like the sketch!” Yangyang practically ran to get the other sketchbook. “That must have had the actually specs and computer modeling of it. These sketches are just conceptual.”

“It’s a robotics lab, it’s not a surprise that they would’ve had positronic brains here,” Dejun pointed out frankly.

“Keep going, Y/N, he hates fun,” Yangyang urged you on, the Professor right on your other side with his tablet.

You read out all of the glyphs, every so often needing input from the others to find a more colloquial synonym in standard human that would actually make a real word. By the time that you were done with all of the folders, ZEN had popped up in your chat window again.

ZEN: I believe I may have found something of interest.

Y/N: Can you display it?

ZEN: Certainly.

And seemingly on its own, the computer went into the Facility folder, then into one of the subfolders. Before you could even begin to work through the nonsense Outspacer code, ZEN had already translated it for you.

ZEN: Employee files, by department. The personnel files themselves are no longer in here, but the comms directory survived.

“ZEN found something,” you announced to the others. “Employee directory. He says the actual personnel files are gone, but the comms directory is here.”

“So we’ve got a partial list of who was here,” Kun surmised. “Whoever had their own extension, at least.”

ZEN brought it up for you, and you skimmed through the names quickly, looking only for one. When you got to the end, however, despite not having seen your own name there, you still couldn’t let out the breath you were holding. This was only a partial list, after all. You could’ve just as easily worked here and not had an extension on the comms directory.

“Are those… pager numbers?” Dejun asked, leaning in over your shoulder to squint at the screen suspiciously. “On the second page. The first page are all three-digit comms extensions, presumably department heads and general-use areas, but this looks like a list of individual pager numbers.”

“They don’t look different than any old phone numbers, why would they be pager numbers?” Kun asked.

“Well, cell phones are entirely outdated with interstellar travel, but in the medical field, we still use pagers for quick communication within facilities. It doesn’t get clogged up with everything that’s in a HUD, they’re a cheap and efficient way to get short bursts of information from person-to-person. Medical facilities will usually set up their own short-range tower that’s only used by pagers issued by that facility to providers,” he explained. “The only thing on this planet is this facility, pagers solve intra-facility communication issues, and prevent anything from being sent out. Nowadays, ships don’t have receivers to pick up this kind of signal, if they even got close enough. They’d only be able to send messages from pager-to-pager here.”

“Everyone can talk to each other, but can’t send information to outsiders,” the captain paraphrased.

“Hold on a second,” Kunhang announced before abruptly leaving the room.

Everyone watched the door after him in confusion, occasionally looking around to see if anybody else was going to do something. You assumed the others who still had their helmets on could see what he was doing in their HUDs, as a couple let out noises of disgust, then a few moments later Kunhang burst through the door. He was triumphantly holding up a small grey rectangle, no bigger than the palm of his hand.

“Here!” He thrust it out towards Dejun. “Is this a pager?”

“I could’ve told you that without you pulling it off a dead body…” The doctor sighed, removing his own helmet before taking the small device into his hands anyway. As he turned it over, you saw several dark splotches on it. “Yes, this is a pager. They probably gave one to everyone working here.”

Your eyes quickly went back to the screen, to reread the list more closely this time. Nothing, again.

You went back to the chat window.

Y/N: Have you found anything else? We got stuck back in Robotics.

ZEN: No data in Synthetic Biology, Administrative, and Support. Facility still has files in it.

Y/N: What else is in there besides the directory?

ZEN: Maintenance history, blueprints of the entire facility, emergency protocols.

Y/N: What sorts of emergencies?

ZEN: Fire, severe surface weather, emergent stratospheric weather, alien invasion, human invasion. I can’t translate the final one.

Y/N: Pull it up.

With the first page of the mystery emergency protocol on the screen, you immediately realized that this gibberish must be in the code again, and went back to read the title again.

“Sun, cube, red, under, blue, blue, inside-of, noon, green. Scrubbing?” You squinted at the screen. “There’s no way this is a cleaning manual…”

Y/N: Scrubbing? Does that make sense with the rest of the document?

ZEN: It does not contain instructions for cleaning.

Y/N: What is in it?

ZEN: I do not believe I was equipped with many of these glyphs, and my algorithm is having trouble extrapolating reasonable suggestions for them without enough contextual words.

Y/N: You really just have a bunch of grammar and mostly food vocabulary, not a full dictionary. It’s okay, I’ll skim.

“You’re typing a lot,” Yangyang observed. “Is scrubbing good? Bad? What’s happening?”

“ZEN found the emergency protocols. There’s the usual stuff, though the addition of a ‘human invasion’ protocol at this human research facility is rather interesting,” you informed the others, scrolling to the next page of the document. “There’s one that he couldn’t translate the name of, though. He doesn’t have enough vocabulary to make any sense of the inside, either.”

“Scrubbing,” Kunhang determined. “And you said it’s not for cleaning? Maybe it’s like a hazmat thing?”

“No…” You shook your head, looking over just the headers. “This is definitely about… computers? Wait, and fire….?”

“Data,” Kun interrupted. “It’s about purging all classified data from a facility, digital and physical. That’s what scrubbing is.”

You all looked at each other knowingly. It was Kun who said what everyone was thinking, however.

“The Skippers interrupted the facility before they could finish scrubbing. The question is why they started the scrub in the first place.”

“It says here only two people can order a… scrub.” You read off the protocol stiltedly. “The… Sorry, give me a second.”

“Are you okay?” Kun had made his way to the front of the group, next to the chair you were in.

You pushed the heel of your palm against the space between your brows, squeezing your eyes shut. “Yeah, fine. It keeps switching back and forth between normal Outspacer and that code, it’s giving me a headache to read.”

“They probably used the code whenever there wasn’t a good Outspacer approximate for the word they wanted to use,” the Professor suggested, his voice rising with excitement. “It’s like… a pidgin of Outspacer and standard human with sneaky intelligence code thrown in. God, this is so fascinating!”

“Can ZEN or the Professor do the code?” Kun grabbed your shoulder, gently turning you away from the computer.

“I’d love to take a crack at it!” The Professor rubbed his hands together excitedly.

You let Kun usher you to your feet, and the Professor hurriedly took your seat. Dejun met you and Kun at the back of the group, a frown on his features.

“How’s the pain? Same kind as before?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah, same pressure,” you confirmed, still holding your head. “Not as bad, though.”

“I keep telling you and everyone else that you need to let your brain rest. And what do you do? Teach an AI a dead alien language, decode ciphers in said dead alien language…”

“Right. Sorry…”

“You can’t give her anything?” Kun questioned. “At least for the headache? She’ll rest tomorrow.”

“I’m fine,” you insisted. “It’s already going away. Save your supplies.”

“Y/N—”

“I don’t really have anything for minor bumps on me,” Dejun interrupted before Kun could escalate your bickering. “That’s back on the Vision. Just took the essentials down.”

“Admiral!” The Professor yelled out enthusiastically. “Only the Admiral, and the… Research Director can order a scrub.”

“Is that all it says? Just Admiral? Not Rear Admiral, or Vice Admiral, or Fleet Admiral?” Kun questioned.

“The Admiral, or an Admiral?” You added.

The Professor looked back at the screen as if double-checking his work. “Definitely the Admiral. I’m assuming that would be whichever one was overseeing this facility? Doesn’t give a name. And it’s just Admiral. But there’s two kinds of scrubs, actually. A partial and a full scrub.”

“What’s the point of a partial scrub?” Ten asked. “Why would you destroy only some confidential stuff, but not all of it? Isn’t the point to leave nothing behind?”

“Don’t know, but the partial scrub protocol only has them spare one thing.”

“Must be pretty damn important,” Kunhang commented. “What is it? A port-drive or something?”

“I doubt many of the personnel here had neural ports,” Dejun said. “They were scientists. I’ve only seen a couple on bodies since we’ve been here, and they were clearly soldiers.”

“Well? Does it say?” Yangyang prompted the Professor.

“Yeah, but it’s about as helpful as ‘Admiral’ was,” he sighed. “‘Proof of concept.’ A partial scrub preserves the proof of concept, with some of its own security protocols in place.”

“Proof of what concept? We don’t even know what they were trying to do here,” Dejun scoffed, rubbing a hand over his face.

Yangyang seemed interested again, though. “The proof of concept has its own security protocols? Is there any indicator if they’re internal or external? Like if it’s locked up somewhere, or if it might be… programmed into the proof itself?”

“No, it doesn’t say,” the Professor answered.

“What are you thinking, Liu?” Kun prompted the younger man.

“If it’s some kind of… robot, then they could program whatever security protocols they needed into it to make it secure for this partial scrub, without completely destroying all their years of work. But if it was… biological, it would probably need some kind of external security to not only prevent the wrong people from finding it, but also stop it from uh, escaping…”

“And what if it was a person-robot?” Ten replied.

The roboticist shook his head. “They just say proof of concept. That’s usually not anywhere close to the final product. I can’t imagine they actually made a person-robot, whatever that entails. After all, the ag bubble was still set for humans when we got here. And proofs of concept aren’t meant to be a fleshed-out prototype of the final product, either. They’re just supposed to test one or two functions of it and be thrown away after.”

“But this one was worth risking a security breach over,” Kun pinched the bridge of his nose. “Professor, in the full scrub protocol, does it say when the proof would be destroyed? First? Last?”

“Uhm…” He went back to the screen, scrolling and squinting at it for a moment before answering. “First.”

That garnered a few groans from the soldiers around you, but you saw the Professor suddenly perk up as he continued through the document.

“What is it?” You asked. “Something else?”

“That’s not the only difference between a partial and full scrub. The order’s different. I guess since a full scrub is a little more scorched-Earth and a partial scrub has to leave at least some kind of either digital or physical infrastructure for the proof… I think we can figure out if they were doing a partial or full scrub before the Skippers got here.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There’s a lot of things that happen simultaneously, Robotics destroying digital data while SynthBio destroys physical specimens…” The Professor hummed as he continued skimming. “But in a full scrub, the entire facility would be burned at once. In a partial, they only have directions to burn certain areas: the two labs, the Research Director’s office, places like that.”

“So there’s no individual fires in the full scrub?” Kun clarified. “It would all go up at once?”

“Yeah, just one big boom at the end.”

You all looked at each other knowingly, then at Kun expectantly.

“So they were doing a partial scrub,” he declared. “Which means we need to find that proof of concept.”

“We don’t know what it could even be, what it looks like, if it’s physical or digital,” Ten pointed out.

“It’s the best lead we’ve got. Has anybody seen anything out of the ordinary?”

“Uh… Everything?” Kunhang said pointedly.

“Very helpful, Wong, thank you,” the captain retorted. “Come on, guys, anything?”

“Was there anything in that safe room with Y/N?” Yangyang offered. “When you found her? Only survivor… might’ve taken the proof into the safe room with her.”

Kun immediately shot it down, “No.”

“Wong?” Ten focused on the other Marine. “You might’ve had a better… perspective than the captain. You see anything in there?”

“I don’t remember seeing anything, no,” he shook his head. “But it can’t hurt looking a second time. We’re going to have to search the entire place anyway, right, Captain?”

“Yeah, top to bottom,” Kun confirmed shortly. “Again.”

“Yippee…” Ten grumbled.

“But I want that entire document translated first, and for us to finish going through all of the files,” he added sternly. “We need to know everything we can about what we’ll even be looking for before we searching.”

“ZEN and I will get right on it,” the Professor nodded.

“And the rest of us are just going to… watch him read?” Kunhang asked.

Kun took his helmet off and set it down on a nearby counter. “Afternoon off. Congrats, don’t kill yourselves.”

The others started celebrating, Kunhang, Ten, and Yangyang already launching into discussions of what they’d do with the free time as they headed towards the exit. They stopped at the door as they seemed to notice that you, Kun, and Dejun hadn’t moved.

“Hey, you guys coming?” Kunhang called out. “I don’t think the Professor needs you three watching over his shoulder.”

“I figured I’d stay, in case he needed any help,” you admitted.

“No,” Kun shook his head. “You’re going to rest. Doctor’s orders, remember?”

“I won’t be the one translating, just in case he hits a snag with a glyph or something,” you argued.

“He’s got ZEN. Two of him, technically. If he really needs you, he’ll let those at the ag bubble know and you can come back.”

You let up with a huff. “Fine. Are you coming then, Kun? You haven’t reached for your helmet.”

“I will.”

“So you get to stay but I don’t?”

“Yes. Because Xiao hasn’t said I need to rest my injured brain.”

“But you—” You bit your tongue before you could bring up his enhancements. He raised his eyebrows almost in a challenge, and you simply narrowed your eyes at him. “I will come looking for you if you’re not back at the ag bubble in an hour.”

“I get a whole hour? How gracious.”

As you went to join the other guys by the door, you saw that Dejun was still in the same place. “Dejun, come on, not you too?”

“I’ll be there in less than an hour, swear it. Just need to talk to the captain about something,” your tentmate reassured you. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“Stop worrying about them, Y/N,” Yangyang ushered you towards the door. “I told you, Xiao hates fun, and the captain’s a workaholic.”

“The river’s fine for swimming, right?” Kunhang questioned, pulling the door open.

“We’ve been drinking from it, I would hope so,” Ten snorted, following after him.

“No, I mean, there’s nothing living it, right?”

“If there was, don’t you think we would’ve had a smoked salmon dinner at this point?” Ten and Wong’s voices faded away as the door closed behind the four of them, leaving just the Professor, the two ZEN fragments, Xiao, and the captain.

“What do you need, Xiao?” The captain questioned, leaning against a countertop.

The Professor was utterly locked into his task at the moment, and Captain Qian was used to seeing the civvie in such a state. Practically impossible to disturb, even by his own normal bodily needs—sleep, food, hygiene, it would all go to the wayside if he was allowed. So really, it felt like it was just him and Xiao. And ZEN, of course, but the AI’s constant presence was an unspoken fact of their lives at this point, so ingrained that he accepted that there was pretty much no privacy from ZEN at the end of the day, only from the other humans aboard the mission. Which was interesting as to why Xiao had picked this moment to get such privacy.

“Your deal, with Y/N,” Xiao began frankly.

“What about it? I’m getting the injections, figured you’d be thrilled,” the captain replied with a tilted head.

“I’m trying to figure out what you actually get out of it, Captain,” the lieutenant wagged a finger at him. “Because Y/N gets to give you your injections, which was a concern of hers, not yours; she gets to leave the ag bubble; and you didn’t even make her promise not to catch knives with her bare hands anymore.”

“She does stuff like that without thinking, it would’ve been pointless to make her promise not to do it anymore.”

“Which makes her a liability, Captain.”

“She’s an asset,” Captain Qian retorted.

“Because she can read Outspacer? She’s already taught ZEN and the Professor,” Xiao gestured to the man still at the computer pointedly.

“They’re not fluent.”

“Barely. And anything they don’t know, they can bring back to her. Like you just suggested.”

After the Professor, Xiao was the team member that the captain had known for the longest, he could tell that the doctor was slowly circling his actual argument. “What is your point, Xiao?”

“Is she really more of an asset than a liability?”

“I can’t afford to have one of you on babysitting duty every day.”

“We can switch out. Morning and afternoon shifts.”

The captain arched an eyebrow curiously as he studied the other man. “I figured you would’ve been one of the last people to be doing this. I thought you liked Y/N.”

“I do, which is why I don’t want her to do something worse than cut her palm,” Xiao sighed.

“I don’t either, but she told me quite plainly that she won’t stop.”

Xiao looked like he was about to pull his hair out. “Captain, a civilian tells you in no uncertain terms that they will endanger themselves and your mission, and you strike a deal to continue letting them?”

“She’s not… It was a judgment call, Xiao,” he declared sharply.

“And I’m still thinking about what you get out of the deal…” The doctor was pacing now, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Whenever she gets hurt, she has to go to you?”

Captain Qian shifted in place, stretching out his neck and crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m the Captain, you’re all my responsibility—”

“Injured people are my responsibility. What do you get out of patching up a civvie every time she hurts herself?” Xiao scoffed.

“I need to know how often she’s—”

“You like her,” Xiao breathed out in realization, coming to a stop.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the only way for that stupid deal to make sense. You actually like her as a person instead of her just being some civvie that’s in the way of the mission. So she can leave the ag bubble, but you still want one of us with her for protection. And when she does stupid things—which you’re smiling about right now, you like that about her—” Xiao pointed to the faint smile on the captain’s face victoriously, “—you want to personally make sure she’s okay after.”

The captain had regained control of his features, staring at his teammate neutrally. “Are you done?”

“No denial?”

“I’m not going to engage with your baseless speculation,” Captain Qian replied, his voice sounding unnaturally tight. “So if that’s all, then you can go.”

“Didn’t really sound like a no to me.” The doctor was grinning now.

“That would imply that your theory was something worth denying. Which I’ve already established, it isn’t.”

“Oh my god, you’re an awful liar, Captain,” Xiao peered at him, delight on his own features. “At least about this, because I know you’re way better on missions.”

“Since you’ve forced my hand…” he sighed, Xiao leaning forward to listen eagerly. “You’re dismissed. Formally. Officially. Goodbye.”

Xiao chuckled as he hoisted his own helmet back up and onto his head, meandering towards the exit. “Alright, alright. See you in a few, Captain.”

And that just left him, the ZENs, and the Professor. The captain rubbed his face with exasperation, turning his focus back towards the computer screen. The utter silence that he had been hoping for was short-lived, however.

“So… Y/N, huh?” The Professor asked, and despite the fact that his back was still to him, Captain Qian could hear the grin in his voice.

“Aren’t you supposed to be translating?” He snapped.

“I can multi-task.”

“And be slower than if you didn’t. So focus.”

You were sat by the riverside, dangling your feet into the cool water as Ten, Kunhang, and Yangyang all swam around. Dejun had come back some time ago, alone, and was sitting next to you as he continued reading On the Ethics of Robotics. You were straining your ears as you listened for the sound of the door of the ag bubble to open, occasionally looking over your shoulder at it.

“He’ll be here, Y/N,” Dejun stated after the fourth time you had glanced at the door. He hadn’t looked up from the text, but apparently could read your mind.

“It’s been fifty-two minutes,” you replied derisively. “According to Yangyang, he’s a workaholic, and according to you, he’s a stubborn, bad patient. Excuse me for doubting that he’ll be eagerly participating in taking an afternoon off. Especially when some of his crew is still working.”

“That’s all true. But you forgot one crucial part.”

“And what is that?”

Dejun flipped a page. “He told you he would.”

“He said he’d be here, at some point in time. I’m the one who put the hour-limit on him, which he didn’t exactly agree to.”

“And yet, he didn’t tell you no, either.” Your companion said, the corner of his mouth twitching, as if he found something amusing. You doubted there was anything in that treatise that was exceptionally humorous. “He’ll be here, Y/N.”

“Can I ask what you needed to talk to him about?”

“You can ask. But that’s a different question than if I’ll answer.”

“I just… wanted to know if it’s about—” You looked at the other three, thoroughly engrossed with trying to splash and dunk each other in ways that were definitely unfair to poor Yangyang, who lacked anywhere near the same combat experience that Ten and Kunhang had. You leaned over to whisper to Dejun, “—the enhancements. If he’s okay.”

Dejun let out a chuckle, as if any of this were funny. “No, it wasn’t about that. He’s quite alright.”

You were able to relax a little with this confirmation. “Okay. Thank you.”

“How’s your hand, by the way?”

“Oh, it’s fine. I don’t even think about it,” you said, flexing your injured palm. “Doesn’t hurt.”

“Good. You should ask Captain Qian to change your bandage tonight.”

You looked at the doctor next to you with confusion. “Why…? But you’re… You were just ranting about how you’re the doctor here, not him.”

“Like you said, it’s just a cut. Don’t need an MD to change a bandage. Captain’s perfectly capable for something like that.”

“I suppose. But what’s with the change of heart of all of a sudden?”

“I have a feeling he’ll want to check on you personally, even if I were to change your bandage now. No point in changing it just for him to reapply a fresh one in a couple more hours anyway.”

It was then that you heard the front door to the ag bubble open, and you snapped your head around to look. You immediately recognized Kun by his gait, before he even took his helmet off.

“Fifty-four minutes…” You muttered to yourself.

“Told you,” Dejun said in a sing-song voice.

You continued watching as Kun disappeared into his tent, zipping it shut behind him. After a couple minutes, he reemerged, out of his armor and in his usual casual clothes. Instead of joining you and the others by the riverside, you frowned as you watched him take off on the trails between the crops, in the opposite direction from you all.

With a frown, you scrambled to your feet, giving the doctor a distracted goodbye as you went off after Kun. It didn’t take you very long to catch up to him as you cut through the grass as you made a beeline towards him.

“Hey,” you called out when you got close enough to him.

“Hey,” he replied over his shoulder, not slowing down or stopping for you.

“What are you doing?”

“Going on a walk.”

“Can I— Can I walk with you?”

He abruptly stopped and pivoted on his heel, turning to you curiously. You skidded to a stop in front of him.

“Why do you want to?” He questioned.

“So you don’t have to answer that question, but I do?”

“Just curious.” He shrugged, then jerked his head in invitation before he started walking again. “I won’t make you answer. It would be a bit hypocritical of me.”

“So how’s it going? The translation?” You easily kept up with his much more meandering pace now.

“The Professor seemed to be enjoying himself.”

“Anything useful? About what the proof of concept is? Or otherwise?”

“Not that he said. But he’s not very talkative when he gets like that.”

“Oh, okay.”

After a few moments of silence, Kun spoke again, “I’m sorry about this morning. It was… I had no good reason to not answer your perfectly reasonable question. I was just caught off-guard. I shouldn’t have been so abrasive about it.”

“Well, thank you. For apologizing.”

“The truth is, I don’t know why I wanted to walk with you. It wasn’t any sort of suspicion, I just saw you going and wanted to go with you. Nothing more.”

“Oh.” You looked down at your feet, once again struggling to not let it immediately go to your head. “I can understand that. When I saw you start walking, I wanted to go too.”

He smiled in just the slightest. “And here we are.”

“Would you mind telling me more about Dura-Jil?” You asked hesitantly.

“Why are you so curious about Dura-Jil?”

“I suppose… I’m curious about you. And where you came from,” you admitted quietly. “And you talk about it so fondly, it’s nice to see you not stressing about what’s going on right now.”

“You know, this really isn’t fair,” he shook his head with a chuckle. “You can ask me all sorts of stuff, but you never have to tell me any embarrassing childhood stories.”

“I didn’t ask specifically for embarrassing ones!” You protested. “And I would tell you if I could remember!”

“That’s okay, I’ll supply the nostalgia for now.” Kun looked up ahead, eyes seemingly focused on one area in particular. “We had to get all of our food imported from Earth. We had no farms, no ag bubbles, nothing. That was the first thing smuggled in, really. Food. Specialty stuff, higher-quality stuff than what was usually imported. I still remember the first time I had a strawberry.”

It was then that you saw what he was looking at, a strawberry field that was growing closer and closer.

“I… don’t remember ever having a strawberry,” you stated. “How old were you? The first time you had a strawberry?”

“The actual fruit, nine or ten. I’m pretty sure we’d gotten our hands on strawberry jam before that, though.” He stopped at the edge of the field, the plants nearby all dotted with bright red fruit. “My mom tried growing her own plant from some of the seeds, but as soon as she had to move the seedling outdoors, the climate froze it dead.”

Kun deftly plucked a handful of strawberries off the plant, and offered the gleaming rubies out towards you. You accepted one, then he took one into his other hand by the leaves, bringing it up to his mouth. You followed his lead, taking a bite. The bright, tart, sweetness was a pleasant surprise, and you decided that you quite liked strawberries, too.

“Ooh, that’s good,” Kun commented, dropping the uneaten leaves back onto the soil. “My dad built my mom a greenhouse, a small one, in our backyard. Took a little figuring out, but she could finally garden.”

“That’s really sweet of him,” you said, taking another strawberry as it was offered to you.

“Yeah, whenever I think about what love is, I think about that.”

You bit into the strawberry, looking at him curiously as he took another handful of strawberries off the plant. “How often are you contemplating what love is?”

He once again held his hand out for you to pick from first, then grabbed one of his own. “Comes and goes. Not often, as of late.”

“Been focused on the mission?”

“Trying.”

At that cryptic answer, you decided to try another question, “Do your parents still live on Dura-Jil?”

Kun once again dropped his discarded leaves into the soil, this time nudging some dirt over them with the toe of his boot. “They’re dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You bit your lip, wanting to kick yourself.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know.”

“For that, yes. But I’m also just… sorry. For your loss.”

“Even if you don’t get your memories back, I’ll make sure we do everything we can to get you back to… whoever’s missing you. Your family, your friends,” he said strongly, clasping his hands behind his back.

You looked up ahead, at the far end of the strawberry patch. “What if… What if it turns out that I don’t have anyone? That nobody’s waiting for me?”

“There will be somebody,” Kun assured you. “People like you don’t disappear unnoticed.”

“People like me?” You echoed curiously.

He started down the trail again, and you followed. “I didn’t see your name, on the directory.”

“So you were looking too,” you sighed, accepting the change in topic. It was something that had been nagging at you as well.

“You almost sound disappointed.”

“I just want answers. Good or bad,” you groaned. “All we know is that I didn’t have a personal comms extension, and didn’t have a pager.”

“Xiao said they would’ve given every employee a pager,” he reminded you gently.

“All we have is a lack of evidence of me being an employee. That doesn’t equal proof that I was… something else.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think we’re ever going to find proof of anything.”

“That’s my fear as well.”

