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misguidedasgardian · 5 months ago

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Wild Cats (Part IX)

IX. The road ahead

MASTERLIST

Summary: You leave Atlanta in hopes of finding refuge, a place to be, to belong

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Zombie apocalypse AU, living dead, zombies, guts, blood, guns, injures, cannibalism,

+18, MINORS DNI

Notes: Bare it with me, my favorite trope is arranged marriage because I have no idea how to build it up, haha, and Daryl is so complex, but I’m giving it my best shot alright?

You ran out of Atlanta, abandoning like it was riddled with the plague, not that it wasn’t already, but you get the meaning.

You were not going to DC, you were not going to Lake Lanier.

At least not yet, you were driving Noah to his house first which was on the way to Washington DC, Beth had insisted, You were a big group, you were slower because of it, but all of you were seasoned survivors by now, you were strong together.

You came to know that you had lost Bob, which didn’t personally upset you since you never even spoke to him, but Sasha was terribly sad, as he was her partner, and it was awful to lose someone, whoever that was.

You gathered Gabriel, Michonne, Carl and Judith, and you started your long journey

Usually, it would be like eight hours of driving to DC, but traveling had gotten extremely slow in the apocalypse, especially since most roads were cut. You had barely drove for a couple of hours until you had to stop in a small industrial neighborhood, both because rather the car had decided to stop working and also you needed to change cars and regroup

But the sun was falling over the horizon, so you offered yourself to clear out a bodega nearby, with a couple of floors of offices, more comfortable for sleeping.

“I’ll go with ya”, jumped Daryl, who had barely even looked at you since they rescued Beth. You wanted to say no, that you didn’t need a babysitter

“I’ll go too”, said Rosita, and you were relieved. Something had shifted in the dynamic of that group, Abraham barely spoke, usually he was so driven, but now, since it was revealed that the whole cure thing was a lie, Eugene had an ugly bruise on his face and Abraham sat in the back seat and just looked forwards, didn’t even offer himself to drive.

You and Rosita took the lead while Daryl, behind you, had his crossbow standing in attention. You opened the thick door to the outside to reveal an empty hallway, you took your ax with your left hand and your gun with your right, you had been gifted with being ambidextrous, and you had nurtured it during your time alone.

You knocked on every door, clearing it office by office.

It wasn’t until you reached the warehouse at the very end of the hallway when the fun began, at least ten walkers came for you as soon as you opened the door.

“Let’s get the party started”, you muttered, Rosita only smirked.

Daryl stood behind you, you felt him shift uncomfortably, as you and Rosita, knife and ax in hand, threw yourself at the walkers

Piercing skulls was more difficult than it seemed, truly. Well, in your experience it really depended on the… state… of the walker you were about to hit.

You drew the first walker blood, as you took the first one out of his undead misery with a swing of your ax, the second one was coming near, so you kicked it, made it stumble back giving you a few moments to take foot and end him too.

At some point this became cathartic. like a relief, you were ending the enemy, fighting the fight, the living VS the dead

You and Rosita fought them all, Daryl ended a couple of them, saying nothing, but you appreciated that he gave you your space to do what you had to do, what you offered yourself to.

Rosita was badass, she was, her movements were impeccable as she took those walkers out, you exchanged looks and she smiled at you

“Those were some sick moves”, she admitted, “not bad new girl”, you chuckled

“Not so bad yourself Espinosa”, you said back with a wink

Daryl just watched the scene, interested.

“Should we clean more floors?”, you said

“Damn straight”, she said, “let’s see what else we can find”, she said, after taking a look around, there were only boxes filled with odd metallic pieces you couldn’t recognize. So you moved on from the warehouse, Daryl barely nodded, and followed you like he was your bodyguard

With everything that had happened lately, being saved by Daryl repeatedly and then judged harshly by Carol and him too, you wanted to show what you could do, looking to prove yourself again, but this time, for your own sake, rather than to prove anything to them, if anything, you were annoyed that Daryl was there looking over your shoulder.

You went room by room on the second floor, as usual, you didn’t find anything too exciting. a couple of walkers.

A thing that you never liked to do… was to play detective, to draw a story about who these people were, how did they die if they were alone, you tried not to… look… too much at the scenes. You had seen things, terrible things, that you did not wish to remember right now.

So you tried to separate… walker from person…. they were not people anymore, and that is what you were comfortable with

You took a swing so hard your ax got stuck in the wall, you had to use your leg as leverage to take it out.

It was a good exercise, you were afraid you were getting out of practice

You cleaned up every floor, without a single bullet being shot, you took them out one by one.

As you cleared the last office, finding a couple of nice bottles of scotch in what it looked to be the boss’ office

With complacent smiles and a good bounty you returned to the group after having a couple of swings from the bottle, only Rosita and you, Daryl, denied to take a sip.

You returned and Rick seemed impressed, so they all entered the building you had secured.

The rest of them were scouting the area, searching specially for gas for the cars. You still had the things you had from your safehouse, so you ate together in a cleared office.

These moments where odd, dining all together, like a strange family, with lots of uncles, and nephews and nieces

It was odd, but it felt nice.

Then the scotch appeared and they all seemed content, taking drinks, for different reasons…

Many of them celebrated they found Beth and their group was put together again, the others, for sorrows, for the broken promise of a solution to all this madness. Some celebrated that we were fine, and on our path to something better, others tried to drown their fears of the uncertainty of the near future.

But there wasn’t enough buzz for anybody to get really drunk, so after dinner, everybody split up.

Everybody knew what to do for the night, the scavengers looked for useful things around in the small neighborhood, the others prepared for the journey the next day, others set up lookouts points to take guard, Beth and Rick stayed with the kids.

You felt weary of Rick, and how he treated you so delicately, so, you did what you used to do best, you went to the roof. You were a bit tired after slaying a dozen walkers so, you guessed you could take the first watch from the high point of the area.

You came out the door of the roof, and you weren’t surprised when you saw Daryl there, you had seen him sneak out of the room when the liquor started pouring

You were starting to… getting to know him better, he was the guardian of the group, always making sure everyone was safe and fed. You couldn’t sneak up on him, he was already looking at you when you found him.

“You should sleep a bit”, you said softly, he only acknowledged you and nodded, growling a bit. He tended to do a lot of that, just a little rumble, a sound from way inside his throat, but you were learning to interpret them

“What ‘bout ya’?”, he asked

“I have been training myself to sleep at day”, you said, with a soft smile.

You sat right by his side, completely violating his personal space, but he didn’t seem to mind. It was not that he was paying close attention to what was going on, it was just that he couldn’t sleep. You didn’t say anything, you didn’t speak, you just sat there, breathing softly, looking at the scenery with sharp eyes. He was seated against a big squared vent, close to the edge, so you could see a lot of the area front here, even if you were setting there

You didn’t say anything else.

. . .

It’s been a while since Daryl felt this peaceful

He felt relaxed, even deep in slumber, when he started to come to his senses, he felt a soft sway, like the one of a boat in a tranquil lagoon with barely any ripples in water. Then, he heard, he felt, your soft breathing, on top of his head, on his forehead, the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the top curve of your breasts, hiding comfortably in your brassier, under your soft looking shirt with a generous V-neck line. He saw your chest, your beautiful skin, how soft it seemed, he wished he could touch it… he tried to look up but the angle didn’t allow him to see your face, so he regained control of his body and he separated himself from you.

There you were, peacefully sleeping as he had been, the sun was already shining softly in the horizon.

When he realized how much he was leaning into you he separated himself from you, and that is what woke you, the lack of the presence of the archer stuck to your side as it was when you finally went to sleep

He couldn’t believe he had lowered his guard like this, and not because he didn’t trust you, but because he was supposed to be on guard, vigilant, taking care of his group

“It’s already morning”, you said groggily

He couldn't believe he had been looking at your cleavage, what was he thinkin?

He couldn't believe he had been looking at you like a deer in headlights since he met you, that he had never felt this comfortable in who knows how long, that he was almost impressed when he saw how you took down those walkers with only your ax, he couldn’t believe he was… feeling this… things… he… he stood up like the floor was lava, like you would burn him

“We gotta go”, he said quickly, you barely nodded, and he left you there, alone.

You didn’t even understand what was going on, but he almost sprinted full speed away from you.

You stood up, the uncomfortable position you took all night taking a toll on your sore extremities, but to no matter, he was right.

You went down the stairs and found Rick, Carol, Glenn and Maggie, who looked at you and where you had come from. Rick looked at you kind of concerned, Maggie and Glenn with funny faces, entertained, and Carol seemed angry.

“Morning”, you greeted softly, “is everything alright?”

“Except by the fact that Daryl ran off, yes”, said Maggie with a silly smile, you felt your cheeks heated, looking everywhere but at their faces

“We were discussing how to proceed ahead”, said Rick, “with the big group we have”, you nodded and kept walking.

“No luck with more gas?”, you asked, and they shook their heads, “there are other towns nearby”, you said softly.

“Yes, let’s move to the next one”, said Rick, “let’s pack up and go”, he commanded

“I’ll make sure everybody has some place to take provisions, so we can divide the weight”, said Carol.

You walked back where everybody was refreshing themselves, you had found a working bathroom so everybody took turns to freshen up. You had checked the tank upstairs and still was halfway filled with water.

“Where have you been?”, asked Rosita with a smirk

“I slept on the roof, old habits die hard I guess”, you said with a shy smile

“Alooone?”, she tease, but you only shook your head with a smile, and kept moving

Last night meant nothing, you literally just offered your shoulder to sleep on and he accepted, nothing less or nothing more.

Everybody packed up, and you started moving, leaving the huge fire truck behind.

You started walking North, you were a big group and you felt safe, for the first time in ages, there were no hordes or walkers near and you followed a road up north, a small road, to not draw too much attention to yourselves, from neither the living or dead.

You walked until you saw a sign, saying that you were already in South Carolina, you had left Georgia behind, and your plan to go to Lake Lanier. You don't resent Rick for leading you towards Washington, it was the sanest idea.

You didn’t even know what was there, an old margarita ville, cabins, yachts and a big hotel, it could be a huge bust, right?

So you just went along, is not like you could separate from them and go yourself, you didn’t want to split up, you felt safe with them, you felt like a force of nature, to be reckoned with

At first, you were walking all together, on a line, as the day progressed you started to separate in groups, some started talking amongst themselves, you got a bit delayed and walked behind them, hand in your holster, ready for everything.

You were guarding them, taking care of them even from a bit afar, so that would give you a bit of perspective for possible dangers.

The sun was burning you from above, right a the center of the sky when you stop for something to eat

You still had bottled water to last you for today and maybe breakfast tomorrow, but no more than that, so you hoped you could find a town for tonight.

RIck looked for you with his eyes, and when he found you, he seemed concerned

“You alright?”, he asked, cradling Judith against his chest, you nodded

“Yeah sure”, you muttered

“I know you believed Lake Lanier was the way to go, but…”

“It's fine Rick”, you said simply, “I was just protecting our backs”, you said with a smile, he nodded placing a hand on your shoulder

“Thank you”, he said

You helped Tyresse, Beth, Carol and Noah to make food for everyone, Daryl set the fire of course and then escaped into the woods, out of sight.

You baked some canned beans, in cans, and everyone seemed contented, you didn’t have anything better, and there were a lot of you,

You wondered what happened to all the farm animals… in farms… the dead also ate animals, the fuckers, they were going to eat you too… farms you gathered, were screwed, specially those with small paddocks, nowhere for the animals to run from the dead.

You really wanted some eggs and rice right now, you never liked beans.

You chuckled just thinking about it, oh the things you had to eat now…

“What’s so funny?”, asked Rick, truly interested, you only shook your head

“I was just thinking how I wish I could eat eggs with rice right now, I never liked beans, and then I remembered we are in the middle of the apocalypse”, you laughed, and despite the surreal of the situation, everybody laughed

“I would give everything for some barbecue ribs”, muttered Abraham

“Tacos al pastor”

“A cheeseburger”

“Sushi form that japanese place near my apartment”

“Ceviche”

“Some pizza from Domino’s”

And everybody shared their desired foods, well, except Sasha, she looked utterly horrified by the topic, like she couldn’t believe what you were saying

You continued after that, taking out the fire.

You kept moving.

This time, you wanted to walk back, like you have done, but Daryl, surprisingly, had the same idea, he walked behind the group, and naturally, you started walking together.

“What was your favorite food?”, you asked him softly

“Wha’?”, he asked back

“Back there we all shared what we would like to eat, from before”, you said, “what would be your food?”, you asked softly, he looked back at you quizzically

“What kind of idiot question is tha’?”, you looked down, a bit embarrassed

“Well, just making conversation”, you whispered. an awkward silence stood between you now.

“Roast chicken”, he said then, you looked up at him

“Good choice”, you said, “A classic”, he looked at you, you looked back at him, and he actually smiled softly at you.

You kept walking, in a silence that wasn’t awkward anymore.

@crazyunsexycool

#misguidedcats #daryl dixon the walking dead #twd daryl #daryl x reader #daryl dixon #the walking dead daryl dixon #the walking dead daryl #daryl fanfiction #twd daryl dixon #rick grimes #the walking dead

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blurredcolour · 11 months ago

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We'll Meet Again

[One-shot]

Eugene Roe x Nurse!Female Reader

Nine hours is all it takes for Eugene Roe to realize that his hesitance to share his feelings for you was completely misguided.

Warnings: Language, Weapons, Canon Typical Violence, Smoking, Treatment of Wounds, Medical Procedures, Hospital Settings, Pining, Questionably Written Cajun Accent, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Mature/Explicit Themes - 18+ ONLY

Author’s Note: The title of this fic is based off the song We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn (I recommend the version where she is accompanied by Sailors, Soldiers & Airmen of His Majesty's Forces). This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the HBO series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 7578

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“Roe it’s not mine, I’m alright. Roe.” Eugene was vaguely aware of your voice as he pulled at your blood drenched field jacket, fingers fumbling slightly as he fought with the buttons before he was able to delve beneath, beginning to tug at your sweater and wool shirt, desperate to find where you were hit. “I’m fine, please…Eugene!” You grabbed his wrists forcefully, your blood-slicked fingers sliding against his skin, but it was enough to finally pull his attention to your face. “It’s not my blood, I’m alright.” You repeated gently as his eyes met yours and he exhaled at last.

He frowned anew as he lifted a hand to wipe at the splatter of arterial spray across your cheek, succeeding only in smudging the scarlet across your beautiful skin, marring it further. You sighed and gestured with your head to the SS officer laying on the table behind him, his now-unseeing eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling, the wound at his neck obviously the source of all the blood you wore.

You tugged at his left wrist, which you still held within your grasp, and he looked back to you quickly, following as you led him over to a bank of sinks at the back of the room. As you released him, he watched you grimace slightly at the sensation of the blood growing slightly tacky between your skin and his. You took both his hands in yours and gently began to wash them.

Eugene’s heart throbbed tenderly as he watched the warm water sluice pink before your fingers thoroughly coated his skin with soap then rinsed it clean. Looking up to you with a soft smile, he was reminded of the state of your face and quickly swiped it clean with his wet thumb, lips stretching hopelessly wider at your warm grin.

“Nine hou’s.” He sighed, jaw clenching as his chest constricted painfully, the terror and anguish he’d been desperately trying to hold at bay all day flooding back to him.

“What?” You asked, confusion painting your face and he swallowed roughly, having to fight to focus while standing in your presence after so many months apart.

“Ya were missin’ – a hostage – fo’ nine hou’s.” He pressed his lips together, struggling to hold back the depth and breadth of his feelings on the matter.

He watched you swallow and put on that brave smile you wore for the sake of soothing your patients. “It was just like any other nine hours, except there were German patients and machine guns.”

“Please don’ give me tha’ smile.” He muttered sadly. “Are ya really alrigh’?” He pressed, eyeing you meaningfully.

Your brow twitched, mouth opening, looking about answer his question when the door to the room opened and you stepped back to grab a towel, handing it to him. “I’m just fine, Roe, thank you for asking. The rest of the SS patients are through that door there.” You gestured, nodding to the latest arrival, Webster, who quickly went through to secure the next room with Liebgott hot on his heels.

Roe watched as you assumed your professional mantle, leading him into the room where seven SS men, prisoners now, were being looked after by the rest of the nurses that had been in your hospital convoy when the 6th SS Mountain Division had decided to take you all hostage to provide them with medical care in this abandoned nursing home near Juchen. The women immediately flocked to you for direction and Eugene realized that you now wore a silver 1st Lieutenant’s insignia on your collar, promoted since he’d first met you that night in February of last year in Swindon.

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“These heels are killing me…” You muttered as you finally escaped the dancefloor to sit at the table next to Eugene’s, wedging yourself into the corner defensively.

He’d been watching you all night. Watching as trooper after trooper of the 506th from Able right through Item asked you to dance, barely giving you a moment to sit despite how tired you looked, behind that beautiful smile of yours, and how time and again you accepted, too polite to refuse.

“I’m surprised you didn’t wear your combat boots.” One of your tablemates teased.

A mischievous grin crossed your features and Eugene ducked his head as he found his lips twitching automatically in response to it. “Well, I would have except every time I upend the things, I still find sand from North Africa.”