“With no intent to stress your brain… Nothing feels any more familiar than the first day?”

“No. I mean, there’s the stuff I remember from, you know, the past few days. But nothing feels even vaguely familiar. No déjà vu, nothing.” You inhaled deeply. “I either know something or I don’t. There’s no grey area.”

“That must be terrifying.”

“I was shook up that first day, yeah. But right now I’m less concerned with the past and more with the future. You know, what I’m going to do from here.”

“I told you, we’ll help you.”

“I know, you said the UHN has programs—”

“No, we’ll help you, Y/N. We’re not going to just to abandon you as soon as we get back to Earth. Not until we know you’re good.”

“Thanks, Kun.” You offered him a genuine smile. “I… I guess I’m just worried about what to do. Who I want to be. I don’t really know if you guys can help much with that. I think that part’s on me.”

“Do you think you know everything about me and the kind of person I am?”

“Uhm, no?”

“You’ve only known yourself for as long as you’ve known me. You can’t expect to know exactly who you are yet. Or anytime soon.”

“Thank you.” You watched as Kun rolled out one of his shoulders uncomfortably, clearly trying to readjust something in his back. You furrowed your brows with concern; it seemed as though the injection from last night was starting to wear off. “How’s the pain?”

“Manageable,” he replied briskly, face relaxing again. But you knew it was practiced, rehearsed—a cover.

“Kun.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I wish you’d be kinder to yourself,” you sighed. “Honestly, this tough guy thing you think you have to do, it’s just… pathetic.”

He slowed your walk to a stop, eyes widened minutely as he blinked at you. “You really think I’m pathetic?”

“A soldier who won’t ask for help when they need it isn’t brave, they’re reckless and stupid,” you said frankly. “And yes, I think this entire charade you do when you’re hurting is pathetic. Pain has never made anyone stronger, healing it does. I don’t know if you think it’ll make you look weak to your crew, or that you don’t deserve to feel better, or if it’s something else—but you don’t have to do all this around me.”

There was a stretch of silence as he took a steady inhale, and you met his gaze unwaveringly. Kun looked down at the ground, then back up at you. There was a slight wince on his face, and you were unsure if it was from pain, shame, or perhaps both. “Do you mind if we sat? My back…”

“Of course, Kun.” You nodded, letting him lead the way over to a grassy patch under a tree in a nearby orchard.

Kun let out a soft but noticeable, appreciative groan as he sat down. Looking up above you two, you spotted oranges among the green foliage along the branches.

“Do you know why there’s no clouds?” He questioned. “In the ag bubble? It’s a pocket dimension; I figure between the plants and the river, the water cycle should still be working.”

“Well there’s no Sun, so that’s a big piece of the water cycle missing,” you pointed out humorously. “Ag bubbles carefully regulate the atmosphere, including the water vapor. Since the fields self-water depending on the needs on the individual crops, it’d be a little inconvenient for it to also rain.”

“And it’s a perfect, mild spring day every day.”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “It is.”

“I know the guys are glad to stretch their legs without getting shot at. The Vision is a bit cramped, and we’re only off it for missions.”

“Sounds like an eventful deployment so far.”

“Very.”

You looked over at Kun leaning back against the trunk, his eyes closed for a moment. A soft breeze kicked up a few strands of his dark brown hair. You didn’t think you’d even seen him so relaxed, and you found yourself strangely happy that he felt like he could rest like this around you, even if it was partially coerced.

“Why did you join the UHN?” You asked, unable to contain your curiosity about him as usual.

“Hm?” He made a questioning noise, raising his eyebrows without opening his eyes.

“Why did you leave Dura-Jil and join the UHN?”

“Wanted to help Earth and humanity. Stars in my eyes, you know?”

You tilted your head curiously. “People from the colonies aren’t exceptionally fond of Earth. Especially those who had never even been there, and especially ones from Dura-Jil. Why would you want to fight for a planet you had never seen?”

He chuckled, and you got the distinct feeling that you weren’t in on the joke. “I—” He cut himself off, eyes opening as he sat up straight, gaze landing sharply on a spot in the distance as he seemed to be listening for something you couldn’t hear. “Okay. Yeah, got it, Professor. We’ll see you in a few.”

“Is everything okay?” You questioned, watching as Kun went to stand.

“The Professor and ZEN have hit a snag in the translation. It’s too much to bring back on the tablet, so come on, we’re heading back out.”

You stood as well, but didn’t follow him as he turned to go. He stopped and turned back to look at you, but whatever question he was about to ask you got cut short as he twisted in such a way that made him wince.

“You should rest, Kun.” You crossed your arms. “One of the others can go with me.”

He took a deep breath, then nodded. “See if Xiao can go. The others were swimming, it’ll take them longer to get back into their armor.”

“Got it. You go rest. I’ll bring you mess along with the med-pods tonight.”

“I can’t be lazing in my tent all day and have food delivered to me,” he snorted. “The crew will think I’m on my deathbed.”

“You could tell them what’s going on. Would that be the heat death of the Universe?”

“No, but—”

“If one of your crew was injured, would you want them to be doing what you’re doing right now? Leaving you in the dark? Refusing rest and treatment?” You asked steadily. “Or would you call them an idiot and send them to their tent?”

“You’ve called me pathetic and an idiot in less than ten minutes, you know?”

“I’ll call you a pathetic idiot if that’ll convince you to go lay down.”

Kun’s eyes crinkled as he laughed, hard. When he’d caught his breath, he held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll go rest for a bit.”

The two of you finally started walking back towards the camp, soon coming upon the others still hanging out by the water. Kun lifted a hand in farewell to you and casual greeting to his crew as he kept walking, and you watched him until he eventually disappeared into his tent.

“Y/N!” Kunhang called from the water.

“Yeah?” You replied, not bothering to sit or get comfortable.

“What was so funny?” He paddled closer to the edge you were standing at. “We’ve never heard the captain laugh like that.”

“Oh, uh, I called him a pathetic idiot,” you said with a shrug.

Everyone’s heads whipped around to look at you. Ten then turned a mischievous grin on Yangyang. “You’ve got to try that.”

“My parents paid good money for braces for me as a kid, I’m not going to disrespect their investment,��� Yangyang retorted.

As the three in the water began bickering and teasing and taunting each other again, you turned your focus down to the doctor still on the shore. “Professor and ZEN need some help. You mind going with me, Dejun?”

“Sure.” Dejun snapped his book shut. “Give me a second to put my armor back on. Then you can tell me how you got away with insulting the captain to his face.”

That night, everyone was back at camp. The Professor was still messing around with a few series of glyphs on his tablet that he wanted to try on his own before letting you reveal the translation to him. The document on scrubbing was fully translated, and the ZEN fragment in the facility computer would continue going through the remaining files through the night. The scrubbing procedures didn’t really have any extra clues about the proof of concept that you could decipher, but it was worth a shot.

As the Professor tried out the glyphs, Yangyang and Dejun seemed to be discussing the book that the doctor had been borrowing from the younger man, as Dejun held it in his hand and they had a rather impassioned conversation in one corner of camp. You, Ten, and Kunhang were cooking dinner. And by that, you mean Ten and Kunhang were cooking dinner and you were watching them, as they had officially banned you from being near sharp objects while your hand healed. And you noticed that Ten was the one cutting ingredients tonight, not Kunhang.

“So why is there no meat here?” Kunhang asked you. “Ag bubbles can keep livestock too. Why not here?”

“I… don’t know,” you confessed. “I mean, technically ag bubbles don’t need to have livestock, since the crops can be modified to meet all nutritional requirements without the need for meat. Preference?”

“You think the Research Director was a vegan or something?”

Ten snorted incredulously as soon as the words were out of his teammate’s mouth. “Anybody who can do… whatever the hell what happening here also being a vegan would be painfully ironic.”

You felt a pit grow in your stomach as you remembered the conversation you’d overheard just yesterday morning. Impulsively, you looked down at your own hands, as if expecting to see them literally covered in blood, any sort of evidence of the sins they think you might have committed. You must have committed.

“How’s your hand?” Ten asked, clearly having seen the motion.

“It’s fine,” you brushed it off, putting both your appendages down and looking back up at the two Marines. “Do you guys think I worked here?”

Kunhang at least seemed a bit taken aback by the question, looking at Ten awkwardly for some kind of cue, as his buddy raised an eyebrow at you curiously.

“Do you think you worked here?”

“I-I don’t know. Nothing’s familiar.”

“We don’t have any proof you did anything, Y/N,” Ten said plainly. “All we know is that you were here when we got here. You’re not wearing a lab coat, you don’t have a neural port, you apparently didn’t have a pager.”

Kunhang picked up from Ten’s implicit conclusion, “You’ve been pretty cool since we found you. I think if you did work here, you’d be a lot more stuck up. Never met a UHN scientist without a bit of an ego.”

“And by ego, you mean God complex.”

“That too.”

You smiled faintly at their assessment. “Thanks. I don’t know how much of this is me or the amnesia, but…”

“It’s you now,” Ten shrugged.

“Soup’s on!” Kunhang suddenly announced to the entire camp.

As servings started being passed out to everyone who had swarmed the station, you accepted one as it was handed to you, then there was one dish left. The others looked around with confusion, realizing exactly who was missing as all their gazes turned in the direction of Kun’s tent.

“Is the captain… napping?” Kunhang hazarded a guess.

“No way that man takes naps,” Yangyang shook his head furiously. “Maybe he didn’t hear you? ZEN? Did you accidentally isolate his comms?” And almost immediately, followed it up with, “Oh my god, of course, my bad, I’m sorry. You would never make a mistake like that, you’re in Kunhang’s neural port, you know exactly who he wants to be talking to.”

“Is he okay?” The Professor asked aloud as well, presumably to ZEN, the only one of you who would have real-time information on that sort of thing. “Oh. Well should we… go get him?”

You picked up the extra bowl. “I’ve got it.”

Without another word, you headed off towards Kun’s tent. The front flap was down, but unzipped, and you stopped just outside to call out to him.

“Kun? Can I come in?” You requested.

“Yeah.” Came his short reply.

You ducked your head as you stepped in, careful to shield the food from the tarp as you entered. You had already grabbed the disinfecting wipe two med-pods from Dejun before starting the food prep with Ten and Kunhang, so you wouldn’t need to duck back out for those. Kun was laying on his back on his cot, which you were honestly surprised about. He started slowly sitting up as you approached, and once he seemed settled, you handed his food to him, then pulled up your usual container seat.

“Thank you,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“Did you actually stay in here the whole time?” You inquired, picking up your first bite on your utensil. “While I was gone?”

“I felt like I was going crazy, but yes.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle. “You should borrow Yangyang’s book next. Dejun seems to be enjoying it.”

“His robotics textbook?” Kun clarified doubtfully.

“It’s on roboethics. And what else are you going to do?”

“Good point.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But hopefully, I won’t have civvie-mandated bed rest again and need entertainment.”

“Depends on how you do with two med-pods, and how soon you get tuned up.” You pointed your utensil at him accusatorily. “You should rest while you can. You’ll be useless to your crew if you’re in even worse shape somewhere more dangerous than here.”

“Noted. So you, ZEN, and the Professor are almost done with the scrubbing protocol?”

“Technically, we’re done. But it was so close to mess that the Professor asked if I could let him try some of the last sections by himself tonight before giving him the real translation in the morning.”

“Anything useful for searching for the proof of concept?”

“Not that I could tell,” you sighed. “It just kept talking about preserving it, nothing about if that was in a physical location, or digital. And Yangyang said that a proof of concept could be proving any tiny facet of the final product, so we have no clue what this thing could be. Could be a single circuit for all we know.”

“It’d be something groundbreaking. Something worth risking a security breach.”

“And what does groundbreaking look like, exactly?”

“Yeah, that’s the problem, huh?”

“Mm-hm.” You had finished your food, and set it aside as Kun had a couple more bites left of his. “I think the organic material that Dejun found will be interesting, once he can analyze it on the Vision.”

“If there’s enough,” Kun added, also putting his empty plate down.

You started reaching into your pockets for your supplies, “Lie down.”

He reached for your bandaged hand. “Let me see your hand.”

You held it away from him. “Your injections—”

“I’m not avoiding,” he promised. “I’ll take care of you, then you can take care of me, okay?”

After a beat, you relented. “Alright.”

Kun began unwrapping the bandages as precisely as he had wound them in the first place, slowly revealing the gauze underneath. He left that as he reached over to grab his canteen, preparing to rinse the cut again. As he peeled the gauze off, you saw his eyes widen as you felt your own take it in as well. The gauze itself was stained with dark red blood, but your skin was fully mended, no open wound, no scabbing, not even a scar.

“What the fuck?” He breathed out, pure bewilderment in his tone.

You weren’t sure what to say, well aware that wasn’t supposed to happen. “Uh—”

“Wiggle your fingers,” he instructed, and you did so. “Does that hurt?”

“No.” It felt normal, no pain, no residual issues from having a knife go into the skin and muscle.

“Make a fist.”

You curled your fingers into a loose fist, then a tighter one when you realized it didn’t hurt.

“That hurt?” Kun asked again.

“No.”

He took your hand, pressing one of his thumbs into your previously-injured palm, hard. “That?”

“Nothing. It… It feels fine.”

He let you go, still looking down at your hand that you were hovering in between the two of you, unsure. “Maybe you’re part-Phaser?”

“My eyes aren’t silver, are they?” You moved your gaze up to his questioningly. “I feel like you guys would’ve mentioned that…”

“No, they’re not.” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s like… your great-grandma was a Phaser or something.”

“…I don’t know.”

“I’m going to wrap this up again,” Kun declared, grabbing a fresh piece of gauze and bandage.

“Why?”

His brow was set, face serious and tone level as he addressed you, “This is between us, do you understand?”

“I… Okay.” You nodded, swallowing down all your questions, most of which Kun couldn’t even answer. “Thank you.”

After Kun had finished bandaging up your perfectly fine palm, he dutifully laid back down, this time on his front, for you to administer the first of the med-pods. As you disinfected the injection site, you once again felt a strange sense of urgency to talk to him as much as you could, ask him as many questions as possible while you had this uninterrupted, strangely personal-feeling time with him.

“Do you like me?”

Kun immediately shot up to his elbows, and you could see the muscles in his back tense with the movement then stay tensed. “ZEN, stop eavesdropping.” A moment later, he looked upwards as he rolled his eyes at nothing. “Yeah, I know you’re in my neural port, don’t make me take you out of there. I said blackout my mic, including to you.”

You looked at him with mild alarm. You’d never been entirely alone with any crew member of the Vision, you knew that ZEN was always there, and knowing that it now really was just you and Kun only added to the odd feeling of intimacy you had about the situation.

He now turned his focus to you, looking at you over his shoulder. “Excuse me?”

“Like, as a person?” You tacked on some clarification. “I’m still trying to figure out who I am, and the others have said stuff like that—”

“Like what, exactly?”

“That they like having me around, or consider me a friend of some sort. I don’t know, I’m trying to figure out if I’m likeable.”

“Word of advice, Y/N.” He settled back down. “Don’t try to define yourself by how other people think of you. It’s never going to end well.”

“I’ll… take that under advisement, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” You positioned the first med pod.

“Does it matter?”

“Not for that, no.”

“For something else?”

You clicked the button, beginning the first injection. “Your refusal to answer is rather frustrating.”

“Your insistence that I answer is fascinating.”

“I’m getting a strange sense of déjà vu right now…” You snorted, thinking about your pointless little argument over him wanting to walk with you.

“You questioned my motives for wanting to walk with you, I’m questioning yours for asking me that question. Is that unfair?”

“I only know six people. Seven including ZEN,” you pointed out frankly. “So excuse me for maybe being a little nervous about whether or not those six people dislike me.”

He paused for too long to be comfortable before answering. “No, I don’t dislike you.”

“Not an affirmative.”

“Y/N, you’re afraid that I’m being polite? That I’ve just been tolerating you this whole time?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Do I seem like a man who would waste so much of my time on niceties?”

“Well… no.”

“There you go. Seven out of seven, congrats,” he said dryly.

“ZEN likes me?” You couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you took the now-empty med pod off his back and grabbed the next one.

“He can’t hear us right now, but if he could, he’d agree with me.”

“Thanks, Kun.”

“I don’t know what that says for your general likeability that all of us like you, though.”

“That’s alright. You’re the only seven people I know.”

The next morning, everyone split up to look for the proof of concept. Just as you’d thought, the rest of the manual had given no more clues to its whereabouts, form, or purpose, and ZEN hadn’t found any new information in the computer to assist you either.

You were with Kun and Ten in the employee quarters, searching every nook and cranny you could for anything that seemed to be of importance. Either a fair amount of stuff had already been removed, or the employees didn’t have very many personal belongings to begin with. Often, you could only tell if someone had been living in a room if something was slightly askew, a bedsheet out of place, desk chair not pushed in all the way, lamp light left on. There was no personal memorabilia like pictures or knickknacks in any of the rooms you searched through, and you wondered to yourself if they had no family to bring a picture of, or if they couldn’t for some reason. The barren, muted grey walls were discouraging, but you still kept a secondary search going in the back of your mind, waiting to see if anything would spark some familiarity. If you could find your own quarters, maybe.

As you looked under someone’s bed, Kun went through the small dresser, and Ten rummaged around in their desk. The staff sergeant let out an incredulous noise, making you look over at him as he held up a small paperback book for you and Kun to see.

“Frankenstein,” he announced. “Bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

“Do you not like robots, Ten?” You asked curiously as he tossed the book onto the desk and went back to searching.

“Robots are fine, AI is fine. I don’t like the idea of people-robots,” he clarified. “I like all of those things—robots, AI, humans—to be very distinct from each other. Instead of worrying about turning into Victor Frankenstein, I think humanity should be worrying about turning into Icarus.”

“Icarus?”

“Old myth from an ancient Earth civilization. Icarus was a human who had wax wings built for him. He flew too close to the Sun, they melted, and he fell into the sea and died. It’s a lesson about hubris.”

“Unless they hollowed out the book to hide something in there, I don’t really care,” Kun interrupted sternly.

“No, I’ve got nothing,” Ten responded.

“Me too,” you sighed, standing back up.

“Next room, then,” Kun declared with little fanfare.

At camp that afternoon, the three teams had comparable results: Nothing. No proof of concept, or anything more interesting than the random book Ten had found.

The Professor, Yangyang, and ZEN were finishing up the secondary task you all had for today, marking off the dead employees from the comms directory, and the rest of you started on your evening chores.

“Done!” The Professor announced, drawing in the rest of the crew to gather around. “And uh, Y/N isn’t the only survivor.”

Nervous murmurs erupted around you, and you started at the Professor with wide eyes.

“W-Who?” You stammered out, your mind racing immediately.

“The Research Director, Dr. Yoon. He’s not here. Everyone else on the directory is accounted for, and we have no unidentified humans.”

“What do we know about him?” Ten addressed the group as a whole.

“Not much,” Yangyang spoke up. “Civilian only on technicality. He’s worked for the UHN for the past 40 years as a researcher. Everything else on him is classified since ZEN’s fragment has a lower clearance by default.”

“If he was here, then whatever he was doing was much worse than the rumors,” Kun interjected coarsely, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You know this guy?” The roboticist asked him, clearly surprised.

“Heard of him. At the UHN from other officers. I thought he was… retired. I suppose a guy like that couldn’t ever retire, though.”

“UHN probably told everyone he retired so they could send him out here for this super secret, super illegal experiment,” Ten suggested.

“Yeah, probably,” Kun agreed, his voice still short as his face didn’t lose the troubled look that had overtaken it since the Professor stood up.

“Don’t feel too bad, Captain, you probably weren’t even a Lieutenant back then, and it would’ve been need to know. Way above your head at the time,” Kunhang said, going to pat him on the shoulder, but one hard gaze from the captain stopped his hand in midair.

“We’re done here,” Kun declared, stepping back from the group.

“Alright, cool, before we break, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Kunhang questioned.

“I mean we’re done here. On Aegeum. We’ve gotten everything we need. Be ready to leave the surface after mess tomorrow morning,” he turned away sharply.

Ten called after him, “Wait, Cap—”

“Dismissed.” Kun tossed back over his shoulder, taking off from camp with a fast stride.

“And he’s gone.” Ten sighed, then looked around at all of you, who were equally dumbfounded. “What the hell?”

You were still watching after Kun’s quickly retreating figure as the others erupted into uncertain chatter. Some were still discussing the other survivor, while others were elatedly discussing finally getting off of Aegeum and where they’d go next.

“Sorry, excuse me, guys,” you excused yourself hastily, rushing off in the direction you saw Kun go.

You found him by the river, on a rockier patch of shoreline. He threw a rock at an angle towards the water, the stone immediately breaking the surface and sinking. The captain silently picked up another, casting it harshly into the river.

You stopped a fair distance away as you hesitantly called out, “Kun?”

“Yes?” He didn’t look back at you, just picked up another rock.

“Do you want to be alone?”

Another throw, plop, and sink. “You can stay.”

“Thanks.” You approached, keeping some space between you. “Who is Dr. Yoon, really?”

He turned over the rock in his hand before sharply throwing it at the water, creating a spray around it as it violently broke the surface on its way under. “He was the head of the program I was put in, at the UHN.”

“With the skeletal enhancements.”

“I thought he was dead. He was supposed to be dead.”

“How… did he supposedly die?”

“Skipper raid on the facility he was working at. Entire building was destroyed. No survivors.” He stated, though his voice was hard. “Or so I thought. I should’ve known the Devil wouldn’t have gone like that.”

“But somehow he ended up here.”

“Yeah…” He replied bitterly. Grabbing another stone, he motioned you closer. “Come here.”

“Huh?” You stayed in place as you tried to comprehend the sudden shift in conversation.

“I’m going to teach you how to skip a rock.”

“No offense, but you haven’t actually skipped a single rock while we’ve been standing here.”

“Trust me.”

“How do you know I don’t already know how to skip a rock?”

“How do you know that you do?” He replied with an eyebrow arched.

“…Alright, teach me how to skip rocks,” you relented, stepping towards him.

Kun stood behind you as you took the rock in your own hand.

“Okay, so first, you want to hold it like this.” He used both of his hands to readjust the positioning of your hand and fingers on the stone. “And you’ve got to stand like this.” He made some minute corrections to the alignment of your shoulders, hips, and arm holding the rock. Then, his hand was wrapping around the back of yours that held the rock, gently guiding it through a demonstration of the throw arc. “And you want to kind of swing, flick, release it out there, and follow through.”

“And are all of your rock skipping lessons this… interactive?” You questioned, turning your head towards the side where he was looking over your shoulder.

“Are you going to do it?” He asked, returning your slight teasing tone.

You wound your arm back, then did just as he’d shown you, swing, flick, release, and follow through. The rock skipped across the surface three times before sinking.

“Huh. You’re a pretty good teacher, Kun.”

“And here you were just questioning my methods.”

“Not their efficacy, just how often you implement them.” You looked back at him again, where he hadn’t moved from his instructional position. You hadn’t been close to the captain like this before, but you didn’t really mind.

“You’re a special case,” he murmured, meeting your gaze steadily. You found yourself holding your breath, watching as his eyes flicked down, then he suddenly stepped back.

Your back felt oddly cool as you turned to face him. Scrambling for another topic, you found yourself thinking about what else he had said at the very short status meeting. “So tomorrow we leave.”

“I want you to stay with us,” he said, taking you by surprise. “We don’t know enough about what was going on here, and with Dr. Yoon in the wind… We can’t—I can’t just leave you on Earth alone.”

“We’ve never known what was going on here, and you had never mentioned not taking me to UHN Main,” you pointed out calmly. “It’s Dr. Yoon, isn’t it?”

“The program I was in wasn’t just some skeletal enhancements and nice armor,” he admitted, sitting in the neighboring grass just a couple steps away.

“What else…?” You followed, sitting down next to him.

“I left Dura-Jil when I was fifteen, for the program.”

“You can’t enlist until you’re eighteen.”

“Didn’t enlist, I was selected, along with a bunch of others.” He said the word ‘selected’ with a hint of irony. “I was one of the oldest. We were supposed to save humanity, after some training, and a few… modifications. My age was probably why my body had a harder time acclimating to the modifications. I could only take the first round of skeletal enhancements, brainstem neural port, and cardiopulmonary augmentation.” He turned his head and parted some of his hair, letting you see the small port at the base of his skull. “Neural ports aren’t unheard of at the UHN—Wong and Ten have them, but theirs are situated higher up, since implantation in the brainstem is much riskier. But we had a special purpose, and they needed access to the brainstem for ours. It was the second round of skeletal enhancements that almost crippled me.”

“Almost?” You echoed, thinking of how well he seemed, aside from the degradation of his skeletal enhancements.

“Most of us who didn’t make it through either died or were beyond repair. Admiral Lee picked me back up, put me back together, and let me enroll in the Academy to join as an officer.”

“As in… Admiral Lee, the head of Intelligence?”

“Yes. Though, back then, he was only Vice Admiral.”

“Learning that not everyone wants the same kind of life… Were you talking about the life that the program had prescribed for you? Or the one that Admiral Lee gave you?”

“All of it, I think,” he let out a cynical chuckle.

“And what kind of life do you want now? For yourself?”

“Y/N…” He turned his focus from where it had been on the river to you. “I didn’t tell you all of that as a heart-on-my-sleeve, vulnerable moment. You deserve to know that I’m not entirely human.”

“Is that really how you feel? Inhuman?”

He sighed, looking down at himself. “There are parts of me that are… manufactured. Irrevocably altered. I don’t think I remember how it felt before I was like this.”

“So what do you think you are, then? If not human?” You asked curiously.

“I think Liu would classify me as a cyborg?”

“I didn’t ask what Yangyang would classify you as. I asked what you think you are.”

“I’m… something else,” he determined, voice hollow.

“Kun…”

“Hm?” He gazed over at you.

“Thank you for telling me. I do care, about all of that. Because it’s you, it’s about you, part of who you are, whether you think that’s for better or for worse. But that doesn’t make you any less in my eyes,” you said sincerely.

“Any less human?”

“Any less… you. Don’t you get it? That’s what I care about, not your alleged humanity, or lack thereof.”

“When Admiral Lee told me Dr. Yoon was dead, I celebrated,” he said with a cold kind of humor.

“I think that’s warranted.”

“Not because a bad man who had done bad things to me and other kids was dead. But because—because finally, the part of me that still wanted to make him proud had died with him.”

“Kun… I’m going to tell you something that I think you already know. Just because he played a part in how your body physically developed, does not mean that he made you the man that you are now. You are not his creation, or even Admiral Lee’s. You are your own person, whole and complete. A sum of all the parts, everything you’ve been through, and everything you’ve learned. But you. Not anybody else.” You placed a hand on his forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “You do not owe that man anything.”

He looked down at your hand. “I don’t think I ever want you to remember…”

“What?”

“Knowing that he might’ve… to you. I think it might be better for you to never remember.” Kun slowly put his hand over yours.

“Oh…”

“What are we doing, Y/N?”

You looked around uncertainly. “Uh… sitting?”

“Why are you sitting with me right now? Instead of starting mess with everyone else back at camp?”

“Because I’d rather be here than there. Is that hard to believe?”

“No. I just…” He breathed out, looking down at your connected hands. “I can’t promise you any sort of normal life. Or anything, really. Other than me.”

“I wouldn’t really know what a normal life is. I have a feeling that I wasn’t exactly living one before this, either,” you pointed out. “That’s all I can offer, too. Myself.”

“That’s more than enough.”

“And so are you.” You reassured him. “So? Will you let us…?”

He swallowed, then nodded. “Sure, yes.”

“Thank you,” you said quietly, scooting closer to him.

“There will be no way to keep this from the others,” he cautioned.

“Just how many warnings are you going to try to scare me off with before you realize I don’t care?”

“I was stating a fact.”

“It was the way you said it, how you looked at me. Like you expected me to leave,” you frowned.

“It should’ve at least given you pause. All of this should’ve,” he shook his head, carefully taking his arm back to loop it around your shoulders.

“And yet it didn’t.”

The two of you were quiet for another moment, then you heard Kun scoff under his breath.

“Yeah, ZEN?” He addressed the AI tersely. “Fine, you can patch him through... What do you need, Wong? Yeah, we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Soup’s on?” You guessed.

“Yeah…” He sighed, not making a move to leave yet.

“Do you… want to go?”

“In a minute.”

By the time you got back to camp, the others were already sat around the campfire with their dishes, though it looked like they hadn’t started eating yet.

“There you are!” The Professor waved to the two of you as soon as he saw you. “Thought we were going to have to send a search party or something.”

“We had to walk all the way back here,” Kun said plainly, grabbing both of the extra dishes from the food prep station and handing you one. “You all could have started without us.”

“ZEN said you were only—” Yangyang got cut off by Ten elbowing him in the side. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Thanks for waiting,” you opted not to address whatever that was, sitting down in the single large gap left between Dejun and the Professor, in the spot closer to your tentmate.

“So what’s the next destination, then, Captain?” Ten inquired. “Dropping Y/N off at UHN Main for debriefing?”

“Oh, shit, yeah.” Kunhang shook his head. “It’s weird, I got so used to you being here, Y/N. Kind of forgot you weren’t actually one of us.”

“Yeah, we’ll miss you,” Dejun patted your shoulder, then focused a pointed stare on the youngest crew member. “And I’ll miss you extra when Liu sleeptalks.”

“Thanks, guys,” you gave them all an appreciative smile before looking at Kun out of the corner of your eye uncertainly.

Kun cleared his throat. “However, Y/N will be staying with us for the foreseeable future, due—”

“Seriously?!” Yangyang interrupted incredulously. “I got chewed out for like two hours for even suggesting—”

“Because at the time, it was the reckless and stupid option,” Kun cut him off strictly. “But, if you had let me finish what I was saying, Lieutenant, I would’ve been able to explain that I now believe it’s the safer option for her. We don’t know the whereabouts of the other survivor, and there’s a very good chance that he has the proof with him—whatever it is. There’s too many uncertainties for us to leave Y/N on Earth alone.”

“You think this Dr. Yoon is a danger to Y/N?” The Professor questioned.

“More of a danger than being around us?” Dejun added.

“Yes,” the captain replied very seriously. “We’re a self-contained vessel; our courses aren’t plotted externally ahead of time, our missions aren’t documented in a centralized record after the fact, and we’re undetectable in flight as well. Nobody will know about her unless we want them to.”

Ten nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Hell yeah!” Kunhang grinned and held a hand up towards you. “Welcome aboard.”

You accepted his high-five with a laugh. “Thanks, Kunhang.”

“So back to my question, then,” Ten cocked his head. “Where to next?”

“UHN Main,” Kun answered. “I need to provide the Admiral with an update, in person. We also need to resupply, and you all are due for some shore leave.”

They all erupted into cheers, and you found yourself smiling down at your food, too. UHN Main, where Kun could get his much-needed readjustment.

The rest of dinner was an amiable, jovial affair as the crew spitballed ideas for their shore leave. After the food was finished, everyone pitched in with cleaning up and packing away the materials that wouldn’t be needed again. You were leaving tomorrow.

“Y/N,” Dejun called for you when pretty much everything was done, but the others were still milling about, talking to each other excitedly. “Let me take a look at your hand in the tent.”

“Oh, uhm—” You gave in to his insistent tug on your elbow, despite your brain frantically trying to think of a reason why he couldn’t inspect your perfectly healed palm.

In your tent, Dejun started rooting through one of his med packs as you were still stumbling through the beginning of an excuse.

“Dejun, you don’t need to—”

“I know,” he said simply, standing back up and handing you a disinfectant wipe and two med-pods. “Captain’s got you. Right?”

“…Right.” You accepted the supplies. “Thanks.”

“Are you okay with this?”

“With what?”

“Staying with us. You know, not getting a normal life yet. I know you can’t remember, or maybe don’t know what that’s like, but… I don’t want you to think you have to do this. The UHN can give you a new identity, hide you in other ways.”

You paused, looking at him curiously. “Why did you join the UHN, Dejun?”

“After med school, I did my residency at a rehab clinic for veterans. Thought I could make more of a difference if I got to them earlier.” He fidgeted with the holster around his thigh.

“I’m okay with this,” you assured him. “Whatever kind of life I had before, normal or not… I can never go back to it. Even if I remember, it’ll never be the same. And after the war—who does have a normal life anymore? Or gets to say what that is?”

“Alright.” Dejun patted your shoulder. “I’m happy to have you aboard, don’t get me wrong. Not trying to get rid of you or anything. Just want to make sure you know your options.”

“Thanks, Dejun.” You gave him a smile before ducking out of the tent.

You couldn’t see the others around the campfire anymore, but you swore you heard voices and what sounded like splashing in the direction of the river. One last late-night swim, it seemed.

“Kun?” You waited outside his tent.

“Come in!” He beckoned you in just a moment later.

Kun was sitting on his cot, a thin paperback book in his hands.

“Is that the book Ten found earlier?” You asked, moving over the container you usually sat on.

“Yeah.” He held it up so you could see the cover. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley.

“I didn’t realize you’d grabbed it.”

“ZEN could probably pull it up for me, back on the Vision. But my eyes hurt looking at those screens for too long, you know?” He put in a bookmark, a folded-up piece of graph paper, before setting the book aside.

He laid down without prompting, reaching around to adjust his shirt for you. You ripped open the antiseptic wipe first.

“So why now?” You asked, disinfecting the injection site. “Why do you want to leave Aegeum now? There were lots of other times you could’ve called the mission over.”

“I need to report Dr. Yoon being alive to Admiral Lee as soon as possible.”

“Do you think that Admiral Lee knew he was alive?” You took out the first med-pod.

“No, Admiral Lee hates him as much as I do,” Kun said, staring ahead of him. “And the Admiral has never lied to me. When he can’t tell me something, he lets me know.”

“Do you think you’ll be going after him? Dr. Yoon?”

Click.

“I’ll need further directions from the Admiral.” He ran a hand through his hair. “If we don’t have any leads, he’ll probably just have us focus on our original mission.”

“And what is the mission?”

“Well…”

“I’m part of the crew now, kind of. Indefinitely. Shouldn’t I get to know what your mission that you’re on actually is?”

“No, you’re right. I’m trying to find the best starting place,” he mused. “So, the Intergalactic War ended almost a year ago.”

“Yes, I did know that,” you informed him, carefully picking through your memory. “It was the United Human Intercosmic Territories against Ourogos, the K’llor, and some factions of A-Jregth.”

You used the proper name for the A-Jregth, as opposed to the common, less-than-flattering human nickname for them—Dumbo, for their large ears that reminded the first UHN soldiers to make contact with them of elephants. In that moment, you couldn’t recall the original connection between the name and the Earth animal, but that could wait.

“Well, UHIT is much less united now; we’ve got a lot on our plate trying to keep ourselves together. Especially with some planets of Phasers and other human-originated species talking about wanting independence from humans.”

“On the grounds that they’re not humans?” You guessed.

“Exactly. There’s rumors of talks of secession.” The med-pod clicked then, and he paused as you grabbed the next one. Once you had them swapped out, he continued, “The aliens’ alliance has completely dissolved, however. Before we came here, we were on Ourogos; it’s especially nasty there. They’re almost in a civil war, trapped between two zealots vying for power ever since their leader, Busr Gorkourontorous, was assassinated. The Fisheads and Dumbo went back to their own business, and the Skippers are doing what they’ve always done.”

“You don’t sound too troubled about any of that.”

“The more time they spend killing each other, the more time we have to figure our own shit out.”

Moving your gaze from the med-pod to his face, you asked, “When did the busr die?”

“Recently,” he replied knowingly.

“Did one of you…?”

“We didn’t pull the trigger,” Kun said. “But we supplied the gun. And the bullet.”

“Arms dealing. To both sides?”

“The more of them that are dead, the fewer there will be to come kill humans.” He finally looked back at you. “That’s our mission. Less dead humans.”

“Do you think you’re accomplishing that?” You held his eye contact, leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knee and prop up your chin with one of your palms.

“That’s not my determination to make right now. Not yet.”

“You’re a self-contained vessel. That comes with quite a bit of leeway with decision-making, doesn’t it?”

“Day-to-day decisions, yes. Admiral Lee has put a lot of trust in me. But every one of my calls is supposed to be made with that objective in mind.”

The second med-pod finished, and you took it off him as well, setting it at your feet with the rest of the trash that you’d take with you to put in Dejun’s medical disposal container in your tent. For once, neither of you made a move to leave now that it was done.

“How did you end up on Aegeum?” You asked.

“Intelligence guy picked up chatter from some Skippers. He didn’t speak Skipper, but he could make out one word they kept saying over and over that sounded like human. You know Skipper, it sounds like a bunch of chipmunks chittering about, so the word ‘Aegeum’ kind of caught his attention. Relayed it back to Admiral Lee. He sent us out here.”

“Do you have the recording of the Skippers? The Professor or ZEN…?”

“UHN translators have been working on it since we’ve been down here. It might be done, I’ll have to check once we’re back on the Vision.”

“Kind of makes me think…” You mused aloud. “About what would’ve happened if you all hadn’t found me. If I would’ve ever gotten out of that shelter.”

“I know you don’t remember how you got in there, but… what do you think you would’ve done? If you’d left the shelter, you’d have been able to survive off the ag bubble indefinitely, at least.”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, messing with your fingers. “I-I didn’t know, or didn’t remember, what was going on outside of the shelter other than the smell, but I had this feeling that I shouldn’t leave it, and I shouldn’t be found, you know? But when I saw you and Kunhang, and I knew you were UHN—I knew that the UHN was safe, at least. So… I really don’t know if I would’ve ever left.”

You watched as he slowly started sitting back up, and he thankfully didn’t clutch his back, wince, or groan this time. The two med-pods seemed to be doing pretty well for him. But they were only a temporary fix.

“You’re going to get your tune-up at UHN Main, right?” You looked at him seriously. “You’ll give your report to Admiral Lee, the crew will go on shore leave, and you’ll get your adjustment?”

“Yes, Y/N,” he confirmed with a hint of a smile. “I’ll get my adjustment while we’re there.”

“Good.”

“But then what excuse will you have for coming into my quarters every night?”

You landed a soft kick against his ankle at his teasing words, making him snicker. “You say that as if the crew know why I’ve been doing it in the first place. Other than Dejun, they have no clue. Who knows what they’re thinking now.”

“That’s true.” He still had a hint of a chuckle in his voice. “Speaking of… I have a spare bunk in my cabin on the Vision, you’re welcome to it. Or you can room with the Professor, if you’d like. I’m sure he’d enjoy the opportunity to ask you more about Outspacer.”

“Wait, if you both have spare bunks, then why is Dejun rooming with Yangyang, who talks in his sleep?” You cocked your head in bewilderment. “Why doesn’t he just stay with one of you so he isn’t disturbed by Yangyang’s sleeptalking?”

“Kid can’t sleep by himself. Apparently wasn’t a problem until he got onto a ship. We’ve offered for Xiao to move, but—” Kun shrugged.

“He’s a good teammate.” You then circled back to his original offer, bringing your hand up to tap your chin as if deep in thought. “I’ll have to think about it… Staying in the captain’s quarters, wouldn’t want anybody to get the wrong idea, you know?”

“Oh, of course not.”

“And I should probably be getting back to my tent,” you sighed melodramatically, slowly getting to your feet. “I’ve been in here for a suspicious amount of time already, don’t you think?”

“Hold on—ZEN? Where are the others?” Kun was still as he listened to ZEN’s response from within his neural port. “Great. Cut out your incoming audiovisual feed from me, but let me know when they start heading back, okay? Thanks.”

You tilted your head in a silent question.

“Everyone’s down at the river still,” he informed you, offering his hand out to you. “We have some time.”

“Mm… okay.” You placed your hand in his.

Kun scooted over to make some room beside him on the cot, and you accepted the invitation, sitting beside him instead of on the container like before.

“Are you ready? To leave?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah. I don’t really have a lot of personal effects to pack up, so…” You shrugged. “Though, I was curious about getting from the facility to your ship. Is the atmosphere breathable?”

“It’s a bit thin. Unfortunately, we weren’t expecting to acquire anybody while we were down here, so we don’t have an extra suit for you on the dropship. Xiao has masks with limited oxygen supply, you should be okay with one of those for the short walk on the surface.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“But I wasn’t asking you if you were packed,” he continued, rubbing a thumb over the back of your hand. “I mean, this is the only place you can remember. Are you ready to leave it?”

You nodded in determination. “I am. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t find the proof of concept or figure out why the Skippers were here, but I have no personal reservations about leaving. This isn’t my home.”

“Okay, good.”

“What are you going to say about me? In your report to the Admiral?”

“I’ll give him a brief update when we get back on the Vision tomorrow, before leaving. I’ll say we found a survivor, and we’re headed back to UHN Main so I can make a full report, but that’ll be it. I know you’ve only met his dumbed-down safety version, but ZEN’s a very good AI, he’ll keep the connection between the Admiral and I secure while I report.”

“This has been ZEN dumbed down?” You repeated with a smile. “I’m excited to meet him fully, then.”

“He’s something else,” Kun said with a shake of his head. “Like what I just had to do, asking him to butt out to get some privacy. ZEN at full capacity understands the concept of appropriate levels of snooping. This one, you have to give some clearer direction. He understands when we don’t need to hear each other—most of the time—but can’t turn off incoming audiovisual to himself of his own volition.”

“You must be used to his omnipresence on the Vision. His main nexus is there, I’m assuming he’s throughout the ship’s systems.”

“Well yes, but I don’t really care if he hears our talk around the mess table or sees me cleaning my armor. This… is different.”

“How so?”

“Well—”

“I’m kidding, Kun,” you laughed, bumping your shoulder against his. “I like knowing that we’re really alone, too. Makes it feel more… intimate, I think.”

“I agree.”

“There is one thing I’ll miss about Aegeum, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Those strawberries were really good.”

Kun’s eyes crinkled as he smiled fondly. “They were. Do you want to go get some?”

“Now?”

“Why not? One last handful, a midnight snack.”

“I do.”

And so the two of you quietly slipped out of his tent, hurrying off in the direction of the strawberry fields. You could hear the others by the river, though their voices and splashing got more distant the nearer you got to the fields. Finally, you made it to the strawberry patch, and the air of the ag bubble was peaceful around you.

There were small, hidden lights along the pathways and edges of the fields that automatically turned on at night, affording just enough brightness for you to be able to distinguish the fruits on the bushes as Kun went to pick them. He handed you the first one he grabbed, then bit into the second himself.

“Kun, you’ve got some on your face,” you pointed out, and he went to wipe at his right cheek. You shook your head with a giggle, bringing your own thumb up to his left cheek. “No, you— Here, I’ve got it.”

“Oh now that’s not fair,” he complained with an air of teasing in his tone.

“Why’s that?”

“You don’t have anything on your face, so I don’t have an excuse to charmingly cradle your cheek like you’re doing to me.”

“How about you do it anyway—” You took his free hand and brought it up to your face, “—and while we’re here, you can kiss me like you’ve been thinking about doing since the river today?”

“Am I easy to read or have you failed to mention that you’re a mind reader?”

“The first one,” you teased.

“All those years of intelligence operative training were wasted, apparently,” he chuckled.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

You met him halfway, closing the distance and melting into a kiss that tasted of the sweet-tart strawberry juice still on your lips. You took your hand from his face to tangle your fingers in the hair at the back of his head, definitely longer than regulation, and he continue pressing his lips to yours over and over, as if making up for every moment tonight that he had wanted to kiss you but didn’t. You lost track of how many strawberry sweet kisses the two of you exchanged between bites, conversation, hushed bursts of laughter, and even more strawberries. And you thought that if this was part of your normal, no matter how fleeting, you could be pretty happy with this.

⇢ next | series masterlist | blog masterlist

[kit-williams]

Hail to the King

For @konigsblog as a thank you for the follow and I guess to what expect of my writings.

tw: this is lewd, delusional König, warhammer 40k shenanigans, König is a Black Templar (see The 40k au for why)((I might try to write another with him as a Blood Angel)) I am shit at trigger warnings

It wasn't his fault that they hadn't kept a better leash on their Schätze. In his defense the chapter serf should have known better and the mortal... well she shouldn't have looked so helpless and cute. Normally he would be thrilled and an honor to join a kill team to slay xenos but this was suppose to be a punishment on learning to not touch what wasn't his.

He walked down the hall of the alien craft chopping down any xeno unfortunate to walk into his path. Most of the Inquisition agents he was around were men... it seems the Inquisitor had been warned about his pecularities.

"You're not suppose to be here." His head snapped over to the voice of a little Maus. He could feel his mouth salivate as the space suit hugged her form in a pleasing way. Oh sure to many baselines she was hardly different from the form of a man but he could see... as well as the custom suit with the symbol of the Inquisition on her front. But the way she was leaning over a console with the curve of her ass just on display.

"Auch, Where am I suppose to be then Maus?" He said annoyed trying to not play his hand but lucky for him his suit hid his eyes from the way they lustfully ran over her body. Though he looked at the bodies of the Xenos littering the room. "You being a little Maus and just coming in after all the fighting is done?"

He could see the pout on the other side of her visor, "Rude. No I cleared the room myself. Oh was a shame that it had to come to blows but then again..." He stopped listening as soon as her hips started to sway with what she was saying. He wanted to dig his fingers into her flesh as his hips moved against hers only hearing her pretty little moans. "Hey big guy!" She finally shouted over the vox.

König resumed paying attention to his Maus. "Ja?"

"Thanks for paying attention...," The sarcasm was obvious in her voice, "anyway. Like I said earlier you're not suppose to be near me and you're suppose to be on the other side of the ship dealing with Xenos."

"The fighting led me this way and given the amount of dead at your feet Maus. You're not exactly alone. It would be a shame if your Inquisitor lost your expertise." He purred out the last few words just buttering her up a little.

"Well... you're not wrong..." He could easily tell she was preening under his complements, "But the Inquisitor said you weren't allowed near female agents or crew members. So be off with you... shoo." She tried her best to wave him off as she turned back to the console.

Konig held a growl in his throat he'd has to teach his Maus manners later. But he was on duty and purging Xenos in the name of the Emperor came first and pleasure later. He started back down the hall before he heard mechanics and her soft little 'Oh hi.' He rushed back as soon as the rapid burst fire rang out and abhorrent xenos cries as he rushed back into the room.

She was in the middle of wrestling one as it was trying to grab her rifle out of her hands. He snarled out as he was upon them in a moment as thick xeno blood painted the walls and her suit as his chainsword ripped through the xeno flesh. Her head turned at the sound of a chime and she grabbed the assumingly heretical technology... then again he wasn't the biggest fan of the Mechanicus and knew Inquisitors tended to flirt with the Dark Mechanicus or heretecks to get better tech.

"Well I'm done here. Thanks again big guy!" She chirped and patted his chest before he grabbed her and pulled her to his chest.

"Nein! You'll just find trouble klein Maus. Und how will you get out of trouble all by yourself hmm?" He cocked his head to the side and watched her fold her arms over her chest. He was giddy as she was just the right amount of willful yet submissive. He knew what was for her own good... he had experience and age. She sighed as she settled into his arm holding her without much of a fight.

König knew he could get his hands on a pretty little Maus during his time here.

[sunflowergem]

41, 65, and 94 on the big huge tav ask game!

Which way did they take? Did they run into Elminster? What was their opinion of his news for Gale? They start at the mountain area and complete that section first but with the path looking so strange Sunflower decide to try the under dark to see if they could find a less dark and dangerous path. Not here best moment as a leader but Shadowheart got a cool mace out of the forage, worth it? So I believe I ran into him just before the underdark in a temple area (finished my playthrough months ago and have forgotten some bits, waiting to cross play to do the definitive version of Sunflowers run with Briar) and she is has always been taught to be a gracious host so she invites him to the camp. After the news she is trying so hard to internalize the concept of don’t shoot the messenger. “Well that’s one more thing for the to do list” But yeah, she is low key pissed about what this goddess is asking. In Sunflower’s eye, friendship with Gale aside, all life should have the freedom to chose its own fate. She knows that Gale’s going to feel like this is his only option so she is determined to not let him have the chance. Fun fact: Sunflower typically doesn’t cuss, It’s not lady like after all, so until they are under the tower and Gale offers to try and blow himself up right there she turns to him and says “Absolutely fucking not.” Completely calm looking him dead in the eyes. Local man was so stunned he did not blow himself up. She then doesn’t cuss again until they are at least in Balder’s Gate. Much to the annoyance of Astarion (and possibly Briar) who before this was trying to get her to cuss and is more annoyed now that he knows she knows how.

Does your Tav go to the circus? Do they like the activities? Yep! She’s up there with Karlach on excitement levels. She’s low key disappointed by the end for obvious reasons and adds Dribbles to the to do list. Was down with the face painter, sculpting couple, Popper, and some of the bards. Refused to speak or even look near the Djinni, she has read too many stories about them to tempt fate like that.

Years after the game, what do you think your Tav is up to? Depends on the end of course so here’s a few quick blurbs on her worst, bad(dark angel), neutral(return home), good(diplomat), and best(traveling demigod bard) ends for Sunflower. Her worst end it kinda looks like a good end for her, similar to ascended Astarion or god Gale. She becomes a goddess, goddess of determination and subversion. So if you play as her and support everyone else but ignore Sunflowers personal story, basically don’t let her develop as a character. In the immediate she will make sure to help all her friends and heal folks after the final battle but is whisked away by Ao after she absorbs way too much power(explanation for another day) to remain in the material plane. She’s then on a divine house arrest until she can control her new power. She might be able to hear if people reach out to her but is not able to interact with Faerûn for a very very long time. Most people she knew would be long dead by the time she can return. She might have an interaction with a older Astarion(divine power to heal vampirism) but they would probably be the last person she knows and he would be gone soon too. Overall it’s the isolation and alienation ending for her. Eternally lonely.

[jfbuckley]

Joker: Folie A Deux

In many respects, this is an EXTREMELY controversial film! It seems to have been panned by the critics in no uncertain terms. One review said it was “even below the worst film of 2024!!” As I have a “season ticket” to Odeon cinemas, it effectively doesn’t cost me anything to go and see a film. All I have to contend with is the possibility of being disappointed, and a wasted afternoon or evening. I knew before going what the press consensus on this film was, but under the circumstances I like to make my own mind up.

Firstly, I put my cards on the table and say that the first film, “Joker”, is my all time favourite. I would have been astounded if any sequel could come near it in any way. I therefore went along expecting to be disappointed, but prepared to see the good in it.

Yes, I was disappointed. It ISN’T anywhere near as good as the first film. I think to attempt to achieve that was a humanly impossible task. I take as an example the “John Wick” films. They are very good and enjoyable for what they are. I will certainly go to see the next one. On the other hand, they are NOT serious films or even decent stories. You just go to enjoy it, and one John Wick film is pretty much the same as the others. As for “Joker”, I think it was an extremely powerful, moving and somewhat disturbing film. It is pretty much a fully self contained story that can’t feasibly be repeated.