A chorus of laughter flitted around the table and Eugene was convinced that yours was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard, finding himself thoroughly annoyed when it was extinguished by a couple of men sidling over to pull a few of your fellow nurses onto the dancefloor again.

“What was it like…over there…” A timid voice piped up as the band began to play that Vera Lynn song the Brits were crazy about and Eugene risked a glance at your face as you addressed a young woman, she could not be much older than twenty, only the two of you remaining at the table.

“Well, Barbara,” You paused thoughtfully, eyes focusing on some distant memory, the hints of fatigue he’d seen lurking beneath your smile coming to the fore for a brief moment before you turned to your colleague with a reassuring warmth. “It’s exactly like they say it’ll be.” You nodded firmly.

The girl’s shoulders relaxed as she smiled in relief, nodding in renewed confidence as you each took a sip of your drink. Eugene swallowed, wishing he could hear your real thoughts on North Africa, not just the canned propaganda reels put together to show before the pictures, but the firsthand account of a medical professional. There was only so much training could prepare them for, and they all knew as soon as the weather was right, they were headed for France.

Despite the longing he felt to do so, Eugene did not ask you to dance that night. He drank a few beers and smoked more than a few cigarettes as you forced yourself onto the dancefloor three additional times before you and the youngest of your companions decided to call it a night. Eugene felt that was a sensible idea – the number of buses back to Aldbourne was growing increasingly limited by the hour.

As dictated by the blackout, clumps of people were walking on either side of the road with their flashlights pointed downward, barely lighting their way as vehicles with their headlights reduced to mere slits wended their way through the crowd of inebriated celebrants. Eugene could not help but feel like it was a recipe for disaster, but your laughter, like the peal of bells, pulled his attention from across the darkened street.

“It’s snowing!” You declared with a wonder-filled gasp, and he blinked up at the sky to feel the kiss of melting snowflakes on his cheeks, his breath curling and hanging in the notably colder air.

The peace of the moment was shattered as an unruly group of men from Fox company bolted across the road, trying to reach the same bus stop he was heading for, a drunken straggler not seeing the delivery van and unfortunately the driver not seeing him either – until it was too late. There was a squealing of tires, a ‘crash’ as the load within the van was displaced, and a sickening ‘crunch’ followed by a wail of pain. Eugene lunged into the street, surprised to find you already kneeling beside the victim as you looked him over.

“What’s your name, trooper?” You were smiling warmly, your colleague hovering behind you nervously as the driver had begun pacing anxiously.

“Robert Boye, Ma’am.” He replied through clenched teeth.

Unlike the calm look on your face, your hands were a flurry of movement, honing in on the compound fracture on the man’s leg, lifting your fingers into the slim beams of light to reveal blood from where the bone had broken through his skin. Eugene was already undoing his belt when you turned to him, and you graced him with a brilliant smile that had his adrenaline-fueled heart skipping a few beats.

“I’m a medic, Ma’am. Tourniquet?”

“On his thigh, please, trooper.” You nodded, shrugging out of your overcoat to drape over Boye. “We’re going to get you to a hospital, alright Robert. Just hold on.” Standing quickly, you walked over to the delivery driver though Eugene wasn’t able to hear your conversation as he finished checking over the man in the road, confirming there were no other apparent injuries.

“You’e from Fox company, righ’?”

“Yeah, that’s right…Easy?” He replied, shaking from the cold or shock – or both, most likely.

Eugene nodded in reply, lifting his eyes as the delivery driver raised his voice at you, the sound of crates and empty milk jugs hitting the sidewalk filling the night air.

“Ya crazy Yankee cunt, what in god’s name d’ya think yer doin’?!”

By then quite a crowd had gathered in the road, and the slur hurled your way had more than just Eugene’s hackles up. Undeterred, you stepped forward, looking the rude and careless man directly in the eye. “You’ve struck an innocent pedestrian and now you’re going to make it right, sir. Your cargo will be right where you left it.”

He returned the look coldly but seemed increasingly aware of the looming threat in the darkness about you, eventually huffing in agreement. You provided directions to a hospital Eugene recognized as the nearest American hospital, surely that was where you were stationed, before sending several men to help him load Boye into the back.

“Medic, please come with me?” You looked to him as you climbed into the van and Eugene nodded quickly, jumping into the back with you as you looked to the wide-eyed young woman standing at the curb, watching you in awe.

“Barbara, go back inside and find Fran. Get her to walk you home.”

“Y..yes Ma’am!” She nodded quickly before hurrying back toward the dance hall as the back doors of the van were closed, leaving the three of you in darkness as the van lurched into motion.

“Medic…” You huffed and introduced yourself properly before asking him his name.

“Eugene Roe, Ma’am.” He replied quickly, turning on his flashlight. He was rewarded once again with one of your heart-stopping smiles.

“Wonderful, you have a flashlight. Thank you. How’re you holding up Robert?” You turned your attention back to the patient, checking his pulse at his wrist, pressing a hand to his forehead – most likely to assess for temperature and perspiration.

“Hurts an awful lot, Ma’am.” He grunted as the van hit a rut and you nodded sympathetically, kneeling on the floor beside him in your dress uniform, balancing easily as the van wove its way through the crowd outside the dancehall with more care this time.

“Thank you very much for being so brave for me. Where are you from?”

“Yakima, Washington.”

“Tell me, Robert. If I were to visit Yakima, Washington what is the food I absolutely must try?” You asked, bracing yourself against the roof as the driver took a wide turn.

“My momma’s cherry pie, without a doubt. My father grows bing cherries. Best in the state. And then my momma makes the best pie you will ever eat in your life.” Robert replied with relaxed smile, conversation taking his mind off the pain in his leg.

“Cherry pie – that sounds positively heavenly. So, you grew up on a cherry farm?” Your practiced smile and encouragement prompted the injured man to ramble on about his childhood playing amongst the cherry blossoms, gorging himself on ripe fruit, and skiing in the mountains whilst you the pair of you subtly kept an eye on his wound and vitals. Ever vigilant for a sudden change in demeanour that might signify a head injury or internal bleeding – your patient management was effortless, and Eugene could only feel his affection for you growing.

He was admittedly a little disappointed when the van came to a stop, the flustered driver opening the doors as a duty nurse came outside and gasped to find the three of you in the back of the unassuming vehicle.

“I’ll be right back with a stretcher!” She called out before dashing inside, returning promptly with two orderlies to help load the injured Boye so he might be carted inside.

The pair of you rushed behind into the temporary hospital in a building that looked like it had begun its life as a warehouse of some kind. The shift Doctor appeared from down the hall, and you quickly provided all pertinent information related to treatment.

“Well, you two had best inform the MPs as well, before that driver disappears on us.”

“Yes, sir.” You replied quickly, shooting Eugene an apologetic look before leading him to the MP office at the front of the hospital to make your report, pulling your garrison cap from your head, reminding him to do the same.

You’d barely started your tale when the MP told you both to ‘take a seat’ and dashed out of the office to try and stop the driver and you looked to him with even more pronounced regret. “I’m so sorry, Roe, I’m sure you were just trying to get back to your billet.”

Your use of his last name undoubtedly came from place of professional courtesy, however a part of him ached with the longing to hear how your mouth might form his first name.

“Not at all, Ma’am.” He gestured for you to take one of the empty chairs, only sitting once you had sunk into it with a soft sigh.

“Thank you very much for your help. I was feeling quite adrift with no supplies but then the universe sent me you.” You smiled warmly and he swallowed thickly.

“Ya did all tha work, Ma’am, I was jus’ there.”

Shaking your head stubbornly, he frowned a little as he watched a small shiver roll through you, belatedly realizing your coat had long since vanished with Boye. He started to pull at the jacket of his dress uniform, and you lay a hand on his arm.

“I’m alright, just tired. Based on your accent, I’d say you need your jacket more than me.” You smiled teasingly and he huffed a laugh, looking down at his shoes briefly as he straightened his uniform before lifting his eyes to meet yours quickly.

“It was impressive, Ma’am, how ya stood up ta tha’ man.”

You looked to him earnestly then, not sugar-coating your expression, or your answer, as you had for Barbara. “If we don’t stand up for our patients, Roe, no one will.” You spoke with breathtaking sincerity and all he could muster in response was a firm nod.

The door banged open as the MP hauled the very man in question into the office, his expression going livid as he once again came face to face with you.

“Goddamn Yankee cunt.” He spat at you, making Eugene surge to his feet to stand in front of you protectively, the scent of liquor potent on the man’s breath as he brushed by his rigid frame.

“I’ll be right back to take your statements, one moment.” The MP muttered, putting the uncooperative driver in a back room.

“Could this night get any longer…” You whispered and pinched the bridge of your nose, making Eugene turn back to you.

“How long ya been in England?” He asked, trying your own trick of distraction on you as he resumed his seat.

“Hmm? Oh, landed two weeks ago, I guess. Thought a break from the heat would be nice, hasn’t been quite as quaint as I was led to believe.” You laughed softly and shook your head. “You?”

“Las’ Septembah.”

“Well, I bet you know all the best spots by now then, hmm?” You smirked and he shook his head with rueful smile but did not have the chance to elaborate on his lack of free time as the MP returned to finally take your full statements.

It was nearly two in the morning once all the paperwork was done, the driver of the van turned over to the local police while the MP summoned a subordinate to return the pair of you to your billets.

“See you in a few hours.” The nurse who’d first greeted the pair of you poked her head out of the doorway to the treatment room.

You laughed without much energy. “For sure, Betty. Thanks for your help.”

“You work weekends?” Roe asked quietly, offering a hand to help you into the back of the jeep and you nodded as he settled next to you.

“My days off are Monday, Tuesday.” He must have frowned visibly as you shrugged with a weary smile. “It’s alright, I was the last to arrive here and someone needs to do it.”

As you hugged your arms around yourself tightly in the open back of the vehicle, overcoat still nowhere to be seen, he shifted to try and block the wind with his body. As you shuffled closer, huddling against him slightly, he swallowed thickly, his heart hammering against his ribs.

“You’re going to do great out there, Eugene Roe.” You smiled warmly, the vehicle pulling up outside a nearby shop with an apartment on the second floor.

“Thank ya, Ma’am.” He murmured quietly, taking a shaky breath as you climbed out of the jeep, pausing to wave at him from the curb.

He ought to ask to see you again, to write to you, something, but a part of him was reluctant to start anything he might not be able to see through with his future so very uncertain. He lifted his hand in return as the MP pulled out to drive him back to Aldbourne, regret immediately settling into his gut, leaving a sour aftertaste in his mouth.

Eugene was surprised when his belt arrived at his billet the following Thursday along with a note from you, once again thanking him for his assistance with Robert Boye’s care. You also assured him the patient was doing well and would be ‘fighting fit’ within a few months. He was impressed to see not a trace of blood on the woven fabric, indicating that you had obviously taken the time to clean it for him. Unable to stop the fond smile from unfurling on his features, he quickly hid the note in the pocket of his ODs as he heard Spina’s footsteps on the stairs.

“You coming to London this weekend, Gene?” He asked, sitting heavily on his bed in the corner and Eugene found himself shaking his head in return.

“Too much to do.” He replied vaguely, recalling one of the posters from the hospital hallway calling for blood donations.

“You’re missing out.” Spina teased in a sing-song voice, laying back on his bed once he’d taken off his boots.

The smile you greeted him with Saturday morning when he arrived to donate blood thoroughly convinced him otherwise.

“That’s very generous of you Roe, follow me, I’ll get you set up.” You turned to lead him past a few of the occupied beds and he nodded warmly to Boye as he looked up from a letter he was reading. “If you could take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve please, I’ll be right back with the supplies.” You said as you gestured to a cot, unfolding a privacy screen before turning to fetch the necessities.

Eugene complied, swallowing thickly as he watched the way your hospital dress swished around your hips as you walked away, quite frankly preferring this outfit to your dress uniform. Returning with a collection bottle, needle, and some tubing, you lifted his arm to search for a vein. He swallowed thickly at the goosebumps that rippled across his skin, able to smell the scent of soap lingering on you, the proximity nearly killing him.

“I never did ask, Roe, where are you from?” You glanced at him with your professional smile, fingers settling over their target in the inside of his elbow.

“Loosiana, Ma’am.” He murmured softly, watching you insert the needle so smoothly he barely felt more than a pinch before his blood began to fill the bottle in your hands.

“Louisiana.” You repeated warmly, eyes flicking between the bottle and his face, listening while monitoring the volume you were collecting. “Famous for Mardi Gras, yes?”

He nodded quickly. “Tha’s righ’, yes.”

“A lot warmer than England, hmm?” You chuckled and shook your head.

“Did ya get you’ jacket back?” He tilted his head. “Thank ya fo’ returnin’ ma belt.”

“I did, yes. And again, it was the least I could do.” Your eyes crinkled at the corners as you smiled this time, his heart swelling as he was becoming more skilled at discerning your real versus polite expressions. You pressed a piece of gauze over the needle before pulling it from his arm, the bottle now filled with the crimson fluid from his veins. “Could you apply pressure to that for me please?”

He nodded, fingertips brushing against yours as he took over, a jolt of electricity sizzling through him. Your eyes met his briefly before you turned back to the task at hand, and he could not help but wonder if you had felt it too. As you lay your fingers over his to lift the gauze and take a peek at the puncture in his skin, Eugene bit the inside of his cheek trying to maintain his composure. Replacing it with an adhesive bandage, you handed him a cookie to eat as you jotted down his information on the label on the bottle.

“Thank you aga–” Your gratitude was cut short by a loud crash over by the nurses’ station that had Eugene quickly on his feet though he noticed you barely reacted. “Sorry about that.” You sighed and urged him to sit back down with the gentle pressure of your palm on his shoulder. “I keep trying to fix that darn shelf, but the screws won’t stay in the wall.”

“Sorry!” Called a timid voice Eugene recognized as Barbara from last Friday’s dance and he looked up to you.

“I’d be happy ta take a look at it fo’ ya.”

You eyed him a moment, clearly weighing your desire to impose on him further. “Eat your cookie and then we’ll talk.” You ultimately said and he nearly inhaled the thing.

“I like fixin’ things.” He murmured once he’d swallowed, rolling down his sleeve and following you over to inspect the carnage Barbara had unleashed.

You helped her stack the last of the clipboards and manuals that were scattered across the floor onto the edge of the desk as Eugene looked over the shelf before eyeing the screws and finally the holes in the wall.

“You’ screws are stripped. Needs some new ones an’ maybe a few anchors.” He added as he eyed the weight of what you intended to store up there.

You worried your lip between your teeth for a moment before grabbing a key from the desk. “Maintenance room is this way, shall we see if they have what we need?”

He followed you down the hall and around the corner to a room that was no more than a glorified cupboard. You pulled the cord on the lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and he began rooting around, collecting tools in an empty toolbox before nodding to you to signal that he’d secured everything necessary.

“Don’t carry that with the arm I just took blood from please.” You reminded gently and he nodded again, walking back with you. “How can I help?” You tilted your head, nurse’s cap barely hanging on by the pins in your hair, presenting quite possibly the most adorable sight Eugene had ever seen.

“Could you an’ Miss Barbara hold tha shelf up fo’ me, please? Show me where ya’d like it?” He set the toolbox on the ground, grabbing the pencil he’d prepared as the pair of you positioned the shelf on the wall. He made a series of marks beneath it where he would drill new holes and marked the end placements. “Thank ya both, kindly.” He nodded and you set it down with a smile.

The sound of the door opening signalled the arrival of the doctor to do his midday rounds and you glanced at him, looking ready to apologize but he shook his head. “Don’ worry ‘bout me, you’ workin’. I’ll get this fixed an’ get outta you’ hair.”

“Thank you, Roe.” You nodded warmly before grabbing the clipboards from the desk and hurrying over with Barbara in tow.

Eugene did a thorough job of re-installing that shelf for you – putting new holes in the studs with the hand drill before tapping in a set of anchors to ensure it would never let you down again. It may have taken him a little longer than necessary due to the numerous glances he stole at you over his shoulder, but when his eyes met yours around the fifth glance, he turned back to his work quickly, cheeks burning, and did not risk another.

Once he was satisfied in the shelf’s structural stability, he began to place the manuals back onto it, hazarding a guess that you would want them in alphabetical order, glancing at you as you stashed the clipboards – now neatly back in their rack – beside them, rounds clearly complete.

“This looks amazing, Roe, I am once again in your debt.”

“It should hold alrigh’, even if ya get mo’e manuals.” He nodded humbly. “It was ma pleasu’e.”

“Well, I assure you we are extremely grateful.” You nodded firmly and he was unable to stop the slight smile that snuck onto his lips, watching as your own grew brightly in return. “Now I’m sure there’s somewhere you’d much rather spend your days off than our boring little hospital.”

He swallowed tightly, quite convinced that was utterly untrue but was unable to verbally disagree. “I’ll leave ya to it then, Ma’am.” He nodded, putting the tools away before shrugging into his uniform jacket once more and heading out into the drizzly afternoon.