With this “follow up”, they didn’t make any attempt to duplicate what had been done in the first film. If they had, I think it really WOULD have fallen flat on its face!!

This film is very, VERY different. It is virtually in a different genre. Some reviews even classify it as a “musical”. For my part, whilst being disappointed, I felt that judged on its own merits, it is a thoroughly good and enjoyable film!!

We see deeper into Arthur Fleck’s personality, or to be more accurate, we see the effect on his personality when he “falls in love”. Lady Ga-Ga is the person he falls in love with, and she plays a very good part.

In the earlier part of his life, Arthur was deprived of almost everything. His mother abused him. Everybody that came into contact with him belittled him and bullied him. Everyone tried to exploit him, especially Murray Franklin, the chat show host. He was ridiculed at work, no one took him seriously. He had no girlfriend or any other close friends. Eventually the bullying became too much and he snapped. The results of this “snapping” were glorious to see, and his shooting of Murray Franklin is my favourite film scene. It was pretty evil stuff though….that no-one could ever condone happening in the real world.

How do you follow that in another film? I don’t think you can, and indeed, I have read that “Joker” was not meant to have a sequel.

Have a sequel it did though. In this film, Arthur Fleck falls in love, and suddenly his dark feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement from society are put on hold. He doesn’t feel the same way as he did about things. He starts to realise that it wasn’t really right to shoot Murray Franklin. He sees that being in love with Harley Quin is much better than taking his revenge out on society’s authority figures. To me, this new aspect of Arthur - ie “being in love” is where the musical numbers fit in. Of course, it becomes increasingly obvious to people, especially during his trial, that he has changed, and this has a devastating effect on his “fans”. They think he has deserted them and become a traitor. Even Harley gives up on him and abandons him. He meets his tragic end from a fellow prisoner who feels thus “betrayed”. The film shows that in the final analysis, even Arthur is as hypocritical as Murray Franklin and the rest.

Yep. Not a classic perhaps, but if you are prepared to spend just a little bit of thought on it, it does provide a very worthy and enjoyable bookend to the all time classic first film.

[interdimensional-ship]

In the Starcutter’s defense, she was just listing off random examples, not necessarily making suggestions. She isn’t clueless about the existence of Dark Matters. If anything, it’d be more difficult to not know of them now that she lives on Popstar. Plus, people come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors. Given the fact that her vision is the way it is— constantly blurry and out of focus, save for what’s just beyond her dome— it’s probably not a good idea to assume every shadowy blob of a person is a Dark Matter. That just seems like it’d end badly for a variety of reasons.

As for whether she even would have acted differently if she could make out what they were… Odds are, any changes would have stemmed not from her own thoughts, but instead how Blade responded to her recognition. This is not her first time meeting or speaking to one of their kind. From what she has gathered, at least a portion of Dark Matters’ reputation is based on actions that were not entirely their choice. Even if the outcome is the same and not something to ignore, she isn’t one to disregard the distinction between what is done freely and what is done under the command of someone else. Perhaps that is a selfish sort of perspective— one born from her own knowledge that she, too, was once used to attempt harm, albeit at a time she was not conscious… Point is, judgement passed without observation is often poorly founded, especially when accompanied by expectations of mindless violence or aggression. As someone literally built for conducting research, that is a mistake she would prefer to avoid.

In short, she knows enough to understand the misgivings of others, but she herself is unafraid.

… Though, admittedly, if she had known this was the same Dark Matter who had previously played a crucial role in at least one attack on Popstar, the ship would have been far more cautious. She has witnessed the lasting effects possession can have on someone, after all. While the AI herself is practically immune to it, the risk of potentially putting someone else in harm’s way is not one she is willing to take. At the same time, however, she is too curious to simply ignore such a chance meeting, and well aware that time can change a person, as can the opportunity to exist near someone else without being immediately threatened. Besides, what better place to get information to compare with what is already known than from the source? What would the Swordsman have to say, if anything? How would they be doing now that their leader is gone? Would their loyalty be strong regardless, or would they reveal it had faltered now that they are more or less free to do as they please? Would they feel lost? Alienated? Angry, depressed, numb? Nothing at all, too much to process?

Alas, due to someone else’s failure to perform a proper calibration, instead of the knowledge that she’s currently speaking to someone with a very interesting history, she gets to have the visual acuity of a Philip Barlow painting. Isn’t that nice?

Of course, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have other things to say. It’ll just be less specific in nature.

“>Glad to assist. For something that seems so obvious to others, hobbies are one of those subjects that can be difficult to really understand if you’ve not been made aware of them already for any reason. I suppose they come so naturally to the average person that it’s not something anyone really knows how to easily explain without putting a lot of thought into it.”

>And so instead of actually explaining, most places make a list of examples, which can be helpful unless none of them really apply to you, or you just want a general idea of what constitutes a hobby versus an interest, and then you can’t really just ask someone what a hobby is and expect a better answer because everyone assumes the concept is one you already intrinsically understand to some degree and just need to attach a word to… It’s not even all that complicated to describe once you have it figured out in a semi-objective sense. Oh well, at least back then I had ways to get some kind of direction in understanding it. Maybe it’s good luck that I was here so their question could be answered without having to navigate the maze of the internet or struggle alone if that isn’t an option for them…

Though her pause for thought lasted only seconds, Lor soon decides to make her own inquiry. A question for a question seems fair, right? Though hers might be a little more complicated…

“>If this isn’t too personal of a question… What kind of situation are you coming from? I haven’t met many others who needed confirmation on something like that… I suppose you could say I’m just curious about how similar your circumstances are to the ones I once found myself in. If you’re comfortable sharing, that is.”

Though the computer didn’t immediately say anything, the way she briefly stopped moving altogether may have given away just how unexpected the Matter’s question was. It… Certainly changed the way she would be approaching this situation. Not in a bad way, just… Maybe stepping back the types of things she’d assume most people would know a little bit. It isn’t something she’s unfamiliar with doing, though usually it happens in the context of explaining things like time travel, or how various aspects of her construction work— going back to basics, because most people don’t have the same depth of knowledge that she does. It’s nothing to be judgemental about.

… She wouldn’t deny that it’s at least a little concerning that they don’t know any examples of hobbies. It’d be one thing to ask what the word meant, since even speakers of the same language haven’t necessarily encountered all of the same words, or learned what they all mean. Seeking examples, however, implies a different kind of lack of understanding that isn’t just a case of not knowing a definition. And it’s not the kind of lack of understanding that’s easy to have under normal circumstances…

Were they one of those types who had no separation between work life and regular life, perhaps? Knowing enough to understand the term in passing for the sake of not being lost in conversation, but otherwise having no experience with the concept as a result of spending all of their time following instructions, being “productive”, and fulfilling whatever quota they had to meet instead? That would explain their sense of being lost when it comes to finding things to do… When you’ve never actually done things for yourself, it can be difficult to figure out how, let alone what. Even if you’ve already spent a considerable amount of time knowing you want to do something else, the sudden freedom of choice is overwhelming. Lor knew that much from experience.

However, as much as she’d like to give some nice, detailed advice on how to pick a direction, so to speak… Really, the only reason she’s not in that same place of being uncertain about what she should be doing is because some random teenager manifested on the floor one day, and she’s been more or less orienting her life around Magolor ever since. Needless to say, meeting a stranger who’s in critical condition, helping them to the best of your ability, and hoping they stick around afterwards isn’t the most applicable, accessible, or effective means of finding one’s place in the world for the average person.

>Getting ahead of myself here. The implications of the question can be handled later, I should just answer it for now. On its own it’s simple enough...

“>Let me see… Pretty much any activity can be a hobby— there’s not really any specific criteria. Writing, cooking, photography, sightseeing, collecting and organizing things, sports and competitive events, various mediums of art, community involvement… Just to name a few. If there’s something you enjoy doing just for the sake of doing it, whether it’s something productive or not, or something you’re good at or not, or always have the ability to do or not… That’s a hobby. One of my hobbies is traveling, for example; I like seeing new places, meeting new people, being in situations that differ from my usual day to day life. It keeps things from getting monotonous.”

Let it be known, if there’s anything that would drive the average Starcutter mad, it’s constant monotony. Being programmed to intake, analyze, share, and record new information comes with the benefit of being fast learners, but the detriment of being extremely prone to understimulation. Like boredom, but if it was significantly more insufferable.

[writefightandflightclub]

hey love! hope you’re having a good day so far 💕 for the hc requests, what about javi with pets? dog, cat, whatever you wanna do ✨

Thank you so much for this ask! This turned into a more of a mini fic rather than hcs, so I hope it’s okay for you! 😁 I had so much fun imagining Javi with a cat! Hope you’re having a great day too! 🧡😊

Warnings: It’s mainly fluff / light angst. GN “reader” is mentioned, but their relationship with Javi is left undefined (i.e. written so that it could be interpreted as platonic as this wasn’t a x reader request, but could alternatively be read as romantic / sexual relationship); language; smoking; one crude “pussy” joke; non-explicit canon-typical references to sex work. GIF by @muvana and @zeldasayer

This cat is DEA (mini fic: Javier Peña)

Javi is alone in his apartment the first time he hears it. The cotton soft paw tapping at his window, just audible over the drum of the rain. He’s not sure why he draws his pistol as he tracks from his couch towards the sound - he’s confident Escobar’s men wouldn’t be quite so subtle.

That’s when he first sees it, after a moment of searching. A cat as elusive and grey as a shadow - aside from a pink little nose, and eyes as round and bright as flaming yellow suns.

Javi still can’t help but regard the animal with suspicion - as if they may be a narco or a communist, somehow. In fact, Javi is moments away from shooing the creature when he notes her rain-bedraggled fur. So, he pauses by the crack in the propped open window, the cat nuzzling her head against the frame, the gap slightly too tight to squeeze through.

“This is no place for a street cat,” Javi warns, in his deep, oaky timbre, and yet when he hears her pathetic little mew in response to the promise of his warmth, his heart melts. He unconsciously reaches out with his forefinger, and when she rubs her wet little nose against him through the crack, he already knows he’s going to cave.

“Alright then, little thing,” he purrs, before chuckling to himself in response to the crude joke forming in his head as he reaches for the latch. “Where’d you hear this is the place to be for the finest pussy in Medellin, huh? Have you been talking to Vanessa?”

As soon as there is space to squeeze through, the cat is inside, hopping elegantly down onto Javi’s hardwood floor with a thud of her paws, instantly beginning to preen and groom herself, purring like a motor.

Javi simply looks down at the cat for a moment, raising his arm to scratch his head and emitting a gentle grunt. Okay. What now?

Succumbing to those big round eyes, he crouches down and extends his hand towards the animal. Yet, for all the cat’s eagerness to be admitted, she initially pushes her ears back and recoils away with a half-hearted hiss.

“Easy girl,” he soothes, coaxing her to him, and as soon as his warm, firm hand makes contact the cat collapses onto her back, purring heavily and showing her belly. Another chuckle. “You just rolled on Escobar too easy, narco. He’s gonna be pissed.”

His eyes crease at the cat’s display, all too eager for affection, and the cat earns Javier’s only smile of the day. Without him noticing, he forgets for a moment. Forgets it all. All of the shit.

Perhaps it’s the unfamiliar peace in his heart, therefore, which compels him to say: “Okay. Well, if you’re going to stay the night, we’ve got to set some ground rules, alright?” The cat purrs more deeply as he lifts her and bundles her into his chest. Then, he carries her to the kitchen to seek out some suitable food. “Number one. No drugs in the house.”

***

Javi was so hospitable that the cat keeps coming. It isn’t every night, of course. Javi isn’t always home, or- quite often when he is, he isn’t home alone, and is therefore far too preoccupied to hear the signal- that cotton-soft paw tippy tapping at his window. But, when he is in a position to hear it - home and alone - that is precisely when he needs to see that little face most.

It is a comfort, that a being might choose to return to him when he’s usually the one leaving. Or the one paying for the company. And, even if he doesn’t realise it, Javi does what he does best. He gets attached.

More than that, Javi feels a muted pang of joy whenever the ball of fluff curls up on his lap, or whenever she follows him around his apartment inquisitively to see what he’s up to (or as he refers to it, acting as “back-up”). The first time he gets those little wet kitty kisses on his hawkish nose, he lets out a surprised laugh - one almost strangled with joy.

It isn’t long then, before he is taking her to get her jabs. Before he is buying her a collar - as if Javi could really have a being that belongs with him after all.

“What’s her name?” the vet asks, and Javi looks down, a resounding nothing on the tip of his tongue. He sees her fur, grey as a shadow. Her eyes as fierce and yellow as the lit end of a cigarette. The answer seems obvious, and he replies with a soft smile. “Smokes. Her name is Smokes.”

That day, Javi brings her home and pops Smokes softly on the couch. Then, he brings a cigarette to his lips, lighting it up as she waves a paw towards him. “You’re DEA now, kid.” he says with certainty. So. That’s it then. If anything ever happens to this cat -Javi’s cat- there will be hell to pay.

Soon after, in the days that follow, Smokes comes and goes as she pleases, and the arrangement suits both Javi and the feline just fine.

One evening, though, Javi is tetchy, even pacing the floor, and polishing off a whole packet of cigarettes. He could do with a little company after a tough day, but his little friend is nowhere to be seen. Smokes hasn’t returned to him in a while -a few days- and he won’t admit he is more than a little worried. So, he opts, against his better judgement, to knock on your door - the apartment opposite him. It’s not unusual for him to turn up at your door looking for smokes of one variety or another, he supposes, even if he does try to avoid it. Tries to avoid getting attached.

Javi’s mouth falls open in silent surprise as you open the door with a perturbed expression, and a bundle of grey fur in your arms. Well, well, well. Smokes has been found out a traitor after all.

“What’s up, Javi?” you ask impatiently.

“Is this a bad time?”

You stomp your foot and smile knowingly. “Some asshole put a collar on my cat.”

He reads your expression, and knows you’ve already figured out the shared predicament. “Your cat?”

“Well, she came to my window.”

Javi scratches his head. “Mine too.”

You tut at the fickle little cat in mock annoyance. It seems this is one promiscuous street cat.

There is a beat as you and Javi exchange lopsided smiles, and the furball in your arms throws herself towards Javi. She is as tricky to hold on to as an undulating wave and so, with a sigh, you transfer the cat from your hands to his - as if you had a choice.

“What did you call her?” Javi asks.

“Hm,” you chuckle through a knowing, closed-lipped smile. “I called her Javiera.”

Javi looks at you for a moment, his eyes narrowing, but all his sharp angles gone as he cradles the floofy smol bean in his arms. Even his voice comes out soft. “Why?”

You exhale a small breath, before cocking your head at him, evidently mulling over your words before you speak. Buying yourself some time, you step forward to give the cat a rub behind her ears. “Well. All that coming and going?” You look down at the sweet animal, your eyes glistening with thinly veiled sadness, your voice raw as it echoes into the bare hallway, even as you sport a determined smile. Then, you look up at him, a wistful expression there. “Reminded me of someone.”

A swallow dips down his long, corded neck, and something vaguely resembling guilt glints in his deep dark eyes. There is more beneath your words, he realises; unspoken but ever so thinly veiled. A commentary on the fact you could never get him to stay, perhaps, even if you did offer him warmth and contentment and everything worth staying for.

Javi feels like a stray cat sometimes. Like he may never find a home. Not really. And so, at the implication of your words, his eyes glisten with a subtle, thickly-veiled sadness now too. As though, if you believe that too - that he can never settle- it must be true.

However, his fears are assuaged when you reach up, and bravely cup his face in your palm. It is a gesture which feels at once familiar and alien to him. In fact, he almost recoils back as if afraid of the affection; that is, until your warm, firm hand settles at his cheek. After that, he wouldn’t dream of pulling away.

Your eyes tell him not to worry as your words tumble forth. Your fond tone reassures him it’s okay. “I just mean...” -you search for the right words- “...this agent has too much love to go around.”

A swallow trails down Javi’s long, corded neck as he labours to keep his expression neutral, and yet, the man appreciates your words more than you can know. Especially when your love is something he gravitates to and strays from in a near constant cycle. He’s happy to know that when he turns up at your door, you accept him for who he is. Someone who can’t settle.

Still, instead of processsing, or digging deeper into these revelations, Javi focusses on another detail. Deflecting. “You called her an agent?”

You smile, your expression imbued with mischief. “It says it plainly on her collar, Javi. This cat is DEA.”

Javi smiles at you in return, a free and throaty laugh as you lean up against the frame of your door. Then, you gesture towards the interior of your apartment, inviting him in. You’re already moving and he’s already following before you’re even through with your question, as if you’re a familiar habit: “Wanna come in for a smoke?”

Javi follows you. Sure, he knocked at your door, but he may as well be tapping at the walls of your heart and asking for admittance. And, even if he never stays for long, he knows you will always invite him in. You can’t help it. Your heart is as open to him as it is to this little grey cat. In return, he can’t promise to stay, but he can promise to keep coming back.

So, Javi follows, although he doesn’t realise you’ve both got it wrong. If he is to liken himself to animal, it should not be a stray cat, perhaps. It should be a dog. After all, Javi is tenacious, loyal, and he has so much love to go around. So, as he follows you into your apartment he does what he does best. He gets attached.

You curl up with Smokes together on the couch, watching TV, and he is grateful. In this simplicity he feels a rare kind of peace in his heart, amidst all the complexity of this war.

Smokes purrs.

[ryodai89]

Tumblr be confusing as fuck. Like, seriously. Majority of people here practically preach about ’minors dont interact’ and how we have to ‘keep the children safe’ and then write the craziest shit. I’m dumbfounded but it is what it is. Ya’ll scary af but to each their own. 

However, while I’m somewhat happy to see some sane people pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of this place and people, (Simping over a pedo) thats where my line is drawn. I don’t get it, it’s gross, but no one should be ’coming’ for anyone.

People wanna fuck a slasher? I’m here for it. An alien murderous clown that eats people? I’ll sign that slip and ride that train with you. People wanna fuck villains and write whatever and write controversial situations such as murder and rape and what have you I will stand by you no problem. Shipping child characters….. ehhhh depends on the story. Hell I personally don’t mind if teens read this shit because lets get real, we all started here when we were kids so the whole ’minors don’t interact’ just kills me honestly. You write what you wanna write. I got you. I’m even here for ‘some’ of The Black Phone stories that actually make sense given the content and don’t erase the horrors that were that movie… I will defend damn near anything except this weird ’forgetfulness’ that is an obvious trait of the character. And the obvious, which is pedophilia. I think thats just a line that gets waaay too murky for my liking. I think that particular subject is just a no-go. I think it’s hilarious that people get butt hurt when it’s brought up because they don’t want to feel bad or guilty for simping over someone like that. The hypocrisy is hilarious. But anything else other than that I’m here for it. Even if it’s not my cup o’ tea I will defend that shit.

However this is starting to turn into this crazy situation where now everyone is pointing out everything, every single thing, thats controversial. Everyone now is a white knight, as though I’m agreeing that everything should be a ’safe space’ and now its getting ridiculous. That was not the purpose of my previous comments.

I stand by what i said, some of ya’ll just fucked up. Some of ya’ll are absolute hypocrites, I don’t buy the whole ’it helps me cope’ bullshit and it’s both gross and hilarious. And I don’t get it at all. But that does not mean that I’m saying that anything even remotely dark or controversial is wrong. That doesn’t mean that anything and everything you don’t like is wrong. My only comments were on the whole pedo aspect, and people willfully erasing it for their own means, nothing else. I said some of the shit was concerning but never once said anything hateful. It isn’t necessary. I think pedo shit is going way to far when it comes to writing in fandoms. But everything else I think fucking go for it.

I do not understand the fics for the Grabber. Especially the readerxGrabber ones. I just don’t. Not just because the guy is a pedo and this site seems to be very ’but what about the children?!’ but you are taking literally a major aspect of the character and just erasing it like, c’mon ya’ll. I know ya’ll pissed he’s molesting kids. If he’d have JUST been killing them I maybe could have-might have jumped aboard that ship too but ya’ll are crazy to try deny the whole pedo thing. People are literally saying it’s not true. Like trying to tell me that he isn’t one. And I’m both laughing and confused. I atleast respect the people that admit its true but say ’for the sake of the story we won’t mention it’ but to the people that are defending the notion that he really isnt, ya’ll fucking nuts.

I’m a firm believer in if you don’t like something don’t read it. And you’ll never ever see me say or mention anything to anyone or send an ask or comment on someone’s story about how they ’shouldn’t write this or that or thats wrong or whatever’ or ’I don’t like this blah blah blah’. Or that’s ’triggering’ or what have you. I don’t understand people who do that. I also really really don’t understand stories where we change complete aspects of a character to bend to your whim just so we feel okay to write about it. But you do you. 

But pretending, willfully pretending or down right denying that this dude isn’t a pedo is ridiculous. He is. You may not like it but he is. You want to continue writing that shit then embrace it. Nothing necessarily wrong with writing ’certain’ shit but don’t go telling me this horse shit that he isn’t because we don’t see it. He is. And that’s perfectly fine for the basis of the film.

This shit has turned into such a white knight thing that while i completely stand by what i said previously (ya’ll make NO fucking sense writing for a fucking pedophile as though he isn’t one) I almost almost almost regret mentioning anything. Only because now it’s apparently turned into a ’you can’t like anything controversial’ situation and thats just not true at all. It’s turned into an excuse to attack people and that’s also not okay. It IS fiction. It IS gross, it is. Its disgusting. But coming for the writers like, I find the whole situation ridiculous but shitting on someone for writing something you don’t like is also just as ridiculous as some of the content. 

Ya’ll need to chill out. Seriously. Pedo shit is gross. Writing it is gross. Simping over a pedo makes no fucking sense but coming after writers is just as equally gross. It’s not just here it’s everywhere.  I don’t condone any of that shit so for the love of fuck please stop assuming that i do. Or that I’m on ’your side’. I enjoy fucked up shit. I do. Just not that particular kind of fucked up shit. I also enjoy having enough respect for people to not send hateful ass stuff because it makes you mad. Some of ya’ll should try it sometime. Try biting your tongue, you might find a new fetish you’ll enjoy…

[allteacher]

also on ao3

Eris has been in the Tower for barely three weeks when she gets the message.

It should come as more of a surprise, but Eris has known since she crawled gasping out of the Moon’s tunnels that she would not have peace for long, even in the Tower. Even after she’d been discovered and inspected and questioned, spoken softly to and coddled and ensconced gently in her own private quarters— quarters in the civilian wing, far away from her old rooms.

“All your things are still in storage,” Ikora had told her that first day, watching Eris look around her new bedroom, empty save the large windows looking down on the memorial gardens. The view is of the Firebreak section; Eris had refused anything where she could see the names of the people she’d known, where the City planners had just yesterday taken down the stone inscribed with her own name.

She still hasn’t retrieved any of her things, the ragged cloaks or the blankets or the chipped mugs she’d stolen from the Hunter’s Lounge. She thinks about going into that dark room filled with the markers of her past life, sometimes. Sometimes she thinks she will open the heavy metal door and her old self will be standing there, surrounded by the past. Sometimes this is a dream; more often it is a nightmare.

Every few days, Eris sneaks into the supply closet at the end of the hallway and takes one of the chain locks from its carefully-labeled container. She installs them carefully, tests her weight against the door to see if it gives: fragile charms against some future ruin. She knows anything she is truly afraid of could not be stopped by something so mortal, but the action gives her hands something to do; material action, however useless, in service of her own protection.

(She’d done the same on the Moon, before they’d ventured down into the pit: the six of them, holed up in some small lunar colony outbuilding, she and Vell nailing sheets of spinmetal to the doors to keep out wandering Hive in the night. The chalk of bone dust in her throat as Toland had hung Hive-charms over each threshold, humming to himself.

Sai had looked at him, grin questioning. “Are those going to blow us up?”

Eris knows now they would’ve done much worse.)

She hauls herself to her feet, examines her handiwork. If Ikora saw her, she’d call Eris obsessive. Eris knows she is; she wants something new to obsess over. Wants to think of nothing but Crota, to dream of nothing else until his great luminescent corpse is rotting in his Throne. This is why, when her comm chimes with the one-two tone of a summons, she turns toward it with an eager expectation. Maybe Ikora has convinced the Vanguard to listen to her, finally.

The message is from a channel she’s never seen, not before she entered the Hellmouth or since. There’s no text, just a string of coordinates and, at the bottom, a series of pictographs. They’re not Hive runes, have none of the sinuous incomprehensibility.

Eris, the habit worn into her, has her suspicions. But she speaks of them to no one, has the feeling she’s guessed the importance of the secret she’s been entrusted with.

The message has no date attached, so she waits a few more days before acting. She spends that time in a stupor, drifting around her little room, sometimes venturing to the library or to the secluded back hallways of the Hidden to ask for information. She still keeps to the shadows, because no one in the City or the Tower has grown used to her presence yet. Idly, she considers the idea that she is making her problem worse, only alienating herself further by refusing to come fully into the light, to let herself be seen. In these in-between days, she cannot bring herself to care.

She considers leaving without telling anyone. She does not think she will be gone long, and she does not need permission to leave the City. But she considers what the Vanguard, already suspicious of her, would think, what conclusions they would draw. What Ikora would think if Eris disappeared into the night, like she’d done with Eriana so many years ago.

Finally, she sneaks into Ikora’s office.

Eris wastes no time on formalities once she sees Ikora's figure behind her desk, piled high with reports. "I am leaving the City for the afternoon," she says. It is not a lie, because she is loathe to hide anything but what she must from the one person who has tried to welcome her back into the City, who still sees her as an equal. "I am not going off-world. I should be back before tomorrow." The words feel stiff in her mouth even as she says them, but she is still relearning conversations not conducted in whispers or screams.

Ikora does not beam at her, does not over-indulge her, but Eris can still feel the warmth of her Light radiating outward. “Alright," she says, "Radio if you need any assistance. And let me know if you see anything unusual. I’ve been receiving strange reports, lately.”

Eris hopes that isn’t a warning. She inclines her head, leaves without a word.

She departs immediately, before her paranoia can get the better of her. She flies over the Cosmodrome for half an hour before inputting the coordinates she’d long since memorized— some Hidden practicality had made her delete the message almost as soon as she’d read it. She comes to the location soon enough, a little clearing tucked into some foothills. Still on Earth, which she privately considers a blessing. She does not know if she would have been able to leave it, yet, not when her wounds are still so raw.

Eris parks her little ship in the shadow of a few trees. She feels secure having it a physical presence near her, a concrete mode of retreat. It’s more than she’d ever had in the tunnels.

She picks her way across a stream, climbs to the top of a small hill that rises over the clearing. She sees the figure immediately, cutting a striking figure against the weak afternoon light. Even from here, he hurts her eyes to look at. She grimaces, continues down towards him.

As she grows closer, the figure grows more obvious: Osiris. She’d had her suspicions, driven by what she’d remembered of his writings before his exile, Toland’s ravings. Even the message had a certain Warlock quality to it, a mystery, a challenge. She and Eriana had crafted just such a message with their own hands once, join us in our quest…

Osiris looks as she remembers him, though she’d only ever seen him from a distance. Eriana had disliked him, had hated his presence as Warlock Vanguard. Despised his position because of the power it gave him over the Praxic Fire, who stood in clear opposition to everything he'd gradually become.

(“I don’t see why he’s so desperate to understand them. I’m tired of trying to simply understand,” Eriana had groaned once, servos whirring, bent over some ancient tome. “I do not need to know the Hive to raze them to ashes. I only need to know what they have taken from us.”)

Forgive me, Eris thinks. She will not get her vengeance without fully comprehending everything the Hive are, without learning the weft and weave of their existence so that she can unravel it.

She blinks and she is standing before him. “Osiris,” she says. Maybe it is her memories of Eriana but she feels like a newly-Risen, again, standing before him. He is a figure cut neatly from her past and transplanted into the present, unchanging, looking down at her.

“Eris Morn,” he says, and Eris does not startle but she is, for some reason, surprised that he knows just who she is. She knows that it is her own tortuous journey that has made him seek her out, that it is her pain that has made her valuable. Some part of her rails against it, even as she is desperate to turn her nightmares into something usable, to prove to herself that their deaths were not meaningless, that they have done something other than feed the Hive’s ever-eager desire for suffering.

Osiris is looking at her strangely. Eris tries to stare back, but her eyes skitter sideways off of him, the afterimage of his silhouette burning in her eyes. She must make another face, because Osiris’ Ghost slides close to him, spinning intently, and the aura of his Light fades to a shimmer over his skin.

“I know you have information regarding the Hive,” he tells her. “The City ignores your warnings.”

“As they ignored yours.” It is not meant as a challenge, but everything she says sounds bitter, now.

Most of his face is covered, but the tilt of his head changes. “Yes. But we both know what is coming. The question is how to stop it.”

Eris has never been good at these Warlock-games, at talking in circles, hinting closer and closer to what lies plain before them both. “I think I know how to kill Crota,” she says, because she needs to get to the heart of the thing that has been eating her alive. She needs to tell someone who will understand.

And she thinks Osiris will understand, because he has not been through the Hellmouth but he does understand what it is like to exist utterly alone with the enemy, to be shaped by your experience of something completely alien. To be so utterly changed that everyone around you can only think you mad.

“Tell me, then,” he says, and so she does.

[curiousconch]

Chase You/Chase Me (Pt. 7)

Part 7: Round and around we go

Catch up here: Series Masterlist

Chapter Summary: The attack in McGraw Byrne's offices reveals a deeper conspiracy that runs to the top of the law firm, which Alex pursued head on. But when the dust settles, she is forced to face the music of her own troubled mind.

Book/Pairing: Choices - Laws of Attraction / Gabe Ricci x MC (Alex Keating)

Words: 2.1k+

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / themes of violence, and trauma, language. Reader discretion advised.

Disclaimer: Most of the characters as well as some dialogue belong to Pixelberry. I am merely borrowing them.

A week after, New York City

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The gunman panted as he ran through the dark and unfamiliar side streets of New York, the covering on his face not helping alleviate the sense of panic overtaking him.

His current state of mind paled in comparison with how calm he walked into the offices of that freakishly bright law firm.

The task was simple - get the phone and get out.

But when he found himself face to face with the woman who'd sent his life into a whirling clusterfuck, he didn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

He missed.

A brute of a man rammed into him right before he took a shot. Who knew corporate slaves can be combative? By then he knew he was fucked. He snatched the phone then ran.

An earlier scope of the building gave him an easy way out, but the shitty maze of the streets of the business district didn't give much of a reprieve.

I fucking hate this city.

He didn't know how long he'd been running, not until he had to stop by the dead end wall in front of him.

Blue and red flashing lights caught him in a daze, his breath heavy, realizing he was boxed in by police officers in an alley.

"Freeze!" one had shouted. "Raise your arms over your head!"

He didn't have a choice. He's not willing to die for his uncle, nor take another sentence in prison. That scumbag wasn't worth it, regardless of how many times that man tried drilling the thought into his head.

I'm tired of this shit anyway. Though I'll miss the perks.

He raised his hands, then felt his knees buckle when someone kicked him from behind, forcing him to the ground. Someone pulled the ski mask off his head, his face now exposed for everyone to see.

He was the younger, spitting image of Koenig's CEO. Except for those piercing blue eyes.

Now everyone will know, he thought. Poor uncle Peter will be burned to the stakes after he spill every single sordid detail of all the crimes Max was ordered to do.

From that pretty little celebrity in L.A., the poisoned man from Oklahoma, the researchers from Massachusetts, and all of those other victims in between.

Good thing he kept all those souvenirs. He will prove to them that he was just a pawn.

The pawn that was Maximilian Koenig Cornell.

**

A few days after, Rooftop of McGraw Byrne

Alex took another hit of nicotine from the cigarette between her fingers, standing by the edge of the fancy rooftop lounge. She exhaled a plume of smoke, the friction in her throat giving herself a temporary reprieve from her chaotic state of mind.

By the rest of the world's standards, it should have been a beautiful day. The skies above her was indigo, filled with streaks of orange from the setting sun. The peacefulness of it a far cry from the storm that was brewing inside her.

Success shouldn't feel this way. She was having a hard time basking in her recent victories.

Alex was just named junior partner this morning, after successfully taking Peter Koenig and Sadie McGraw down. Max Cornell, who turned out to be Koenig's nephew slash hitman, had confessed. He revealed who really was pulling the ropes, all in the form of well-kept call logs and text messages.

The backlash of it all reached McGraw Byrne's founding partner. The same form of proof exposed Sadie's hand on the Koenig class action suit, as well as her involvement in tipping off authorities to paint Marcus Sharpe as Aliana's murderer. The intent was to veer suspicion away from Koenig, making thousands of dollars along the way.

Alex had completely unraveled the conspiracy, with the help of Aislinn and Gigi. Beau, surprisingly, was more than participative. But it was obvious for everyone at the firm who led the crackdown, and it didn't take long for recognition to come to pass.

In everyone else's eyes, she emerged the winner.

And now, when all is said and done, there was nothing to escape to.

Alex can no longer disassociate herself from the sight of the gun barrel held by the ghost she tried to forget all these years.

The sound of applause, soured only by Martin Vanderweil's display of pain-in-the-ass arrogance, should have made her want to enjoy the fruits of her labor. Instead, here she was, wallowing with herself to be overcame by old bad habits.

What happened in the library was etched in her mind, clear as day. The memory of that close encounter with death, being brought up to life by the lack of distractions, made her shudder.

Every waking hour was consumed by the man with the haunting blue eyes that meant death. Those same eyes from the past that suffocated her for so long.

A decade spent running away from them, yet they still caught up with her.

She worked so hard not to remember, not to let it bring her down, for it not to be her end game. She's at the top of the fucking career ladder, yet why can't she still have a sense of freedom?

Everything just felt wrong. She felt out of place.

Lost in her frustrations, she didn't hear the whirring of the elevator and the approaching footsteps that followed.

"Thought I'd find you here," Gabe said, stopping inches away from her.

It took everything of her not to swivel and look at him, opting to curse at herself for how her body quickly relaxed by the softness of his voice.

The storm clouding her mind instantly dissipated, leaving her bare. Gabe's presence made the oceans within her stand still, as if awaiting to be stirred.

"Didn't want to be found," she mumbled, closing her lips on the still burning stick of nicotine. Alex struggled to keep her gaze steady at the slowly darkening skyline.

I know. Gabe wanted to say. He knew that finding her here, seeking out the comfort of isolation screamed her desire to be left alone. He had seen her internal turmoil, hiding behind the air of stoicism she projected for everyone else.

That's why he was never more determined to find her. He wanted, no, needed, to be there for her.

Gabe knew he'd been a dick to walk out from her that morning in L.A., right after he admitted what he felt for her.

But there was rarely an opportunity to make it right. Whenever there was, there was no getting through her. No matter how much he tried to reach out, to make her see that he regretted his actions that day, she wouldn't let him in.

He couldn't blame her.

Gabe told himself he'd give her time, to give her space. However, fate had other plans.

He almost lost her that night, and it was a wake up call. When he watched helplessly as Cornell aimed at her, something in him shifted. He's no longer stuck in a limbo questioning who Alex was for him, or why he constantly wanted to be near her, wanting to make everything right.

He was decided to run after her, to stay with her, no matter what. He was done chasing after dreams of the past.

Alex was his future.

"Can't get rid of me easily," he settled on that reply, leaning on the glass railing beside her.

"Really?" she quipped sardonically. "I honestly didn't take you to be the staying type."

That had to sting.

He knew he'd hurt her by leaving, so he deserved that. It wasn't enough to make his resolve waver.

"I am," he insisted. "It just takes me some time to find my footing."

She lifted a hand to him. "Don't go there, Gabe. Just don't - "

"I'm not walking away from you again, Alex," he professed.

She whirled to face him with a look of sullen resignation. "I know."

Deep down, she wanted him too. But not in the fucked-up state she was in. She needed to think, she needed to recover, she needed to get a grip on herself.

But she needed to do it alone.

"I can't deal with us now, it's just.." She sighed. "Everything else that's happened is too overwhelming."

Gabe deflated.

It was the first time he heard her admit defeat. He's gotten used to seeing her fighting every step of the way, that finding her in this state of hopelessness felt alien to him. His chest tightened, hating himself on taking part of what pushed her to breaking point.

"I need to take a step back from everything, Gabe," she said, almost begging. "That includes you."

"What do you mean?"

"Can I to take some time off?" she pleaded, wrapping herself in her own arms. "I have to hit pause for now."

"For how long, Alex?" Gabe's voice was strained. She just made it clear that he wasn't what she needed.

Still he hoped. So he held his breath.

Alex thought quietly for a few moments, before looking back at him in determination. He found a semblance of the Alex he knew.

"A couple of weeks," she answered with a tone of finality.

He didn't want to. But in his heart of hearts, he had to respect her decision. He understood that even the strongest needed to heal. Even the brave Alex Keating.

"I'll arrange it," he relented, closing his fists at his sides to stop himself from reaching out to her. "Anything else?"

She hesitated, biting her lower lip before she continued. "Actually, there is one more thing."

"What is it?" Gabe watched intently as she raised her head to look at him, her mouth curved into that familiar signature smirk that he'd grown to chase after.

"Will you wait for me?"

As per her usual modus operandi, Alex took his breath away by her unpredictability. Almost immediately, Gabe wrapped his arm around her to pull her close. He raised his free hand and let his knuckles brush against her cheek.

He smiled softly, a tad afraid that by holding her this close could break her. And yet, the effect she had on him couldn't be stopped from spilling out, as if it was what he wanted to say all along.

"I've waited my whole life for you, so what's a few more weeks?"

Alex beamed at him, relieved. "I knew you'll be up for the challenge."

"Because I care about you, Alex," he whispered.

"I care about you too."

Alex then dared to take it forward.

Before he had the chance to move away, she tiptoed and surprised him with a tender kiss on the cheek.

Gabe wasn't able to react as quickly, the contact catapulting his senses. Just as his mind plunged back to the ground, she was already walking away, the clicking of her black heels syncopating along with the beating drum inside his chest.

His sight followed her until she stood by herself in the employee elevator, her brown-eyed gaze melting him with earnest affection. As the doors shut closed, so did the heart of Gabriel Ricci.

It shut down in anticipation of her return.

**

Two months later

Mind hazy and craving for Chinese food, Gabe had asked the driver to take a quick detour.

He had just flown from Los Angeles, spending two weeks to assist on a big hotel chain M&A. He got out of LaGuardia at around 10pm, and now his jet lag and empty stomach were taking its toll on him.

The car stopped at the familiar block, and he got out of the vehicle, grabbing his suitcase. He walked the rest of the way, enjoying the craziness of New York City on a Friday night.

For a minute, it reminded him of her.

He heard rumors of her coming back, but HR had been heftily secretive on all things concerning her. With the firm fidgety over Vanderweil's recent harassment lawsuits, he erred on the safe side and didn't poke further.

It didn't take long for him to find Hoi On. Once inside, he greeted the servers in flawless Cantonese, striding straight to the counter.

As he gave his order, the kitchen crew brought out a bag of hunger-inducing takeout box. He was almost tempted to bargain for it instead of waiting for another 20 minutes. Until...

"Order complete for Alex!"

Gabe froze.

His senses were instantly filled by the familiar scent of coffee and vanilla and the echoing beat of heels hitting the floor.

There was no doubt about who was approaching the counter.

He found her standing beside him, the woman he'd missed every single day since he saw her last. The powerhouse junior partner with the easy smile and confident aura.

The woman whose return Gabe eagerly waited for.

"So," Alex began. "I take it tinsel town's fusion of cuisines can't match authentic Brooklyn takeout?" she teased, smiling at him in the same red dress she wore the first time she walked into his office.

He looked down over her - closely looking at the tiny changes in her features. Regardless, she looked more beautiful, taking note of the longer, loose tendrils of brunette hair framing her face.

"No," Gabe shook his head in amazement, his lips breaking into a lopsided grin. "Everything else couldn't compare."

She chuckled. The radiance of her laughter showed Gabe she was really back, and that she was finally ready.

"I bet they couldn't," she winked.

In an instant, Gabe's heart awoke from its slumber. It's as if it knew that this time, the wait was over.

The chase has come full circle.

Author's Notes: This may be the end of this series, but Alex & Gabe will return.

How did you find it? Let me see in your comments/reblogs! Thank you! 💖

Tag list: @adiehardfan @pixelnutrookie @starryjieun @latinagiraffe @sarcastic01lily  @spookycolorpeanut @ophrookie @suitfer @thegreentwin @mkatschoicesblog @made-of-roses @lillijill @kachrisberry @weaving-in-words @peonierose @wanderingamongthewildflowers

@choicesficwriterscreations @lawsofattractionfanfiction

[prouvaireafterdark]

Petrichor

aka the long-awaited Sad Buffy Fic™️ 🐶 This got smuttier than I’d planned, but what else is new lmao

Also: Canon compliance? Don’t know her (I also don’t fully understand the schematics of Alex’s house, but let’s just pretend I do).

Also on AO3!

(Oh, and Happy Season Four Renewal!)

***

“Your dog’s a little weird, dude.”

Alex sighs. “Yeah, I know.”

Outside, his beagle Buffy has been frantically running around and barking at the air for the last thirty minutes. There’s not a squirrel or bird in sight.

“Is she always like this?” Kyle asks, turning away from the window that faces Alex’s backyard to look at him.

“No, usually she’s pretty mellow,” Alex says, passing him a cup of coffee. He takes a sip from his own mug to stall before he finally admits, “She only gets like this when it rains.”

“Huh,” Kyle says, considering it for a moment before he adds, “Layla always hated the rain. Remember when we used to have to bribe her with peanut butter to get her to go on walks if it was too cloudy?”

Alex remembers. Kyle’s childhood German shepherd was usually fearless, but put her near any liquid that wasn’t in her water dish and she’d run with her tail between her legs.

If only it were that simple with Buffy.

“It’s not the rain that’s making her do that,” he explains, looking down into his mug. “Well, I guess it is, but not—not like you’re probably thinking.”

Kyle processes that a moment before he speaks up.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s up, or am I gonna have to guess?”

Alex sighs again. “She misses Michael.”

Kyle looks skeptical. “How do you know?”

Because I miss him too, is on the tip of his tongue, but Alex hesitates. As melancholic as the rain makes him, he’s not interested in spilling his guts over it.

“Because Michael smells like rain,” he says instead. “It’s an alien biology thing, apparently, but you probably would know more about that than I do.”

“Oh my god,” Kyle says, eyes wide and sympathetic. “Are you saying she’s looking for him out there right now?”

Alex nods. “She’ll give up in about an hour, but, yeah. She smells rain and she thinks he’s home.”

“That is so fucking sad.”

“I know,” he sighs, and turns around to go find a seat on the couch.

“Like, Sarah McLachlan in those ASPCA commercials level sad,” Kyle continues as he follows him, taking a seat on the other side of the couch. “Wait, did you guys adopt her together? Like, as a couple?”

Alex considers how to answer that. “No. We were together—I guess as much as we ever were—when I got her, and he went with me to pick her up from the shelter, but she’s not—he didn’t adopt her with me. He was just around a lot when I first brought her home.”

“Mmm, I see,” Kyle says, understanding. “Maybe you should call him.”

“What?” Alex asks.

“You know, invite him over,” Kyle says, like it’s obvious. “Ask if he wants to come play with her a little.”

“What?” Alex asks again, looking at him like he’s grown a second head.

“Look, I may not be a veterinarian, but you don’t need years of specialized training to see that your dog misses her dad,” Kyle says.

Alex raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“Well, her other dad,” he amends a moment later.

Alex shakes his head. “He’s not—That’s ridiculous.“

“Is it? He was here when she was a puppy, man,” Kyle counters. “They’ve clearly got a strong bond if she’s missing him that bad.”

Alex knows he’s right, but… he can’t just call Michael and ask if he wants to come play with Buffy.

Sure, he and Michael have been on good terms lately—great, even, now that they have a common goal and have learned how to actually communicate without having two totally different conversations.

But, months ago now, Michael asked him to stay away. He told Alex he didn’t want to be with him anymore, that it hurt too much, and Alex understands that, really he does, and he’s been trying so hard to maintain the boundaries Michael wants while still being there for him any way he can.

And if he invites Michael over right now, it won’t be because it’s something Michael needs from him. It’ll be because it’s a miserable, rainy day, and Alex and his adorably stupid dog miss him.

And if Alex is being honest with himself… he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he calls Michael and Michael says no. Not right now, not when Michael’s absence in his life, in his home, feels like an ugly, gaping wound.

“Just think about it,” Kyle says. “You never know, maybe he’s been missing her too.”

When Kyle leaves an hour later, Alex registers the quiet and realizes Buffy’s stopped barking. Finally, he thinks, until he goes to the back door and sees her slumped up against the glass, looking absolutely fucking miserable.

“Fuck,” he says, with feeling.

He opens the door and scoops her up off the ground. She’s a little wet from the start of the drizzle, but once she rests her head on his shoulder and huffs despondently he can’t bear to put her back down. He takes her over to the couch and draws the blanket around the both of them, hoping he can cheer her up with enough kisses and pats.

With the smell of Michael so thick in the air, he’s not surprised it doesn’t work.

He stays there with her until hunger beckons him toward the kitchen to make both of them dinner. When Buffy won’t touch her kibble, Alex scoops some leftover grilled chicken, rice, and veggies from his own plate into her bowl. It works, thankfully, but when she’s done she curls up on the floor with a sigh and Alex’s heart breaks just looking at her.

He ends up lying down on the floor next to her, his head cushioned by a pillow he dragged off the couch. The rain really starts coming down outside then, and Buffy starts to whine.

“I know, baby girl,” he says, curling more tightly around her. “I miss him too.”

He’s not sure how long he stays there before his phone buzzes in his pocket. He fishes it out to see a text from Kyle.

Did you call him yet?

Alex sighs and rolls onto his back, his hip aching with the movement. He stares at the ceiling for a long moment, weighing the pros and cons, until Buffy huffs a huge, sad sigh again and he just can’t fucking stand it anymore.

“Fuck it,” he says to himself and takes out his phone again.

He doesn’t end up calling Michael. Instead, he texts him a picture of Buffy without a caption.

His phone vibrates a minute later.

Aww, why’s my girl look so sad?

Alex isn’t proud of the noise he makes when he reads that. He types his response, then deletes it, and then types it again. Nerves coil tight in his stomach when he sends it.

Kyle seems to think she misses her other dad. Wanna come over?

Alex drops his phone on his chest so he doesn’t stare at it. It’s another long, long minute before his phone buzzes again. He takes a breath before he reaches for it.

Michael’s reply is just three words.

On my way

Buffy barely lifts her head up off the floor when there’s a knock at the front door. Alex walks down the hall to answer it, massaging the tight muscles in his right thigh as he goes. He straightens up when he reaches the door and opens it to find Michael standing there, looking gorgeous as ever in a dark green flannel that’s unbuttoned practically to the middle of his chest, his curls a little damp from the rain.

“Hey,” Alex smiles, stepping aside to let Michael in. “Thanks for coming.”

“How could I say no to that cute face?” he replies, but the way Michael looks him over as he says it makes Alex wonder whether he’s actually talking about Buffy.

He doesn’t have long to ponder that particular nugget of information, though, because once Michael’s voice carries into the house, Alex hears the frantic sound of Buffy’s nails scraping his hardwood floors. Michael gasps a little theatrically when Buffy rounds the corner, barking as she barrels toward him at full speed down the hallway.

“Hi, baby girl,” he coos, crouching down to her level.

When she’s finally in front of him, she spins in excited circles at his feet, barking and panting while Michael pets her everywhere he can reach. It takes her a minute, but eventually she stops moving long enough to prop herself up on Michael’s knee so she can alternate between licking his chin and staring up at him with abject love and affection, her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

It’s the happiest Alex has seen her in—God, he can’t even remember. He’d feel a little put out about it if he didn’t understand it on a deeply visceral level. When she looks up at Alex as if to say Look! He’s back! Alex can’t help but bend down to pet her too.

For his part, Michael seems similarly affected. “Oh, I know, baby, I missed you too, I missed you too,” he’s saying with a wide smile. His eyes are wet when he looks at Alex and Alex’s throat grows tight with feeling.

Did Michael need this as much as Buffy did? Alex wonders when Michael breaks eye contact.

“Oh god, uh, Alex?” Michael says suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts. “I think she had an accident.”

Alex spots the small puddle beneath her when Michael gets his hands under her arms and lifts her up onto her back legs.

“Shit, I’m sorry, hang on,” Alex says, making for the kitchen. “Make sure she doesn’t step in it!” he calls back on the way. He grabs the paper towels and some cleaner from the cabinet under the sink and heads back into the living room. “Sorry, she’s just excited,” he explains when he gets there.

“So I gathered,” Michael says, but there’s no hint of annoyance in his voice or on his face.

Alex cleans the mess quickly, and by the time he’s thrown out the used paper towels and washed his hands thoroughly Michael’s found himself on the couch in Alex’s living room. He’s lying back against the couch with Buffy on his chest, scratching right behind her hears as he talks to her.  

Seeing them like that reminds him of the first week they brought her home. He has a photo of the two of them sleeping on the couch together, her tiny head stuffed under his chin, and Alex’s heart aches remembering it. He wishes he’d been strong enough to tell Michael what he wanted. Maybe if he had, Michael wouldn’t be rebounding from his short-lived relationship with Maria and Alex and Buffy wouldn’t both be missing him so fucking bad all the time.

“Alex?”

“Yeah?” Alex asks, realizing he’s been standing there in silence for a few minutes.

“You okay?” Michael asks as he gives him an assessing look, his hand paused on Buffy’s back.

Alex realizes this is the first time in a long time that anyone’s asked him that.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lies, on instinct more than anything else. “You want something to drink?”

“I’d love a beer,” he says, and Alex welcomes the opportunity for a tactical retreat.

“You got it.”

He collects himself in the kitchen while he grabs two beers from the fridge, uncapping them before he walks back into the living room. Alex hands Michael his beer on his way to sit down on the other end of the couch.  

“Thanks,” Michael smiles as he takes the bottle Alex offers. Buffy sniffs the bottle when he goes to take a sip, but Michael holds it out of reach and explains, “No, this isn’t for puppies.”

Alex can’t help but laugh as he props his left elbow on the back of the couch to watch them.

Michael takes a long pull from the bottle and then sets it down on the end table next to him so he can keep petting Buffy uninterrupted.

“She really did miss me, huh?” Michael wonders aloud, as if the very idea that someone would is novel or unbelievable.

“Of course she did,” Alex says, placing his beer on the coffee table and scooting closer so he can pet her with his right hand. He doesn’t quite realize until it’s too late that he’s put himself right next to Michael, his right bicep almost brushing Alex’s chest. He studiously keeps his eyes on Buffy as he adds, “She loves you.”