It became a habit, spending his Saturdays at your hospital, fixing up little things that were broken but not priorities for the regular handyman. Donating blood every few weeks when you’d let him. It was, of course, all a thinly veiled excuse to see you – not that he would ever reveal that to you. As winter melted into spring, training and preparation for what was to come only intensified, and the potential outcomes remained at the forefront of his mind. If he were to speak honestly, Eugene, like many men, did not expect to survive the assault on France. Hitler had been there too long, had had too much time to get dug in snug as a tick. What they were planning to attempt was nearly impossible – just like his chances of survival.

You deserved better than that. Better than to open your heart to a man like him, if you even cared to, only to have him wiped from the earth by some piece of artillery or some such horrific ending. Eugene had a sense you’d seen enough horror first-hand in North Africa and he wanted no part in inflicting more upon you. So, he remained cordial, friendly, holding his breath and biting his tongue when your hands would brush, when you’d gently fix his tie after he’d gotten it crooked under the sink and when you’d swipe the sawdust from his shoulders before he put his uniform jacket back on.

The domesticity of your care and concern for him made his heart ache something fierce but he bore it stoically, silently, repeatedly like some kind of martyr. A smarter man might have stayed away but Eugene needed those few hours with you every week as badly as he needed the comforting nicotine of his Lucky Strikes. The news that they were shipping out to Upottery in late May was thus a rude reminder that his time, his life, was no longer his own.

The entire time he was packing, Eugene debated with himself before ultimately deciding to jot off a quick note of apology explaining his absence for that coming weekend and wishing you well until ‘next time.’ What a terrible expression it was. Forcing himself to take it to the post office, he sent it to the hospital where you worked before boarding the transit truck to move out. The days passed in almost a blur, the frenetic pace of preparation and practice jumps all leading up to the inevitable.

Eugene was dressed in full gear, having just secured his leg bag when he heard Vest call out his name, waving a letter addressed to him. Settling back down on the tarmac to open it, his brows furrowed in confusion at the unfamiliar handwriting.

Eugene was so taken aback he nearly missed Meehan’s announcement that the jump was off due to bad weather that night, spending several hours re-reading your letter, thinking about the things he wished to write to you in reply. Vowing to put them on paper if he ever saw the end of this thing. By the time he made it back to Aldbourne in July, he made a visit to the hospital where you had been stationed only to be informed by Barbara that you’d left for France with the 47th Field Hospital five days earlier.

He swallowed his bitter chuckle while Barbara kindly scrawled your post address now that you were deployed. “If you’d like to write to her.” She murmured timidly and he took it with a soft thanks before heading back to his billet.

It made perfect sense that you had been sent to France; nurses with field experience were hard to come by and you were obviously too talented to loiter in England. Thus, he had taken the time to reply to you, a proper letter this time, though still withholding his true feelings now that his eyes were well and truly opened to the rapidity with which a man’s fortunes could change.

Mail was slow, your replies taking a frustrating amount of time to reach him, and Eugene was certain you felt the same, especially as it became increasingly apparent that your paths through Europe were remarkably similar and yet did not cross again. Not until Easter Sunday of 1945.

2nd Battalion had left Belgium that morning, crossing the border into Germany in the grey light of dawn. It had been deeply unsettling to pass so close by their former positions in Bastogne, Foy, and Rachamps the day before. Memories, thick as winter fog, had put a damper on the mood of excitement amongst the men at being on the move again, a hush that persisted into the morning. It was a quiet that allowed them all to hear the frantic honking of a jeep horn, many of them, including Eugene, sitting higher in their transports to see a vehicle painted with the Geneva cross pull up beside that occupied by Winters, Nixon, Speirs and Welsh, bringing the entire convoy to a halt.

Craning his neck, Eugene strained to hear the conversation, but his attempts were futile as they were simply too far away. His brow furrowed as the rest of the batallion’s Lieutenants were called up by Speirs, a map was then unfurled on the hood of the jeep, intense conversation occurring amongst the huddled officers. Like some kind of silent movie without the title cards.

“What the hell do you think that’s all about?” Heffron griped beside him, and Eugene shook his head, completely at a loss.

It wasn’t until Lipton returned to the back of their transport, hauled up with the assistance of Luz’s friendly hand, that Eugene understood the gravity of the situation.

“Hospital convoy has gone missing, boys. Left Aachen over four hours ago and should have arrived in Juchen by now. There’s no trace of them.” He began putting on his gear, a silent signal for everyone to do the same.

“Nobody just vanishes in Germany, Lieutenant.” Heffron muttered grimly, securing his webbing.

“Major Winters’ thoughts exactly. We have eleven nurses and four ambulances unaccounted for somewhere between here and Juchen. So, we’re going to find ‘em.”

“What hospital, sir?” Eugene piped up as he secured his satchel around his body, the men glancing at him, reminding him that he rarely spoke.

“Uh, the 47th Field Hospital I think, Doc.” Lipton replied before getting the men off the truck to begin combing the roadside for clues.

The 47th Field Hospital. Your 47th. He stood rooted to the spot, blind to all that moved in front of him, sound muffled as he felt like the only thing he could be sure of – your safety – came crashing down around him.

“Hey Doc, you coming or what?” Heffron called up to him and Eugene blinked rapidly before hopping out of the back of the transport to follow quickly.

Eleven nurses missing. Field Hospitals had roughly eighteen nurses, if fully staffed, meaning there was more than a fifty-fifty chance you were among the missing. He shoved his balled fists into his pockets and began searching. Searching for what, he had no idea. The infuriating feeling of helplessness rose within him like the tide, relentless and uncontrollable.

It took a further three hours of driving, stopping, searching, until finally a farmer reported having heard machine gun fire earlier that morning near Titz. A yawning pit of dread opened deep within his stomach as all manner of possible scenarios played out in his mind. The three companies split up then, with Easy heading into the town of Titz while Dog continued on the road to Juchen and Fox turned towards Gevelsdorf.

He was not able to lay eyes upon you for another two hours, and to find you soaked in blood had sent him immediately into a frenzied state of triage, desperate to keep you alive after finding you at last. Calmed only by the proof that you were unhurt, at the reasonable explanation for the state of your clothes lying dead behind him, Eugene had never been more annoyed with Webster and Liebgott than when they had interrupted his chance to speak with you.

The rest of 2nd Battalion arrived, taking over the building for the night and securing the prisoners until MPs could arrive the next day to take them to a nearby prison camp. Winters had ensured a wing was reserved exclusively for the nurses, though you had assured him a guard would not be necessary. Eugene had offered himself and the other Battalion medics to help with the schedule you were drawing up to watch over the patients, but you politely refused, insisting he had done enough. Eugene certainly did not feel that way.

Finding himself unable to sleep that night, he slipped out of the room he shared with Spina, Heffron, and Ramirez, making his way down to the makeshift treatment space you had set up to see if he could be of any use. He stopped at top of the stairs as he nearly ran into you, making your way up to the nurses’ wing with your wet field jacket in your hands.

“Roe!” You breathed, startled, before smiling at him tiredly. “Can’t sleep?”

He shook his head. “Ya neithah?”

“Wanted to try and get this somewhat clean for tomorrow.” You murmured, gesturing to your jacket before glancing at him. “But no, not really.” You admitted softly.

He motioned with his head for you to follow him to sit on the ledge beneath a large bay window opposite the staircase. You draped your damp jacket over the back of a wooden chair that had seen better days, turning to look out over the landscape as raindrops began to patter against the glass. He slid a cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket, offering it you and only once you had declined with a shake of your head and kind smile, lit it for himself.

“Nine hours isn’t a long time considering the years I’ve spent away from home.” Your hushed voice, a continuation of your conversation from hours previous, broke through the sound of the rain hitting the windowpane.

Eugene exhaled slowly, smoke curling from his lips. “It only takes seconds ta die…”

You eyed him sharply in the dim light, shaking your head. “You of all people know how little control we have over that.”

Swallowing tightly, as you did have a point, he nodded. “Sorry Ma’am.”

You huffed a little. “Eugene, every time you call me Ma’am I feel like my mother.”

“But ya outrank me, even mo’e so now 1st Lieutenan’.” His nose crinkled in confusion.

You hummed noncommittally, an uneasy silence falling over the pair of you as Eugene finished his cigarette, stubbing it out against the windowsill behind him. Neither of you seemed certain of what to say or do next. Of what you were anymore – no longer just acquaintances, colleagues, or pen pals. Despite his best efforts, Eugene was terrifyingly convinced you were a great deal more.

“What’s something you wish you had done before you came over here?” Your voice broke through his thoughts, and he inhaled sharply before giving you his answer without hesitation.

“Shoulda asked ya ta dance tha’ nigh’.”

He heard your breath leave your lips with a shudder, watching you stand with the sinking feeling that he’d misjudged the entirety of your relationship. It was only when you turned back to him with your hand outstretched that he remembered how to breathe.

“Dance with me now, Eugene.”

His eyes widened, confusion surely evident on his face even as he set his worn and battered hand in yours. “But there’s no music.”

Your fingers closed around his, tugging him to his feet as you began to hum that Vera Lynn song, bringing a smile to his face as he set his other hand on your waist to begin dancing with you in earnest. Your fingers laced through his, a shiver running through him as you wrapped your arm around his shoulder before laying your head against his collarbone.

“Cold?” You whispered and he shook his head.

“It’s nice.” He replied as you started humming again, the repetitive nature of the song making him grin slightly. “Finally got ta dance in you’ comba’ boots.” He murmured, discreetly inhaling the scent of you.

You giggled softly against him, leaning back to look over his features in the low light. “Why didn’t you ask me to dance, Eugene?”

He swallowed roughly. “Ya looked tired, Ma’am. Didn’t want ta make ya suffah any mo’e.”

“Dancing with you is not a hardship.” You whispered, the pair of you still moving to the ghost of the song in the now silent hallway. “I would have said yes with one of those smiles you like.”

He laugh softly, squeezing your hand slightly. “I was worried, too. Worried I’d do somethin’ stupid like make ya care ‘bout me an’ then get myself killed. But then I thought I’d lost ya today…did lose ya fo’ nine hou’s…” His throat clenched with emotion, sealing off his ability to say anything further.

Your feet came to a stop as you eyed him intensely. “Eugene Roe, you have no control over that either.” You admonished gently. “I do care about you, whether you like it or not.”

The sound of his heart frantically pumping blood through his body filled his ears as he stared at you in wonder, awestruck by your fierce determination to bear affection for him despite the risks.

“M..may I…” He struggled to speak through the overwhelming adoration he felt for you, and you sighed fondly, leaning in to press your lips to his.

His grip tightened on your waist as his eyes fluttered shut, your soft mouth feeling like the finest silk brushing against his. He sighed dreamily as your fingers abandoned his shoulder to wend their way into his hair, drawing him tighter to you. He indulged in the impulse to slide his hand up your spine to rest between your shoulder blades, the feeling of your back arching in response headier than any liquor he’d ever tasted.

Your fingers gently unlaced from his, hand shifting to cup his jaw as you pulled back to press featherlight kisses across his brow and down his nose. “You didn’t lose me, Eugene.” You sighed against his skin, lips traveling across his left cheek. “I’m just fine.”

As you made your way along his jaw, he turned his head to kiss you fiercely, tongue darting past your startled lips to communicate all the things he could not seem to be able to say, holding your body so tightly against his as though he wished he could absorb you into his very being. You clung to him, matching the ferocity of his embrace with a reassuring tenderness of your own that had him melting against you, face burrowing against your neck.

“Thank ya, Ma’am.” He sighed with a bone deep weariness and felt your body shake against his as you laughed softly.

“Call me something better, Eugene.” You chided sweetly, kissing his temple. “Especially if you’re going to kiss me like that.”

He smirked before pressing his lips to the column of your throat, trailing kisses up towards your jaw, reveling in the way your breath hitched in your throat in response. “Alrigh’ cher.” He smiled warmly before kissing you gently.

“Cher.” You repeated softly once he released your lips.

“Cajun for darlin’.”

He watched your teeth sink into your lower lip, a grin stretching over your face as you looked to him through your lashes making the muscles of his abdomen clench.

“That will do quite nicely, Eugene.” You sighed before your fingers tightened in his hair, pulling him in to kiss him deeply.

You were both short of breath by the time you pulled back, hand caressing his face as your features contracted apologetically. “I should go before someone finds us.”

Eugene nodded begrudgingly as you were once again speaking the truth. “Goodnigh’, cher.” He said softly, loosening his hold on you.

“We’ll meet again, Eugene.” You smiled, eyes twinkling with mirth in the not-so-dark hallway as the light of pre-dawn began to seep through the tracks of rain cascading down the window, and his eyes widened as he realized that was the name of that damn song.

“You’d bettah not be covered in blood nex’ time, cher.” He admonished playfully, freshly addicted to the way your lips ticked up at the corners every time he said it.

“Likewise, Eugene.” You laughed and blew him a kiss before grabbing your surely still-damp field jacket, walking backwards as far as you could until you absolutely had to turn around.

He stood on the porch the next morning, hiding from the rain as he watched you load the nurses in your charge into newly arrived ambulances to complete your journey to the field hospital in Juchen. He barely looked up as he heard the scuff of jump boots on the worn brick beside him, Heffron leaning against the wall to light a cigarette, trying to soak in every last moment of your presence before you were inevitably parted once again. It was a great comfort to know you’d be just twenty-five kilometres behind him, perhaps a sign of kinder times ahead.

“So, you get your hands on some tits in Titz?” Heffron asked with a sly grin, making Eugene turn to him sharply.

“Heffron, watch you’ damn mouth.” He snapped at him brusquely, making the redhead’s eyes widen.

“Sheesh, Doc, she must be somethin’ special. Sorry.” He squawked and pointed at the road. “She’s looking this way.”

Eugene looked back quickly to see you, drenched by rain, waving at him with a bright smile he could still see despite your helmet, and he waved back, cheeks aching a little as his expression automatically mirrored yours.

“You’d bettah keep this to you’self, Heffron.” Eugene rounded on him with a serious look that he hoped was intimidating as soon as you pulled the backdoor of the vehicle shut behind you.

“Your secret is safe with me, lover boy.” Heffron winked, and Eugene did not believe him for a second.

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

Read the Sequel - Born To Be Yours

Band of Brothers Masterlist

Tag list: @bcon24 , @ronsparky, @fuckoffthanos

#eugene roe x reader #eugene roe imagines #eugene roe imagine #eugene roe #doc roe #band of brothers x reader #band of brothers imagines #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers

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selfaware-bungou-stray-dogs · 1 year ago

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We will protect you. Part IV

Self-Aware! BSD Characters x GN! Reader

Description: ADA and you discuss, what you manage to uncover, with the rest of the Gang. But, you never expected to see three particular names in the list.

Warning: OOC. English is my second language.

Part III

Part V

_______

You were sitting one of the couches in the living room, between Yosano and Kouyou. You and ADA returned home fifteen minutes ago and were telling others, what happened today.

ADA members were the ones, who did most of the talking. They explained in details, what they do to Stalker. And it was impressive in their own way. Yes, today, they mostly used physical power, but, some people only learn, that dog us angry, only when said dog bite them. And, while it was strange to have Dazai of all people using raw power, you feel so grateful towards him for protecting you today. You were grateful towards all Armed Detective Agency members, Katai and Natsume for today's protection.

Ranpo finally stopped talking and took a list of Stalker's accomplices from the table.

"With Stalker's phone we had some evidence, that will help us punish them severely. But, we need to punish a few more people. Stalker's accomplices..."

Everyone's gazes became darker. Ranpo start reading out loud. Poe took Stalker's phone and Katai turn on his laptop.

"First names, Emily Glover and Eugene Porcher..." You sighed, hearing these names.

"My university professors. They are responsible for job assignment during Charity Fair."

Poe start scrolling through Stalker's phone, trying to find Stalker's chat with anyone from this two.

"No... No... Found it! It seems, that Stalker posed as poor shy crushing student, who just want to see you from afar. And the café were the best option for them, because of all this windows," Poe's hands were shaking because of anger. "Your two professors didn't even question them, after you started to tell everyone about the Stalker."

You rub your forehead and lean your back on Yosano. She immediately put her hand on your head and start playing with your hair.

"Okay... Next?"

Ranpo cleared his throat.

"Johnathan Burke, manager of the café..."

This time, Katai clarify his reasons.

"Stalker pay them for keeping you on Closing Shift."

Ranpo named the third accomplice.

"Samson Beck, police officer, it seems, he and Stalker knew each other. Ollie Foster and Lennie Finch, two students. They..."

You finished.

"Don't like me. Especially after I moved in with you."

Ranpo nodded.

"Yes, unfortunately. And, there are three more names. I have never heard them before. Justin Blackwood, Angela Blackwood and Tory Swanson."

You perked up, hearing these names. You jumped from the couch and snatched the list from the Ranpo.

"And here I hoped that it was a hallucination and I didn't see these three names."

Everyone stared at you. You quickly explained.

"Justin and Angela are my uncle and aunt. [C/N]'s parents."

Kunikida adjusted his glasses.

"I assume, they also liked to call in the middle of the night?"

You mumble something and shrug. You took a pen from the table and start spinning it, trying to calm down.

"Maybe? At least, they never called me in the middle of the night. As for Tory, she is my cousin, I guess. We are not blood related, she is Justin's niece."

Atsushi looked puzzled.

"Okay... What do they get from helping Stalker?"

Poe, who was checking chats, spoke.

"Well, they mentioned something about... inheritance and old hotel. And, being ready to help Stalker get you."

You snatched the phone from Poe and stare at the screen.

It was true. You recognize your aunt's number.

SNAP

Blue ink from broken pen coated your hand. The plastic remains of the pen fall down on the floor. You were breathing hard. You gave the phone back to Poe.

"Because of inheritance... They are ready to destroy my life... Sold me to a creep. And here I thought, they wanted..."

You breathe in and out.

You glance at your dirty hand.

"I need to clean myself up."

You turned away and left the living room.

_______

You frantically soaped your palms. Hot water were burning your hands, but you didn't care. A million thoughts fly in your mind and none of them were pleasant.

You were crying.

One week ago you got a message from Aunt Angela. She said, that she and Justin wanted to visit you the following week. You were happy to see someone from your family again.

But, with that family you don't need enemies.

You heard, how someone open the door. You catch Kouyou's reflection in a mirror.

Then you were embraced by her. Kouyou whispered.

"You can cry as much, as you want, Dear Flower. I will be there."

You sobbed, hiding your face in her chest.

"They were thinking about inheritance... They didn't care about me!"

Kouyou lightly pet your head.

"Don't worry, everything is going to be alright. We won't let them hurt you. I won't let them hurt you."

Kouyou cupped your face. You looked directly in her cherry-red-eyes. She kissed away two stray teardrops from your cheeks.

"I promise."

You hugged her again.

"It's just... I thought, that they are my family. That, they, at least, shouldn't be against me."

Kouyou kissed your temple.

"Not all families are supportive. But we will support you. Always."

You sighed.

"True... Can we stay like this for a moment? Then we will return to a living room?"

Kouyou nodded, placing her hand on your head.

____

When Kouyou and you return to the living room, others looked troubled. You were standing with your back turned to her while Kouyou hugged you from behind. You explained everyone about your aunt's messages. And about wanting to meet you.

Right in the middle of explanation, you got another message from her. You read it out loud.

"Hey, [Y/N]! Let's meet tomorrow and have dinner together! Your uncle and I will wait for you at the "Sakura" restaurant."

You raise an eyebrow. "Sakura" was a wanna be Japanese restaurant. Cheap, with bad food. Because of that, during Charity Fair, they almost had no clients.

Good place for a kidnapping. You rub your forehead. You are getting a headache.

Mori stand up. He came closer to you, stand near Kouyou and put his hands on your shoulders.

"Don't worry, My Darling Guiding Light, tommorow, you will be under protection of Port Mafia. And we will show them, what will happened to people, who cross you."

You looked at Mori with gratitude.

"Thank you, Ougai. So..." you looked at others, fixing your gaze on Port Mafia members. "Who want to meet my family tommorow?"

________

That night you spent in your room.

But you weren't alone.

Once again, you were in a middle of cuddle sandwich.

You were laying face to face with Kouyou. You ran your fingers through her hair, that she let down. Koyouu's fingers were massaging your temples. From time to time, she ran her fingertips up and down your face.

Mori was spooning you. He put his chin on the top of your head. Your legs were intertwined. His hands were wrapped around your midsection. From time to time, he gave you an affectionate squeeze.

And, once again, you felt safe.

#self-awarebsd #self-awareau #bungou stray dogs au #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd anime #bsd x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader

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rachelsfav-queer · 5 months ago

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The World is Loud (So Step into My Office)

Summary: Wednesday is eating lunch and becomes overstimulated by all the noise and she flees the cafeteria. She runs into Principal Weems, who invites her to eat in the quiet of her office.

Word count: 1,488

Notes: So basically, we have autistic Wednesday getting overstimulated by all the chaos in a cafeteria full of hungry teenagers lol. Larissa offers her a quiet place to eat lunch every day. Simple, clean, and neat! This is post season 1 so Wednesday and Larissa are closer. You know, bonding over almost dying on the same night and all! So Wednesday isn’t so averse to help from others, at least those she trusts.

It was just another normal, typical, loud day at Nevermore for Wednesday and she was once again eating lunch in the loud cafeteria. Unfortunately, it was also her name day, Wednesday, which meant that neither Enid or Eugene or any of her other acquaintances were sharing a lunch period with her today and weren’t here to act as a buffer between her and the rest of the noise and chaos of hundreds of other students also eating lunch and talking and screaming and laughing and being so loud!

At some point, Wednesday simply couldn’t stand it anymore and stood up and stormed out of the cafeteria, leaving her lunch behind as her mind was too overloaded with stimuli to pay attention to anything beyond the feeling of her own blood pumping underneath her skin. As the seer stomped out of the room and through the hallway, she wasn’t paying attention to anything around her and she accidentally bumps into the principal of the academy, the sudden stop shocking her back into reality. She looks up at the much taller woman and sees barely concealed concern across her face as she smiles kindly at the raven. “Miss Addams, is everything alright? You look… disturbed,” Principal Weems asks as she lifts a hand to put on Wednesday’s shoulder, the action causing the student to jerk back before she could even make contact. Weems smiles apologetically and pulls her hand back to hold her other in front of her, “Apologies, my dear. Hmm, if I had to guess, the cafeteria is a bit too loud today?”

Wednesday doesn’t give a verbal response, she can’t, but instead nods her head once, still looking up at the shapeshifter who still smiles, this time in comfort and understanding. The expression would’ve offended Wednesday a year ago, before that fateful and nearly fatal night under the blood moon, but now it actually has the intended effect on the seer, settling her mind if only slightly. The principal speaks once again, “Ah, and verbal shutdown as well?” A nod. “Hmm, well that is troublesome, isn’t it? Miss Addams, if it will help, you may come to my office for the rest of your lunch period? This way, you can have a quiet place to enjoy your meal and you won’t have to worry about teachers or staff questioning your whereabouts. Is that agreeable?”

Once again, Wednesday nods and turns to grab her forgotten lunch before she’s stopped by the older outcast, telling her that she’ll just order food to be delivered, whatever Wednesday wants. The seer widens her eyes in surprise, but they soon soften in a look of gratitude, her whole body slowly losing its tension in the presence of the woman she’s grown to trust and view as a genuine mentor figure since they both nearly lost their lives. A final time, Wednesday nods and the two make their way to the principal’s office.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wednesday lets out a heavy sigh as she finishes the last of her food that was delivered from an (the only) authentic Mexican restaurant in Jericho and sets the plastic container on the small table in front of the fireplace, lit at the shapeshifter’s offer.

Said shapeshifter, currently sitting at her desk, looks up from the paperwork she’s been focused on since finishing her own food and sees the raven staring at nothing. “Wednesday? Is everything alright, dear?”

For the first time since they bumped into each other, Wednesday speaks, though only in a whisper, “Everything is fine, Miss Weems. I am simply… at ease now. The silence here has been blissful to my mind. I appreciate this… all of this. Thank you.”

Weems smiles warmly and sets down her pen, leaning on her forearms over her desk, “I’m quite happy to hear that, Wednesday. And please, it was my pleasure! You know, you’ve grown so much since you first arrived here at Nevermore. I’m… proud of you, Wednesday. I hope you know that you are welcome in my office anytime should you need an escape from the usual havoc and mayhem of the rest of the school. Gods know I need the escape a fair amount myself.”

The joke brings a slight smile to Wednesday’s face as she stands and collects her garbage, throwing it away before grabbing her backpack and stepping up to the principal’s desk. “I’ll consider your offer. And once again, I thank you for allowing me this and for the meal. I must get to class now and thankfully, Enid will be there as well. She is… exceptional at balancing my mind.”

Weems simply smiles knowingly, though the raven and werewolf pair haven’t gone public with their relationship, it was quite obvious to everyone who knew them. The changes in both of them were plainly obvious and Larissa, well, she couldn’t be happier for the young couple. After all, it wasn’t a simple coincidence that she had assigned them to room together. But the blonde woman bites her tongue and instead rises up to see Wednesday out. Once the seer had left, Larissa returns to her desk, but instead of getting back to the piles of paperwork, she pulls forward her laptop and makes an easy purchase. She then returns to her paperwork with a warm smile on her face, wishing she could be there to see Wednesday’s face when she receives the gift.

*A Few Days Later, in Wenclair’s Room*

A knock at the door has Enid standing up from her bed, pocketing her phone, and walking over to open it, slightly confused as she doesn’t see anyone standing there. She then looks down at the floor to see a black gift box with white ribbon on it. It’s pretty clear who it’s for just by looking at it, but Enid still checks the little card attached to make sure, and confirms it’s for her roommate/girlfriend and is surprised to see who it’s from. The werewolf steps back inside the room and walks over to Wednesday, who’s sitting at her desk, studying homework. “Hey babycakes-”

“I told you not to-”

“You have a gift! From Principal Weems, too! Here, open it!” Enid sets the black box onto Wednesday’s desk and the seer glares at it curiously.

She glances up at her girlfriend and questions, “Are you really going to stand there and watch me open it?”

“Of course, silly! You don’t get gifts very often, this is a special occasion!” Enid responds cheekily, nudging her girlfriend to hurry up and open the gift box. Wednesday pulls at the ribbon and lays it on top of her homework, then lifts the lid and looks inside, rolling her eyes at the gratuitous amount of black tissue paper concealing whatever was inside the box. After nearly thirty seconds of pulling out tissue paper, Wednesday finally sees what’s inside and pulls it out to get a proper look. She’s confused for a moment before she hears her girlfriend gasp. “Oh wow…” the werewolf breathes, “Those are… some seriously expensive headphones! Holy shit! Miss Weems really went all out!”

Wednesday’s confusion only grows as she asks, “What in the nine circles would inspire her to gift me headphones?” She then reads some of the text on the package holding the headphones and whispers, “Noise-canceling? Enid?”

Enid finally notices the seer’s confusion and explains, “Oh, noise-canceling! I mean, pretty obviously, they cancel out noise. But like, they’re commonly used by autistic people and people with sensitivity to loud noises in order to make them more comfortable! Honestly, baby, I really think you’d like them! It’ll take a bit to get used to wearing them on your head, but seriously, having these handy will help a lot! Especially when I or our friends can’t be around to act as a buffer for you.”

Wednesday nods in understanding and fascination. As she stares at the box, she feels emotion build up in her chest at the kind gift. Principal Weems. By Satan herself, Wednesday was certainly wrong with all her initial assumptions of the tall shapeshifter back during her first semester here at Nevermore. She feels only a sliver of guilt at how she had treated the woman during that time, but more than that, she feels a huge swell of gratitude for being given the chance to know her better after their near-death experiences.

The raven looks away from the box in her hands and up at her blonde girlfriend and speaks softly, “Enid? Will you… assist me in setting these up? I would like to try them out.”

Enid smiles so widely it would’ve hurt her cheeks if she wasn’t so used to it. “Of course, babycakes!”

Wednesday growls, “I told you-”

“Willa, baby girl, love of my life, most adorable girl I have ever known? Give it up. I’m literally never gonna stop calling you that. Especially not with how much you blush when I do!”

End <3

#my writing #wednesday #wednesday fic #wednesday fanfic #wednesday addams #larissa weems #enid sinclair #wenclair #wednesday x enid #autistic wednesday addams #autism #autistic writer #wednesday netflix #wednesday series #wednesday 2022 #jenna ortega #gwendoline christie #emma myers

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hometoursandotherstuff · 1 year ago

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I'm going to call this 1999 castle house in Eugene, Oregon a fixer-upper. It hasn't been well-maintained and needs a good cleaning, among other things. 3bds, 2ba. They were asking $1M, but have recently reduced it to $950K. What do you think?

In the spacious living room there's a terrazzo floor that's in good shape, but notice the splotches on the walls and ceiling. What is that?

In the family room I'm seeing a worn floor and is that mold where the floor meets the wall, in the arches, and niches? If it is, it's starting to come thru the walls, too.

The dining table is set up in front of sliding glass doors and windows in the living room. Off to the side is a baby grand piano, so it's quite a large space.

The door to the large powder room is nice, but why did they put that window in it? On the right is chipped plaster and what looks like mold on the floor. Opposite on the left, there's some staining that could be moisture and more mold developing.

The sink counter needs refinishing or replacement, and are the stains in the wall mold?

Large semi-circular kitchen cabinetry on a terrazzo floor. The description says nothing about mold remediation, but look at the stains on the ceiling.

There's so much staining that if it's mold, the walls will have to come down, and if it's water, it's still a big problem. Even if it just needs paint and crack repair, it's going to cost a lot.

Cute little office/library.

Hall to the bedrooms and bath.

A chunk of plaster is off the beam. This bath really needs an update, and there's a water stain in the upper corner of the shower.

There are supposed to be 3 bedrooms, but it looks like there're 4.

Bedroom #2. Maybe it's a guestroom or den.

I thought that they were making repairs in this room, but it's just a ladder going up to a loft. It's a nice room, though.

The primary bedroom is huge and opens to a patio and yard.

The primary has a very large en-suite bath with a nice claw foot tub.

Outdoors there's a beautiful pond with a waterfall.

Home is on 6.84 acres of land.

#castle house #fixer upper #houses #house tours #home tour #unusual houses #unique homes

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germanpostwarmodern · 6 months ago

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Egon Eiermann (1904-70) without doubt was the architect of the young German Federal Republic: his company buildings, the Expo 1958 pavilion in Brussels or the „Lange Eugen“, an office building for the members of the Bundestag in Bonn, are sophisticated examples of German postwar modern architecture. On the occasion of Eiermann 80th birthday in 1984 the first comprehensive monograph dedicated to his life and work was published: „Egon Eiermann 1904-1970: Bauten und Projekte“, published in 1984 by Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and edited by Wulf Schirmer. The book acts on Eiermann’s maxim „logic, purity, clarity“ and presents his oeuvre, including his postwar and design works, in an exemplarily clean manner: consistently illustrated with black-and-white photographs as well as extensive plan material and brief explanatory texts the book covers each project, including those left unrealized, comprehensively according to size and relevance. In between the projects essays by Klaus Lankheit, Rudolf Büchner, Immo Boyken and Brigitte Eiermann enlarge upon a number of topics, e.g. his personality, the prewar career in Berlin and the furniture he designed. That way Eiermann’s work and also his teaching at TH Karlsruhe receives a personal dimension and additional depth.

40 years after its initial release the book has seen four editions, evidence of its status as reference work to Egon Eiermann and a status I can only underscore.

#egon eiermann #monograph #architecture #germany #architecture book #vintage book #book #nachkriegsmoderne #nachkriegsarchitektur

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fatehbaz · 2 years ago

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Whitewash is extremely moral. Suppose there were a decree requiring all rooms in Paris to be given a coat of whitewash. I maintain that that would be a police task of real stature and a manifestation of high morality, the sign of a great people. -- Le Corbusier

A shocking call for compulsory whitening is made at the end of a key modernist manifesto. The pronouncement is associated with the signature whiteness of modern architecture -- an aesthetic regime that was presented as a complete revolution of the built environment in the 1920s and became the unconscious default setting of everyday life. Just look at the predominantly white background of most of the kitchens, offices, living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms around the world [...]. Le Corbusier didn’t simply call for whitewash to be imposed by the police in the name of health. It was meant to act as a form of policing in its own right, a technology of surveillance that would put in motion an ever-expanding culture of self-policing. Whitewash exposes every dimension of life in front of it to judgement. It acts like “a court of assize in permanent session” that will “give a power of judgement to the individual,” and thereby “make each one of us a prudent judge.” [...] A “Law of Ripolin” -- the brand name of the hard impermeable and washable enamel “sanitary paint” invented at the end of the nineteenth century [...] is needed to ensure that all interiors are painted white to target any form of dirt or darkness:

Imagine the results of the Law of Ripolin. Every citizen is required to replace his hangings, his damasks, his wall-papers, his stencils, with a plain coat of white ripolin. His home is made clean. There are no more dirty, dark corners. Everything is shown as it is. Then comes inner cleanness [...]. When you are surrounded with shadows and dark corners you are at home only as far as the hazy edges of the darkness your eyes cannot penetrate. You are not master in your own house. Once you have put ripolin on your walls you will be master of yourself. [...]

---

Whiteness manufactures health, morality, and intelligence. [...] The office of a modern factory that is “clear and rectilinear and painted with white ripolin” is a place of “healthy activity” and “industrious optimism.” [...] Le Corbusier’s routinely authoritarian and often explicitly eugenic and fascist impulses, associations, and actions make him an easy target. But there are endless, quieter, ultimately more controlling and insidious celebrations of whiteness in other hands. Le Corbusier is but a tip of the vast iceberg of whiteness. [...]

The very idea of an interior is the effect of this everyday violence. Architecture is never simply complicit with authority. Authority without architecture might not even be thinkable. [...]

There is no apolitical concept of health; no natural body or brain waiting to be cared for or abandoned by medicine and architecture that is not already an effect of those biopolitical regimes.