Out of the corner of Alex’s eye, he sees Michael’s mouth turn up in a soft smile. “I love her too.”

They chat idly while Buffy soaks up Michael’s attention—Michael tells Alex all about a new experiment he’s working on with Liz that has exciting implications for something Alex would need at least two astrophysics degrees to understand, and Alex shares that he’s been keeping himself busy with music again, much to Michael’s delight.

After years of going back and forth between fucking Michael and fighting with him, it’s nice to just talk to him for a change.

The conversation makes its way back around to Buffy when she shuffles her way up Michael’s chest to fit her nose right under his chin, her eyes drifting shut for a nap. When Michael laughs and drops a kiss on the soft patch of fur between her eyes, Alex’s finds the strength to take Kyle’s advice.

“Look, I, um,” Alex starts, shifting on the couch, “I was actually thinking maybe you could… come around sometimes. To play with her.”

“What, like visitation?” Michael asks with an eyebrow raised. “I get joint custody on the weekends?”

Alex can’t help but laugh. “You make it sound like she’s our kid.”

And, wow, he should not have vocalized that thought because as soon as the words are out of his mouth Alex is hit by a whole fucking wave of feelings he does not have the time nor the ability to unpack right now, and by the look of it so is Michael.

“Hey, you’re the one who called me her dad,” Michael points out, a second too late for it to sound completely casual.

“Technically, Kyle did,” Alex flushes, but gestures to where Buffy is snuggled into his neck, finally at peace. “But look at her. She misses you.”

“Just her, huh?” Michael asks, so quietly that for a second Alex thinks he’s imagined it, but then Michael’s hand slides down from the back of Buffy’s neck to cover Alex’s own where it’s resting on her back.

Alex’s mouth goes dry. He chances a look at Michael, and what a fucking mistake that is because Michael’s honey-gold eyes are staring right at him and Alex forgets how to breathe.

“You miss me, too, Alex?” Michael asks, something that sounds a little like hope in his voice.

Alex looks at Michael for a moment, his head and heart at war the way they always are when it comes to him.

“Yeah,” Alex finally admits, a bone-deep exhaustion hitting him as the confession crosses his lips. “I do.”

Michael nods, processing that. “I miss you too,” he says after a long minute, his thumb stroking over the back of Alex’s hand, and Alex fights against the urge to pull his hand away because this doesn’t just feel important, it feels fucking monumental, but how can he even think with Michael touching him like that?

“Stop,” Alex begs softly. “Please. If you don’t mean it, or if you’re not ready, I need you to stop.”

When Michael doesn’t say anything, Alex closes his eyes, the inside of his bottom lip caught tight between his teeth to keep from losing it. He’s felt like he’s on the edge of something all day and Michael sitting here, teasing him with the offer of more, it’s just too much.

Alex feels Michael let go of his hand, feels Buffy disappear from under his palm, hears his leather couch squeak under Michael’s shifting weight and fuck how has he fucked this up already, he’s barely even said anything—

Alex flinches when he feels the warmth of Michael’s palm against his cheek.

“Alex,” he whispers. “Open your eyes.”

Alex does, swallowing hard as he meets Michael’s gaze, his eyes shining with tears.

“I mean it,” Michael tells him, his expression sincere.

“You do?” he asks hesitantly.

“Of course, I do,” Michael says, leaning in to gently knock their foreheads together. Alex’s heart aches at Michael’s closeness, the familiarity with which Michael touches him. He never thought he’d get to experience it again. “God, Alex, I miss you so much I can’t breathe sometimes, I—”

Alex closes the distance between them without a second thought, finding Michael’s lips as warm and soft as he remembers. He pulls back a second later to apologize for cutting Michael off, for moving too quickly when he’s not even sure what exactly Michael wants, but Michael just makes a hurt noise low in his throat and follows after him for another taste, and then another.

Michael presses further and further into his space until Alex’s back hits the couch cushions with a soft thud, the top of his head brushing the armrest. Alex pulls away from Michael’s mouth with a slick sound, and as he gasps for air, Michael attaches his lips to a tender spot beneath his jaw and sucks, igniting a fire low in Alex’s belly that threatens to consume him.

He can feel himself getting hard as Michael worms his way even closer. He guides Alex’s left leg to rest against the back of the couch as he settles his solid weight between his thighs, continuing to pepper his throat with wet, sucking kisses all the while. It’s not until Michael dips his tongue into the hollow of his throat that Alex’s hips lurch upward of their own accord, seeking the kind of relief only Michael can give him.

“Michael,” Alex moans, eyes slipping closed as his restless fingers weave into Michael’s curls.

Michael hums his response and slips his hands under Alex’s ass, encouraging him to grind their cocks together through the fabric of their jeans. It’s rough and hot, too much and not nearly enough, and along with his spiking pleasure comes the daunting thought that they’re moving too fast—that they’re about to make the same mistake they always do.

“Fuck, wait, we should—“ he begins to protest, but Michael interrupts him, groaning unhappily against the neckline of his t-shirt before he lifts his head to look at him. Alex’s eyes skip down to Michael’s mouth automatically, that tempting shade of pink making it very hard to remember what he was thinking two seconds ago.

“Don’t tell me what we should do,” Michael begs him, drawing Alex’s attention back up his face, to where his eyes are wide and more than a little desperate. “What do you want?”

Alex stares at him as that question hits his ears, a “What I want doesn’t matter” already on the tip of his tongue before his brain even catches up with him. He’s spent so long carrying those words in his head and in his heart that he barely notices their weight anymore—not until it’s Michael staring back at him and offering him everything he’s ever dreamed of.

This time’s no different, and Michael must see it on his face because the look in his eyes softens along with his voice as he asks again, “What do you want, Alex?” He reaches up to cup the side of his face, his thumb brushing featherlight across his cheekbone. “I’ll give you anything.”

Alex swallows roughly, his eyes burning with tears he can barely hold back.

“You,” he answers, perhaps more honest than he’s ever been. His voice trembles as he adds, “I just want you.”

A brittle smile breaks out on Michael’s face, his eyes shining in the lamplight before they flutter closed as he leans back down to kiss him again, slow and deep and wet.

Heat starts to simmer between between them once again, the soft press of Michael’s mouth and the tease of his tongue driving all other thought from Alex’s mind. Michael works his hands slowly under his t-shirt and Alex hardly notices it happening until Michael rolls his thumb over one of his nipples, sending a jolt of pleasure straight to his groin.

Alex groans and shivers at the sensation, using his prosthetic—planted firmly on the floor now—for any traction he can get to press his hips up into Michael’s lap.

Michael smirks against his mouth, and Alex can’t help but catch Michael’s full bottom lip between his teeth in retaliation, making Michael whimper so sweetly that Alex lets him go and soothes the bite with his tongue almost immediately.

Michael gives him one last kiss before he pushes Alex’s shirt as far up his chest as it can go and dips down to latch his mouth over his right nipple. Alex sighs and drops his head back against the cushions, his cock thickening even further as Michael teases it into a hard bud with his lips and teeth and tongue, playing with the other between his thumb and forefinger. He tugs it between his teeth and Alex gasps, arching his back and pressing his chest more firmly against Michael’s mouth.

After a few more minutes of teasing, Michael starts a slow slide downward, trailing wet kisses along the way as he charts a path down Alex’s belly toward the wiry hair peeking out above his belt.

“You want my mouth, ‘Lex?” Michael asks before dragging his tongue along the sensitive skin just above the waistband of his jeans.

Alex’s stomach clenches as he pictures it—Michael going down on him with singleminded focus, looking up at him beneath his lashes as he sucks on the head before taking him deeper, sinking down until the tip of his cock is snug inside his throat. He’s always looked so good with his head between Alex’s thighs.

His cock throbs painfully at the thought, desperate for Michael’s attention, but there’s something else on Alex’s mind right now, something he wants with a ferocity he can’t quite put into words.

“I do,” he says, softly tugging Michael’s hair to get his attention. “Up here.”

Michael stares at him a moment before he gets it, confusion fading as a fond smile takes its place. He slithers up Alex’s body until he can hover over his face.

“You want me to kiss you when I make you come?” Michael asks him, rubbing his nose along Alex’s cheek.

Alex nods, not trusting his voice.

Michael presses a soft, almost reverent kiss to his cheek.

“I can work with that,” he says, moving closer to his mouth. He kisses him again, not more than a peck, before he sits up and leans back, resting his weight on his knees between Alex’s spread thighs.

Alex mourns the loss of warmth, but he soon forgets it as Michael strips his flannel off his back and tosses it haphazardly behind him, revealing his toned chest and stomach. His mouth runs dry just looking at him and he quickly follows suit, yanking his bunched up t-shirt over his head and letting it fall gracelessly to the floor.

He starts on his jeans next, but Michael’s hands bat his out of the way, one cupping his cock through the denim while the other undoes his belt with practiced efficiency. He teases his crown with the tip of his finger for a torturous moment before Alex groans and he gets with the program, tugging Alex’s jeans and underwear down his hips just far enough to free his cock.

The relief Alex feels at no longer being so constricted is instantaneous, and Michael takes full advantage of the situation, curling his fingers around his shaft and thumbing through the moisture glistening at the tip. He spreads it down the length of him as he starts to jerk him off, not firm or quick enough to make him come, but enough to make the pleasure that’s been building inside him since they started this flare hot and insistent.

Alex catches his bottom lip between his teeth to keep from crying out as his hips twitch upward, fucking his cock into Michael’s grip. When he tears his gaze away from where Michael is playing with him, he sees honey-brown eyes staring back at him.

“What?” Alex asks, flushing under Michael’s attention.

“Nothing,” Michael smiles, shaking his head. “You’re just really fucking pretty like this.”

Alex scoffs at that, but it only makes Michael more insistent.

“You are,” he says defiantly, squeezing his cock a little on the upstroke. Alex tries to bite back the moan building in his throat, but it’s easier said than done. “I mean, you’re always pretty, but when I’ve got my hands on you? Shit, ‘Lex. You don’t know what you do to me.”

“Oh yeah?” he shoots back, eyes drifting south toward the dark spot slowly bleeding through the front of Michael’s jeans. “Why don’t you show me?”

Michael rises to the challenge, letting go of Alex’s cock and getting to work on his ridiculous belt buckle. He shoves his own jeans and underwear down his thighs as quick as he can and seconds later Alex feels Michael caging him in as he covers his body with his own, pressing up into his space to kiss him just like Alex had asked him to.

He feels Michael’s cock poking into his belly, smearing precome against his skin, and Alex hooks his leg around him to bring him closer until their cocks are trapped between them. Alex breaks the kiss for just a moment, just long enough to lick his palm before he slips his hand down his belly to wrap his fingers around them both, making a tight, wet channel for them to fuck into. The sticky mix of spit and precome isn’t nearly as smooth as lube, but it’ll do.

“Uh, fuck,” Michael groans against his mouth as he begins to rock his hips forward in a slow, steady grind. “Been a while since we did it like this, huh?”

Alex hums in agreement as memories of the two of them in the back of Michael’s truck, rutting together on a makeshift mattress that smelled faintly of weed, flash through his mind. A lot’s changed since then, but the drag of Michael’s cock against his still feels just as good.

Michael starts to thrust in earnest then, and Alex’s burns with every slide of his cock against him, with every eager kiss Michael presses to his mouth. His heart is pounding against his ribs and blood is rushing in his ears, nearly but not quite loud enough to drown out all the perfect little sounds Michael keeps making in the back of his throat.

It’s not long before it all overwhelms him and Alex shudders as he comes, his balls drawing up tight and cock pulsing hot and wet between them. He gasps into Michael’s mouth, too far gone to remember how to kiss properly as his pleasure washes over him, inexorable as the ebb and flow of the rising tide and strong enough to pull him under.

Michael follows him a moment later, moaning sharply against Alex’s cheek as he spills over his fist, adding to the mess Alex made. Alex jerks him through it, milking him for all he’s worth until he hides his face in Alex’s neck and starts to whimper, overstimulated. Alex lets him go then and focuses on catching his breath as the last of his pleasure fades.

Michael’s the first to move, bumping his way back toward Alex’s mouth to kiss him again, lips raw and slick where they brush against his mouth. Alex cradles his cheek with his clean palm to hold him there as they trade kisses, neither one of them quite ready to break the spell that drew them back together. Alex loses himself to it, so much so that he barely registers the quiet patter of claws against wood drawing nearer until Buffy hops her front paws up onto the edge of the couch and starts to lick his cheek.

Alex makes a rather undignified noise at the sensation of Buffy’s tongue on his face—not to mention the smell of her breath—and Michael laughs against his mouth before he pulls away to look at her.

“I’m sorry, princess, were we ignoring you?” Michael coos, and Alex isn’t proud of the way Michael’s low, rasping voice makes his spent cock twitch.

Michael reaches over the edge of the couch, feeling around on the floor for a moment, until Alex hears a sharp squeak. Buffy barks happily, lowering down on her front legs and wagging her tail, and Michael throws one of her brightly colored toys as far as he can across the room.

“That ought to buy us 30 seconds,” Michael says, leaning up between Alex’s spread thighs. Michael’s bare chest shines as he reaches over for the box of tissues sitting on the coffee table, sticky with sweat and come. He grabs a few for himself and then offers Alex the box.

Once they’re as clean as they’re going to get, Michael zips up his jeans and gathers their dirty tissues to throw them out. Alex likewise tucks himself away and sits up on the couch, nervously awaiting Michael’s return.

He’s just reaching for his shirt on the floor when Michael comes back, his head cocked to the side as he looks at him curiously.

“What are you doing?” Michael asks, the corner of his lips pulling up into a lopsided smile. Alex gives him a questioning look, but Michael only steps closer and plants his hand on Alex’s chest, pushing him gently to lie back down. “I’m not done with you yet,” Michael explains.

Alex raises an eyebrow, but Michael just settles on his chest once more, tucked between Alex’s body and the back of the couch. He throws one leg over Alex’s thigh and his arm wraps around his waist, his chaotic mop of curls tickling Alex’s nose as he shifts to get comfortable.

The silence between them as they lie there is nice, simple in a way things rarely are for them.

That is, until Alex’s mind starts running away from him, age-old doubts and fears plaguing his thoughts. He loves Michael more than anything, but was falling back into bed so soon a mistake? Can they really make it work this time?

“Stop thinking,” Michael mumbles against his collarbone.

“Sorry,” Alex apologizes with a sigh, dropping a kiss into his curls. “I just…”

“Hm?” Michael prompts him when he doesn’t continue.

Alex takes a breath before he says, “I just can’t believe we just had sex on my couch without actually talking things out first.”

“Really?” Michael asks, leaning up to look at him incredulously. “You can’t believe that?”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Alex concedes with a laugh. “I just meant—I don’t know. I thought the next time we did this, we would be a real couple.”

That’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Michael’s face falls a little, his eyes sliding down to stare intently at Alex’s collarbone. He doesn’t pull away from him though, not yet, which Alex hopes means he hasn’t completely fucked this up.

“Who says we’re not?” Michael asks slowly, chancing a look back up at Alex’s face. Alex isn’t sure what he finds there, but it reassures him enough to joke, “I mean, we have shared custody of a fur baby remember? That sounds pretty serious to me.”

Alex laughs at that, his eyes warm and fond and maybe just a little misty.

“I love you,” he says, the words spilling out of him before he can contain them.

His heart seizes in his chest a little at the unexpected admission, but it’s worth it to see the joy on Michael’s face as he presses in close and whispers those words right back at him.

The next time it rains in Roswell, Alex wakes slowly to the sounds of soft laughter, rustling sheets, and raindrops tapping away at the roof overhead. He drifts in that space between sleeping and waking for a few moments, warm and content.

Buffy barks suddenly, pulling Alex firmly into the land of the living. He cracks open an eyelid to see Michael sitting up in bed and a very happy beagle demanding belly scratches on the comforter in front of him.

“Shh, daddy’s sleeping,” Michael scolds gently, and Alex’s heart feels so fucking full.

He rubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up, the movement drawing Michael’s attention.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Michael says, casting a rueful smile over his shoulder.

Alex smiles and shakes his head, shifting closer so he can rest his head on Michael’s shoulder and pull him back against his chest. He rests his right palm over Michael’s heart, his fingertips dragging lightly through his chest hair.

“Never apologize for being here when I wake up,” Alex says, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. Michael ducks his head and smiles, his hand coming to rest over Alex’s on his chest.

Alex closes his eyes and breathes deep, the heady scent of petrichor filling his lungs.

Maybe rainy days aren’t so bad.

[thearvariblues]

And They Were Roommates - Chapter 2

Previously | Masterpost

2 – Put It Back Where It Belongs

“I said I didn’t want coffee, Jaskier,” Aiden sighed, pushing his dark sunglasses further up on his nose.

“Of course you do, darling. No offense, but you look like Death personified.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’ve already died,” Aiden murmured, accepting the paper cup from Jaskier with a frown. “Is there any chocolate in it?”

“No, of course not. I know how much you hate it,” Jaskier grinned.

“Oh, good,” Aiden smiled, taking a sip.

“There’s a shit-ton of caramel, though,” Jaskier finished.

Aiden made a face, but took another sip. His hangover really was killing him.

“I hate you sometimes,” he said. “Is this really a good idea, by the way?”

“What, to have a coffee on our way to Geralt’s?”

“To go to Geralt’s,” Aiden elaborated. “I mean, he still hasn’t texted you back.”

“Yeah, but Geralt’s always glad to see me.”

“I should hope so, considering that he’s gonna see you every fucking day for the rest of his life,” Aiden chuckled, wincing when a stray ray of sunshine found its way around the rim of his sunglasses and into his eyes. “Fuck me, I should have taken those painkillers.”

“Told you so,” Jaskier said, sipping his frappe. “Look, don’t be nervous about it. Lambert doesn’t bite, as far as I know. He’s just a little... grumpy.”

“I don’t blame him. I’d be grumpy if two idiots broke into my apartment totally unannounced.”

“I’ve announced us, love. I texted Geralt.” Jaskier rolled his eyes. “But Lambert’s kind of always grumpy.”

“So nice of you to force me to live with him, then.”

“Aiden, I’m not… forcing you to do anything. I’m just asking you, very nicely, to meet Lambert and see if you, perhaps… could share an apartment, that’s all.”

“You know, judging by what you’ve already told me, I don’t think I want to be anywhere near him, let alone share an apartment,” Aiden sighed when Jaskier unlocked the door of Geralt’s apartment building. “You said he really was an asshole.”

“He is, but…” Jaskier shrugged. “Look, I met Geralt after his divorce, I admit, but he’s told me, countless times, that he wouldn’t have made it through that if it wasn’t for his brothers. Eskel and Lambert.”

“So the asshole knows how to act like a normal human being when someone’s whole world is falling apart. Amazing.”

“Well, it can’t be said about most men I know,” Jaskier chuckled, calling the elevator.

“Fair point,” Aiden admitted. “So, is there anything else I should know about this… Lambert?”

“He’s straight, I’m afraid,” Jaskier sighed and stepped into the elevator.

“Fuck. Jaskier,” Aiden whined. “You know what I told you about straight guys!”

“Relax, babe. He’s not… like that. He’s not, you know, straight. He just doesn’t sleep with anyone but women, that’s all. He’s not gonna judge you, I promise.”

“So he’s an asshole but he’s, in fact, a pretty decent guy, too?”

“Well… he certainly is pretty,” Jaskier nodded as they stepped out of the elevator. “Yeah, trust me, him being straight is better for you. At least you won’t be tempted.”

“Tempted?” Aiden frowned. “Why would I be tempted?”

Jaskier chuckled, pushing his key into the keyhole of Geralt’s apartment.

“Oh, my sweet summer child…”

*

“Lambert.”

Lambert groaned and shook off the hand on his shoulder.

“Lambert, wake the fuck up.”

“Piss off,” Lambert mumbled, burying his face into the pillow.

“Shit… Lambert!”

It was the urgency in Geralt’s voice that made Lambert actually open one eye – a decision which he immediately came to regret when he felt a stab of pain shoot through his eye and straight into his brain. He moaned.

“What the actual fuck, Geralt?” he moaned. “Let me sleep, for fuck’s sake.”

“I’d love to, but we’re in trouble. Big, big trouble.”

“Have you set the kitchen on fire again?”

“No, but–”

“Is there an alien invasion?”

“No–”

“A psychotic serial killer on the loose in the building?”

“Not as far as I know, but–”

“Great. I don’t care, then. Good night, Geralt,” Lambert murmured, burying his face back into the pillow.

Which, as he realized, wasn’t really his pillow but a cushion, which probably meant he’d spent the night on their couch.

Oh, well, it wasn’t the first time.

“Lambert!”

“What?!” Lambert whined.

“Jaskier texted. Twenty minutes ago.”

“Mhm. Look, Geralt,” Lambert said, yawning. “I know you’re still awed or whatever the fuck that the little piece of shit not only acknowledges your existence but also loves you back, which I still find totally astounding, by the way, but you don’t need to inform me whenever he texts you, thank you very much.”

“Well, he texted me he’s on his way here.”

“Still don’t care, just try not to be too loud this time, you know Mrs. Nenneke doesn’t like it.”

“He’s on his way here with Aiden.”

Lambert groaned, opening his eye again.

“And who the fuck is Aiden?”

Geralt sighed. He looked like shit, Lambert noticed, his hair tousled, his face pale, eyes unfocused, wearing nothing but his black boxer shorts. He looked as if he’d spend the night on the couch, too. Well, it also wouldn’t be the first time.

“Jaskier’s roommate.”

Lambert sighed and sat up with a groan.

“Fucking awesome. Let me guess. Jaskier just happened to be telling this… Aiden about him having to move out at the same fucking time you were telling me about you moving out of here, am I right?”

“Well, I can’t guarantee it was at the same time, but…”

“Stop the bullshit, Geralt, or I’m gonna shove it so far up your arse that even Jaskier won’t be able to find it,” Lambert growled. “What did he text you, exactly?”

“Ugh,” Geralt observed, unlocking his phone. “On my way to your place with Aiden. Have had the bestest of ideas, explain when we get there.”

“Oh, go to hell, you and your bard,” Lambert murmured, rubbing his aching eyes. “So he wants to make me live with this Aiden, right?”

“Why do you think–”

“Because it’s fucking obvious, Geralt, to everyone with more than two brain cells.”

“It doesn’t seem obvious to me.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“I… Lambert!” Geralt said, offended.

“When did he text you again?” Lambert asked.

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“And… Just remind me, how long it takes to get from Jaskier’s place to ours?”

“Uhm… Twenty minutes with a stop for coffee.”

A key rattled in the door.

“Oh,” Lambert said. “Fucking fantastic.”

*

When Aiden stepped into the apartment, he immediately thought he’d died and went straight to heaven.

Not because Geralt was standing there in the middle of the living room wearing nothing but his boxers, no. Aiden was used to seeing Geralt like this whenever he stayed for the night, and honestly, Geralt was never quite his type – close, right, but not exactly it.

But then there was the other guy in the room. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, wearing only a pair of sweatpants with at least three holes in them – and he was only counting the big ones. The guy was pale and… all the gods help Aiden… ginger.

Now, Aiden had a thing for gingers. He didn’t need his boyfriends to have red hair, of course, but it was a nice bonus.

All in all, this guy was precisely Aiden’s type.

And, logically, it simply had to be the infamous Lambert.

The infamous, straight Lambert.

Aiden felt his mouth go dry.

Oh, no, this wasn’t heaven.

It was hell.

*

Lambert should have expected something like this, of course.

Not the fact that Jaskier would simply barge in with this Aiden at nine in the fucking morning on a Saturday, no. That was totally unpredictable and extremely annoying, no matter how much Geralt always tried to convince Lambert that Jaskier’s unpredictability was endearing or something.

But he absolutely should have expected Aiden to be looking… that way.

The… guy? Lambert settled for a guy in his mind, at least until proven otherwise. The guy was wearing a long black skirt, an oversized dark blue T-shirt which he had tucked into said skirt and way too many gold necklaces and pendants. His brown hair was cut into a style Lambert was pretty sure was called a pixie cut, since Geralt’s fourteen-year-old daughter Ciri had spent her last visit here trying to convince Geralt to allow her to have her hair cut exactly like this.

And then there was the black eyeliner, of course. The black eyeliner is a must, after all.

Lambert blinked and tore his eyes away from the guy or gal or whatever the fuck when he realized that Jaskier was talking.

(Lambert had long since learned to tune Jaskier out a little. He liked the guy, all right, but it was better for his mental health to at least partially ignore him from time to time.)

Before Lambert could start focusing on what Jaskier was saying, Geralt walked up to his boyfriend and gave him a kiss. Lambert groaned.

“I know, I’m sorry, I was sleeping. Next time, you’d better call, love,” Geralt smirked. “Wait a sec, I’m just gonna get dressed. Lambert?”

“You need my assistance or what?” Lambert chuckled. “I don’t think Daffodil would like that.”

“Dandelion, Lambert, it’s Dandelion,” Jaskier said, rolling his eyes, a tiny smile on his lips. This was a game they had been playing for a while. “And I think Geralt was kindly suggesting that you should also go and get dressed into… something more appropriate.”

“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Lambert shrugged, getting to his feet.

“You’re scaring your potential new roommate,” Geralt said.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Lambert grinned. He took three steps to Aiden, winked and grabbed a coffee cup from his potential roommate’s unresisting fingers. “Hey. I’m Lambert.” He took a sip of the coffee and immediately came to regret it. “Jesus Christ. There’s more sugar than actual coffee in this shit.”

“Hey!” Jaskier protested. “It’s not that bad!”