It is through the question of sickness that architecture reshapes the human. The idea of a healthy architecture is always about the health of a small group relative to multiple others [...]. Whiteness is coded as a fragility requiring protection through continual acts of preemptive violence. Whiteness is not a thing but a defense and deployment of power over others. [...]

---

Whiteness in Le Corbusier’s The Decorative Art of Today, for example, is simultaneously the most modern thing to do, the very symptom of modernity, and the most ancient of gestures. [...] Le Corbusier’s argument was first published in a late 1923 issue of L’Esprit Nouveau [...]. It was, after all, the extended “Voyage d’Orient” of 1911 (including the Balkans and Greece, but especially Turkey) where Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, the young architect from a small mountain town in Switzerland who would a decade later rename himself “Le Corbusier,” became “besotted with white” and convinced that the future of architecture was white. Whiteness is discovered in the lands of the non-white; of those seen to be closer to deeper human history and therefore to be admired and learned from. In fact, the very point of going to the East was to encounter its “great white walls” as an antidote to the self-absorbed decadence of architecture in the North, as Jeanneret explained [...]. Jeanneret expresses nostalgia for the more intact and mesmerizing whiteness of the great mosques and vernacular houses of Constantinople (Istanbul) [...] [and] “Algiers-the-white.” [...] This pervasive sense of contamination provoked the call for a second, more explicit law to impose whiteness not only onto industrial culture, but also onto its victims: the people of color and places seen as newly “unhealthy” -- requiring, as it were, a dose of “their” own medicine. [...]

---

The “white” architecture of the 1920s drew on countless experiments in whitening buildings in the name of health. This included, precisely, the use of Ripolin that had already become standard in clinics, hospital wards, and sanatoria rooms at the turn of the century.

In 1899, for example, the Touring-Club de France, inspired by one of its [...] cyclist members who was a doctor, started a campaign for an easily disinfected “hygienic room” in hotels that would be Ripolin-lined [...]. Hotel rooms were treated as hotspots for contagion [...]. Given the largely upper-middle-class membership of the club, this anxiety about disease was also class anxiety, fear of the unclean other. The tourist was to be mobile yet isolated by a prophylactic whiteness that would itself travel in advance.

The Touring-Club exhibited such a prototype “white room” with toilette and toilet spaces designed by Gustave Rives at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris -- strategically placed just inside the entrance of the Palais de l’hygiène [...]. The Touring-Club installed a series of such model chambres hygiéniques in automobile shows, congresses on tuberculosis, and international fairs. It was successful in persuading thousands of hotels to install such spaces [...].

Ripolin was used “everywhere,” for example, on the walls of the “hygienic housing” project for workers in Paris by Henri Sauvage and Charles Sarazin in 1903–1904. [...] The project was originally intended to feature a radical all-glass street façade with every window surrounded by webs of floor-to-ceiling hexagonal glass blocks [...] which would have been the most polemical housing structure possible, the most therapeutic role of glass, more extreme even than any sanatorium. The design was produced in immediate response to the new public health law of 1902 and the associated new building regulations. [...]

---

It is always about control of the threatening other of epidemic disease and control of the laboring poor, itself coded as dark, migrant, and contagious, a disease in its own right. And throughout this discourse of control, there is a seemingly “modern” disdain for disease-incubating ornament in favor of smooth white surfaces. [...] What is remarkable in the end is this trans-historical resilience of whiteness [...]. It orchestrates life and death.

---

All text above by: Mark Wigley. “Chronic Whiteness.” e-flux (Sick Architecture series). November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

#ecology #abolition #health #imperial #colonial #landscape #modernity #temporal #indigenous #multispecies #tidalectics #archipelagic thinking #pathologization #haunted #halloween i guess idk #victorian and edwardian popular culture #racialized architecture #moral whitewash

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clairifys · 1 year ago

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My love for you - Dick Winters x fem!reader

Genre: Angst, fluff, happy-ending

warnings: death, war, smoking, allusions to intercourse, and probably language.

word count: 2.6k

In no way do I own the HBO series and in no way do i intend to disrespect any of the actual people who went through this.

A story in which a (h/c) haired woman has to do surgery on Easy Company's captain and they end up falling deeper in love with each other.

September, 1943

The first time Dick saw the (h/c) woman was when he’d had to drop off supplies and necessities for when the surgery nurse was to come along with the Easy Company on their travels as the companies needed more surgeons to come with to Europe. He knew that some of the men had gone to the nursing station more frequently than needed for the nurse, but he’d never met her.

Dick wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight, but the girl made it hard to keep his belief up. He’d brought the supply boxes to the office, and when he went to open the door, he gasped in surprise when the woman beat him to it

“Oh! Hello there. I wasn’t expecting anyone, I’m sorry if I gave you a fright!” The beautiful woman had said with a toothy smile.

“It’s quite alright, I should’ve knocked before coming in.” He said with a smile of his own.

“I was instructed to give you these and explain the timeline of what’d be going on from here and on.” He’d told her, which was partially a lie. He only needed to drop off the boxes and ensure she was ready for what they’d be doing, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her.

“Well thank you sir. I was actually about to go see if I’d gotten the new supplies I needed before we left so you saved me a trip!” The woman said while taking the boxes from him.

December, 1944

The second time the two saw each other again was when Captain Winters had been hit in Bastogne after sending Lieutenant Speirs out to relieve Lieutenant Dike from his position. He’d gotten yelled at by his major and he called Speirs to take over. He’d been too far in the open that a Kraut had gotten him right in the chest. After that, he blacked out.

The woman had been cleaning out her small area in the makeshift hospital in the basement of an old cathedral. She had her own area along with a few other surgeons as they needed more room for different surgeries.

Thankfully she hadn’t gotten too many injured men in the past week but it seemed that today her luck would change.

Renée came running into her room with a few soldiers tailing her - including her recent admirer Eugene.

“(Y/n)! Un soldat important a reçu une balle dans la poitrine ! Nous devons le stabiliser avant de le déplacer !” (An important soldier was shot in the chest! We need to stabilize him before we move him!)

“Le lit est dressé ! Posez-le et appelez d'autres médecins !’ (The bed is made! Put him down and call other doctors!)

The soldiers placed him down when Eugene had translated for them. When (Y/n) had seen who it was, she froze. She only came back to her senses when the other doctors came in and started asking about what to do, where she quickly took charge in telling them how to treat the wound.

After two long hours of stopping the bleeding and carefully trying to remove the bullet without puncturing an organ, they stitched the man up and moved him closer to Bastogne in a nicer, nursing station. (Y/n) was instructed to follow them to monitor and watch Captain Winters in case emergency surgery was needed again, or if he’d ripped a stitch. The only thing the woman got from them telling her that was, ‘He’s a captain?’.

Captain Winters had woken up a day later, attempting to get up, he stopped himself when a seething pain stabbed at his chest. He groaned and slowly laid back down.

(Y/n) had heard him groaning, and went to see how he was holding up and to tell him to be careful, but when she arrived, all words seemed to die out.

“Hello, sir.. Do you remember me?” ‘God what a stupid question. Of course he doesn’t remember me! We met one time! Just because you thought he was cute doesn’t mean he does.’ The girl thought as she grimaced at what came out of her mouth.

“Oh jeez, I’m sorry for being so unprofession-” The girl got cut off by the man’s words.

“Of course I remember you, you’re the woman with the pretty (h/c) hair.” The redhead blurted out without thinking. Before the man could get too wrapped up in his own self-deprecating thoughts, (Y/n) giggled.

“Well I sure am glad to hear that! Now, how about giving you some food and helping you wash up, you’re on bedrest for at least two weeks. After that, we’ll see how you're progressing.”

“I like the idea of that.” The man replied.

After eating a warm meal for what felt like the first time in years, the man was to be helped into the bath to get a much needed scrub down after being caked in blood, sweat and grime.

“I didn’t know you were a captain, sir.” (Y/n) mumbled while gently washing his hair.

“I was recently appointed one. Also, please, drop the formalities, you can call me Dick.” The man smiled while talking, he hadn’t felt this relaxed since he was forced to take a weekend in Paris by himself.

“Oh! Alright then, Dick.” The woman said sweetly while Dick relaxed in the soapy bath with a beautiful woman massaging his scalp. The last thing he thought before falling asleep in the bath was, ‘I could get used to this.’

December 25, 1944

“Hello Dick, Merry Christmas!” (Y/n) smiled at him, out of her ragged surgeon clothing and into a nice winter dress.

“Merry Christmas to you too - I thought you had a weekend pass for Christmas?” The redhead asked, slightly taken aback by her outfit and her presence.

“Oh! I did, but I felt too bad to leave you here by yourself, so I thought I’d stay with you.” (Y/n) said while nervously fiddling with her pin-up curls.

Nobody ever gave Dick this kind of affection before, and it made his chest swell with love. He’d thought he was going to be stuck alone on Christmas with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to, but like an angel sent from heaven in the form of a beautiful (h/c) woman, he’d been saved.

(Y/n) read Gone with the Wind to Dick all day as her mother had sent it from America for her to read.

When the two weeks had come and gone, it was time to let Dick go back to war. Many men came to see him well before the two weeks and most were excited to have their Captain back.

(Y/n) was ordered to go back to the basement turned hospital, but when she arrived, the building was set ablaze as bombs rang through the air.

“Renée?!” She screamed out, looking for the woman who’d give her chocolate, and was always kind to her.

People were screaming around her, but she heard none of it as she ran up to the burning building. She stopped when she saw a man she recognized as Eugene Roe, Easy Company’s field medic holding up Renée’s headscarf. (Y/n) knew that they were acquainted, but she didn’t know how far it truly went.

“Renée..” The woman softly called out, looking more like a kicked puppy than the strong woman Eugene saw tending to his captain.

“Here, ya’ should have this.” Eugene told her, his accent shining through.

The woman had tears streaming down her cheeks as she took it from him, thanking him profusely. He simply nodded and said he needed to check on the others who were hurt and made it out, and he left with a sad smile.

Dick heard the woman’s friend was killed by Kraut bombs when (Y/n) had come to a nursing station in Bastogne to continue to help out. He saw the way she wasn’t as optimistic to tend to soldiers' injuries, or to joke around with the men she’d become well acquainted with. It broke his heart to see the woman he loves become a shell of a person.

(Y/n) continued on, not only for herself, but for Renée as well. She knew that Renée would’ve wanted her to, and would’ve done the same thing. (Y/n) still wore the same uniform as before (albeit with a jacket and scarf as it was freezing in Bastogne) but now, she wore the blonde woman’s headscarf. A few months went by and slowly but surely, (Y/n)’s attitude had started shifting. She became more open again, and joked around more with her patients and soldiers.

As Easy Company moved to Hagenau, so did (Y/n). She always moved with them, most times though she’d travel with the nurses, though most had been killed in the past couple of months.

One night, when (Y/n) was attempting to fall back asleep after a nightmare, which was proving to be quite the challenge, she decided to get up and get some fresh air. With heavy feet, she grabbed her night robe to throw over white nightgown, and stepped into her slippers while grabbing her Lucky’s.

When she made it outside, she leaned against the wall and pulled out a cigarette. While lighting it, she began to think, before a voice next to her made her jump.

“Smoking isn’t very good for your health, I thought you’d know that (Y/n).” A certain redhead said.

“You almost gave me a heart attack to tell me that?” The woman spit back while smiling at the captain.

“You seem to be fiesty tonight. Any explanation as to why?” Winters asked while smiling at her.

“This is how I normally act, I’m just so tired, that I’m not acting like a sweet little nurse.” She explained while taking a long drag out of her smoke.

The two’s eyes were locked, gazing softly at each other. Time felt as if it slowed down for a little and they started to slowly inch their faces towards each other while closing their eyes, when they were a centimeter apart, a door swung open by none other than Webster.

“Oh..OH! Oh, gee I’m sorry!” He quickly said while running back inside.

(Y/n) embarrassedly, told Dick goodnight while putting out her cigarette, as Dick said the same, too embarrassed to say anything else.

When (Y/n) was in bed that night, her smoke break turned out to be fruitless as now she was more awake than ever.

May, 1945

(Y/n) was sitting at the bar, tipsy and bordering being drunk with Shifty, talking about what they’d be doing when they got home, while everyone else was too busy drinking and playing games. The war had ended, Germany had surrendered and Hitler shot himself.

“I don’t know what I’ll be doing when I get home.” The woman told Shifty.

“I don’t have enough money to go back to school, and I need to get a husband sooner or later. Say, you’re a well-rounded man, if we’re not both married by 30, we should just marry each other.” That was definitely the alcohol talking as Shifty blushed an amazing red and replied, “I don’t think Captain Winters would be too happy with that, plus, you’re a beautiful woman, when you go home, men will flock to you.”

“I couldn’t have said it better.” A new voice chimed in.

“Dick! Where’d you come from!” The woman said, words spilling out without much thought as she put her around his waist due to his tall stature and Shifty slightly saluted him.

“I came to see you.” He said with a smile, completely serious.

“Well I was about to walk back! Walk with me.” The (h/c) woman told him while smiling a toothy grin towards him. He agreed and they left.

As they walked back, Dick had his arm tightly wrapped around her waist. He told himself it was to keep her safe, but he knew he just wanted an excuse to touch her. When they got back to her quarters, they stared into each other's eyes.

“May I kiss you, (Y/n)?” Dick whispered, scared she didn’t hear him. Without responding, the woman put her hands on his face, and stood on her tiptoes to lightly press her lips to his. Dick kissed back with no argument. They eventually had to pull apart for oxygen, but the second kiss came quicker and rougher, and he slowly opened her door to the house and pushed her in, as the kiss got more and more heated.

Eventually, they had made it upstairs into the bedroom, where they shared their love for each other.

July, 1946

“Dick, is this the correct house?” The woman asked.

“It has to be, this is where everyone’s meeting up.” He replied while getting out of the car and opening the door for his wife. (Y/n) got out and handed her husband the plate of cupcakes she made for the reunion between Easy Company. As they slowly walked up towards the front door, hand on her swollen stomach, David Webster swung the door open.

“Hey! You guys made it! I thought yo-” he paused and looked down at the woman’s larger stomach, “(Y/n) you’re pregnant.”

“Oh really Web? I hadn’t a clue.” The woman said while slightly pushing him out of the way.

“Is it a boy! Or a girl?!” The man was almost more excited than them when they’d got the news.

“You’ll find out when everyone else does.” She told him while laughing and met up with the others who also congratulated her and Dick.

It’s safe to say Webster hadn’t tasted a better strawberry flavored cupcake than when (Y/n) had made them that day.

#band of brothers #bob #dick winters #dick winters x reader #eugene roe #ronald speirs #ron speirs #joe liebgott #band of brothers x reader

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reviewtv · 2 years ago

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Home Cleaning Services in Eugene

Home cleaning services in Eugene provide a convenient solution for busy homeowners who want to keep their homes clean and organized. We offer a range of options, from one-time deep cleans to regular maintenance cleaning. Professional cleaners use eco-friendly products and modern cleaning techniques to ensure a spotless and healthy home environment. With flexible scheduling and competitive pricing, home cleaning services in Eugene are a popular choice for local residents.

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360infotechreview · 2 years ago

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USA Cleaning Services in Eugene, OR provides comprehensive cleaning services for residential and commercial clients. Their services include deep cleaning, move-in and move-out cleaning, and post-construction cleaning. Their professional cleaners use eco-friendly products and state-of-the-art equipment to ensure a thorough and efficient cleaning. Contact us for a spotless and sanitized living or working space.

#usa cleaning company #eugene office cleaning #usa cleaning services #usa cleaning #hardwood floor cleaning eugene #floor buffing eugene or #best cleaning service eugene #usa cleaning service #home cleaning in eugene #house cleaning eugene #commercial disinfecting in eugene #eugene cleaning service #eugene house cleaning #house cleaning services eugene #cleaning services eugene #cleaning services eugene or

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gay-dorito-dust · 2 years ago

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I have a request idea for Wednesday that hopefully you can make <3

So I was thinking that Wednesday has feelings for reader but has hardly admitted it to herself yet let alone for reader, so after the battle with Crackstone (is that the name of the old pilgrim guy?) and after Wednesday was stabbed and all that, she starts to feel the weight i f everything that happens and reader offers the take care of her, begrudgingly Wednesday agrees and then reader cleans up her wounds, helps her change clothes and all that all the while treating Wednesday with utmost kindness; and Wednesday just kinda melts for it? Like she had one hell of a night so being treated with such care really gets to her, maybe she gets a bit emotional? And she can ask to spend the night with reader or something, just Wednesday realizing how nice it feels to have someone holding her for a change. Thought it'd be cute, feel free to elaborate <3

Crackstone left more scars then Wednesday would ever hope to admit. She was forced to acknowledge that on multiple accounts throughout the duration of her uphill battle against the undead pilgrim; she had come across too many close for comfort encounters with the concept of dying with secrets concerning her feelings towards you clogging up her throat, chocking her with the lies she ever spoke into existence. Death might’ve been something Wednesday fleetingly tempted at every given moment, whether willingly or unwillingly. However once she has gotten too close to embracing the sweet sting of deaths dreaded kiss; she finally felt the suffocating grip of fear against her chest.