“Right. It’s worse,” Lambert nodded, taking a long swig from the cup before returning it to Aiden. “Ugh. Disgusting.”

“I know, right?” Aiden chuckled.

“That’s enough,” Geralt growled, grabbing Lambert’s shoulder. “You’re going to get dressed. Right fucking now.”

“Do I have to? I mean, it would be a sin to cover my body with… Ouch! All right, all right, I’m going, no need to be so pissy, Geralt. Fuck’s sake, let go of me you fucking moron…”

*

Five minutes later, Lambert was sitting in the armchair dressed in black jeans and a very fitting black T-shirt and Aiden, quite honestly, thought it was even worse than those sweatpants he had been wearing before.

In those sweatpants, he looked like a hot mess.

Like this, he was just hot.

So he was sitting there, sipping a Red Bull and watching Aiden in the opposite armchair with a cocky smile on his face.

Aiden opened his own can of the energy drink (which was, quite surprisingly, offered to him by Lambert himself) and matched Lambert’s smile with his own.

“All right, boys and whatevers,” Jaskier chimed in. “We’ve gathered here today–”

“This isn’t a fucking wedding, Jaskier,” Lambert grunted. “And we didn’t gather. You just fucking invited yourself in to force a roommate on me.”

“You do need a roommate, Lambert,” Geralt replied.

The two lovebirds were sitting on the couch, their limbs already entangled.

“All right. As you wish,” Lambert shrugged. “So tell me, Aiden, why do you want to be my new best friend?”

“Lambert,” Geralt sighed.

“I honestly don’t,” Aiden chuckled. “And honestly, I’m not even sure I want to live with you. It’s just that Jaskier insisted on dragging me here.”

“Aiden!” Jaskier groaned.

“And why wouldn’t you want to live with me, eh?” Lambert said, cocking his eyebrow. “You know, if you’re afraid of that, I can totally accept the fact that you’re…”

“Non-binary?” Aiden chuckled.

“I was gonna say a weirdo,” Lambert said with a playful smirk.

Oh, so that’s how you want to do it, Aiden thought.

“Are you?” he said, ignoring Jaskier’s protests. “I don’t know, Lambert. I’m not sure I can accept the fact that you’re one of those… soulless gingers.”

“Wow.” Lambert placed a hand on his heart and sighed. “This brings back memories of my childhood. You know, that’s what my dear departed father used to call me, may he rot in hell.”

“Jeez, slow down. It’s a bit early in our relationship to reveal your tragic past, don’t you think?”

“Nah, I think everything should be out in the open from the beginning. For example, what’s really underneath your skirt, Aiden?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Aiden chuckled. “Better yet, wouldn’t you like to see? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Will you? All right then,” Lambert nodded, standing up and reaching for the zipper of his pants. “I’m warning you, though, you might not be ready to face the glory of my mighty dick.”

“I assure you that I have seen dicks mightier than yours, my dear.”

“You think so? Wait for it, babe.”

“All right, all right!” Geralt said. “Lambert, zip up those pants or so help me!”

“You afraid Jaskier’s gonna choose me when he sees the true beauty of my manhood?”

“I’ve already seen it and, quite honestly, it’s not that impressive,” Jaskier shrugged. “Geralt’s right. Put it back where it belongs. Right now.”

“Yes, mummy,” Lambert grunted, rolling his eyes. “Ugh. You two are no fun.”

“I honestly don’t understand your definition of fun,” Jaskier sighed.

Lambert glanced at Aiden, who was currently busy choking with laughter. The redhead grinned.

“All right, whatever,” he said. “I’ll take…”

He raised a questioning eyebrow at Aiden.

“Him,” Aiden said helpfully.

“Him, right. Thank fuck,” Lambert nodded. “I’ll take him.”

“I’m… starting to think this wasn’t such a good idea,” Jaskier gulped when Aiden grinned.

“Quite the opposite, Daisy. It was probably the best idea you’ve ever had,” Lambert said.

“It’s a deal, then,” Aiden nodded. “Nice to meet you, roommate.”

“To living together, weirdo,” Lambert laughed, raising his can of Red Bull.

“Right,” Geralt sighed. “We’re fucking doomed.”

[kinsey3furry300]

5 ships I hate, why I hate them, how to (kinda) fix them, the better ships you should be doing in that universe, and why you should ignore me and keep writing them if it makes you happy.

Note: this is done for amusement, please don’t be offended; I’m not attacking your ship, I’m just listing some ships I do not always care for, and how I think they could be improved, and maybe made brilliant, by clever writing.

In no particular order, and focusing on ships that often annoy me, with no attempt by me to say anything meaningful or popular about the current state of any particular fandom. I’m also a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as a bad ship, only a badly executed ship, so my objections to these is less a dislike of shipping, or the paring, and more that they raise writing issues that I think are difficult to fix in a satisfying way. That’s why in a lot of the examples below I prefer AU ships to ones that try to messily work it into the cannon. Anyway, enjoy... I guess?

 Marco x / anyone (Animorphs)

Why I hate it: Animrophs is an intensely character-driven story, where the tension of each book comes from the conflicts, external and internal, that the five Animrophs (and Ax) face during a long, hard, traumatic war.  And while several of the character are paired off romantically, it’s always to emphasise character conflict over their different points of view. Jake and Cassie are a pair because Jake’s struggle with having to make hard, grey, morally ambiguous choices as leader is highlighted by Cassie’s burning need to make the right choice, the lesser evil, the choice that leaves some small shred of humanity and dignity and kindness left in this bleak world. Tobias and Rachel are a pair as their arcs deal with literal and figurative loss of humanity, as the slow accumulation of trauma over time turns these happy(ish), normal kids into psychologically ruined husks of their former selves and destroys them slowly, one fight at a time.

Marco’s arc, isn’t about either of these things: Marco’s arc, is about the bright, clear line between A and B, between problem and solution. Marco is a utilitarian, a pragmatist: his concern isn’t the burden of leadership, or the cost of the decision, but about how to put that all aside and make hard decisions that actually work regardless of cost. It’s not about what to do, the path is obvious: the bright, clear line of ruthless logic, but how to do it. His match, his counterpoint, the other character who’s all about the logic of taking awful decision in a way that actually works for the team, and his foil, his female counterpart in this, is not a romantic partner, but his mother: Visser one, making the exact same hard, difficulty ruthless decisions using logic and maths, but for the other side of this war. A romantic paring gets in the way of this arc because a partner doesn’t help him with that bright, clear line, and worse, any attempt to pair him of with either Rachel or Cassie breaks up not only a cannon paring, but their respective character arc.

How to (kinda) fix this: Marco’s arc is, at the end of the day, a trolly problem. So make sure whoever you ship him with is one of the people tied to the tracks. Introduce a character he crushes on, and then in the second act reveal that they are either a Controller, or in the family of a Controller or the proximity of the target of their next mission in a way that will make them collateral damage ,and let Marco struggle with what happens when that bright, clear logical line from A to B cuts through someone he actually loves; you know, like it did with his mother. See, even trying to fix this ship is weirdly Freudian.

The far better ship you should be doing: Ax x / EVERYONE. Ax in human form is described as a worryingly pretty, worryingly androgynous male of indeterminate race. He is a literally Bishonen alien hedonist with no familiarity with human senses, poor impulse control in human form, and no knowledge or understanding of human courtship rituals, and he can shape-shift, including into other members of the core team if needed to compel a mission, he calls Jake his prince,  and he is incredibly close to Tobias, the lonely outcast woobie that the LGBT fans adopted as their poster boy. Come on, the potential for shipping, both with wacky hijinks and sad, tragic star-crossed lovers’ trope is endless. Every line dedicated to Marco shipping is a line of text that could be dedicated to Ax trying to eat a Cinnabon erotically on his first date as a human and hulking out mid way because he forgot just how good they are. What could be better than him leaning into to erotically kiss a team-mate, and then fucking up due to his failure to understand human mouths, making weird mouth sounds, and then licking crumbs of the table in the middle of the mall, in front of the entire school, while his crush awkwardly tried to pretend this is normal? What’s wrong with you Marco-shipper people, do you hate fun?

 Riz/Tem (beastars) Why I hate this ship: Okay, just to quickly ask a question, to people who un-ironically like this as a serious ship and not a dark joke, just one little question: What’s wrong with you? I mean,are you okay? Keep taking the meds: the show is VERY clear on that point.

It’s like those people who say Joker X Harley Quinn is their ideal dark, edgy relationship: no it’s not, it’s abusive! Morticia x Gomez is dark and cool but CONSENTUAL and HEALTHY. This… this is a deeply imbalanced person murdering someone and telling themselves after that fact it was special and rare and magical. ITS HOMICIDE! And even if you write that out (and you shouldn’t, because that changes the character arc of every other major character) it’s still got more red flags that a soviet military parade. This is the botulinum of a toxic, one-sided teenage infatuation. Riz’s entire arc is about how he projects his thoughts and feelings about himself onto this idealised, made-up version of his and Tem’s relationship which, from Tem’s point of view, never existed. Riz never loved Tem: he loved the idea of Tem, the idea that someone would see the real him, see his inner pain and accept him anyway, but he never once told Tem this. He didn’t warn him “Hey, because of you I don’t feel I need my meds any more, do you mind if I try not taking them and we can meet and talk about this in a safe, well-lit pace?” He’s not honest with Tem, and on top of that It doesn’t make sense from the point of view of either of the characters for them to be actually, romantically in love (although  they were clearly close friends), because it undermines and cheepens Riz desire to just be seen and accepted for his real self, and the cannon Tem X Els ship. It also doesn’t make sense from a story point of view: Riz is a shadow archetype for Legosi. He’s what Legosi would have become if someone hadn’t interrupted his attack on Haru. That’s why Legosi needs to beat Riz with his own hands: because then he’s beating the darker version of himself he’s been carrying with him, and he can finally move on with Haru guilt-free. Having Riz and Tem’s relationship actually be what Riz imagined it to be undoes that. It undoes Riz’s interesting, dark inner struggle between truth and fantasy, it turns Tem’s tragic, unsolved murder that sets the entire story in motion into a just sort of weird Romeo-and Juliet suicide. It’s ruins the character arc not only for Riz, but for Legosi, and also, by extension, Louis and Haru, because Legosi’s internal angst over whether or not herbivores and carnivores can have a relationship as true friends needs this example of a tragic, flawed, toxic, failed friendship to bounce off of.

How it could (sort of) work: an AU where Riz’s attack on Tem is interrupted and Tem lives with a slight arm injury, and doesn’t tell anyone out of his complex feelings for Riz. Meanwhile, that bunny girl from the gardening club had been brutally devoured and Rz and/or Tem are so horrified with how close this was to their own near-miss, they start to investigate the murder, and in doing so get caught up in Louis’ inner struggle. Because that’s how the story needs to work, it’s about duality and struggle: and if Riz takes Legosi’s role, and by dating a herbivore he de facto takes the role, so Legosi must take Riz’s. This could be a great AU!

The better ship you should be doing: Pina/Riz (with a dash of Pina x Els), no, seriously, I’m not shitposting. You want to give Riz a redemption arc with a cute woolly boy? How about a story where Pina, out of a need for closure about at happened to him, starts to visit Riz in jail and they talk, mockingly at first, confrontational at first, but later Pina slowly becoming more fascinated in Riz and Tem’s life and asking Riz for more and more detail until they both bond over their shared traumatic experiences and their sense of loss for Tem’s senseless death, Tem’s unfished life casting a shadow over both off them. Eventually, the two of them find, from Legosi who still has the diary, that Tem had planned out an elaborate and beautiful first date with Els that he never got to take her on, and Riz, guilt ridden and sad than Tem never got this beautiful moment, decides to ask Pina take her on that date for Tem, with Riz coaching him by phone cyano-de-Bergerac style, Riz finally getting some closure that he helped one of Tem’s wishes come true and finally acknowledging to himself that Tem had a life and loves outside of him that were cut of short by his actions, and just crying over his lost friend, as Pina and Els slow-dance in Tem memory. Or if you just want to see Tem awkwardly date a carnivore boy from school, why not something less creepy and more wholesome and ship him with Jack? That would be cute AF, and more importantly, not romanticize brutal murder. Or an AU where everything is happy and nice, I’d argue at that it’s no longer Beastars at that point, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Let’s not shame anyone here.

 Snape X Lilly (Harry Potter)

Why I hate this ship: honestly, it’s not for the reason you think; I just like Snape too much as a tragic character, and making him in any way happy destroys his arc in my opinion.  The objection’s others have raised: that Snape acts in a worryingly possessive stalker-ish way towards Lilly, and that if Voldemort had gone for Nevil rather than Harry as a child Snape would have remained a loyal death eater, are true and I acknowledge them as having some validity, but that’s not why I can’t stand this ship. Snape is supposed to be a morally and emotionally complex, tragic figure. That “After all this time?” line was the best line in the Deathly Hallows.  Snape is supposed to show the equality destructive and redemptive power of  love. It’s sort of trinity: Lilly shows the pure power of true, unconditional love in her sacrifice to save Harry, Voldy shows what self-destruction and cruelty a life without understanding love leads to, and Snape sits somewhere in the middle: his one-sided  un-requited love being both the cause of his darkest, and his greatest actions. His curse, and his redemption, fall and rise. Making him happy messes that up.

How to (kinda) fix this ship: make them miserable. Make them fall for each-other only to be pulled apart by circumstance (you know, like they were in the darn original source material). You’re serious about making this a tragic, dark romance? Don’t ship them when they’re at school: Ship them during Voldemort’s rise to power, in the 80’s, after Lilly is married. Have the original Order of the Phoenix send her to meet with Snape and use their previous relation to try to milk some information out of him. Have her feel conflicted about it, have James furious about it, but have her do it anyway for the greater good. Have her meet up secretly with Snape who is angry and distrustful, knowing his must be a trap, and talk. Have the relationship slowly build over time against the backdrop of a cold-war spy thriller, as Lilly slowly realizes that she has some lingering feelings for Snape, but can’t reconcile them her loyalty to the order and her family. Make this a love story of conflicted feelings, divided loyalties, and spy-work against the background of drawing war-clouds. Have Snape offer to leave Voldemort, if she’ll leave the Order, and run away with him, but by that point she knows she’s pregnant and chooses to stay, out of loyalty even though she’s crushing on Snape. Have him show up at the rendezvous expecting for her to be there only for James to lead an Order Ambush, and a fight to ensure, on top of Tower Bridge in the howling wind and rain, Snape surviving but having his spirit crushed and fleeing before Lilly can tell him her true feelings. Make it big, and melodramatic, but above all, make it tragic.  Because that’s the only way Snape works as a character. Always.

The better ship you should be doing: Ginny X Nevil or Luna x Nevil: You want tragic lovers, at school, with divided loyalties, who never get together in the main cannon because a Potter ruins it and gets the girl? Ginny X Nevil. Write what was happening that final year Harry wasn’t at school when they took Dumbledore’s Army and make it work in earnest. Heck, you could even have Snape, as headmaster, hated by them but secretly trying to protect them as a secondary character to their secret, forbidden love. You don’t want to break up Harry X Ginny? Luna X Nevil is sweet and wholesome, but also tragic as they never get a chance, having their school life taken over by the horror of that final year and the need to fight for their very souls in a school run by Death Eaters and the trauma of the Battle of Hogwarts meaning that in order to put away the past and move on, they need to leave each other behind. Hell, do an AU where they canonically end up together, why not? They deserve happiness.

 Dean / Sam AKA Wincest (Supernatural)

Why I hate this ship: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. Several times.

How you could (sort of) fix this ship: You can’t: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. I guess a body-swap arc could fix this, as it’s less squicky if its just their bodies with someone else’s minds,  but seriously, the reasons why this shouldn’t exist are extensively covered in the show, and it was hilarious.  To be honest, I don’t hate this ship done as a joke, but I have seen some dark spots on the internet, and I can say with all honesty it’s not always treated as a joke. Some folks are really invested in this, and all I can ask is, is your home life okay?

Now, done as a joke, I’m 110% behind this. This is exactly the sort of insane wacky bullshit that makes for a good crack-fic. For example imagine that the supernatural threat of the week was book that made anything written in it come true, and the brothers are trying to find and destroy it, but they keep getting distracted by their burgeoning romantic feelings for each-other, and suddenly realise that the owner of the book is a fan on the in-universe novels, and writing slash-fic in the book. They need to find the writer before they make them do something they’ll both regret, but it’s just so distracting when Sam’s beautiful eyes are right there and- dammit, Sam, it’s happening again! Make Sam less concerned and even a little amused, with it, but make Dean hate what’s going on. Especially when the writer’s description suddenly makes Sam noticeably better hung that him. Make the villain turn out to be Becky from “Sympathy for the devil” and end with them trying to take the book away as she writes frantically to force them to do her bidding, and you’ve got yourself a good fic.

The better ship you should be doing: Cas/Sam or Cas/Dean or Cas/Sam AND Dean fic. Duh. Once again the show-runners beat the fans to the mark and pointed out that this is the best ship, and then they took it away just to fuck with us.

 Any Katniss ship that ignores her obsession with Emotional Security Logic. (The Hunger Games)

Why I hate these ships: Katniss is, briefly put, a mess before the books ever start, her father’s death and harsh upbringing have arguably given her PTSD before she ever volunteers for the reaping, and it doesn’t get better from there.  In psychology, Emotional Security Theory (EST) is a hypothesis that the heightened emotions surrounding repeated violent exposures leaves children vulnerable to dysregulated distress responses and eventual psychopathology, aka, why Kat be so messed up.  Her internal monologue makes the books completely clear that her choice in partners is not motivated by normal affections, but by deep, deep fear. A fear of loss, abandonment and death that leads her to make every decision about what minimises her, and her sister’s, exposure to potential physical and emotional harm. It’s frantic, fraught, cold survivalist thinking. And the other characters in the book notice and acknowledge it! “Which of us will she pick?” “She’ll pick whoever she can’t survive without.” Kat doesn’t like herself for it, but she does eventually admit to herself that she makes her decisions like this.

How do we fix this ship: Ship Kat with whoever you like, but give her a good reason to pick them: and in Kat’s mind “A good reason” is based on Emotional Security Logic, she needs to have a pressing reason why this ship makes her and her sister safer. Do that, and you’ve got yourself a good Katniss story. Don’t do that, and while you may or may not have a good story, the person staring in it isn’t Katniss Everdeen anymore.

The better ship you should be writing: Finick X Annie. Or, Haymitch prequel ships

FinAnn. This, this ship has some real potential to it, and is criminally underutilized. Finick and Annie’s relationship is one of the most tragic and romantic in the story, and has so much to offer. Or, if you want to have a hard-bitten character from district 12 struggling with trying to find love in the hellish combat of the games, do a prequel in which Haymitch finds love in the capitol during training, but loses then in the area and turns to drink as a result. Heck, you could even have some fun with this and turn it into a dark comedy, or a great tragic love story, whatever you like. It’s got potential, and his backstory is vague enough you could do a lot with it.

So, tell me below why I’m wrong, and have fun with your writing: just because I hate that ship doesn’t mean you should. Enjoy yourselves.

I’m off to write awful Ax/Pina/Luna Polyjuice’d into Nevil/Cas/Finick fiction set at an anime high-school that fights a magical war against other fictional schools, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[gar-trek]

Would you tell us the Shatner story?

this has been sitting in my inbox because I don't know what to say, the story in itself isn't all that interesting, I guess. I wish it was something like “Shatner hit my dog with a car” but its not really about what he did, its more about the vibe i got from him. 

Okay, lets set the scene here a little. Imagine your about 12 years old, which is already atrocious in it’s own right. Now imagine your 12 and you really really really like Star Trek the original series. Well, your probably going to feel a little alienated. Your probably gonna think to yourself all the time “God, no one feels the way I do, no one ever has or ever will.” You’ll probably have daily internal monologues that are similar to Jugheads iconic speech from the new Riverdale series (I.E “In case you haven’t noticed, I'm weird. I’m a weirdo. I don't fit in. And I don't want to fit in.”) You know, 12-year-old stuff. But, there is one thing that kinda makes it okay. Maybe you don’t have a lot of real-life living breathing friends that understand you, but you do have the fictional Crew of the fictional USS Enterprise on the fictional TV show Star Trek. Star Trek characters? they totally get you. Spock gets you. Bones understands, Sulu and Chekov are like your fun cousins, Uhura would totally listen to all your problems. And Kirk? He’s like the super charming cute boy who in real life would never ever look at you, but in your delusional adolescent mind maybe you could like, hold hands or something. So yeah, of course all these characters don’t actually exist, but in a way they all feel like good friends of yours....  Now, you understand the characters don’t exist, right? BUT (and this is one huge delusional but) they were played by living breathing real people. And if your just a kid and have never read a Wikipedia article in your life, it's really easy to pretend that these actors ARE just their characters. I didn’t know what the hell IMDb was back then. All i knew was that William Shatner played Captain Kirk, which pretty much meant William Shatner WAS Captain Kirk. I didn’t want there to be a difference. 

So, one day my dad is like, “Hey, you know William Shatner, the guy who played Captain Kirk? He’s doing a live show right near our house and we can go see him if you like!” and I was all like “See captain Kirk? See my beloved Captain Kirk? See James T Kirk himself, one of my favorite characters living and breathing on stage? LETS DO IT” So my whole family went, and I was beyond excited, kid me sitting in the dark auditorium waiting to see THE Captain Kirk. Unfortunately though, as you may have guessed, Captain Kik himself did not walk out on that stage. I think William Shatner would have very much liked us to have thought he was THE captain kirk (in fact, he made it very clear in his show). But he is not. I slowly realized, sitting there listening to William Shatner talk very loudly about how cool he is, that even though he played Captain Kirk, he very much was not Captain kirk. William Shatner is an old (and this was in the 2010′s, so very old) washed-up actor. The most washed-up actor I’ve ever had the displeasure of learning about. I don’t like to talk shit on the elderly (and he is, I can not stress this enough, very old) but I have never experienced anyone with a larger ego than Mr. Shatner. It’s very obvious that he thinks he's one of the most genius actors that has ever graced the TV screen. The show was awful. It was a narcissist complimenting himself for 2 hours straight. My heart sank down slowly into my gut the whole time. By the time it was over, i was very certain of one very disappointing fact: Captain Kirk does not exist. And obviously, I already knew that. Logically, he could not exist, he was a character made up for TV. But I think when you're a kid, you're slightly removed from reality. I was living in ignorance. I had yet to experience how cruel life could really be. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that I was extremely let down by someone I (ignorantly) thought I knew. I think everyone has that moment, at some point, where they realize someone they idolized, someone they thought could do no wrong, someone they put above other people, was actually just as low as the rest of us. People are people, I guess. People are (sometimes) really awful people, too. Captain Kirk isn’t a person. He is a character. William Shatner is a person, and he is pretty awful. 

So yeah, there is my pretty boring story about how William Shatner did me wrong. TL:DR; 

I have seen William Shatner in person. I have heard him talk about his life. He is extremely egotistical and it was extremely disappointing. 

[yanderecandystore]

I really like your work. Can I request another yandere among us I really liked the first one?

Look boo, I thought that it would be nice to change a little of the dynamics, yet now I'm kinda concerned at my performance here ;-; thank you so much for liking my stuff tho, really kind of you boo

TW/Tags: unrequited love cliches // this is a continuation of (🌱🌌🔪) ←this/ A wild simp appears! // I'm sorry for using such a cliche, I just felt like it would work nice lol // some yandere tendencies with a little twist maybe // I feel like I could have done better, let me know what y'all think tho

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

"- You're pretty sus, not gonna lie." Ch - 2 [Yandere!Among Us x Reader - Short Fanfiction]:

You wake up agitated after a bad dream. It wasn't terrifying as a nightmare, just… Bad. You can't remember what it was all about now that you woke up, yet you feel like it was something bad.

(Ch - 1)

Maybe you're starting to lose it. Or maybe you just had a bad night and that's it.

Well, "night", again you're floating through space, time doesn't really apply over here, yet to keep the crew from feeling too alienated, Black and White decided to create a little routine so everyone can be occupied but also have time to relax and do something that brings joy to the crewmates.

It may be silly, but in a situation that you don't know when you'll go back home and if you're going to go back at all, is pretty terrifying. So something silly like that really helps.

You like to record vocal diaries every time you're going to bed, and sometimes when you wake up. Sometimes you just want to record your crazy dreams, others are to help you feel more energized to start the day.

To be honest, you don't want to get out of bed, it's so comfy and you just wish you could stay and enjoy the comfort of your bed for a little longer. Besides, because of your nightmare you feel like you haven't slept at all!

But of course, all good things must end.

"- WAKE UP, SLEEPY HEAD!" Red was banging on your door.

"- You're late, dumbass." You heard a voice that you could only guess was from Orange.

You look up at the clock on top of your nightstand to see that you were in fact, one hour late.

"- I-I'm coming!" You scuttle to put on your clothes. Normally you would have taken a shower first thing when you get out of your room but… Well, you're too late for that!

"- You'll miss breakfast!" Red said, apparently he was still waiting for you.

After awkwardly changing your clothes, you opened the door to find Red and Cyan waiting for you. Red had hugged you tight the moment you appeared.

"- What took you so long, sleeping beauty?" He ruffed your hair again, this time being a little more gentle, and you guess it's because of how sleepy you still are.

"- Ugh, I didn't manage to get enough sleep." You whine, even if you did sleep, somehow you still feel like you were robbed of a good peaceful night.

Maybe it was the worries clouding your mind. The fear of never going back to Earth.

"- Yeah, I know how you feel." Red said while pulling you to follow him to the cafeteria. Cyan was right behind.