Wednesday often forgotten that her hardened stance at life didn’t make her impervious to being easily cut down and left to bleed out much like a got her human. So when she was laid out across the floor of Crackstone’s crypt, her body progressively getting colder by the second, she grew fearful at not being able to tie up every loose end in her life, she feared not having have said everything she has ever wanted to say to the people she held in a remotely high regard. You, Enid, Pugsley and Eugene were the first that came to mind when she originally thought that.

So as she continued fighting to good fight well into the night, her mind was bombarded by a plethora of questions that were left open ended due to the lack of an answer on her behalf. For they were all asking what would become of her future if she was to succeed or die miserably in trying. “Wednesday?” You emerged from the plumes of black smoke, face filthied with mud and sooth but still looked enticing to the Addams with fear lacing your eyes as they looked over her with growing concern. “Oh my god, what did he- no. Don’t tell me the grotesque details and follow me…please.” Tired from all the fighting Wednesday couldn’t find it within herself to fight with you and instead begrudgingly followed closely behind you as you lead her up to the nurses office; Where you made her sit on one of the beds whilst you rummaged the cabinets with frantic and grabbed ahold of the necessities and splaying them out on the table beside the bed.

“This’ll sting a little bit but it’s better then leaving your wounds to infect and cause even more problems for you later on.” You told her as you brushed away some of her raven locks from the wound on her forehead before gingerly dabbing the disinfectant wipe across the dried blood, which caused Wednesday to stiffen beneath your touch. It wasn’t that she was feeling the sting that you mentioned but more so the fact that you were treating her as though one would treat porcelain. The way your fingers would caress her skin with such a gentle nature even as you firmly pressed the gauze against her wound before using the medical tape to keep it into place; the lingering kiss of your fingertips still hauntingly drifted across her skin long after you moved on to the wound across her palm.

It wasn’t until you stared sweetly cooing soft words of comfort to her when her resolve started to crumble at your feet and as unpacked emotions she kept concealed began to formulate in the tears that blossomed within the corners of her dark eyes. “You’re so brave Wednesday,” you told her as you repeated the actions you did for her forehead wound, grimacing when you uncovered the grand scale of the injury but yet you still looked at her with the softest eyes anyone has ever given her, that she had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out. “I’m so proud of you, you saved us and save the school and you said you didn’t like being a hero.” You added as you placed the necessary coverage on her palm, securing it place with medical tape.

“That’s the problem, I’m not the hero you make me out to be y/n. Principle Weems died because of me, everyone here almost died because of me, you, enid, Eugene, Thing and Xavier almost died because of me!” Wednesday cried out in anguish, staring at you with her bleary eyes as she reached out to grasp the hand you had on top of her knee and squeezed it tightly desperately in hopes that some essences of your softness would seep into her. As though in an act of desperation to feel it again, to remind her that you were very much real and not a figment of some unprocessed trauma she may have endured during the fight.

Wednesday was scared that you would wake up and realise the truth to her words and leave her so to prevent that potentially happening, she tightened her grip on your hand, almost pressing your palm down into her knee like she was trying to mold you eternally to her being. “Don’t praise me for resolving something that I was predestined to bring upon the school before my conceptualised birth….I’m a monster in the same vein that Tyler was.” She croaked as the words just continued to flow out of her live a raging river, prophesied for a full speed collision with a powerful waterfall. “Don’t say that Wednesday, it’s not true.” You tried to comfort her but she was already steadfast in her self conception as being incapable of being worth the amount of praise given.

“It’s the truth for me y/n!” Wednesday exclaimed, more tears cascaded down her cheeks by this time that you were almost left speechless at seeing her convey this much emotion. “You shouldn’t be forced to be within the presence of a monster.” She trailed off, casting her eyes downwards so she doesn’t have to gauge your reaction as the toll of her emotions throbbed throughout her chest like a pained heartbeat. “Oh Wednesday.” She heard you say so softly that she believes that she was making up hearing your voice. When suddenly you brought the girl into your arms and once the stunned feeling wore off Wednesday collapsed into you shoulder and weeped heavily, soaking the fabric, but you didn’t care as you’d rather her cry out her emotions then bundle them up in an act of a self destructive tendency.

“You could never be a monster to me Wednesday, so don’t go and put yourself in the same category as Tyler Galpin. He was a true monster of no mortality, you on the other hand had all that Gaplin wished he was and so much more. So please don’t ever think yourself comparative to the likes of him. When you are better then him in every other way possible.” You finished speaking and felt Wednesday grip onto you even tighter as her sobs continued the rack her body violently that you had to sit yourself down on the bed beside her. “Can I stay with you, just for tonight?” Wednesday spoke up after her sobs hand long subsided but refused to remove herself from your comforting hold, as she found herself heavy with fatigue and a overwhelming desire to sleep with your arms. You chuckled softly as you ran your hands up and down her back, feeling her melt even further into your chest.

“Of course you can, you didn’t even have to ask.” So when you both managed to make your way safely to your dorm, not bothered in going through the effort in changing clothes, you and Wednesday cuddled up underneath your covers and drifted off into your dreams as Wednesday grasped onto you tightly, sighing peacefully.

#Wednesday imagines #Wednesday imagine #Wednesday x you #Wednesday x reader #Wednesday fic #Wednesday fanfic #Wednesday Addams imagines #Wednesday Addams imagine #Wednesday Addams fic #Wednesday Addams fanfic #Wednesday Addams x reader #Wednesday Addams x you

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lookismfanfics · 2 years ago

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𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲

Eugene x gn Reader Drabble

Tw: unedited. A little suggestive but overall sfw

“Do you mind? I’m trying to be productive.”

“Oh of course.” You lean over the table, inching closer to Eugene’s face. He forces himself to keep a neutral expression. He does not like this. Hands squeeze into tight fists; Eugene can feel his nails digging into his palms. Your movements are elegant and purposeful as you slowly reach up to the sides of his face, fingers brushing ever-so-slightly against his cheekbones. Your touch is cold, he refrains from making a comment. Slowly you drag those smart-ss glasses off their perch on his nose. It almost feels as if he’s naked under your gaze. You drag the rims to your open mouth, running your tongue along your bottom lip before you breathe heavily against the lenses. Fog spurts along the glass, just like it does on rainy nights, until you drag your shirt across them. Eugene doesn’t say a word. He glares at you cooly, but can’t think of a single remark. For once he feels like words have betrayed him, and he can’t defend himself with his intellect anymore. As you slide the glasses back onto his face, he feels a warmth in his chest previously unknown to him. A slight drop to his stomach follows as you cup your hand beneath his chin.

“By all means Eugene,” you lean in closer, so that he can see the very creases and imperfections in your skin. “Keep working.”

You’re so hot. And with that, you slowly retract yourself from him. Not a single word is exchanged as you exit the office, leaving Eugene to his own devices. He returns to his paperwork.

His pants feel tight as he rubs absently between his thighs. He takes off his glasses… admiring the clarity that was on account of you. But if he had any say— he rubs harder — he was never letting you clean his glasses again.

I’m getting back into writing again :)

Isn’t just the steamiest most scandalous piece you’ve ever read? 😩

#Lookism #Oh- wait #First Eugene piece ;)#Just realized that…#( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)#Eugene x Reader #Lookism Eugene #Workers #Y/N #GN reader #I used to read “good night” reader #Lacking brains over here tsk tsk #lookism manhwa #lookism webtoon #lookism x reader #Lookism fanfics

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artsycervidae · 5 months ago

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I finished my short story. It's set in the Boku no Hero Academia universe, but the cast consists of OCs. Heed the trigger warnings; this is intended to be a thriller/horror, so it's exploring heavy themes. Though these are also themes touched on in the series itself, tread with care.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Graphic imagery, Unreliable narrator, Ableism (internalized and external), Chronic illness, Attempted murder-suicide, Attempted suicide mention, Severe depression, Animal death, Familial Abuse (specifically child abuse at the hands of the mother), Codependent relationship between family members, Longstanding acts of harm/sabotage, Quirk eugenics, Stalking, Organized crime, Body horror, Theft of personal belongings, Abuse of prescription drugs, Dosing/poisoning of someone's food

Sato Hikaru came to consciousness unwillingly. He was at first aware of the coldness tickling his feet and legs, so he balled up to retain what little heat he insulated beneath seven layers. It didn't matter-- he was awake now. The blurry red digits on his alarm clock seemed to glow through his eyelids even when he rolled to his other side; the room was devoid of personal affectation, so the light bounced off the bare, eggshell walls. He flopped back over and stared back at the clock. 4:16 am. He supposed that was early enough.

Hikaru pat blindly for his laptop, found its power cord, and carefully pulled it toward himself along the floor. Still partly under his mountain of blankets, he logged onto his email and went into the drafts where he had prepared a sick note: something believably miserable about being unable to eat or sleep, but still coherent enough to assert he could work remotely. Mysterious pain and nausea wasn't uncommon given his medical history; so long as he didn't wear thin on his coworkers' graces, nobody would begrudge him for staying home. His agency performance reports were already encrypted and attached so that he only had to send them. Then he went into the work calendar and helpfully logged his absences ahead of time so that he could receive meeting notes. Each and every sick day had to cause as little disturbance as possible.

One of the benefits of being under the Hero Public Safety Commission's employ: as an office-holding, audit-accurate salaryman, there was a benefit of the doubt afforded to him automatically. This was further buttressed with behavior. He had never before been tardy-- ever. He didn't play hooky like others had. He attended mandatory dinner parties. He was civil, clean, and convenient. Unfortunately, not everyone could be relied upon for such predictability.

When the streetlight directly outside his window elbowed its way through his curtain, he picked up his phone and texted his mother to give her the same overnight illness excuse-- this time, embellishing a sleepless night of 'work catch-up' spent with his nose to the grindstone. Then he abandoned his phone beneath the blankets, slipping from his cocoon to pluck pajamas out of a nearby heap of clothing. The truth about his work was that all this and next months' assignments were drafted to near completion, sitting prettily on his harddrive for the chance to defend his reputation. There were some bits and pieces of information left blank for future application, but all the mundane busy work had been taken care of two weeks prior, during a particularly animated frenzy to get as much bullshit out of his way as possible. So long as he drip fed his supervisor with satisfactory and timely submissions, he could continue to devote the rest of the month entirely to his true work.

In the bathroom, he unscrewed the hoses from to the faucets, rolled them up, and properly stored them on the hooks he installed in the corridor. That way he could close the door as he readied for the day. Not that he needed the privacy. He no longer shared this space with anyone, and didn't intend to make room. He just liked to see closed walls on all sides of him and know he was secure, if only in the bathroom and at his most vulnerable.

Once he was cleaned and dressed comfortably, Hikaru replaced the hoses then wandered the darkness of his apartment. He unconsciously stepped to the side of the bundled cords lining the hallway, placing his bare feet one after the other to avoid tripping on or dislodging anything. He started by staking out the living room, which was furnished. The locks on his front entrance were still engaged. The door to the patio (which was more like a windsill with how narrow it was) was locked and shuttered. A laundry pole scavenged from the trash was jammed solidly into the track for additional security. Even so, he didn't relax. He always acted with a vague image in his mind of what would happen if he lowered his guard.

This brought him to the 'study,' the spare bedroom that all the hoses and cords fed into; also a room which his mother always insisted he keep available for her. Nevermind that she hadn't been in Japan for longer than twelve combined hours in the last two years since she ran off. Sato Hanami was probably already planning how to make her next escape: they were supposed to go shopping and grab lunch together before she moved on to her next event... but before she could cancel plans on him, he left her high and dry first.

The last night they were really together was meant to celebrate his acceptance into medical school. They had arrangements at a fancy restaurant, tickets to a theater play, and each other... but he couldn't appreciate it. Frankly, the cracks in their foundation preceded that night. Hikaru, for a long time, had felt his mother was keeping more from him than the potential identity of his father. Despite the unanswered questions and sidestepped conversations, he respected his caretaker's authority and secrecy even when it involved him. But he was freshly eighteen and due his own share of responsibility and respect.

That was the night he told her he knew he had a Quirk. Rather than react with equal enthusiasm, bafflement, or disbelief, she nervously batted the subject around. It may as well have been a typhoon on the other side of the world. Then she 'innocuously' got up to use the restroom at some point. Hikaru waited-- their entrees going cold on their plates-- for twenty minutes before he realized she was gone. She picked up his phone call, already in the cab and babbling some story about being summoned to America: she was to co-host a lucrative wellness tour with her longtime friend. She was on her way to dine with ultra rich celebrities interested in the procedure of her treatments. When he tried to insist to her again that he needed her to guide him, to help him understand what he was now and how to handle it, she snapped: "Don't tell me about it! Shut up." It took him aback so much, he obeyed automatically. She nervously filled the silence, "... Besides, it's taken so long to show itself, it's bound to be a busted one." Each insistence was another stab to the heart, and he quietly assented until she ended the call with a small silence and an exasperated sigh: "... Work hard, no matter what, okay? I can only stay away so long."

So befuddled and frustrated was he, that he went home and sold the furniture from their bedrooms. He was so disgusted with her. With himself. She loved him as any mother loved her son, but she especially adored when he ached for her approval to the point of hysteria. She did this often, especially when it came to his school career-- dangled a tantalizing prize in front of him before throwing it over the ledge, hoping he would jump off after it as some extravagant expression of devotion. Needless to say, his grades were flawless. But this was different. His mother overshot her mark; he knew something she hadn't, and she ran instead of taking him seriously. Instead of doubling his efforts to gain her attention, he stopped playing her games.

He never told her about her former bedroom. Nor did he share that he'd dropped out of that medical school and began his career as a desk jockey for the government. She had been told, surely: a career change wasn't as easy to hide as a personal interest or private thought. Shortly after he began working is when her checks started coming in. It was their first line of communication since she 'fled' Japan, and he let them pile up in the cubby he kept by the door.

He waited for her to be the one to message him first-- those first weeks had been filled with playing a façade for the world, succumbing to depressive crying and anxious fits when he was safe at home. When she finally texted, it took all his willpower not to respond immediately. Not that it mattered: he would soon learn that she never stayed anywhere for long. Even if she remained in the country, she was skipping like an airborne stone across the surface of the globe.

He almost envied her freedom of movement. She seemed so unrestricted, though he knew she was with Iwamoto Kaede: she was his mother's 'dearest confidant,' fellow wellness guru, and probably the one who Hanami convinced to accompany her, expanding their 'career' to the horizon. Hikaru still harbored both gratitude and a grudge for that. He never liked the way Kaede hovered around their lives, as if being a close friend and neighbor wasn't enough.

But with her gone, his surveillance had to be careful. They operated from her 'empty' apartment, though Hikaru knew there was someone in there at most times of day. He'd never heard or seen them, but he knew they were there as surely as he knew his organs existed despite hiding inside his body.

His mental fortitude nearly unraveled with the isolation. For a while, he was convinced that he was the one Hanami was running from. Why else would she have left in such a nervous hurry? It wasn't that he was unimportant to her-- it was that he was dangerous.

She was scared of him. Of what he could be. And rather than discourage him, this fantasy instilled him with autonomy and independence. He made changes to his life. He reflected on himself.

After confirming the integrity of his lair, he stopped outside the study door and stared at the doorknob. He had to shed the alibi of that cowardly man: someone who went straight to work and then straight home, who bought all his necessities once a month without fluctuation, who was always the one apologizing when someone deemed him inconvenient. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and entered.

His eyelids fluttered rapidly, adapting to the lilac-blue lightboxes. Plastic tarp crinkled underfoot. The only similarities this room held to an actual study were the row of composition books stacked against the wall, various pens of many colors contained in a nearby cup, and the apartment's provided router installed into the ceiling corner. Otherwise, it resembled mostly a greenhouse: rows of potted, pooled, and hanging plantlife filled the room wall to wall with very little space for their caretaker to tiptoe through.

Hikaru went to the notebooks and selected the topmost one, plucking a blue pen from the cup. Then he cast out a gentle "Good morning," to his companions. He worked his way through the nursery, weaving between leaves and stepping over water hoses. The plants were weeded and inspected. He was only making the first subjective notations before he got into the real work: the testing and sampling, which gave him concrete results. Numbers to back up his theories.

Blackout curtains kept anyone from asking questions about the artificial lights that stayed on all day and night, and he budgeted all other use of his electricity by charging everything at work on the occasions he went in. He was running dangerously low on battery packs. Perhaps on his next commute, he would stay the night with the excuse of making up for his absences. At least all the work that mattered was on paper: untraceable, easy to take with him anywhere, written in shorthand, ready to be burned at a moment's notice-- the greatest complications were his rebellious carpal tunnels, which would inconvenience him during productive flows. He began to wear wrist braces regularly. Despite how long he coasted under the radar, people eventually noticed. By then, however, he was as good at lying as his mother-- even better at omissions and excuses.

He was lucky his wrist began to cramp when it did, for once. He put his work down and meandered, loosening his brace to hang by his thumb. Sighing, he rolled the joint in slow circles and stretches. He was caught between the study and hall when he heard the front doorknob click. His skin jumped as the intruder's entrance was abruptly stopped by the other locks. "For the love of--" a familiar voice uttered from outside before Hikaru could bolt for the matches and set the building aflame. Then the doorbell began ringing.