"- Really?" You asked the energetic man, concerned he is also dealing with nightmares.

"- Yeah, ya know? I heard things crawling in the vents all night." He said, darkening his tone of voice when he said literally the creepiest shit ever.

"- What!?" You said, well- Practically yelled. You felt like you instantly woke up at the idea of something dangerous lurking in the ventilation. N-not that you were scared or anything!

"- Nah, I'm joking." He turned his head to look at you with a little smug face, proud of how he manages to catch you.

"- Oh, come on man! You scared me…" You elbowed him weakly. You almost had a heart attack thinking about it!

"- Ha! Don't worry okay? It was just a joke to wake you up. If you're scared so much than-"

"- You don't need to worry, [Y/N]. I can reassure you that nothing is going to hurt you." Red was interrupted when Cyan decided to butt their way into the conversation.

"- What- How are you so sure?" You were surprised by their sudden voice. They spoke so seriously, you turned around and saw how they didn't seem to be joking.

"- I… Won't let it happen." They said almost questioning it. Not only was the idea of protecting their prey absolutely ridiculous and foreign to them, but they were considering the fact that it sounded pretty obvious, why would you even question it?

"- Come on man, I was just about to say that." Red said, a little bit shyly compared to his normal attitude. He looked so down even though he was trying to keep his smile on his face.

Tension was slowly rising and you were starting to catch on to it.

"- I- Wait, are your two really that worried about me? Come on guys, don't worry about it! I can protect myself too, you know?" You said trying to place yourself in-between them, distracting them from the weird stares they kept throwing at each other.

"- Sure you can, so, let's just go to the cafeteria already." Red's entire demeanor had changed out of nowhere. You were a little scared about how off putting it is to see him… Angry?

Cyan had taken your left arm, pulling you closer to them than to Red. It wasn't too obvious to an outsider perspective, yet it did make a bit of a difference when you were pulled closer to them.

"- He is acting strange." They whispered to you, hopefully Red didn't hear it. You didn't say anything as you only looked at Cyan with a concerned expression.

The day hasn't even started yet and it was already going to be a bad day.

While this whole event was happening, Cyan was pissed at how the human Red was acting strange. Not only had he taken you in his arms for a long period of time (a pretty long hug for "friends"), Red had made sure to not include Cyan in the conversation. Hell, he even made sure to keep you near him rather than them! What was he doing, trying to piss them off? And for what purpose??

The thing that really sparked annoyance in Cyan's head was how he lies blatantly to your face, only so you could be scared so he could sound like the hero in this situation. Cyan knows Red didn't listen to them crawling the vents, Red was sleeping like a rock the entire time Cyan was wandering around the ventilation.

Cyan had entered his room to collect information, and oh boy, had they collected some information. They started to think that maybe you would be better off away from Red.

Cyan had soon caught what Red was trying to do, he was trying to court you. And what a pathetic display of courting, it's not like Red was bringing any proof of how "strong" and "protective" he could be to you.

If Cyan were in your place, they would have eaten Red's face as a sign of disapproval.

Cyan had seen you sleeping that night, they saw you having night terrors. You went from peacefully sleeping to having nightmares in only a couple of minutes, so no wonder why you didn't sleep well.

Ugh. They were probably overreacting. They shouldn't care that about the half-assed courting they just witnessed, they shouldn't even care that you had night terrors! They should only care about their next meal, yet-

Yet, they don't know why, but-

Seeing Red be so desperate for your attention is messing with their heads. If Cyan was in your place, they would have rejected his request and tried to wait for someone a lot more competent to show up.

"- So. How it's your tasks going?" Red asked you. It's been three hours after the incident, and you were now finishing your tasks when Red suddenly decided to join in.

"- I'm doing okay, how about you? Did you finish yours?" You asked, still paying attention to your own work.

"- Yeah, I did… Look, I want to say sorry for earlier. I guess I overreacted, heh." He apologized, clearly embarrassed by the fact he acted so jealous in front of you.

Red had started to get easily fascinated by your person. You're incredible in his eyes, and even if you didn't reciprocate your feelings towards him, he at least hopes you don't end up with someone like Cyan.

Someone that is a coward and a player, someone who is very aware of how you feel towards them yet keeps you in the dark just because they're "afraid" of turning into something official with you. If he knew that the whole crew would be in this terrible situation that you're in right now, Red would have made a move earlier.

He thought that Cyan had stopped trying to be with you, yet apparently not.

"- That's okay, I guess we're all losing our minds slowly." You told Red even though you were mentioning that more to yourself. You feel like you also need to calm yourself down, since the gravity of your situation was starting to settle in a lot stronger than anticipated.

"- Yeah, I agree." He was losing his cool, he had to admit that. He remembers listening to you and Cyan yesterday, he couldn't understand everything going on after he had joked about you and Cyan making out in the halls, but he remembers hearing something that sounded like Cyan scolding you for… Worrying? Really? Honestly, what monster would ever consider scolding someone like you for being worried about their safe being?!

A lunatic, clearly. Someone who doesn't deserve your worries, yet you keep going towards them! You keep being kind to someone who is a lunatic if not an absolute moron.

Oh, here we go again. He is being negative again, he needs to keep calm if he wants to keep the bad thoughts away from his mind, but it's already too late.

Every time Cyan is unfair to you, he has these bad, intrusive thoughts. How annoying.

"- I'll go see how Cyan is doing, see you later [Y/N]." He said. His entire mood has been pretty down the whole day, you noticed how his normally uplifting voice has been pretty serious the entire time.

You say goodbye as you still have many tasks to do. You wonder if you should consult White about this, everyone seems to be on edge lately and it's starting to affect your environment-

"- Oh, [Y/N]! Do you need any help?" You turned your head around at the sound of a sweet voice calling you.

"- Hey Yellow. I do need some help, but are you sure? I don't want to be a burden." You said noticing the shy girl coming forward.

" Not at all! I-I want to help! I just finished my own tasks so I thought it would be nice to be useful." She was probably feeling anxious since the last meeting, trying to search for someone to help and talk with.

You decided to let her join you, Yellow has her quirks yet- You really like her, she can be pretty comforting to be around.

While you and the crew were doing tasks, Cyan was trying to find a good opportunity for their next victim. Their hunger had started to become stronger, and because they refused to eat human food (they're very picky), they haven't been able to gain enough energy to go through the day.

They need some flesh, and it needs to be as soon as possible-

"- Hey!" Oh look, that sounds like free food.

"- Hello, Red." They said, their rough voice was raspy due to the fact that they haven't eaten in a while. Their tone didn't hide the annoyance at seeing such a low human in their presence.

"- I wanted to tell you something. Can we talk?" He said. Cyan wasn't too interested in what he had to say, yet they were intrigued to know why he couldn't just say what he wanted in the first place.

Cyan noticed that they couldn't simply get rid of him just yet. There were at least three people here. The rude Blue one, the little Lime thingy talking with the Purple guy.

"- Privately, that is." Red had looked around, giving a glare towards Blue's direction, which caused them to flinch when noticing the odd way the male was acting out of nowhere.

"- Of course." He was making their job a lot easier. He took them to an empty room, O2.

"- So, what do you want- Argh!" Red took the opportunity to pin Cyan to the wall. The sudden reaction took the much stronger creature by surprise, and although they could simply split him in half, Cyan decided to see where this was going.

"- What it's your problem?" Cyan choked, since Red was forcing his arm in their throat. Then again, they could easily get out of his grip.

"- You. You're acting weird since yesterday and-" He paused, was he really about to say it? Would he really let his jealousy get in the middle of his friendship?

"- And you have been acting weird especially with [Y/N], I heard you two yesterday." Red confessed.

"- Oh, fascinating, is that why you've been giving me bad looks every now and then?" But Cyan did not seem to care for what Red was telling them. I mean, they only been here for like- 24 hours, and even so they could see Red's feelings towards you from a mile away.

"- Are you jealous?" Cyan provoked the unstable man. Clearly the time spent inside this spaceship has been messing with his mind.

"- No! I'm- I'm being serious here, [Y/N] was concerned about your well-being yet you got mad at them!" Red's grip from Cyan's neck was slowly fading as he was starting to get more agitated.

"- And what does any of that has to do with you?" Cyan asked, pushing Red's arms away from them, which caused him to notice how irrational he was being.

"- Just- Just stay away from them, okay? I thought you didn't even-" He interrupted himself, he was sounding so… Different, from his normal self. He was sounding like an possessive freak, even he could tell.

"- … I didn't what, Red?" Cyan was starting to get bored by the human's whining. In less than 48 hours, humans have proven to be simply too emotional, letting their distrust eat them away. Even for a creature as anxious as Cyan, they can at least think twice before doing something stupid.

Something stupid like provoking a creature that could easily kill him.

"- Stay away from them." Red warned them, while deciding that the best course of action would be to leave them alone.

He wasn't acting like usual self, yet, it doesn't seem like he cares at this point. He was stuck in this hell, no one can judge him for losing his mind a little. Wouldn't you lose it as well if you were stuck in space?

Cyan however wasn't really impressed by the male's threat. They didn't even do anything for him to be so feisty, they haven't even tried anything with you for stars sake.

Maybe he was truly starting to lose it, or maybe the original Cyan did say something regarding you. Yet, it doesn't matter now.

Red is unstable, acting like a douche towards the crew, even if they didn't have anything to do with this conversation in the first place! It wouldn't take long before he turned into a burden in the eyes of the rest, just like Blue is already considered the most unlikeable asshole in this place.

Although Cyan was already pretty hungry they just lost the opportunity to both satisfy their hunger and the want to choke Red, they thought about something more interesting. There are way too many humans here, and if Red suddenly died, people would be suspicious of Cyan and you, since he is always near you two.

But what if, there was a way to get rid of Red while also satisfying their hunger?

Could they create a scene where Red is the "culprit" of someone else's death?

It doesn't sound so unlikely now that they think about it.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

P

[gra-sonas]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes Characters: Alex Manes, Michael Guerin Additional Tags: Canon Disabled Character, Dogs

Summary:

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"I don't know, Alex. It's February 13th, so I didn't forget Valentine's Day or something. We ruled out the thing at Isobel's, and it's still Saturday. No matter how much I'm wrecking my brain, I can't think of anything else. Please tell me I didn't forget anything important." 

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

This is my contribution for day 3 of @malex-cupid. 3.3K of fluffy Malex.

Dialogue prompt: “Do you know what today is?”

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

 “Do you know what today is?”

Michael pretends to think about the answer before he says "Saturday."

Alex rolls his eyes. "Smartass."

Michael smirks. "Takes one to know one."

Alex smirks back. "I'm badass," he says.

Michael laughs. "True."

"Come on, Michael, try again. What day is today?"

Michael groans. "It's that stupid thing Isobel roped us into attending, isn't it? I thought it was next weekend."

"That one is next weekend. Which reminds me, we have to get our suits from the cleaners." Alex pulls a face. He hates wearing formal attire, especially ties. But Isobel would have their heads if they didn't dress up for her fancy party.

"We'll get through it together, and any chance we get, we'll hide in one of Isobel's guest rooms, and I'll suck you off." Michael waggles his eyebrows suggestively. He looks ridiculous, but it makes Alex laugh.

"If she catches us, we won't live to see another day," he points out.

"Well, I'll have to be fast then. It's unfortunate that she also can pick locks with her brain these days."

"You're not going to suck me off in two minutes, if anything I'll claim that my stump's hurting and we can go home early, where we'll take our sweet time sucking each other off."

Michael looks worried. "Has your stump given you any trouble lately? Should I take a look at the prothesis?"

Alex smiles. "No, Michael. It fits perfectly, and for some reason it even adjusts to the occasional swelling? I have no idea how you engineered it, but it almost feels as if the prosthetic becomes a part of me when I put it on. It's incredible, and it has given me that much more quality of life." He leans closer and kisses Michael, soft and sweet. Michael beams.

"I'm so glad. The material is so cool, I'm glad that I decided to give it a try, and now that I no longer need to rebuild a working console, I want to find out what other useful things I can build using it."

"As long as you are careful and—," Alex starts.

"Yes, I know," Michael interrupts him. "No worries, I've been paranoid about hiding who and what I am my entire conscious life on this planet. I won't risk it now just to brag about an invention that includes alien tech."

Alex's face softens. "I know you're careful. Sorry, it's just hard not to worry. But back again to my initial question. Do you know what today is?”

"I don't know, Alex. It's February 13th, so I didn't forget Valentine's Day or something. We ruled out the thing at Isobel's, and it's still Saturday. No matter how much I'm wrecking my brain, I can't think of anything else. Please tell me I didn't forget anything important." 

"No, you didn't, no worries. I'll put you out of your misery. What do you think about taking a short trip across town?"

Michael nods. "Sure, I have no other plans for today. Can we drive past the Crashdown to pick up some coffee?"

Alex looks at his watch. "If we call from the car and ask whether Javier could bring our order to the curb, we can do that. But we have to leave now. We have an appointment at eleven."

Michael pulls Alex up from the couch. "Okay, let's go. I'm really curious what you're up to!"

They call the Crashdown from the car and Arturo himself stands at the curb to hand them coffee and a box with heart shaped cookies through the window. Michael tips him generously, and then they're on their way again.

When they pull up outside of a red building fifteen minutes later, Michael's eyes widen.

"Alex, this is the animal shelter. What are we doing here?"

Alex turns around in his seat to face Michael. "Well, I thought we could go inside and look at all the rescue dogs in there, and if we like one, and the dog likes us, that we should take them home for a trial run. What do you think?"

Michael's eyes are wet. "Alex. This is—perfect. So much better than some kitschy Valentine's gift. Don't get me wrong, any gift from you would be amazing, but a dog, Alex. A dog! We've talked about this so often. Why now?"

Alex's smile softens. "Because we talked about it so often. It's pretty obvious how much you want a dog, and honestly, I want one, too. My therapist has talked about a therapy dog in the past, but I think a dog that's ours is even better. It can either stay with me while you're working, or come with you to the junkyard when I'm meeting clients. And if push comes to shove, we have a large yard where the dog can stay on its own for a couple of hours."

Michael flings himself across the car's middle console and pulls Alex into a fierce hug. "Thank you, Alex. Best pre-Valentine's gift ever."

Alex smiles into Michael's shoulder. "Come, let's go inside, I have a feeling we'll meet a very special someone in there today."

They enter the shelter, and a young woman shows them the way to the large backyard behind the building. Three different agility courses are set up, and there's a pool where three dogs are playing with an old football, splashing in and out of the water.

"This is what heaven must look like," Michael says, and the awe in his voice tells Alex that coming here was an excellent decision. He's counting at least twenty different dogs of various sizes, and they all seem happy and excited. He turns to the young woman.

"So, how are we going to do this, Janet. Are we supposed to sit down and wait until a dog approaches, or should we throw a ball or something?"

Janet points at a bench that's set up under a large tree. "If you want to take a seat, I'll get a basket with some toys for you to use and play with the dogs." She leaves, and Michael leads Alex over to the bench where they sit down.

Most of the dogs have stopped playing and running around, they are looking at Alex and Michael instead. Michael takes Alex's hand. "I'm nervous."

Alex squeezes his hand. "I don't think they are dangerous, relax, Michael," he soothes.

Michael laughs. "Not what I mean. I'm nervous because I know one of them's going to be ours, and I want to make a good impression."

Five dogs are brave enough to come closer, their tails wagging. Michael holds his hand out for them, and once the brave dogs are close enough, they start sniffing and licking Michael's fingers. After that it's just one large furry puppy pile with Alex and Michael in the middle, and more dogs joining. They pet as many dogs as they can reach, always careful to read the body language of each of them. But they are all very friendly and excited to meet them.

Janet returns, a large basket filled with various toys in her arms. Some of the dogs start barking happily, apparently, they know what the basket means. Janet sets it down in front of the two men. "Many of our dogs love to play fetch, you can also go over to the agility courses and see what each of the dogs can do."

Michael picks up the basket. "Thanks, Janet, I think I'll go over and play with the dogs. Do you want to come with me, Alex?"

"I'm actually good right here for another moment, thanks. Maybe I'll come over to you later."

Michael smiles at Alex and gives him a kiss. "Okay, love you."

Michael squeezes Michael's arm. "Love you, too. Have fun!"

Michael walks over to one of the agility courses, basket in hand. And like he's the Pied Piper, most of the dogs follow him, yipping excitedly.

Janet turns to Alex. "I'll leave you to it. If you have any questions, I'll be inside."

"Thank you, Janet, I appreciate it." She turns around and walks back to the house, and Alex focuses his full attention on Michael. He's started to throw balls in different directions (no doubt giving some of them a little extra spin with his telekinesis, but there's no one around, so Alex relaxes and enjoys watching Michael having the time of his life).

There's one dog in particular, that seems to have the largest heart eyes around Michael. It doesn't run after any balls Michael's throwing, instead he picks up a plushie from the basked and carefully places it in Michael's outstretched hand. Michael pats the dog's head and tells him what a good boy he is. Alex smiles. 

The dog is gorgeous, a little taller than a German Shepard, dark fur and a tail that's wagging a million miles a minute. Alex can picture himself and Michael with the dog in front of the fire. Not a lapdog exactly, but he doesn't mind.

A minute later, the dog leaves Michael's side and while Michael's busy getting acquainted with some of the other dogs, Alex's eyes follow the black dog. He walks over to a sunny spot near the pool, where smaller dog's curled up in the grass, seemingly uninterested in playing with Michael.

Going by the fur marking's, Alex thinks it could be a beagle. He smiles, remembering Mimi's "prophecy". The black dog noses at the beagle's ears and licks them, then he nudges the dog as if to say, "come with me".

It takes another few nudges before the dog gets up (and yes, it's definitely a beagle, an older one by the looks of it), and follows its black brother over to Michael.

When Michael notices the duo, he stops throwing balls and kneels down. "Oh, do you want me to meet your friend? Hello sweetheart." He scratches the beagle behind the ears and the dog almost goes cross-eyed with pleasure. The black dog wiggles closer and buries his nose in Michael's half-open shirt.

Michael looks over to Alex, and Alex smiles. "Guess we're not just picking up one dog, huh?"

"Would that be okay? They seem to be friends, and I couldn't stand to leave one behind, especially since this little lady seems to be a bit older. Do you think we can handle two dogs?"

Alex gets up from the bench and walks over, and the moment he reaches Michael, they look up at him and start nosing at his feet and legs. When they are finished sniffing at him, they look at him with huge puppy eyes. 

"Oh, you two, this isn't fair." He kneels down carefully, holding on to Michael's shoulder for balance. The moment he feels stable, he has his arm full of two dogs, one large black one, and a smaller beagle. 

They lick his face and almost barrel him over in their excitement, if it wasn't for Michael's steadying hand (and a smidge of telekinesis) at his back. "Thanks," he manages to get out between increasingly wet and enthusiastic doggy kisses.

Michael chuckles. "Guess these two have made their decision. Now it's up to us. Can we, and do we want to adopt two dogs? I know we've talked about a dog, and this morning I didn't even know we'd get one. And now there are these two. What do you think?"

Alex smiles. "You know, we have a big house, an even bigger garden, I don't see why we shouldn't adopt both. They insist on a two week trial anyway, so why don't we take these two sweethearts home with us and see how it goes?"

Michael manages to place a smacking kiss on Alex's cheek without them tumbling over, then he helps Alex stand up. The two dogs stay close to them and follow them back to the house.

They find Janet at the reception desk. She looks up when she hears them approach.

"Oh, that went quick. Did you meet a dog you like?"

Alex realizes that she can't see the two dogs at their feet from her position. "Actually, we met two dogs."

"Two?" Janet stands up and looks down. "Oh, I see. These are Buffy and Lando. They met here and it was love at first sight. They are pretty much inseparable, and since she's basically a senior dog, we'd rather not separate them, I'm sorry."

Alex shakes his head. "There's no need to separate them, we'd like to take both home with us for the trial period. You know, they picked us, and now it's our turn to pick them, and see whether we're a good match."

Janet's smile gets excited. "That's wonderful to hear. They've been here for a while, and the fact that we don't want to separate them has prevented their adoption so far. If you'd like to take them for a short walk, I need about twenty minutes to get all the papers ready. Leashes are over there by the door."

They return from their walk half an hour later, relaxed and smiling. Neither dog's wearing a leash anymore. When Michael notices Janet's look, he says, "She wouldn't leave our side, and he wouldn't leave hers, there really was no point in keeping the leashes on."

Janet nods and hands them a clipboard with several sheets of paper, yellow post-its marking the spaces where they need to sign. Alex grabs the clipboard and takes a seat at a nearby table, while Michael looks at the wall opposite of the reception, where several dozens of photos are pinned to a large cork board. Happy new pet owners with their adopted pets. He can't wait to add their photo to the wall.

Once all the papers are signed, Janet gets two large bags from a nearby storage room and hands them to Michael. "The bags contain bowls, leashes, and dog beds. We don't expect you to buy everything before it isn't clear that you'll adopt the dogs."

Michael nods. "Do they have favorite toys or blankets we should take with us?"

"No, they usually play with the toys we provide. I can put a few tennis balls into one of the bags if you want," Janet offers.

Alex shakes his head. "That won't be necessary. I—uhm, I actually may have bought some toys. And a box of tennis balls." His smile is a little sheepish, but Michael isn't having any of it. "You are brilliant, and I love you." He smacks a kiss on Alex's cheek.

"Alright, you've got my number, in case there are any issues, please don't hesitate to call. If everything goes according to plan, I'll see you in three days for the first mandatory visit."

They smile at her, bid their goodbyes, and when leave, their two new canine family members follow them unprompted.

"I have a really good feeling about this," Alex says once they are back in the car, both dogs comfortably snuggled up on the back seat.

"Me too," Michael admits. "You've made me a very happy man today, Alex. Truly the best pre-Valentine's gift ever." Alex laughs. "It's not just a gift for you, Michael, I'm also a very happy man today. I'm very excited that we're taking this next step." He looks back at the two sleeping dogs. "It already feels like they're part of the family."

On their way home, they stop at the pet store, and pay an obscene amount of money for dog food, bowls, leashes, harnesses, the most comfortable supersized dog bed (suspecting the dogs would rather share then sleep in two separate beds), and way too many toys. They don't care that this is only a trial, they know that Buffy and Lando are meant to stay with them.

When they get home and set everything up, the dogs immediately curl up in the large dog bed together, completely ignoring the two separate beds they put up to give them a choice. 

"We already know them so well," Michael says proudly, clinking his glass with Alex's. There's a fire burning in the fireplace, and they're sharing a bottle of red wine that goes well with the pizza they've ordered.

The dogs are snoring, and Alex's and Michael's hearts are full.

Michael goes on a quick walk with the dogs while Alex gets ready for bed. They're trying to keep the dogs out of their bedroom, but it's not happening. Lando drags in the dog bed in before they can close the door, and while they'll have to set boundaries eventually (because there are things they'd like to do in their bedroom without an audience), they won't start tonight.

They place the dog bed at the foot of their bed, and the dogs curl up together. "Uhm, we'll get to that eventually, I guess," Michael says, but then he lets himself being pulled into Alex's arms and they fall asleep within minutes.

It's a quiet night, and when they wake up in the morning, the dogs are already up to drink water in the kitchen. Alex and Michael exchange lazy kisses, until Michael wiggles out of Alex's embrace. "I'll take them out for a couple of minutes, that should do until we can go for a real walk after breakfast."

Alex gets up to pee, then makes a beeline for the kitchen to make coffee before he returns to their bedroom. He snuggles up under the covers, when he hears the front door open and shut, which means that Michael's back.

The dogs enter the bedroom first, and Lando walks up to Alex's side of the bed. He gets up on his hind legs and puts his front paws on the bedframe, like he's extra careful not to step on the mattress.

"Good morning, handsome. You are such a good boy, Lando," Alex croons and pats Lando's head. When he sees something gleam in the sunlight filtering through the blinds, he reaches for Lando's collar. There's a ring attached to it. A ring with an iridescent piece of an alien spaceship console embedded. 

Alex blinks back tears and tries to remove the ring from Lando's collar, when Michael drops on one knee next to the bed. His eyes look a bit wet, too.

"Alex Manes. You're not only the man of my dreams, you're the man of my life. We've been through so much, and I love you more than should be humanly – or alien-ly – possible. Would you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Alex can't stop the tears from falling now, but he nods and reaches for Michael. They kiss and hug, and Michael helps Alex to remove the ring from Lando's collar. When Michael puts the ring on Alex's finger, it fits like a glove.

"Michael, the ring is extraordinary, thank you so much. I can't wait to marry you." They kiss again, but before Michael can get up from the floor, Alex pulls a thin silver chain out from under his pajama top he only put on a few minutes ago when he was in the bathroom. There's a ring attached to it. He opens the clasp and lets the ring fall into his open hand. Then he shows it to Michael. 

"Adopting a dog with you was only meant to be a first step, I'd been meaning to propose to you on Valentine's Day, though. I just love you so much, more than anything or anyone, and I want to share my life with you. Forever. Marry me?"

"Yes!" Michael's reply is short, but he barely waits for Alex to put the ring on his finger (it also fits perfectly), before he gets up and lets himself being pulled into Alex's outstretched arms. They laugh and kiss and tumble all over the bed, and Buffy and Lando start barking. Soon enough they manage to jump on the bed and join the celebration.

When Alex and Michael adopt Buffy and Lando officially two weeks later, they do so as Mr. and Mr. Guerin-Manes, their wedding rings clearly visible in their we've-adopted-a-dog celebratory photo.