"Coming!" He hollered to his impatient guest before racing clumsily for his bedroom. He snatched up his phone after flinging the blankets aside. Several missed texts. A couple missed calls. All from Mom.

He couldn't believe it. His head buzzed, nearly afloat with fear and excitement. What was she doing here? What was he going to do about this? He couldn't think-- didn't have the luxury. His body moved of its own accord. Once he passed the study threshold, he had to revert to Sato Hikaru again. Above all else, he knew he must keep these lives separate. He walked to the front door and unlocked the chain, the deadbolt, and the barrel bolt. The knob, of course, had already been unlocked via a spare key.

He opened the door right as Hanami's finger hovered over the bell button again; she startled and her filtered mask shifted on her grinning cheeks. "Hikaru," she sang out, "you're still in your pajamas! Did you oversleep?" As she was saying this, he squinted against the sun blazing behind her shoulders. Had he truly been making observations and notes into the afternoon?

"Mom, what are you doing here?" He asked, and although he treated her with a consciously cordial distance, he wanted to welcome her back home with an embrace. Two years ago, he would have been desperate for her to show up out of nowhere like this. It wasn't hard to feign illness-- he was trembling, physically fighting himself as he stepped aside to let her in. "Did you come here from the airport on your own? Haven't you been keeping up with Japanese news? It's dangerous to go around alone--"

"What? Nonsense," she replied, shifting her convenience store bags into her other arm. "All Might may be retired, but he was still the number one hero, and always will be in my mind so long as he lives." The irony of those words: invoking a hero whose presence had never once shone light onto their horrible situation made Hikaru frown.

"But the random sightings of those things-- those Nomu--"

"I won't be listening to any paranoid drivel, Hikaru. If I want that, I'll turn on the TV." (His armpits prickled-- he had sold that long ago for money, for his nursery. He wondered when she would notice all the empty spaces in their home.) She moved to pat his face, but he swiftly stepped to her burdened side in an attempt to take the groceries. "Oh-- dear, you don't have to do that." The gesture successfully distracted her and she took command by moving into the kitchen, setting down her bags and removing her mask. "Wow, it's so dark in here." But when she flicked at the light switch, it didn't turn anything on. Nor did it obey when she aggressively tried three more times.

"I don't have light bulbs, Mom. Migraines."

"Right," she seemed only marginally discomforted by how poorly she fit back into this life. She returned to her bags, rifling through them in search of something. "I thought you would be hungry. You work so hard and rest so little when you're unwell... even as a kid, you were always sneaking out of bed, trying to squirrel yourself away in dark, quiet places to read. Oh!"

She turned around with a paper packet. A chill rooted itself along the curve of Hikaru's spine at the sight of it. This could spoil the whole visit. "For you," she said, amiable and at ease. "You've got the flu, right? I talked to a doctor friend of mine-- this will help you sleep it off. And probably help with those migraines!"

"Thank you," he said softly, trying to seem more pleasantly surprised than quietly horrified. She must have sensed his cautiousness-- there was always the chance he wouldn't let her touch him again, so this was her thinking three steps ahead of him. He didn't expect her to go so far as to procure him a prescription or behind-the-counter medication. It was too obvious, too dangerous... unless it wasn't. He wanted to take a look at it, but she didn't hand it to him either. Rather, she set it in front of her with the produce and pantry goods.

"I brought you tea, too."

"Thanks, Mom." Under the guise of setting up his electric kettle, he watched her unpack dinner ingredients. "... How was Sydney?"

She stuck out her lower lip in theatrical disappointment. "I was in Sydney last week, dear. I came in from Paris." He knew it would hurt her feelings if he wasn't obsessing over her every movement. They had to watch out for each other-- nevermind that she was the one who left him.

"How was Paris?" he smiled, glad to gave gotten a reaction from her that wasn't completely staged.

"Boring. I missed you the whole time."

The sincerity softened and humbled him. "I've missed you too, Mom." ... Was he being too cruel? The fact she showed up in a time of need meant she was trying. She was even filling the quiet for him, breaking the ice by launching into a story about a little Parisian café she frequented with Kaede.

When he tried to fall into routine next to her, she looked at him. "Go sit!" she insisted, and he remembered his white lie. He continued to watch her work from the couch, his arm stretched along its back. She cracked open the window curtain first for some natural light to see by. Then she spoke to him as she washed, cut, and assembled ingredients. "As I was saying, Kaede's daughter was recently engaged, so we had a drink to celebrate. We also got them a nice bottle of dinner wine," she gave a little chuckle, "they might have need for it. Kaede said that their first goal after the wedding is to start growing their family."

"Give the couple my congratulations," Hikaru said warmly, though he hardly knew Kaede's daughter or her partner. He doubted they were real.

"Have you been seeing anyone?" his mother asked suddenly and shamelessly.

"No, Mom," he sighed. "I'm busted and broken, remember?"

"You're not--!" she argued defensively, rounding about and casting a vicious gesture with an unsheathed knife. The motion had been so abrupt that they both felt the air crackle. A past recrimination lingered unspoken before she turned back to chopping vegetables. Hikaru could have pressed it. But the last thing he needed was an explosive argument-- much less the forced, heartmelting reconcilation in its aftermath. He resisted the urge to needle and squirm under her skin, to annoy her the way she annoyed him now.

"... No, I'm not seeing anyone. I'm Quirkless, so I'm at a disadvantage."

"So what? What does that have to do with dating?"

This was the invisible wall they broke their noses upon. Although her Quirk was supposedly dubbed "Empathy," sometimes it felt Hanami was anything but. Or perhaps she relied too much on the Quirk to bother with context anymore. She needed only touch someone and she would be granted the knowledge of their emotional state, their physical well-being, and their memories. Her Quirk appealed to human desire-- to be immediately understood, to have needs and wants realized without the work of expressing it. It couldn't hurt that she was a natural beauty: petitely formed, clear-skinned, dark-lashed, and pouty-lipped. Meanwhile, her son was comparatively average: soft-bellied, beetle-browed, pockmarked, and gloomy-faced. Even though she was over fifty, she had an uncanny knack for makeup and lighting. She looked like a movie star in public, while people barely spared Hikaru anything longer than a brief glance. He struggled to explain this concept, despite appreciating his privacy. "Mom, I have boring looks, a boring job, and boring hobbies. On paper, I'm Quirkless; even if I found someone I was comfortable telling personal information to--"

"Hardly personal," his mother muttered.

"--then it's not like anyone would have an optimistic view of me. The only people who make me feel wanted are the ones who like me... at a disadvantage."

Hanami paused. Strafed past the implication. "Well... I'm your mother, so it's my job to make sure you're happy and settled in life. Someone who can't give you the support you need in this time of your life isn't worth your time anyway."

He stared at her. She was too engrossed in measuring out bouillon. He understood the message: he just didn't know what she expected him to say. *'Sure, Mom. After all, that's what the people watching us want, isn't it? They want whatever I have. They want what my father had.'* He wondered if she was really giving up, or if she had simply forgotten all the pains and suffering he'd been through.

Well, he still remembered the innumerable meetings with Quirk professionals. His world had flipped upside down with every sheepish diagnosis, every nuanced discussion that Quirks were still actively studied, that humanity learned more every day. She wanted to be sure: It was imperative that every doctor that saw him support her alibi. And her scheme worked. Each one said the same thing: Quirkless kids were becoming more common, and it was possible to be born with an 'average' amount of toe bones and still be Quirkless. It wasn't a direct correlation after all-- human evolution was messier than that.

When the children at school sensed an otherness in him, the bullying began. Then the constant moving. Then the sicknesses. His immune system succumbed to the stress, weakening his body so that he couldn't leave bed. His primary sickbed companion besides his mother was his childhood friend-- an adopted Shiba Inu named Koyubi.

Every morning, when there were only doctors' visits and existential crises to awaken to, he could only be comforted by her immediate presence on his stomach. Her square head tucked perfectly into the groove of his arm, and her worried little brows puckered anytime his breathing went shallow. Hanami hated the dog to be on their furniture, but Koyubi's unwavering faith in him made it easier to live. He would pat the empty space at his side, specifically reserved for the canine. She never bounced or jolted him-- her clambering was sweet and polite, and she wanted nothing more than to rest with him... So constant was her loyalty that she too became sick. She must have contracted something from him, his mother said, and she quarantined them both. Then Koyubi died in the other room, when she ought to have fallen asleep next to him.

Surely Hanami remembered the suicide attempt of his adolescence shortly after, when he was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It wasn't about the dog-- not entirely. His world was shrinking, his future slipping through his fingers like sand before he had the chance to appreciate it. He could feel himself, as a tangible thing deteriorating, eroding. The suicide attempt and depersonalization, followed by long sessions of therapy and reduced freedoms, was never in the past for him, even after he persevered through the worst of it... As a child, he had already grappled with the harsh truth that nobody's life was really their own.

He couldn't bring himself to believe Hanami would actually forget any of that. She had seen his suffering through it all. Everything she did, she did for him, because she loved him and wanted him to be safe and happy.

But then, if she loved him so much, why did she let him believe he was Quirkless for so long? Why was it that when he confronted her with the truth, she ran, absconding across the globe to get away from him? Why did it take him 'falling ill again' to draw her back into his life? He once believed she was his greatest advocate. But that was wrong-- he held no possession over this woman until he uncovered her most shameful secret: it had always been his life in her hands, and she wasn't used to the roles being reversed.

"What about that girl, Izumi?" His mother asked, apparently stubborn on this particular subject. "The one who gave you the spider plant?"

"Mom, we were just schoolmates. I haven't spoken to her since graduation." Of course, because Hanami had never cared to actually learn the inner workings of his life, this was a huge leap in logic. Izumi was his only friend when he rejoined society. Everyone else greeted Hikaru politely and that was all-- his desk had been empty for the majority of his transfer. It may as well have remained that way. But she had gotten him a small plant as a 'welcome back' gift, though they had only met at the beginning of their term. She offered to help him catch up on assignments before finals, not that he needed it. His mother's carrot-and-stick approach to childrearing had elevated him to an intelligence above his peers.

But he never forgot the kindness with which she offered him help. Almost every day, she would coast by his desk and make her offer. She didn't put it upon him or assume, and neither did she feign blindness to his hardship. He had secretly used Koyubi's ashes as fertilizer for her plant, which felt right to him at the time; taking care of something else made him want to kill himself less. Koyubi lived on through the spider plant. What it represented to him became something irreplaceable: it wasn't just for him to nurture, nor was it a distraction from his compulsive mental unraveling. It was a seed of thought, germinating into a tangle of unburied lies.

That plant was still alive and well in the study. He had taken care of it religiously, hoping to dry and press its blossoms to show his appreciation to Izumi. But rather than sprouting tiny bone-white flowers, it had produced a bud that opened and dropped a little calcium deposit on his floor. He asked Izumi about it, whose psychometric Quirk could identify small objects. He told her he found it not far from the potted plant, but she laughed and shook her head. 'Your puppy was probably teething nearby and the tooth came off into a chew toy,' she said with an assuring smile. 'I didn't know you had a dog!'

After that, he could never have a normal relationship with her-- much less a romantic one. She knew too much.

"Well. What about your neighbor down the hall? Watanabe?" She snapped herb leaves into the steaming Dutch oven. "You two seemed close." By which she meant, she had become envious that her son was outgrowing her company. And still, she was expected to shrug him off onto someone else.

"Watabe?" Hikaru corrected. "She moved away before you left. That's why she brought me that peace lily." The flower had been her grandmother's. At first Hikaru was against accepting such a gesture, but Watabe made it clear that it would mean more for him to have it. 'Really, I have a rotten thumb,' she'd said, by then fatigued. Life and its hardships was slowly sapping her natural warmth and loveliness. 'I'm so busy putting things in storage and helping my family arrange the funeral-- I'm already killing it with my negligence.' She hadn't been wrong, so he accepted the lily. He never saw Watabe in the halls again, but returned the flower to its former beauty and health in her honor... and over time, in place of the stamen, a meat-encrusted phalange grew from the pale cupped petal.

"Whatever happened to that lily?" His mother asked, suddenly deciding to give a shit about the mundane details. She took the opportunity to take a good look around the apartment, faltered, the corners of her mouth twitching down. "What happened to the TV?... Where are all your plants, Hikaru?"

He slowly rose from the couch, wiping his clammy hands onto his fabric pants. "... I sold the TV. The plants are in my office, Mom."

"Oh!" She was surprised and almost let it slide, but now the gears in her head were working. She returned to the soup and stirred up its contents. "... All of your plants? Do you have the space for that?" Even though he couldn't see her face, he could envision her eyes darting as she fumbled with the impossibilities. If she wasn't regretting her actions now, she never would.

May as well get it over with.

"My home office, Mom."

She paused for a moment. "Oh. Do we share a bedroom again? We haven't done that since you were--"

"No, Mom. I have my room and my office. That's it." He hesitated before awkwardly muttering, "Well, the bathroom and hallway and--"

"Where am I meant to sleep then." It was a question, but spoken with such seething vitriol that Hikaru could only sigh. It was as he thought: she wouldn't reconsider her behavior. Not now. Not ever.

"Did you really leave for two years and expect me to keep that absence open for you?" He wasn't talking about the room.

Hanami wouldn't deign to respond. Once again, asking for her thought process was taken as a passive aggressive barb. She slowly opened the cupboard where the bowls were stored. She spooned out soup then brought the servings to the wall-attached bar table, which separated the kitchen and the living room. Hikaru circled the couch to the two stools, but Hanami remained standing on her side of the bar.

"Well... you can just throw them out. Make room for me." She stirred her spoon around the bowl and dipped her head low enough that Hikaru felt safe glancing past her.

The paper package was open. He hadn't been watching close enough.

"Hell no."

Her head jerked up again at that. Her eyes boggled out with such nausea, a coldness washed plunged down on his head. "Why can't you convert it into a bedroom again?"

"I got rid of the bed. I need somewhere to do my work, Mom."

"Why can't I share your room then?"

"I don't have furniture in there either."

"What?!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I could!" He nearly lost control of his volume. He cleared his throat and mimicked the way she formed an endless spiral in the soup, just so she could see how stupid she looked. "I'm not a toddler anymore, Mom. I'm a grown adult and I want my space. I haven't been cashing your checks, either. You can take those back. I got a job so I can support myself."

"But your sicknesses--"

"Don't start," he warned her. And for once, she seemed to listen. After all, he hadn't had a real sick day since she'd been gone. Without her anxiety polluting his life and body and decisions, he had gained his strength back all on his own and lost his parasitic neediness. He was thinking clearly for once about all the things his mother said that didn't make sense. All the things she did-- supposedly for his benefit-- that only made him worse.

"You wouldn't have to anymore," she insisted. "I make enough that you don't have to work at all!"

"I like to work."

"We could move out," she decided then and there, "find a seaside condo!"

"I like this apartment."

"Most men would like for their rich parent to take care of them, you know," she teased, as if comedy could make this any less uncomfortable for him.

"I don't. It's embarrassing."

"Your disrespect is embarrassing."

An awkward quiet punctuated her bluntness. Hanami smoothed her cinnamon-hued hair down and came out with her concerns. "Maybe... you could at least convert it into a bedroom for a roommate. It doesn't have to be for me."

"Mom," he groaned, inwardly rolling his eyes and dropping his shoulders.

"You don't have any friends to rely on if things go badly Has anyone at work even messaged you to make sure you're well?"

"What does it matter to you?"

"I'm your mother," she said, as if that meant anything. Her face slacked, and she looked at him solemnly. "I love you... I know we've had our fair share of secrets between us, but that doesn't mean you can do this alone. It's been just you and me for as long as you've been alive, Hikaru. I've kept you safe for this long, suppressing that Quirk of yours so that there's no target on your back... Doesn't that mean anything?"

He should have known better than to hope. Of course this wasn't about them-- it was always about her. If she did the minimum what she was told to do (such as raise a boy with a rare Quirk and encourage his reproduction) without cooperating with demands, then she couldn't be blamed for anything. Her conscience was clean now that he was an adult: she meant to leave him on his own. Hikaru stood with his untouched soup. "Thanks for the dinner," he said dryly. This was the final mercy he would give her. She had pushed them to this breaking point-- but he cared for her so deeply that if she backed down now, he would at least pretend to forget. He couldn't forgive her, but he could spare her.

She didn't take the hint. "Hikaru, tell me what's going on. Why are you acting so cold to me? Don't you love me anymore?"

"Let's not keep secrets then," Hikaru began, his voice aloft with unrestrained bitterness. "Since you're so willing to make amends, I have questions of my own. What are you hiding?" As he moved, so did she. She rotated her body so that he was never behind her, turning fully from the table as he approached the sink.

"What?" Hanami cocked her head.

"You never did ask about my Quirk. You didn't even want to know how I found out about it. The first thing you did was get as far from me as possible." He dumped the soup down the drain slowly. The overcooked vegetables plopped and disintegrated into a mass, clogging progress. "... I'll get to the heart of it. I know you're scared of what I could be. So I have to wonder..." He looked her in the eye. "Who was my father?"

Her breath hitched, and with a glistening in her eyes, she whispered, "Don't ask me that."

"Why can't I know?"

"It's for your own good."

"I don't want my own good. I want the truth."

"Then it's for my own good!" she cried. "Do you want to hurt me?" Her voice had sharpened to a sleek edge, defensiveness creeping into her words.

"Fine then. Dad's off the table." He stepped closer and noted how she didn't shrink away. She was scared, but not of what he could do to her. She believed she had him outmatched if it came to a physical altercation. But she still held back, giving him the upper hand somehow... "Tell me about you, then."

She blinked innocently. He went on. "I know Empathy isn't your real Quirk. I know that Sato Hanami only officially existed at all twenty-one years ago. And that her entire history is fabricated." Sato Hanami, as an identity, was only a little more than a year older than Sato Hikaru. "Whoever falsified your information did a messy job. I'm surprised I'm the first one in the HPSC to notice... but I guess they have more 'friends' to wave those concerns off for you."

She didn't answer for so long that he wondered if this was how she planned to salvage this nightmare: to get her purse from off the kitchen counter first, bid a farewell excuse for her next event, and she would be gone. Maybe for another year or two. Maybe for only an hour, returning at the ripe opportunity to find Hikaru in the throes of regret, malleable and desperate.

Hanami squeezed the countertop edge until her knuckles paled. "... Why are you doing this?"

"Answer me or get out."

He saw her consider it. Saw her eyes flicker to the door before she heaved a sigh. "... Think carefully about whether you want this or not."

Hikaru dropped his bowl into the sink with a clatter, and before he could grab her and force her out of his apartment, she started: "My name used to be Kumagai Misato. You probably know me better as Vitality." This made him sink into the counter himself. He stared at her, trying to recognize the former hero. She stared back, knowing he wouldn't.

His suspicions had been off. Perhaps it was his bias. He'd assumed she'd been a villain, or some no-name civilian snatched from her home. The fact she used to be so high-profile gave him further reason to hesitate. But he'd had enough of her kicking out his every attempt to gain freedom. "It's nice to finally meet you, Kumagai," Hikaru said dryly. "When were you planning to tell me that my Quirk is an offshoot of Biohack?"

"Don't act like this." She couldn't look at him. She was staring right past his elbow, to the cold stove and its unwanted nutrition. "I still raised you. I'm your mother, and I'm due that respect at least."

"... Someone changed your appearance. So they didn't want you to be recognized."

Her lips twisted in mock dismay. "Give me some credit... I didn't want to be recognized." Her eyes briefly glanced to the leftover soup on the stove. Hikaru drew the connection between her plastic surgery and the readily available prescription pad: hot anger washed down his body, realizing that she had means of subtlety which she never shared.

Their blood relation couldn't be argued. The confirmation of her true Quirk suddenly filled in part of the puzzle for him: like Empathy, Biohack allowed its user to interphase with a living thing and procure a mentally itemized list of its target's components, statuses, and logistics. The most outstanding and vital difference was that Biohack operated on a cellular level: Vitality couldn't produce or evaporate new matter, but could 'persuade' microscopic lifeforms to override their natural lifespans.

With a power like that, given enough work and resources and practice, she could probably help cure cancer. She could be tinkered upon and made into a walking bioweapon. Instead, she was playing a pretend game of house, a warden's simulacra of a mother, soothing yet antagonizing a child's pain, snipping the wings of his unpracticed ability. "And I bet Kaede is your handler. Or," and his eyes narrowed at her, "your work driver."

Hanami-- Kumagai, whatever-- smiled. He steeled his heart against her approval. "Technically she was our handler. But there's no point in keeping a close eye on a Quirkless citizen." Just like that, the power structure changed. He realized now that his biggest mistake was confiding in her back then. "Relax. I'm not going to tell her."

"How can I trust you?"

"Because I still haven't told her all this time," Hanami--Vitality-- huffed. "Because I've been doing all I can to keep her away from you as you figure yourself out."

Hikaru tried not to find himself distracted. Just because she was being cooperative now did not absolve her of past actions. "... How many of our family members are our actual family?" Not that blood relation meant much to this witch, but not everyone was as callous as his mother.

With another twisted smile-- so proud, but so resentful-- she said, "You've been quietly mapping your way out of the dungeon. Good boy. It's good to know how many soldiers you'll have to fight through to get out. The answer is: none of them... they've never been our allies."

He had guessed as much. Before Hikaru had become 'reclusive and unfriendly' in his spiraling health, the Sato family gatherings were mandatory; he had assumed his 'relatives' grew tired of accommodating his needs. Not that he would attend again, if given the chance. Now he knew 'reunion' meant submerging himself into a pit of vipers. The only thing that made such events tolerable had been his mother: the one who always made sure there were wheelchair options, who held his things when he became winded, and who knew when to guide him somewhere dark and quiet when the onslaught of stimulation drove him to silent suffering. Little acts of consideration held the stretched seams of their bond together.

"They're not so smart." He couldn't help commiserating with her, maybe out of some misplaced sympathy still clinging to the wrinkles of his heart. "I always got the feeling they never knew exactly what you told me about my dad."

A 'second-removed aunt' would suggest his father died before he was born, and then suddenly a 'distant cousin' around his age would insist they had known of him after Hikaru's birth. It was a gas leak, someone recalled, and another would wonder if it was an explosion, and someone else would combine the theories to a gas-based explosion. Their dodginess always put the spotlight on his mother.

The only thing Hikaru knew for certain was that even if he asked his own mother about his absent parent, it would produce nothing helpful. She would either clam up completely, overwhelm herself with her own crying, or refuse to answer anything with any certainty. She was like this with everyone, and for the longest time, because he never wanted to hurt her, Hikaru let that sleeping dog lie.

Until she hurt him first.

Before he could open his mouth to ask how she met his dad, she moved. He moved too. In that second his mother lunged for him with an arm outstretched, he reeled back wildly across the counter. His hand found purchase and he swiped out at her with the chef's knife. "Stay back!"

Neither of them harmed each other. As seasoned and experienced as she had been, his mother chose not to strongarm him. All she'd had to do was knock the knife from his hand and seize him. She could inflame the cells in his lungs, turn the water vapor into a pathogen (depending on how good she was), and give him pneumonia. She could make his bones porous and let his legs snap under his own weight. Or maybe she could just flip a switch in his head. He truly didn't know what kind of person Vitality had become in this new life... he didn't know what she was willing to do to survive.

Instead of doing anything of the sort, she looked at the knife. And then she burst into tears. He stood there as she sank down to her knees, bawling like a child. All the while, she babbled on about how she never wanted a motherhood like this. She loved him, she was trying so hard, and she was sorry that she failed him. She was frightened that any day, the people watching them would realize they'd been conned. They would come to take Hikaru away, and she was powerless to stop them. The world would only get worse.

"I'm sorry," Hikaru said, crouching next to her. He left the knife on the counter and scooted closer. His mother was so slim. She had curled her arms around herself so tightly that she seemed to be crushing herself down smaller and smaller. In his mind, he held her and hid his face in her hair as she cried. They were both victims of their mutual circumstance...

'This is exactly what she wants.'

His insides felt hollow when he caught himself. He nearly fell for it. She could have done anything in that moment's weakness. Immediately, he pulled away and got back to his feet to look down on the sight. From an elevated view, he could see all the moving parts. The abandonment, the big fight, the melodramatic apologies. The medicated soup neither of them ate-- for after all, she never intended to dine with him. This was not a meeting of equals. His mother could have simply left the packet on the counter... but she had to take control of him. She needed to have control of something.

He began to clean around her, letting her sit and sob on the kitchen floor. He couldn't build up the strength to abandon his post, so he took his time tossing out the food, tidying the dishes, and putting things away. Eventually her wet hiccupping stopped, and he glanced her way before a horrible nausea rolled his stomach. She watched him with an openly curious expression, her nose and cheeks pinkened. Her eyes shone with tears, yet there held in them a sharpness... a bitterness that he had not done the proper thing and comforted her, like any son would do. She hated that he didn't trust her.

A dim memory flashed before him: fat baby hands patting her back as he sang to her her, 'It'll be okay, it's all okay,' in an astringent waiting room. She held his little hands and squeezed them. He took one back to cover his mouth as he coughed. And then that same glimmer of inspiration appeared in her eyes.. The recollection blended with all the other examinations he had undergone, though he knew without doubt this was one of the first ones. This was the important one, he realized by way of hindsight: it decided their entire, mangled future.

He wished he was capable of Empathy instead. If only he could tell when she was lying to him and when she was sincere. For so long, he battled with the idea that his suffering had been at the hands of his mother. His mother, the one who worked harder than anyone else to keep him comfortable and safe, she who had never before left his side. Had she been protecting him, or was that an excuse to keep misery as her company?

He knew the night would be cold. He began to fill his electric kettle with water, preparing to make her a large serving of tea to keep her warm on her way to the airport. "I can't let you stay here," he told her. "Especially not if Kaede is expecting you at your next charity dinner." He didn't want to go out... but he still ought to protect what mattered to him, so he planned his route back after accompanying her to the train station. He was loathe to give up his sentry, terrified that by drawing him away from the apartment some fiend would infiltrate his privacy, but... he still loved her, even after everything she had done.

She could be so quiet when she wanted to be. If he hadn't turned to prepare her tea at the table, he would never have caught her in the hallway, staring at all the cords and hoses. She reached for the door that his other self hid behind.

He must have scared her. It was one thing to grab for a weapon, any weapon, in the face of potential danger. It was another to vault over the bar, graceful and gravely swift. Without thinking, he grabbed her by the wrist. She let him yank her, and did not scream or cry or wrench herself away. In that instant, he felt something slam into his sternum-- a sudden ghost pressure that made him release her and stumble back. They froze again, caught in another disjointed conflict. They watched each other, more or less unmoored as they processed everything. She had felt the hand-laid mental wall he built up against her, knew now what he was capable of. Whatever fears he was feeling, whatever his problems might be, she was no longer privy to them. He had categorically shut her out, compartmentalized into a 'public' personal file that only knew Hikaru to be a sleep-deprived workaholic.

"Please leave it alone," he requested. "That's private."

---

Hikaru began to cough during their walk. Softly at first like clearing his throat, but the fits soon became frequent. Hanami seemed to consider offering her tea, but decided against it. Instead, she gestured vaguely with the thermos he gave to her: heads up. He was grateful for that-- after all, they now had company. Two people were behind them. The lurkers from Kaede's apartment he assumed, and supposed another two would be waiting for them at the station. He kept his mask on, and they didn't dare to speak or even look at each other as they walked, instead pretending to ignore their invisible surveillance.

It took all his self-restraint not to turn on her in their last seconds. The vile desire to hurt her as much as she had hurt him still hummed just under his skin. He considered shoving her onto the tracks just before the train pulled in-- causing a scene that would force the faceless henchmen to react. He wondered what would happen if he ever needed to run. He considered what it was like to destroy yourself completely, to be reborn anew... how would he leave everything he knew behind and try to get out of reach before the walls shrank in on him?

"... I never knew what to do with you, you know," Hanami murmured under her breath, so that only he could hear. "You were always the kindest, smartest kid I knew. Kids half your age could hurt your feelings... I knew if anyone else got a hold of you, they would render your heart into pieces and you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he muttered back.

"You're welcome," she said, and they were quiet again until the train pulled up. "The tour will last another year. You have until then. Goodbye." How considerate of her, to keep it brief. To buy him time. But as she stepped into the train, his heart stopped in his chest, and he found himself calling to her.

"Hey."

His mother glanced back. Either time slowed, or she sustained this gaze for several deliberate seconds. He couldn't tell. He stepped past the yellow line and wrapped his arms around her body. She tensed, then relaxed, settling her arms over his shoulders. With his face so close to her ear, he asked, "... Your doctor friend... they're the same one who did your surgery, aren't they?... Who are they?"

She pulled away and scrutinized him. Then tilted her head forward, as if to ask one final time if he was certain he wanted to know. He didn't budge.

She slipped out of his hug, brushing his hair from his face using her wrist. His nausea settled only fractionally. "Body Shop," she said in English. Then she turned and walked back into the train, the doors closing between them.

As the train pulled away, Hikaru felt it take a piece of him with it, unraveling his insides like a busy spool. When he saw the three figures stand and close in on the woman before he lost sight of her completely, his head spun with delirious rage and fear... even though he knew she wasn't so easy to corner. She would squirm out of the pan before determining whether it landed her in the fire or not, and deal with the consequences then. Before her absence took more than he could stand to lose, he cut her free, turned, and walked away.

---

He made it home after dark, just in time to fall into an uproarous hacking, his bones aching for relief, muscles burning with exertion. He wheezed air into his lungs laboriously and went straight to the kitchen sink for a drink of water. There, he found the disembowled paper bag next to the sink, right where it had been forgotten.

He grabbed it, sought identification to no avail, then tore open the rest of its contents. All the medicine was gone. He took a moment to stare down at the mess, considering what might have happened if he just pretended he hadn't noticed. Would she have eaten if he did? Or was all of her effort for him and only him?

He couldn't return to his work. The chance of contaminating his specimens was too great. He would have to finish scrawling his reports and measurements down by his dying phone's flashlight, away from them all... to be alone was torture, but he wasn't as selfish as his mother was.

So he went back to the bathroom and scrubbed down. Spending that energy was necessary, but his strength waned. By the time he was in his hazardous material suit, his throat was scratchy and his body was shivering. Hikaru weakly approached the study, opening the door slowly so as not to overexert or jostle himself. He picked up his notebook and looked out over the room.

The spider plant hung overhead, a small tarp catching Koyubi's puppy teeth as they bloomed and fell. Arms protruded from garden pots with fingers lifting and curling with invitation. Brown-eyed Susans rolled around with no particular field of vision and blunk their yellow-petaled eyelashes now and again. A human spinal column-- or at least, a rope of nerve tendrils soon to become a spine-- braided its length along a custom trellis. A brain floated in an artificial pond like a lily pad, the stem rooted to the muddy bottom. Organs grew in wall-mounted, and tight-lidded aquariums: the brackish water beheld lacy scum and mold rings diversifying into innumerable flora and bacteria, converging into a singular whole.

Any sane person would have thrown the plants out immediately and never so much as looked at a cactus. But using his Quirk made him feel better; even the most vicelike grip on his brain now was lessened by the presence of his plantlife. It was as though there was something excessive in him, poisoning him, and by nurturing his garden to its anatomical apotheosis, there was less of that something. It was rewarding. It was euphoric. The only thing he wanted to do was grow, study, and learn. He was good at it, and it presented a puzzle in a language only he could parse.

But he knew it was a two-way street. He couldn't risk getting all of them sick, or all his hard work would be for nothing. "Goodnight." His farewell sounded tinny in the confines of his hood as he shuffled out the door.

By the time he was tucked into bed, Hikaru's chills were so severe that the shivers shook his handwriting. He could only reflect on his previously collected data and marvel at the possibilities of his Quirk. The variables were endlessly fluctuating: all his creations were vulnerable to soil composition, water levels, light intensity, bodily fluids... he reread the section regarding biological material. Hindsight and obsessive studying had cast light some of the mystery.

According to the Quirk singularity theory, the combination of hereditary genes could combine into more complex, powerful Quirks. A lineage of autonomic-override Quirks, such as his mother's, could lead to interesting combinations. But he couldn't explain the plants... the only inheritance that remained of his father, the most nebulous aspect of his power.

Hikaru understood why someone would want his Quirk. Growing bodies came incredibly naturally to him. Over time, as sweat and skin mixed into the nutrients, the microscopic formula became stronger. Semen, as awkward and uncomfortable a phase it had been, worked fractionally better than sweat or saliva. Blood was easier to extract though, and paper cuts were easy enough to explain.

But the more ineffable aspect was the proximity to his plants: the way he knew they were sick or dying, because then he too would wilt. His strength correlated to theirs. There was more to his Quirk than merely imbuing it with his essence... if it were so simple, then he wouldn't be a hostage in his own life.

The spider plant's first blossom was the revelation: he was as much a victim as his mother, and the things he did to explore his options came from a need to save himself. He wasn't proud of it, not entirely. But he also hadn't hurt anyone. He had taken hair from strangers' sweaters, stolen misplaced beverages, and even gone so far as to filch used dental picks from the trash, for their saliva. Was it such a crime to be thorough? Were people really so fond of their discarded napkins and bandages? He had to be sure-- he had to prove to himself that there was a rhyme or reason to his experiments, so he randomized the test subjects. He wanted to see how precise his Quirk could be.

Thanks to all the groundwork, he had a project and a hypothesis. Could he be criticized for being thorough? And given tonight's revelations... it would be possible.

In another life, maybe his mother could have trusted him. They could have talked it over together, and maybe he wouldn't have to do this. The only way he could think to trace back his Quirk to a different progenitor-- without anyone knowing anything about what he had done or planned to do-- was to recreate his and his mother's and dissect the differences.

In a matter of time, Hikaru would know whether or not he could grow a Quirk. He would find out more about this 'Body Shop,' and he would escape the confines of his cage.

One day. One day.

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